During your time at Cambridge you will have access to an extensive set of computing facilities, both in Queens’ and around the University, which will prove invaluable to you in day to day life. Below, I will take you through a few useful terms to do with services within the university, and then give you a bit more information about what facilities are available at Queens’.

Useful terms

As a fresher you are likely to hear loads of new words, phrases, and abbreviations about all things Cambridge. Unfortunately, computing is no exception. These are a few of the most important terms to help you get started. If you run into something not listed here, you can look it up at www.cam.ac.uk/cs/jargon.html

CRSid - This is your unique username within Cambridge. It takes the form of your initials followed by several numbers, e.g. bb379. It forms your email address, bb379@cam.ac.uk, and is also used in many other services.
Hermes - This is the main email service used in Cambridge. Email is used a significant amount for communicating with your director of studies, your supervisors, with the JCR and within societies. The Hermes service can be accessed online (webmail.hermes.cam.ac.uk) or you can set up your account in your favourite email client. Information on the latter can be found at www.cam.ac.uk/cs/email/muasettings.html

Raven - The unified login system for many services within Cambridge.

PWF - The Public Workstation Facility (PWF) is a shared network of PCs and Macs within Cambridge, much like the computer network you might have had at your school.

Lapwing - A wireless network available at certain locations both within Queens’ and at other locations around the university. You need your Raven login to access the internet in a Lapwing area.

Getting connected

All student rooms in Queens’ are provided with an Ethernet network socket for connecting your computer to the internet. When you arrive, you will be given instructions on how to get connected, and this is a pretty simple process. Sockets aren’t supplied with an Ethernet cable, and so while they will be on sale at certain times, you can get set up faster if you bring your own with you. You will also need your UCAS ID in order to register on the network. The cost of internet is included as part of your room rent and there is no opt out option.

Before you arrive in Cambridge you can find out your CRSid, and after you arrive you can find out the passwords for various services (Hermes, Raven and the PWF). You can do this via the page www.cam.ac.uk/cs/new-students/.
Don’t worry if you don’t get everything working immediately however, it can often take most of freshers’ week to get connected. You might want to use the computers in the computer room to check your email if it’s starting to take too long.

Computer room

Queens’ has a dedicated computer room with a number of PCs (Windows and Linux) and Macs (OS X), useful if you either don’t have a computer or need to work away from your room. It also provides internet access, free laser printing (bring your own paper), a wide range of applications for general ‘office’ type use, and specific software for your courses.
Public network sockets and Lapwing and Eduroam wireless internet are also available in the library for laptop users. Lapwing and Eduroam are also available in the college bar.

Warning about bandwidth usage

When you access a website outside the University of Cambridge network, this costs the college money. Each month you are given an initial quota of 5GB, which would give you about 7 hours of iPlayer. After this, you will have to pay for your usage at a cost of 10p per GB. This works out at about 3p for Mock The Week (30 mins), 6p for an hour of Dragons Den and about 10p to watch Dr Who in HD.

Similar charges can be racked up if you use programs such as BitTorrent, Skype or Spotify. We thus advise you to research any new download service you wish to use carefully, and keep an eye on how much bandwidth you are using. Instructions for how to do this and a handy ‘how much will I be charged’ calculator are available from the computing section of this website.

More reading

Essentially all this information and more is available on the UCS website at www.cam.ac.uk/cs/. In addition, lots of very useful information relating to on computing in Queens’ and Cambridge is also available at http://www.queens.cam.ac.uk/student-information/computing-telephones.