Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
General Information:
1. I do not have MSFT Word or Excel or Powerpoint to do my homework. How should I proceed?
If you can not afford to purchase a commercial version of the programs, you can always download for free the OpenOffice, an open source set of programs for word processing, presentations, graphics, spreadsheets e.t.c. The link to the website is: www.openoffice.org
2. What is a good plotting program?
Depending on the operating system, you can purchase or find free versions of good ploting programs. My favorite for Mac OSX is Plot. You can also create nice plots in Matlab and in Excel or compatible spreadsheet program. I encourage you to purchase the student version of Matlab. It is worth every penny!
3. How do I do a literature search? and how do I find articles in IEEE journals?
Check this example writeup that focuses on unearthing journal articles about the early microprocessors.
4. I have a Mac or a Linux machine. How can I run the windows programs?
There are two ways of doing what you want. You can use a virtual machine environment and virtualization software such as Vmware or Parallels for the MacOSX to install windows and run the programs. Alternatively you can use Wine or the commercial version Codeweavers to run windows applications under Mac OSX and Linux.