SUNY Geneseo Department of Computer Science
CSci 120, Spring 2014
Prof. Doug Baldwin
Complete by Friday, January 24
This exercise asks you to install Matlab on your computer and to make sure you are registered to watch MathWorks’ student Matlab tutorials. Neither of these is an intellectually difficult task, but both require a certain amount of background knowledge.
Matlab is a commercial software package, meaning that it ordinarily costs money to use. Fortunately, Geneseo has a college-wide license that covers students, so you can install and use Matlab for free, at least while you are at Geneseo.
You can download a Geneseo-licensed copy of Matlab for either Windows or Mac OS at software.geneseo.edu, Geneseo’s software distribution site. Simply point a web browser at this site, scroll down to the “Matlab” entry, and click on the link for whichever kind of computer you have.
Once you have downloaded Matlab, follow the instructions for completing your Matlab installation at https://wiki.geneseo.edu/display/cit/MatLab+R2013a+Installation+Guide
Because it is licensed specifically to Geneseo, Geneseo’s Matlab only runs on computers that are connected to Geneseo’s campus network. This can be a problem if you like to work off campus. Fortunately, you can use Matlab off campus if you use a piece of software called a “virtual private network,” or VPN, which allows a computer anywhere in the world to look as if it is physically attached to a specific local network. Windows users who want to connect to Geneseo through a VPN need to first install appropriate VPN software—it’s the “Cisco VPN” package at software.geneseo.edu. Reasonably recent Macintosh computers come with VPN software pre-installed. You can find instructions for activating it at https://wiki.geneseo.edu/display/cit/Setting+up+Geneseo+VPN+on+Mac+OS+X+10.6+Snow+Leopard+to+10.8+Mountain+Lion
MathWorks’ student tutorials are free, but do require users to register. Since some of the “lectures” I will ask you to watch for this course come from those tutorials, you will have to register. To do this, point a web browser at the registration page at https://www.mathworks.com/academia/student_center/tutorials/register.html. Enter your Geneseo email address in the “Email” box, click the “Continue” button, and fill out and submit the resulting form. Be careful to remember the password you pick.
Do the following:
If you run into trouble doing any of these things, I or TAs will be available to help you in the January 24 recitations.
The real proof of success for this exercise is that you can run Matlab, and watch its tutorials, through the rest of the course.
However, I plan to meet weekly with each study group to see your solutions to recitation exercises, answer any questions you have about them, ask you any questions I have about your work, etc. We will probably talk briefly about this exercise in your study group meeting during the week of January 27.