Preliminary Skills

• Set up K:\ drive
• Take screenshots of the entire screen or individual windows
• Scan for viruses
• Create a .zip archive with several files
• Submit an assignment on Sakai

Overview

In this assignment you will learn and practice a few key skills that will be necessary on a daily basis during this course. Don't worry if you have problems completing these tasks --we will work through any such problems together as a class.

LEGEND: Keyboard    Screen

Task 0: Setting up your K:\ drive

You'll need a place to store various files for your projects in this class. Begin by opening your K:\ drive, then create a folder named cosc181. Then, within cosc181, create two folders: one named eclipse, and the other named labs. The eclipse folder is where you'll store Java programs, and the labs folder is where you'll store other files such as pictures, text files, lab reports, etc. Finally, within the labs folder, create two folders named lab10_lastname and lab11_lastname, e.g., lab10_rohrbaugh.

Task 1: Taking Screenshots

A screenshot is a picture of your screen or a part of your screen. All versions of Windows allow you to take both kinds of screenshots (full screen and individual window). This will be a very useful skill for us, since there are BOUND to be problems along the way, and the information in a screenshot will allow us to help one another solve these problems.

There are two steps in taking a screenshot:

1. Taking the shot

   Look on your keyboard for a key labeled PrntScrn -- hit this key, and your done! Even though you don't see anything yet (you may have heard a 'click'), the image has been saved. So now we need to get it.

2. Retrieving the image

   After you click PrntScrn, the image is stored in your computer's clipboard, so you then need to paste it into an appropriate program. We'll use MS Paint, which is included in all versions of Windows.

   Start up Paint Start|All Programs|Accessories|Paint and click Edit|Paste . You should see the image of your screen within the paint window. Now save the file in k:\cosc181\lab\lab10_lastname as screenshot01.bmp Next, save it again by choosing File|Save As and change the file type to jpeg image, with the name screenshot01.jpg

   Now go and look in k:\cosc181\lab\lab10_lastname and compare the sizes of the two files. You may need to change to "Detail" view. In the future, always use .jpg format to save images!

3. Notice that the images you took were of the entire screen -- sometimes this is more than you need. Windows also allows you to take a screenshot of just the currently active window. The key combination Alt-PrntScrn will do this.

   Take a screenshot of just the current screen showing the two screenshot files with their sizes. Paste it into a new Paint file and save as screenshot02.jpg, in the same folder where you saved the first two screenshots.

Task 2: Scanning for Viruses

1. Before you submit ANY file for this course, you should scan it for viruses. Most antivirus programs will allow you to scan an individual file or folder by right-clicking on it and selecting "Scan this Folder".

2. Find the folder k:\cosc181\lab\lab10_lastname and scan it for viruses. Assuming it is virus free, continue to task 3.

Task 3: Creating a .zip archive file

1. Since you will often be submitting several (or even many) files together, it is convenient to combine them into a single file to upload. Windows has a built in compression utility to do this, with the added benefit that the combined file will be smaller than the sum total of the individual files. To compress a file or folder, right-click it and select Send To | Compressed Folder . A new file will be created with the suffix .zip

2. Zip the directory lab10_lastname in which you've saved your three screenshots.

Task 4: Submitting on Sakai

You've completed your work for this assignment. There are TWO steps left:

1. Upload your submission to Sakai [ right-click the link and select "open in new window" sakai.messiah.edu ]
   
   Logon and navigate to the page for COSC 181. Find the appropriate Assignment using the navigation links to the left.

   Add Attachments | Browse { locate the file lab10_lastname.zip } then click Open | Continue

   This should bring you back to this page, with the indication "Assignment - in progress" at the top. If you scroll down to the bottom, you should see the Attachment(s) that you've added.

2. SUBMIT your assignment

   Note that even though you've UPLOADED your assignment, you haven't yet SUBMITTED it.

   Type "Complete" in the Assignment Text box, and then click Submit.