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A: Adobe's GoLive software is a visual editor that makes it easy to edit departmental pages. This is the supported tool for the University. You may also hand-code your site using a text editor, or choose another WYSIWYG editor, but then we may not be able to support any questions that may come up.
(If you are an administrator for more than one site, read the following question as well.)
A: You cannot login to the server and edit the files directly; you need to connect securely using WebDAV. To login, open a stand-alone WebDAV client that supports SSL encryption (using Adobe GoLive, for example) and enter the following info:
| Nickname | Brandeis web server |
| Server | webserver.brandeis.edu |
| Directory | / |
| Username | (Your UNet ID) |
| Password | (Leave blank)* |
*Make sure that you do not save your password inside GoLive!
A: In Adobe GoLive, it is possible to specify the directory. Please ask us for more information on how to set this up.
A: We can do better than that - we can help you make one yourself (this is better because you don't have to wait for us). Instructions for a new site file are part of our GoLive setup instruction sheet.
A: Check to make sure your password is not being saved. Instructions on removing saved passwords are online.
A: We love CSS. You might want to check out these resources online to learn more about CSS:
A: You can, of course, use server-side includes to automatically add a file modified date. You'd include code that looks something like this: "Thursday, 24-Apr-2008 13:29:10 EDT." However, if you don't want to be that technical, GoLive does allow you to use internal capabilties to place in a bit of a date:
Note: you can place text before and after the object to describe it better.
A: Add this code to your search box, and the search will work for only your directory:
<input type=hidden name=hq value="inurl:www.brandeis.edu/directory_name">
where you replace your directory's name for directory_name.
A: Brandeis does not recommend frames for many reasons. Frames break every convention of Web navigation established - bookmarks are difficult, browser history doesn't accurately reflect paths, they break easily, and printing is very difficult.
Don't want to take our word for it? Web usability experts agree - frames were a Bad Idea that should be avoided. Check out the 1996 version of Nielsen's Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design.
A: On a Mac with OS X, you have save as PDF built into the operating system. Simply go to Print the document as if you were sending it to a printer (File -> Print), and in the pop-up dialog box choose "Output options" under the "copies and pages" menu. Then check the box "save as PDF".
On any PC or a Mac with OS 9 or before, you need to get the seperate application Acrobat installed on your machine (not the Acrobat Reader, the full version). This is available on campus for a nominal fee. This allows you to generate PDF files from any application (Word, Netscape, Eudora, etc). You can request the software here, and the friendly and helpful folks from LTS will arrange an installation for you.
Once you have the software, you want to still "Print" (believe it or not), but this time you print to a file. In your destination dialog box, you select "file".
A: Point a browser to: https://unet.brandeis.edu/accounts/web/index.php3 and login. You will see a list of the groups you own or belong to.
A: If you have a personal website, the access procedure is similar to that for departmental sites, but the server is different. Also, you cannot use FTP - you need to use SFTP (for secure FTP). Open an SFTP client and enter the following:
You may also access the WWW directory from your UNet home space; Please read the documentation on how to access your UNet home folder on your computer for more information.
Any files that you place in your UNet Web folder will be viewable from the Web! Be sure to create an index.html document, as it will serve as your homepage.
A: No. The way that search engines have evolved to do rankings (at least by 2004) is that pages with more links to them are ranked higher (they must be authoritative if everyone links to them, right?). Another factor is the legitimacy of the source: if a site can get a .edu site to link to it, its rankings go even higher. So, it's no wonder that everyone at Brandeis is getting site linkup requests - these sites want to boost their own rankings. Our rankings won't increase by much at all, as being an educational institution they already are quite high. You'll reap near zero rewards, and will provide large benefits for someone of dubious quality. Don't perpetuate the lie; just say no.
A: None. Within reason. Standard web reasonability rules apply: all images should be compressed (not raw JPEGs of quality 12 and sized 800K, but sized for the web and at 40-70 % quality. If you don't know what this means, you should talk to us). Video should be quicktime, compressed with Sorenson. Other standard reasonability rules apply.
A: Send an email to webtechservices@brandeis.edu with the following information:
And we will set it up for you!
A: We use Analog, a standard stats package used by nearly 1/3 of all webservers. You can learn how to interpret these reports at the Analog info page.
A: No. Read the documentation on how the Web works at Analog's site.
That page states: "it's important not to slip from "this page has received 30,000 requests" to "30,000 people have read this page." In some sense these problems are not really new to the Web - they are present just as much in print media too. For example, you only know how many magazines you've sold, not how many people have read them. In print media we have learned to live with these issues, using the data which are available, and it would be better if we did this on the Web too.
A: Posting anything private to the Web is in general a bad idea (www stands for World-Wide Web, after all). The Web is usually like a postcard (anyone can read what you say) and the "protection" that sites offer simply put a lightweight "envelope" around the postcard (it's hidden, but someone could easily get in if they wanted to).
That being said, a simple method of privacy is called htaccess. This will restrict by location, by (simple) password, or both. We've got a bit more information in our tools for editing Brandeis sites section.
A: Savvy programmers develop spiders that crawl through a website and look for mailto links in your web pages. They collect these links and use them to generate junk email lists (spam lists). Several people have noticed increased volumes of spam once their email addresses have been posted as mailto links.
Web Technology Services recommends that your department page do not use the mailto command, and instead simply list your email username (UNet ID). You should receive less junk mail this way.
If you feel that you really need to post email contact information, do something like what is done on the public Faculty Guide. Look at their HTML source code: person <!-- at --><em>@<!-- there --></em>brandeis.edu . Note: Instead of the "@" symbol, type "& # 6 4 ;" with no spaces, which is html code for the at symbol.
This is (currently) sufficient to deter automated spamming programs and viruses that snag email addresses from web pages (our servers have averaged three copies **per second** at peak virus attack periods), and yet if you look at the rendered version or copy-paste the email address from the page it works just fine.
A: Calendar FAQ - has all the answers!
A: Visit Bannerideas and add a banner idea. Make sure under type you select Event or Announcement and you provide a start and end date. Failure to do so will prevent your event from going to the front page. While we'd like to make publishing these announcements an automatic process, some review is necessary for length (it is a small space!), clarity, spelling, and appropriateness. This review process is done daily.
A: The front page events are designed to rotate through a list of many (when many are available). The idea is to provide exposure to many different events - this is a happening campus, after all.
A: Web Technology Services has prepared documentation for SouperMail here: http://www.brandeis.edu/webservices/howto/soupermail/.
A: We use a combination of the following:
