Dear Students–
Now that the school year is well underway (eek!) and homework and projects are starting to pile up, lots of you have been asking me questions about how you can access your file server account from home. Some of you may not even realize that you CAN access your file server account from home. Well, you can! And it’s pretty easy! If you have a Mac at home, you connect the exact same way we connect at school (from the finder, click GO–>Connect to Server, then type in “files.ucls.uchicago.edu”, put in your name and password when it asks you for them, and boom! you’re in.
If you have a PC at home (not a Mac), the procedure is slightly different. Just follow these instructions and you’ll be in:
1.) Download and install a program called WinSCP. This is a secure FTP (file transfer protocol) program that will allow you to access your server folder, and transfer files back and forth from your home computer onto the file server and vice versa.
2.) When WinSCP is finished downloading and installing, open it up. A box will pop up asking you about session connection information. For hostname, type “files.ucls.uchicago.edu” put in your username (mine is rhansen, yours is probably your first initial and the first six letters of your last name) and password.
3.) Click “login.”
Once you’re connected you’ll see a window split down the middle. The right half shows your UCLS file server space - the “remote” system. The left half shows the files on your computer, the “local” system. You should be able to drag and drop any files between systems.
To get to public spaces (teacher’s dropboxes are located here in a folder called “faculty”), navigate the remote system to /volumes/SAN/Data/Public
That’s it! It’s a great idea to use your file server space to store papers, projects and other important schoolwork. The file server is backed up (so if it happens to crash your stuff won’t be lost) AND you can get to it from any computer in the world, as long as it’s hooked up to the Internet. That means you can start writing your paper at school, save it in your folder, work on it some more at the library, edit it at home, and then pop into the computer lab at school the next day to print out the final draft. Pretty neat.
PS Have you practiced your typing twice this week using Custom Typing.com? For 6th graders I will be checking on Monday to see if you’ve completed your typing homework (two practice sessions each week, at least 15 minutes each). 5th graders, I’ll run the report on your typing homework in the morning the day I see you in class. Remember to use the home row! 
Posted on September 28th, 2007 by Ms. Ruthie Hansen
Filed under: Dear Students
Thanks I have been wondering how to do that for a long time.
This has a lot of things that you can download and I’m not sure exactly what I should download. I have a Windows PC. And I really need to gwt to my file server from home. It is just not very clear right now.
Just so you know, since I did not know what to download, I downloaded the wrong thing and now I have no idea what or where it is, and now, if someone guesses my password, they can get onto my computer from anywhere!! And I downloaded (finally) that thing you said to, and it does not work!!! I got to my file server, but when I tried to look at pictures it was all weird and looked like some kind or writing!! It was soo weird. And so it does not work. I think it would be cool if you could give more info on what to do and stuff like that.
This is not working on the computer it keeps asking me for a file key ID and am I supposed to put it as a SFTP or a FTP?
when i met my teacher.