Complete the following tasks. Do not delay in this, as each of these things is crucial to your successful completion of this course. Each task will have a list of tips and information that you can show or hide by clicking the pink "Tips" text. At the end of this page, you will see instructions for what to hand in.

Your Tasks:

Before you begin, read the directions in full so that you have an understanding of what is expected of you here.
Start on these tasks immediately, as they make take longer than you initially anticipate. The sooner you start, the sooner you are able to identify and address any difficulties.
Log into your personal account on the Gradescope website, and complete the preliminary "Tester" questionnaire. This serves two important purposes: Helping me collect some basic information for record-keeping efficiency, AND ensuring that you are familiar with the platform already, before Midterm and Final Exams are coming due!
Set up your Linux account and enroll in this class.
- Here is a link to the UMB CS Dept. Portal website, where you may apply for a Linux account (click Register) or log into an existing one (click Login).
- If you are applying for a NEW Linux account:
  1. Please choose a username that will make it very obvious which student it belongs to -- such as first initial and last name. (Mine, for example, is ckelly)
  2. Before setting a password, please carefully review the (admittedly complex) requirements, just to save yourself the trouble of multiple failed attempts before success!
  3. Finally, please make it your priority to remember and/or (securely) record both username and password, as well as keeping them "handy" so that you can always easily and swiftly access your Linux account.
- If someone would like to volunteer, we can have an actual in-class demo of the apply process using the (deprecated) command-line interface.
- NOTE: Bear in mind, also, that I personally have no authority or access to the CS Dept's internal system, so I cannot directly assist with your Linux account or related troubles. Instead, you will need to contact the department's own system administrators, at the following email address: operator@cs.umb.edu
Create a file in your Linux home directory called .umb_email, with your UMass Boston e-mail address as its content.
- Access to the Linux system, your (OS-specific) command-line interface application:
  - Windows systems: The most recent version of Windows have SSH commands already built in, so just open either the Command Prompt or Windows PowerShell utilities! Otherwise...
    - You can download, install, and use the PuTTY utility; at the page, you can find a link to download the appropriate version of putty.exe -- either 32-bit or 64-bit, but most likely the latter.
    - Another command line program for Windows that you may wish to consider is Cygwin, which provides a Linux-like command-line environment for users who prefer this!
  - Mac and Linux/Unix systems: Open the official Terminal app (Mac OS X) or other CLI application.
  - After launching the relevant CLI utility, you should be able to access the system typing the following command and pressing Enter:
    ssh your username@users.cs.umb.edu
    (Replace "your_username" with your actual username, of course!)
- In addition, many other utilities out there will allow you to access the Linux system via a graphical user interface (GUI), such as: WinSCP (for Windows system) and FileZilla (multi-platform!). Many beginning CS/IT students find the GUI more intuitive and user-friendly, naturally!
- For whichever program you use, your hostname will be users.cs.umb.edu and username will be, well, your username. The typical port number is 22, but you usually do not have to supply this explicitly, since the software already knows!
- One way to accomplish your end-goal (i.e., creating your .umb_email file) is to carry out the following steps, as depicted in the screen-capture below:
  
  (NOTE: You will, of course, want to replace my Gmail address with your own UMass Boston e-mail address! The one that ends with @umb.edu)
In your Linux home directory, there should eventually be a sub-directory of the same name as this class. (NOTE: Do not attempt to create this directory yourself! Instead, allow the departmental sysadmins to create it for you!) Inside the directory for this class, create a sub-directory called homework. You can accomplish this by entering the following series of commands:

cd ~/classname
mkdir homework

(Replace classname with whatever this class is: "cs110", "it114", etc.)
Download the JDK, and get set up with an editing tool.
- You can get the appropriate JDK-8 installer, for your computer's OS, from the following directory via your Linux Account: /nobackup/faculty/ckelly/jdk8_versions
- Make sure you get a version that is compatible with your operating system.
- Download the JAR file for DrJava, which you can get from this link: HERE. The nice thing about this program is you should be able to run it just by opening the JAR file, regardless of your actual operating system.
- If you are unable to get the Java compiler and Java runtime working on your own computer, you can test your code out here or here to ensure that it compiles and runs as expected.
- There are a number of IDEs out there that could meet your needs, though they all have both advantages and disadvantages.
Answer the following questions (saved in a file called memo.txt to be uploaded in the appropriate folder):
1. What is the code number that I e-mailed to you? (May not be e-mailed until evening of due date!)
2. What program/utility are you using to connect remotely to users.cs.umb.edu?
3. What program/utility are you using to upload files remotely to users.cs.umb.edu for homework and project submissions?
4. Tell me a bit about the process of carrying out these tasks. What went well? What was challenging? Is there anything else you want to tell me -- or have questions about?