CSE 221 Lab 1

Table of Contents

Objectives

The Problem

Web browsers interpret an easy-to-learn markup language called HTML. It's something you should be able to learn rather easily. In a sense, whether you can learn the basics of HTML by reading HTML files and observing what they look like when a browser interprets the markup tags (e.g., <H2> and <I> and </B>) is a sort of aptitude test for CSE. If you can't make the connections between the HTML description of what a document should look like and the actual look of the document in a browser -- by observing patterns in what happens in the browser when you change various tags in the HTML file -- then you are likely to have lots of trouble in CSE and might want to reconsider career choices. (We're actually serious!) Of course, you can always read the manuals for HTML, but this gets pretty tedious pretty fast, and you'll still need to look at the results of various HTML markups in order to really understand what the manuals are saying.

For this assignment, you will be creating your own "home page". If you already have a home page you've created elsewhere, do not copy that and submit it for this assignment. Your home page should be about you; possibilities of things to include in your home page are information about your hobbies, career, course work, family, friends, favorite TV shows, movies, jokes, anything you want the public at large to be able to know about you. Consider adding tables, graphics, links to other pages you've created, links to your favorite web sites. Grading criteria are purposely nebulous here. If your home page works and it is obvious that you put some time and effort into making it a high-quality product -- and that you didn't merely copy it from something you did previously -- then you'll receive full credit. However, if you don't follow all of the the instructions in this writeup, you may not receive full credit. For example, you may lose credit if you use any editor other than emacs to do this assignment. In any case, have fun!

Set Up

To get started, make sure you have completed the two on-line tutorials:

Then proceed as follows:

  1. In a terminal window, create a new directory (folder) for this lab by typing the "make directory" command: 
         mkdir WWW
    NOTE: WWW are all caps.


  2. Change or move to the new directory (folder) for this closed lab by typing the "change directory" command: 
         cd WWW
  3. Copy the sample home page to index.html in the current directory using the "copy" command: 
        cp /class/sce/now/221/labs/catalogs/lab01/sample.html index.html

Create Your Home Page

  1. One objective of this assignment is that you should start learning to use emacs. So, USING ONLY EMACS, edit~/WWW/index.html   to make it into your own home page. While you're in the process of editing you can look at the current version as it will appear in a browser by opening index.html as a file in a browser. Note that whenever you make changes in emacs, you'll have to save the file and then click on the browser's Reload button to see the effects of the changes.


  2. When you are FINISHED with this editing, but not before, make your home page accessible to the world by appropriately setting the permissions on the WWW directory and all files in it:

What To Turn In

To make sure your home page is accessible to the outside world, ask a friend or someone sitting next to you in the lab to try to access it using the URI ("uniform resource identifier", aka URL) you plan to send to the grader. Then send e-mail to your grader -- not your instructor -- with the subject line "Lab 1 Submit". Contained in this mail should be the URI for your home page. This will be something like:

if your login is "doe". In other words, your grader should get an e-mail that looks like this:

Want To Do More?

Here are some possibilities:

Any extra work is strictly optional, for your own benefit, and will not directly affect your grade.