Alright, so you’ve seen the IRC tutorial we’ve posted before, but going through it might have raised some questions. Downloading a program? Installing it? That’s so… 1990s. If it can’t be done in a browser, then it’s not worth doing, right?!

Well, rest assured: you can chat with your fellow ADIers without ever leaving the browser. Just open freenode’s web IRC interface in a new tab, and we’ll be off.

Middle-click this to get a new tab with the webchat interface.

Connecting

Now, you should see something similar to this:

First, you’ll have to choose a nickname. Choose anything! You’re not tied to a certain nickname, so if you eventually find you don’t like the one you’ve chosen, you can switch easily.

Second, you’ll have to choose which channels to chat in. I’ll assume you want to chat on #adicu, which is ADI’s channel.

Third, we can leave “Auth to services” blank: we don’t need to sign into anything to use IRC.

Lastly, you’ll want want to solve the CAPTCHA. If you don’t know what a CAPTCHA is, then just try and decipher the distorted words and type them into the box below (the example spells out “arthco anecdote”). If you’re having a hard time, clicking the audio captcha box and typing out what the undistorted voice says might be more your speed.

The form should now look something like this:

Chatting

Now, the screen should spit out a bunch of text, and eventually (within 10 seconds) get to this screen:

Now you can start chatting: just click the bar at the bottom and type away!

There’s a bunch more stuff to learn about IRC. If you don’t feel like asking any of the guys on the channel (or there’s no one there, or everyone seems AFK (away from keyboard) then you can peruse Freenode’s IRC FAQ, which is quite extensive. Perhaps a bit intimidating, but also useful.

If you are using Linux, like me, you may have been frustrated by the lack of documentation for adding printers from Columbia’s Ninja printing system to your computer. Well, this post will show you an easy-peasy way to set up printing on your Linux system. As an added bonus, this method should work on Mac OS X as well!

Downloading

Get the script from https://raw.github.com/adicu/ninja-unix/master/addprinters.sh.

Adding Printers

Running the script like so,

sudo ./addprinters.sh

without any arguments will add all the printers in the NINJA system to your computer. This will take a long time, so you may only want to add a subset. You can supply an argument to the script to restrict the printers installed. For instance.

./addprinters.sh butler

will add all printers in Butler library.

./addprinters.sh butler301a

adds a specific printer.

Deleting printers

To delete a specific printer, run the command

lpadmin -x printername

where printername is the name of the printer. Alternatively, you can use the CUPS web interface by navigating to http://localhost:631 in your webbrowser and removing the printer from there.

If you need to delete many printers at once. You can use the delprinters.sh script, available at https://raw.github.com/adicu/ninja-unix/master/addprinters.sh. The usage is the same as the addprinters.sh script.

Printing from the Command Line

You may be thinking: “I’m a Linux user dammit, how do I print from the command line?”
This is easy enough, just do

lpr -d printername filename

Where printername is the name of the NiNJA printer and filename is the name of a PostScript, PDF, or Image File.

Possible problems

If you see the error message “Could not find the lpadmin program”, you do not have the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) installed. In most distributions, CUPS can be found in a package called, well “cups”.

If you see the message “Could not find foomatic-ppdfile”, you do not have the foomatic database installed. Foomatic is a database containing the driver information for many different printer types. In most distributions, foomatic is generally composed of two packages “foomatic-db” and “foomatic-db-engine”.

If you see “lpadmin: could not read ppd file”, something may have gone wrong during installation, delete the printer and try again.

Dropbox is as great free tool that no one has an excuse not to have. It is a good first step into the cloud for any user. Dropbox lets you designate a folder on one or more computers that automatically syncs to the cloud (on their secure servers). What does this mean for you? Using Dropbox, you can (for free):

• Access up to 2 GB of your documents through a web portal on any computer. This means no more trips back to your room because you forgot to email yourself something or left your flash drive.
• Have a secure backup if your something happens to your computer and you were not able to access your data.
• Keep folders on one or more computers synced.
• Host documents that you want to publicly share with others without having to upload them to another website.

Now to get started:

1. Go to the registration page.
   Be sure to register using your @columbia.edu email address because you get extra space as a student.
   The registration process is quite simple—just follow the steps and confirm your email address.
2. Download the software and follow the instructions for installation. This is very easy. You can do it.
3. Move the files you want to have synced into your Dropbox folder. You won’t have enough space for videos, music, or photos with a free account, but you can definitely put important documents that you want to access easily and safeguard.
4. Configure your Dropbox folder to be the default save folder. In Word or an Office program, go to the “Word” section of the top menu and open “Preferences.” Go to the bottom row of icons and select files, click modify and set your default document save location to your Dropbox folder.
   
   
   
   
   

Rarely does one have to install a huge batch of programs onto a computer, but when one has to, it is a gigantic bore of a chore. Trying to get the blank slate (actually, it’s more like a dirty slate, but that’s a topic for a different time) of a new computer to a place where one has all the favored applications within a few clicks means searching the web for installers (or shudder rooting out CDs from dusty corners of the closet), downloading them all, and then running them one by one, clicking through screens that attempt to sneak a spyware-laden toolbar onto your computer and agreeing to sell your soul in exchange for using the software.

This is fairly inefficient, a problem just begging for automation. So the folks over at Ninite.com went out and actually made a service to make downloading/installing a bundle of programs really easy, and are offering it for free (they do have a paid service, but the free service is, as of March 2011, not crippled in any way). Specifically, the Ninite installer refuses to install the toolbars while installing the latest version of whatever programs you want (from a list) in a one-click install.

So how do you use it? If you haven’t already, head over to Ninite.com and you should see a screen like this:

Simply go through and check all the software that you would like to download.

After you are finished selecting, scroll to the bottom of the page and click giant green button labeled “Get Installer.” Can’t miss it.

Depending on what browser you have (Google Chrome is pictured below), you will be asked whether or not you would like to save this file. Save and run the installer.

Once you run the installer (by clicking on it once you have saved it, or running it directly after downloading it), a window will appear showing you the installation progress.

As soon as progress is complete, Ninite has completed its installation. Easy as pie, eh? Now, before you throw away that installer, you should know that running that same installer again will automatically update all the programs installed by Ninite, so instead of having to slowly click ‘yes, I want to update this program’ as you run each one, you can just update everything in one fell swoop.

Alright, we hope this was helpful, and thanks for reading!

Do you attend Columbia? Great, you have webspace allocated to you! That’s right, Columbia is willing to host a website for you, a real website that anyone can get to. It’s hosted on your CUNIX account, and you can navigate to it by going to http://columbia.edu/~uni1234 where you replace UNI1234 with your own uni. For example, my uni is mnn2104, so my url is http://columbia.edu/~mnn2104. The url is case sensitive, which means that it matters whether the letters are capitalized or not—they should all be lowercase.

If you navigate to your webpage and there isn’t anything there, or it gives you 404 error, do not be alarmed! This probably means that either you don’t have anything in your public_html directory, or that you have not set the permissions correctly.

If you are already familiar with CUNIX and how to navigate to the public_html directory, you can skip this section.

If you are on a UNIX or UNIX-like machine, such as a Linux machine or Mac OS X, use terminal to log into CUNIX.

If you are on a Windows machine, you’ll need to install PuTTY and use it to log into CUNIX, then come back to this. For a tutorial, click here.

Some useful CUNIX commands:

cd is change directory. Directories are sometimes also known as folders, and you can move from one folder to another using the cd command. After typing cd, type the directory you wish to move to.

ls is list, and it lists all of the elements that are currently in the directory.

ls -l lists all of the elements that are currently in the directory, as well as all of the permissions.

pwd is print working directory, and it lists the address of the directory you are in.

chmod is change mode, and is used to change permissions on files. chmod is followed up 3 numbers from 0-7, and then the name of the directory. The numbers specify admin, user, and global respectively. 1 specifies executable, 2 specifies writable, and 4 specifies readable. Any combination of permissions that you want to give admin, user, or global can hence be uniquely specified by summing each permission that you want to give. If you want to give all three all access, use chmod 777 filename. To give just admin access, use chmod 700 filename, to give just owner access, use chmod 070 filename, to give just the world access, use chmod 007.

Type in ls, and hit enter or return. You should see something like this:

Now you’re going secure shell tunnel or “ssh” into your CUNIX account.  This will let you mess around in CUNIX as if it were your own computer.  There’s lots of fun things you can do in CUNIX (which is a kind of UNIX, like your operating system), but for now we’re going to ignore most of them.

To ssh in, type ssh uni1234@cunix.cc.columbia.edu (again, substituting your uni for uni1234) and hit enter or return.

If this is your first time logging in, there will be a warning that says, ‘The authenticity of host . . .’

Type in yes, and his enter.

After that, type in your password associated with your uni. Again, this is case sensitive. You might notice that no letters appear where you’re typing—this is a security measure, in case people are looking over your shoulder, and also to protect against Van Eck Phreaking.

This is what it should look like after you have finished entering your password:

Now hit return. If you typed your password in correctly, you are now logged into CUNIX!

Basic terminal commands:

cd is change directory. Directories are sometimes also known as folders, and you can move from one folder to another using the cd command. After typing cd, type the directory you wish to move to.

ls is list, and it lists all of the elements that are currently in the directory.

ls -l lists all of the elements that are currently in the directory, as well as all of the permissions.

pwd is print working directory, and it lists the address of the directory you are in.

chmod is change mode, and is used to change permissions on files. chmod is followed up 3 numbers from 0-7, and then the name of the directory. The numbers specify admin, user, and global respectively. 1 specifies executable, 2 specifies writable, and 4 specifies readable. Any combination of permissions that you want to give admin, user, or global can hence be uniquely specified by summing each permission that you want to give. If you want to give all three all access, use chmod 777 filename. To give just admin access, use chmod 700 filename, to give just owner access, use chmod 070 filename, to give just the world access, use chmod 007.

Type in ls, and hit enter or return. You should see something like this:

You just listed the items in the directory that you’re currently in! You might only have public_html and a few other items, but that’s okay—public_html is the only one we’ll use.

Type in cd public_html. This will change the directory that you’re in to public_html, which is where your webspace is.

Now type in emacs index.html and hit return. Emacs is a text editor, and index.html is the default page that going to your webspace will redirect the user to. Because ssh is text only, you cannot click other places on the page, and you must navigate using your arrow keys. There are also emacs commands to navigate the page, but we’ll save those for another tutorial. If your first page looks like this:

hit ctrl+l to actually go to text editing.

The text that you want to paste into emacs is:

<html>
<head>
<title>Greetings</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello World</p>
</body>
</html>

However, you will probably not be able to just copy and paste it into emacs—again, because this emacs is text-only, you can’t right-click and paste, and emacs’ version of paste, yank, only works internally to emacs, so you should manually type this in. It should look like this:

To save, type x while holding ctrl, followed by s while holding ctrl. They will ask you at the bottom of the screen if you want to save—type y, and it will save. To save and quit, type x while holding ctrl, followed by c while holding ctrl—the save prompt works in the same way.

After you have quit, type in chmod 664 index.html and hit enter. This will give read and write permission to admin and owner, and read-only permission to the world, which will let everyone in the world see your webpage.

Now use your browser of choice (firefox, chrome, safari, opera, internet explorer) to navigate to your webpage (http://columbia.edu/~uni1234). Congratulations, you have your own page on the world wide web!

If you’d like to create something a little more “professional,” check out tutorials on HTML and CSS. Lots of useful tech tutorials can be found on Lynda.

If you use Windows, you most likely do not have an installed SSH client. PuTTY is a SSH client with support for Windows. So why do you need a SSH client, anyway? To connect to Columbia’s CUNIX servers, of course. Plus, the terminal makes you feel like your a real BAMF.

Columbia provides a link to PuTTY (you may be asked to enter your uni/password combo to download the file). You can also download PuTTY from the website of its creator. If you are unsure of which version to download, just choose PuTTY for Windows Intel x86.

CUIT download page for PuTTY

Once the download is complete, install the program. The default settings are fine – just keep on clicking next until the setup is complete.

Hopefully this is a familiar sight. If not, just click next.

Eventually, you will arrive at the screen below. Click finish and start  PuTTY.

Click "Finish". Now take a break after all that hard work, you deserve it!

The boxes marked with a red dot are fields that have been changed. Click the save button to save this session permanently. In the future, you can select “cunix” and load to load these settings.

These settings are important. Copy them as shown.

A window will pop up, asking you to authenticate the server’s host key. Click yes.

See, Windows IS secure.

Enter your user name when prompted.

It's like the Matrix, but without the white rabbit and red pills. You'll have to supply those yourself.

If you successfully followed each of these steps, you’re now connected to Columbia’s CUNIX server. What’s CUNIX you ask? Well, that’s a topic for another tutorial. To see how to use CUNIX to set up a personal website, click here.

Cubmail  is a technological inconvenience many Columbia students have come to accept. But it need not be so. With just a few steps, leave Cubmail for one of its much hotter sisters, Gmail. Here’s how:

Part I, The Beast

1. Navigate to http://uni.columbia.edu/filters with your browser of choice, where you’ll find this nondescript and rather ambiguous login form:
   
   
   
2. Enter your uni and password, and click “Log in”. Once complete, you’ll be greeted with this lovely interface:
   
   
3. Click the “Forward” icon in the middle of the row of icons at the top of the page. You should then see this form:
   
   
4. Enter the alternative email address that you wish to receive email at (use a Gmail address if you wish to follow the rest of this tutorial using Gmail), and click “Save”. Congratulations! You’re now done with CubMail, forever! It was nice while it lasted.

Part II, The Beauty

Setting up Gmail to send emails with your Columbia email address is the perfect way to christen your new relationship with Google’s Ajax-erific mail client.

1. Once logged in to your Gmail account, in the upper right hand corner of the google page, click Settings.
   
   
2. From Settings, select the “Accounts and Import” tab.
   
   
3. Click the “Send mail from another address” button.
   
   
4. Enter your Columbia email address, and click “Next Step”. Select “Send through columbia.edu SMTP servers.”
   
   
   
   
5. Enter your uni and password, and click “Add Account”. Once complete, Gmail will send an email to your Columbia email address.
   
6. If you followed the first part of this tutorial and enabled email forwarding, you should be able to reload your inbox and find the email waiting for you in your Gmail account. If you’re feeling nostalgic you can go back to Cubmail to find the email. Click the confirmation link in the email to complete the process.
   
   
7. You can now send emails from your Gmail account with your Columbia email address as the sender. When you go to send an email, there will now be a drop-down box by the “From:” field, which you can use to switch between your linked addresses.
   
   

Here’s to wishing you a long and healthy relationship with your new email client!