Intro

OpenOffice.org has great default margins, 0.79" all around. Microsoft Word's margins are 1.00" top and bottom, 1.25" left and right. I always encourage the use of wider margins which use up less paper. However, in the university setting some professors mandate that the margins be Microsoft Word's default. Other times you may have a 12-page paper due on a topic which you have no interest in at all... in which case you'll want to work those margins for all they're worth and setting them to MS Word's default is nice "legal" way to do that.

Anyway, there's no easy way to do this like there is an easy way for changing the default file format to Microsoft defaults (in the unfortunate event that it's appealing to do that). The way default margins are done would be to set up a custom template titled "MS Word margins" (or whatever) for reuse.

If you want to try out Linux, you will want a Linux distribution. This includes not only the core operating system but lots of other software running on it. (For a Windows analogy, Linux is the NT kernel or DOS, and a Linux distribution is all of Windows and most of the software you install on it.)

At the Open Source Lab, we can provide CD/DVD images and some help to get you started. Just contact the club and we'll get you going.

The Linux Terminal Server Project is an effort to make even low powered PCs into thin clients running off of a central server. All programs run on the server but display on the client. The advantage to dumb terminals is that they have no state, it is all stored in a central location. Administration is easier, as you only need to setup and worry about a server or two rather than dozens of client machines that can break individually.

In the Open Source Lab we have setup a terminal server based off of Fedora. Contact the club if you wish to try it out.

Setting the server up took a bit of work as there are several pieces needed: DHCP to allocate IPs, TFTP to serve the operating system kernel, NFS to share the file system, and ESD for sound. These installation notes document the tricky points.

On occasion I get a crazy idea of something neat-o for the Open Source Lab and/or the club server. Sometimes I get something accomplished from it, but all the time I learn something from the experience.

Current project: Linux from scratch for operating systems course

Status: almost done with the temporary build system

Past Projects:
Installing OpenSolaris
Playing with Glom database frontend
Custom backup script
Linux Terminal Server

Your UST email account is kept on a Microsoft Exchange server which can be accessed through setting up an IMAP email account in Mozilla Thunderbird. It's actually pretty easy and it's easier than logging in to Outlook Web Access each day :) This guide assumes you have Mozilla Thunderbird installed on your computer.

Open it up and the initial boot should automatically ask you to set up an account. If you have already run Thunderbird before it's easy to access from the menus. Just select File -> New -> Account... This should bring up the Account Wizard

1. From the Account Wizard on the first screen select "Email Account" and push the Next button.
2. On the next screen set "Your Name" to whatever you want. It will appear to the recipients of your emails. For "Email Address" enter your UST Email address yourusername@stthomas.edu and then hit the Next button.

One of the hottest new ways to recieve news and updates is through the XML technology of RSS (Really Simple Syndication). Many email and other office applications have RSS readers built in. Kontact, the email/calendar suite for KDE, uses an RSS Reader called Akregator. We'll walk through adding the CS Club's RSS feed to Kontact. This guide assumes you have Kontact installed. If you need help installing Kontact, check your Linux distrubution's documentation.

First, as is the case with all RSS feeds, find a link to the feed and copy the URL. In Firefox, one way this can be accomplished is by right clicking on a link to the feed and selecting "Copy Link Location..."