Computing & Information Services

Virtual T-Watcher

What is a t-watcher?
How do I find a t-watcher?
T-watch hours
What will the t-watcher ask me?
Before you ask for help, read this. . .

What is a T-watcher?

T-watcher is short for terminal watcher. This is a reference to Olde Reed, where we had terminal-style computers that weren't good for much besides math problems.

Today, t-watchers are students who work at the ETC Delp Desk, supporting Mac and Windows software and computers. We are the front line for questions and problems relating to anything from thesis formatting, to printing, to when your laptop won't start. If you are having problems with your personal computer, a t-watcher can help. We concentrate on academic computing problems and therefore may be unable to help with time-consuming non-academic problems.

We also help manage and maintain the IRC computer labs in the ETC. If you are having trouble on an IRC machine, please don't hesitate to come find a t-watcher at the Help Desk. We'll be able to help.

How do I find a T-watcher?

T-watchers are found at the ETC Help Desk, keeping watch over the IRCs. This is the best place to bring your questions.

T-Watch hours

Aside from normal business hours, T-watchers are also available Sunday through Thursday, 5pm - midnight. During the summer we are on duty 8:30am to 5pm Monday through Thursday (closed for lunch 12-1pm); and Fridays 8:30am-12pm. If you don't see any t-watchers during business hours, please seek help from a professional staff member.

We may have extra hours before theses are due, during finals week, and the night before Hum 110 papers are due.

Help desk phone number: 777-7525

You can almost always get in touch with a t-watcher simply by emailing twatch@reed.edu with your question and detailed information.

What will the t-watcher ask me?

Whether you're calling, emailing, or dropping by, we'll need all the details you can give us about your problem and your computer.

First, tell us your name and your phone number in case we need to call you back later. Let us know whether you're running a Mac, PC, or something else, and which operating system. On a Mac, go to the Apple menu and About This Computer. On a PC, right click on My Computer and select Properties. Also tell us when the problem occurred, where your computer was, and if you were hooked up to the network or using a wireless card. Tell us what applications were active when you had the problem, and write down any error messages that appeared. Tell us what exactly the problem seems to be, and what your specific needs are.

Before you ask for help, read this . . .

The answers to many of your questions can be found on the CUS website and/or in the Technology Survival Guide. These are good places to look first with questions about printing, networking, and telephones. Here are some very basic suggestions for common problems.

My dorm printer needs TLC (paper, toner, it's not working!)

T-watchers are responsible for keeping the dorm printers supplied with paper and toner. Every printer is visited once a week during the evening to be tested, and resupplied. If your dorm printer is out of paper, is printing streaked or pale pages, or is not working, please call x7525 or email twatch immediately so we can get it fixed as quickly as possible. If it is an emergency, contact CUS first and then ask your HA for access to their emergency supplies.

It won't print.

The first thing to check is whether or not the printer system knows who you are. Check that you have a kerberos ticket by opening the Kerberos application in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder. If you have a ticket, your username should show up under Tickets. If someone else's name is there and you are on a lab machine, that means you are working on a machine you did not log into. Save your work on your home server, log out, and log back in as yourself. Only then will it work. If it is blank, you need to get a ticket by clicking New. A dialogue box will appear asking for your username and password.

On a Windows machine, make sure you have the printer drivers installed and that you are connected to the appropriate group of printers. Click here for more information on connecting to the printers. If you are already connected to the printers, but have been working for a long time, you may need to connect again.

Second, hit Command+P and check that the printer shown is IRC Spooler (or whichever Library printer you want to use). If it is something else, then you need to choose the right printer and try again.

If you are in the IRCs, check the green-on-black terminal display to the left of the printers to see if your print job showed up. If it did, but shows an error, try printing again. Sometimes large files can take a really long time to print, so be a little patient if the terminal is dwelling on your print job.

Look at your print queue by opening the Print Center from the Applications folder in the Utilities subfolder. If it's jammed up by a large file like a pdf or an image, you might need to delete that for other jobs to be able to print, and then try it again later.

The IRC computer crashed and when I signed back in my files aren't on my desktop any more!

Any t-watcher or CUS staff member can usually recover your files when this happens. It takes about two minutes. Just ask us within seven days of losing the file, and remember which computer it was. If you need the file immediately and nobody is on duty, email twatch@reed.edu to request help and one of us is likely to be in the vicinity.

We can't recover files that haven't been saved, so be sure you save your work frequently, and keep backing it up. If you've been working on a paper for an hour since your last save, that hour will be lost. We offer many resources for backing up work, such as the Home Server. See Backup Your Work for more information.

The spinning beach ball thing won't stop spinning, or the computer is frozen.

First, wait for a few minutes and see if the computer sorts itself out. Then save your work and restart the application(s) that you were using. If the whole system is going slow and freezing a lot, try restarting the computer.

If the beach ball/freeze persists, try to force quit. This is done by holding down apple + option + escape and selecting the program(s) that you want to force to quit. You will lose any information that you haven't saved in the programs that you quit this way. There's nothing we can do about that, so it's best to save often.

Mac power button location If all else fails, you can turn the computer off completely by holding down the power button on the back (see picture) for about ten seconds. Then turn the computer back on, and (if you were on an IRC computer) find a t-watcher to recover any files that you might have had on the desktop.

How do I scan?

Use one of the computers that is near a scanner. Make sure the scanner is plugged into the computer and the socket. Sometimes the scanner glass gets smudged, so check it and let us know if we need to clean it before you can work. Directions on how to use the scanner are here.

How do I burn a CD?

Put the CD in the computer. Drag the files you want to burn onto the CD icon. Then drag the icon to the trash/eject/dismount icon in the dock. This will burn the files. Drag the icon to the trash again to eject the CD. More complete directions are here.

My CD is stuck in the computer, or my disk is stuck in the drive.

Restarting the computer (not just signing in again) will almost always return the CD icon to the desk top so that you can eject it by dragging it to the trash/dismount/eject icon in the dock. If this doesn't work, reboot and hold the mouse button down while your computer is booting.

I forgot my password or login name.

Bring yourself and your ID in to the help desk during business hours and a full time CUS staff person will be happy to help you. We can look up your username, and assign you a new password. Outside of regular business hours, ask the t-watcher on duty for help. Some (but not all) t-watchers can also reset your password. Regardless of who is helping you reset your password, we will need a picture ID.

Your login name (or "network username") is the same as your @reed.edu email address, and should be the first seven letters of your last name (or your entire last name, if it contains fewer than seven letters) followed by your first initial (e.g. John Doe's login name would be doej). In exceptional cases- such as when two or more Reed community members would have the same login name- we can look up your login name for you.

It's really slow.

That might just be the network. You can also try another computer, or make sure that you aren't running too many applications at once.