A Web server is run on the Linux server, astronomy. By default, users will have a Web page that is accessed at http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/username.
We have set aside a specific partition, /home/httpd, to host individual Web pages. You will have a directory, /home/httpd/html/username, where you can place HTML files that can be seen on the WWW. This is where you would make a personal web page.
A set of research-oriented webpages for department members are available for your perusal on the server. To view them, simply load the webpages
http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/dept/html/directory.faculty.shtml
http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/dept/html/directory.rstaff.shtml
http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/dept/html/directory.students.shtml
and click on the appropriate sublinks in the top navigation bar, the left hand menu (under Directory), or on individual names in the primary window.
The contact information on the top of each page is created automatically from a database, while the text on research interests, publications, and the like is stored in an include file on astronomy. You own this file for your webpage, and have the freedom to update its contents at any time.
You can modify the information on your own page by changing the file /home/httpd/html/dept/directory/(faculty,rstaff,grads)/username.include
Due to the use of dynamic html, any changes that made to the include file are instantly reflected online.
The username.include file, and parallel versions for everyone else (named according to your login ID), are owned by each individual user. If for some reason you find that this is not the case and find it impossible to edit your own file, contact Jon to fix the permissions.
There are a few details about the format of the include files worth mentioning, if you decide to update them.
1. The extra line breaks (<br>) at the end of the file extend the length of the primary window so that the page footer lies below the bottom of the left hand menubar. If you have a short research entry and then add in a few paragraphs as your interests develop, some of the line breaks might be removed to compensate (but this depends upon the width of the viewer's browser window, and the browser in use, so it is always safer to have extra line breaks rather than too few).
2. If you have a personal webpage, feel free to place a link to it within the include file text (as has been done on Joe's page, for example). Please use the following format to construct the link.
<p> <a href=http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/helmbold target="_public"><b>Home Page</b></a>
The purpose of the _public target item within the <a href=> flag is to insure that someone who is browsing through a set of our webpages keeps sending them to the same external page (to avoid cluttering up a viewer's screen with many spawned pages, if they are browsing through our entire directory tree).
3. If you publish a new paper, I hope that you will enjoy placing a link to the journal article within your include file. Please use the following format (taken from my include file) to construct the link.
<p> <a href=http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1997ApJ...479L.121V&db_key=AST&high=3f5d06d35119202 target ="_research">Optical Rotation Curves of Distant Field Galaxies: Sub-L* Systems</a> <br> Vogt, N.P., Phillips, A.C., Faber, S.M., Gallego, J., Gronwall, C., Guzman, R., Illingworth, G.D., Koo, D.C., & Lowenthal, J.D. 1997, ApJ, 479, L121
The purpose of the _research target item within the <a href=> flag is to send external journal paper pages to the same spawned page every time, again to avoid clutter for the viewer.
4. If you put in a link to a close collaborator's page, or some other research link, please use the _research target flag again. We are trying to give all spawned webpages one of these two flags throughout the entire set of department webpages, to distinguish broadly between research information and public (which includes academic) information.
5. Please keep the </font> flag at the end of the file, so that the default fonts for the menu bars can come into effect after your prose.
6. We have written content for a very few of your include files, where you were not able to give us information quickly. Feel free to update that content with more accurate information on your research interests.
The individual photos are stored in a parallel directory, at
/home/httpd/html/dept/directory/pictures
If you would like to replace your current photo, please let us know. If you have a digitized version of a photo of your own, just send it to me. If you would like to retake your photo, both Joni and I have digital cameras and would be happy to help out.
If the information at the top of your webpage needs updating (for example, if you change offices or you receive a M.S. degree), please let myself, Chris, Joni, or Jon know and we will update your database entry. Your shtml file is overwritten automatically every time the files are created, so do not try to put updates in there (they will disappear).
If you would like to make your research-oriented webpage your public homepage on astronomy, with an easy path for people to load, then place the following redirect file inside your owned directory at /home/httpd/html/username. The redirect file should be called index.html, and should contain the following text (replacing faculty.nicole with rstaff.sallam or grads.carrande, etc.).
<html> <meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0; URL=http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/dept/html/directory.faculty.nicole.shtml"> <body></body> </html>
For example, I have placed this file within /home/httpd/html/nicole and now if you load
http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/nicole
into your browser, you will be redirected to the page at
http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/dept/html/directory.faculty.nicole.shtml
We have been madly building webpages (as fast as Santa's elves hammer nails into wooden carts at this time of the year), and doubtless will have created a few unintended "bonus features" in the process. If you notice that any webpage in the revised setup has one wheel too many, or one wheel too few, contains typos, or has other problems, please let us know so that we can fix it.