The Course Newsgroup and the Web
There are two online resources for CS124 students: the newsgroup and the
homepage.
The homepage, located at
http://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs124/,
has
references to course topics and up to the minute information about
assignments, solutions and testing. The newsgroup, uw.cs.cs124,
is used as a forum for discussion as well as for the dissemination of up
to date information. For example, if someone has a question about the course
material, he/she would post it to the newsgroup and the instructor or a tutor
would reply. This would allow everyone the benefit of the question and
its answer.
Please read the postings on a topic before sending a posting of your
own. Repeating a question or comment wastes time and resources.
The following are instructions for configuring Netscape, the web browser,
for easy access to the course newsgroup and web homepage. You need only
do this once.
Setting Up
- Double click on the Netscape icon to start Netscape.
- From Netscape's menu bar, click on Edit, select Preferences.
- Under the Mail & Newsgroups :
- Make sure your Identity settings are correct.
- Set the Mail Server as follows :
- Outgoing Mail (SMPT) Server : mail.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca
- Incoming Mail (POP) Server : mail.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca
- POP user ID : <your userID for ex. jplarose>
- Local mail directory : N:\netscape\userid\mail
- Add a new Newsgroup Server called news.math.uwaterloo.ca.
- You can modify the rest of the settings at your leisure.
- From Netscape's menu bar, click on Communicator and select
Newsgroups. A Netscape Newsgroup window will appear on
your screen.
- Next, from the same Netscape menu bar, click on File
and select Subscribe. In the new window
that asks for a newsgroup, type in: uw.cs.cs124,
the course newsgroup, and click Subscribe. This newsgroup will be
added to the end of the list of newsgroups you are subscribed to, listed on the
left side of the Netscape Newsgroup window.
Reading News
From the Netscape Newsgroup window,
- Click on the + beside the news.math to see a list of newsgroups
you subscribed to.
- Click on uw.cs.cs124 to see all the messages posted to the
newsgroup.
- Select a message header and the body will appear in the bottom frame.
To learn more how to use Netscape Navigator, News and Email, go to the Help
option in the menu bar, and select Handbook.
This will take you to the Netscape Online Handbook. Go to the section entitled
Tutorial, and click on the underlined text
that you want to view.
Newsgroup Purpose
The course news group is a great way to ask questions about your assignments
and course material in public. It enables you to learn from questions others
have, and avoid asking questions that have already been asked. It also
provides a forum for the course personel to make announcements and clarifications
about assignments and other course related stuff. As a result, students
are expected to read the newsgroup on a regular basis.
Newsgroup Guidelines
In the past, there have been problems that have come up in relation to
the newsgroup. As a result, here are some guidelines that you should keep
in mind when posting stuff to it.
- Please remember that everything you
post is public -- everyone will be reading it. As a result, in any posts
you make to the newsgroup, do not give away any details in doing any of
the assignments -- this could be construed as cheating. If you have questions
about an assignment that require you give specific details of your solution,
email the question to the
tutors. If the tutors feel that posting it to the news group would be
OK, they will do it.
- Keep posts to the news group course-related.
As you are all expected to read the group on a regular basis, and many
of you are quite busy, people don't have time to read stuff they shouldn't
have to. In relation to this, the news group is not for posting "test"
posts. Such test posts should be made to
uw.test.
- Please read all questions and responses
that are in the group before asking a question. If you ask a question that
has already been answered, you are wasting everyone's time. We realize
that there is a bit of a lag between the time something is posted and it
actually appears in the group, so this is sometimes unavoidable. However,
try to avoid it as much as possible.
- Please don't post things to the group
that give no useful information to people. Posts like "I have the same
question as this one posted", or "I agree with this comment" serve no useful
purpose, and waste people's time.
- Please keep complaints about the course
out of the newsgroup. If you have a concern about anything to do with the
course, the best way to deal with it, and get results, is to take it to
the tutor or a professor. The newsgroup is not a complaint forum.
This page is maintained by the CS 124 Tutors.