FIT 100:  Fluency with Information Technology

Lab 1: UW NetID, Email, Activating Student Web Pages

 

Table of Contents:

1.    UW Email: WebPine....................................................................................... 4

2.    Creating folders using WebPine........................................................................ 5

3.    UW Email: Pine............................................................................................. 8

4.    Send A Test Email....................................................................................... 11

5.    Create a Directory for Email:......................................................................... 12

6.    Move Messages to other Folders.................................................................... 13

7.   Enabling Student Web Pages.......................................................................... 14

A look at your remote file space at the UW............................................................. 17

 

Introduction:

This is the first lab for “Fluency with Information Technology” or CSE/INFO 100 as you know it.  The goals are simple: to assure that every student entering the course has a certain comfort level with two of the tools used for communication and lab work:  Email and Personal Web Page accessibility. 

 

Objectives:

To get all students up to speed on:

  1. Email with the UW WebPine and the PINE email system
  2. An initial understanding of email server space
  3. Enabling student web pages

 

To Do:

 

In order to insure that you and only you have access to your account space, your password should be something easy to remember, but not easily guessed.  You should never give your password out to others.  The UW requires that passwords be 8 to 20 characters long and include both upper and lowercase letters as well as numbers.  The password cannot be a common dictionary term.

 

The University of Washington Department of Computing and Communication (C&C) has provided a series of help pages to establish and manage your UW account. 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


1.    Getting Started

 

Everyone should have a UW Net ID, since you needed it to register for FIT100. You will reach the UW portal via the WWW.

 

Portal:

  • Also known as a Gateway
  • A portal is a web page that is considered a starting point for users when they first enter a web site. 
  • At the UW, your UW portal contains information and links that the University considers relevant and important to you as a student. 

 

A major example of a portal that you may have used is UW Libraries Information Gateway. Another is Yahoo!

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


  1. Enter this URL (Uniform Resource Locator) in the address bar of a Web Browser to go to the portal:

    http://myuw.washington.edu/

    and login with your UW Net ID and password.

  2. Explore the MyUW portal.  Look at the text called Web Pine Email for students (on the right side, midway down the page). 

 

 

For more help using the WWW, go to:                      

         http://www.washington.edu/computing/web/

 

For working at home, you will need specific software from the (UWICK)  UW Internet Connectivity Kit Information package:
Downloading the Starter Set if you have an Internet connection at home        

         http://www.washington.edu/computing/software/uwick/starter/

 

This text acts as a hyperlink [a direct jump to a particular web page, image or other file on the web] and will take you to the login to access your email account through a web page.

 

 

 

Text Box: What is Email? Email is the exchange of electronic messages through telecommunication. Email was one of the first uses of the Internet. Originally all messages sent by email were encoded in simple ASCII text. Now it is possible to send non-text files, such as images, as attachments. These non-text files are sent in binary streams across the Internet. (We’ll learn about binary soon!) Email has become a fast and easy way to communicate with others regardless of their physical location. It can be faster than a telephone at times. Email, however, is considered asynchronous communication. This means that you are not communicating with the person “live”, the way you do when you talk to someone in person, on the phone, or even in a chat room. There are many ways to send email. This lab focuses on ways to send mail to and from your UW Account.

 


For more help using UW Email, go to:

          http://www.washington.edu/computing/email/

 

UW Email: WebPine



2.    Send Email Using WebPine

There are many different forms of web email you can use.  To send mail from your UW Account using a web browser, you can use WebPine.  This email interface is graphical and works slightly different from other graphical email applications such as Hotmail. 

 

Many of you have used web email before (e.g. Hotmail, Yahoo Mail).  For your account at the UW, one of the easier ways to access your email from a browser is through WebPine. 

 

  1. Go to WebPine from the MyUW portal, or simply go to the following link and log on (remember why you have a user id AND a password):

    http://webpine.washington.edu/ 

    If you have your mail forwarded to another account from this one, you will have to go check that account OR turn off mail forwarding for the purpose of this lab.

  2. To send a message to someone, click on Compose. 

 

  1. Send yourself an email. Make sure you enter in your email address, a subject (“TEST EMAIL”), and some text in the body of the message.  Remember that your email is Your_UW_NETID@u.washington.edu.

Text Box: NOTE: It is not necessary to add the @u.washington.edu when sending mail to anyone with an address ending in @u.washington.edu: WebPine is configured to use auto-complete to add the ending to an address without an @symbol. The id you enter will be looked up in the UW Directory. You will then choose the correct email address

 

 


 

 

  1. Click Send.

 

3.    Creating directories (folders) using WebPine

A.     Go to your inbox

B.      Save the test message sent earlier by placing your mouse over the Action Envelope and clicking on “Save” from the menu that pops up

 



C.     Type in a name for the folder in the place of the one listed

 

 

 

 

 

Other functions of WebPine:

 

 

Text Box: Why Pine? Pine was created by the Department of Computing and Communications here at the UW. WebPine is the web browser based version of Pine, also developed by the Department of Computing and Communications. Pine and WebPine offer a different interface to email than other systems, so knowing WebPine and Pine makes you a more versatile user. To access your Pine account when Web browsers are not available, you will need to establish a secure connection to the system. SSH is a protocol that allows you to access your UW email account and file space. SSH is the replacement protocol now used instead of FTP and telnet. These original protocols allowed access to any host computer that you have been given permission to enter. [A host computer is a computer that has an account for you and space for your information in its memory]. SSH will do the same thing, but adds more encryption protection as you pass your user name and passwords back and forth across the Networks. Through this protocol you can login to your account from any computer that has an Internet connection. You log on as a regular user with all the same permissions regardless of where you are located. One of the pieces of software used on the UW campus to connect to the host computer, read email and work with remote files is called TeraTerm and is usually an option on the desktop or in the start menu. The location of this program depends on the lab. Ask your TA for the location of the Dante login [Dante is the name of the group of host computers for student email and file accounts here at the UW].

 

 


This is the email access you will probably be most comfortable using.  It is not the only way to access your UW email, however, so let us introduce you to the Pine environment. 

 

Helpful links:

 

WebPine                                    

http://www.washington.edu/computing/email/webpine/ 

 

UW Email: Pine

 

4.    Log on to Pine and send email

 

A.     Go to the Student Email (Dante) icon on the Start Menu. 
Start>Student Mail (Dante)

[Your TA will let you know if it is located elsewhere on the machines in this lab]

 

Student email (Dante)

 
 

 

 

 

 

The login screen below will appear.  Enter your UW ID and password.

 

Once you log on you will be shown a menu with options to enter your email space, your file or web space.  This environment doesn’t allow use of a mouse for most selections.

 

This is a command line interface; so in order to move from screen to screen, press the correct command key.
 

 

 

 

 

 

B.      In the screen shown below, press “e” for email.  You do not need to press the return button.


 

Often Pine does not require you to hit the Return/Enter button after pressing the letter that corresponds to a menu selection.

 

However, you can use the arrows to move up and down the menu selections.  Press <Enter> when you have highlighted your menu choice.
 

Main Menu for Email

 

5.    Send A Test Email

 

[See: http://www.washington.edu/computing/email/pinedoc/ for detailed information on using Pine to send mail]

 

Your email address is yourUWNetID@u.washington.edu where yourUWNetID is the name you use when you log in.

A.     Press C (Compose) to see the Compose Message screen.

B.      In the To: field, type your UWNetID and press <Enter>.
Note that the rest of the address is filled in for you.  The assumption is that you are sending email to someone whose address ends with “@u.washington.edu”. 

C.     Use the arrow buttons or the tab button to move through the other fields to the body of the message

D.     Type “This is a test” in the body of the message.

E.     Send the message:  Type <Control>X (Send).
NOTE:  The control button is indicated by the ^ character in the commands, so ^X is the send command. 
You are asked:  Send message?

F.     Press y (yes) or press < Enter >.
The message is sent and a copy is saved to your sent-mail folder. (If you press n (no) the message is not sent, and you can continue to work on it.)

Text Box: Directories (Folders) What is a directory? A directory, or folder, is a container for files. Just like the folders in an office file cabinet holds documents, a directory on your computer or any other, can hold files of all types. A directory is a way to organize related files in a manner that allows for quick retrieval. If you have your work divided into the various areas they pertain to, you can use folders to hold them in a logical manner. A directory can also be a collection of users, their passwords and information about what they have the right to use on a particular computer system. It is still a container holding related files. You will make directories in this lab to hold your work this quarter, but you are also part of a directory of the users of email and web pages at the UW.

 

 


6.    Create a Directory for Email:

 

  1. Press L (List folders) to see the Folders Collection.

 

B.      There are two main folders.  One is your account space, called “Mail on your_UW_NetID.deskmail” and the other holds newsgroup information.  Your mail folder is highlighted by default.  Press <Enter> to view the contents.

 

C.     Press A to Add (create) a folder, give it a useful name (like FIT100).  Press Enter to add the folder to your collection.

 

Text Box: Three folders will be provided automatically by Pine: · The INBOX folder--messages sent to you are listed in this folder. When you first start Pine and go to the Message Index screen, you are looking at the list of messages in your INBOX folder. Every incoming message remains in your INBOX until you delete it or save it in another folder. · The saved-messages folder--copies of messages you save are stored in this folder unless you save them to other folders you create yourself. · The sent-mail folder--copies of messages you send are stored in this folder. This is convenient if you cannot remember whether you actually sent a message and want to check, or if you want to send a message again.

 

 


7.    Move Messages to other Folders

 

A.     If you aren’t in the Main Menu, press M (Main Menu) to return to it.

 

B.      Press I (Message Index) to go to your current folder.  The current folder is your Inbox.

 

C.     Using the arrows, move to the test message you sent to yourself.

 

D.     Type O (Other Commands).  The bottom menu will change slightly.  You now have other commands to select from.

 

E.      Press S (Save).  The prompt at the bottom of the screen now asks for the folder you want to save the message in.

 

F.      Press ^T (To Folders).  A list of the folders in your account will come up.  Use the arrow buttons to highlight the folder you created today.

 

G.     Press S (Select).  The folder you highlighted now appears as the selected folder to save your message to.  Press <Enter> to move the message from your Inbox to the folder you created.

 

Be aware that the same keys you press in one screen may refer to different commands in another screen.  Always read the command menu at the bottom of the screen to be sure.

 

Spend time outside of the Workshop getting to know the commands available and familiarize yourself with the environment.

 

  1. Go to the Main Menu (M)

 

Text Box: What is a web page? A web page is simply a glorified text file that includes Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) tags for formatting and display. These pages are placed on computers called web servers that allow people to view the content of those pages. The World Wide Web consists of all the web servers that deliver web pages when requested. The Internet is a huge network of millions of computers that hold web pages, files, email, etc. It includes the WWW as part of that network. A web site is a collection of web pages usually under the care of a single person or company. The pages may have a purpose related to a business or might just be the self-published interests of a college student. Every student at the University of Washington is provided a space for a web site. Pages that you create and wish to make available to the public in the future will be placed in a special folder that only you have access to. The first step in establishing your website is to enable your web publishing.

 


  1. Press Q to quit Pine

You are asked:  “Really quit Pine?”

Press y for “Yes”

You will be taken to the main screen for Dante.

Press (L) to “Logout”

 

Helpful links:

 

Pine tutorial                             

http://www.washington.edu/pine/tutorial.4/index.html  

 

Starting Pine         

           http://www.washington.edu/computing/email/pinedoc/pstarting.html

 

8.    Enabling Student Web Pages

 

 

 

A.     Using a browser (IE or Netscape), go to the following URL:
http://www.washington.edu/computing/

B.      Click on the “Manage Your UW NetID Resources” link.

C.     You will be required to log in with your UW NetID and password.

 

D.     Click on the link “Change your Services”

 

E.      If you do not yet have the Basic Services activated, check each box with the Basic Services phrase next to it.

 

F.      Check on Student Web Publishing under “Services that are off”

G.     Click Continue when you are done.

 

H.     Ask your TA for help if you are unsure of any of the directions.

I.       When you are finished, you are shown the URL for your web page. 

http://students.washington.edu/yourUWNetid/  

 

This lab will not go into the details of public_html.  The folder is created in your Dante account when Student Web Publishing is activated.  The details of public_html will be covered in upcoming labs.  For today, verify that your page is activated by visiting your web page address.  Your URL address depends on your UW NetID:

 

Example:

If your UWNetId is boogyman, then your email address is:

boogyman@u.washington.edu 

and your web page is at:

http://students.washington.edu/boogyman

Your web page will probably look similar to the figure below:

 

For further help Creating and publishing web pages, go to: 

http://www.washington.edu/computing/web/publishing/

 

We’re at the end.  All of you now have:

·         A UWNetID and an account on Dante

·         Accessed the email portion of your Dante account in two different ways:

o        WebPine

o        Pine

·         Activated your web page so that you are now able to start construction of a personal web page.

 

The next labs will go forward with the assumption that you have accomplished all three of this lab’s objectives.

 

 

The Internet
 
A look at your remote file space at the UW