Princeton University
Computer Science Dept.

Computer Science 109
Computers in Our World

Andrea LaPaugh

Fall 2010
Directory
General Information | Schedule and Assignments |  Announcements



Jan. 28, final announcement:  Solutions to the final exam (pdf) are now available. 



Important dates: Office Hours:  Jan 3 through Jan 19 (as always,  send email to arrange other times)

Review Sessions:

Final Exam:  Wed, Jan 19 7:30 p.m. Computer Science Building 104 (large auditorium)



Jan. 28:  Solutions to the final exam (pdf) are now available. 

Jan. 16:  These are the exam instructions regarding allowed reference materials:

This examination is open-book and open-note:

Jan. 13:  As requested, here are copies of the 2009 final exam and 2008 final exam without solutions so you can use them as practice exams.  You may wish to first review the remarks at the beginning of each exam with solutions posted Dec. 29 because these remarks point out the questions on topics that were not covered this year.


Dec. 29:   Study aids for the final exam:  2009 final exam with solutions and remarks (pdf) and 2008 final exam with solutions and remarks(pdf).


Dec. 16:
Dec 12: 


Dec 4: 


Dec 1: 


November 29:   Lab 7 has been revised and an updated version posted.  The ONLY change is that we must require you to submit in the Excel 97-2004 Workbook (.xls) format.  We thought we could grade files in either the new (.xlsx) or old (.xls) format, but that has proven to not be the case.   If you have started on the lab and saved as lab7.xlsx (the new format) you need only open your workbook and "save as" with the old format selected.  Before doing any more work, close lab7.xls, re-open it, and check that your lab7.xls version has preserved all your formulas and charts.  Do not delete your lab7.xlsx version in case you have any problems.


 November 18
November 10  News articles discussed in class today:

November 9:  Solutions to the midterm exam (pdf) are now available.

October 25:
October 22:
Once you have picked up your printed copy of the midterm exam next week, you cannot see me, Arman or Jacopo for help with course material. However, if you still have questions when Tuesday morning arrives, you may postpone picking up the exam and consult one of us. We will be keeping track of who picks up the exam when.

Students may not discuss course material with each other or with the lab assistants once the exam is available, that is, after 9:30 AM Tuesday (10/26).

Arman, Jacopo and I will hold our normal office hours Monday through Thursday next week. Jacopo's Friday office hours are canceled. As always, you may ask for an appointment at another time. I will not answer questions on material covered on the exam in Peyton on Wednesday; you need to come to my office.

Good luck with your studying. And don't forget the review sessions Sunday and Monday nights.

Andrea LaPaugh




October 21, 5:36 PM:  To aid you in studying, here are midterm 2009 and solutions,  midterm 2008 and solutions - all are pdf files.  Please note that the topics covered each year are not identical,  so if you have never heard of some concept on one of these old exams, it may be that we did not cover it.  Remember that there are review sessions (see under Oct. 18) to address your questions.


October 19:  Solutions for Problem Set 3 are now available.


October 18:
COS 109 -> Tools (in left menu) -> My Grades (near bottom of page)


October 15, 2010:  The midterm exam will be open-book and take-home with restrictions.  The instructions will read, in part:

"This is a 90-minute exam that you must complete in a single 90-minute period any time before it is due.
This examination is open-book and open-note:  you may use course notes, your own notes, corrected problem sets and solutions, old exams and answer sheets from the course web page, lab instructions, etc.  You may use a calculator.  You may not use a computer or phone (except that you can use the calculator program on a computer or phone, and you can use your computer to view course notes if you did not print them).

"Write your answers directly on these pages."

The exam will become available at 9:30 AM on Tuesday October 26, 2010.  It may be picked up at Professor LaPaugh's office - Room 304 Computer Science Building.

The exam is due by 5:00 PM SHARP on Friday October 29, 2010.  Turn it in to Professor LaPaugh at her office.

There are question&answer sessions planned for Sunday, October 24 at 8pm and Monday October 25 at 8pm.  Check later announcements for locations of the sessions and for sample exams from previous years.


October 13, 2010, 11:35am:
October 12, 2010:  Solutions for Problem Set 2 are now available.

October 11, 2010:  The news articles we looked at in class today:

October 7, 2010:  For anyone who would like a reference for the character codes for all the languages representable by unicode: Unicode 5.2 Character Code Charts from unicode.org.

October 6, 2010:  News in today's class:  New York Times article on Nobel Prize for work on graphene

October 5, 2010:  Solutions for Problem Set 1 are now available.

October 4, 2010

   3:15pm:
"The human genome consists of some 2.9 billion of the letters AGCT, the equivalent of about 750 megabytes of data."
This means the human genome can be represented as a word 2.9 billion letters long, where each letter is either an "A", a "G", a "C" , or a "T". We assumed people would be familiar with this representation, but that may not be the case. Sorry for any confusion.



September 27, 2010

6:30 PM:   First Lab session is TONIGHT in Friend 009 (basement)  from 7:30-10:20pm.  Here is regular lab schedule for all days. 

6:55 PM:    Here are links to the news articles featured last Wednesday and today:


September 21, 2010,  links to the news articles featured on Monday:


September 9, 2010:  Welcome to COS 109. 

A.S. LaPaugh