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>Support>Hardware and Software

Welcome to the CSUDH Online program. This letter will give you some brief, but critical technical information.

1. Make sure that up-to-date virus protection software is installed on your computer. Students, and even professors, have inadvertently mailed out virus-infected files to others. Be careful!
   
   
2. The current standard file format for coursework is Microsoft Office 2003 and above. Other file formats should be coordinated with your instructor. When sending document, it is a good idea to specify the file format in the text of your email if you are using a version other than Office 2003. This will help the recipient in case of problems reading the document. If you have an older version of Microsoft Office, translators for Office 2003 are available for download from the Microsoft web site.
   
   
3. Macintoshes are currently not supported. You are welcome to use a Macintosh, but we will have limited ability to assist you with any technical problems that you might experience. Also, it will be the responsibility of Mac users to make sure that the professor is able to read documents and files that they send. Remember that fonts, colors, and other features that you use in a document created on a Macintosh may not translate on a Windows machine.
   
   
4. When sending attached files via email, the receiving students/faculty may use a variety of email clients. On occasion, some email clients will have difficulty opening files due to the file name rather than the file contents. If you change the default file extension on a file (e.g., .doc for MS Word documents), the email client may be unable to determine what application to use to open the file.
   
   If  your instructor does not give you a naming convention for files that you send, we recommend that you include the assignment number/name and your username or team number in the document name. This will enable the instructor to easily determine the nature of the file when looking at a listing of files in a folder. For example, assignment 1 for user tsmith might be submitted as MS Word document assign1tsmith.doc.
   
   
5. We recommend that you have both Netscape and Internet Explorer installed on your computer. Netscape should be version 6 or above, and Internet Explorer should be version 6 or above. Before installing any browser, you need to be sure it will not conflict with your ISP connection or with any other important configuration on your PC. To see your version, pull down the Help menu in Internet Explorer and select About. The reason that we recommend that students have both browsers is that on occasion one browser may be malfunctioning and the other browser will allow you to properly access the course pages. On occasion students (or programs installed by the students) have had security, Java, or network settings changed in one of their browsers that cause the browser to have persistent problems accessing our websites. Using the other browser usually allows access. At other times, a browser may just have a malfunction problem during a particular session. Rather than reboot, you may want to just try the other browser.
   
   
6. Many of you may bookmark your classes so that you can go directly to them and bypass the course gateway. However, we recommend that you visit course gateway regularly for news and information. We occasionally post important messages on that page, including warnings of network maintenance.

For any other questions or assistance please contact technical support.

Last Updated: March 17, 2008

© 1998 - 2009 CSUDH - College of Business and Public Policy - All Rights Reserved. Program policies are subject to change. Please contact the Public Administration department for the most current program information.