What you need in order do schoolwork, send and receive email, and
access the Internet:
- Pentium 233
- 64 MB of RAM
- 5 GB Hard Drive
- Windows 98 operating system
This is a minimum requirement. Many of
the inexpensive computers on the market today are more than adequate
to do what is necessary for schoolwork and to connect to the
Internet.
All of the computers at South Puget Sound Community College run Microsoft Office
software for word processing, spread sheets, databases, and
presentation programs. Many home computers have Microsoft Works
installed. Microsoft Works programs will not read Microsoft Office
programs. It is recommended that you have Microsoft Office on your
home computer.
If you are going to connect to the South Puget Sound Community College web page, you will need
to get an Internet Service Provider (ISP). There are several ISP’s
in the Olympia area that have varying types of service. The
cheapest is a 56 KB dial-up modem connection. This is a fairly slow
connection, so things will not download rapidly, but they will
download. Several of the ISP’s have broadband Internet connections
that are much faster than the dial-up, but that service
costs more. If you are thinking of a broadband connection, than you
want to get a computer with an Ethernet network connection in it.
That is what the broadband ISPs require.
The web browser that you will need in order to see the South Puget Sound Community College
homepage is at least Netscape 4.6 or higher, or Microsoft Internet
Explorer version 5.5 or higher. If you purchase a new computer on
the market today, it will probably come with Internet Explorer 6.0
or higher. If you have an older version of either Netscape or
Internet Explorer, you can update either of them by going to the Netscape or Microsoft web sites and downloading updated
versions.
