Associated Students Computer Lab

Students interested in working as Computer Lab Assistants are invited to apply here. If you are interested in other jobs on campus, please check the listings here.

The lab is restricted to SMC students enrolled in courses during the current semester. In order to use the lab's computers and printers, a student must have paid the current semester's optional $19 Associated Students membership fee.

LOCATION

The Associated Students Computer Lab is located in Cayton Center Room 209, on the second floor. This is the cafeteria building.
 

HARDWARE

The lab has 92 student computers, all running the Microsoft Windows XP operating system.

The lab has high-speed Internet access.
 

STUDENTS MUST SAVE THEIR OWN WORK ON THEIR OWN MEDIA

Any files left on the computer hard disks are automatically erased at logout.

Students should bring a USB flash drive or other USB media in order to save their files every so often. (Suggestion: write your name on the flash drive.)

The lab does not have floppy disk drives or ZIP drives. The CD/DVD drives will write CDRW disks but not DVD. It takes several minutes to write a file to a CDRW or CD-R disk, so almost nobody does it.

Students may also attach documents to an e-mail and send the email to themselves.

HOURS

Lab hours are subject to change without notice, but these are the normal hours:

SOFTWARE AND DATA FILES

Software includes Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access.

Data files for many classes are stored on various computers (servers) on campus. These are only accessible inside the college's labs or through the wireless network.

The lab recently upgraded from Office 2003 to Office 2007. Some lecture notes that instructors post online may show strange unreadable characters. This can be fixed. For example, in Powerpoint, you can go to the HOME tab and choose Replace Fonts from down-arrow menu under the Replace item in the far right box. Change any font with a question mark (?) listed to Arial Narrow or any other font you like.
 

PRINTING

Limited laser printing is provided by the Associated Students Board of Directors, using Associated Students membership fees. Each student computer lab account has maximum print limits of 15 pages per day or 150 pages per semester, whichever comes first. After reaching either limit, a student may go to another lab to use a pay-for-print system.
 

STAFF

Trained student lab assistants and a professional instructional specialist are available to provide limited technical support within the lab, for software and hardware owned by the college and installed in the lab (except wireless access). This assistance is available to all currently enrolled SMC students, whether the student is a member of the Associated Students or not.

Lab Specialist (days):                          Lee Peterson
Lab Specialist (nights):                         Ramon Salcedo

Dean of Information Technology          Jocelyn Chong
 

LIMITS ON TECHNICAL SUPPORT

All technical support is provided in person in the lab, during normal lab hours. No technical support is provided over the telephone or via e-mail. Technical support is limited to software and hardware owned by the college and installed in the lab.

The lab is not able to provide technical support for equipment owned by students. Please seek information about personally-owned equipment from the manufacturer, a private computer repair company, or books or magazines.
 

WIRELESS HOTSPOTS ON SMC CAMPUSES

The lab does not provide support for college wireless connections. The wireless system is administered by another department, which does not provide user support.

Wireless users must obtain a current SMC computer network username and password in order to log on to the SMC wireless system. Usernames and passwords may be obtained in any SMC computer lab. It's a good idea for students to verify that they can log on using a lab computer before trying to log on using their personal laptop computer and the wireless system.

The college's current wireless hot spots are all on the main campus (Pico Boulevard):

• Cayton Center first floor cafeteria,

• Cayton Center second floor study and meeting area, and

• inside the SMC library. The library hot spot extends to most of the benches just outside the library entrance. The library also has hundreds of fast, reliable ports where an Ethernet cable can directly connect a laptop to the college's wireless network.

Printing is not available through the wireless system. Students generally use flash drives or e-mail attachments to transfer their files, and then print either at home or in computer labs.

Wireless access instructions are published by the SMC Library. Limited technical support for SMC wireless access  is provided by the SMC Library's computer specialist through a web form, not by the Associated Students Computer Lab staff. Replies may take up to 48 hours.
 

SMC AS AN INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER

Students may use a dial-up modem to connect to the Internet using SMC as an internet service provider. The student's phone company will bill the student for per-minute charges, if there are any, for use of the telephone line, so check with the phone company before using this service. Internet pages may take an extremely long time to load, because dial-up service is much slower than broadband cable or phone company DSL service.
 

COMMENTS, SUGGESTIONS, AND COMPLAINTS

Comments are welcome. Student feedback is helpful. The online form may be used for suggestions, complaints, or just general comments.

Last update: 09/23/09                Page views: