CSCI 201 Lab 1 -- Windows and email

In today's lab you will be introduced to the personal computer that you will use through the remainder of the semester. Today you will learn the following:

  1. How to work in the Windows 95 desktop environment
  2. How to use folders and files with Windows 95
  3. How to use Netscape to access information on the Internet
  4. How to use Netscape to submit assignments to your ftp account for this class
  5. How to telnet to bulldog and use your bulldog account
  6. How to send email using pine

Section 1: Your desktop environment

If your computer is turned off, power it on.

The running computer should display a desktop similar to the following picture:

Windows 95 desktop

The Taskbar

At the bottom of the screen is the taskbar. It contains the Start button, which can be used to quickly start a program or find a file.

Select the Start button with the left mouse button and you will see a menu that takes you to various programs you can run by selecting them with your left mouse button.

Move your mouse so that the cursor (the small arrow on the screen) moves up and down the selection of programs on the Start button menu. Notice that when you move the cursor to a menu selection with a right arrow, a sub-menu is displayed showing you more even more selections.

We will now start a program using the Start button menu. The program that we will run is called WordPad. We will start it by selecting (clicking with the left mouse button) the program name from the Start button menu. To find the program named WordPad:

This will cause the WordPad program, or application, to start running. Each running program in Windows95 has its own window.

Observe the window for the WordPad application.
WordPad
At the top of the window is the titlebar which shows the name of the application that is running. On the right side of the titlebar are three control buttons: _OX These buttons control the window. The right most button, the button with a large "X", stops the application from running and closes the window. The middle button is used to resize the window, and the left-most button is used to minimize the window, that is, suspend the application and place it on the task bar where it can be restarted later. Select each of these three buttons on the WordPad window starting with the left-most button.

After you have selected the left-most button you will notice that the window disappears and the program name shows only on the taskbar. To reopen the window, select the program name from the taskbar.

Notice that you can enlarge and reduce the size of the window by repeatedly selecting the middle button.

When you select the right-most button, the application will terminate and the window will close. You must restart the application from the Start button menu as described above; please do that now.

The last thing that we'll do in this section is look at other ways to change the size of a window. Once you have restarted the WordPad window, move the cursor to the right corner of the window. When the cursor is placed on the corner of the window, it changes shape to become a double-headed arrow. When the cursor has the shape of a double-headed arrow, depress the left mouse button and hold it down while moving the mouse, this is called dragging. You can change the size of the window by dragging any of the corners; try that now. Notice that you can also move the window in the desktop environment by dragging the titlebar; try that now.

Section 2: Folders and files with Windows 95

Under the Programs menu on the Start button select Windows Explorer.
Explorer
Windows Explorer can be used to display the hierarchical tree structure of files and folders on your computer. The left-hand side of the window displays the directory tree structure and the right-hand side of the window displays the contents of the selected directory (i.e. the open file folder).

To display the contents of a different directory left-click on that folder. Use the scroll bars on the sides of each window to view the entire contents of both windows.

Locate the files folder in the directory tree structure and open that directory (i.e., clicking on that folder).

Create a new directory inside of the files directory by right-clicking in the right-hand side window and then selecting New followed by Folder from the pop-up menu. The name of the directory, New Folder, will appear highlighted, change that name by typing Temp followed by a carriage return.

We will use this file later in the lab.

Section 3: Using Netscape

In this section, we will learn to use Netscape to access the Internet. As part of this section, you will find this lab on the Internet.

Begin by starting the Netscape program, you will find the Netscape icon on your desktop. _icon Double-click on that icon to start the Netscape application.

When Netscape first starts running, it displays the contents of the UNCA home page. This is the file located at the Internet address http://www.unca.edu/. That is the address shown in the location text window near the top of the Netscape window.

Your first task is to change the file that is displayed in the Netscape window. To do this, select File located in the toolbar near the top of the Netscape window, and then select Open Page from that menu. A small text window will appear and you should enter the URL, Uniform Resource Locator, of the information you wish to display. The URL is as follows:

This URL presents the list of Spring classes offered by the Computer Science department. The first part of the URL "http" indicates the transfer protocol, Hypertext Transfer Protocol, used to retrieve the page. The second part, www.cs.unca.edu, is the name of the computer containing the page. The final part, classes/, points to a file stored on www.cs.unca.edu. Select one of the 201 lecture or lab sections to view the homepage for this course. Use the scroll bar on the right-hand side of the window to move down the page until you have located the Tentative course schedule. Select Laboratory 1 from the schedule to display the instructions for this lab in your Netscape browser.

From this point on, you are expected to complete this lab, and all future labs, by following Internet pages.

Section 4: Submitting assignments to your ftp account

We are now going to use Netscape to transfer a file, from your computer to a directory on a different computer. You will use this same procedure to submit all homework assignments for this class.

First, you need to store a file in the Temp directory. To view the file, select the hyper-link, the highlighted section of text, in the paragraph below. This will cause the contents of the file to display in your netscape window. The file contains a simple C++ program, after you have looked at it, you can select Back from the toolbar near the top of the Netscape window to return to this page. To store this file on your computer, do the following (read these instructions before beginning).


SaveAs

Now select this link, and store the file in your Temp directory as described above. This is the file you will transfer to your ftp directory.

Before you can transfer the file you must contact your lab instructor to get the name of the directory that you will use when submitting your homework. This is your personal ftp directory and it should not be used by others. Your ftp directory name is like a password, it should be kept secret. Once you have received your ftp directory name from the lab instructor, you can complete this section.

Start a new Netscape window by double-clicking on the Netscape browser icon. Change the display in the new Netscape window by selecting File from the Netscape toolbar, and then Open Page from the pop-up menu. Enter the following in the text window that appears:

ftp://ftp.cs.unca.edu/pub/201

The first part of this URL, "ftp", indicates the transfer protocol, File Transfer Protocol, used to transfer files between computers. The second part, ftp.cs.unca.edu/pub/201, is the ftp directory for this class; your directory is located within this class directory. To display the contents of your directory, type the name of your directory in the Location window as shown below followed by the Enter key.
ftp

Next transfer the file prog1.cpp from the Temp directory to your ftp directory as follows:

When the transfer is complete the file prog1.cpp will appear in your ftp directory. At this point the file transfer is complete and you should close the new Netscape window.

Section 5: Telnet

The telnet protocol is used to connect to a remote computer over the Internet. There are many programs that use the telnet protocol. The one most frequently used in UNCA computer labs is called NetTerm. To start NetTerm double-click on the NetTerm icon. netterm

NetTerm, like most Windows applications, has a menu bar at the top of its windows. The menu bar is a row of pulldown menus such as File and Edit. Immediately below the menu bar, you'll see a tool bar, a row of boxes containing icons. Press on the index card icon, the phone directory. When the phone directory is displayed, select the item

Next press on the phone icon to make the connection. You should now see the login prompt from bulldog.unca.edu:
Digital UNIX (bulldog.unca.edu) (ttyp4)

login:

Type your bulldog user-id. (Most likely your userid is your initials followed by the first six characters of your last name.) Now you should then see the password prompt. Enter your bulldog password. Your password will not be echoed as you type it.

The bulldog menu

If you've never used bulldog before You will probably find yourself connected to the Bulldog Main Menu which looks something like this:
Jan 19,1999 (Tue)            Bulldog Main Menu          12:43:12 PM



   pine       Electronic Mail
   tin        Usenet (News)
   lynx       World Wide Web (text only)

   passwd     Change password
   logout     Finished using Bulldog

   exit       Exit this menu to the system prompt
              (turn off this menu)


Enter your choice (choices are case sensitive):
If you don't get the menu, move on to the next section.

If you do get the menu, quickly type "exit" followed by the Enter key.. You'll then see another dialog:

Would you like the previous menu to appear each
time you use Bulldog (Y or N)
This time type the letter 'N' followed by Enter to stop this wimpish interface from interfering with your enjoyment of the Unix operating system.

You should now see the Unix command, or shell, prompt:


bulldog.unca.edu>

Section 6: Sending email at UNCA

The program for reading and sending email on bulldog is called pine. Simply type the letters "pine" at the shell prompt to start the program pine.

This will bring you to pine's main command menu:


          ?     HELP               -  Get help using Pine

          C     COMPOSE MESSAGE    -  Compose and send a message

          I     FOLDER INDEX       -  View messages in current folder

          L     FOLDER LIST        -  Select a folder to view

          A     ADDRESS BOOK       -  Update address book

          S     SETUP              -  Configure or update Pine

          Q     QUIT               -  Exit the Pine program


Go ahead and type C to compose, or send, a message.

You'll then see the following simple form for sending email.


To      :
Cc      :
Attchmnt:
Subject :
----- Message Text -----

Fill in the To: line with the email address of your CSCI 201 lab instructor, given in the table below:
Rebecca Brucebruce@cs.unca.edu
Mark Boydboyd@cs.unca.edu
Then hit the enter key a couple of times to go to the Subject: line. There type some appropriate subject, such as

Hitting the enter key again takes you past the headers down into the message text area. Type a couple of paragraphs saying something about your experience with computers. You can use the arrow keys and the delete key to correct any mistakes.

When you are ready to send your message, type ^X (control-X). You should then be back at the main pine menu where you can type Q to quit pine and return to the shell prompt.

Reading email at UNCA

When you have the time, type ?, for HELP, to pine's first screen and read a bit more about this useful and easy-to-use program.

Section 7: Switching between programs in Windows 95

By now, you must be wishing for an easy way to flip between programs in Windows 95. Press the ALT and TAB keys simultaneously to bounce between telnet and Netscape.

Section 8: Cleaning up

Type the logout command at bulldog's shell prompt, terminate your NetTerm and Netscape applications and you are done.