FIT 100:  Fluency with Information Technology

Pre-Lab Workshop:  UW NetID, Email, Directories, Student Web Pages

Spring 2001

 

Introduction:

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

 

Objectives:

To get all students entering the course up to speed on:

 

1.      Activating a UW Net ID

2.      Email with the UW Web Mail and the PINE email system

3.      An initial understanding of email directory space

4.      Enabling student web pages

 

To Do:

 

Obtain a UW Net ID (your email and web page identity):

The first priority is to make sure that you have received a UserID from the UW.  Your User ID, or UW Net ID, is the way that the University computer system identifies you.  Your password, that you create, is the way the system makes sure that you are who you say you are.  This allows you to save files and folders in computer memory space of a computer that is not physically located in front of you.  [See Diagram on last page]  At the University of Washington, that computer memory space for students is called Dante.

 

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 University of Washington Department of Computing and Communication (C&C) has provided a series of help pages to establish and manage your UW account.  If you do not have an account, or you just aren’t sure, open up Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator to the following URL:

 

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

 

This will be the page that links to all other resource pages regarding your account.

 

The first link to visit is “Get your UW NetID”.  This will let you enter your student information and find out if you have an ID.  If you don’t have one, and are a registered student, you can create one at that time.  Follow the directions and fill in the needed information.  You will need to know your STAR access code for class registration. 

 

A UW NetID is NOT OPTIONAL!!!!!

You must have one in order to proceed in this course.

 

Once your account is established, go to your UW portal.

 

Portal: Also known as a Gateway, a portal is a web page that is considered a starting point for users when then 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 all have used is Yahoo! Yahoo is also a number of other things, but we’ll discuss that later.

 

Enter your UW portal:

 

http://myuw.washington.edu/ and login with your id and password.

 

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

 

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 non-text files, such as images, as attachments.  These non-text files are sent in binary streams across the Internet. 

 

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 or on the phone.

 

There are many ways to send email using the Internet.

 

Method 1:  Web Email ( a way to do email from your UW account)

There are many different forms of web mail you can use.  You may have many accounts that you use for all of the various forms of web mail.  For your account at the UW, one of the easier ways to access your email from a browser is through Web Mail.  You can link to Web Mail from you’re MyUW portal, or simply go to the following link and log on (remember why we have a user id AND a password):

 

https://webmail.students.washington.edu/weblogin.htm

 

  1. To send a message to someone, click on New Message. 
  2. 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
  3. Click Send.
  4. Now send an email to join the listserv for this class.

 

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. 

 

Method 2:  Pine (another email system)

 

Why Pine?

Pine was created by the Department of Computing and Communications here at the UW.

To access your Pine account when Web browsers are not available, you will need to telnet into the system.  Telnet is a user command that allows you to access your UW email account, or any host computer [a computer that has an account for you and space for your information in its memory] that you have been given permission to enter. 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. Pine is the text version of UW Web Mail.  It is known as a command line environment.

 

One of the pieces of software used on the UW campus to telnet 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 host computer for student accounts here at the UW].

 

To log onto Pine

 

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

Student email (Dante)
 
  

 

 

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

 

Your login screen will look similar to the one below, and you’ll need to enter your UW ID and password.

 

 

 

 

 

Once you log on you will be shown the following menu. 

 

 

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 you need to type the correct command.  For the screen above, you will be typing “e” for email. 

NOTE: You do not need to press the return button.

 

Now you are in your Pine account at the Main Menu.  Often Pine does not require you to hit the return or Enter button after you pressed 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.

 

To send yourself 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.

  1. Press C (Compose) to see the Compose Message screen.
  2. In the To field, type your UWNetID and press <Enter>.
  3. Use your arrow buttons or the tab button to move through the other fields to the body of the message
  4. Type This is a test in the body of the message.
  5. Send your message:
  6. 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.)

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.

 

Create a directory in your email account:

 

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

 

8.      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.

 

  1. 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.

 

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

 

To Move Messages to other Folders

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

16.  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.

 

17.  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)

 

  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”

 

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 servers that allow people to view the content of those pages.  The Internet is really just a huge collection of billions of web pages. 

 

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 student, like yourself. 

 

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.      Using a browser (IE or Netscape), go to the following URL: http://students.washington.edu/ and click on the “Creating a Student Home Page” link.

2.      You will be required to log in at some point in the next few steps.  Do so with your UW NetID and password.

3.      Follow the directions provided in the first section, Activate Web Publishing. NOTE: you have already done the first step, “Getting a UWNetId and Dante Account” so follow the directions to “Manage your UWNetID Services”.

4.      Scroll down to inactive services.

5.      Click on Student Web Publishing

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

7.      You will be going through a login screen and following a series of directions, so pay attention to the explanations on the screen.

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

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

 

This workshop will not be going into the details of your public_html.  The folder is created in your Dante account when you activate your web page.   You will cover the details of public_html in upcoming labs.  For today, you can verify that that your page is activated by visiting the 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 and will probably look similar to the figure below:

 

This is the home page for Boogy Man Howser <boogyman>.

 

Whew!!!!!

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

 

The first labs you encounter in FIT 100 will go forward with the assumption that you have accomplished all three of the workshop objectives.

 

Helpful links:

 

Use the links provided here to obtain further information about your email account and web page.

 

(UWICK)  UW Internet

Connectivity Kit Information           http://www.washington.edu/computing/software/uwick/            

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

 

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

 

Using the WWW                           http://www.washington.edu/computing/web/

 

My UW info from C&C          http://www.washington.edu/computing/

 

Creating and publishing web pages  http://www.washington.edu/computing/web/publishing/

 

Using UW Email (3 ways to access): http://www.washington.edu/computing/email/  

 

How-to directions from Catalyst      http://depts.washington.edu/catalyst/how-to/

(Pine, FTP, etc.)