Cezanne - Study of an Apple (1885)

For now, the computers in the Mac Lab have been set up to be dual-booting, which means that they are running both Mac OS and Windows. When you come to the lab, the computers may already be showing a Windows login screen. To switch to Mac OS, you need to shut down the computer and immediately hold the Option key while it starts up. This will show a screen which lets you select Mac OS or Windows. If the wireless mouse does not work while on this screen, you can select Mac OS using the arrow keys and pressing Enter on the keyboard.

When logging into the Mac Lab computers, remember to enter your username like so:
swgc\username

Computing and Communications has requested that when we are finished using Mac OS, we should reboot the computers so that they go back into Windows. This is so that Computing can automatically install Windows security updates, and so that other classes who share the lab can use Windows.

There have been a lot of changes to the Mac Lab over the summer, so please let me know if you run into any problems using the machines. Thanks for your patience!

The RAND tablet, also called the Grafacon (for 'Graphic Converter') was one of the earliest tablet computers.

As we progress through the semester I’ll be posting short summaries of each class here, so you can refer back to them if you need to.

We started our first class by going over the course outline. Please note that you will need a USB drive for this class, both to backup your work and to submit work for evaluation.

I would also encourage you to bring a sketchbook to class. We’ll be creating digital images in this class, but that doesn’t mean that the entire process has to take place on the computer. You might find it useful to work through your ideas on paper first, as a pencil and paper will let you sketch more spontaneously and in a more free-form way than you can in Illustrator.

We have new computers in the Mac Lab this year, Mac Pros running Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard). The computers are dual-booting, so they also run Windows. For instructions on how to login to Mac OS, please see the Booting Into Mac OS post.

Our first class was mostly an introduction to Mac OS. We looked at the various areas of the Mac OS interface, including the Desktop and Dock, and using Finder to add Applications to the Dock. We also looked at using System Preferences to adjust Mac OS settings, such as setting up a secondary mouse button. When using a USB drive with Mac OS, remember to eject the drive (by dragging it to the Trash) before removing it, or your files could become corrupted.

We will be spending the first part of this semester learning to work with vector images in Adobe Illustrator. We took a quick look at Illustrator in our first class, including starting a new document, how the interface is organized into the toolbox and palettes, and how to use some of the basic tools for drawing and manipulating shapes. We’ll go over this material in more detail in the next few classes.