I. Introduction:

When you are enrolled at the University of Michigan, you are automatically allotted 25Mb (megabytes) of IFS space as a medium to efficiently store and retrieve data (including your email) from any computer on campus, or from an FTP protocol when you are away from campus. Personal space can be expanded to a maximum of 200Mb for a monthly fee, but for most purposes, the standard 25Mb is enough. So what is IFS anyways? IFS stands for "Institutional File System," which runs off a bunch of UNIX workstations that operate on AFS ("Andrew File System"). This business of nomenclature is really inconsequential; the point is that every student has a happy little space to do things such as store homework assignments and, of course, storing web pages. It is also critical to take note that all accrued emails, including your "inbox," also take up a share of this space.

II. Creating an "html" folder in the "Public" directory:

The "Public" directory allows any information stored in this directory to be viewed by the public. Creating an "html" folder in the "Public" directory allows any user to access files stored in this folder via a remote web browser. If you use the operator "~uniqname" directly after the URLhttp://www.umich.edu/ (e.g., my uniqname is "dyc" so the URL would look like: "http://www.umich.edu/~dyc") you will find a directory with all the files contained within the "html" folder listed. The only times that this is not the case is if the person has not yet created an "html" directory, or if they have a homepage entitled "index.htm" within this folder. The UNIX machines recognize "index.htm" as a default homepage and automatically display this page when your public space is accessed. Files not named "index.htm" can be viewed by entering the URL http://www.umich.edu/~[uniquename]/[name of the file.extension]. This is how you create the "html" directory (If you have already created an "html" directory, you do not need to do this again.):

1. Open the ITD Login and enter your uniqname and password when prompted (this is the same thing you do to get email through Pine). DO NOT OPEN PINE.
2. At the prompt, type "cd Public" (stands for "change directory to ëPublicí").
3. Then type "mkdir html" (stands for make directory ëhtmlí).
4. Your IFS space is now ready to store html files for display.

For the purpose of simplicity and uniformity in class, we will be using Netscape Composer to create our web page. If you are familiar with code or another HTML editor, feel free to use them.

1. Make sure the "Launcher" is set to the "web" menu (on the SLC Mac)
2. Open Netscape Communicator
3. From the "File" menu, select the "New" sub-menu, and from that, select "Blank P age." You are now in Netscape Composer.
4. There are a lot of buttons and stuff here. Either your instructor will give you directions as what to do next, or you can t ry and figure out what each one does on your own. The way this program works is that whatever you see on the page is basically what you get when you open up the page from the web. If you have any questions, ask the SSG leader in charge of your section.
5. When you are done, go to the "File" menu and click "Save"
6. On the right side of the box that pops up, press the button labeled "Desktop".
7. Then, where it says "untitled," erase the text and type in "first.htm" and click "Save" NOTE: Punctuation is critical! Make sure everything in your file name IS IN LOWERCASE and that there are NO SPACES in your file name.
8. You should see an Icon with the text "first.htm" pop up on your desktop in a few seconds.
9. If you need to edit the page, just open a new instance of Netscape Communicator. Go to the "File" menu and the submenu titled "Open." From this menu select "Page in Composer," and select the page you wish to edit.*** SAVE OFTEN ***

1. On your desktop, you should see an icon named "home via netatalk." Open this and log in with your uniqname and password.
2. You should see the directory "Public." Open this.
3. In this folder, if you have done it correctly, you should see "html." Open it.
4. Drag your "first .htm" file and drop it into this "html" window.
5. Close everything and open up Netscape again.
6. Type "http://www.umich.edu/~[insert your uniqname here]/first.htm"
7. Your page should be displayed in the browser.

1. A good reference for HTML: the "Bare Bones Guide to HTML" < http://werbach.com/barebones >.
2. provided by W3C, the commission in charge of "standardizing" HTML < http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide >.
3. Netscape Composer is not the only way to create a web page. You can use any text editor (if you know code), other editors like Dreamweaver or FrontPage to create HTML documents.
4. Note that the instructions in sections II-IV are only 100% applicable on the SLC iMacs as of September 25, 2001.
5. Options for uploading on PCs include FTP programs like WsFTP or CuteFTP (the address is "ftp.ifs.umich.edu"). If you installed all components of your UM Bluedisk, there is a program called "IFS Home Directory (FTP)" which should be configured perfectly and ready to go ? just log in.