Create Your First Web Presentation

The goal of this lab is to create a web presentation and to install it on the Internet. You will learn how to create an HTML file, how to save it in the correct directory structure so that the web server will see your files, how to upload a web presentation to a Unix machine, and how to set permissions to files and directories on the Unix machine.

Create a directory called public_html

Create a new directory called public_html inside My Documents. Open

My
	  Documents

, choose right-click>New>Folder and name that directory public_html. This is the directory that will contain all your HTML files.

Create an HTML file called index.html

Execute Start>All Programs>Accessories>Notepad

Type the following text inside Notepad

<html>
<head>
<title>My first page</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>My first page</h1>
This is the main page of my presentation. This page is loaded if the following 
URL is typed in the browser http://astro.armstrong.edu/~yourUserName/
</body>
</html>

Save the text in a file called index.html inside public_html. To do this choose File>Save As and then for Save in: choose My Documents and then double-click on public_html.

Set File Name: to index.html and Save as type: to All Files and then click Save

View the HTML file

Open Start>My Documents and double-click on public_html. This folder should contain a file called index of type HTML file.
If you double-click on that file you will see your web paged rendered by the browser. However your page is not on the web yet, for this you will need to follow the next steps.

Setup the Unix account do this only the first time you log in

Execute SSH Secure Shell Client from the Desktop and then click Quick Connect and set Host Name: to astro.armstrong.edu and set User Name: to your user name and press Connect. Enter your password in the next dialog (your initial password is your student id 907...)
You will be asked to enter the current password (student id) and then you will be required to choose a new password and then retype that new password. When you type a password, you won't see any feedback from the computer. You'll have to just type the password and then press Enter. If the password was updated successfully you should see All authentication tokens updated successfuly, and you will be logged out of the account.
Click Quick Connect and then Connect and type your new password. You will be presented with and Acceptable Usage message, to which you will have to agree by pressing Y. Then you will be prompted for your password again and then logged out of the account. If everything was successful you should see Shell changed.
Close SSH Secure Shell Client. You won't need it anymore.

Upload your web presentation to the Unix machine

Execute SSH Secure File Transfer Client from the Desktop. You are presented with two panels, the left panel shows files on the local machine, the right panel shows files in your account on the Unix machine.
Connect to the Unix machine by using Quick Connect.
In the left panel double-click on My Documents, and then drag public_html over the white part of the right panel. This will copy the entire public_html directory to the Unix machine.

Check if your presentation is available on the web

Type the following address in your browser: http://astro.armstrong.edu/~yourUserName/. Your browser will display your index.html file.

Setup and check file permissions for your web presentation

You can view and modify permissions for folders using SSH Secure File Transfer Client by right-click on a file or folder and choosing Properties.

Make sure that all folders in your presentation have Read and Execute permissions set for Owner, Group and Other. The Properties dialog for a folder that has permissions correctly setup should look like the following picture
Make sure that all files in your presentation have Read permission set for Owner, Group and Other. The Properties dialog for a file that has permissions correctly setup should look like the following picture

Update your web presentation

We are going to asume that you just started a new lab. All files created on lab machines are deleted during the night, so we are going to delete everything we created on the lab machine. Note that your web presentation is saved on the Unix machine.

Clean-up My Documents and your Unix account

Open My Documents and delete public_html by right-click on it and then choose Delete.

Switch to SSH Secure File Transfer Client. We are going to navigate only through the right panel. Make sure that in your home directory you have only a directory called public_html. Delete any other files or directories. double-click on public_html. Inside public_html you should have only one file index.html. Delete any other files or directories. Note that you cannot delete directories from the Unix machine unless they are empty. So, to delete a directory you'll have to delete the files inside it first.

Copy your presentation to the Lab Machine

Switch to SSH Secure File Transfer Client. Make sure the left panel shows you the content of

My
      Documents

and the right panel shows you the content of your home directory /home/yourUserName. drag public_html from the right panel to the empty part of left panel.

Create another HTML file

The new HTML file should be called spiderman.html. As usual, all HTML files should be stored inside public_html. This is the content of the new file:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Spider Man</title>
  </head>

  <body>
    <h1>Spider Man</h1>

    <h2>Origin</h2>

    <p>Peter  Parker was  a  normal high-school  student who  excelled
    science, but  whose accomplishments were often  overshadowed by his
    innate shyness. His life was changed when a radioactive spider bit
    him transferring him the abilities and the proportional strength of
    a spider.</p>


    <h2>Power and Abilities</h2>
    <p>
      <em>wall-crawling</em> -
      Spider-Man has to power to adhere to almost any surface.<br>

      <em>web-slinging</em> - This ability  allows Spider Man to swing
      from building to  building allowing him to get  fast where he is
      needed.<br>
      
      <em>spider-strength</em>  - The proportional  power of  a spider
      allow Spider Man to lift about 10 tons.<br>
    </p>

  </body>
</html>

Check that the new HTML file is displayed correctly in the browser.

Create a link from index.html to spiderman.html.

Add <a href="spiderman.html">Spider Man</a> at the end of the body of index.html, before </body>.

Upload the updated presentation to the Unix machine

Use SSH Secure File Transfer Client to upload your presentation.

Check your presentation on the web

Type http://astro.armstrong.edu/~yourUserName/ in a browser. Click on the link and make sure spiderman.html is loaded as well.

Create Your First Web Presentation

Update your web presentation

Links