Benefits
- Easy to create - once you have permission you can create virtual hosts yourself via My Account!
- Easy to modify - map the virtual host as a drive letter in Windows!
- Easy to specify who can edit your virtual host.
- Secure - No worrying about having to patch and secure a machine
- Fast - The server is part of a 6-node cluster of SunFire V240 servers, each with 8 gigabytes of RAM
- No quotas - (but please keep it reasonable)
- Mysql - Create and maintain your CAE mysql database with: phpmyadmin!
- Sorry, no ASP at this time!
Accessibility
For usability, it is helpful to include the date created and date last modified on each webpage.
To comply with the university's accessibility policy, each website should list a content owner. Alternate text for photos and graphics must be included in webpages.
Here are local sources of information on accessibility:
- Quick summary: http://www.engr.wisc.edu/server/help/accessibility/plan.html
- Practical examples: http://helpdesk.wisc.edu/accessibility/guideline/508guidelines.html
- The university's policy: http://www.wisc.edu/wiscinfo/policy/wwwap.html
- References from the UW-Madison Trace Center: http://www.trace.wisc.edu/resources/web-resources.shtml
- PDF files can usually be converted to comply with the policy easily. See: http://www.engr.wisc.edu/server/help/accessibility/pdf.html
Maintenance
Each semester, please test your webpages for accessibility and broken links.
An accessibility checker is available at this website:
You can use the WAVE, which is a free accessibility tool that helps you check for some errors and visualize accessibility features of your pages.
WAVE (http://wave.webaim.org/) WAVE checks your page for accessibility issues including for compliance with many of the Section 508 and WCAG guidelines. No automated tool can check all of the issues in these guidelines so do your own checking and be responsive to user feedback.
If your web editing application does not check links, use the easy validator at this address:
http://validator.w3.org/checklink
Choose "Check linked documents recursively, recursion depth: 3" and click the Check button.