Helpful Hints

Setting up Netscape to Use the Campus-Cache

Procedures for Off Hour Computer Problems

Netscape Email Address Correction

Netscape does not get one's email address correct, so one needs to manually correct it. Under the menu item 'Options' choose 'Mail and News Preferences'. Next click on the tab 'Identity' and then correct one's email address. Note netscape mail does some things differently than the other mailers, so I would not use netscape mail.

Setting up Netscape to Use the Campus-Cache

To help Colorado State make the most efficient use of its Internet resources and at the same time to benefit from much faster Web page and FTP file retrievals, configure your Netscape browser as follows.

1) Under 'Options', select 'Network Preferences'

1.5) To free up disk space, press the 'Clear disk cache now' button.

2) Under 'Network Preferences', select the 'Proxies' tab. This brings up the 'Proxy Configuration' window.

3) In this window, select the 'Automatic Proxy Configuration' button and fill in the 'Location (URL)' box with the following URL: www.colostate.edu/proxy.pac

4) Then click 'OK' at the bottom of the 'Proxy Configuration' window. When you have finished these steps your Netscape client will be campus-cache enabled.

5) If you wish to disable the campus-cache simply click the 'No Proxies' button in the 'Proxy Configuration' window, leaving the 'Location (URL)' box filled in for future campus-cache use.

Remember: If the campus-cache should deliver a stale or out-of-date page, clicking Netscape's 'Reload' icon will bypass the campus-cache and get a fresh page from the off-campus Web server.

Learning HTML

The best way to learn html is to find a page you like and then view the source (View/Document Source). Then you can save the page as source modify it to you liking or you can just take what you learned. Imitation is a good way to learn. (Note many web pages don't quite follow the standard like they should - including some of mine - but they work.)

Also check out Learning to Publish: Learning HTML and Creating your own web page.

TkDesk Configuration

To set up tkdesk do the following:

If you have never tried it before:
1) type tkdesk
2) exit tkdesk (click on button with picture of guy exitting)
3) mkdir /usr/tmp/AccountName/trash
4) ln -s /usr/AccountName/.tkdesk/.trash /usr/tmp/AccountName/trash

If you have tried tkdesk before:
1) cp /usr/local/lib/TkDesk/configs/* /usr/AccountName/.tkdesk
2) mkdir /usr/tmp/AccountName/trash
3) ln -s /usr/AccountName/.tkdesk/.trash /usr/tmp/AccountName/trash

The reason for the special configuring is to get the trashed files
(but not deleted) off the users disk and on to the default scratch
disk.

Procedures for Off Hour Computer Problems

These are procedures for handling computer problems over the weekend and during other off hours. Much of the weekend problems have been due to power outages, so below are some procedures you can run through when trying to bring a computer or group of computers back up. I will be available during off hours to handle any serious computer problem that these procedures don't solve. (These include system disks filled up, disks not mounted, disks dead, X windows missing, computers not on the network, computers not booting, and the like.) Please if I am not home, leave a message on the answering machine. (I will also check the systems over the weekend, but if there is a problem please give me a call.) I may try to fix the problem over the phone or over a modem.

First some background about the Unix Operating System. It is a file oriented operating system with lots of system files constantly being updated. So if the system is brought down without first having all the system files updated (sync'ed) it is possible that the system will have trouble booting. Unproper ways of bringing the system down is to just turn it off (like a power outage) and using the Stop(L1)-A keys. (The proper way is to as superuser type "sync; halt" then turn it off after seeing the 'ok' prompt.)

          Procedures to Boot the Sun Workstations

1)  If you see an 'ok' prompt, type 'boot disk' (and a Return naturally).

2)  If you see an '>' prompt type 'n' to get an 'ok' prompt. Then do 
    procedure 1.

3)  If you see RARP/ARP messages, then press Stop and A at the same time
    to stop the messages and to restart the boot process.  Then do 
    procedure 1 or procedure 2.  (This is common problem for Teton.)

4)  If it refuses to boot (saying something about not being able to find
    boot device) then turn off the computer first and then the external 
    devices.  After turning everything off and letting the disks spin
    down, turn on the external devices first and after letting the disks
    spin up turn on the computer.

5)  If the above failed, call me at home (or the acting system
    administrator).