It is possible to mount a personal web page on My RWU.

      You'll find the area to do this under personal tools on the

      dashboard.  It is entitled, appropriately, My Web Pages.  If

      you have some time, you might want to play with it before I demonstrate it next week.  It has a simple WYSIWYG (pronounced wizzywig) editor.  The greatest advantage is that it is free.  The greatest drawback is that the editor isn't very sophisticated.  Here are two help files whiich may be useful to you.  They are also available through My Rwu.

• Quick Start Instructions
  

• Detailed Instructions
  

I usually advise people to play around a little before getting too nervouse about instructions. You can't break it, unless you throw a shoe through the screen in frustration.

History 203L

Dimensions of History Lab

5:00 - 7:50 W (Lab)

CAS 128

Spring Semester, 2008

Roger Williams University

Lab Schedule

Michael R. H. Swanson Ph. D.

Office:  CAS 110, Ext. 3230

Hrs:  M. F.  1:00-2:00

T, 11:00-12:30,  W 2:00-3:00

E-mail:     History 203L@msn.com

I will be doing two things this evening:

• First, we'll be looking with you at your collections of links from your MURL sites. You should be well into researching links for Two Roger Williams University History or American Studies Courses (one from 101 to 202, one upper level).  You should also be collecting and bookmarking pages of reference for your London Paper.  I'm going to click on links from the student link page.  Check to make sure I have your name there.  If I don't send me the link address again and I'll update the page.
  

• Second I'll discuss the alternate possibilities for hosting your web paper.  There are three alternatives I'll present: 
  

Alternately, you can can use Geocities, now

part of the Yahoo family of services, to host

your websiite.  Geocities can be free, but if you

do choose to use it I would recommend breaking down and forking over the $4.95 minimum to host. it.  The differences?  Two primary ones.  First, you will have much more room to store files, and if your website gets elaborate (many pictures, perhaps maps, films, whatever) you'll need the room.  Second, and more important, the free version is supported by Yahoo advertising, and this can be very intrusive visually and limiting in terms of the kinds of designing one can do.

Third, and my personal favorite, is Homestead, the host

I use for my own web pages.  It costs about the same per

month as Yahoo does, but the page editor is much more

flexible and easy to use.  The difficulty is that the Machine

storable pagemaker is incompatible with software in our laboratory.  There is an online text editor you can use in the lab, but it has less features than the one you can place on your computer.  If you bring a laptop to the lab and can get it working, that will be fine.  Otherwise, we can perhaps snare a vacant smart classroom and I can move back and forth to give assistance as needed (I'm puffing already)