Web Page Guide for Personal Accounts

Table of Contents

Basic information about Internet Nebraska personal accounts
A brief overview of the HTML language
Customizing your web page
Uploading your HTML files to the server

FTP - File Transfer Protocol
Changing Directories with FTP or related programs
Uploading the files into your pubhtml directory
FTP programs available for download

Common Errors and File Permissions

File Permissions
Using telnet to access your Unix shell
Telnet programs available for download
Setting the file permissions
Referencing images and other HTML documents

Basic information about Internet Nebraska personal accounts

Internet Nebraska provides each user with his or her own personal web page. A standard default web page is set up for each user upon sign up, but users are free to edit and customize their web pages.
Each user is allocated 10 megabytes of disk space.
Each user is allowed 1 gigabyte of data transfer per month. This involves any data that is downloaded from the web server to the remote user's browser.
Your personal URL is http://incolor.inebraska.com/yourusername.
Personal web pages are a free service provided by Internet Nebraska. Due to the popularity of this service, and our commitment to providing the best possible Internet connectivity support, we cannot answer questions about how to write HTML. We hope you understand that this is a commitment to our level of service to you. Learning HTML is one of the fun things that you can do with that connectivity. We also understand that the Internet at times maybe be very complex and frustrating. We hope the information on this page will provide you a better understanding. Comments on how to improve this page are welcome. Email us your comments at www@inebraska.com.

A brief overview of the HTML language

HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language is one of the easier computer languages to understand and learn. It is one of the languages that is used by web browsers to interpret information over the World Wide Web. HTML is also the most common language used on the web. The main purpose of HTML is to control the layout and style of your web page through the use of tag extensions. The HTML tag extensions are nothing more then a set of simple commands that tells the browser how and where to place text, links, and objects, etc. HTML can be written in any plain text document and be translated by a web browser, provided the document has a *.htm or *.html extension. This adds to the portability of HTML, since there is no special editor needed to create HTML documents. The most current version of the HTML language is HTML 4.01.

Customizing your web page

There are a wide variety of programs that are available for purchase at your local computer store that will format the page for you and write in the HTML extensions. Otherwise, you can program your html document using any plain text editor. A complete reference of the HTML language is available at Introducing HTML 4.

If you have no experience or are unfamiliar to the HTML language you can get on-line information via The Beginners Guide to HTML.

Here are a few of the many plain text / HTML extensions editors you can use: *

Microsoft Notepad (Windows / plain text)
Hot Dog (Windows / HTML extensions writer)
MS-DOS Edit (DOS / plain text)
BBEdit (Macintosh / HTML extensions writer)
joe (Unix /plain text)**
vi (Unix / plain text)**
emacs (Unix / plain text)**
pico (Unix / plain text)**


*	You are not restricted to list. You can use any editor that you are comfortable with, as long as it saves the document in a plain text format. Word processing programs, such as, Wordperfect and Microsoft Word, can be used as long as you save the file in plain text with a *.htm or *.html extension.
**	Network/UNL accounts do not come with a Unix shell on the Internet Nebraska system. These Unix based editors should be available on the server that houses your email account.

Once you have decided on your medium for creating your web page, you should create an HTML document entitled index.htm. The index.htm document is the first page that everyone will see when they come to your URL. You can create different documents, for different pages, and link them up via the index.htm file. Once you have created your HTML files and are ready to post them up on the server, you will want to upload the files to the pubhtml directory on your account.

Uploading your HTML files to the server

  FTP - The File Transfer Protocol
There are several ways of uploading your newly customized html files onto our server. If you have your html files on a different server you can use FTP to upload the files into your inebraska.com account.

If you have your HTML documents stored on your home PC, there are a wide variety of FTP programs available for every operating system. However, the information you provide the program remains consistent. Here is a list of the information you will need to provide:

Login / user name
Password
host: ftp.inebraska.com


Upon successful log in with the FTP program, be sure to change to your pubhtml directory before you begin any uploads. Files that are not placed in the pubhtml directory will not be visible to the web server, and will not show up on any web browser.  

Changing Directories with FTP or related programs
Most FTP related programs will provide you a "Change Directory" option. If you are using the Unix based FTP program, you can switch into your pubhtml directory by typing cd pubhtml at the prompt. Macintosh, Windows, or any other users using a GUI (Graphical User Interface), do not need to worry about this command. The GUI programs available for Macintosh and Windows, should provide you a listing of what's stored in your home directory. Remember, you need to perform your uploads in your pubhtml directory. You can usually change into this directory by clicking on "pubhtml" (if the program allows you to do that), or by find ing the "Change Directory" option, and typing in pubhtml.

  Uploading the files into your pubhtml directory
Uploading files is relatively simple. Uploading the files in the proper format is a different issue. GUI FTP programs are easy to use compared to it's Unix counterpart. GUI FTP programs, in most cases, will transfer the file in the proper format for you, whereas, in Unix, you will need to specify the formats. There two primary formats, binary and ASCII. The binary format should be used when you are uploading images (i.e. jpg's and gif files), sound files, movie files, programs, or virtually any executable file. ASCII format should be chosen for your HTML documents, letters, emails, and any files that have nothing but text in them. Make sure you know what format to use. Uploading files in the wrong format will cause them not to appear properly on the web page. Luckily, for most of our users, the GUI FTP programs will properly do the decision making for you.

For our users using the Unix FTP, after you have successfully logged in, the format is automatically defaulted to ASCII mode. You can switch modes prior to uploading by typing bin at the prompt for binary mode. To switch back to ASCII mode, you type a at the prompt.

The actually tranfer process is simple using a GUI FTP program. In most cases, you can click or highlight the file you want to upload and the program will upload into your account.

If you are using the Unix FTP, you can place files into your account by typing put filename at the prompt. Wildcards can also be used by typing mput * at the prompt.

Remember to specify the correct file format BEFORE you begin your upload.  

Windows 9x/ME/2000/XP/Vista FTP Programs

Smart FTP (32bit) (72K)


Windows 9x FTP Programs

Ws FTP (32bit) (707K)

Windows 3.1x FTP Programs

Cute FTP 1.4f7 (264K)
WS FTP (117K)

Macintosh FTP Programs

Fetch 3.01 (699K)

Common Errors and File Permissions

There are various common errors that you may encounter when you are uploading your HTML documents. The most common deal with the inability to view you page or your images that you uploaded. Here are some things to check for:

 

File Permissions
Check to see if your file permissions are correct. Most of the time when you upload the files into your pubhtml directory the file permission will be set right. File permissions in Unix, allows access or restricts access to outside sources. File permisssions must be set in the Unix shell. For our Network/UNL users, who do not have shell access, you can give us a call at our help desk (888-293-3426) and we can set them for you if you are running into permission errors. Or you can email us at manager@inebraska.com. Our regular users can access the Unix shell by several different methods. The most widely used method is through telnet.

  Using telnet to access your Unix shell***
Telnet allows you to access your Unix shell from home or from a remote site. Most telnet programs require that you provide the remote host that you wish to connect to. For our system, the remote host is shell.inebraska.com. Most GUI telnet programs will ask you for this information so have it handy. Simply supply the remote host and the program will connect to the server you want.

Windows 98/ME/2000 users can just click on the start menu and select 'Run'. Then you can type in telnet shell.inebraska.com.

For unix based telnet programs, or using telnet from a remote Unix system, you would type at the prompt:

telnet shell.inebraska.com 

After you have connected to our server, it will prompt you for a Login. Here you will need to specify your user name ****. Then the system will ask you for your password. If the information is correct then you will be prompted for a terminal emulation that you wish to choose. For most of our users, the default should work fine. Just simply hit the enter key on your keyboard and continue on. The next screen you will see will be the Internet Nebraska Menu Interface. From the menu, you will select the option for the Unix Shell. This will bring you into your home directory. You will need to change into your pubhtml directory to modify any files that deals with your web page. You can do this by typing the following command at the prompt:

cd pubhtml

Once you are into your pubhtml you are ready to change the file permission to your HTML documents.

  Windows 95 Telnet Programs

Putty (225k)
CRT 1.0 (426K)
SimpTerm 0.9 (122K)

Windows 3.1x Telnet Programs

Anzio Lite 10.2g (71K)
Ewan 1.05 (252K)

Macintosh Telnet Programs

NCSA Telnet 2.7b4 (345K)

***	Internet Nebraska runs a secure server. Telnet access is not allowed from all remote locations. Our valid users can email us at manager@inebraska.com and request that the host and domain that you are trying to te lnet in from be allowed access to our server.
****	Your user name should not have the capital P in front of it when trying to access the Unix Shell. The capital P is used for dial in purposes when you are requesting a PPP connection only!!!!

  Setting the file permissions
We can write another long page concerning file permissions and what they mean, but rather then boring you with details, we'll just tell you what to set them to. If you are having access errors, permissions errors, or your image does not show up , you should type the following command, at the prompt, while you are in your pubhtml directory:

chmod -R a+rX *

  Referencing images and other HTML documents
Another common error that will not allow your web page to function properly is referencing the correct name of an image or another HTML document in the parent document. Unix is a case sensitive operating system, therefore, the names of the documents or images that you are referencing to must match the file in your pubhtml directory to the letter. If the parent document does not have the matching file name then it will not function properly. You can show a listing of the files in your pubhtml directory by typing ls at the prompt.

These are the most common problems that we at Internet Nebraska have noticed. We are aware that there are a wide variety of problems that you may encounter, especially if you program a more advanced HTML document. This document is written for our novice users and those having minor difficulties with their web page. Back to the top