To those enrolled in ECS 158 or on the waiting list for it:


This is a vitally important message concerning the way we will take
exams (weekly quizzes).  As noted in the course overview, 

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/158/PrequarterHeadsUp.html

we will use the OMSI system,

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/158/OMSI

as the vehicle via which you will take the quizzes.

YOU WILL NEED A LAPTOP COMPUTER FOR THIS.  You will bring your laptop to
class (discussion section) to take the quizzes.

Your laptop does not have to be fancy.  ANY OLD, SLOW MACHINE IS FINE
provided it will run the gcc compiler.

One caveat:  The standard compiler for Macs does not handle OpenMP, a
standard parallel computation tool that we will use in our course.  Thus
you will need to download a more sophisticated compiler.  Instructions
for this will be posted in the next few days.  (Or you can run Linux in
a virtual machine.) 

Our use of OMSI will be to your great benefit.  In writing code on a
pencil-and-paper exam, if your code is wrong then you won't know it.
With OMSI, you'll compile and run your code, and if you find it's wrong,
then you can fix it.  with the result that YOU WILL GET A BETTER GRADE.

Norm