Here are just the basics; you can find out more on the college website (www.joh.cam.ac.uk), or contact our Computing Officer (Matt) or the College IT Helpdesk.

1. There are 3 main computer rooms – Library Mezzanine, Library 3rd Floor and Fisher Building.

2. The public computers can be accessed using your PWF password. You will have to go to one of these computers to initially pick up various passwords in your first few days, and you should do this as quickly as possible as you otherwise won’t have any way of accessing your email.

3. Printing is charged at 5p per page (b/w) and 25p per page (colour). You pre-pay for credit through the University and top up when you need to.

4. The John’s Computing Department is located in Forecourt. You can contact them via email (computer-support@joh.cam.ac.uk) or in person during their office hours, 14:15-16:30, Mon – Fri. They normally only provide a limited amount of support for problems with students’ personal computers, but they are a useful point of contact if something seems to be wrong with the college network.  This year in freshers’ week we’re hoping to run some technical drop-in help sessions so peruse the timetable when you arrive to see when you can turn up for help.

5. If you are bringing your own computer, it might be worth buying a network cable for connecting it (non-crossed-over UTP/Cat5e Ethernet cable), generally known as “a network cable” in shops), but the JCR will also be selling these cheaply during Freshers’ Week and upon your arrival.

6. If you have any immediate computing-related problems (you just accidentally deleted that essay that is due tomorrow etc.), you can contact the JCR Computing Officer, Matt – contact details are on the JCR website (www.sjcjcr.com) in the “Computing” section. Do note though that the Computing Officer is only a student as well and might not always be reachable or in a position to offer help!

 

Email:

Email is the most widely used method of communication both for official and not-so-official messages in Cambridge, and you will find yourself using it on a daily basis. If the thought of having to deal with all this computer stuff gives you the creeps, don’t fear – there will be help and introductory training in using the Cambridge computing facilities available during Freshers’ Week.

 

CamTools:

CamTools is an online system that colleges and departments use to publicise and distribute information. You will probably be asked to get things off CamTools at various points over the year, so it is worth familiarising yourself with it. It can sometimes be a bit icky to use, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not so bad. Again, watch out for the computing leaflet in Freshers’ Week.

 

Passwords:

You will be given an overwhelming number of login names and passwords in your first days at St John’s, and it can sometimes be hard to remember which ones you use for what (plus you have to remember the passwords themselves!), so here’s a quick list of the most common ones:

  • PWF (public workstation facility) login: This is what you use for the public computers in college or in other places in the University.
  • Raven login: This is used for authenticating you to various University webpages, including CamTools.
  • Hermes login: This is for your email account, and you can use it to log into Hermes Webmail or for your email program to download your email.
  • Network login: This is used when connecting your computer to the college network, and also for the wireless network in college. The username will be the same as for the other systems, but the password is a numerical password which you cannot change, so make sure you’ve got it written down somewhere.

Your username for all of these will be your CRSid, which is a sequence of letters (your initials) followed by some number, but the passwords for all of these can be different.