Administrative Issues

Instructional Web Pages

Faculty members who are interested in developing web pages for their courses have two options:

Bingsuns
If you are an instructor, Computing Services will provide space on the Bingsuns system for your course Web pages.  You can either use your personal Bingsuns account for this purpose or establish a new account which uses the course name and number. To establish an account for your course Web pages, go to the Help Desk (located in the first floor lobby of the Computer Center) and bring your University ID card with you. The staff at the Help Desk will help you fill out an account authorization form which you must then get signed by your department computer coordinator. The Help Desk can help you identify who this person is if you don't already know.

Blackboard
Blackboard is web-based software that provides a powerful and easy-to-use suite of tools for instructors to build and manage virtual classrooms. The instructions which follow do not pertain to Blackboard users.

Personal Web Pages

Faculty, staff, and students can use their Bingsuns account to create their own personal web pages.

Faculty and staff accounts on Bingsuns can be obtained by going to the Help Desk.

Every student should have a Bingsuns account when they come to campus. Students can obtain their userids and passwords through BUSI. The Computing Services web site contains more information about student computer accounts.

Establishing Your Web Space

Once you have an account on Bingsuns, you must follow a few steps before you can create your Web pages.  Bingsuns uses a Unix operating system; Unix is case sensitive so all the commands listed below must be typed in exactly as they appear.  First logon to the Bingsuns account you are going to use for your Web pages.  Please consult the HelpDesk if you are uncertain how to logon to Bingsuns.  You will need a directory called public_html in which to put your web pages. First make sure you are in your home directory. From the bingsuns prompt type:

cd

Now from the bingsun prompt type:

ls

This command will list the sub-directories and files you have in your home directory. You should see an entry which looks like this: public_html.

If you have no such entry, then you will need to create one. (Skip this step if the previous command revealed that you already have a public_html directory.) To do this, from the bingsun prompt type:

mkdir public_html

This creates a directory called public_html which will be used to house your web pages. Your web pages must be readable to the world. To make sure you have the proper permissions set on your public_html directory, type the following:

chmod 755 public_html

When you logon to Bingsuns you will be put in your 'home directory'.   Your home directory must also have the proper permissions set or nobody will be able to access your Web pages.  By default, your home directory should have the proper permissions set; however, type the following command just to be sure:

chmod 711 .

Finally, if you're going to use Netscape Communicator to publish your web pages (discussed in the next section), you will need to know the 'path' to your home directory. From your home directory (first type cd if you're not in your home directoy) at the bingsun prompt type:

pwd

The reply will look something like this: /u0/users/x/jsuny. Make note of your path as you will need it later if you decide to use Netscape Communicator to publish your web pages.

Creating Your Web Pages

You can either create your Web pages directly from your Bingsuns account or remotely on a different machine.  Where and how you create your pages is your decision. Computing Services will be able to provide support if you are coding them by hand, using Netscape Composer, or using Dreamweaver. Support may be limited if you are using some other software package. At Binghamton University, the preferred method of creating web pages is to use Dreamweaver. For information on how to obtain Dreamweaver on office computers, faculty and staff can go to our Software Installation Request Form.

Creating Pages Directly on Bingsuns
You can logon to your Bingsuns account and create your Web pages there.  You could use one of the Unix text editors (pico, vi, or emacs) and write the HTML by hand.  Of course, you will have to be familiar not only with the editor but with the HTML syntax. 

Creating Pages from a Remote System
Most people prefer to create their Web pages on a different platform (Windows, Macintosh, etc...) and then publish them to Bingsuns.  This option opens up a lot of possibilities:

• Use a commercial HTML editor such as Adobe Dreamweaver. There are many commercial editors available to those who want to invest the money. ITS supports Dreamweaver.
• SeaMonkey provides an HTML editor as part of its all-in-one internet application suite. SeaMonkey is powered by Mozilla and it's free.
• Use the "Save As HTML" feature available with recent versions of most word processors. This may be a good place to start if the document you want to publish has already been written using one of these packages. If the document is simple, this often does a reasonable job. A more complicated document will usually require the HTML to be reworked to produce a satisfactory Web page.

Publishing Your Web Pages

If you create you web pages on a remote system, you will need to publish them before others will be able to see them. On Bingsuns your pages need to go into your public_html directory.

Dreamweaver
If you are using Dreamweaver to create your Web pages, then you should use the site management features of Dreamweaver to publish your pages. Discussion of that topic is beyond the scope of this document except to say that when you are defining your site, the Server Access method is FTP, the FTP Host is bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu and the Host Directory is public_html. Faculty and staff interested in using Dreamweaver are strongly encouraged to attend the Technology Training Center's Dreamweaver classes.

FTP
You can use your favorite FTP program to transfer your pages to the Web server. 

Other HTML Editors
The procedure for publishing web pages will vary with the application but you will need to know your Bingsuns userID and password as well as the hostname and the directory to which you are publlishing.

Host Name: bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu

Host Directory: public_html

Whatever method you choose for creating and publishing your web pages, it is recommended that you use the default home page name index.html (or index.htm) as the name of your home page.  This will make your URL simpler (see the section below on "Viewing Your Web Pages").

Viewing Your Web Pages

If your home page is a file with the name index.html or index.htm, then your home page address (URL) is simply

http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~userid

Where: userid is your login id.

So, for example, if your login id is bg12345, your URL is http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~bg12345. If your home page is a file with a name other than index.html or index.htm, then you need to add the filename on to the end of the URL above.  For example, if bg12345 has named his home page home.html, then his URL becomes http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~bg12345/home.html.

Where to go for More Information

Consider the following resources if you need more information:

• The Computing Services Help Desk
• The Computing Services Web Warrren
• The Technology Training Center
• Web Page Troubleshooting