College of Engineering, Forestry, and Natural Sciences

Initial webpage setup

To get a Capstone website location created, email cefnsithelp@nau.edu with the following information:

• group or project name
• discipline (i.e. ME, EE, etc.)
• instructor
• group members

The web directory will be created and access given to the group members.  You will receive confirmation that this has been set up along with the path to your Capstone website.

Webpage publishing

Once you have confirmation that your website has been set up and your group's web files have been created, you are ready to publish your site to the CEFNS web server.  Access to the web server is available via Secure Shell (SSH and SFTP) only. Several applications exist for most operating systems and are available to download. On all CEFNS Windows computers, SSH Secure File Transfer is available. On Solaris, Linux and Mac OSX machines, sftp is available in a terminal on the command-line.

If you are familiar with using the command-line, you can perform the same tasks in a terminal to upload to the CEFNS servers. To do so, open a terminal and change directory to the location where you have placed your web files:

corellia ~]# cd capstone 

You can use scp to copy the contents of this directory up to the web server with a command something like the following:

corellia ~]# scp * sftp.cefns.nau.edu:/www/sites/cefns/Research/D4P/EGR486/<DISCIPLINE>/<YEAR>-Projects/<GROUP-NAME> 

Important information

Most Capstone projects are completed in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or other software.  The files generated by these programs are not "web" files and will not open automatically for those that visit your Capstone page.  To get a web browser to display a web page for your site, create an index.html file.  This file is a plain ASCII text file and can be created from programs such as Microsoft Word by clicking File, Save As and selecting Web Page (html) as the file type.  More information on creating web pages can be found on the web.

To set up a network printer on a Mac, open System Preferences and select Print & Fax. 

In the Print & Fax options select the add printer icon. This will open a new window with options to add a printer. You will want to select the IP icon.

Once in the IP section of the Add Printer Utility, select Address, and put the printer URL address.

The printer address will be the printer share name. Unfortunately you cannot browse for the printer name, and will need to know this in advance. If you are unsure of the printer share name contact the CEFNS IT help desk @ x8084 and we can tell you.

The Protocol option should be HP Jetdirect for HP printers and Line Printer Daemon for all others.

After you have put in the server information you can give the printer a name. This will be the name that shows in your print dialogue, so give it something memorable such as the share name. If you are setting up a connection to a HP printer the driver should be already installed. If it is a Dell or Konica-Minolta printer you will need to install the driver. The standard Konica-Minolta drivers are available on:

smb://cefnsshares.cefns.nau.edu/software/public/Mac_Print_Drivers.

Once the driver is installed you can search for it by selecting Select Print Software from the Choose a Driver of Printer Model listing. In the dialogue start typing the model of printer.

To set up account track and/or duplexing you will need to print something. In the settings you can go to Finishing and select Duplex or other options. With Konica-Minolta printers you might need to set your account track user ID and password. This is under Security.

To keep these settings as default for the printer select the Presets menu and choose Save As.

A "Remote Desktop Server" is a computer that allows multiple users to connect to it at the same time. It can provide anything from the basic Office Suite to complex applications that may be available for students or staff to use. There are several of these servers on campus.

ITS provides a server with basic applications that is available for staff and faculty. Users can connect to: termsrv.ucc.nau.edu 

Academic Computing provides a similar server for students to use but this server provides more applications for class work: nau.edu/vlab  

Here in the College of Engineering, Forestry and Natural Sciences we have a cluster of Remote Desktop Servers that provide users with many applications.

Staff, faculty and students can connect to windows.cefns.nau.edu from anywhere in the world and work on many of the applications that are available in classrooms.

To connect to a Windows computer from Mac OSX you need the Microsoft Remote Desktop Service Client for Mac OS. This can be downloaded from the Microsoft Mac downloads site.

Once you have Microsoft Remote Desktop Service Client for Mac OS downloaded and installed you can follow the same instructions for connecting as you would from a Windows machine.

There are some know issues connecting to remote desktop servers; the fix below works when you get the following error:
"You were disconnected from the Windows-based computer because of problems during the licensing protocol"
Here is the fix:
Go to Macintosh HD > Users > Shared > Microsoft.
Click on “RDC Crucial Server Information” folder and then click file > Get Info
At this point you need to unlock the "padlock".
Under Sharing & Permissions select “everyone” and change it to “Read & Write”
Run your RDC connection again and it will start working fine.

CEFNS IT remote desktop servers available applications listing

Engineering applications: 

AISC, Altera Quartus, Interactive Thermodynamics, National Instruments LabView, On Screen Takeoff, Westpoint Bridge Designer

General applications: 

Adobe Acrobat Pro, Microsoft Office, NotePad++ and PSPad text editor

GIS Applications: 

Arc GIS

Graphics applications: 

IrfanView and Paint.Net

Internet applications:

Adobe Contribute and XWindows Server software

Math applications:

A variety of calculators, JMP, Mathcad, Mathmatica, Matlab and R for Windows. SPSS and SAS are available on nau.edu/vlab 

Programming applications: 

Alice, BlueJ, Dev-C++, Eclispe, NetBeans, Python, Racket, TortoiseSVN and Windows Powershell

CEFNS remote desktop servers use policy: 

1. We do not allow disconnected sessions—users are logged off after 1 minute
2. We have an idle limit of 1 hour—idle is defined as no mouse or keyboard activity. Users are logged off after 1 hour idle time.

Virtual private networks

People often need to connect to the NAU network from home or when they travel for sending and receiving email and getting at their files on campus. However most people who live off campus tend to have their own internet service provider. As a consequence these users must create what is called a VPN connection back to NAU. This effectively creates a secure tunnel from their ISP back to NAU and allows those people to securely send and receive email and get at files.

If you are not familiar with creating a VPN connection please see the information at the following ITS site: VPN Help.

Mapping drives from off-campus

Once you have a VPN connected many users would like to map drives that they are familiar with back on campus.

To connect to shared drives open the Connect to Server dialogue in Finder. You can do this by going to Finder > Go Menu > Connect To Server.

You will then be presented with a Connect to Server window. Most shares are Windows based so you would preface the server name with: smb:// If you want to connect to your Bonsai home drive you would use the following:

smb://bonsai.ucc.nau.edu/"first letter of userid"/"userid"

There is video conferencing equipment in 2 rooms in the engineering building 69. These are available to anyone in CEFNS . Bookings can be made by contacting the engineering building front desk 3-5251/2 or emailing: egrreception@nau.edu 

We use Polycom room cameras that can be accessed by any H.323 client, including Ekiga (http://ekiga.org/) for Windows and Linux or XMeeting (http://xmeeting.sourceforge.net/pages/xmeeting.php) for Mac.

Rooms 102 and 322J are set up similarly. The silver remote control is for the television. If the LCD on the remote shows anything other than TV as selected, press the Mode button to select TV. The power button on this remote will now turn on the television. If not, it is possible someone turned off the main switch. This is a push button located underneath the television towards the left side. Please use the remote to turn the TV on and off; do not use this main switch.

The TV needs to be set to the Video1 input. Use the Input button on the remote to select this input. If there is no video, press the Home button on the black remote to wake the camera.

To call a remote location, use the black remote to enter the address on the screen and press the green "Call" button.

To receive a call, an Incoming Call message will appear on the screen. Use the arrow buttons on the black remote to select Yes and press the center button. Multiple calling parties will result in a split-screen effect.

Remote parties can call the video conferencing systems by connecting to one of the following two addresses:

• EGR Room 102: conf-69-102.egr.nau.edu
• EGR Room 322J: conf-69-322j.egr.nau.edu

In a call, you can control the camera with the arrow buttons on the black remote. Use the buttons with magnifying glass symbols on them to zoom in and out. By default, the remote location will be full-screen and the local location will be presented in a small window, so you will always be able to tell what the remote party is seeing.

Depending on the remote hardware, the Near and Far buttons can be used to control the remote camera. Pressing Near controls your camera, pressing Far controls the remote camera.

To end a call, press the red Hang Up button.

When finished using the conference room, please turn the TV off with the silver remote and close the door. The video camera will stay on.

Both rooms can also be used for presentations from a laptop. The TV can act as a second monitor. For this, change the input to RGB_PC using the Input button on the silver remote. Room 102 has a VGA cable on the conference table. Room 322J has the VGA cable on the small table. The VGA cables have audio connections that can be plugged in to the headphone jack on a laptop. Once plugged in, most laptops require that the external VGA port be activated (Fn-F8 on Dell laptops; other manufacturers use different methods). The TV can support up to 1024x768 resolutions; you may need to adjust the resolution on your laptop to match this.

Both our video conferencing rooms use a single LCD TV monitor for the conference. If a user needs to present work from a laptop at the same time, then this must be provided. Also in this case a separate projector and screen needs to be set up.

This page describes how you can connect to your office computer from off campus.

The explained process is for computers with Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7.

Setting up your Windows office computer to accept connections—this must be done first

For this whole process to work your office computer must always be on and not go into sleep or hibernate mode.

1) While you are in your office log on to your desktop computer.

2) Find the name of your computer > Either right-click the My Computer icon on the desktop or My Computer in the Start Menu; choose Properties. In the dialog that opens click the Computer Name tab. You need to know the full computer name. It will look something like BIO234-01.bio.nau.edu. Write down this name as you will need to know it later.

3) Next, open Computer Management again. Either right-click the My Computer icon on the desktop or My Computer in the Start Menu but this time choose Manage.
This opens the Computer Management utility:

In the left-hand pane expand Local Users and Groups and then click on Groups. In the right-hand pane double click on Administrators.

a) If your user ID is listed in the dialog your computer is already set up and ready for you to connect.

b) If your user ID is not in this group please contact our help desk 3-8084 or cefnsithelp@nau.edu asking for your user ID to be added to the Remote Desktop Users group on your desktop computer. PROVIDE THE COMPUTER NAME you recorded in step 2.

We will contact you when this is done.

Making a connection from your home or off-campus computer

To connect to your Windows office computer from Mac OSX you need the Microsoft Terminal Service Client for Mac OS. This can be downloaded from the Microsoft Mac site: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx. Click on the Remote Desktop link in the Products section.

Once you have installed this application you connect in much the same way as you would for a Terminal Server.