This is the e-mail message that we send to new Information Providers.

John and Jane,

   You (the username "sample") have a new empty Web
directory at

      http://www.scn.org/samplesite/

   SCN's registration volunteers (registra@scn.org) are 
sending you (John) a letter by U. S. Mail about your
account, including the password. 

Uploading your Web files:

   You can create HTML files on your computer and upload
them with FTP, over a PPP connection from your Internet
provider. There's a list of western Washington Internet
providers at

      http://www.scn.org/help/isp/

   Log on to ftp.scn.org (not www.scn.org) with your FTP
program. Type your username in all lowercase letters. Type your
password exactly as it appears, using uppercase and lowercase
letters and any special characters. Set the remote directory to

      /web/samplesite

   The Web server replaces /web with http://www.scn.org to
form the Web addresses (URLs) of your files, so

      /web/samplesite/filename.html
becomes         
      http://www.scn.org/samplesite/filename.html

   The 10 Mb of Web file space in /web/samplesite is
separate from your /home/sample/work directory, where you
also have 1 Mb of file space for your e-mail and other
non-Web files.

   Windows users often use WS_FTP to upload files, because
it makes it easy to see the status of all your files. It's
available from http://www.ftpplanet.com.

   Macintosh users can use Fetch or Anarchie. See for
example
      Fetch: http://www.dartmouth.edu/pages/softdev/fetch.html
      How To Use FTP (Fetch) for Macintosh
      Anarchie: http://www.stairways.com/anarchie/

   If your only connection to the Net is through SCN, then
you can dial up SCN and upload files using the Zmodem,
Xmodem or Kermit file transfer protocols.

Setting up your Web files:

   We recommend using index.html or index.htm as the
filename for your home page. You can also use home.html,
welcome.html, main.html or default.html (or .htm with any
of these).

   When you make links to your home page, it's better to
simply use your directory name instead of the filename of
your home page. For example:

      http://www.scn.org/samplesite/
not   http://www.scn.org/samplesite/default.htm

   Please use only lowercase letters for all of your
filenames, though of course that's optional. Unix is
case-sensitive, and using all lowercase letters avoids a
common source of errors when people type in or try to
remember your URLs.

   We ask that you include a link back to SCN, and to the
menu where your listing appears, on your home page
(index.html). These can go in small type at the bottom of
the page. There's no need to have links to SCN on any of
your other pages.

      <a href="/">Seattle Community Network</a><br>
      <a href="/neighbors/">SCN Neighborhoods Menu</a>

   You can use FrontPage to design your site, if you avoid
"bots" and other such proprietary features that won't work
with SCN's standard Web server. You can upload your
FrontPage pages with FTP, through a PPP connection from an
Internet provider.

   Let us know at webeditors@scn.orgwhen your site is ready, and
we'll add it to the SCN menus.

Your e-mail account:

   You can forward mail from SCN to whatever other account 
you're using at the moment. Log on to SCN via dialup, telnet or 
SSH (scn.org) and go to the E-Mail Menu. Then pick "Mail 
Forwarding."

   You can also retrieve your mail with a POP mail program like 
Eudora, Pegasus or your browser's built-in mail program, over a 
PPP connection through a commercial Internet provider.

The POP3 (receive) address is 
      mail.scn.org

The SMTP (send) address is 
      smtp.scn.org

   To retrieve your mail from the POP server, you must
first remove any mail forwarding from SCN to another
server. As an anti-spam relaying measure, you must check
for new mail before sending mail. See the POP mail help
file at

      http://www.scn.org/help/popmail.html.

Using the Unix shell:

   If you know how to use Unix, you can log on to scn.org
(via dialup, telnet or SSH), bypass the menu system, and go
to the Unix shell. At the menu prompt, type "shell" like
this:

      Your Choice ==> shell

   You can go to your Web directory by typing "cd" followed
by the directory path, as in

      scn:username> cd /web/samplesite

   To use a version of the Pico editor that doesn't always
write files in your /home/username/work directory, type
 
      /usr/local/bin/pico

To return to the menu system, type "exit" like this:

      scn:username> exit

Domain names:

   Domain names have become less expensive and easier to
administer with the advent of new registrars, especially
those affliliated with OpenSRS.org.

   SCN can host your Web site, but doesn't yet offer domain
name hosting. For now, to equate your domain name with your
SCN site, you could use a domain forwarding service.

   See for example ZoneEdit, which offers a free service, 
or one of the many similar commercial services such as
DNScentral. There are a number of them, and their terms and 
conditions vary. Some domain name registrars also provide domain
forwarding.

   To actually begin forwarding your domain name to your
SCN site, after you have defined the forwarding destination
at ZoneEdit or a similar service, you would then go to your
domain name registrar and set the DNS records there to use
ZoneEdit's DNS servers.

Updated May 5, 2001 - webmaster@scn.org