Computer Help¶
Internet¶
Forwarding your Wright State email
Getting class cancellation notifications on your cell phone
Certifying your mail so it’s secure (S/MIME - Secure MIME) Any confidential information (grades, etc) require me to be able to reply to you in secure form to your WSU account because of FERPA. See Dr. Mateti’s page on how it works (not how to get it working). The Certificate Authorities listed are out of date. Instead you can use Comodo.
Software¶
There are a ton of tools out there to help with math calculations. I prefer to use free software because: - It is always available to me, regardless of location, employment, which project I’m working on, or whether I can connect to a license server. - It is more than adequate.
I don’t like the idea of people graduating without skills to get things done without all of the nice tools we make available. Many students contact me and inform us that they aren’t available where they work for a variety of reasons, cost being the major one.
Regardless, the university offers these for students (but you can’t use it after).
Free while a student¶
Free forever¶
Maxima: Free symbolic math package (capabilities like Mathematica). Maxima ‘cheat sheet’.
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Octave (main web site): Octave is a free alternative similar to Matlab, available on Windows, Linux, Mac, and others. Being open source you have assurance that it will be available in the future without the need for an employer to purchase Matlab or another proprietary system. The advantage of learning open-source software is robustness to any given work environment.
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Python is a full-featured rising programming language that is widely used, from web interfaces, database management, and scientific computation. It is the most widely sought programming language skill that is useful to mechanical engineering students. If you learn one language well, I recommend this one. It’s what I use every day, and it’s what I use for this website.
I recommend install the Anaconda package or the WinPython distribution which runs off a thumb drive!
Learning about capabilities comes from scouring SciPy
For learning, see Learning Scientific Python
Python is what I use each and every day.
Matlab¶
Wright State students get a free student version of Matlab. Search Wright State’s computer support pages (CATS) to find it if the link doesn’t work.
Complete course notes from Prof. Brian Rigling
More extensive MATLAB, Mathematica, and UNIX help from my Computer Literacy Course
MATLAB on-line help: type helpdesk from the MATLAB prompt
Mathworks Student Center (Many introductions/tutorials)
Octave (Matlab for free - kind of)¶
Octave (main web site): Octave is a free alternative similar to Matlab, available on Windows, Linux, Mac, and others. Being open source you have assurance that it will be available in the future without the need for an employer to purchase Matlab or another proprietary system. The advantage of learning open-source software is robustness to any given work environment.