Frequently Asked Questions

General IT questions and answers

1. Problems with your computer, emails, network etc.?
2. Labs within the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences (FASS)
3. Access to Labs
4. Lab Behaviour
5. Printing
6. What is my quota (computer labs - student disk quotas)?
7. Firefox won't open when I am logged in with my "Network Account"
8. IT Back Up Guide for Mac Users (updated: 09/04/09)

1. Problems with your computer, emails, network etc.

Staff and students experiencing problems with computers or peripherals should call the IT Service Desk.

Experiencing difficulties with computers, networks, web, telephony or audiovisual equipment?

Request support via the Service Desk
Extension: 51333
Tel.: 9385 1333
Email: servicedesk@unsw.edu.au
In Person: Service Desk Counter, Library, Level 2
Fax: 9385 1537

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2. Labs within the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences (FASS)

Morven Brown and Mathews Buildings - The Morven Brown building has two computer labs on the Lower Ground floor - rooms LG47 and LG49. The Mathews Building has two labs on the second floor - rooms 210 and 211. The Morven Brown and Mathews Buildings, along with the Webster Building are part of FASS. The labs in the Webster Building are for production students, access to these labs is restricted.

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3. Access to labs

Use your student ID card (also called "swipe card"), by swiping or passing it through the card reader.
If you have a class in any of the computer labs make sure you have swipe access to that lab before your class begins.
Your swipe card will give you access to facilities 24 hours/7 days a week.
Students experiencing difficulties accessing labs suites, with their swipe cards, should contact the TRC administrator (level 1 Morven Brown, room 105) immediately.
If you are unsure what facilities you are entitled to access, please check with your school administrator.

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4. Lab Behaviour

Food and drinks are not permitted in the labs.
You may drink water from ‘sipper’ bottles only; however these bottles are not to be placed on the desks. Students who bring food or drink into the labs will be asked to leave. Students who consistently ignore this rule will be reported to the Head of School.

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5. Printing

In order to print in Computer Labs LG47 and LG49 located in the Morven Brown Building or Computer Lab 210 and Lab 211 located in the Mathews Building you will need to encode your UNSW ID card and add value at the library via the EPAY Stations. To set up your card to use the printing system or for more information please review link below.
http://info.library.unsw.edu.au/usd/services/photocopy.html

For issues with printing such as paper or print cartridges etc please contact the Service Desk on phone: 9385 1333 or email: servicedesk@unsw.edu.au

Production students printing in Robert Webster have been allocated a print quota - students can top up their quota by providing a reem of paper to the TRC office in Webster.

There are several places on campus where you can access computers, printers and photocopiers. The library has printing and photocopy services whilst UNSW Source provide free use of computers as well as user pays printing and copying. All Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences students may use the general access labs in the Morven Brown and Mathews Buildings.

Kensington Campus Library Printing Services : Self service photocopying, scanning and printing are available during general Library opening hours. Photocopying and printing is available on all levels. Colour copying and printing available on Level 2. Transparency copying available on Level 2. Scanning available on Level 2.

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6. Student Disk Quotas

What is my Quota?
Students have been allocated 200mb of disk space for their home folders. This space is intended for storing documents not music files or large image files.

What happens when my Quota is reached?
When 90% of this quota is used an e-mail is sent to the UNSW student e-mail account. When 100% of the quota is reached you will not be able to save anything to your home folder. There are some programs i.e. Safari and Final Cut Pro that save data to a preference file stored in your home folder when they open. If you cannot save to your home folder these programs will not open.

How to manage your Quota
There are several things you can do to make sure you don’t reach the quota limit;
Keep an eye on your Home folder size, delete files you don’t need and empty the trash.
To see your home folder size, open a finder window and click on the house icon in the left Sidebar.

diskquota The space available to you is written at the bottom of the window.

To see where the large files are; on the finder menu, click View > Show View Options this will put values in the Size column.

You may find you’ve deleted everything and emptied the trash but you still have no space. It could be you have a large number of cached files taking up space. To get rid of these;

Open QuickTime Player, go to QuickTime > QuickTime Preferences. A Preference pane will open, select the Browser Tab. Uncheck Save Movies in Cache and Click Empty Download Cache. Open Safari, go to Safari > Empty Cache.

If that doesn’t work
If you’ve followed these steps and can’t find where the space has gone please call the service desk on Tel. 9385 1333. You’ll need to leave your contact details so we can help troubleshoot your problem.

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7. Firefox won't open when I am logged in with my "Network Account"

Go to your "Home" folder
Go to your "Library" folder
Mac's have two Library folders, one for the System and one for your account, make sure you go to the one in your "Home" folder
Go to your "Application Support" folder (inside the Library folder)
Locate the "Firefox" folder and rename it something else, for example "FirefoxBackup"
Now try starting Firefox

This problem seems to occur when Firefox shuts down abnormally. To reduce the likelihood of this occurring it is recommended that you close Firefox before logging out or shutting down the computer.
Download the step-by-step guide

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8. IT Back Up Guide for Mac Users (updated: 09/04/09)

This guide contains important information about backup services and procedures for all FASS Macintosh Users.
For additional information on this topic, please contact the UNSW IT Service Desk on 93851333.

Contents of Guide
1. Definitions
2. Automated File Backups
3. Automated Email Backups
4. What is TRC’s Backup Strategy?
5. What Else Can Users Do?
6. Setting Home Sync Preferences
7. Self-Assessment and Resolving Problems
8. Who To Contact

Download IT Back Up Guide for MAC Users guide

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