The course is addressed to first year students. It's goal is to introduce them the use of computers and the internet. Basic information is provided on how to use e-mail, office applications, as well as the Windows and Linux operating systems.
Thursday, 11:00-13:00, Computer Labs (Theory)
Several lab sessions
Introduction to Computers: ComputerStructure, peripherals, operating systems.
The Linux Operating system: Getting familiar with the GUI, How to login/logout, introduction to UNIX and GNU/Linux
Filesystems, managing files, file permissions, basic commands, editors.
Compression of files. Secure connection with remote systems, the FTP protocol
Applications: Web browsers, mailers and office applications
Office applications for word processing. Preparing and formatting reports. Using math symbols, tables. Creating a table of contents. Inserting and arranging pictures, formulas and charts.
Applications for data management. Spreadsheets. Inserting and manipulating data. Using functions, estimating simple statistics (standard deviation, mean, median), making graphs.
Applications for making presentations. Examples. Principles of programming: The concept of bases in numbers. The use of binary system. Conversion from decimal to binary.
Basic programming concepts: Compilers, library functions and flow charts.
Symbolic Computation: Familiarization with programs of symbolic computation (Mathematica). Calculating integrals, derivatives, limits. Creating two dimensional and three dimensional plots.
Online material available at the course web site.
