Four out of five surveyed undergrad engineering students* are unaware of the presence and purpose of a small folder nestled in the N: Drive between “Netscape” and “Software”. T’is a waste, I say, t’is a waste. For verily, the public_html folder is a wealth of untold possibilities.
The public_html folder provides every Nexus account holder with a modicum of web hosting space. This means that any file saved inside the public_html folder can appear online with a url starting with “eng.uwaterloo.ca/~yourid/” and ending with the filepath. What does go up is entirely up to you, subject to federal law, university policy, and any other applicable piece of legislation, of course. Go forth, young mariner, and follow the gleam!
Sorry, that was a bit cryptic.
The most obvious answer as to what to do with your newfound power is to build a landing page and take control of your Google search results. If your good name was ever eclipsed by the influence of convicted meth dealers and Michael Bolton impersonators who just happen to share your name, I know how you feel. Long had I lived in the shadow of a Cathay Pacific flight attendant.
But no longer. Early last year, I constructed a page to host my resume and visual proof of hobbies gone amok, and have since moved upwards at least a dozen results pages. Maybe even take it a step further and showcase a portfolio of professional projects and academic papers without contracting to an outside company. Tributes to cats, EDCOM, and left-handed underwater basket weaving are also acceptable uses of the public_html folder.
If building a useable webpage is beyond your time constraints, no need to fear that the few cents of your tuition allocated to maintain the Nexus servers will go to waste. Occasionally you may want to share a large file with multiple people. Instead of subjecting it to the guidelines of rapidshare, megaupload, and their ilk, save a copy in the public_html folder and email a link to everyone who you wished to see it. The file will remain there for as long as you need it to stay (no deletion after ninety days) and not a moment longer. Upload and remove files at whim without having to create yet another account with a fake birthday, postal code, and social security number to manage the uploaded files.
But be forewarned: the standard N: drive quota of 2GB still applies. Therefore it is not viable, for example, to upload a video of your twelve-hour solo commentary on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. A selection of forum signature images, short but legendary family videos, and a selection of pictures of cats that look like Hitler are more feasible. Additional space will have to be obtained elsewhere, for example from the Computer Science Club for $2 a term. I have no idea why I bought five terms worth of storage but you never know when you’ll need something until you need it.
In truth, I don’t know any more details of the “wealth of untold possibilities”, except that they do exist, and that they are untold by me. You’re better off checking the details with the fine human beings at the Engineering Computing Help Desk.
(http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/twiki/bin/view/Engcomp/EngineeringComputingHelpDesk#Personal_Home_Pages.)
*Study is flawed, skewed, and toasted on a ciabata bun with cheese.
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