FIT100 students are expected to have UW accounts on Dante and will use those accounts for many assignments. Staff or faculty accounts on Homer can also be used.
All class e-mail will be sent to those accounts. If you normally read e-mail on an ISP or through some other connection, you may wish to have your UW e-mail forwarded there.
Computing Lab Locations and Hours
The two labs most commonly used by FIT100 students are the Mary Gates Hall Computing Resource Center and the Odegaard Undergraduate Library Computing Commons.
The software used by FIT100 runs on Windows PCs. In some, but not all cases, versions may be available for Mac or Linux systems. The closer your home PC is to the Windows PCs in the labs, the less likely you are to have problems. Course staff can provide only limited assistance in debugging problems with home computers.
UW provides software for making secure remote connections to Dante. All the tools you need are contained in the UWICK Connectivity Kit, a CD-ROM available for purchase at the Bookstore. You can also download the essential programs (the "Starter Kit") for free. For FIT100, the Starter Kit should be all you need. Both Mac and Windows versions are available.
You should have an up-to-date browser, such as Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher, or Netscape 6.0 or higher. These are available free on the Web. To view some of the course files, you need the Adobe Acrobat Reader, which can be downloaded free.
For programming, we will use JavaScript to produce dynamic HTML. Your programming efforts will be published to your Dante Web account.
Students enrolled in this course may be eligible to download certain Microsoft software products for free. The procedure may vary depending on whether you are registered under CSE or INFO.
In the labs, we will use Adobe Photoshop for some exercises. This software is expensive to buy. You can do what you need to with a number of other free or inexpensive tools, such as Microsoft Paint, Microsoft Photo Editor, Kodak Imaging, etc. You may also find that your word processor (e.g. Word) or presentation software (e.g. PowerPoint) has some image processing software built in.
The last part of the quarter studies Databases and uses Microsoft Access as the tool. The standard MS Office Suite does not come with Access. All labs on campus have it. If you wish to purchase a copy, the cost is roughly $100.