ThinkQuest New York City Internet Challenge server accounts are now hosted on the Oracle Foundation’s ThinkQuest website.
In order to upload your files, your coach (teacher) must be logged into the ThinkQuest website. Login is here. Once logged in you will see the two methods for uploading (details below). FTP is not supported.
There are two ways to upload your files to the server.
- Using the File Upload tool. This is a web browser based tool - it requires no additional software.
- Using WebDAV. WebDAV is a protocol for file transfers (similar, but different from FTP). We have found that most schools have WebDAV blocked. For this reason we recommend using the File Upload tool.
A tutorial covering uploading using both of these methods can be found here. We recommend the following approach.
How to upload a zip archive of your site using the File Manager
Rather than uploading one file at a time, you can create a zipped archive of your entire site and upload that to the server. The archive must be a zipped file (not .tar.gz, .7z, or any other format). The archive will unzip automatically on the server (note below if you are using WinZip).
1. Go to the folder containing all of the files for your site. In our example we have a folder called “outEntry.”
2. MAC USERS
Select all of the files and subfolders of your site. Right click and choose to “Create Archive…” as in the picture below:
This will create a new file in your directory called “Archive.zip” This file contains your entire site and is the file that you will upload to the server.
2. WINDOWS USERS USING WINDOWS BUILT IN COMPRESSION
Select all of the files and subfolders. Right click and choose “Send To” then select “Compressed (zipped) Folder” as in the picture below:
Depending on your file names and how you selected the files, you will end up with a new file in your directory with the extension .zip - in our case we selected from top to bottom and Windows chose to name the archive after the last file as below:
This zip file contains your entire site and is the file that you will upload to the server.
2. WINDOWS USERS WITH WINZIP
If you use the popular “WinZip” compression program you must be sure that the compression setting is set to “Legacy compression (Zip 2.0 compatible) otherwise it will not unzip on the server.
Open WinZip and drag all of the files and subfolders of your site into the window. A box will pop up. Note the “Change Compression” setting on the right.
Click on “Change Compression…” a dialog box will appear. Choose “Legacy compression (Zip 2.0 compatible) as below:
After you click OK, you can continue and WinZip will create a new archive for you. This is the file that you will need to upload to the server.
3. Go to the ThinkQuest site and login. From the navigation bar at the top, choose “File Upload” then click on the blue “Upload File” button in the lower part of the page.
4. This will take you to a page where you can select the file to upload. Upload your .zip file.
5. The page will refresh and now you will see all of your files and can click on the “Test Site” button on the lower right.
It is a very good idea to upload files and begin testing your site on the server early to catch any errors which might arise in moving the files to a new location.
