Math 166H - FAQ

FAQ's
Frequently Asked Questions

Q1 Can you describe step-by-step how to put a background for our webpage for those of us who are computer illiterate?
Q2 Where does my home page go?
Q3 How do I create the index.html file?
Q4 Where can I find examples?
Q5 How do I know what all the HTML commands mean?
Q6 How do I edit an image in class (on the calclab machines)?
Q7 How can I control the size and placement of images?
Q8 How do I login to calclab from my dorm?
Q9 How do I transfer files from my dorm?
Q10 After I login, how can I edit a file.
Q11 How can I send and receive mail in Netscape?

Q1? Can you describe step-by-step how to put a background for our webpage for those of us who are computer illiterate. Thank you.
You can put a background image in your web page by adding an option to the < body > tag

Example:

< html > < body background=file >

... html stuff here ...

< /body > < /html >

Note: the < body ... > tag must be the first or second line of the file, and must be terminated by a < /body > command

Note: If you see a page with a background you like, use View/Document Source from the menu to look at their html code, and see what they have in their < body ... > command.

Note: You may need to change the text color on a dark background by <body background=file text=white ... > or even the hyper link colors < body background=file link=white hlink=white ... > etc. Check the link to HTML Commands on the class web page for the definitive syntax.

Q2? Where does my home page go?

A? It goes in your home directory, in a special subdirectory called public_html (note underscore!) and in a special file called index.html in your public_html directory.

Q3? How do I create the index.html file?

A? Using any of the editors available on the calclab servers. I recommend "nedit", which is a mouse based - point and click editor. You can also use Netscape 3.0's built-in editor. You can also create them on your own computer and upload the files.

Q4? Where can I find examples?

A? You can view the HTML source for any document on the web by clicking on "View" in the menu bar, and then selecting either "Document Source" or "Frame Source".

Q5? How do I know what all the HTML commands mean?

A? There are many online dictionaries of HTML terms. A good one can be found by first selecting the "4 Frames" Option on the class home page, and then clicking on "HTML Commands".

Q6? How do I edit an image in class (on the calclab machines)?

A! There is a great program called "xv" (which stands for X-Viewer, I guess) which can read just about any common image format - GIF, JPEG, BMP, PCX, etc.

Q7? How can I control the size and placement of images?

One of the nice features "xv" has is the ability to crop an image, as well as resize it.

You can also control the size of images in a Web document through the width and height parameters for the < img ...> tag - for example if you had a file called mypic.gif, you could make it 100 pixels wide by

< img src=mypic.gif width=100>

If you wanted it 100 pixels high, you would use

< img src=mypic.gif height=100>

If you wanted it to be half the page wide, no matter what the size of the page,

< img src=mypic.gif width=50%>

You can also center it by

< center>
< img src=mypic.gif>
< center>

Q8? How do I login to calclab from my dorm?

A! Using the telnet program (built into Windows95 and WindowsNT) or using the telnet part of TAMU_NET package, set the remote machine to calclab4.math.tamu.edu. Use your calclab login and password.

Q9? How do I transfer files from my dorm?

A! Using the ftp program (built into Windows95 and WindowsNT) or using the ftp part of TAMU_NET package, set the remote machine to calclab4.math.tamu.edu. Use your calclab login and password. Use the arrow keys <-- and --> to set the direction of transfer (<-- is download, --> is upload).

Q10? After I login, how can I edit a file.

A! Editors such as nedit, textedit, xedit, axe, are graphics based rather than text based. Of the text based editors (that is, ones which can run in a terminal window) the one that I suggest is "pico". It is very similar to the editor for "pine". It is fairly easy to use with no prior experience.

There are other editors such as vi or emacs which can be run in a terminal window, but the learning curve is greater.

Q11? How can I send and receive mail in Netscape?

A! You must your defaults under Options/Mail and News Preferences.

  1. Under "Servers/Outgoing Mail", change SMTP server to calclab.math.tamu.edu.
  2. Under "Identity", make sure your mail address looks like username@calclab.math.tamu.edu, where username is your login name for the calclab system.
  3. To send mail, invoke "File/New Mail Message", making sure that "View/File CC" is blank (otherwise, you must create the directory that is there by default).
  4. Under "Options", select "Immediate Delivery"
To read your mail, please use pine, which should be in your startup desktop.