1. THE BASICS
Location of Computer Labs on Campus
Remember to keep your valid UCCS ID with you at all times when you are working in the campus computer labs. There are several computer labs across campus, open at various times of the day. Most of the labs are open at least 12 hours a day during the week. The only lab that is open 24 hours is in the dorms and is available to residents only. Computer labs are located in Columbine Hall, the Library, and Dwire Hall. All of these labs are equipped with both IBM and Macintosh based computer systems and all are equipped with word processing programs, a program to check campus e-mail, and at least one program that provides access to the Internet. Computing Services posts the locations and hours of operations for all of the labs at http://www.uccs.edu/~compsvcs/cslabs.html.
Getting an E-mail Account
Electronic mail is a way of sending and receiving documents through the same phone lines the Internet uses. Messages can be sent and received very rapidly, at almost the speed of a telephone call. However, unlike a phone call, e-mail allows you to send written documents, such as book reviews, full length papers and even images at that same rate of speed. In this tutorial there is information on how to access e-mail.
There are two ways to get an e-mail account at UCCS:
- You can apply in person at Computing Services in Dwire Hall, Room 250 (719-262-3536). With a valid UCCS student ID, they will sign you up for your account and give you a printed instruction sheet explaining how e-mail access works. They will give you a login name (not very secret, and usually consisting of your first and middle initial and six letters of your last name) and your password (very secret-hold it dear and share with no one). Normally Computing Services requires about a day and a half to process your login and password. After that you should be able to access your new account.
- You can also register for your account from the Internet. The address for the on-line sign up is http://www.uccs.edu/~compsucs. You will also register a login name and your password, both of which are essential to accessing and using e-mail on campus. After you have registered electronically it usually takes a day and a half for your account to become active.
Accessing the Internet and Your E-mail Account
IBM: When you sit down at an IBM computer on campus, icons (symbols) representing all of the programs available should be on the screen in front of you. With the mouse you can move around the screen and click on the various icons in front of you. The other way to access the programs is to click on the Start button in the lower left corner of the screen (with a four color Windows flag next to it). A menu will pop up with an option labeled Programs. Click on Programs and a subsequent menu labeled Internet will appear that gives you one more menu containing Brain and other Internet access programs. Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator are the two programs that are used to access the Internet. By double clicking on either program, you can access the Internet. You do not need your login or your password to access the Internet on campus. By clicking on Brain, you can start the e-mail program.
E-Mail: There will be an icon that looks like a small tan computer with a gray screen labeled Brain. This is the program that allows you to check your e-mail. (To continue see Starting Pine and Inside Pine below).
Macintosh: When you sit down at a Macintosh computer, there are often only a few icons on the screen. Most Macintosh computers will have their program within the icon of the hard drive, which is usually, but not always, located in the upper right hand corner (usually labeled Macintosh HD) under a symbol of a gray box. Move the mouse to the Macintosh HD icon and click twice. This will open the hard drive icon to reveal a series of folder icons, one of which will say Internet. Click twice on this folder to reveal the programs inside. Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator are the two programs that are used to access the Internet. You do not need your login or your password to access the Internet on campus.
E-mail: The program you want for e-mail is Brain, which will appear as an icon as a small computer screen on a piece of paper with arrows pointing in opposite directions to the right of the screen.
Starting Pine: By double clicking on Brain, the program will start, providing a black box on your screen that asks you for the login and then password Computing Services assigned you. When your login is successful, the program will tell you, followed by campus announcements, an announcement that tells you whether or not you have new mail, and finally a prompt that reads brain.uccs.edu>. At this prompt type Pine. This is the specific name of the program that you want to use for e-mail access.
Inside Pine: After you type Pine, the screen will change to a menu which includes Composing a Message, View Messages in Current Folder, Help, Select a Current Folder, Update Pine, and Quit. Once you are in Pine, you will no longer be able to use your mouse. To move around in Pine, use the arrow keys on the keyboard. Choose Select a Current Folder to see all of the mail folders you have. They include In Box for new mail, Read Mail, Deleted Mail and Sent Messages. The Help option will aid you through the specific aspects of Pine.
Navigating the Internet
Once Inside the Internet Program: When you start an Internet program you will see a frame with buttons, icons and a screen in the middle where webpages are displayed. While the frame may display information associated with the sites you are looking at, it does not change even as you move from one web site to another. As you open an Internet program on campus, the screen will fill with the UCCS Homepage. The reason the image becomes clearer and more complete, instead of being instantly complete, is that the images and text on the Internet come through phone lines as you call them up. This is why it often take a few moments for the pages to be complete on the screen.
Buttons on the Internet Program: Most programs will have a menu bar across the top of the screen. On the bar there are several tools for moving around the Internet quickly. The nature of these buttons does not change. They are always on the menu bar above the Internet screen. Prominently displayed at the top of the program is a box marked URL or Address or Location. This box tells you the address of the page you are looking at. For example the address for UCCS is <http://www.uccs.edu>. Internet programs vary, but all should contain the following options:
- A box marked SEARCH, which will become important as you use the Internet to find specific topics for research.
- A button marked BOOKMARKS, which archives web addresses of your choice so you can access them quickly.
- A HOME button, which will always brings you back to the UCCS homepage.
- A STOP button, which is used if you don't want to let a page finish loading on the screen.
- BACK and FORWARD buttons are also on this bar. During a particular session, the computer keeps track of the locations you visit and in what order you visited them. Like reverse in a car, the BACK button retraces your steps, and FORWARD helps you regain the steps you lost while in reverse.
At the bottom left of the screen there is a text box which tells you several things. Most importantly, as a webpage is loading into your computer, the box tells you how long the page will take to load in seconds, minutes, and heavens forbid, hours. If a page is going to take too long, use the STOP button to end the loading process. When the site is fully loaded, the box will tell you it is finished.
Buttons within the Internet: Navigation tools also exist within each webpage. These tools, like the buttons on the tool bar, take you to specific locations within the Internet or perform certain tasks. The most common tool is the Hyperlink. The hyperlink is like a door that takes you automatically to another specified webpage when you click on it with the mouse. Hyperlinks are not always obvious as you view a web site, but you can find them by moving your mouse around a web site screen. When the pointer turns to a Hand, you have found a hyperlink. Buttons, images, and icons can also act as hyperlinks. When the hand is over a hyperlink, the box in the lower left corner of the program will display that link’s web address. If you click once on the hyperlink, the program will connect you with that link. When this tutorial is viewed from the web, many hyperlinks are present in the text, allowing you to automatically connect to helpful web sites and practice this technique.
Definition of Internet Terminology and Symbols
The following information is quoted heavily from Brenden
P. Kehoe's Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide to the
Internet, First Edition, available at http://www.cs.Indiana.edu/docproject/zen/
zen-1.0_toc.html. Computing Services also provides an on-line
help desk with very helpful tips on understanding and using the
Internet found at http://www.uccs.edu/~helpdesk/.
Addresses: Like street addresses, computer addresses assure that a specific location can be identified and found easily. A typical address on the Internet can also be broken down into its component parts. Unlike a postal address which starts with the specifics (the name of the company, or individual), Internet addresses start with the most general information. The UCCS homepage is an excellent example: http://www.uccs.edu. The following is a breakdown of this basic address:
- http:// - Hypertext Transfer Protocal. This signifies the language and method of delivery for each web site.
- www - World Wide Web. This is the part of the address which indicates that the site is located on the World Wide Web, like saying that a postal address is located somewhere in the United States.
- ccs - This is the user of the location on the World Wide Web. Just as no other city can exist at the same exact longitude and latitude as Colorado Springs, the user designation is a unique location licensed to assure that no two users exist at the same exact web address.
- edu - This is the domain of the address. A domain does not
really have an equivalent in the postal world. The closest example
would be the designation of PhD, Dr., MA or RN. Like these formal
titles, the domain indicates what the user is. The .edu designation
indicates an educational institution. Other common domain signifiers
in the United States include: .com which generally refers to a
company or commercial organization; .gov, a United States government
site; .mil, a United States military site; .net, which indicates
an administrative host, similar to a private mail box company;
.org, used for private organizations and publicly
funded organizations. Public Broadcasting uses .org.
Different countries have different domains as well. For example, .jp is the domain for Japan and .uk is the domain for Great Britain. Accessing web sites from different countries can slow down the transmission time of these sites. Keep this in mind as you learn more about the web. If you are in a hurry, you may not want to plan to access very many over seas sites in one session.
An address such as http://www.uccs.edu is just the beginning, however. It is like finding Colorado Springs on the map. To locate a specific location within the UCCS homepage, like the history department, the address must continue. The history department exists at http://web.uccs.edu/~history/default.htm.
- web - This part of the history department’s address signifies the UCCS NT web server (like .www, just a different "country" on the Internet).
- ~history - This is the more specific location, like the apartment building or a city block. Within the history department web site, there are many individual topics which are indicated by their addresses. The United States Civil War Page, for example, is located at http://web.uccs.edu/~history/index/civwar.html. The /index/ section indicates that it is in the United States history folder and /civwar.html is the title of the page (abbreviated and in lower case letters to facilitate the needs of the Internet).
- .html - This tag on the end of most addresses simply indicates that the document is written in html language (hypertext markup language) so that it can be understood by the computers on the Internet and read by humans on a computer screen.
Capitalization in Addresses on the Internet: When you are typing in an address on the Internet, it has to be exact to work. This includes capitalization, punctuation and the use of all characters present. The golden rule is to never leave spaces in Internet addresses. The address is like a train as it zips through the phone lines to the server; every character must be connected or it will left behind. Take note of the use of capitals and punctuation, and duplicate them. Pay special attention to characters like ~ : ; - and _ and realize that one will not substitute for another. Once you are familiar with the layout of the Internet access program you are using and understand how it manages the Internet and how the Internet works, you can begin exploring its research potential.
Remember!!!
- Computing Services: Dwire 250, 719-262-3536, e-mail: helpdesk@mail.uccs.edu.
- Lab locations and hours: 719-262-3536 or on line: http://www.uccs.edu/~compsvcs/cslabs.html.
- Computing Services on-line help desk is available at http://www.uccs.edu/~helpdesk.
- Computer labs contain both Macintosh and IBM formatted computers. While accessing programs differs slightly between the systems, both provide similar Internet and e-mail access.
- Brain is the E-mail server used by UCCS, Type Pine when you come to the <Brain.uccs.edu> prompt.
- Always have your valid UCCS ID with you when you visit the Computer labs.
- Remember that capitalization and use of characters have to be precise in Internet addresses.