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Questions and Answers from the UCO

A more complete collection of Frequently Asked Questions can be found on our Web page at URL:

http://wwwinfo.cern.ch/support/direct-service/#FAQs.


General

(Miguel Marquina and the UCO team, IT/User Support)

Question

I have changed some of my pages to a new URL. How can I make Netscape go automatically to the new locations?

Answer

Let us assume that you wish to program the Netscape browser to proceed to the URL newurl after 10 seconds. Then you must insert in the header of your HTML page (in its <HEAD> </HEAD> section) the following line:
  <META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="10;URL=newurl">
  
Please note that this line must be in the HEAD section (it will not work if placed in the BODY or in a page without structure) and no spaces must be left between the time and the newurl.

Question

I work on UNIX from my PC. From time to time I get new windows with the wrong font (in spite of specifying clearly the font I want) and without getting any error message. Why, and what can I do?

Answer

This has been observed when working with X sessions from Exceed. Although the reasons are not yet understood, the symptoms are clear: It does not seem correlated to AFS token expiration, or to something wrong on the X font server itself (e.g. xtsoft1, xtsoft2). It looks rather as some corruption in the Exceed font environment.

The workaround is to simply stop your X-session and re-start it again. If this is not enough quit Exceed and launch it again. Please note that we are in contact with the supplier of Exceed to follow this problem.

Question

Is there an online tutorial I could use to learn C++?

Answer

You may find an interesting one in CERNSP. Try the command:
/usr/lpp/xlC/bin/tutorial
N.B. It requires access from an X-terminal or similar as it opens a new window through which the different lessons are presented.

You can complement that material with the courses given recently as part of the IT Training Programme:

or with books which can be purchased from the UCO.

Question

What is the latest version of PAW for PCs?

Answer

It is, for the moment, still the 96a release, available for Windows NT and Windows 95 on Intel platforms from our asisftp server (directory cernlib/intel_wnt/96a/zip).

The complete PAW distribution is in the zip file pawnt.zip and the README located in the same directory gives some additional guidance.

At present (autumn 1997) we are working hard on building the latest version (release 97a of CERNLIB in general).


NICE (Jason Oh IT/User Support)

NICE (NICE-95 and NICE-NT) provides an integrated environment for all the PC users at CERN, where all applications are centrally supported, installed, and managed. It is the standard environment at CERN for Windows 95 (NICE-95) and Windows NT (NICE-NT).

Below is a selection of questions that have been asked at the UCO or have arisen from the NICE working group. More questions (with answers) regarding NICE95 can be obtained via URL: http://wwwinfo.cern.ch/cndoc/UCO/internal/CatOrg.html#nice95

Question

Why are there no French versions available on NICE of Office products like Excel, Word, Powerpoint, etc.?

Answer

Provided by Alberto Pace and Alan Silverman, IT/DCI

Les différentes versions nationales des applications ont souvent des incompatibilités entre elles qui compliquent le partage des fichiers entre utilisateurs. Les versions dans les différents langages n'arrivent pas sur le marché simultanément, créant des problèmes de compatibilité supplémentaires (par exemple, le "Service Release 1" de Microsoft Office 97 n'est pas encore disponible en français). En plus, les applications font souvent appel aux services du sytème d'exploitation, ce qui signifie que même si on installe des produits en français, vous aurez toujours des messages en "franglais". Cela veut dire que même si on installait Windows en français, beaucoup de composants resteraient en anglais (pilotes d'imprimantes, pilotes de base de données, pilotes écran, etc.).

Le problème que vous soulevez est réel et justifié, mais nous devons rester pragmatiques. Différentes versions linguistiques ajouteraient une complexite importante au sytème et le rendraient plus difficile à utiliser et surtout moins fiable (beaucoup d'applications sont certifiées uniquement pour la version anglaise de Windows). L'effort de notre part pour le support serait plus que double et beaucoup d'utilisateurs seraient mécontents à cause des incompatibilités d'échanges entre fichiers et des "crashes" qui se produiraient sûrement. On a un déjà un exemple évident avec les problèmes d'échanges de documents Word et Excel entre PC et Macintosh qui, en principe, devraient utiliser le même format, généré uniquement par les versions anglaises de ces applications.

Pour conclure, même en oubliant le coût en ressources supplémentaires, nous sommes convaincus que la disponibilité des versions françaises des applications serait une énorme complication qui rendrait notre service plus difficile à utiliser (à moins que les utilisateurs francophones renoncent à échanger de l'information avec les utilisateurs anglophones et vice-versa) et surtout moins fiable. Néanmoins, vous voudrez bien noter que nous nous efforçons de produire notre documentation dans les deux langues (anglais et français), et que l'UCO a également dans son catalogue toute une série de livres en français!

Question

I used to work on Windows 95 and since today my machine is running Windows NT. It seems that my password does not work any more, why?  

Answer

NT uses a different authentication system. On first login often the NT and NICE 95 passwords are not the same. If this is the case, your password has to be reset/synchronised by the UCO (by phone Ext 74952 or by e-mail User.Support@cern.ch). Once your assigned temporary password has become valid it is recommended that the password be changed from NICE NT (thereby enabling both the NT and the Novell/NICE 95 passwords). Additionally, please note that if you have an ms-mail account that password is also reset.

For more information please see the user guide "Using Windows 95 and Windows NT at CERN" available online at URL: http://nicewww.cern.ch/doc/usere/usere.htm (or http://nicewww.cern.ch/doc/userf/userf.htm for the French version).

 

Question

We have a PC with a dual boot: NICE NT and NICE 95. What do we have to do to have as default boot NICE 95 and not NICE NT?

Answer

This modification can be accomplished from NT via
start -> settings -> control panel -> system icon 
Then select the startup/shutdown tab and alter the order there.

 

Question

When I launch Netscape 4 I get: "No valid encryption policy file was found for this English language version of Communicator. All encryption and decryption will be disabled". Then the program is shutdown. What can I do?

Answer

Try selecting
start -> More Applications ->World Wide web -> 
Reset Netscape 4 Config. 
If this still fails try to remove the file cert7.db located in c:\Netscape\users\login_name\

 

Question

I have just installed NT on my machine. When I tried to connect to the CERN domain I get the message: "The PC does not have a computer account on the CERN NT Domain". Why?

Answer

Please go to http://wwwcs/register and select the operation "View or correct the registered information about a device". Check that, for your PC, the "Operating System" field contains WINDOWS 95 + NT.

After the overnight update, your machine should be able to connect to the CERN domain. If the problem persists please send a mail to User.Support@cern.ch

 

Question

Why I cannot use Schedule plus in "Workgroup enabled mode" anymore?

Answer

The NICE team does not recommend using Schedule plus in "Workgroup enabled mode". If you have been using this configuration you can contact Nice.Support@cern.ch to obtain a procedure that will help you.


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