Personal Homepages – What are they and how do I use them?

Before You Begin:

• Your Homepage directory is a web site space allocated on the server that is available to each student, faculty, or staff member.
• The Homepage folder is found in your Personal Directory, or H:\Drive (Homedrive), on campus computers.
• After creating an index.html web page and placing it in the Homepage folder, your web address will be http://homepage.umflint.edu/~uniqname.

Personal home (web) pages residing at http://homepage.umflint.edu are created and maintained solely by the individual authors, not by the University of Michigan-Flint.

The University does not endorse or actively monitor the content of these web pages. These pages do not constitute official University business or statements, and the University accepts no responsibility for their content.

All comments regarding the contents of personal web pages are to be directed to the page author.

Suspected violations of University information technology policies can be reported to the UM-Flint User Advocate Committee using the online User Advocate form located here: http://www.umflint.edu/its/units/committees/useradvocate.htm

 

Uploading Your Website:

Your website must contain a page named index.html in order for the address homepage.umflint.edu/~uniqname to find your home page.

Uploading on Campus:

1. Open Computer
2. Double Click your Homedrive H:\
   
3. Double Click the folder “homepage.”
   
4. In a separate window navigate to the location of your saved website files.
5. Drag and drop the website from the location where it is saved to the already opened “homepage” folder inside of your H:\ drive, or select the website files where they are saved then click  Edit and select Copy then select the homepage folder on your H:\ drive click Edit and select Paste.

Uploading off Campus:

1. Connect to your Homedrive through the VPN at https://vpn.umflint.edu.
2. Open your H: Drive
3. Open your Homepage folder
4. Click Upload in the top right of the window
5. Browse to the files your would like to upload to your homepage folder.
6. Click upload.
7. Once you are done uploading files to your homepage folder you should be able to go to your homepage on the web and see your /index.html file.

Registering Your Webpage:

Registration of your webpage is required before the webpage is accessible from the Homepage Gallery.

1. Go to the web address http://homepages.umflint.edu
2. Select the Get Listed button.
3. Read through the form, and fill out the appropriate fields.
4. Once finished, select the Register Your Homepage! button at the bottom of the page.
5. Now your webpage has been listed, and is available via the Internet. The web address for your webpage is http://homepages.umflint.edu/~YourUniqname

Editing the listing after the site has been registered.

If you have already registered your homepage and would like to edit the criteria in which the homepage was registered under follow these steps:

1. Go to the web address http://homepages.umflint.edu
2. Select the Remove or Edit Listing button.
3. You will then be forwarded to a page where you can modify your listing.
4. If you do not select “No” your website listing will automatically be listed when you select “Modify My Listing”
5. When you are finished updating click the Modify My Listing button at the bottom of the page.

Removing or Reactivating the listing after the site has been Registered

If you have already registered your homepage and would like to remove the listing from public access through the gallery searches please follow these steps:

1. Go to the web address http://homepages.umflint.edu
2. Select the Remove or Edit Listing button.
3. You will then be forwarded to a page where you can modify your listing.
4. Select No and click on Modify My Listing at the bottom of the page. This selection will mark your listing as inactive, so that it does not appear in searches on the Homepage Gallery.
5. To make your listing appear again simply repeat steps 1-4, selecting Yes.

Marking your listing as “Inactive” WILL NOT remove all access to your homepage. People may still access it by typing in the full web address of any page in your web site. To remove all access to your website via the internet you will need to remove all files located in your “Homepage” folder on your H: drive.

Searching for Home Pages:

To search through the homepages

1. Go to https://secure2.umflint.edu/homepage/display_all.asp
2. Click on the Search link in the navigation bar.

Here you will find the Homepage search, here are some search options:

1. Search by the “First Name” search field.
2. Or use the “Uniqname” search field.
3. Or use the “Nickname” search field.
4. Or search by the keywords of the users’ webpage by using the “Keyword” search field.
5. Or search by major by selecting the major near the bottom of the search fields.
6. Or, finally, click on the Homepage Gallery link in the navigation bar to search by the first letter of the users’ last name by clicking one of the letters at the top.

Frequently Asked Questions / Troubleshooting:

“I know my files are there, but they’re not being displayed!”

Due to the server configuration, there are times when files in your homepage directory which are moved instead of copied attain a set of permissions which disallow them to be viewed by the general public. The solution is to copy the files in question to another location, followed by copying them back to their original location. This will cause the server to reset the default permissions (making the file publicly readable once again).

“How do I get a listing of my files in the web browser instead of this “Forbidden” message?”

DO NOT follow these directions if you have a file named “index.html” in your folder. The addition of a .htaccess file to your “homepage” folder when there is already an “index.html” file in the folder may actually CAUSE the “Forbidden” message to be displayed. These directions are optional. They should only be used if you do not want to include an “index.html” file, but do want to be able to see other files that you have stored in your homepage directory. If you have a .htaccess file in your homepage folder along with an “index.html” file, DELETE the .htaccess file and you should no longer receive the “Forbidden” error. If you continue to receive the “Forbidden” error and have deleted the .htaccess file, then you may have a permissions problem. Contact the ITSHelpDesk for assistance.
Create a plain text document without a file extension, and name it “.htaccess” (without the quotes, of course). Note the period at the beginning of the filename. The only thing typed into this file should be the words “options +indexes” (again, without the quotes). The process is demonstrated below.

“I would like to list the contents of the /test directory in the web browser.”

1. Using a text editor (Notepad.exe in this example), create the .htaccess file as described
   
2. When saving the make sure your settings regarding the “File name” and “Save as type” are exactly as pictured. Remember the location of where you are saving the file, as the next step requires finding it again in order to upload it.
   
3. Upload the newly created .htaccess to the directory you would like to have listings. First you will need to connect to UMF via a VPN connection. Please see the steps listed above for accessing your H: drive and homepage folder.
   
4. That’s it! In your web browser, navigate back to the location in question. You should now see a listing of your files, instead of the “Forbidden” message.

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