Redwood Linux™

Want Your Voice Back?

If you want to be heard or seen today you need to be visible to search engines.

That means you need a presence on the Internet. You; your family; your group.

We will coach you through each and every step required to build a basic Internet presence:

• selecting a domain name
• selecting a domain name registrar
• registering a domain name
• composing your message to the world
• using basic HTML to enhance your message
• multimedia, including pictures and music
• selecting an Internet service provider to host your content
• uploading content to your website with SSH
• monitoring your web server logs for traffic
• answering questions about CSS and Javascript
• comparing professional blogging tools - Wordpress, etc

We will do this together so we can learn together. We will help one another and share knowledge.

You will learn basic Windows and Linux commands for making directories and editing text files.

You will learn how to use a spreadsheet to compare vendors and pick the vendor that provides the most services for the least money. It won't hurt, we promise. We will show you how a spreadsheet can be your friend; like the Internet, it is just a tool and can be used for good if you but try.

Your teacher: a retired UNIX systems administrator, network architect, database administrator, firewall administrator and website administrator with over 40 years of professional experience implementing technology and training employees in how to use it to make themselves more effective. His newest enthusiasm: making citizens more effective.

We'll talk about domain security, too.

The class is forming now: $20 (twenty dollars) per person, per session, gets you a seat at the table (you bring your own pad, paper, and laptop) and all the questions I and everyone else at the table can handle.

I think FIVE is a good number of students for this class - but I'm open to larger classes, if a space can be found at a church, for instance.

I think TWO HOURS is a good length of time for each seminar. Again, I'm open to discussion.

We'll go as far as we can each session but between session #1 and session #2 I hope to have helped everyone pick a domain, pick a registrar, and pay for at least one year of that domain's existence.

Having a registered domain will be the starting point for everyone when session #2 meets; we will continue from that point.

If you can't afford $20 I guess I can't stop you from buying a coffee and sitting at another table but I won't be able to answer your questions.

Recommendations on a good coffee shop for the seminar to meet at are welcome!

If someone can help me schedule space at a church I would do the seminars for free.

Here's your homework, if you are interested:

• on your computer, open a command line shell
• create a folder or make a directory called 'MyHTML'
• inside that folder/directory entity, create a file called 'index.html'
• inside that file, type "I can do this". Save the file and exit.
• figure out the path to that file; under Windows, the 'cd' command, by itself, will tell you what directory you are in - for example, /Users/JSmith/MyHTML/, so the path to the file would be /Users/JSmith/MyHTML/index.html
• open your browser and type file:///Users/JSmith/MyHTML/index.html in the URL window (some browsers don't cooperate but this usually works), and hit ENTER
• See your content displayed by the web browser, just as it would be if it had been served by a web server: you have just created your first HTML file and taken your first step towards administering your own website.

Photograph: Ansel Adams, one of California's earliest non-conformists. If he tried that today the California Highway Patrol would take him into custody and impound his vehicle. Check out that wood panelling! My dad had a station wagon like that, when my mom met him.