Saving a file to your AFS space

Perhaps the single most important thing you do when you're working with a computer is to make sure that you save your work so you can use it again later. For example, while you are typing a paper with a word processing program the computer is temporarily storing what you type. Unless you save your work to a file when you finish using the word processor, the computer erases everything it has put in that temporary space, namely your entire paper.

To avoid losing your work, you must save your paper into a file before you quit using the program. When you save a file, it is stored in your AFS home file space unless you tell the system to do otherwise. Once stored there, your work is safe, and you can have the computer retrieve it whenever you want to work with it again. Many, but not all, programs will ask you if you want to save your work if you try to quit the program without first saving the file(s) you are using. You should get into the habit of saving your work every few minutes.

When you are saving files from a program such as a word-processor, you can save them directly into a directory. An easy and foolproof way to do this is to always specify the complete directory path from your home directory.
For example, to save a file with the name phonelist in your home directory, save the file as
~/phonelist.
To save a document with the name essay.doc into your biology subdirectory in your home directory, save it as
~/biology/essay.doc .

The computers that make up the Unity system are called servers. And although there are several hundred of them in several locations on campus, they are connected to each other with high-speed wiring. Your home file space in AFS is on one of these servers (or a disk drive controlled by a server) and not necessarily on whatever computer you sit down in front of. Because the computers are networked together, you can get to the files in your home file space even when you use a different computer, or even a different lab, each time you come in to do work.

If you're accustomed to using a microcomputer (like a PC or Macintosh), not saving your work to a floppy disk or to a hard disk (hidden inside the computer's casing) may at first seem a bit uncomfortable. Keep in mind, however, that you are saving your work to a disk, but it's in another building rather than on the machine you're using. One advantage to working this way is that you don't have to remember to take your disk with you when you go to a computing lab to work, and you also don't have to worry about something happening to it.

Another advantage of using a networked system is that your work is "backed up" regularly, which means that a copy of your work is kept on yet another computer somewhere else in the system. In most cases your entire account is backed up once a week. This way, if a problem occurs your work will be safe. This is a lot safer than if you had to carry your work around with you on floppy disks, which are easily lost or damaged. In addition, you can always copy your work onto floppy disks if you wish.

Last modified October 19, 2005 by cawalker