Introduction

The following instructions describe how to upload a webpage or pages and associated files that you have constructed on your home computer to your personal web space on toro.azwestern.edu. These instructions are written for Windows users and describe the use of a program called WinSCP that allows you to securely transport files between your home computer and your home directory on the toro.azwestern.edu server.

These instructions are applicable ONLY for your personal computer. Computers in AWC computer labs provide alternate means of uploading your files.

Basic Assumptions The instructions below assume you: 1) have a web page or file you wish to upload, 2) have an account on toro.azwestern.edu, 3) have an internet connection from your home computer, and 4) have a decent working understanding of your computer, especially the following processes: How to locate files that you've previously saved on your computer How to download programs off the internet and install them on your home computer How to perform basic file management tasks such as drag-and-drop and rename. If you don't possess this level of proficiency with your computer, stop now and obtain some assistance. You should be able to obtain this help from any computer savvy friend, family member, or classmate. Additional assistance can be found in the form of computer help books and via tutorials on the internet.

Uploading Files to Your Personal Web Site

1. Download a copy of WinSCP setup.exe to your desktop. You can obtain a copy of this program in an installer packaged for AWC users here. Additional instructions for installing WinSCP can be found here.

2. Once you have the WinSCP program file on your desktop, double click on it to start it. A window titled WinSCP Login should appear.

3. From the list of sessions, choose Toro and click the Load button.

4. In the User name box, enter your AWC email name minus the @toro.azwestern.edu part (so if your AWC email address is abc@toro.azwestern.edu, you would use abc).

5. Enter your email password in the Password box.

6. Click the Login. When you do, you may receive a message about key registry and cache ... just bypass this by clicking OK or CONTINUE.

7. A new window with two panes should appear. The left pane represents your computer, while the right pane represents your home directory on toro.azwestern.edu. You should see a public_html folder in the RIGHT pane ... double click on it to open it. A new set of files or an empty directory should appear.

   Important Note: Any files that you want to be accessible from the internet MUST be loaded in the public_html folder. Files stored anywhere else in your toro home directory will not be accessible from the web. By the same token, do NOT place files that you wish to keep private in this folder, as they could potentially be seen by other users.

8. Now find the file(s) you want to copy up to the server in the LEFT pane. If you're not able to do this, see the note in the introduction on "Basic Assumptions".

9. Now drag the files you want to move up to the server from the LEFT pane over to the RIGHT pane and release. Click on the COPY button, and the files will be copied up to the server. You should see the files appear in the right pane. Note that you can select multiple files by holding down CTRL and then clicking on each file in turn.

Review the important related issues below for some information about naming your files, especially the index file.

Important File Name Related Issues

The following three issues really have nothing to do with copying files to and from the server, but they are worth mentioning here since they can cause a great many problems.

1. You should ALWAYS call the starting page of your site index.htm or index.html. Naming your starting page this way allows a visitor to visit your web site without having to specify a filename.

2. Make sure that your index file filename is all in lowercase (e.g., index.htm rather than INDEX.HTM or Index.htm). Toro runs the Linux Operating System which, unlike Windows, uses case sensitive file names. If you name the index file with uppercase letters ***it will not work***.

3. You can avoid a lot of problems simply by using all lowercase names when naming your files.

4. Do not use spaces in your filenames ... some browsers cannot read files that have spaces in their names.

Viewing Your Personal Web Site on toro.azwestern.edu

Your personal web site can be viewed in nearly any browser, by almost anyone in the world. All that is required is to know the address of the web site.

The address for your web site will be:

http://toro.azwestern.edu/~username/filename

Where:
username is your AWC student email username/logon. Note that his will be the same as your Blackboard username.
and
filename is the name of the page or file to be accessed.

Example: If your AWC username is abc and the page or filename is mypage.htm the address for your web site, and the one you would enter on the Address bar of your web browser will be: http://toro.azwestern.edu/~abc/mypage.htm Note: Be sure to use the '~' character in front of the username, and remember that the filename must exactly match the name you gave your page or file.

You give this address to others so that they can view your page.

If you encounter problems accessing the page try the following:

• Verify that you've enter the address to your web site properly.
• Verify that you've named your web pages and other files appropriately (See Important File Name Related Issues above)
• Verfiy that you've placed your web pages and other files in the public_html folder in your web space.

Other Resources

The following represent some other resources that you may find useful in working with HTML, web pages, and WinSCP.

AWC's Personal Webspace Policy
HTML Tag Reference
HTML Color Chart
WinSCP Official Documentation

Additional resources are only a Google search away!