CMSC 201 NEWS

Announcements Items are posted in reverse chronological order (i.e., newest to oldest).

UMBC Digital Entertainment Conference

The UMBC Game Developer's Club is hosting a special, free event in LH5 from 11-5 this Saturday, April 29, on careers in the interactive entertainment industry. Sid Meier, the founder and creative director of Firaxis, will be a featured speaker. Meier is the programmer and designer of some of the most commercially and critically successful computer games of all time including Civilization, Pirates and Railroad Tycoon. In the morning you can learn how to create a job winning portfolio from Seth Spaulding, the Art Director of Firaxis. In the afternoon, hear speakers from Baltimore area game companies on all aspects of game development, art, programming, production and game design. The presentations include

Iterative Design: Finding the Fun, Early and Often, Sid Meier - Creative Director, Firaxis
Creating an effective portfolio, Seth Spaulding - Art Director, Firaxis
Game Production: Herding Cats, Dan Magaha - Producer, Firaxis
Game Production: Herding More Cats, Barry Caudill, Executive Producer, Firaxis
Tools for Game Development, Katie Hirsch - Programmer and Artist, Breakaway Games
Software Engineering, Ryan Mcfall - Programmer, Day 1 Studios

This is a fantastic opportunity for anyone interested in getting an insider's view of the game industry. For more information, visit the UMBC Game Developer's Club

Linux Installfest

The UMBC Computer Science Council of Majors is sponsoring a Linux Installfest on Saturday March 11. If you have a laptop or computer that you would like to install Linux on and are unsure what to do, you can bring it to the installfest and get lots of help.

The Installfest will take place on Saturday, March 11th, from 1 PM to 6 PM in the ECS Atrium. If you're hoping to do a dual-boot together with Windows, please defrag your hard drives and make a backup of the most important data (since foobars do happen). Also, it's a good idea to show up before 4:30 PM because otherwise we might not have enough time to finish the installation.

Your Quota

Keep an eye on your quota!! Each user is given a certain amount of disk space (100MB) on the GL network. If you exceed this disk space, we cannot send you email (i.e. project grades) and you can't create files (i.e. project files) To check your quota, at the linux prompt, type: linux3[16]% quota -v Volume Name Quota Used %Used Partition user.dforna1 75000 55198 74% 69% This will show how much disk space your are using. If the percentage used is approaching 100%, you need to clean up your account. This can be done by typing the following at the linux prompt: linux3[17]% oitcleaner This is the cleaner that we want Volume Name Quota Used %Used Partition user.dforna1 250000 55198 74% 69% **** Start Quota **** **** Start: Cleaning Internet Files **** find: /afs/umbc.edu/users/d/f/dforna1/home/.2kprofile/Application Data/Mozilla/Profiles: No such file or directory **** Done: Cleaning Internet Files **** **** Start: Cleaning Misc. Files **** find: No match. rm: remove `/afs/umbc.edu/users/d/f/dforna1/home/file.c~'? y rm: No match. rm: No match. rm: No match. rm: No match. **** Done: Cleaning Misc. Files **** **** Finding Large Files **** rm: remove `/afs/umbc.edu/users/d/f/dforna1/home/cs104FA01.tar.gz'? n rm: remove `/afs/umbc.edu/users/d/f/dforna1/home/gifs/menu3.gif'? y rm: remove `/afs/umbc.edu/users/d/f/dforna1/home/gifs/menu3.bmp'? y **** Finished **** Volume Name Quota Used %Used Partition user.dforna1 250000 52913 71% 69% **** End Quota **** This script will clear out some unnecessary files in your account. It will also ask you if you want to delete any large files it finds. You must answer either y or n when it prompts you to remove. Make sure to remove any files named core.[followed by four digits].

For more information about your quota, visit the following OIT Web site: http://www.umbc.edu/oit/sans/helpdesk/afs/afs_disk_quota.htm

.emacs

EMACS -- when emacs (or xemacs) begins, it looks for and reads a file named .emacs in your home directory to obtain configuration information. Save the CS201 recommended version of the .emacs file (note the leading "dot") in your Unix home directory to get the following features:

Automtic formatting in accordance with the CS201 coding style standard
A working backspace key. Backspace will now delete to the left of the cursor instead of invoking "help". It also remaps CTL-X? to be the new "help" key.

The .emacs file is publicly available in the directory

To copy the file, 'cd' to your home directory and type the command

Don't forget the dot (.) at the end... it means copy the file to the current directory.

Enjoy!

last modified on Wednesday, 26-Apr-2006 13:52:57 EDT