NITSA Mc CARTHY

PSY. 409

SEP. - 12 - 1995

W/ DR. LEON JAMES

Week 3 Report



Assignment:

Send Netscape document to yourself using e-mail;leave an e-mail message on someone's Home Page; export a Pine message to a UNIX document and download it to your personal diskette using Fetch; Using Fetch, select a file on your personal diskette and upload it to your UNIX account, then ftp it over to your CSS account and convert it using rtftohtml -- then view it in emacs, pico, Netscape.

Self-assessment ratings


How difficult was this week's task (lumping all the sub-tasks together)? Circle one.
Very easy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very hard
This week's rating = 5
How much Negative emotions did it cost you, in all?
Very little 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very much
This week's rating = 7

How Valuable for later use is this knowledge or skill going to be for you?
Not useful 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very useful
This week's rating = 10

How likely is it that you'll be getting good at this week's tasks?
Not likely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Quite likely
This week's rating = 10

How satisfied are you with the computer and Internet systems?
Not satisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very satisfied
This week's rating = 9

How hard did you try to get through this week's tasks?
Gave up easily 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Refused to give up
This week's rating = 10



Analyzing self-assessment figures


Difficult?


I gave a 5 to the degree of difficulty for this week's tasks since I didn't know how to do or begin some of the sub-tasks. For example, I didn't know how to export a Pine message to a UNIX document or transfer my report to my CSS account. I often called my classmates, Help Desk , or Dr. James to fill in the blanks for me. I realized that my knowledge about UNIX is very limited and for that reason I felt bounded. I didn't encounter many difficulties when I explored Netscape because I could pick a command from the menu (e.g. Go, Netsearch, Mail Document, etc.). However, in UNIX one needs to know what commands to put at the prompt and that is a problem if you do not know which one to put.

Emotions?


I felt very frustrated when I couldn't make any progress. That is, when I didn't know or see the way to correct my fossilized errors or when I didn't know how to fill in the blanks. I felt uncomfortable when I had to depend on others for help. I felt confused and lost in UNIX. That why I gave 7 to negative emotions.

Later use?


This week's task will be very useful later for several reasons. First, if I find an interesting document in Netscape which I would like to share with others, now I know how to send it to their e-mail. Second, when I read a document in Netscape if I have some comments or questions I can leave a message on their Home Page. Third, I have learned how to export, upload, download and translate a file which is necessary for saving, sharing, and transporting information from various directories.

Getting good at?


I'm pretty sure that with some more practice and experience I'll get better at understanding UNIX.

Satisfied?


This time I was not very satisfied with UNIX because of its commands. I also think that Lynx is much more friendly or sophisticated then Telnet and it should be used when making changes in Pico to your Home Page. Lynx does show the changes but Telnet sometimes doesn't.

Effort?


Finally, spending hours trying to figure out how to translate a file from rtf to html is my evidence for refusing to give up.

Filling In the Blanks:

summary of activities, feelings, and thoughts while using UNIX, Pine, and Netscape.

What you can see from Porteus 635?


My first session for this week's report began with a great mountain view from Porteus Lab room 635 on Sep. 7. I arrived there at 9:30AM with the aim of transferring my week 1 report to my Home Page. However, my goal was interrupted immediately since that lab has IBM computers only and I typed my report on a Mac. I knew that there is a way to go around it. That is, that you can convert your report from Mac to an IBM format and vice versa, but I didn't predict this obstacle, hence, I was not prepared for it. With this problem in mind, I decided to go to Pico and try to improve the link to my week 1 report. At that time Dr. James arrived and I asked him if I could change the wordings of the link and he said that I could. It was simple. I only had to replace the wording of the old link with what I wanted. We also centralized the heading of my Home Page by simply typing the command <center> before the heading command i.e. <h1>. After we finished, I exited Pico (^X) and saved it. I wanted to view the edited link on my Home Page in Netscape but it was not there. The old link was still there but without the changes. I clicked on Reload from the menu but the new link was still not there. Dr. James decided to check it via Lynx which seemed to be much more friendly then Telnet. The changes that I did to my link for my week 1 report in Pico were there. Dr. James gave some commands in Lynx (don't ask me what they were since I have no clue) which indicated that the new alterations to the link were there. He gave some more commands in Lynx and then we viewed it again in Netscape and finally...it was there! Why did it take so long for Netscape to accept those changes?

Nitsa calls the Dr. to fill in the blanks


In the process of doing the alteration to the link for my week 1 report I felt uncomfortable because I was dependent on Dr. James. I needed him (badly) to show me what to do. I was completely lost. Each time I completed one step I had to wait for him (since he was busy with other students as well) in order to move on to the next step. I wondered what would have happened if Dr. James was not there. I guess I would have had to use the trial and error technique.

Mission Accomplished: publishing Week 1 Report


At 11:00AM the reservation time for our lab was over and Dr. James took one other student (I think from Psy. 459 class) and me to the Mac lab in the second floor of Porteus. I was determined this time to accomplish my initial goal. That is, to transfer my week 1 report to my Home Page. Dr. James helped me and we successfully transferred it to my Home Page. I was delighted and thanked Dr. James for his assistance. My mission for that day was accomplished so I left.

Instructions for uploading a document from your diskette, via Fetch, to your CSS account


On Sunday, Sep. 10, I went to the CLIC lab at 12:30PM. My goal was to transfer my week 2 report to my Home Page and to do our third week's task. I decided to first transfer my report and then do the other tasks on Pine and UNIX. As a Mac user, I needed to use Fetch (which is a special file transfer program developed especially for Mac software) in order to upload my report. The following guidelines will show you how to upload your report from your diskette, using Fetch, to your CSS account. When you click on the Fetch icon a window opens up and there you will find a status box. What you need to do is (assuming you have already saved your report on RTF or interchange format): 1) click on Open Connections; 2) a dialog box reads: Host Directory (type your CSS account i.e. www.soc.hawaii.edu), Userid (type your P__ that Dr. James gave you), Password (type your password), Directory (leave it blank); 3) Click OK; 4) a new status box appears select Desktop and select the document (in RTF format) that you want to upload then click Open to open your document; 5) on the same dialog box click on Put File (you will see on the right side of the dialog box the following: Status -- connected, File -- your document name, and Transfer -- how many bytes were transferred); 6) on the same dialog box, on the left lower side, you will see your name i.e. P__ and under it a list of all the files that exist in your directory; look for the document that you just uploaded and if it is there you successfully transferred your document to your CSS directory.

Feeling lacunae and ecountering fossilized errors while trying to upload my Week 2 Report


When I tried to upload my week 2 report I observed some fossilized errors and felt lacunae as well. I didn't know what to put as a Host Directory, however, I remembered that with Dr. James I put the CSS account. Then I knew that this would follow by the Userid that Dr. James gave me i.e. P10 and my password. Yet, when it ask for Directory I did not know what to put. The person at the Help Desk told me to put P10 so I did. I received a status box which indicated that there is no such server or directory. I tried it again and again and got the same message or sometimes got a message that my password was incorrect. I retyped my password and got a message that there is no such server. Well, after many many trials and errors (that lasted for one and half hours or so) I decided to leave the place that read Directory blank. Hooray! The status box did not appear. I felt lacunae since I knew that something was missing (i.e. a command that I needed to give but was not aware of). I was doing something wrong but couldn't figure out what. Lesson: you don't need to fill all the blanks.

Guidelines for publishing your reports on the WWW


After uploading my week 2 report I followed the Instructions for Publishing Your Report on the WWW I found in Dr. James' Home Page. This is what I did, what you should do, in order to publish your report on your Home Page: 1) log into UNIX; 2) after you login, at the prompt (%) type telnet and hit the Return button; 3) type Open and hit Return; 4) type the CSS account i.e. www.soc.hawaii.edu and hit Return; 5) at the login type your P__ , Return, and your Password, Return; 6) at the prompt (%) type ls (this will list all the files that exist in your directory) and check for the document that you just uploaded. If it is there, good; 7) at the prompt type cd ../../../../rtf/tohtml_src, Return (type exactly how it reads i.e. cd space etc. and this will put you in the right directory); 8) at the rtf/rtftohtml_src prompt, type rtftohtml ~/yourfile.rtf, Return (for example my file name is week2.rtf, be sure not to put a space in between week and 2; it won't accept it and it sometimes won't accept the lower case w only upper case W. If you cannot move on to the next step try to change it); 9) at the rtf/rtftohtml_src prompt type cd, Return (this will put you in your home directory); 10) at the prompt type ls (check if your new file is there, for example, mine was week2.rtf now you should see week2.html and if it is there you successfully translated your document to html); 11) Go to Netscape and view your published document.

Nitsa is overwhelmingly frustrated while trying to transalate her file from rtf to html format


While trying to translate my file from rtf to html format, I was overwhelmingly frustrated. Whenever I put the command rtftohtml ~/yourfile.rtf and hit Return it read that the file cannot be opened. When I put the command ls the file was there. I asked for help at the Help Desk and we tried that command again and received the same thing or it read that there are syntax problems. So I tried to upload my file again, with a different name, and again it said that the file cannot be opened. I felt lacunae since a proper command was needed or I was doing something wrong but I didn't know what it was. For approximately two hours I was engaged with that problem trying to upload, changing the file name on and on. My fossilized errors were really fossilized this time and I couldn't break through. I decided to leave it alone and to embark on my third week's tasks.

Searching for a document to send to my e-mail


After a 10 minutes break, refreshed and all ready to go, I went into Netscape and searched for a document to send to my e-mail. I clicked on Netsearch and my Query was "understanding telnet" since I wanted to find out what went wrong when I tried to give the rtftohtml ~/yourfile.rtf command in Telnet. The Netscape gave me a list of links. I didn't understand what most of the link topics were so I chose the most comprehensible one. From the Option menu I dragged to Preference, then dragged to Mail News, and in the status box I typed my e-mail address. From the File menu I dragged to Mail Document and clicked on Quote Document and then Send. Yet, a status box notified me that the document was too long and cannot be sent. I searched in Netsearch for a shorter document and found something about getting started with Fetch. I sent it to my e-mail address and checked to see if it is there. It was there! Yet, I still needed to learn how to send long documents from Netscape to my UNIX account.

Acknowledging Ms. Cortez's (Rey) help


I give the credit to Ms. Cortez for showing me how to send a Netscape document to myself using my e-mail address. The task went smoothly due her help. She taught me how to do it once and then I tried to send one by myself. Yes, I do feel a bit guilty since I didn't fumble and tumble before asking Mrs. Cortez for help. My suggestion, however, is: when you get help just grab it since it will save you time, headache etc.

Now that I accomplished the first task, which took only few minutes, I decided to move on to the second one.

Leaving a message on someone's Home Page


Leaving a message on someone's Home Page was very easy. I remembered that I saw "leave a message" link on Dr. James Home Page. I entered his Home Page and left a message where it says to leave a message for Dr. James. However, it did not say save, or send so I don't know if he received it or not. Things had gone well so far and I was really satisfied. No problema.

Export? Download? How?


I decided to export a Pine message to a UNIX document and then download it to my diskette via Fetch. Export? Download? How? Sounded too complex for me. I felt lacunae since I didn't know where to begin. My thoughts ran amok - - to which UNIX document should I export a Pine message? Pico? Lynx? Emacs? I tried to rationalize but nothing made sense. I went to Lori and Ms. Cortez and asked them if they knew how to do it. Lori told me that I needed to use Pico and in Pico to create a file. I asked myself whether I missed something since they knew how to do things and I didn't. I asked Lori how did she find out how to export a Pine to a UNIX document, she said that she used many trials and errors. Way to Go Lori!

Following Ms. Morita's (Lori's) direction for exporting a message


Well, I followed Lori's directions and typed Pico at the prompt and created a file which I named unix2. I chose a message from Pine, and from the menu (at the bottom) I picked E for export. At the bottom it read: export to file in home directory: I type unix2 (the name of the file that I created in Pico). Then I chose A for Append. After quitting Pine I wanted to view the message that I exported to Pico. At the prompt I typed Pico space and the name of the file (i.e. unix2) and then hit Return. I was satisfied since it was there.

To download the document to my diskette I used Fetch; instead of the Put command (to upload) I used the Get command. While using Fetch you can also see all the files that exist in your UNIX directory. I downloaded the document from UNIX to my diskette successfully. Hooray!

Completing unfinished business regarding...


While using Fetch, I remembered that I left some unfinished business regarding my week 2 report. It was about 6:00PM (yes, still same day) and I realized that the shift at the Help Desk had changed. I went there and asked who was an expert on a Mac. They pointed to one fellow and I described to him the problem that I encountered after putting the command rtftohtml ~/yourfile.rtf. He looked at my file name (i.e. week2.rtf) and changed the lower case w to an upper case Week2.rtf and told me that this is what the directory favors. After hitting Return I couldn't believe what I witnessed...it worked! I was truly shocked. I tried for hours to translate my file to html and this person, in one minute, made wonders. I just wanted to hug him...I didn't of course! I was so happy. I knew that something that I needed to know was missing and he filled in the blanks for me. I was so excited that I decided to take a break.

With perseverance you can make progress


After my break I decided to go ahead with my week's tasks. Using Fetch I uploaded a document from my diskette to my UNIX. The process is similar to the one for uploading a report to your CSS account. The only difference is the account (i.e. UNIX instead of CSS). In order to ftp it to my CSS account, at the prompt I typed ftp space CSS and hit Return. Then I typed put space and typed the file name that I transferred. In order to view the file in Pico and Emacs, I typed Pico space and the name of my document, or, Emacs space and the name of my document. Yet, to view the file in Netscape, I needed to convert the file from rtf to html following the same instructions used to publish the weekly reports in the WWW. Lesson: with perseverance you can make progress.

What Nitsa wishes to resolve?


In this week's task there are some sub-tasks that remain unresolved. For example, I want to learn how to send a long document from Netscape to my UNIX account. I also want to know how to create a link in the body of my weekly reports. That is, when I give some guidelines on how to do a task, (e.g. using Fetch, upload a document from diskette to CSS account) I want a link to it so that the person who views my Home Page will have easier access to these guidelines. Finally, I want to know how to put/copy an image to my Home Page.

Conclusion


In sum, this week I learned how to upload, download, translate, export, and share a document using UNIX and Netscape. I hope that, with practice, I'll get good at this week's sub-tasks so that I will not need others to fill in the blanks for me.
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