Freshers' Guide - Technology

Your Computer

You'll quickly find that a computer is one of the handiest items to bring with you to Merton – whether it's to procrastinate from a particularly dull essay, or even to actually do some research or background reading for the essay (my little joke). Despite its considerable age, Merton is rather modern in technological terms, and we have all the necessary facilities to ensure that you can get everything done, including free unlimited printing in the computer rooms! Every room in College has access to the internet. You'll need an ethernet cable – a 2 metre one will work for your desk and for libraries, and should probably stretch to your bed (which, you will find, is ideal), but a 10 metre one would make absolutely sure. If you don't already have one, you can purchase them very cheaply from the University IT services at the beginning of Freshers' Week – they are available in high street stores, but criminally overpriced.

Merton has a very generous internet provision for students – you may freely use up to 2GB of bandwidth a day (sounds a lot, and it is – 6 hours of regular web surfing is generally less than 200MB). If, for some reason, you are likely to exceed this for genuine academic purposes, you should inform the College IT Manager beforehand, or suspicions may be raised. If you want to keep track of your usage, you can use Down2Home (for Windows), SurplusMeter (for Macs), or vnstat (for Linux), all of which are freely available on the internet. The College network access is intended primarily for academic usage, but you can still put it to personal use (e.g. Facebook – incidentally, I should mention how useful Facebook becomes at university, in order to keep tabs on your new friends, upcoming events, amusing photos, etc. It is well worth signing up and creating a profile). There is a blanket ban on all P2P software such as Limewire and BitTorrent – just be sensible.

If you happen not to be very good with computers, don't worry: the procedure for getting your computer set up and connected is actually very simple, and help will be on hand if you get stuck. If you have any questions or issues about such matters, don't hesitate to get in contact with the IT Rep, Tomer (tomer.chachamu <at> merton.ox.ac.uk) for any tech support. If you want to get set up as soon as possible (Wednesday), write down the MAC address of your computer's Ethernet connection on a slip of paper and bring it with you when you arrive. Check the College IT website (http://mcit.merton.ox.ac.uk) for more details and step-by-step instructions.

Computer Rooms

There are also computers provided around College: a computer room in each library, and another computer in the post room. Printing facilities are also available in these rooms if you don't have a printer of your own. There's no charge for printing, but there's a set allocation of paper each day, so be conservative and print double sided.

Phones

Each room has a telephone socket, but phones themselves are not provided. You can pick up a basic one very cheaply in Argos when you arrive. You can call any other phone in the University network for free, but to call external numbers you will need a pre-paid card (the kind you buy in newsagents). Also under this heading should be mobile phones – reception in the centre of Oxford is poor for a lot of networks, though it has improved recently. Don't be surprised if you find yourself with no network coverage in the city centre, or even half of your room.

Wii

The JCR has a Nintendo Wii which is free for all students (and their guests) to use. This requires a key which can be borrowed from the lodge. Currently we have the following:

• Wii Sports
• Wii Play
• Mario Kart Wii
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2008
• Guitar Hero III
• Guitar Hero: World Tour (with all the instruments)
• four controllers and nunchuks

You can also bring your own games (UK/Europe region games only), as many JCR members have done in the past.