3/2/04
THIS IS A DRAFT, WHICH WILL BE IMPROVED WITH YOUR FEEDBACK

COSC 330 LAB 1
ESTABLISHING E-MAIL & WEB ACCOUNTS AT FSU
and "CLONING" LEARNING MATERIAL

        This first lab exercise is a simple "set up" of facilities necessary to conduct the rest of the course and demonstration of how you can "clone" the course learning material.  Regardless of whether or not you have a comercial e-mail service or Web site, you need to establish accounts for both of these at FSU.  In this course all e-mail should take place to/from you FSU e-mail account, and the home base of the Web site you develop for this course will be the student Web server here at FSU.  We may have links from this home base to commercial Web sites like tripod or dreamwater, but the origin will be on goliath.frostburg.edu. Specifically the goals of this lab are to:

1. establish your FSU e-mail account on our IMAP server
1. learn the basics of sending and receiving e-mail using you account
2. link your e-mail client (e.g. Netscape Messenger , Outlook Express, etc.) to your FSU account for easier access
2. establish an FSU Web site on the SGA server
1. create a prototype home page (or modify the existing default page)
3. learn the simple procedure of "cloning" learning material for this course.

1. Read the following reference provided by Academic Computing Dept. at FSU. this is
1.  Online guidelines for using Web access to the new IMAP e-mail accounts at FSU; if you do not already have an account, click the New Users button.  (This page will be the way you access your FSU e-mail from the Compton Computer Labs.)
2. Student Web Server Help Guide.
3. Explore the Computing and Technology page of the FSU Web site.

1. Create a clone of this lab (so if the FSU Web site is down, you can continue using your clone), as an exercise in cloning the learning material in this course.
1. Download a copy of this lab onto your preferred secondary storage medium. Do this by first creating the folder using your operating system (e.g. Windows).  Then click Save As from the File menu, and select the location to which you want to save.  After you have saved your copy, open it by double clicking on it.  The HTML document that appears is you copy of this lab.
2. "Clone" the lab by making some simple changes to my original.
1. Edit your clone with an HTML software.  The simplest is to use Netscape Composer, e.g. with a Web page open in Netscape Navigator, begin editing it by selecting Edit Page from the File menu.  Composer will open and you can start editing your copy of the learning module as if it were a wordprocessing document.
2. Use your clone as your lab instructions.  This will introduce you to using the cloning idea for the learning modules away.

1. Create and customize an FSU IMAP e-mail account.  Currently you have to apply for this account by submitting a paper form.  The process as well as the form (which you can print) are available at:  ; click the New Users button.  Your account name will normally be the first letter of your first name followed by all of your family name followed by the number 0, all in lower case, e.g. Jane Smith's account would be jsmith0, and her e-mail address would be jsmith0@mail.frostburg.edu.
1. To access FSU's IMAP e-mail server from a browser, use the URL: http://www.frostburg.edu/mail and click the Login buttons.
2. The first time you enter your account you will have to use the default password given to you.  It is the first three letters of your social security number followed by your last name (in lower case letters) followed by the last four digits of you social security number.
3. Read the brief information accessed by clicking the Welcome button.
4. Change that password, following the Online guidelines, to one you want to use for this e-mail account.  Try to use a password that you will remember, but others can't guess, e.g. your mother's maiden name.  Combining letters and numbers is a good idea.
2. Check out the other facilities of your account by clicking on each of the buttons in the left hand frame of your e-mail window.
1. Look up the information about yourself, me (Tony), your e-mail partner, and anyone else you want by clicking the Name button.
2. Read through all the help information accessed via the Help button.
3. If you want to have you FSU e-mail forwarded to a another provider, e.g. hotmail you must change an attribute in your FSU account. To do that follow the procedure in the appendix to these lab instructions.
4. Before leaving class, log out of your account by clicking the top icon in the left hand frame of the e-mail window.  Note that you will have to close your browser to completely log out. (If you don't do this, the next person to use your terminal will also be using your account!!)

1. If you have your own computer, install your new IMAP account as the default e-mail using Netscape Messenger to access e-mail accounts at FSU.  You can also use Messenger to access Newsgroups, but this is outside the scope of COSC330
2. An alternative to or addition to using Netscape Communicator as your e-mail client is to use Microsoft Outlook Express or Microsoft Outlook.  They can be customized in order to manage several e-mail accounts; this is a real bonus if you have several accounts like I do.  Like, Netscape Messenger, Outlook Express, and Outlook can be used as a newsgroup client as well.
3. Using Messenger, (or another client, e.g. Outlook) create a folder, COSC 120, inside you IMAP account, in which you can place all messages relating to this class.  (Note: unfortunately, you can't create folers using the default (Sun) interface to your e-mail; you have to use Messenger, Outlook, Outlook Express, or other e-mail client.)

1. If you do not already have one, create a Web account on the FSU student Web server by filling in the online form at http://goliath.frostburg.edu/account.asp.
2. Explore the menus of the FSU student Web server in order to become familiar with its resources.
3. Develop and publish, on your FSU account, two draft Web pages that anticipate the site plan required for the project you will do for this course.  (Preview the Project Specifications.)  These need not be fancy, but your home page must be different than the default page supplied when your account is established!  The minimim requirements are two pages, i.e.
   
1. a home page, index.htm, and
   
2. a hub for COSC, main330.htm.  Place an annotated  link on index.htm  to main330.htm ; "annotated" means a short description of the page accessed by the link.  (You should annotate every link on your Web site!) Everything you create in COSC 330 should be accessible from main330.htm.
4. Read about the free Web site hosting services analyzed by CNET.

1. Assignment: Send a short e-mail message, from your FSU e-mail account, to me at ttracy@mail.frostburg.edu :
1. Write the lab number, "Lab 330-1", in the space following the Subject: space.
2. Give the URL of your FSU Web site and any other Web site you have.
3. Tell me if you were successful in "cloning".
4. Include any suggestions you might have that will improve the learning experience of this lab assignment.

In order to change the default attributes of your FSU e-mail account (e.g. to have your messages automatically forwarded to another provider) do the following:

1. Access the Web interface to the FSU e-mail server, http://www.frostburg.edu/mail/.
2. Select E-mail Search.
3. Enter your e-mail account name, e.g. ttracy, in the Subtree search in frostburg: form box and click the search button.
4. Click the hyperlink that appears for your account to bring up the attributes of your account.
5. Click the Modify Email Attributes button.  (You will have to enter your account password to access your account attributes.)  Click the Bind to Modify button to access a form-based page where you can modify your e-mail account attributes.  You can now modify any of your account attributes on this page, e.g. to have your messages automatically forwarded to another provider do the following:
1. In the E-Mail Forwarding Address box enter the complete address of the e-mail account to which you want messages sent.
2. To activate the changes to your account click the Apply button.