Location and Hours

Optics Building room 249
M-F 8am-5pm (if the room is accidentally locked during this time, come to the Department Office)

Hardware

• 18 iMacs (Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GHz)
• HP B&W 4250 LaserJet Printer
• Apple Xserve

Software

• Mac OS X Leopard
• Mathematica 7
• IDL 7 (coming soon)
• Matlab R2008a
• MacTeX 2008
• XCode Tools
• GCC 4.4 Suite (gcc, g++, gfortran) with auto-vectorization
• MacPython 2.5
• IPython 0.9.1
• NumPy 1.3.0b1
• SciPy 0.7.0
• Starry Night Pro 5.8
• MS Office 2008 (on iMac-3, 4, 7)
• iWork 2008 (on iMac-3, 4, 7)
• Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium (Acrobat 8 Pro, Photoshop CS3 Extended, InDesign CS3, Illustrator CS3, Flash CS3 Pro, Dreamweaver CS3) (on iMac-7)

Authorized Student Users

The lab is restricted to physics majors, physics graduate students, and students currently enrolled in PH 306 or AST 106.

The Sucess Center next door in OB 253 has PCs for general student use.

User Accounts

Astronomy lab students should login with the username "ast" and the password given by the lab instructor. This account is local to the particular machine being used; it is also not secure and no files should be stored there.

Regular user accounts are network accounts. The home folder exists on the server and you can log into it from any of the iMacs. They are backed up regularly, but you are ultimately responsible for backing up your data (such as with a USB drive). You can also ssh into your account with the command "ssh username@phserver.uah.edu."

Getting an Account

If you are a physics major, PH 306 student, or graduate student, come by OB 201 C and see Charlie Bruce during normal business hours. She will give you a short form to fill out and you'll be emailed when your account is ready. AST 106 students can just log into the "ast" account with the password their GTA gives them.

Printing

All printing at present is to the B&W laserjet in OB 249. Printing is through a server queue, which appears as "OB249BWLaserJet @ phserver" in the print dialog box. Do not try to print directly to the LaserJet in OB 249; it will only accept jobs from the server. Print sparingly and only class related material.

Use Policy

If you use a computer in OB 249, you agree to the following Physics Department Computer Lab Use Policy:

1. Never share your password with anyone or let anyone else use your account. Your access will be immediately revoked if you do.
2. Printing is restricted to coursework-related items. Conserve paper as much as possible.
3. No downloading material that is not coursework or research related.
4. The Department may employ keystroke and screen monitoring at any time.
5. You continue to be subject to the UAH General Computer Use Policy at all times.
6. Bottom line: The computers in this lab are not to be used like your personal computer at home. Their use is strickly limited to coursework or research purposes only.