Computer Recommendations for Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Students - A Simple Guide for Undergraduate and Graduate Students
Wildlife Ecology is a dynamic field and computers play a critical role in our daily lives as ecologist, wildlife managers, and conservation biologists. WEC courses and research activities require students to use computers for learning and research. While UF does provide computer labs for students to use, many students also choose to purchase their own computer for personal use to complete class assignments and entertainment. UF has special pricing arrangements available for computers (Windows based and Mac) and popular software (including Microsoft Office and MacAfee anti-virus) that are much cheaper than those available from other retailers (detailed below). This page provides some general recommendations to consider if you decide to purchase a computer, as well as links to computer resources on campus including software and hardware special arrangements available to UF students. Note, we are not endorsing any products or services in this document, but instead just providing some general recommendations.
UF Guidelines
The official UF computing guidelines which supersede this document and relate to all aspects of hardware, software, and network information are available here
http://training.helpdesk.ufl.edu/computing.shtml
The following is the official UF policy on the student computer requirement:
Access to and on-going use of a computer is required for all students to complete their degree programs successfully. The University of Florida expects each student entering the junior year, as well as each student new to the university, to acquire computer hardware and software appropriate to his or her degree program. Competency in the basic use of a computer is a requirement for graduation. Class assignments may require use of a computer, academic advising and registration can be done by computer, and official university correspondence is often sent via e-mail.
The basic expectations in WEC courses:
At the most basic tech levels, from day 1 at UF you will be expected to use email, basic word processing, find information on web pages, copy and carry files with you (i.e., on a jump drive/memory stick) download files such as a homework assignment from a web page (often a course web site), complete the assignment, and submit that assignment to the same page. Google has a great series of simple how-to tutorials available here (http://www.teachparentstech.org/) that are funny and informative that can help you with all sorts of tech applications you may not know how to do.
Know your Gatorlink name and password
Your Gatorlink name and password are you keys to most UF computing resources.
Know how to save files and back files up
You will commonly need to copy files from the web such as a Word document as a homework assignment, complete this assignment, and then re-submit the assignment. If you are using your personal computer then it is a good idea to create folders for different courses, and then create subfolders for different assignments. If you are working in a computer lab, then you will need to save your files somewhere that you can access them later. You should note that the computer lab computers reset themselves automatically at midnight, so if you have saved a file to a computer in the computer lab’s hard drive, that file will likely not be there the next time you log in. A simple solution is to carry a small USB memory stick (aka flash drive, jump drive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive)with you to copy and save files to. These drives are cheap ($5-10) and very handy. You can also use “cloud” based services to save your files to the web and then download them from any computer connected to the internet. An example of this type of cloud based drive is Windows SkyDrive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_SkyDrive) which is free. It is also a good idea to regularly create backups of your files just in case you lose your computer, your hard drive fails, or you leave your memory stick in your pocket and wash it. An external USB hard drive that can backup your entire computer is a good idea to have (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_hard_drive) and these can be bought for about $50. Alternatively you can burn your files to CD or DVD for <$5 each time you backup your files.
Know what software deals are available to you
UF has bulk licensing agreements for a variety of widely used software packages that offer huge savings to students. As an example, you can buy fully licensed versions of Microsoft Office for Windows or Mac for $15 that you can install on your personal computer. MacAfee anti-virus is free. More information on these types of software deals is available here http://helpdesk.ufl.edu/software.html.
Use anti-virus software
MacAfee is free to UF students, faculty, and staff: http://software.ufl.edu/mcafee/index2.html
I need help...
The clearing house for UF computing help starts here: http://helpdesk.ufl.edu/software.html
You can also “walk in” to the HUB on campus for help with your laptop or other questions: http://helpdesk.ufl.edu/laptop.html
If you need more advanced help or repairs then you should contact your computer manufacture or a local computer store for repair (as an example http://www.dog-bytes.com/)
Windows or Mac?
This is an unanswerable question and WEC students and faculty use both platforms. There are definite strengths and weaknesses in both computer platforms. Most of the computer labs on campus are Microsoft Windows based computer labs. There are also some software programs that you are likely to use in your courses such as ESRI GIS products (http://www.esri.com/) that may not run on an Apple Operating system. Most recent Mac computers can also run the Windows operating system (XP or Windows 7). This allows you to run Windows specific programs on your Mac. Information on how to do this is available via the http://www.apple.com/support/mac/ web page. Because of UF’s software agreements with Microsoft you can buy a copy of Windows 7 for about $25 (http://helpdesk.ufl.edu/software.html) and then you can turn your Mac into a PC also. Or you can just buy a PC. UF has PC pricing deals with Dell available here http://dell.techhub.ufl.edu/ and the UF discounting page for Macs is available here http://store.apple.com/us_edu_22536?afid=p224|4319426&cid=AOS-US-CAMPUS-ShopNow
This is not an endorsement of Windows based computers over Mac. Whatever computer you have it is very important that you familiarize yourself with it and to make sure you are comfortable using it. That way you can focus on using your computer to help you learn the material in your courses and not focus on learning how to use your computer. Your WEC instructors will likely not be able to help you troubleshoot IT problems. So for example if you want to use Bootcamp to run Windows 7 on your Mac so you can use a specific software in a course, you should have this setup and running before the course starts.
Basic hardware requirements
These are hard to specify as technology changes so fast. Basically a dual-core chip computer with at least 4 gigs of RAM should be adequate for most course applications. Here are some guidelines provided by the UF Computing help desk http://training.helpdesk.ufl.edu/campusstandards.shtml
