ResComp Newsletter
October 2007
Table of Contents
- Electronic resources from the Berkeley library
- Little known, but useful Firefox addons
- Like Butter on Bread: Windows On Your New Mac
Electronic resources from the Berkeley library
It’s 12:30am and you’ve got a paper due tomorrow. If you don’t turn it in, you won’t pass your R1A class and you’ll have to take the requirement all over again. Your problem? It’s a research paper! How are you going to conduct research at 12:30am when your professor has specified that Google and Wikipedia won’t cut it? You’ve really dug yourself into a hole this time.
Luckily, the libraries at Berkeley provide a wealth of electronic resources that put the world’s knowledge at your fingertips. When connecting from the Berkeley network in your residence hall room, you have access to hundreds of resources including journals, textbooks, newspapers, historical documents, and more.
Highlights include access to JStor and LexisNexis (a database of over 6000 international and local newspapers, radio and TV transcripts, magazines, and journals) as well as over 800 computer manuals published by O’Reilly.
To access all these great resources, visit the UC Berkeley library website at www.lib.berkeley.edu and select “Electronic resources” on the left side of the page. For information about using these resources off-campus, see: www.lib.berkeley.edu/Help/connecting_off_campus.html.
Little known, but useful Firefox addons
So, you’ve been told that Mozilla Firefox is the best thing to happen to secure online browsing since passwords, but did you know that Firefox is extremely customizable to suit your personal browsing needs? Below are just a few addons that we think come in handy, especially for students:
- Snipshot: Saw a picture online that you want as your profile picture on Facebook? Using the snipshot firefox addon, you can crop, resize or retouch that picture all in your browser with just one click! [addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4571]
- Greasemonkey: Greasemonkey lets you customize any website, just the way you like it. Hate how small the Youtube video is? Use a greasemonkey script to change the way the page looks. The addon uses prewritten scripts to modify websites. Still confused? Visit www.userscripts.org to learn more about greasemonkey, and to download thousands of scripts. [addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748]
- Coupon Craze: We know you like to shop online, but why pay a higher price when you could use coupons to cut your total bill in half or more? The Coupon Craze addon sits at the bottom of your screen and tells you if the site you’re on has any coupons that you can use on your purchase. [addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5408]
- Book Burro: Promising to “remix the bookstore”, the Book Burro addon gives you a listing of prices for the current book you’re perusing at over ten different book sellers. For example, if you’re looking up a Bio textbook on Amazon.com, clicking the Book Burro button shows you the price for the textbook at different stores, such as Half.com or Alibris.com. With this addon, you’re bound to save at least a few bucks. [www.bookburro.org]
- Clipmarks: When you’re doing a research project, you just need little bits of every website you visit. Instead of bookmarking--or printing--every single page you visit, use the clipmarks addon to only save the most relevant parts of every website. You can also use this addon for travel planning, shopping, etc. [addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1407]
Remember, Firefox’s security can become vulnerable if you install addons from disreputable websites. Make sure you trust the developer of the addon before you install it.
For more information about Firefox addons, visit addons.mozilla.org.
Like Butter on Bread: Windows On Your New Mac
You love your new Macbook, but a professor is requiring you to run Windows-only software! Just a few examples include engineering students using SolidWorks/AutoCAD, or math students using Stata or MatLab.
Fear not! Now that Apple uses Intel-based processors in all of its computers, there are a whole slew of different ways to get that Windows-goodness on your new Mac computer. The primary method for running Windows on your Mac is dual-booting, done through Apple’s official Boot Camp (www.apple.com/bootcamp). Boot Camp allows you to partition your hard disk and boot into Windows natively, just as if you had a Windows laptop computer. Games and applications will run at full speed under Boot Camp, so if you’re a gamer, this is the way to go. Additionally, users who will be primarily using Windows on their Mac computer should use Boot Camp.
The other method is virtualization -- running Windows inside your Mac OS X environment. Virtualization doesn’t offer great 3D acceleration support, but your utilities and desktop applications will run very smoothly, providing you have enough RAM. Virtualization is great for users who need to switch between Mac OS X and Windows quickly, as well as users who need to install Windows in order to just use one or two applications.
For virtualization, you have two main options -- VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop for Mac. VMWare is generally thought to have the upper hand in terms of performance whereas Parallels has superior integration with your Mac OS X desktop environment. If you want to go the virtualization route and are looking to do a lot of processor-intensive work in Windows, check out VMWare Fusion from www.vmware.com/products/fusion. If you’d like to use nifty features such as the Parallels coherence mode (which supports docking your Windows Start menu and windows on your Mac desktop), check out Parallels Desktop at www.parallels.com.
Other options for running alternate operating systems on your Mac include Crossover (www.codeweavers.com) and VirtualBox (www.virtualbox.org). Crossover supports the unique feature of seamless application integration with Mac OS X. VirtualBox is an open source and multi-platform project that is built for other operating systems in addition to Windows.
- Articles by: Krithika Muthukumar and Jeremy Weinstein.
- Assorted graphics by: Elizabeth Eady.