MegaZone's Computer Help Area

Hopefully Helpful Stuff

Way back in the mists of time, when I was a senior at WPI (ok, 1994) I was working on my Technical Writing senior project - which was a study of email usage on campus. It sort of bled over into general system usage (read: I had no focus) and I identified what I saw as a need for a simple, easy to understand beginners manual. So, since my project needed some padding, I wrote one. It covers the basics of using the UNIX file system, emailing using Elm, editing in Emacs, and reading USEnet news with rn or trn.

Since the original version was targetted at WPI students it had a number or specific WPIisms. After I put it up on the web I realized it would benefit from being more general. I've since done minor editing a few times to achieve that goal. But I've never sat down and really top-to-bottom overhauled it - so please forgive me if there are any lingering items specific to WPI.

At the same time I also created a couple of simple 'flashcard' references for Elm and Emacs. I envisioned these being the kind of thing novices could print out and keep next to their terminal as a quick reference. And happily I've seen a number of people at my various employers using them that way. It is always fulfilling to see something you created being put to use. I hope others find these works as useful.