title: How can I commit and push to someone else's repository on GitHub?
body: <p>I have cloned a repository created by a professor on my virtual machine (I'm running Ubuntu 13.10) and we're supposed to create personal folders. I created mine, but I cannot for the life of me commit and push it to make it show up on GitHub. I swear I have tried every answer on here, and things have improved somewhat. For instance, I originally had a version of Git that was too old and wouldn't permit https. I also created a blank file in my personal directory because I know GitHub doesn't store empty folders.</p>
  
  <p>I originally cloned the repository using:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ git clone git://github.com/astrofoley/astr596.git 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And then used</p>
  
  <pre><code>git config --global user.name "myusername"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and</p>
  
  <pre><code>git config --global user.email "myemail"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I checked with my professor and he made sure I have adequate permissions.</p>
  
  <p>At this point, depending upon which commit and push methods I use (I always try to push to <a href="https://github.com/astrofoley/astr596.git">https://github.com/astrofoley/astr596.git</a>), I get several different errors ranging from "nothing added to commit but untracked files present" to simply "403". I have no idea what I am doing wrong, but I suspect it is something related to the fact that the repository belongs to another account. Either way, this is getting incredibly frustrating. Please help!</p>
  
  <p>EDIT: Here's an example of my current problem. I tried adding and committing the file in my directory again using</p>
  
  <pre><code>git add blank.txt
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>(this step seems to have worked fine) and then</p>
  
  <pre><code>git commit blank.txt
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>At this point I get the message "On branch master, nothing to commit, working directory clean".</p>