Preliminary draft--started copyright procedures, so permission is granted to

use this information freely provided you give the author, Dr. Allen Don,

Warning:Panther has changed DNS address. So, wherever you see 198.138.79.2, or 12.20.16.4, use 192.147.12.4 instead.


 

allendon@panther.adelphi.edu Click on e-mail address or on flying envelope to send message to Dr. Don.
 
 D^4-D**4 DR. DON'S DIGITAL DIGEST

Part I. Creating your Personal Web Page.

Part II Configuring Mail program on your browser

PartIIIDistance Learning Tools-NYTimes Taking in the Sites Distance Learning Tools and Links-New York Times

Revision in Progress-information here is accurate for present Panther and Mustang.

Part I. Creating your Personal Web Page on Adelphi Unix Servers.

Adelphi Tools:the Unix (Panther) system administrator has been providing a most elementary,
but very useful, web page to each person desiring it. It will contain your
e-mail address so that anyone clicking (with mouse) or hitting "enter" key
will invoke an e-mail format for the person reading your page to compose a
letter to you. Therefore, a professor's web page will have e-mail availability
for the student--and vice versa--the student will be providing e-mail
availability for his fellow students and for the professor. In addition, the
e-mail protocol now provides the facility to attach any size word-processor
or any binary file to the e-mail so that the recipient can receive a file in
any format chosen by the sender. Thus, the FTP (file transfer protocol) is not
a necessity, though many times you will want to use FTP for transfering files
to other people, or between your own computer at home to your personal directory
on the university computer.
A superb website for information and software for Telnet, FTP, E-mail, Browsers, HTML, and UNIX is available by clicking HERE, as well as the methodology for sending and receiving class assignments.
In addition, you can post information on your web page for other students and
for the professor. Of course, the professor can post assignments for students
on his home page.
A more complete web page creation mechanism is available through Netscape, the developer of the Netscape browser. Clicking HERE will link you toNetscape's guides and templates which will create a page for you with great ease.
Avoid getting too complex--you will want others from the Adelphi communityto be able to access your page for information--it is the message, not the medium, that is important.
 

Once you have created your page, you will want to be able to modify and/or add to it easily. This accomplished by using Netscape Gold on panther(our Unix computer). Netscape Gold, in addition to being a browser,is also an editor. Netscape Communicator also provides an editor to help create web pages--"communictor's" editor is called "composer".
 

However, from your home, using a modem, Lynx, panther's "line mode browser",is the most effective tool for modifying or creating new web pages, once you have become a little more familiar with the HTML (Hypetext Markup Language)tags and symbols. A "line mode browser" is simply one which has no graphics, but otherwise has your text and links.
 

Some of the terms I am using will be unfamiliar to you, but as you immerseyourself in surfing, the language will become second nature. At this stage, I am trying to give you a quick overview rather than a complete tutorial.
 

You can have complete graphical browser service through Adelphi's modems using PPP or SLIP emulation. Normal ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have PPP or SLIP hardware implementation. Adelphi has SLIrP (this is not a misprint). Some of us also have TIA (The Internet Adapter). SLIrP and TIA are software emulations of SLIP and PPP hardware. But, unless you are already fairly familiar with Windows3.1 and/or Windows95, it is somewhat tricky to implement. However, if you chose to implemnt SLIP on our panther Unix machine, you can download the necessary Win95 files directly from Microsoft by clicking HERE, The file is a self-extracting compressed file with several files in it. This will provide the software necessary to connect via modem and telephone line from home to our Unix (panther) server. This will enable you to have full graphical internet access from home; i.e., you will have a full TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/internet protocol} from a modem/phone line outside of the university.

An alternative to downloading the microsoft compressed file mentioned in the previous paragraph is to use a shareware program called Trumpet Winsock.This is available on Adelphi's anonymous FTP server or you can click HERE to get it. It works both on Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 because it is a 16bit program which is compatible with both versions of Windows. Caution here--Trumpet Winsock is shareware which asks for a contribution if you use it more than 30 days--you are on the honor system. Neither Trumpet Winsock nor the Micorsoft download (dscrpt.exe) is for the faint-hearted. None of these in use at Adelphi have automatic configuration as you have from a regular internet provider. In fact, my advice is to sign up for one of the special introductory offers from an Internet Service Provider--get familiar with what goes on with the internet and the various tools--look at the various files that the ISP has created for you--your files for Adelphi will be almost identical, but with different numbers posted in the various spaces--i.e, such as the internet address of Adelphi panther server (198.138.79.2) instead of the internet address of the ISP. You can use the Netscape Browser supplied by your ISP for accessing Adelphi, or an other ISP, for that matter. Regarding Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser--while I use both Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser as well as Netscape--I regard Netscape as the superior product for integrating the browser and html editor(for constructing web pages). I also use Microsofts editor Front Page, but still prefer Netscape for web page creatiion and publishing to our Panther and Mustang servers.

An advantage of using a SLIP emulator, hence an effectively internet TCP/IP connection, is that you can have several sessions active at the same time on your panther account. Thus, you can be editing a web document on one screen and testing it on another screen, even from home on the same modem with the same telephone line and in your same personal directory at Adelphi--quite a powerful scenario. For example, I am typing these very words at home with my Netscape editor. I then will transfer the file to my account at Adelphi. I then will use another window for my Netscape browser to view to see if I am satisfied with the result.

For Nassau and Suffolk library card holders, you can log-on to the internet with true PPP or SLIP connection with the software and browser provided by these libraries. Then, you can go right over via the internet to look at your panther or mustang account--look at your e-mail and publish to your web page on the Adelphi servers.

By far the best tool for editing in text mode is "pico". It is an editor on "panther" that is easy to use. It is identical to the e-mail utility editor on panther's e-mail utility "pine". Whether using pine or pico, the commands are listed at the bottom of the screen so you do not have to search far for the most used commands. In addition, one press of a key, and "help" screens pop up. So, you are never without help at your finger tips.

Unix Commands for Assisting in personal WWW home page creation.

Your home page will assume the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) form of


http://www.adelphi.edu/~your-login-ID/your-home-page-name.html .


Mine, for example, is http://www.adelphi.edu/~allendon/drdon.html.

Anyone with Adelphi login privileges on panther.adelphi.edu (Digital Unix

machine), can have his or her own personal WWW home page. The information that

the world will be able to see will be in a file you create in a subdirectory

of your home directory.  Your home directory is named as your login ID.


The principles are:

1. Create the subdirectory that the www.adelphi.edu will be looking for when

someone specifies your WWW URL. THIS SUBDIRECTORY IS public_html . Unix

languages are case sensitive, so be careful when typing upper and lower case.


2. Create the file in that subdirectory that will be activated when someone

seeks it.

3. Create the permission for the outside world to look at this subdirectory,

public_html, the path to it and to the files that are your home page and

references called by your home page.

The minimum UNIX command base.

ls -l       Long format listing giving information including permissions. 

ls -lt      Long format listing giving same as ls -l ,but putting the list of files
            in order of time and dates created.
  |more        The | is called a pipe. It is on your keyboard, usually above the \ backslash.
            It performs the same function as the "forwardslash-p" in DOS. In DOS, you can
            either  /p or |more to force the screen to display one page at a time rather
            than scrolling through an entire document or entire set of files in a directory.
            Thus, if I want to see the files in my directory in order of time and date and
            one page at a time, I give the command
 ls -lt *.* |more   . The *.* is the called a wildcard so I see all of the files.
            If I want to see only my graphics files in order of time, date, and one page at
            a time, I give the command
 ls -lt *.gif |more , or
 ls -lt *.jpg |more
cd          Change directory to your home directory.

cd ..       Change one directory up (previous directory).
cd [dir]     Change to directory specified.

pwd       Present working directory. Tells you in which directory you are.

mkdir [dir]    Make a directory

chmod [option] [filename]           Changes privileges(permissions),files and
                                   directories. Examples below will demonstrate.
     options       u        User 

                   g        Group       

                   o        Other

                   a        All (includes u,g, and o)


     permissions   r        Read

                   w        Write  

                   x        Execute

     opcode        +        Add permission

     opcode        -        takes away permission

The sequence of commands, using the above as reference, follows:

Immediately after logging in, at the Unix prompt, follow the commands below,

except, it is a good idea to check at each stage, using ls-l , to observe if

your commands have succeeded(see comments at end):



mkdir public_html   (this creates directory which will hold your web page)



Then, after you have created your home html page in the in public_html

subdirectory, you must create the permissions for it and any other files

referenced by the home page html file.



chmod a+r public_html  (this allows the world to look at your directory in
which you have your web page and elements and links needed by it-gives all people
read priveleges).


cd public_html  (this changes the directory to public_html)



In my case, I give permission to the world to look at my home WWW page html


as follows:   


chmod a+r drdon.html     (drdon.html is my web page in public_html subdirectory.



In addition, the .gif (graphics) files referenced by drdon.html are given


permission in the same manner.  


In my case, (in the public_html subdirectory), I have a .gif file w0010.gif
that is called into use by my web page, so I let everybody see it by giving
everybody read privileges to it witht he following chmod command:

chmod a+r w0010.gif
Since the public will only need to read your files, you

only need the "r". It is highly unlikely you will want anyone one to "x"

execute a file on your home page. In fact, if you, for some reason, put an

self-extracting *.exe file on your home page for some one to download, you

definitely will want to avoid the "x" option of chmode.


Use ls -l to constantly check to see if you are succeeding.
The left hand column of the display will show 10 elements.

Example: drwxr-xr-x will show that the d (directory) gives permission to the

user (you) to read, right, execute, to the group to read and execute, and to

all others, read and execute. If is a file rather than a directory, 

the d will not appear; you may see, for example, -rwxr-xr-x .




Part II. Configuring your e-mail on your local browser.

Click HERE to go to Browser Mail Configuration Instructions


Good luck.