Computer Buyer 1995 December/buyer-1295.iso/vossnet/readme3.tx_/readme3.tx

Text File | 1995-09-08 | 8KB | 168 lines

Helpful Hints for Using Voss Net Online and the Internet
--------------------------------------------------------

In using your Voss Net Online account, the most important thing to remember
is that we're here for you! Voss Net Online Customer Support will be happy to
answer any questions you may have and help as best as we can.  Voss Net
Online support can be reached at [phone] or by email at
[e-mail]. Currently telephone support is available Monday to
Friday between 9.30am and 6pm. If at all possible please email us with your
problem but please do drop us a line if you encounter any difficulties.


Quick Tips
----------

o If you see a Web address in a magazine or newspaper you want to try, you
can go directly to it by clicking on the spider's web icon and replacing
the text in the white box at the top with the address and then pressing
RETURN.

o By default only the first ten items in the 'Pathways into the Internet'
menus are displayed. However, most menus have more items than this in them.
To get to the other items use the NextPage and PrevPage buttons. We suggest
that you also set the number of items to show in a list at once in the
'Options and Preferences' 'General' menu to 22.

o If you only have a slow modem you can turn the pictures off on Web pages
so that the page comes down a lot faster. It doesn't look as nice but most
of the useful information is text based and this lets you access that much
more quickly.

o Don't forget that while you wait for one operation to complete you can
start another operation. So, if you're waiting for a Web page to come down
you can reply to an email or read the news or start fetching another Web
page or do anything else within the Internaut.

o Some full colour pictures in Web pages don't come out with quite the right
colours. If there's a picture you want to see in higher quality then just
double-click on the image and it will be displayed in a separate window with
the right colours.

o Make use of the online help facilities (the 'How' Question Mark icon in
the bottom right). This has lots of useful information about using the
Internet and the Voss Net Online software.

o Keep an eye out for free software upgrades and bugfixes. We expect these
to be available fairly regularly to start with, at least. They will be
announced with a system bulletin when they first come out and in the 'Today'
pages (get to them by clicking on the Voss Net 'Today' icon at the top
right).

o If you see a Web address you would like to try in an email or news message
you can go directly to it by highlighting it with the mouse and pressing
Ctrl-W.

o Don't forget to download the full list of Usenet newsgroups from the 'Voss
Net On-line: Information, Software, Accounts' menu.


Electronic Mail
---------------

Voss Net Online offers you access to electronic mail on the Internet. When
you connect to Voss Net Online, a window will automatically pop up showing
you a listing of the electronic mail (''email'') waiting for you. You can
also get access to your email by clicking on the ''Mail'' icon and selecting
the ''inbox'' folder. Your email address ends with @vossnet.co.uk. For
example, if you are user ''hobbes'', your email address would be
[e-mail].

To write a message, click on the ''Write'' icon to the left of the Internaut
software. You will need to know the email address of the people you wish to
send mail to. Email addresses are generally of the form

    [e-mail] ...

For example, the support email address is

    [e-mail]


USENET Discussion Groups
------------------------

The USENET ''news'' system is a collection of discussion groups on any and
every topic you can imagine. There are currently over 5,000 USENET
"newsgroup" discussion groups, with the number growing daily. Your Voss
Net Online software is initialized with 6 groups initially, but we encourage
you to download the full list (it may take a while!) by going into the "Voss
Net Online: Information, Software, Accounts" menu and selecting a hierarchy
of newsgroups to download.

If you find participation in the wide world of USENET intimidating, we
suggest you start out with a toe in the waters first by participating in
Voss Net Online's own chat newsgroup, which is local to Voss Net Online.
Meet some of your fellow subscribers, chat a bit, and when you feel ready to
step into the wider world of USENET, those discussion groups will be waiting.


The World Wide Web
------------------

The World Wide Web is the Internet's newest and neatest feature. It offers a
graphical, easily navigable, ''view'' of the Internet. You can get access to
the World Wide Web through Voss Net Online's own web browser, which is the
web icon on the right of the Internaut software. You will also see menus in
Voss Net Online that have little web icons next to them. These are other
points where you can step out into the web. A good way to find your way
around the web is with the Yahoo index. This is available from the
'Reference Desk' menu.


File Transfers and Archie
-------------------------

There are a whole host of software archives out on the Internet where you
can download the latest public domain and shareware programs. To get to them
go to the Internet menu and click on the 'Get Files' option. Then enter the
Internet address of the archive in the 'I have a particular archive in mind'
box. Click go and after a while a menu should pop up with the top level
directory of that archive. If nothing happens the archive is probably too
busy to let you in at the moment and you should try again later. To download
a file just double-click on it's menu entry. Some good archives to try are:

src.doc.ic.ac.uk
wuarchive.wustl.edu
micros.hensa.ac.uk

If you are looking for a specific program or file then you can use the
Archie file search facility. Just type in the filename you are looking for
and click Go. A huge database containing listings from many archives will be
searched for your file and the results returned to you. This service often
becomes congested however so if nothing comes back first time, try again
later or try a different server by clicking on the 'Advanced' button.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
-------------------------

IRC is a lot like CB radio except it's all done by typing and you can talk
to people from all over the World! The system is split up into channels on
different topics. There are often many hundreds of channels and there are
constantly new ones being added and old ones dying out. To get a list of the
current channels go to the 'commands' menu and click on 'list channels'.
Type in a word to search for or * to list all channels. When you see one
that looks interesting just click on the 'join channel' option and type in
the channel name. If it's an active channel you should immediately start
seeing messages scroll up your screen. If you wish to join in the
converstation just type in what you want to say. Be warned though, IRC can
be VERY addictive!

IRC can be a little flakey at times, it's a very big, complicated task to
allow real-time conversations between any number of people from all over the
World, so don't be surprised if you don't get connected reliably every time.
If you ever can't get connected it's usually just a problem with the
computer that we connect into the IRC network with by default. Fortunately,
it's a simple operation to go and try a different connection point. To do
this just go up to the file menu and choose the 'Try a new server option'.
Then, in the dialogue box, type the hostname of the server to try and the port
number.

Some servers you can try are:

irc.demon.co.uk,6667
serv.eng.abdn.ac.uk,6667
irc.funet.fi,6667
slaley.ncl.ac.uk,6667
stork.doc.ic.ac.uk,6667