King's College Library

It's great to have so many new computers with a fast network connection in the library. This technology upgrade brings with it some changes that students need to adapt to.

There is both good news and bad news. First, the good news is that there are no floppy drives. Instead of 3 1/2 inch floppy disks, you will need a USB flash drive, or memory stick. These can be purchased at Wal-Mart, Target, or any office supply store for around $12.00. One this price will have plenty of capacity for school purposes. You do NOT need one with Gigs of memory that costs Giga-bucks.

While flash drives cost more initially, they are much more reliable than floppies. If you've ever gotten the message "This file is corrupt and unreadable" just when you wanted to print out your project that was due in five minutes, you will be grateful to have floppies banished from your academic life.

Now, the bad news. At the present time there is no direct access to the flash drive from the computers at King's. Your student U: drive will always need to be the go-between.
To OPEN A FILE ON YOUR FLASH DRIVE, follow these steps:

• Log onto the computer with your username and password.
• Insert the flash drive into one of the little up and down slots located about midway on the front of the computer.
• Watch for the little message at the bottom righthand corner of the screen that says "Found New Hardware."
• Click on "My Computer" on the desktop.
• Click on "Travel Drive (E:)" or "Removable Disk(E)." (In a few cases it may be 'F' or some other letter.)
• Locate the file you want to open and click on it ONCE.
• Now click on "My Computer" again.
• This time click on your U: drive (under Network Drives.)
• Move around the 2 windows of "My Computer" till they are positioned on the screen in such a way that you can drag the selected file on the flash drive onto your U: drive.
• To open the file, click on Internet Explorer on the desktop.
• Select the application you need to open the file--Word, Excel, etc.
• Go under File --Open
• Click on the arrow in the box beside "Look in" and select your U: drive from the drop-down list. (You may have to click "OK" in a gray box before you can get to this arrow.)
• Find the desired file and open it.

TO SAVE A FILE TO YOUR FLASH DRIVE:

• First save it to your U: drive.
• Close the file and its program.
• Click on "My Computer."
• Locate the saved file and click on it once.
• Click on "My Computer" again.
• Click on Drive E:, or whatever the letter of yourUSB drive.
• Position the two "My Computer" windows so that you can drag the selected file FROM the U: drive TO the flash drive.
• Click on the little slanted arrow in the lower righthand corner of the taskbar to safely eject the USB drive.