E210/Business and Professional Writing, Dr. Michael O'Conner

 

DATE:	January 7, 2002
TO:	Dr. Michael O'Conner, Course Instructor
FROM:	Bob Smith
SUBJECT:	Identifying Computing Resources for O'Conner's EN210 Course

The purpose of this memo is to give a brief idea of what resources I will have available for my work in the Business and Professional Writing course that you are teaching. It is also meant to give an alternative solution for all of my primary resources in case that those become unavailable at some point in time.

For the bigger part of my work I would rely on using the computers and software available for student use in the Tabor School Microcomputer Center.

As I already mentioned I will be using the Tabor School Microcomputer Center to complete my assignments for your class. The standard configuration of the computers available there is: Gateway 2000 system with Pentium 75Mhz processor and 16MB RAM, a little over 500MB of hard disk space (unfortunately only about 20MB of them are usable and it is only for temporary storage), one 3.5 inch disk drive, quad speed CD ROM drive, Super VGA display and graphics adapter and not much else that might be worth mentioning. There are two networked printers available in the lab and both of them are Hewlett Packard Laserjet 4M+. As far as software is concerned for my word-processing needs I will use Microsoft Word 2000 which has built in capabilities for spell-checking and grammar corrections. For graphics I would most likely try to use Microsoft Powerpoint, and for charts and tables I will probably use Microsoft Excel. I will use the campus Groupwise software for email and connect to Blackboard via the Internet Explorer 5.5 browser available to me. All computers in the lab are connected to the internet via the Millikin University network. The Tabor School Microcomputer Center hours are:

Sunday - 2:00pm - 11:00pm
Monday - 9:00am - 11:00pm
Tuesday - 9:00am - 11:00pm
Wednesday - 9:00am - 11:00pm
Thursday - 9:00am - 11:00pm
Friday - 9:00am - 7:00pm
Saturday - 12:00am - 11:00pm

The phone number of the computer lab is (217) 425-4634.

Conclusions:
If for some reason the Tabor School Microcomputer Center becomes unavailable or some of the software packages are not functioning I will use the Mueller Microcomputer Center located on the first floor of Shilling Hall. Another alternative is a computer at my friend's house close to campus. He has a new Dell multimedia computer with a cable modem internet connection. All the software mentioned above is available upon this computer. Finally, I wish you to know that my other computer skills include a working knowledge of Excel, Access, Banner, and html coding. I have also used Photoshop extensively to modify image files.