CIS 101 for Apple Macintosh Users



CIS 101 for Apple Macintosh Users

This guide is intended to assist you with any questions you might have as a Mac user at Pace.

Welcome to CIS 101! This course is intended to give you a broad introduction to computers and computing topics and to give you hands on experience in Excel, PowerPoint, HTML and JavaScript programming. While you will be able to use a Macintosh to do some of the assignments in this class, you may encounter some compatibility issues when we explore Excel 2007. Currently, our computer labs are only equipped with Windows PCs and unfortunately our textbooks assume that Windows is being used for their screenshots and demonstrations. While the majority of lessons and techniques will still apply, there are slight differences between using your PC and using a Mac.

MS Office 2008 for the MAC is compatible with Office 2007.

Here is more information on upgrading to the student version of Office 2008:

Starting up: Connecting to Pace’s wireless network.

[snap of airport menu]

To log into Pace’s wireless network, you will first need to know your wireless login and password. For students, this should be your username “ab12345n” and your [PIN ?]

In the Airport menu ([snap]) in the top right corner, click the menu and select “Enter Network Name” Type in “PWN” (‘Pace Wireless Network’) and hit return. This will allow your laptop to find Pace’s network, unless you are out of range.

Open a Web browser (Safari, Firefox or Internet Explorer) and type pace.edu into the address bar then hit ENTER. This will bring up a Pace Wireless Login page before bringing you to requested site. Enter your login and password and click to connect. You will be brought to a second page confirming login, and there will be a link on that page to bring you to the requested page. Once you have logged in, you will not need to log into Pace’s network again for 24 hours.

CIS101: Excel 2007

Your first lessons in the course will teach you how to use Microsoft Excel, which is a powerful and widely-used spreadsheet and graphing program. Office 2004 for the MAC, is NOT COMPATIBLE with the version of excel we will be using EXCEL 2007. You will therefore be required to use the Computer Labs at PACE or a Windows Computer that has Excel 2007 installed to complete your lab and homework assignments. Office 2008 for MAC should be compatible with Excel 2007. Please see the link above for upgrade information.

Using Excel

The skills that you will need to use Excel on the Macintosh are same as those you will need with Excel for Windows. Although the overall ‘theme’ of the appearance differs, you will still have the same menus, buttons, and toolbars that you have on the Windows version, and files that you create on a Mac can be read on a Windows computer and vice versa. To open the assignment files on your Macintosh you will have to use “SAVE AS” in Excel 2007 and save to a Windows 97-2003 file format.

CIS101: HTML

Editing HTML in TextEdit

TextEdit is a very simple text editor for the Macintosh, which is similar to the Notepad application used in your HTML book. It will be installed in the Applications folder by default.

You can use TextEdit as an HTML editor. You can start from a new plain text or RTF file, or you can edit content in an existing HTML file.

When you create a document that contains embedded graphics, you can save it as a Web Archive file. Plain text and RTF files can be saved as HTML. You can open and edit these files in TextEdit, and you can view them in a web browser, such as Safari or Firefox.

To create plain HTML code files:

1. Create a new text document and choose Format > Make Plain Text.

2. Write the HTML code.

3. To save your file, choose File > Save. Use the extension ".html" at the end of the filename. Click Save.

4. If you want to work with an existing HTML file, choose File > Open and select the file you want. Be sure to select "Ignore rich text commands." When you save the file, it remains a ".html" file.

TextWrangler is an application developed for writing HTML code on the Mac. It has a number of features that make it very helpful for learning to code in HTML.



Viewing your Webpages:

You will already have two web browser applications installed on your computer by default. The first, Safari, is Apple’s own Web browser, and is usually already set up as your default browser. The other, Internet Explorer, is equivalent to the Explorer application for web browsing on Windows. However, we recommend that you use a third browser, Firefox, as your browser for this class, for reasons that will be clear when we start on JavaScript. You can download Firefox at . Once you run the installer, you can add Firefox to your dock.

FTP: Transferring Files to the Web Server

There are a number of FTP programs available for the Macintosh. Fetch is a simple but powerful FTP management application that you can use for moving files back and forth to your Webspace.

We have registered a version of Fetch for CIS101, which you are free to use for as long as you are at Pace.

You can download the Fetch installer from



Click on this file to install it to your Applications folder.

Opening Fetch, you can use the same address webpage.pace.edu and username/password that you use on a windows machine. Once you’ve connected, Fetch allows you to move files to and from your web server, by dragging them from your Finder window into a window with an open server.

CIS101: JavaScript

You can use TextEdit or TextWrangler to edit your JavaScript and HTML files, just as you did with your HTML files in class.

Use Firefox to open your JavaScript pages. Firefox has an advantage over Safari (and even Explorer on Windows) because of its excellent JavaScript debugger.

When you are ready to debug, select the “JavaScript Console” option under the “Tools” menu. Each time you run your script, it will list any errors that are present in your script, and show you the line that the error was found on. This can help you to track down any errors you have made more easily.

Aside from this, your JavaScript exercises should work similarly on either platform.

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