Information Technology & Computer Science | | Business Division

Distance Learning Information Page

General Requirements for all IT & CS Courses

Link to IT & CS On-Line Course FAQ Page (Course-Specific Information)

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Microsoft Academic Alliance Software FAQ

Many technology courses have computing requirements above and beyond other online courses you may have taken. Please review this page to insure you have the computing power to successfully start the course.

Internet Connection

• A stable internet connection is required
• An e-mail account that you can access and check on a regular basis is required. You should be able to send and receive mail and attachments with this account. The lakelandcc.edu domain should not be blocked or deemed junk mail or spam
  • We strongly recommend you use your LCC student email account. This will help both you and your instructor. Most email will be send to your mail.lakelandcc.edu account. Some instructors do not accept e-mail from students’ personal accounts, so check with your instructor before e-mailing from Gmail, hotmail, and so on.
  • Accessing your Lakeland student:
    • Via myLakeland: Login to myLakeland using your eight-digit LID and six-digit PIN. (Your six-digit PIN is your DOB, unless you’ve changed it.) Then, click the Student E-mail icon under the clocktower at the upper right. Or, go to the Student tab. The “Student Email Center” is in the first column; second Channel.
      
  • NOTE: Your e-mail name can be found in the Personal Information section of your myLakeland account.
• A 56Kbs or faster internet connection. For some courses, a high speed connection (DSL, Cable modem or LAN) may be needed for larger files.
  • Internet Service Provider (ISP) Note: If your ISP provides a customized browser (for example: AOL), you should download a new, non-customized version for your online course work.
    • We have found that customized browsers can cause many problems in the online course environment, including properly submitting exams & assignments.
    • We have found that browsers other than the current versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer (8.x) do not always work correctly in the online course environment
    • Internet Explorer Version 6 will no longer work in the online course environment
• Current anti-virus/anti-malware (spyware) and a personal firewall.
  • It is strongly recommended that you install and maintain this software on your home computer to avoid infecting yourself and others with computer viruses and worms.You can read more here: Help Desk Info on PC Infections.
  • Please update your internet security application and firewall protection often.
  • As before, make sure you are not blocking any lakelandcc.edu site.

Computer Literacy

Students are expected to have some degree of computer literacy to succeed in an online course. These tasks include (but are not limited to)

• keyboarding and word processing
• a sound knowledge of the procedures for sending/receiving e-mail, including e-mail with attached files
• a sound knowledge of navigating and conducting information searches within the World Wide Web
• a fundamental familiarity with common computing terms/activities, including (but not limited to): operating system, click, right-click, cut/copy/paste, browser, file locations, creating/naming/renaming files and folders, and file extensions.
• general familiarity with their own hardware, software, and operating system environment

Each course may have specific software you are required to use. Please check with your instructor for additional information.

Technical Support

Technical support will be provided for issues relating to the Blackboard Course Management System (logging in, passwords, and so forth). You are encouraged to call/e-mail the help desk (see the main Blackboard page for current numbers) and your instructor if there are problems.

No technical support can be provided for virus software, firewall installation and configuration, operating system, optional software, home networking, or non-course related hardware/software issues. Your instructor may provide help as appropriate for course-related software. Please note that any information provided by the instructor is advice only. This is simply because we don't have your computer in front of us, and don't have control over other technological elements (networks, routers, printers, peripherals) that you do. So as with any advice -- don't follow it blindly. Be careful. Use common sense. If you are not sure about something, ask. You may need to "rent-a-geek" to help with installation. If you still aren't sure, you may need to find a class that doesn't require software to be installed on your computer.

Developer Academic Alliance (Developer AA), formerly referred to as MSDN Academic Alliance: MSDNAA FAQ

Note the following requirements for specific software platforms

All Microsoft Office courses use Office 2007. The "Outlook" and collaboration functionality will not be used in online sections. If you have questions, please contact your instructor.

Office Professional Edition 2007 System Requirements (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/suites/HA101668651033.aspx#5)

• Computer and processor
  • 500 megahertz (MHz) processor or higher
• Memory
  • 256 megabyte (MB) RAM or higher (1 gigahertz (GHz) processor or higher and 512 MB RAM or higher recommended for Business Contact Manager. Business Contact Manager not available in all languages, 512 MB RAM or higher recommended for Outlook Instant Search. Grammar and contextual spelling in Word is not turned on unless the machine has 1 GB memory)
• Hard disk
  • 2 gigabyte (GB); a portion of this disk space will be freed after installation if the original download package is removed from the hard drive.
• Drive
  • CD-ROM or DVD drive
• Display
  • 1024x768 or higher resolution monitor
• Operating system
  • Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack (SP) 2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, or later operating system (Office Clean-up wizard not available on 64 bit OS.)
• Other
  • Certain inking features require running Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition or later.
  • Speech recognition functionality requires a close-talk microphone and audio output device.
  • Information Rights Management features require access to a Windows 2003 Server with SP1 or later running Windows Rights Management Services.
  • Connectivity to Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 or later is required for certain advanced functionality in Outlook 2007.
  • Instant Search requires Microsoft Windows Desktop Search 3.0. Dynamic Calendars require server connectivity.
  • Connectivity to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with SP1 or later running Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services is required for certain advanced collaboration functionality.
  • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is required for certain advanced functionality.
  • PowerPoint Slide Library requires Office SharePoint Server 2007.
  • To share data among multiple computers, the host computer must be running Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows XP Professional with SP2, or later. Internet Explorer 6.0 or later, 32 bit browser only.
  • Internet functionality requires Internet access (fees may apply).
  • Additional Actual requirements and product functionality may vary based on your system configuration and operating system.

Visual Studio .NET

• See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/4c26cc39.aspx for current requirements.
• Supported Architectures
  
  • x86
    
  • x64 (WOW)
    
• Supported Operating Systems
  
  • Windows XP Service Pack 2 or above
    
  • Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 or above
    
  • Windows Server 2003 R2 or above
    
  • Windows Vista
    
  • Windows Server 2008
    
    • (Note from Professor Tony Ruque: Windows 7, even though not listed above by Microsoft, seems to be compatible with Visual Studio 2008. I have it installed on a test system and so far, encountered no issues.)
      
• Hardware Requirements
  
  • Minimum: 1.6 GHz CPU, 384 MB RAM, 1024x768 display, 5400 RPM hard disk
    
  • Recommended: 2.2 GHz or higher CPU, 1024 MB or more RAM, 1280x1024 display, 7200 RPM or higher hard disk
    
  • On Windows Vista: 2.4 GHz CPU, 768 MB RAM

Netbeans IDE

The NetBeans Systems Requirements are here: http://netbeans.org/community/releases/index.html (opens in a new window)

Operating Systems

In general, these are minumum requirements. You may need additional resources (memory, CPU speed, hard disk, video, etc) to run applications on top of these operating systems.

Windows 7 System Requirements (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/system-requirements)

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Windows 2008 Server System Requirements
( http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/system-requirements.aspx )

• Processor
  • Minimum: 1 GHz (x86 processor) or 1.4 GHz (x64 processor)
  • Recommended: 2 GHz or faster
  • Note: An Intel Itanium 2 processor is required for Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems
• Memory
  • Minimum: 512 MB RAM
  • Recommended: 2 GB RAM or greater
  • Optimal: 2 GB RAM (Full installation) or 1 GB RAM (Server Core installation) or more Maximum (32-bit systems): 4 GB (Standard) or 64 GB (Enterprise and Datacenter)
  • Maximum (64-bit systems): 32 GB (Standard) or 2 TB (Enterprise, Datacenter, and Itanium-Based Systems)
• Available Disk Space
  • Minimum: 10 GB
  • Recommended: 40 GB or greater
  • Note: Computers with more than 16 GB of RAM will require more disk space for paging, hibernation, and dump files
• Drive
  • DVD-ROM drive
• Display
  • Super VGA (800 × 600) or higher resolution monitor
• Other
  • Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

Windows Vista Business Recommended system requirements (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/business/default.mspx)

• 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 GB of system memory
• 40 GB hard drive with at least15 GB of available space
• Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
  • WDDM Driver
  • 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
  • Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
  • 32 bits per pixel
• DVD-ROM drive
• Audio Output
• Internet access (fees may apply)
• Additional requirements to use certain features Windows Tablet and Touch Technology requires a Tablet PC or a touch screen
• Actual requirements and product functionality may vary based on your system configuration.
• While all editions of Windows Vista can support multiple core CPUs, only Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise can support dual processors.
• Windows Vista Business Minimum supported system requirements
  • Certain product features are not available with minimum supported requirements.
  • 800 MHz processor and 512 MB of system memory
  • 20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
  • Support for Super VGA graphics
  • CD-ROM drive

Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition System Requirements

• Minimum CPU Speed: 133 MHz
• Recommended CPU Speed: 550 MHz
• Minimum RAM: 128 MB
• Recommended Minimum RAM: 256 MB
• Maximum RAM: 4 GB
• Multiprocessor Support: Up to 4
• Disk Space for Setup: 1.5 GB

Windows XP Professional System Requirements

• PC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233 MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system); Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended
• 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)
• 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available hard disk space
• Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution video adapter and monitor
• CD-ROM or DVD drive
• Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

If your course is not specifically listed or additional information is needed, please contact your instructor.

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