NYU ON THE WORLD-WIDE WEB NYU ON THE WORLD-WIDE WEB[Ed: Links to web pages and/or e-mail addresses which have become inactive since the publication of this article have been enclosed in curly brackets { }. Replacement links have been provided where possible.]
The World-Wide Web is here. Over the last year or so, we've all been seeing more and more media play about the Web phenomenon. Some view a lot of it as hype, but beneath the hype is the reality that here, finally, is a computer-network environment that almost anyone can use productively and enjoy using. Advances in several areas -- networking, multimedia, and computing power -- have converged to make this possible.
And NYU is moving to take full advantage of the Web. In a joint effort with the Academic Computing Facility, the Office of Advertising and Publications, part of the Division of Enrollment Services, has been developing the NYU Web. The NYU Web is an official publication of New York University -- an evolving publication without end -- and it is the gateway to NYU for the global network community.
There are many ways NYU Web can be used -- teachers can post syllabi and readings; class members can communicate with their teachers and with each other; they can collaborate in research; share their findings; and disseminate their conclusions; researchers can find data and publish papers; administrators can post forms that others can fill in online. Perhaps most exciting, NYU is now able to create an official presence for itself on the Internet.
Let's look at some of these uses.
A proxy server accepts requests and passes them on to the real server, if they meet some set of preconfigured criteria. In the case of the Web proxy server here at NYU, it prevents general access to the Internet, but allows Web browsing.
If you would like to make Netscape (or other graphical Web browser software) available on a publicly accessible machine in your area, you should contact webmaster@nyu.edu for instructions on configuring the software to use the proxy server.
You need to fill in at least one of three blanks -- name, e-mail, or phone. Finally, click on (or select) Submit Query and you will have the result of your search almost immediately.
You will need to obtain a special account in which you will put your pages. The procedures to do so are in the NYU Web Guide (see below). After your account is active, you will receive interoffice mail with your username and password. Next, your URL will be set up.
After you create your pages, and are ready to go "live," a link will be made from NYU Web to your pages. As an NYU Web contributor, you will be responsible for keeping the information on your Web pages up to date.
In the guide, you will find pointers to information about the Internet and the World-Wide Web, a general introduction to learning HTML and Web-page design, and specific procedures to follow to become an NYU Web contributor.
Also in the guide are instructions on how to do an image map, advice about checking to make sure your HTML is correct, guidelines about images and footers, policies governing the use of NYU Web, and more.
The checker takes the URL for the page you're creating, and reports any errors in the HTML syntax -- or, if your work is correct, it gives you a check mark!
Before you type in the URL of the pages you want checked, you can select the level of checking you want. Since HTML is an evolving standard, and since most Web browsers will tolerate a certain amount of misuse of the HTML language, we don't recommend checking under the "strict" option. At this time, we recommend using "level 2."
On the main menu, you will notice that option 2, which formerly led to the NYU CWIS, now leads to NYU Web. You can still go to the NYU CWIS; the option has been moved down one level to the Network menu. Since more and more organizations are picking the World-Wide Web as their main way to deliver online information, and since the information in the Gopher-based CWIS is available through the Web, it seems logical to make it faster to reach NYU Web.
The other new item on the main menu is a link to the Pages menu. Once there, you can create a personal Web page, view, edit, or delete your page, or consult the NYU Web Guide. In the future, more options may be added to this menu.
To do so, you will need an NYU-Internet account. From your account, simply select the new Pages menu. Once there, you will find options for creating your page. In fact, selecting the create option will automatically create a page for you, almost instantly.
If your username is jones, your URL will be
http://pages.nyu.edu/~jones/
The tilde (~) indicates that it is your home directory.
You will then be able to expand your page or pages as you like. You can get more information about personal pages in the NYU Web Guide.
Before you create your personal Web page, you should understand that the page, which includes your name and e-mail address when it is created, and any information that you add, will be accessible to anyone around the world who can connect to the Internet. If you are publishing pages that relate to your department or unit, you should not use the personal-page Web server; instead, see instructions above at "NYU Units Can Publish Web Pages."
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Posted 18 October 1995. Revised 10 July 2007.
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