1) How do I copy files to and from a DOS floppy disk?
2) How can I copy very large files to a DOS floppy disk?
3) How do I configure Netscape Mail so that it saves a copy of each message I send ?
4) How do I set up my own Web Page?
5) How do I access my America On Line account or email from The CoffeeNet?
6) How do I read my mail on another, remote computer?
7) How do I retrieve my mail from a remote site using their "pop3" mail server?
8) How can I read my email at The CoffeeNet for FREE?
1) How do I copy files to and from a DOS floppy disk?
We've installed a suite of programs on our computers (the "mtools" package) that mimic some common DOS utilities. The two we'll use here are "mcopy" and "mdir".
a) put your floppy disk in the floppy drive
b) open a UNIX shell from the CoffeeNet buttonbar
c) if you want to copy a file in your home directory to the floppy,
"mcopy myfile.zip a:" (assuming the file you want to copy is "myfile.zip")
Then check to make sure it got copied by doing:
"mdir a:"
...you should see the file in the directory listing:
sumatra:~$ mdir a:
Volume in drive A has no label
Directory for A:/
MYFILE ZIP 153464 11-24-96 6:43p
CFTP14B4 ZIP 200300 12-16-95 2:37p
NX10B4 ZIP 212424 12-16-95 2:37p
TEL2308B ZIP 796331 12-17-95 6:07p
4 File(s) 94208 bytes free
sumatra:~$
d) if you want to copy a file from your floppy to your home directory,
"mcopy a:\myfile.zip ."
...don't forget to put a space and the "." (dot) after the name of the file you're copying. UNIX requires a source and a destination on a copy command, and "." is UNIX shorthand for "this directory right here" or the "current" directory.
Then check to see that the copy was successful with:
"ls -al myfile.zip"
sumatra:~$ ls -al myfile.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 nelson nelson 153464 Nov 25 17:49 myfile.zip
Note that although the file is shown on the floppy in all uppercase letters (MYFILE ZIP), UNIX automatically converts the filename during the copy to all lowercase letters, and it ends up as "myfile.zip"
2) How can I copy very large files to a DOS floppy disk?
If you ftp / download a large file such as the Windows version of Netscape Navigator, you'll find that it will not fit on a single DOS floppy disk. Fortunately, UNIX has a command called "split" that you can use to split that file up into chunks that will fit on a DOS floppy.
Let's say you've just downloaded this file:
seahunt:/usr/local/src/work$ ls -l bigfile.zip -rw-r--r-- 1 nelson nelson 2490606 Nov 27 17:02 bigfile.zip
As you can see, this file is 2.49 megabytes in size, and it won't fit on a 1.44 megabyte DOS floppy.
So, we use "split" to split it into chunks like this:
split -C 1220k bigfile.zip part_
This will create the following two files:
-rw-r--r-- 1 nelson nelson 1248052 Nov 27 17:18 part_aa -rw-r--r-- 1 nelson nelson 1242554 Nov 27 17:18 part_ab
Now you can copy the each of the two files "part_aa" and "part_ab" to a separate floppy disk with the following commands:
mcopy part_aa a:
...(then when the copy is finished, insert the second floppy)
mcopy part_ab a:
Then when you get home to your DOS or Windows machine copy the files to your hard disk in a temporary directory such as C:\TEMP:
(Insert the first floppy)
cd \temp
copy a:\part_aa
(insert the second floppy)
copy a:\part_ab
Now that you have the two files "part_aa" and "part_ab" on your hard drive, you can reassemble them into the original "bigfile.zip" file with the following command:
copy part_aa /b part_ab /b bigfile.zip /b
3) How do I configure Netscape Mail so that it saves a copy of each message I send ?
a) First you need to create the folder that will hold a copy of your outgoing messages. In this example, we'll call the folder "sent". From Netscape's menu bar, choose:
File -> New Folder
In the dialog box that pops up, enter "sent"
b) Then from Netscape's menu bar, select:
Options -> Mail & News Preferences -> Compose
Look at the section that says "By default, copy outgoing messages to:" and "Mail Messages:"
In that box, type "/home/youruserid/Mail/sent"
(replace "youruserid" with the user id under which you log into the system).
From now on, whenever you send an email message, it will save a copy of it in your "sent" folder.
4) How do I set up my own Web Page?
Please note that this section is "under construction". We'll be adding more tips here soon.
Netscape Navigator Gold makes this pretty easy to do. There is an excellent help page that you should start with on Netscape's Home Web Server.
5) How do I access my America On Line (AOL) account or email from The CoffeeNet?
From the research we have done, this does not appear to be possible at the present time.
AOL requires you to access their service by using their Windows or Macintosh software installed on your own computer. This is probably so that they can accurately charge you for every minute of connect time to their service.
You might check with AOL's Tech Support people, but at the present time we here at The CoffeeNet don't know of a way around this problem.
If you do find a way to do this, please let us know.
6) How do I read my mail on another, remote computer?
First, you must know the complete address of the machine you want to log into. Let's assume for discussion purposes that the machine you want to access is "hostname.domain.com".
There are two general ways to do this. One is to actually log in to that machine and run the mail program there, the other is to retreive your mail using the "pop3" protocol and then actually read the mail here. If you want to use the first method, follow the instructions here. If you want to do it via pop3, see the section of this FAQ on reading mail using pop3.
You can use the UNIX "telnet" program to connect to that machine, either from inside of the Netscape Navigator, or from a UNIX shell.
From Netscape:
From Netscape's menu bar, choose:
File -> Open Location
Enter "telnet://hostname.domain.com" and click the "Open In Browser" button
A UNIX shell will automatically open up running the telnet application
Login with your username and password when prompted by the remote host
Run your mail program (elm, pine, etc.) on the remote host
From a UNIX shell:
Click on the "Shell" icon on the CoffeeNet buttonbar
Enter "telnet hostname.domain.com" at the shell's command line
Login with your username and password when prompted by the remote host
Run your mail program (elm, pine, etc.) on the remote host
7) How do I retrieve my mail from a remote site using their "pop3" mail server?
If you want to copy your mail from another, remote machine to a machine here at The CoffeeNet so that you can then read and respond to that mail here, you'll do it using the "pop3" protocol.
To set this up, first you must know the complete address of the machine you want to log into. Let's assume for discussion purposes that the machine you want to access is "hostname.domain.com", and that you have a user account on that machine called "my_remote_account".
We will further assume that your login account here at The CoffeeNet is "my_coffeenet_account"
On Netscape's menubar, select:
Options -> Mail and News Preferences -> Servers
In the section labeled "Outgoing Mail", you should have "mail.coffeenet.net" in the box for "SMTP server:"
In the section labeled "Incoming Mail", click on the radio button for "POP3", then in the box labeled "Server:", enter "hostname.domain.com". In the box labeled "User Name:", enter "my_remote_account".
Now you have a decision to make. Pop3 can either download a copy of your messages to the local machine, leaving the original messages on the remote machine, or it can MOVE the messages from there to here, and DELETE the messages on the remote machine.
There is a label in the "Incoming Mail" section labeled "After delivery" that allows you to select "Remove from server" or "Leave on server" according to the behavior you want.
Next, you can select how often Netscape Mail's pop3 client will check with the server to see if you have any new mail. In the section labeled "Check for Mail:", you can select "Every XX minutes" (in this case, fill in the interval at which you want it to check), or "Never", in which case it won't ever go out and get your mail for you. In order to get it to fetch your mail, you will need to click on Netscape Mail's "Get Mail" button in the upper left area of Netscape Mail's buttonbar.
Lastly, make sure that your "Mail Directory:" is set to:
"/home/my_coffeenet_account/Mail/"
When all this is set up, click on the "OK" button, then from the Netscape menubar, select:
Options -> Save Options
8) How can I read my email at The CoffeeNet if I don't want to buy any food or beverages or pay the $5.00 hourly charge?
We've set up a small table with a monochrome monitor and a keyboard where anyone can log in for free (assuming you already have a CoffeeNet account). On that system, you'll be able to read and respond to your email, but the other commands and programs on the regular CoffeeNet workstations will not be available to you. But what the heck... it's FREE.
To read your mail on the free terminal, you'll need to use one of the "text mode" unix mail programs such as "pine", or "elm", or "mail". "pine" is probably the easiest of these programs to use if you are not familiar with UNIX mailreaders.
Please limit your useage of the free terminal to 1/2 hour per sitting.
And please note that if you ONLY use the free table, your records will not get updated and the program that looks for users who have not logged in in the past 30 days will NOT know that you've been here, so your account will be deleted.
You need to log into one of the regular CoffeeNet workstations at least once every 30 days in order to keep your account active.
HTML by Michael Nelson
Last Modified November 28, 1996