There are many different resources available on the Internet. The newest and most interesting one is called the World-Wide Web (WWW). The WWW dispenses with command-line utilities, the most common way of navigating the Internet. Instead, the WWW is made up of hundreds of thousands of interconnected pages, or documents, which can be displayed on your monitor. Each page can have connections to other pages, which may be held on any computer connected to the Internet. For example, if you wanted some information about baseball, you could start by viewing a page highlighting the history of the game. When a particular team was mentioned, you could click its name to bring up another page containing information about that team.
The WWW originated from a specification created in 1991 at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory based in Geneva, Switzerland. The original idea was to allow physicists and other scientists to share information with full multimedia support. The Internet tools then available required considerable expertise with the Internet, so a new method of both transferring and displaying information was created. The transfer method is named HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), and it runs primarily over TCP/IP, the standard Internet networking protocol. HTTP works using the standard Internet setup, where a server issues the data, and a client displays or processes it. (Since clients are used to navigate the Internet, they are commonly referred to as browsers. The browser we will concentrate on is called Mosaic.) The information to be transferred is created using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML documents are made up of standard text, as well as formatting codes, which indicate how the document should be displayed. The WWW client has to read these codes in order to display the document. For those of you who want to create your own HTML documents, you can refer to Appendix A for a description of the most frequently used formatting codes.
After CERN established the specifications for the WWW, people began writing WWW client and server software, thus forming the WWW as we know it today.
The World-Wide Web is based on the concept of hypertext, a term originally coined by Ted Nelson in the late 1960s. Hypertext is very similar to ordinary text, except for one important aspect: Connections to other parts of the text, or even to other documents, can be hidden behind words and phrases. These connections, called hypertext links, allow you to read the document in any order that makes sense to you, the reader. You are not confined to reading something from beginning to end.
Many of you will be familiar with a common form of hypertext, the on-line help system in Microsoft Windows. In the Windows help system, users can jump from topic to topic by clicking highlighted words or phrases with the mouse.
Hypertext represents a complete departure from traditional documents, like a book for instance, in which the only link between similar topics is the index. If you were reading a hypertext version of this book, a mouse click on the word "FTP" could bring up several different documents related to FTP, such as a description of the FTP protocol or a sample FTP session. Another mouse click would allow you to return to your original location.
Although hypertext is not appropriate for all situations, it is in some cases the only way to navigate a document in a meaningful and useful fashion. One example I already mentioned is an on-line help system. Although you can use a hard copy manual, you need to be both patient and able to follow the index properly--assuming it has one! Also, hypertext allows users to browse, rather than follow things in a structured way. It's rather like skimming a magazine. Very few people read a magazine from cover to cover; we prefer instead to flip through and pick out the articles we're interested in.
The developers of the World-Wide Web have taken the ideas of hypertext one step further, and have created a new form, termed hypermedia. Standard hypertext allows links to be created using words and phrases. In contrast, hypermedia allows links to connect not only words, but also pictures, sounds, or any type of data file that can be stored on a computer. For example, if you were viewing a page from the WWW and clicked on the word apple, depending on the context, the link could display a picture of a nice ripe apple, it could say the word for apple in French through your speaker, or it could even play the video of the latest Apple Macintosh advertisement.
Hypermedia is a method of connecting data items together, regardless of their format. As long as your World-Wide Web software knows what to do with the data being requested, hypermedia can be a hugely enabling process. As we will find out later in the book, hypermedia on the Web has allowed many interesting and varied applications to be formed, from on-line magazines, to weather satellite photographs and videos, to a daily cartoon.
Since its beginnings in 1992, the World-Wide Web has been accepted with open arms by the Internet community. Never before has there been such a comprehensive means of navigating the ever-growing resources on the Internet. Now that the client software needed to access WWW servers is widely available, the number of users trying to access servers has multiplied many times. This in turn has created the demand for new servers.
In early 1994, nearly 300 new servers for the WWW were being announced every month. One reason the number of servers has increased so rapidly is that the software required to run a server--originally designed to work with the Unix operating system--has been made available for operating systems on personal computers, such as Apple's System 7 and Microsoft Windows.
To give you some idea of the scale of the World-Wide Web, Oliver McBryan of the University of Colorado at Boulder wrote a program called the World-Wide Web Worm (WWWW) to keep track of resources on the Web. As new WWW servers come online, the WWWW tracks them down and adds the information to its database. First released in March 1994, the WWWW has already discovered over 100,000 WWW resources. The database was first held in one World-Wide Web page, but after it grew to be 10MB in size, it became too time-consuming to display the entire page. Consequently, special software was written that enables browsers to search the list for specific information.
Although the WWW is primarily used on a global scale as a part of the Internet, it is perfectly feasible for a two-machine network to run the WWW client and server software. Many corporations are looking into the WWW as an inexpensive, yet up-to-date method of handling hypermedia applications on a local area network.
The hypermedia links held on WWW pages describe the location of the document your browser should display by using a special name, called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). URLs enable WWW browsers to go directly to any file held on any WWW server. The URL naming system is extremely simple, yet powerful. A standard URL consists of three parts: the transfer format, the host name of the machine that holds the file, and the path to the file. The transfer format for standard WWW pages is HTTP, so WWW URLs begin with the letters http. A colon and two forward slashes (://) are used to separate the transfer format from the host name. Standard Internet naming conventions are used for the host name part of the URL, and Unix directory-naming conventions are used to indicate the path of the file.
Tip: Netscape is smart enough to know that you generally want to look at a Web site -- you can get away with leaving the http:// off of any URL you type in the Netsite: text field.
If you're looking on the Internet for information, you'll find lots to choose from. The only problem is finding what you need in the sea of information available. One of the best places to research that information is Yahoo, a searchable guide to resources on the Internet.
This deceptively simple-looking index is very well organized. All you have to do is select a menu item to get to the next level of information. One of Yahoo's most powerful features is its straightforward interface. You can pinpoint your search with "and" and "or" modifiers as well as restrict your searches to the URLs, comments, or titles of the entries known to Yahoo.
Inside the Internet, Cobb Group, January 1995
In the early 1970s, the Department of Defense and several large universities developed an intricate system of electronic communication for research purposes. They called it the APRAnet. Word quickly spread about this elaborate data network. After seeing the benefits of this system of networked computers, many universities desired to come on-line. In the early 1980s, the U.S. Government realized that the huge growth of the network would soon cause it to expand beyond it's ability to administer. At this point, their turned the administration of the net over to the universities and the private sector, and the Internet was born.
The Internet consists of literally millions of computers of all types and varieties, all over the world. Some estimates say more than 15 million people a day access the structure for the purposes of getting electronic mail, trading data files and shareware programs, accessing libraries and message bases or ordering products. And these services make up just a few of the large number of things available to you as a Internet user.
Why do you want access? Consider the following Internet abilities.
In recent years, a large number of offices have come to rely heavily on inter-office E-mail communications. The Internet takes that access one step further by providing worldwide access to millions of electronic mailboxes around the globe. For example, you could use the Internet if you want to communicate with a friend or partner in Antarctica, Australia or more than 100 other countries of the world by sending E-mail to a Internet account. In fact, if you have a comment about the state of the U.S. economy, President Clinton also has an Internet E-mail account (president@whitehouse.gov). You can send your mail across the net in a matter of just a few minutes in most cases.
The Internet also lets you send a data file to your office in New York from your San Francisco operation. With the proper utilities, you can break up the file into text sections to send through the E-mail. Then, your recipient can reassemble it on the other end. The Internet provides worldwide mail access to your desktop from any home or business.
Communication can define the success or failure of a business or personal relationship. Using the Internet's built-in mail transfer facilities provides you the communication necessary to succeed.
How many times have you needed an update to your video driver, a patch to your Novell NetWare server or even the latest version of your favorite shareware game? Often, you'll need to have access to a local bulletin board system (BBS) or a long-distance company-sponsored BBS number. But in many cases, you'll also find these files on the Internet.
For example, by using the proper utilities, your can attach to one of Novell's computers via a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program. This approach allows you to grab the files, depending on your connection, at much faster speeds than by conventional modem access. Other companies, such as IBM, Dell, Apple and many more, offer similar services to you on the Internet.
Shareware authors have found a willing and welcome home on the Internet. You can often find the latest and greatest shareware utilities, programs and help on Internet machines. Authors themselves many times provide Internet E-mail addresses to you on which you can report bugs and receive support.
Since the Internet is contained on millions of computers scattered over the world, finding files can prove a daunting task. However, you'll find utilities are available to search FTP sites for specific filenames (ARCHIE) or float through the Internet on a menu-driven environment (GOPHER).
There's little doubt that the Internet provides a gold mine of information and services. The trick comes in learning to use those services to your advantage. Knowing where to look and how to get there will make or break the Internet's usefulness to you.
The Defense Department designed the Internet to provide students, faculty and researchers access to research materials. To this day, this access remains a strong point of the Internet. By using such utilities as Wide Area Information Server (WAIS), you can search computer libraries for information on practically any subject.
As an Internet user, you can access both public and private databases of information--from the Library of Congress to information searches based book title or summary. Doing so links you to the largest research group ever assembled.
You need not limit your research to prewritten data files. The Internet provides an amazing message base system called USENET news. This news system contains message base areas on many possible subject matters, from computer-specific product discussions to recipes to political conversations. As a research tool, the Internet gives you access to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who are willing and able to respond to your questions. You'll receive answers to most questions within minutes or hours of your posting. We'll discuss this feature in greater detail in a moment.
Traditional research and support techniques, such as phone support or trips to the library, will probably exist well into the future. However, the Internet provides new and quicker ways of accessing information, right at your desktop.
A feature that you'll find both informative and entertaining is USENET News. Think of these newsgroups as a giant bulletin board with many thousands of categories for your perusal. As of late 1993, more than 6,000 newsgroups were active on the Internet. Each one deals with a different subject, whether it supports software, hardware, political conversation, recreational activities, television shows or anything else. The list goes on and on.
Suppose for example, your interests lie in IBM's OS/2 operating system. You'll find several newsgroups that fit your needs. In fact, that one subject alone provides discussions of programming, applications, announcements, networking, multimedia, setup and more. Any question you might need answered will likely generate a helpful response on one or more of these groups. USENET News provides a message group for almost any software package or category available.
These groups carry more than just text files. Several news groups actually carry software broken down into text files (UUencoded or BinHex) known as binaries. Graphics, machine-specific (PC, Macintosh, Sun and so on) and printer files are some of the types of files available in encoded binary format within a newsgroup. You need only save the file on your hard disk and run a decoding program on your text file. The decoding program will convert the text back into an executable file or program data. While this technique doesn't compare in efficiency to transfers to and from an FTP site, it does reach users with limited access to the Internet.
Yet the Internet and USENET news do not provide all work and no play. Many purely recreational activities find a home on the Internet. Newsgroups provide information on household pets, music, sports of all types and food. Conversations exist on so many subjects, so you'll doubtless find one to your taste.
During the 1980s, the age of the computer BBS had its heyday. Every major city had a wide variety of BBS systems supporting any and every interest of its users. Today's successor to the BBS craze lies on the Internet. Whether through individuals direct-connecting to the newsgroups via a news reader or Internet newsgroups ported to local BBS systems, the conversation boards of the 1990s are worldwide USENET news.
As we stated earlier, the Department of Defense originally designed the Internet as a research tool. Some areas of the net still remain noncommercial, only allowing the connection of nodes dedicated to education and research. However, other Internet backbones and service providers have opened their nets to commercial applications. In these areas, you'll soon have access to any and all kinds of services.
One example, Book Stacks Unlimited, Inc., joined the Internet in March 1992. It provides an on-line bookstore to Internet users, carrying more than 270,000 titles. You can search its database of available books based on author, title, keyword, subject or ISBN code. Any Internet-accessible computer with Telnet capabilities can connect to Book Stack's computer free of charge at books.com. Then you can either scan through the stacks, read other user's reviews of selected books or place an order.
New on-line services, such as private BBS systems, on-line shopping malls, and more will arrive shortly. Soon, many of the daily business you do through the mail and at the local shopping center will sit on your desktop.
Don't be fooled--the Internet provides valuable business tools, but it also includes entertainment. After all, the many millions of people floating around the net every day need to find a way to send their spare time. To satisfy that need, several widely used programs were developed. Two of the most popular are Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and Multi-Player Underground Dungeons (MUDS).
Do you find group conversation interesting? If the conversations in the USENET News areas leave you wanting more, then perhaps IRC will fit your needs. With IRC, you can join, in real time, a large number of people in a giant conversation forum. Discussions range from the technical to the bizarre.
One popular chat area you might find interesting is called HotTub. This area simulates conversation you might find in a real hot tub. Or perhaps you might find a discussion on your favorite television show. No matter your preference, IRC, like the Internet, offers connection service worldwide, so you'll probably find both the people and discussions interesting.
As with almost all other Internet services, you aren't charged for time spent on the IRC server. You only pay whatever connection fee your individual service provider charges. However, since private sites provide IRC service free to Internet users, you should follow their rules carefully.
Another addicting part of the Internet comes in the from of MUDS. MUDS allow you to connect yourself into a multi-player adventure game. Players meet, fight, converse and explore an electronic village with others from around the world. MUDS are often modified on the fly, so it is unlikely you'll find many that are even slightly similar.
These two entertainment options just scratch the surface of the Internet's fun side. Connections exist for aviation enthusiasts, weather watchers and practically any other hobby you might desire. You only need to know where to find them. In future issues of Inside the Internet, we'll describe how to find some of the more popular entertainment features.
One major problem with the Internet arises from the many ways you can connect to it. Each connection option offers users different advantages and disadvantages. In fact, you might find the features, choices of options, and the software available to you limited by your connection type.
In this article, we'll discuss the types of connections available to the Internet. Then, we'll help you use this knowledge to determine your best choice from the connection options.
With few exceptions, you'll very likely connect to the Internet in one of three ways: by modem connection to a national host system, by modem connection to an Internet-specific service, or by direct connection to an Internet service provider. These terms might sound somewhat confusing at first, but your connection type affects your capabilities, so you should evaluate it.
Although most Internet users in the past connected through their university or place of business with a direct network hookup, a growing number of people connect from anywhere via a modem. This group includes users who connect through host systems such as Delphi, America Online (AOL), or BIX. In all likelihood, this group of Internet users will continue to grow rapidly.
If you use a standard communications package, such as QModem, Procomm, or Zterm, you probably connect to the Internet through a remote host without being assigned an Internet address. If you use a standard communications package provided with some online services (such as with AOL), you also connect through a remote host.
The greatest advantage of this type of connection comes from its ease of use and flexibility. In most cases, you can use any communications software to connect, while providing very little configuration information. This type of connection requires little or no knowledge of the guts of the Internet, so you can connect easily without much technical experience.
Since we're dealing with a modem connection, the expenses involved are minimal. Many of the services work at 2,400 and 9,600 bits per second (bps), so you won't necessarily need to upgrade your modem.
The greatest drawback of a remote-host Internet connection comes from the nature of the host connection. When you connect through a central host by using a modem and standard software, you don't get to use one of your greatest assets--your personal computer--to its full advantage. For the most part, your computer runs only the communications software--all the proc-essing runs on the host computer. Therefore, this setup doesn't use the special capabilities of your desktop computer, whether you connect with a Mac, PC, or another system.
In addition, various types of Internet services require special software for access. For example, the World Wide Web (WWW) requires a reader such as Mosaic or Cello. You can't access special sound, graphic, and hypertext abilities of these Internet tools from a standard communications package. While this drawback may change in the future when host systems become more integrated into the Internet, you now lose some of the net's more intriguing features when you connect through a host system.
In some situations, you might find that connecting through a remote host is your best choice, despite its drawbacks. If you travel, for example, and need a convenient way to access your Internet connections from anywhere in the country, a large host system such as Delphi will provide just what you need. Since many systems provide local-call access in major cities, you can climb on the Internet with little fuss from just about anywhere and avoid long-distance charges. In all, this means of access provides a portable connection to the Internet, without the hassle of more robust connection techniques.
A second, but slightly more difficult, option available for Internet connection involves using software designed specifically for remote Internet connections, which include SLIP (serial-line Internet protocol) and PPP (point-to-point protocol). You'll find that most commercial Internet providers allow only a SLIP connection. Many connections of this type currently provide external access to existing Internet sites. However, because of the limited commercial availability of these connections, this option may not be available to you.
In the near future, when more service providers offer SLIP and PPP connections and users discover the advantages, these types of connection will gain popularity. If you currently connect to an Internet-specific site, you undoubtedly understand the workings of Internet connections, addressing, and so on. Your advantages are many, but the cost comes at configuration time.
Your first advantage comes from your ability to fully use your computer. You'll run software designed to work with your system for the specific task of connecting to and using Internet resources.
For example, you can run soft-ware for your Macintosh or Windows platform that reads USENET news and has point-and-click and drag-and-drop capabilities. The menus will feel familiar and comfortable as you work within the environment you normally use. In addition, software packages such as Mosaic and Cello will allow you to skate around the Internet via colorful and easy-to-use hypertext documents.
The greatest disadvantage of this type of connection is that it isn't readily available. Many small service providers have begun offering this type of connection in the last year. However, since you generally connect to a local service provider, you lose the portability available with the national host option.
In addition, since this type of connection is relatively new to the mass market, the tools are somewhat complicated. You'll need to understand the intricacies of Internet addressing and structure. However, with the introduction of products such as Internet In A Box by SPRY, Inc., that problem will soon be solved. These new products, designed specifically for the Internet, allow users point-and-click access to Internet resources without some of the installation hassles necessary with current software.
Finally, a plain 2,400-bps modem won't suffice. When you're considering working with graphic- intensive applications such as Mosaic or Cello, you'll want to upgrade as soon as possible to the fastest speed your service provider will allow.
If you need both portability and strong Internet tools, the Internet-specific site option fills the bill. With a growing number of powerful tools and simple connection options, the Internet-specific choice will draw those who need the functions of the net without using a national service like AOL or Delphi. In all, this option provides an excellent choice for those interested in a mobile harnessing of the Internet's resources.
The final and most powerful option you have comes from a direct network connection to an Internet service provider. Since most users have little or no influence on whether this type of connection exists in their place of business, we won't discuss this connection type in detail. We'll cover some of the advantages you have if you're fortunate enough to be connected in this manner.
One thing to consider is that several large cable TV companies in the US are testing Internet connections through the use of cable modems. Although the testing sites are primarily in educational settings at this time, this connection option may eventually outpace the standard phone modem connection. Or perhaps when the line between cable and phone service begins to blur, those types of connections will merge.
There are two main advantages of a direct local area network (LAN) connection. First, you can work at very fast speeds. Utilities like Mosaic are excellent tools when you don't have to spend much time waiting for them to redraw the screen. Shareware and demo packages become more appealing when you can transfer megabytes in minutes or seconds instead of hours.
Second, since the Internet is built primarily from interconnected LANs, almost all Internet utilities have been developed for this type of connection. Utility developers often operate under the premise that your connection can receive large quantities of data in a short time. Therefore, a direct LAN connection optimizes all the most powerful utilities.
After you establish the connection, which is no small feat, you have an added problem of getting your local network, such as Novell NetWare, to peacefully co-exist with your Internet utilities. You might find this venture complicated. However, with Internet connections becoming more prevalent, connecting the two networks is now easier.
In addition, unless your site has dial-in access, you're restricted to accessing the Internet from a single location. If you travel frequently and use Internet for E-mail, this restriction will severely limit your connection's usefulness.
If you can justify the financial investment or already have the money set aside, direct connection offers the best overall performance and software versatility. In all, this type of connection provides the necessary capacity for the Internet power user or corporate user.
Perhaps the most commonly used aspect of Internet access--and the one you may find most useful--is your E-mail connection. The Internet offers connection to literally millions of individuals through a relatively simple access system. However, much like any postal service, your mail won't get delivered without a correct destination address. The question becomes one of how you find that elusive address.
In this article, we'll discuss NetFind, one of the options available to Internet users who want to search for E-mail addresses. We'll cover the limitations of a NetFind search in addition to showing you some techniques for improving your chances for success.
You access the address search services from a NetFind server. With NetFind, you can search across the world through thousands of domains--the address portion of the search string separated by periods--for a specific name and series of keywords. Considering the millions of computers connected to the Internet, the likelihood of a successful match depends on two things.
First, although the number of users you can locate with this system is large, the operators of NetFind estimate that the program won't find 65 percent of users because of restrictions on their systems or lack of Finger or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) access. Therefore, it's possible you won't locate your intended recipient through NetFind.
Second, it's also possible to choose search criteria that are too broad to effect a match. We'll demonstrate this possibility later with an example.
Before you begin your search, you must contact a NetFind site. For the purpose of this example, we'll use
bruno.cs.colorado.edu
for our search. Although we use this site, it's always advisable to choose the site that's geographically closest to you.
The next part of the procedure assumes that you're using a Telnet program. Telnet to the site and enter netfind at the login: prompt. You'll find yourself at the main menu of the NetFind search database. NetFind provides some valuable online Help documentation. You might want to look it over before you use the NetFind utility. But if you follow along with this example first, you'll still get a feel for the usage.
When searching reference materials, it helps to be as specific as possible. If, for example, you're looking for the address of a particular person in California and know only that the last name is Johnson, it's unlikely you'd meet with much success. The same principle applies to the Internet. For the type of search routine we'll discuss, you need at least a last name and either a city or a company name.
Let's say, for instance, you need to find someone with the last name of Metzler, whose Internet E-mail address is in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This information may be enough for a search--at least it narrows your choices slightly.
Choose option 2 from the NetFind main menu, and the system will ask for a name and keyword. The program requests a keyword so it will have something to narrow the search pattern with. For this example, you enter
metzler ann arbor michigan
at the search prompt.
The search specified with the ann arbor and michigan keywords returns more than 100 computers. NetFind prefers to search only three sites at a time; therefore, you need to narrow the search pattern before continuing.
The information the program provides after the first search might give some clues as to what new keyword to add. For example, if you know that your friend Metzler works in the physics department, you could add physics to the list of keywords. To try this in your new search, enter
metzler ann arbor michigan physics
at the search prompt.
The output contains some information on the possible recipient. This information lets you determine that the user is actually the one you seek. If the information that NetFind returns matches what you expected, the search was successful, and you have a usable E-mail address. If not, or if the output returns several matches, changing the keywords may bring positive results.
Your search could result in another possibility. The keywords could point to more than one computer. If so, NetFind will ask you to choose from the list of available computers without having to return to the original search menu. After you enter the numbers of the computers you wish to include in the search, NetFind will search for the name on those chosen computers sequentially. NetFind will give you results in the same manner as the earlier successful search.
As we discussed earlier, not all searches are possible. For example, suppose you want to find our computer address, knowing only our editor-in-chief's last name and that the account is on a Cobb computer. The obvious keywords are Thompson and Cobb. At the NetFind search menu prompt, enter
thompson cobb
Notice that the search failed to find any result based on those cri-teria. The reason is that The Cobb Group's system doesn't permit NetFind searches. This restriction demonstrates one example of accounts unreachable by NetFind.
Here's a good rule of thumb for identifying accounts unreachable by NetFind: If the user is connected to the Internet through an E-mail gateway, such as MacMail or a service like CompuServe, the account will be unreachable from NetFind. This restriction includes computers on other networks such as Fidonet and BITNET. You can send E-mail to all these systems and networks, but you can't find their addresses by using NetFind.
If you can't find the address you search for in the NetFind database, you can extract some information from the data you discover. Although you were unable to find our E-mail address on the Cobb server in the second example, you did find some Internet addresses. Armed with this information, you can use a more personal approach. Most E-mail sites keep an E-mail address at
postmaster@address
for just such situations. If you're unable to find the E-mail address you need from any other sources, try mailing a request to
postmaster@address
requesting information. Please remember that these postmasters keep quite busy, so try other options before you use this approach.
You might find that searching for your own E-Mail address is a good exercise in learning to use the NetFind utility. The results will tell you a good deal about how your system appears when others look for you.
Whether you're an educator, a student, or in the business world, the communications available on the Internet offer you great power. Yet without a way for others to find you, much of that power is lost. The NetFind program documentation offers some suggestions on how to make your site more accessible to NetFind. If you can't locate yourself in the NetFind database, perhaps you should consider suggesting these changes or options to your system administrator.
When you send a message through regular mail, the system requires that you include the name, street, city, state, and ZIP code. Without this information, your mail won't arrive at its destination. This principle applies to Internet E-mail as well. The Internet address contains two distinct placeholders: the user name and the computer address. This combination takes the form
username@address
The user name placeholder may contain anything from your user name on a UNIX-based system to your ID number on a CompuServe account. The address placeholder contains an Internet-type address. This address appears in two forms--a numerical address in the form
XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
or a name that represents the numerical address.
For example, our editor-in-chief's name and address take the form
james_thompson@saturn.cobb.ziff.com
The first part, james_thompson, is the user name placeholder. This part signifies an individual account at our address. The second part
saturn.cobb.ziff.com
is the name assigned to our numerical address. The system sends that name to a domain name server (DNS) to retrieve
140.244.96.246
which represents the address's numerical equivalent. Therefore, the original name and address combination translates to
james_thompson@140.244.96.246
when converted to numerical form by a DNS. Fortunately, with the help of the DNS, you don't need to remember all those numbers for each of your E-mail recipients.
However, finding an unknown Internet address is slightly more difficult than finding an address in a phone book. Don't worry, though--several services search for user names on the Internet.
The World-Wide Web, often called the Web, WWW, or W3, simplifies the way you find and retrieve information. With it, you can access several Internet services and locations with ease.
The Web is more a concept than a particular type of network or protocol. In fact, it embraces most of the popular protocols and data types available on the Internet. The goal of the Web is to combine all the diverse resources available on the Internet. With a single application--called a browser, or client--you can effortlessly explore resources all over the world. You'll want to use one of the many Web browser applications on your own PC to access the Web and make the most of its technology. You may wonder why you'd choose a Web program over the programs you may already use.
You can easily access Internet features such as Gopher, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and Wide-Area Information Service (WAIS) from a single Web screen. The Web protocols let you access information from Internet sites even if they aren't Web aware. For instance, you can retrieve information from FTP sites in England, search Gopher databases in the US, and use Finger to gather information on a person in Taiwan, all from your Web browser and the pages of information it displays.
Web browser programs such as Mosaic, Cello, TkWWW, and Lynx are the graphical-user interface (GUI) "Swiss army knives" of the Web. Although you can easily access the Web by using a command-line interface, a browser makes the Web come alive. A special document format and transfer protocol let Web browsers display more than the simple text-based information you've probably become accustomed to on the Internet. Let's look more closely at these enabling Web formats that GUI-based Web browsers use to make information more presentable.
A Web browser displays a new type of multimedia document format called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Along with HTML documents, browsers employ a slick network protocol called Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). HTTP quickly transfers multimedia data types across the Internet. By doing so, HTTP lets you display documents that include formatted text, pictures, graphics, audio tracks, and even movies. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) demo page shown in Figure A is an example of a document that includes many of these data types. With HTTP and HTML, Web documents extend desktop publishing to the realm of interactive online multimedia publishing.
Hypertext documents go far beyond an attractive appearance. They can instantly lead you to information anywhere in the world via one of the Web's greatest technologies, a feature called links. You'll often see links represented by buttons, graphics, and highlighted or underlined text within the context of a Web document. You can simply click on a link to take you to another page or Internet site that specializes in the information you want. For example, consider the CERN (Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nuclaaire) home page. The European Laboratory for Particle Physics maintains the CERN Web server. In this document, underlined text represents active links to other features. For instance, the link
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Daemon/Overview.html
displays a page of information about Web server software for persons or organizations interested in creating their own Web sites. In turn, that page contains more links that lead to even more information.
Once you display a Web document, you can save it as plain text or in HTML format from most browsers. You can reopen a saved HTML document later and access any of the links it contains.
Usually, you'll make your Web browser automatically open an HTML document when the browser first starts up. However, you should choose a home page from a site that's located geographically close to you or that supports your particular interests.
Most home pages include links to important information relating to the organization or company maintaining that document. Home pages also provide links to other interesting and useful pages on the Internet. You can find Hypertext pages in use at hundreds, if not thousands, of sites around the Internet.
HTML documents don't need to run from a Web server, making them universally accessible by any Web client. As a result, you'll find new information available in HTML format at many Internet locations.
Links often represent commands embedded in HTML documents. These commands are Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). The URL concept is fairly simple: If information is out there, you can get at it. URLs give Hypertext links their power. Using them, you can open files and access information at a wide variety of Internet sites. For example, the URL
http://cern.edu.ch/home
opens the home page at the CERN Web server.
To open a Hypertext document at an FTP site, you begin the URL with ftp://. An example of this is Scott Yanoff's Special Internet Connections page, shown in Figure C, at csd4.csd.uwm. To get to this page, direct your Web browser to
ftp://csd4.csd.uwm/pub/internet.services.html
This URL opens an anonymous FTP connection to the csd4.csd.uwm server and retrieves and displays the document internet.services.html from the /pub directory. The connection closes as soon as your browser gets all the information. This quick in-and-out access is part of the Web's protocol and allows more people access to a resource by not tying up a connection for any longer than necessary. URLs usually link to other HTML pages, graphics, Gopher objects, and news.
Some URLs may link to sites that require a Telnet terminal connection, which is necessary for some WAIS and Gopher sessions. In a situation like this, you may be able to configure your Web browser to launch your Telnet application and automatically make the connection.
The Web is at its best when you use a graphical-based Web browser; however, you may have only text-based access to the Internet. Fortunately, you can access many Web sites and documents through a Telnet terminal session.
As you might expect, the Web loses some of its appeal with a text-only interface. Although the text-only interface has the same options available in the GUI-based page, you must look closely to identify those options and then type the correct number to access them.
Since a Web document can contain scores of options, you might find this type of Web access cumbersome. Other text-based Internet interfaces have fewer features than the Web but are easier to use in text mode. If you have text-only access, you'll want to note these other methods.
The Whole Internet Catalog Top 50 list is a notable Web page. From this list, you can access several popular Web items. To get to the Top 50 list, use your Web browser's URL connection feature and enter
http://nearnet.gnn.com/gnn/wic/top.toc.html
Netscape presents you with a myriad of buttons and menu choices, some of which provide multiple ways to perform the same function. In this section, I'll give you a quick rundown on the secrets behind each of Netscape's buttons, menu choices, and functions. You can always get a quick description of each menu choice by hitting the Alt key, moving the arrow key to the menu you're interested in, and arrowing down to a menu choice. The description appears in the status message area at the bottom of your main Netscape window. And now, on to a discussion of individual menu-bar choices.
When you click on this icon, it takes you to Netscape's home page. Its main feature, though, is that it animates to show you that Netscape's busy downloading something. It's officially called the Status Indicator by Netscape in their on-line documentations (accessible via the Handbook menu choice under Netscape's Help menu).
Netscape's menus, while not as full-to bursting as, say, Microsoft Word's allow quick access to all manner of useful things. some of these functions are duplicated by the onscreen buttons and/or zippy key commands. If there's a button that's an equivalent to a menu option, I'll show it.
Netscape's File menu lets you do the following with Web documents:
You can also close Netscape windows or quit Netscape. But why would you want to do that?
Selecting this option (or hitting Ctrl+O) brings up a dialog box with a bland URL field. Typing a URL into the Open Location field and hitting the Enter key (or clicking the OK button) does the same thing as typing a new URL into the Netsite field of the main Netscape window and hitting Enter. Doing any of these operations take you to the URL you've entered.
Making this selection brings up a standard Windows Open dialog box that lets you select a file from your hard drive. Netscape can open text files with the .HTM extension (.html shortened to the DOS three-letter standard), plain text files, and .GIF or .JPEG (.JPE or .JPG) picture files from your hard drive. Open File is most useful for browsing saved Web pages or your own pages in progress. You can also poke around the .MOZ files found in your Cache directory.
Choosing this option saves the current document being displayed in Netscape's content area. If you're looking at a Web page, you can save it as either and HTML (.HTM) file or a text (.TXT) file. If Netscape is currently displaying an image in its content area, you can save the image.
Selecting this option brings up the Message Composition window with the From: field showing your name and e-mail address. Before you can e-mail anything, you must properly set up your Mail and News preferences tab.
Selecting this option opens the same Message Composition window with the title of the current document displayed in the Subject field and with the document's URL in the body of the message.
In your e-mail you can send the text or HTML source code of the current Web page being displayed, if you so desire. This is useful for sending yourself or a pal the contents of a cool Web page you've found without having to cut and paste the URL and text into a separate e-mail program. You can only quote Web pages or text files in the body of e-mail sent from Netscape; when you're viewing a picture independent of a Web page, the Quote Document button will appear grayed out.
In the Send To field, you would type the e-mail address of the person you'd like to send e-mail to. Clicking the Send button sends the e-mail off on its merry way, and the Cancel button lets you back out of the e-mail sending process gracefully, should you decide you'd rather not send e-mail right now.
The Attachment field in the Message Composition window is blank until you specify a file to be sent along with the e-mail. Most e-mail you send won't have attachments. Occasionally, though, you'll want to include a file from your hard drive or from the Web in a message to a friend or associate. To do this, click the Attach button, which will bring up the Mail/News Attachment dialog box.
From this dialog box, you can specify files to be delivered along with your e-mail. The Mail/News Attachments window comes up with the document radio button selected and the Document filed automatically filled with the URL for the document currently being displayed.
The Document Source radio button is automatically selected in case you'd like to include the HTML of the document being displayed. For instance, if you're looking at a Web page and the author has included something particularly clever in his or her layout, you might want to send the Document Source to a friend who's conversant in HTML and is interested in writing better HTML documents. Generally, though, what you and your e-mail recipient will be interested in is the content of the Web page. In that case, click the Document Text button to send the text of the document currently displayed attached to your e-mail.
If you have a file on your hard drive that you want to attach to e-mail, click the File radio button. The Document information will gray out. To locate a file on your hard drive to attach, click the Browse button. The Enter File To Attach window comes up. Find the file you'd like to attach, and click OK.
Now you've selected a file to be attached to your e-mail, and you're back at the Mail/News Attachments window. Click the Attach button and you'll return to the Message Composition window. Type in a comment in the large field at the bottom of the window, click the Send button, and the e-mail and file go whizzing across the Internet, sure to enliven the existence of the lucky soul on the other end.
Before sending someone e-mail with a document attached, you might want to check with the recipient first to make sure he or she can receive e-mail with attachments; some e-mail systems don't know how to handle attached files and might not deliver the attachment or the e-mail to the recipient.
The Page Setup option allows you to specify how Netscape will print the current document. You can choose margin width, specify text color, and so on.
Selecting the Print menu option takes you to the standard Windows Print dialog box.
Netscape's Print Preview screen allows you to see what the printed Web page or pages will look like before you send the currently displayed document to your printer. You can choose a one- or two-page view, zoom in to see detail, zoom back out to get the big picture, and, if it's a long document, step through the pages that will be sent to your printer one by one. The Print button takes you to the Print dialog box, and the Close button closes the Print Preview screen and takes you back to the main Netscape screen, should you decide that the document you're viewing isn't actually something you want to print right now.
Be forewarned that pictures that look great in the relatively low resolution of a computer monitor may be somewhat disappointing when printed out on a high-resolution printer.
As you might have guessed, selecting Close from the File menu shuts the frontmost Netscape window. If you only have one window open, choosing this option causes you to exit Netscape.
Selecting Quit closes the Netscape program and all of its windows. make sure that after you quit Netscape you log off of your PPP connection through your Winsock stack; quitting Netscape leaves your line up and your Internet access meter running.
The Edit menu is our next stop on the menu bar tour, as we work our way down the line. Not much to see here, though you can avoid scrolling through a lengthy document and causing further eyestrain by using the Find command.
Selecting this option or hitting Ctrl-Z undoes your last action when you're typing and/or editing information into any of Netscape's editable fields (such as a URL in the Location field) or on a Web page with a form.
As with other Windows applications, these options only work on text that's been selected with your mouse or Shift+Left or Right Arrow keys, either in the body of a Web document containing text or in an editable Netscape field. Paste won't work on w Web page unless you have the cursor in a form field, but it will paste text into an editable Netscape field, say, into the Message Composition window.
Selecting Find from the Edit menu or hitting Ctrl+F brings up the Find dialog box. Typing a key word or words into the Find What field and then clicking the Find Next button searches the current Web document fro instances of the chosen keyword. If you've clicked so that the cursor appears in the text of a Web page, selecting either the Up or Down radio button under Direction tells Netscape to begin its search from there and work toward the beginning or end of the document. For instance, if you're looking for a specific word in a long document and have already scrolled down several screens before getting fed up, you can click and place the cursor in the Web page's text and use Find to begin your search where you left off, by selecting the Down radio button. You can also specify that Find match the case of the keyword you've entered in the Find What field.
Keep in mind that the Find button is only useful for searching the Web page you have on your screen. To search the Web for instances of a certain word or topic, click on the Net Search button in the bar of Directory buttons and use one of the Web searching tools you find there.
Netscape's View menu will let you grab a fresh copy of a Web page hot off the server, bring up images that may not have loaded when you first came upon the current Web page, refresh your screen image if it's become untidy for some reason, and most importantly, view the HTML guts of the Web page you're looking at. Appearance is everything, you know.
Selecting Reload from the View menu or hitting Ctrl+R re-downloads the current Web page from the server. This is useful for a couple of reasons. Say you go to a promising Web page and it just takes forever to load. Naturally, being the busy person you are, you get impatient and hit the Stop button. This stops the download of the document, and Netscape displays what's come through so far. You start looking at the portion of the page that's downloaded, and decide "Ah, what the heck. I may as well see the whole thing." You then would select Reload, hit Ctrl = R, or click on the Reload button to start the download of the page again. Unfortunately, there's no way to continue the downloading of a document that's been partially downloaded. You have to start again from scratch.
The Reload Cell option reloads only the selected frame of a document written to use Netscape Navigator 2.0's frames capability. This capability allows multiple web pages to be displayed in their own panes within one main Netscape window.
Reloading Web pages is essential if you're writing your own Web pages from scratch. It allows you to change the HTML file, preview it in Netscape, make some more changes to the HTML file, and hit Reload to see the effect of those changes.
Load Images is useful if you have turned off Auto Load Images under the Options menu, load just the text of a Web page, and subsequently decided you'd like to see the graphics. Click the Load Images button, and only the images come across. This differentiates Load Images from Reload, which goes and gets the whole web page again. The Load Images option also comes in handy when the creators of Web pages forget to design them to be legible in text-only circumstances.
Selecting this option will pop up a window showing the HTML code of the current document. This option is especially useful when you're writing a Web page of your own and want to swipe a nifty layout or see how a particular effect was achieved.
You can copy HTML code from the View Source window, switch over to your favorite HTML editing program or text editor, and pop in your own information. You can do all this while still leaving the HTML tags intact.
Selecting this option brings up a new Netscape browsing window. This two-pane window tells you all kinds of things about the Web document in question.
The upper pane displays the structure of the current document. If there are inline images, their URLs are given, as are those of supporting documents if the Web page contains frames.
The information on the Security line can be important if you're planning to do much shopping over the Web, or sending private information to an organization via a Web site using forms. Forms are Web pages with fields intended to be filled in by the user and submitted to the server. Typically, this is done by clicking on a button on the Web page itself (and not in the Web browser).
Why is security important on the Web? Because sensitive, unhackable information needs to be available on the Web. This applies both to the information published on a Web site as well as the information sent from a user. Commerce on the Web is a constantly growing concern of site publishers.
Visibly, Netscape uses a color bar and a key icon to indicate security status. The color bar is located between the Directory buttons at the top of your Netscape window and the content area. The color bar will turn from the insecure gray to secure blue when you're viewing secure Web pages. The key icon at the lower left of the Netscape screen appears broken on a gray background when viewing insecure documents. When viewing secure documents, the key icon will appear whole on a blue background, and will have two teeth for high-grad encryption, one for medium-grade.
Think of the Go menu's choices as your own personal time-and space travel machine. Zip! Back to the past! Zip! Back to the present! You can even see everywhere you've been in between.
Selecting this option or hitting Alt+Left Arrow takes you back to the most recent Web page in your session history; the Back menu option and the Back button will be grayed out if you're on the first Web page you've loaded in your current session.
It works the same as the Back menu choice, but you use Alt+Right Arrow, and go forward through your session list. If you're still on the first page you've loaded and haven't gone anywhere from there, the Forward menu option and the Forward button will be grayed out.
Selecting the Home option or clicking the Home button takes you directly to the home page you specify in Netscape's Styles preferences tab.
Selecting this option or clicking on the Stop button stops the downloading in process on the Web page in the top-most Netscape window. If several Netscape windows are up at the same time, Stop Loading doesn't affect the downloading process of the others. Clicking Stop is a better way to halt down-loading than just hitting Back; it gives Netscape the chance to halt things properly, and is less likely to cause problems.
A list of sites you've visited in your current Netscape session appears at the bottom of the Go menu. Selecting any Web site in this list will take you to that site.
Netscape's bookmarks are the little black book of your Web travels. Unlike your session history, which starts from scratch every time you launch Netscape, your bookmarks list lets you keep URLs that you've deemed worthy to have on hand for easy access during futures sessions. Plus, you don't have to mark up the wall next to your computer with scrawls of URLs you want to remember.
Add Bookmark creates a bookmark in your bookmarks list for the current document. If no pointer is specified, the current site is tacked at the end of the list.
Go to Bookmarks opens the Bookmarks window, a searchable, editable version of your bookmarks list.
This is a handy menu of your favorite sites. Your bookmarks list will be empty until that first thrilling time when you select Add Bookmark.
Here's where you fine-tune the appearance and engine of your Web-cruising mean machine.
Your Netscape Preferences allow you to customize Netscape to your heart's desire.
These options allow you to customize Netscape to your individual preferences.
Show Toolbar toggles the visibility of the toolbar (the row of Back, Forward, Home buttons et al) on and off. If you like using the menus for the choices that are displayed in the toolbar, you can hide the toolbar and gain valuable on-screen area for Netscape's content area.
Show Location toggles the Location field (where the URL for the current Web document is displayed) on or off.
Clicking this option toggles the row of Directory buttons on and off.
Autoload Images toggles between automatically loading images when you come to a new page or loading just the text of new pages. For faster browsing, turn it off. For prettier browsing or to impress your friends with snazzy graphics, leave it on. Courteous Web page authors will supply text descriptions of the images, if you're lucky, to give you some idea of the content of unloaded images.
This option toggles between showing or not showing descriptive information when connecting to an FTP site. An FTP (file transfer protocol)site is a collection of directories and files usually available to the Internet public, though some sites have restricted access.
While preference changes are saved automatically, settings in the Options menu aren't. Select Save Options to preserve them One of these options is your default Netscape window size. You may find the default size of your Netscape window intolerable (some Web sites you visit might have graphics wider that the default screen). If this is the case, you can re-size the window to perfection with the standard Windows window-sizing tool in he lower-right corner of your main Netscape window. Select Save Options and it'll be that size when you next start Netscape.
The Directory menu (and its cousin, the Help menu) provide expeditious access to the most used areas of Netscape's Web site. Using the menu options is much quicker than going to Netscape's home page and poking around until you find what you're looking form
Selecting this option takes you to the Netscape Communications home page. It's handy when you change your start-up home page to a different Web site because Netscape's' Home is still only a menu choice away. Clicking on the "N" logo in the upper-right corner of the screen will also take you there.
What's New takes you to Netscape's What's New page, where you can look for new Web sites you may not have seen before.
What's Cool takes you to Netscape's What's Cool page. Pressing this button provides quick access to Web sites that may cause your productivity to plummet from sixty to zero in four seconds flat.
The Netscape Galleria is a directory of sites that use Netscape servers.
Clicking on the Net Directory button takes you to the Net Directory Web page on Netscape's Web site. The site contains hyperlinks to several Web directories that more or less serve as the Yellow Pages of the Web.
Clicking on the Net Search Button takes you to a page linked to several Web-searching sites.
There's no one directory of everyone on the Net. The Internet White Pages option takes you to a page of sites that may be of use in locating someone's e-mail address on the Internet.
Choosing this option takes you to a page that lists sites offering more information about the Internet.
The Window menu allows you to pop back and forth between the Netscape window you have open on the screen at any given time, as well as providing quick access to Netscape's Address Book, Mail and News readers, and Bookmarks and History windows.
The Address Book option gives you access to your Netscape Address Book. in which you can keep e-mail addresses. The Netscape Mail option takes you into Netscape's internal e-mail reader.
Selecting this option opens a new main Netscape window for browsing. New windows open to the first page visited in the current Netscape session. Attention-challenged? Open a new Netscape window to go to a second Web site while waiting for the first one to load.
This option brings up Netscape's newsreader window, from which you can delve into the vast world of Usenet news, via Netscape's built-in Newsreader. Usenet news is really a whole world unto itself.
This option performs the same function as the Go to Bookmarks menu option under the Bookmarks menu, bringing up Netscape's Bookmark window. From there you can edit and reorganize your bookmarks list.
History shows the trail of all the pages you've seen in your current session. Your session history resides in your computer's memory. This means when you quit Netscape that history is lost (unless you add bookmarks), and when you next run Netscape you'll be starting from scratch.
A list of sites you've been to in your current Netscape session also appear at the bottom of the Go menu. It's the same as the list brought up in History window, but it's handily located right there in the menu itself.
At the bottom of the Windows menu appears a list of all of the windows Netscape currently has open. Selecting any of the windows listed will bring that window to the front. Also, Ctrl+Tab cycles through all of Netscape's open windows.
If you're curious and wand to know more about Netscape and the Web, Netscape's Help menu will answer many of your questions.
This option brings up information about the version of Netscape you're using.
Registration Information takes you to a Web page that'll let you register your copy of Netscape Navigator the company and sign up for paid tech support.
Handbook takes you to Netscape's on-line handbook, which is actually quite good. A printed version of the handbook is available if you purchase the full version of Netscape and the included tech support by registering your copy of Netscape via the Web page mentioned above.
Release Notes takes you to a page with a somewhat extensive listing of features and known bugs of the version of Netscape Navigator you're using.
This is a guide to questions you might have about any and all the aspects of Netscape. The Frequently Asked Questions area of Netscape's Web site offers more extensive information about Netscape than is found in the Release Notes.
On Security brings up a Web page with extensive information about Netscape's Web security measures. A lot of the information found on the On Security Web page is fairly technical and intended for those interested in purchasing or knowing more about the workings of Netscape's secure server software.
You can order Netscape products and send bug reports from the Web page this menu choice takes you. Be sure to check all of the available on-line Netscape information as well as the list of known bugs on the Release Notes page before submitting your report.
You can sign up for tech support for Netscape's Navigator or server software from here.
Clicking here takes you to a Web page that lists good information sources for publishing your own pages on the Web.
This section is one of the most informative of Netscape's features. The status message area at the bottom of the screen dispenses all kinds of information. If you hit the Alt key and use your keyboard's arrow keys to poke around the menus, the status message area will display a brief description of each menu option. If you move the mouse so that the pointer hovers over a hyperlink, the URL of the link is displayed. Click on that hyperlink, and the connecting information is displayed with messages like "looking up server, " "Contacting host," "Host contacted," "Waiting for reply," and "Document:Done."
Once Netscape finds the server that the document resides on and begins downloading the document, the percentage of the document downloaded and the speed of the connection (in kilobytes per second) are displayed. At the same time the progress bar on the right fills with red, inching towards full until the document is full downloaded, at which point it turns back to gray.
This unassuming little button, when clicked, pops up a menu of URLs you've entered by hand into the Location field during the current Netscape session.
You may have noticed already that when you click the right button on your mouse, you get a small popup menu. The active choices of the menu vary according to the type of information or hyperlink your mouse pointer is over when you click the right button. Regardless of what your mouse pointer is over, these choices don't change: the Back and Forward choices, which do the same thing as the Back and Forward buttons and menu options.
When you place the pointer over a hyperlink, the popup menu's link choices are active. Open This Link does the same thing as just clicking on the hot link that the pointer is over. Add Bookmark For This Link adds to your Bookmark list the site you would go to on clicking the hyperlink, but doesn't take you there.
New Window With This Link opens a new window to display the URL the hyperlink points to, and leaves untouched the Netscape window in which the hyperlink appears. Save this Link As saves the contents of the document pointed to by the hyperlink directly to disk, without displaying it. This is useful when the hyperlink points to, say, a file that you want to save directly to your hard drive without displaying it.
Copy This Link Location copies the URL of the hyperlink to the clipboard. This is useful if you happen to be writing a book with a lot of URLs in he text and you don't want to have to select, copy, and paste them all from the Location field.
When you place the mouse pointer over an image, various selections in the image part of the popup menu become active. View this Image (with the file name of the image in parentheses) displays just that image alone in the Netscape browser. Save this Image as brings up the standard Windows save dialog box which that lets you specify where on your hard drive to save the file. Copy This Image Location copies the URL of the image to your Clipboard. Load This Image becomes active when you've loaded a Web page with Autoload Image turned off and your want to load just the image. Clicking on the generic image icon that Netscape uses for unloaded images will also load individual images on a Web page. Clicking the Images button would load all the images that may be on the page.
One of the best deals in Internet software for Windows users is IBM's OS/2 Warp. Warp comes with a complete suite of Internet applications, including FTP, Telnet, Gopher, a mail program, a USENET newsreader, and SLIP software.
Warp requires about 55 MB of disk space. If you want to run Warp on a local area network (LAN), you'll need to get the slightly more expensive Warp LAN client. Otherwise, you can attach to the Internet with a modem and the Internet dialer included in Warp.
Considering the cost of shareware fees and the price of other all-in-one Internet packages for PCs, Warp is a very attractive product. If you already have Windows and don't want to change your operating system to OS/2, you can install the OS/2 for Windows product alongside your existing Windows 3.1 or 3.11 software without any risk to your existing Windows installation.
One of the most interesting utilities Warp offers is its WebExplorer. WebExplorer is a World-Wide Web browser similar to Mosaic.
Unfortunately, WebExplorer didn't ship with the first release of Warp--version 3.0. If you have an earlier version of OS/2, you can download the WebExplorer for free.
Since WebExplorer doesn't yet come with Warp 3.0 and wasn't formally released until this January, you can get this package by downloading it electronically. IBM gives you two ways to do so: You can download WebExplorer from an IBM File Transfer Protocol (FTP) site, or you can use the Retrieve Software Updates utility, which is part of the Internet Connection for OS/2 package.
To download WebExplorer from IBM's networking tools FTP site, log on with the user ID anonymous and your E-mail ID as the password to ftp01.ny.us.ibm.net and get the file called WEB.EXE. Extract the file's information by typing WEB at your system prompt and then running the installer, WEBINST. At this point, you're ready to go Web surfing.
WebExplorer is just one of many tools you can use to view information on the Web. However, WebExplorer offers several advantages over some other Web browsers currently available.
The most obvious difference between WebExplorer and other Web browser packages is that it's a native OS/2 application. WebExplorer benefits from a process called multithreading (that is, performing simultaneous tasks in the same program). For example, while WebExplorer is still downloading one or more graphics, you can scroll through the text of a document. If you browse Web pages that contain multiple graphics, you'll notice that WebExplorer can download more than one graphic at a time.
Most Web browsers provide a history list you can use to review the Web pages you've visited in the current session. WebExplorer puts a twist on the idea of a history list and displays the same information in a hierarchical map of the various Web pages you've seen.
The Web Map is always available. From it, you can instantly return to a Web page by clicking on its name.
What makes the Web different from the Internet's other online services is its creative use of formatted text and high-resolution graphics. WebExplorer allows you to capture the graphics you're viewing simply by clicking with the right mouse button on any Web page graphic, dragging the image to the OS/2 Desktop, and dropping the image. Once you've captured an image, you can view, edit, or display it by using the appropriate software, such as the Multimedia viewer that IBM includes in the OS/2 Bonus Pack, which is part of Warp.
You may have noticed a lot of news about Internet firewalls and security lately. A firewall is a collection of one or more devices--equipment and software techniques--that provides barriers between an organization's network and the Internet. The barrier can include a range of security measures, like these:
A firewall can offer varying levels of protection, depending on the level of security necessary at a particular site. However, no one solution yet protects against all the varying levels of possible digital intrusion.
For information about firewalls, you can get the firewall FAQ via anonymous FTP. To do so, you use your FTP client to connect to FTP.GreatCircle.COM and look in the /pub/firewalls/ directory for the file FAQ. The URL for the FAQ is
ftp://FTP.GreatCircle.COM//pub/firewalls/FAQ
You might also subscribe to the firewall mailing list. This is a high-volume list full of often technical discussions on the implementation and maintenance of firewalls. If you're new to firewalls, we recommend that you begin with the digest version of the list. To subscribe to the digest version, send an E-mail message to majordomo@greatcircle.com and place the command
subscribe firewalls-digest
in the body of your message.
You can also find lots of security information on the Web and through several USENET newsgroups. Two starting points for Internet security you can check out on the Web are The SAIC Security Library at
http://mls.saic.com/sites.html
and a comprehensive list of security-related information at
http://julmara.ce.chalmers.se/stefan/WWW/Cyberlinks/security.html
Newsgroups also provide an opportunity to ask questions and gather ideas from others on the topic of security. You might start with these files:
alt.security
comp.security.misc
comp.security.unix
Cobb Group, Inside the Internet
All Web browsers include a bookmark feature and most allow you to save the bookmark information to a document that you can edit and load into your Web browser at any time. By using that bookmark information, you can more easily manage your Internet resources.
With bookmarks, you can instantly revisit a Web page, Gopher site, or other Internet reference that you've discovered. With most Web browsers, it's extremely easy to add an Internet reference to a bookmark list. However, you may find you can amass a confounding number of these references in a very short period of time. Moreover, bookmarks don't usually give you many hints as to the nature of the item referenced. This can add to the confusion.
To make your references easier to handle, you can change your Web browser's bookmark information into something more useful. You can save those valuable references to your hard drive in Web document format--HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). Then, you can edit and add descriptions to your references with your favorite text editor or word processor. You can even arrange your finds by importance or subject matter and load them with your Web browser as you need them.
First, you'll need to find your Web browser's bookmark or hotlist feature. We'll use this to collect information on some interesting Web sites. The bookmark feature can be found in different Web browser locations.
Netscape users can use the Add Bookmarks feature ([Ctrl]A for Windows and cD for the Macintosh) found under the Bookmarks menu item. This will place a page's URL (uniform resource locator)--and the page's title--in the bookmarks file. NCSA Mosaic's Navigate menu contains an Add This Item selection that will do the same. SPRY's (soon to be CompuServe's) Internet In A Box Web browser includes a similar Add Document to Hotlist menu item under its Navigate menu.
If you haven't used your Web browser's hotlist feature yet, you're sure to appreciate how useful it can be. Simply cruise the Internet and use one of the Add Bookmark features to build your bookmark list.
After you collect a few items in your bookmark list, you can export those references to a Web document. In this example, we'll export bookmarks from Netscape's Web browser. To begin, select View Bookmarks... from Netscape's Bookmarks menu. Then, press the Edit>> button shown in Figure B. This expands the Bookmark List dialog box to include many more features. Select the Export Bookmarks button at the top right of the dialog box, as shown in Figure C, to save your bookmarks as an HTML document. In this example, we'll call the file bookmarks.htm (Mac users can call it bookmarks.html).
You can use your Web browser to open this saved list of bookmarks without making any modifications. It might look something like the document in Figure D. However, you'll edit your bookmark file so it looks good and is easy for you to use. You can open your bookmark file with a text editor. If you've seen the last few issues of Inside the Internet, you know you can easily create and edit Web documents with any word processor, or you can use an HTML editor to simplify the task. (See "Speed Your Web Page Development with an HTML Editor for Windows or Macintosh" in the March 1995 issue.)
To begin, you'll break this list into several parts--in this example, we divided our list into Cool Sites, Business and Marketing Sites, Reference Sites, and Commercial Sites. You'll arrange your references as an unordered (bulleted) list, create the headings, and then arrange the references to suit your layout. Since Netscape writes these references as a dictionary list and adds some unnecessary information at the top of the list, you'll have to make some slight modifications. Also, Netscape adds some information to each bookmark reference--as shown in Figure E--that you don't need in a Web document. You'll remove that information as well to make your documents as lean as possible.
As you can see in Figure F, we've taken the existing bookmark information and created a new file called hotlist.html. In this file, we've split the references into rough categories. Also, we separated those categories with the horizontal rule tag--<HR>. Do the same with your bookmark references and save your work as a file called hotlist.htm (or hotlist.html).
Now that you've arranged your references in a new Web document, it's time to load your work into your Web browser. From Netscape, select the Open File option from the File menu. Then, select the hotlist.htm file. Your document should look something similar to the one in Figure G. At this point, you can add hypertext markup tags to format your document.
Sharing your resources is one of the best reasons to convert your bookmarks to an HTML file. With so many Web browsers available--Lynx, Mosaic, Netscape, and SPRY's AIR Mosaic, to name a few--the easiest way to distribute your Internet references is in HTML format. That way, your friends can simply open your file to get to the sites you recorded. You can also post your HTML document to your local Web or FTP server, if the server is available. Then, someone can simply use a point-and-click hypertext reference in a Web document to load your hotlist file.
If you're new to the Internet, you've probably been thrown into a world of commands and prompts you've never seen before. Users of MS-DOS, Windows, and the Macintosh can find the harsh UNIX world of command-line prompts intimidating. Today, many applications help you navigate the Internet easily. However, when you use the Internet, you'll sometimes find that you can't use a slick interface. In these situations, you must deal with cryptic commands.
In this article, we'll discuss some of the commands you'll want to know to effectively navigate an FTP site with a command-line interface. In addition, we'll give you some tips for getting your files to your computer in the form you want.
The first thing you need to know to connect to an anonymous FTP site is the open command. This command establishes the connection between your local computer and the anonymous FTP site. For example, to connect to the popular FTP site ftp.cica.indiana.edu, you type
open ftp.cica.indiana.edu
at the ftp> prompt. When you establish the connection, you enter a user name and password.
You'll want to enter anonymous as your user name. FTP conventions recommend you enter your E-mail address as your password. (To enter a bogus E-mail address is a breach of network etiquette.) Many FTP sites prompt you to enter the following commands yourself:
user anonymous
pass username@your.emailaddr.ext
Providing a real password doesn't guarantee the site will connect you every time you attempt to access that site, but it's still good form to do so.
After you establish a connection to an FTP site, you need to know the commands necessary to get the site to do what you want. Table A lists common commands you can use to navigate, send files to, retrieve files from, and disconnect from an anonymous FTP site.
One of the first commands you need to know is the ls command. This lists all the files in your current directory.
You move from directory to directory in an FTP site much the same way you move around a local hard drive in DOS. You can change directories with the cd directory_name command. For instance, after you first log in to an FTP site and you type the command
cd pub
your active directory changes to the one in which most FTP sites store publicly accessible files. If you then issue the ls command, you'll receive a list of all these files and subdirectories.
If you lose track of what directory you're in, try the pwd command. The pwd command identifies your present working directory on the remote FTP server.
After you reach the destination directory, you list the files inside with the ls or dir command. You can use wildcard characters to narrow the file listing. For example, the command dir *.zip will display any files in the current directory that end with the characters .zip. The dir command gives a full file listing, including file size, filename, date, time, and some ownership and rights information. The ls command gives only a file listing for the directory.
Changing to the proper file type will save you a lot of time and money, since transferring a file in an improper format will yield a useless file. Check your file type before you transfer. If the files are text based, such as PostScript documents or ASCII text files, then you need to use the ascii command before beginning a transfer. You should always check the mode before beginning a transfer, since sending in the improper format will result in a costly waste of time.
However, many files require binary transfers. Such files include any executable files, compressed files (such as .zip, .tar, .Z, or .z), or graphic and word processing file formats. If you're unsure about the nature of the file you're retrieving, you'll probably want it in binary format. To switch to the binary format, type binary at the ftp> prompt.
If you want to retrieve a file from an FTP site, the procedure is simple. After you've set the proper transfer type (binary or ascii), use the get filename command. The FTP programs on both sides of the connection will take care of the rest.
If you want to retrieve several files at one time, use the mget command. You can retrieve several individual files if you list them on the command line after the mget command. For example, the command
mget bob.com bob.exe readme.bob
retrieves all the files listed. Alternatively, you can use wildcard characters to select a batch of files you want to transfer. For example, if you want to get all the files in a particular directory that have filenames ending with zip, you can type the command
mget *zip
at the ftp> prompt to do so. When you use an mget command, the system prompts you to confirm your intent to receive each individual file. If you want to turn off that prompting, type prompt. The system then assumes you don't want prompting until it receives the prompt command again.
Sending a file to an FTP site functions almost identically to getting one. You issue the put command to send a single file, or you use the mput command to send multiple files. Be sure you're in the proper directory before you send your data and that the file or files meet the FTP administrator's criteria for uploads.
When you've finished with an anonymous FTP session, you must tell the site that you're done. You can do this with several different commands. To disconnect from the existing connection but not end your FTP program, you exit the session with either the close or disconnect command. Both commands return you to your ftp> prompt and wait for you to begin another session.
If you wish to disconnect from the session and end the FTP program with one command, you exit with the bye or quit command. Both commands will return you to your local command line.
You can obtain files from many Internet locations that support File Transfer Protocol (FTP) even if you have only E-mail access. However, you need to consider a few tricks and traps. In this article, we'll explain how you can use your Internet-accessible E-mail package to get files from most FTP sites.
People with a full Internet connection may not need to use E-mail to retrieve files. Even a basic FTP program will retrieve a file more quickly than an E-mail package. However, millions of people who use the Internet every day have only E-mail access to it. These people need a way to retrieve files. Fortunately, necessity breeds innovation.
Today, you can use E-mail to retrieve files through a special FTP mail server. Previously, an E-mail-bound user had difficulty getting an application or a document from an anonymous FTP site.
To receive a file, you simply send a request to an FTP mail site. Your request should state the server, path, and filename of the file you want, along with a few transfer options if necessary. In a relatively short time, you'll receive E-mail that contains your file. But you'll first need to choose an appropriate server.
Most FTP mail servers handle FTP requests in slightly different ways. You might select a server for its commands or because it's easy to use. However, you might choose a particular server based on your Internet connection. For example, Internet-connected E-mail users might choose an ftpmail server on the Internet, but E-mail users on the BITNET network should consider a BITFTP server. Table A lists a few of the FTP mail servers you can query. Of course, you should use the one that's closest to you.
Let's suppose you want to retrieve the dog training FAQ from the rtfm.mit.edu FTP site. The procedure you'll use very nearly follows a live FTP session, only you'll map out the steps within the body of an E-mail message.
First, address your E-mail request to the closest server to you, such as ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com. Next, use the reply command followed by your E-mail address to tell the ftpmail server exactly where you want to send the files. This step ensures your files get back to you if an Internet mail router mangles your message's return address.
Since ftpmail needs to know where to get the file, tell it which FTP server to use by issuing the connect command. After that, use the chdir command followed by the name of the directory in which the file resides.
To ensure that the file arrives in ASCII text format, issue the ascii command. Then, issue the get command followed by the name of the file you want. Close this E-mail request by using the quit command.
Place the commands for your request in the body of an E-mail message. A machine handles all the requests, so be careful not to include any unnecessary information. Remember to check your request for typos before you send it. Your request for the dog training FAQ should have the following format:
reply yourID@domain.ext
connect rtfm.mit.edu
chdir usenet/news.answers/dogs-faq/
ascii
get training
quit
You should expect a response from the ftpmail program within a few minutes. However, your file might take minutes or even several hours to arrive, depending on your Internet gateway connection, when you send your request, and the number of requests prior to yours.
You can transfer almost any file by using simple E-mail. In particular, text files transfer smoothly with no translation necessary. However, don't try to send or receive binary data, which includes compressed files (.Z, .ZIP, .bin, .gz) and executable applications (.ZIP, .sea, .COM, .EXE, and so on), in an E-mail message. If you do, the files will be useless. Ftpmail includes an option--UUencode--that resolves this problem.
UUencode converts binary data into ASCII text. You can then place the encoded text in the body of an E-mail message. Several UUencoder and UUdecoder programs can convert and extract binary data from the body of E-mail messages, but extracting data from a UUencoded file usually takes a few steps. First, save the message to disk and then run that file through a UUdecoder application before you use the binary file.
The procedure for retrieving a binary file is similar to getting an ASCII file. The difference is you tell the ftpmail program that you want to UUencode your data and that your files will be binary. Figure B shows an example of a request from ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com for binary, UUencoded data.
You'll notice that we added information in the Subject field of our E-mail message. Although the additional information is optional, ftpmail tags that information to any messages it returns. The Subject field information is a good way to track the responses for a particular request.
To use BITFTP on BITNET, send E-mail containing your FTP commands to BITFTP@PUCC. If you aren't on BITNET, address your E-mail requests to bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu.
Although similar to the ftpmail commands, BITFTP commands differ slightly. Table C lists some common BITFTP commands.
Now, let's request the same compressed file you asked for via ftpmail. This time, you'll use BITFTP as the FTP mail server.
As with ftpmail, you must tell BITFTP to connect to oak.oakland.edu but that you want the server to UUencode the file. Next, you want the file in binary format, so issue the binary command. In this case, you also request the file with the get command and then include the path as follows:
FTP oak.oakland.edu uuencode
USER anonymous
binary
get /pub/msdos/compress/comp430d.zip
quit
Interestingly enough, the Princeton BITFTP server doesn't get as much traffic as the ftpmail server DEC maintains. As a result, you may get a much faster response from the BITFTP server than from ftpmail.
Several sites support some form of file service to E-mail recipients. However, these services usually include files from the local host, not from other FTP servers. For instance, you can get most of the FAQs for USENET news groups from mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu. Simply send the one-line command
send usenet/news.answers/dogs-faq/training
in the body of an E-mail message to the mail server in order to receive the dog training FAQ. The mail server will confirm your request in a few minutes. Your file should arrive soon after.
To find out more about a particular FTP mail server, send a message with the help command on a line by itself in the body of your message. Address this request to the BITFTP or ftpmail server you wish to use. Most servers send out plenty of useful--if not verbose--directions. In addition, servers usually forward an E-mail address so you can communicate with a human if you need to.
One of the biggest complaints you might have as an Internet user would most likely be the difficulty in finding the information and materials you need. For example, systems based on the UNIX operating system perform most Internet services. If you've ever worked on a non-GUI-based UNIX system, you can imagine the somewhat cryptic instructions necessary to achieve your goals. Fortunately, you have a few options for making Internet usage easier. One of these options is the Gopher menu system.
In this article, we'll show you the advantages of the Gopher menu system. We'll also show you a few of the options available from the Gopher system and get you familiar with the basic Gopher structure.
As we mentioned, Gopher allows you to connect to Internet services, FTP sites, information databases and more through a menu system. For example, to connect to an FTP site, normally you would run a standalone program to attach to the site and then transfer the programs you want. With Gopher, however, you connect to a site from within the Gopher menu structure. You can also grab files from within the Gopher system without leaving the comfort of your menus.
As it exists now, Gopher acts to ease the use of the Internet's cryptic commands and give those with little UNIX experience a window to the net. However, when sound and image transfer become commonplace on Internet lines, Gopher may evolve into a necessary front end for powerful information tools.
You'll learn the most about the Gopher system through experimentation and exploring. Therefore, we'll hop around some of the interesting parts of the Gopher system looking for useful information. We'll begin by visiting the
gopher.msu.edu
site at Michigan State University. First, we attach to the site by using your Telnet program. Then, we tell the system we want to attach to the Gopher client. To do so, enter gopher as your login name at the Login: prompt. The system detects your terminal type (preferably set to VT100) and logs you into the root directory of the MSU Gopher server. From this point on, the system presents you with a menu like the one in Figure A. If you've set your terminal type correctly, you can move between the options by using the arrow keys.
Keep in mind that this particular Gopher server is only one of many throughout the Internet. Table A contains a partial list of Gopher sites and some of the things you'll find on them. Keep in mind that some of the listed sites do not serve as Gopher client sites. In other words, you might have to connect to them by running a local Gopher client rather than connecting directly through Telnet.
Or you could attach to them indirectly by using a gopher site, such as
gopher.msu.edu
that allows remote client connections through Telnet.
Many of the sites listed in the table may fit more with your area of interest, but, for the moment, let's look at some local information on MSU's machine. MSU's gopher contains many valuable sections. In our example, we'll gather some of the more topical information available through Gopher.
Let's imagine you want some information on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). For this example, let's assume that we know where the Gopher site stores the needed information. We'll wind through the submenus until we arrive at the material we seek.
Unfortunately, in many situations, you won't know where the data you want is stored. Recently, Gopher servers started offering search functions to ease this problem. In future articles, we'll explore some of the new search programs, such as Veronica.
At this point, remember, we're at the main menu of the
gopher.msu.edu
site. To begin our quest for the NAFTA information, choose option 2, the More About Gopher submenu. This menu provides extra information about Gopher servers. You might find the information it provides on the background of Gopher and the specifics of the MSU gopher system useful. You can search through that information later.
In the meantime, choose option 11, the Other Gopher Server submenu, from this menu. Next, choose option 14, Gopher Jewels. This submenu contains some of the most interesting information available on through Gopher server. However, we have specific information in mind, so we need to travel down a few more submenus. To do so, choose option 17--Internet/Cyberspace Related--followed by option 7--Internet Wiretap. This submenu contains information on the North American Free Trade Agreement that's discussed every day in the news. Choosing option 6 gives you all the information you might want on this subject.
This exercise helps demonstrate two things about Gopher servers--they contain a wide variety of information and they are a mass of submenus. With a little practice, you'll traverse the menus with ease, picking and choosing the more fruitful areas.
You may have noticed a few interesting items as we paged through the weather options earlier. For example, several weather maps were available in the popular GIF format. However, if you try to access them, you'll notice that the system will respond with an error. This is because you connected to a Gopher client at the Gopher server site. (We tell you how to access the weather information in "Gopher Checking the Weather.")
Any time you connect to an Gopher server, you must run a Gopher client. When we attached to the Gopher server by using Telnet to connect to the
gopher.msu.edu
site, we actually connected to Gopher client program at
gopher.msu.edu
to communicate with the server. While this approach served our the purpose of introducing you to Gopher, you'll find it less desirable than running a local Gopher client. You can find gopher clients on several FTP sites on the Internet. Once you are familiar with the Gopher system, find one that fits your system. In a future article we'll deal with the advantages of using local Gopher clients and where you can locate one for your system.
One final thing to remember is that you might be new to the Gopher system, but the Gopher system is also new to the Internet. Gopher was developed in 1991, so some Gopher clients aren't totally bug-free. In fact, some programs you'll run across are still in beta release. So, please be careful to back up important work frequently when running a Gopher client. The work being done in the area of Gopher clients is excellent, but we recommend caution when dealing with important materials.
Veronica is a giant, searchable index of items available in Gopherspace. Veronica indexes can break down a search to find particular types of data. Veronica does this when you add -tx to your Veronica queries, where x is a specific Gopher data type.
Inside the Internet, Cobb Group, January 1995
You can use Veronica searches to find data types in Gopherspace. In this example, we'll search for a PC Gopher client program. If you want to search for a particular program (binary) file, you'd first start your Gopher program and get to a search (Veronica) option. Then, you'd search Gopherspace by title word, using the -tx option. Let's begin by starting Gopher.
In this example, we'll connect to the Gopher at veronica.scs.unr.edu to perform the search. If you're like many users, you access Gopherspace from a UNIX-like menu. You can switch to another Gopher server if you first press a lowercase o and type in the Gopher's name. If you use a graphically based Gopher client, such as Lynx or WSGopher, you'll need to use the option in your software that allows you to connect to a new Gopher.
Once you connect to the Gopher server veronica.scs.unr.edu, you'll see a menu. Select option 9, Search ALL of Gopherspace (4800 servers) using Veronica. This will take you to a Gopher menu with links to several Veronica indexes.
Next, you should see a screen that offers several search options. From here, you'll select a server and then enter your search criteria. Whenever possible, you should select the server closest to you.
In this example, we'll select PSINet and press [return]. Now, we'll enter the Veronica search string, uudecode. In addition, since we want to locate only software for a DOS-based PC, we'll add the data-type modifier -t5 (5 being the data type for DOS binaries).
This -t5 modified search will return a list of about 15 DOS binary files. Without the modifier, Veronica would return over 200 entries, many having little to do with your DOS application.
As you test your Veronica queries, you'll find that a public Veronica index is so overburdened that your request probably won t get through on the first try. You'll very likely receive a message that reads
--> 1. *** Too many connections - Try again soon. ***
If this happens, either keep resending your request until it gets through or wait and try the technique later. You might have better success if you search during off-peak hours--between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. and on weekends.
You can use this same technique to search for different file and data types. For example, you can use the -t4 modifier to search for Macintosh files, -t0 for text, or -tt to find pointers to Gopher-accessible Telnet sessions.
Veronica also allows you to search for more than one data type at a time. You might use this to search for a uudecode utility and for uudecode help files that describe the utility's operation. To request more than one data type, use the -t option followed by all the data types you want. Your search string for uudecode DOS binary and text data types would look like
uudecode -t50
As you can see, you shouldn t add any spaces between your data-type criteria. You can add as many search criteria to a keyword search as you feel is necessary.
When you use Gopher and Veronica, you can find yourself swamped with information. With Veronica's -tx option, you can zero in on the types of information you need.
Inside the Internet, Cobb Group
Most Gopher users have the ability to create bookmarks. In this article, we'll show you how to create and use Gopher bookmarks. In addition, we'll show you how you can share your Gopher bookmarks with others.
Tunneling is a term that many Internet surfers use to describe what they do when they look for information by using a Gopher client. Tunneling for just the right piece of information may take hours. However, once you unearth the valuable piece of information, you may not remember how you found that jewel. What you need is a "treasure map." A bookmark is just that--a powerful tool you can use to return you instantly to where you've found jewels in Gopherspace.
Creating a bookmark in most Gopher programs is easy. For this example, we'll use a UNIX Gopher client similar to the kind many shell account users work with. (However, every Gopher client program we've seen includes the bookmark feature.)
You can use several bookmark techniques as you tunnel through Gopherspace. Table A in the sidebar "Common UNIX Gopherspace Commands," lists some of those features.
Each option is both a simple and a powerful feature. For example, you can easily add a Gopher menu item to your bookmark list. To do so, begin by starting your Gopher client. You'll then need to connect to a Gopher server. In this example, we'll connect to the Genealogy archive at the University of Toledo. You can find this archive at alpha.cc.utoledo.edu.
From your UNIX prompt, type
gopher alpha.cc.utoledo.edu
and select the Research Resources menu option. At the Research Resources screen, move your cursor down a page to the Genealogy option, as shown in Figure A.
To add the Genealogy option to your UNIX Gopher client's bookmark list, simply press the letter a. The Gopher software will then display a dialog box, as shown in Figure B, that prompts you to give this link a name. The name you give this link will appear in your bookmark list, so you can make it as descriptive as you need.
The a bookmark option takes you only to the item that's currently selected. However, you may often find yourself at an entire page of information that you want to mark, such as the menu shown in Figure C. Fortunately, the A option (note the capitalization) handles just such a need.
In this instance, you'd want to title your bookmark to reflect the entire page of information, not just the selected item. We titled the menu in Figure D National Archives Gopher. This will display in our Gopher bookmark screen.
Using your bookmarks in your UNIX Gopher software is simple. To call up your bookmarks, press v. A list similar to the one shown in Figure E will appear. You use this menu as you would any other Gopher menu--simply move the selection and press [Return].
You may want to share your Gopher bookmarks with someone who hasn't yet discovered the bookmark feature or who has interests similar to your own. To do so, you can forward a copy of your Bookmarks file.
The UNIX Gopher usually maintains a file--.gopherrc--in your user directory. You can copy this file and give it to other people who use the same UNIX Gopher software as you do. They, in turn, can copy the bookmark information from the file into their own .gopherrc files--or simply use your file instead.
If someone uses another Gopher client program, they can still benefit from your Gopher bookmark file's information. This file contains all the information that a person (or Gopher) needs in order to find a resource in Gopherspace. You can print your Gopher Bookmarks file, then simply hand the printout to anyone who may find your links useful.
Inside the Internet, The Cobb Group
Although Veronica catalogs millions of pieces of information from thousands of Gopher servers, Veronica considers only filenames and menu titles when you perform text searches. As a result, a search based on the word cooking yields hundreds of responses that include Cooking Roots by Pit Steaming, Cooking Up War, and Noncommercial Cooking Energy in Urban Areas of Nepal.
Sometimes, a broad search will yield delightfully unexpected results. That same query on cooking can return fascinating responses, including the Grad-Student Guide to Indian Cooking and the Cooking FAQ and Conversion File. These are great responses, but not when you want a recipe for cooking brownies. Let's look at what you can expect when you use a more specific set of search criteria.
Using multiple-word queries can yield more specific results than single-word queries do when you search Gopherspace. Let's say, for example, that you want recipes for fudge brownies. A search based on the word brownie may return a score of options to choose from. If you perform a more specific search on the words fudge and brownie, Veronica may return only one or two results.
As an example, we'll walk you through a sample Veronica query. You'll first need to start your Gopher software. For this example, you'll point it at the University of Minnesota. Once there, you'll search Gopherspace at one of the Veronica sites for any information pertaining to women, specifically those in Congress.
If you have a Gopher client that runs on your PC, first point it at either gopher.tc.umn.edu or gopher.micro.umn.edu, using port 70. Follow this path for the Veronica search:
Other Gopher and Information Servers
Search titles in Gopherspace using veronica
Search GopherSpace by Title word(s) (via U.Texas, Dallas)
Your local Gopher system may also have the option Other Gopher And Information Servers. Follow that path if it's more convenient than using a remote Gopher.
You'll search Gopherspace by title instead of subject. During a title search, Veronica peruses every document title; a subject search, on the other hand, selects only directory or folder names.
When you run your search, Veronica shows you only the first 200 matches. If you were to do a search on just the word women, you'd get a huge number of responses. Veronica would display the first 200 entries with an extra line that would look similar to
** There are 9015 more items matching the query "women" available ...
You can easily limit the number of responses and get more useful results when you use more search criteria. In Figure A, we show a more specific search based on the words women and congress.
As you can see in Figure B, the results of a slightly more complex search yield a more useful set of options. From these, you can choose any title that looks pertinent.
If you decide that your two-word search severely limits your choices, you still have options: You can try another combination of words or tell Veronica to display more than the first 200 matches. You do this with the -m switch. For example, to have Veronica return the first 500 matches to your query, you add -m500. Your query will look like
women -m500
Veronica will optionally display every match as well. Simply add -m to your query, as in
women -m
This search will yield all 9,015 titles known to Veronica that contain the word women. Granted, this is an extreme case, but you may find that browsing large lists of titles can reveal items you might otherwise overlook.
Information at your fingertips can be a bit of a misnomer when you use Gopher as your information-gathering tool. As you burrow through Gopherspace (the term given to all the locations and information available to Gopher), you can easily get overwhelmed, sidetracked, and lost in your search for enlightenment.
A Gopher menu instantly links you to servers and information worldwide. These links are at once the strength and the bane of Gopherspace.
Fortunately, a catalog of Gopher resources--called Gopher Jewels--can give you an edge as you embark on your next Gopher-space journey. With Gopher Jewels, you can quickly search through more than 2,000 references to Gopher sites and resources. It's an excellent starting point for any foray into the realm of Gopherspace.
In this article, we'll explain how you can get to Gopher Jewels and present a few tips on how you can use the catalog to your advantage. First, let's look at what makes Gopher Jewels so unique.
The Gopher Jewels catalog sorts its references by subject. Because of this, it's easy to find items that relate to your particular field of interest. Moreover, you can use Jughead, a Gopher-accessible search tool, to scan the Gopher Jewels titles. The individual aspects of the catalog aren't unique to it; however, the depth of Gopher Jewels' features makes it a most valuable prize.
How you get to the Gopher Jewels catalog depends on how you connect to the Internet. If you have a client program that runs on your personal computer or workstation, you can skip to the next section and simply type the appropriate information in your Gopher program.
If you dial into a service with a modem and a text-only terminal program, you have a shell account and usually either select Gopher from a menu or type gopher at a UNIX or VMS system prompt. If you use a terminal at a university, you probably use a similar procedure to access Gopherspace.
To begin your Gopher Jewels journey, you must first start your Gopher software and direct it to the Gopher Jewels server. To do this, you'll type gopher cwis.usc.edu at your menu or system prompt, as shown in Figure A.
After a few moments, your software will connect to the University of Southern California (USC) server, and you'll see the USC main Gopher menu. To get to the Gopher Jewels page, select these items from the menus:
Other Gophers and Information Resources
Gopher-Jewels
Now you'll see the Gopher Jewels main menu. From this menu, you can get to all the Gopher Jewels features.
If you use a Gopher program that doesn't allow you to directly enter server information, you can access Gopher Jewels from the Mother Gopher at the University of Minnesota. Almost every main Gopher menu contains a link to the Minnesota Mother Gopher. Begin with Minnesota's main menu and select these menu items to get to the Gopher Jewels catalog:
North America
USA
california
University of Southern California - USCgopher
Other Gophers and Information Resources
Gopher-Jewels
If you prefer to access Gopherspace with a Web browser such as Mosaic, WinWeb, or Lynx, you'll need the correct URL to get to the Gopher Jewels menus. To avoid the possibility of typos, use only the Gopher server's address
gopher://cwis.usc.edu/
as you open a URL to access the USC Gopher server. After you connect, simply follow the menus we described above.
Once you get to the Gopher Jewels menu, your options are straightforward. If, for instance, you want to find information about a particular prescription your doctor has ordered for you, you could start your search with the Health, Medical, and Disability menu item. Your search could then take you through the menu items Medical Related and Medical Related (misc) to the Drug Information Center menu.
The Gopher Jewels menus are easy to navigate and can lead you quickly to the information you seek. But beware: Once you leave the Gopher Jewels menus and leap out into Gopherspace, you might find distractions that will waste your time if you let them. Next, let's look at a few ways you can use Gopher Jewels to keep on track as you search for information.
As you search for information in your fields of interest, use the Gopher Jewels menus as a base of operations. This can save you valuable time as you research most topics. To facilitate your search, most Gopher clients allow you to set bookmarks. If you set a bookmark at the Gopher Jewels top menu, you can always find your way home if you journey too far away from your topic of interest.
While in the Gopher Jewels menus, use the search options to aid in your quest. Each Gopher Jewels menu contains the Search Gopher Jewels Menus by Key Word(s) item. This lets you use Jughead, a local search engine, to search through the entire catalog of Gopher Jewels references.
The Cobb Group, Inside the Internet
Internet Relay Chat, or IRC, uses the Internet to allow you to communicate with any number of people in real time. For businesses, IRC is a way several employees can hold a text-based, online conference. IRC also allows you online discussions with friends and family members.
IRC started out with the TALK protocol, which allows just two users to type messages to one another. While TALK was helpful, its limit on the number of simultaneous users was too restrictive. Therefore, TALK quickly expanded its capabilities. First, it allowed more simultaneous users on the local network. Then, it evolved into IRC by allowing more users across the Internet.
IRC's popularity over the last couple of years has grown exponentially, spawning an update to the IRC protocol--IRCII. The latest standard allows more control and expanded capabilities for IRC users and IRC channel operators.
The IRC network consists of several interconnected servers that handle all the conversations between users. When you want to use the IRC system, you connect to an IRC server. This server can relay the information you type to other IRC servers, quickly sending your messages to the proper recipients. All this takes only milliseconds in the background.
The IRC network can be an invaluable interactive resource and work-enhancing tool, or it can be an incredible waste of time. IRC is best used for meetings, idea swapping, or information gathering. However, many channels offer more than their share of trivial banter, and conversations often get directly to the point. You may also find some of the participants to be less than gracious. Having said that, let's look at how you can use IRC.
As you might have guessed, there are many IRC discussions going on at any one time. Besides joining in public discourse, you can also have private conversations. But before you join in a discussion, you'll need to sign onto an IRC server. Then, you can use the /LIST command to find out what channels are currently running. Next, you issue a /JOIN command to participate in a particular discussion. Let's use a UNIX shell account to demonstrate these IRC basics.
Although there are several hundred IRC servers you can attach to, many restrict access to local sites. If your local site doesn't maintain its own IRC server, you may be able to attach to a server that allows off-site access. If you need to tell your IRC client the name of an IRC server to use, reference Table A for a list of servers that may allow you access.
If you use a UNIX shell account to access IRC, enter the command irc to begin your IRC session. After a few seconds, you should connect to the IRC network and see a message that says something like
****Connecting to port 6667 of server irc.indiana.edu
If you use an IRC client application, such as WINIRC or Homer, use it to attach to one of the servers listed in Table A. Once you're in, you'll want to go to a channel. Although several thousand people may be on the IRC network at one time, channels allow you to narrow your interactions to only a few individuals. Channel names almost always begin with a #, such as in #unix.
To become part of an existing channel, you use the /JOIN command followed by the name of a channel. For example, if you want to join the #unix channel, type
/JOIN #unix
From this point on, everything you type--with the exception of commands--will echo to all other users on that channel. By default, IRC interprets anything that starts with a / as a command.
If the #unix channel already exists, your IRC software will return a list of names participating in the discussion--or you can use the command /WHO for a list of channel users. You can get more information about any of the names displayed by using the /WHOIS command followed by the name of the person. For example, you can learn about a user named Darin by typing
/WHOIS Darin
Talking to everyone on an IRC channel is easy--simply type your text and everyone on the channel receives the message. As you converse in the IRC channels, you may want to send a private message to a particular person in the chat group. To do this, you use the /MSG command followed by the person's screen nickname and your message. For instance, if you want to send TimH a private message, you might type a line that looks like
/MSG TimH Tim! What's your opinion on this?
Use the /LIST command to get a list of available IRC channels. However, you'll want to use some modifiers to reduce the number of channels your client will return, since the /LIST command could display thousands of active channels. To limit the number of items your IRC client returns, use the -min nn and -max nn options with the /LIST command. For example, if you want to see all channels that have three or more participants, you type
/LIST -min 3
If you issue the /JOIN command in an attempt to join a channel that doesn't yet exist, IRC creates a new channel and makes you the channel operator, also known as the chop, or simply ops. For example, you can issue a /JOIN #Physics command in order to create your own channel called #Physics.
As the chop, you can change many of your new channel's attributes. This allows you to set the description others see when they get a list of available channels, to make the channel private, and to allow only invited guests to participate. Table B lists some of the basic chop commands and how you might use them.
As a channel operator, you have control of your channel and its participants. As you can imagine, you're somewhat responsible for those individuals who abuse the privilege of using your channel. If this happens, use the /KICK nick command to forcibly remove a person from your channel. For instance, if a user named TimH were using abusive language toward other participants, you'd use the /KICK TimH command to throw TimH off the channel. Moreover, you might then make your channel invitation only. Consequently, TimH couldn't get back on your channel to harass your participants.
In extreme cases, you can ban a user (nick) from your channel. To do this, use the command
/MODE +b nick!user@host.domain
Of course, you'll eventually want to end your IRC session. To do so, simply use the /BYE or /EXIT command. This will immediately shut down your IRC session and return you to your system prompt.
You may not be allowed to join some IRC channels that are invitation only, private, or secret. To enter a private channel, you must know the exact spelling of the channel's name before you can participate in that discussion.
You can save time if you avoid IRC discussions that aren't apparently useful. If you're looking for assistance on a particular topic and you don't see it in your channel list, use the /EXIT command to leave your IRC session and use another Internet tool to research your topic.
If you decide to host a productive IRC discussion with others, plan a schedule and decide your topics ahead of time. You should make your channel private or secret if you don't want intrusions. You can also archive copies of your IRC discussion for later reference.
If you need some assistance, you'll usually find someone to talk to on one of the IRC assistance channels. Ask for assistance in the channels #irchelp, #ircbar, or #Twilight_Zone. Many IRC operators frequent #Twilight_Zone. However, they're often busy and may not be monitoring their terminals when you pop into their channel. Of course, you should try the /HELP command, which should list all the commands available to your client application.
If you have a direct SLIP, PPP, or Internet connection, you can use the power of your own computer to help you navigate and manage your IRC sessions. Table C lists locations of several IRC client programs.
The Internet makes sharing concepts, ideas, and works-in-progress simple. However, as you travel the information superhighway, you may want a break from work as you know it. Just pull off at an Internet exit and explore any one of hundreds of multiuser dimensions, discourses, or dungeons. People who frequent these pseudo-realities simply call them MUD.
In basic terms, a MUD is a computer program that several people use simultaneously. A MUD runs as an application on a remote computer, usually a UNIX-based system. You connect to a MUD program by using a Telnet-capable communications package. Here's where the dry part ends and the fun begins.
In a MUD, you can interact with other characters, chat, or even extend the MUD to include new things. To role-playing gamers, a MUD is almost a dream come true--many experience MUDs as exciting fantasy worlds.
As you might guess, you'll find many game-style MUDs on the Internet. As a matter of fact, many MUDs owe their subtle nuances to the players who often "build" the MUDs they participate in. However, since a MUD requires an incredible amount of effort to maintain, many MUDs evolve with an eye toward specific topics outside the pure-gaming realm. The sidebar "Finding Out More About MUD" tells you where to get daily news and information on MUDs.
When you enter a MUD, you get the opportunity to don a new persona. You can be yourself, of course. However, many people take this opportunity to create an alternate personality developed according to the situations encountered in a particular MUD. Since MUDs differ in their purpose, you may want a way to distinguish between them.
MUDs take on lives and personalities of their own. Just as cafes differ in atmosphere from fast-food joints, you can expect MUDs to vary widely. (We list a few MUDs you might want to visit in the sidebar "Choosing Your MUD.") For instance, when you visit a MUD called LambdaMOO, you'll most likely have a fraternal and friendly experience with people who gather for mutual support and discuss topics of interest. The Worlds of Conquest MUD is a gaming MUD at the other end of the MUD spectrum. These MUDs can run the gamut of fantasy excitement, with magic to sling and ogres to slay. In these MUDs, not everyone is friendly.
You'll find MUDs based on real-world topics such as multimedia or geography, and you'll find others that are fantasy worlds designed just for fun. Now that you have some idea of what you might look--or look out--for in a MUD, let's see how you can get into a MUD that fits your interest.
As we've mentioned, you need a Telnet-capable pro- gram in order to attach to a MUD. Next, you need the IP network number or the name of the computer that runs the MUD. In addition to the name or network address, you must know the MUD's port number. A port is nothing more than the number assigned to the MUD program.
When you put all this together, you'll state the name of the computer that runs the MUD, note the port number of the program, and then start a Telnet session. It's all easier than it sounds.
You start your Telnet program from a terminal or command line by using the format
telnet machinename.domain.ext portID
If you use a Telnet application such as NCSA's Telnet, simply input the machine name or IP address. Add to that the port address for the MUD, then start your Telnet connection. Now, let's explore a MUD you might want to visit.
For the purposes of this article, we'll visit the international MUD community, LambdaMOO. From a computer capable of running a Telnet session, enter the command
telnet lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888
which connects you to LambdaMOO. The MUD then prompts you to connect with a character name and password. Your path to a particular MUD depends on the type of computer and the Telnet application you use. Many people consider the LambdaMOO community fascinating. However, you can always choose a MUD that fits your comfort level and interests based on your own experience and explorations.
As we mentioned earlier, you need a Telnet-capable program to open a connection to a MUD. In case you aren't sure if your software arsenal includes a Telnet program, we'll mention a few. OS/2 users might connect with the TCP/IP for OS/2 software. X-Windows, Macintosh, and Microsoft Windows users might consider the public domain NCSA Telnet software available for each platform. Intercon's TCP Connect II, another excellent program that includes Telnet among its many features, runs on both the Macintosh and Microsoft Windows platforms. Many Macintosh users prefer a program called VersaTerm from Synergy Software. Chameleon for Windows is another popular Telnet-capable application.
With a Telnet program and a few MUD addresses in mind, you can open the door to many MUDs and dive right in. However, you might consider a slow approach for your first MUD experience.
When you first sign onto a MUD, you'll need a password and permission to participate. Often, a MUD requires that you register yourself, either within the program or by E-mail. This restraint helps to keep MUD abuses at a minimum. Answer what questions you must and wait for a reply if necessary.
After you sign on, it's a good idea to read all the instructions and help files available. You can usually type help while inside the MUD to get an online list of instructions, as shown in Figure A. The command news usually returns the latest information about that particular MUD. We recommend that you use both commands and read the results before you do anything in new MUD territory.
After you read the news and note the HELP commands, practice the commands until you feel familiar with them. Of course, where you are in the real world may determine if you really want to participate in a MUD.
How you connect to the net may constrain Internet resources. Your school or place of business may consider MUDs out of bounds. If so, don't risk your job or your networking privileges. If your site restricts access, ask your system administrator for permission to connect to a MUD if you hear of one that interests you. The availability of computer resources and security issues may be behind the restrictions.
Speaking of security, never use a school or job password for a MUD. Since MUDs often run with few restrictions, someone posing as a MUD administrator may try to get your MUD password and use it to access your other network connections. This can cause problems for you and those you work with (possibly expensive problems, depending on the intent of the marauder).
The best policy for passwords is simple--don't use the same one twice. You might keep a notepad close at hand to jot down the names and addresses of any new places you visit and the passwords you use to get there.
Instead of accessing a MUD with a standard Telnet application, specialized MUD client programs can make being in a MUD easier. Ordinary Telnet programs may not lend themselves to a MUD's quick interaction. In addition, client programs can take advantage of all the features of any particular MUD.
Client programs offer many features such as type-ahead windows, macros, and simplified login procedures. For example, you can set your client program to "flame," or verbally assault, some annoying fellow MUD user.
You may even try out a client program on one of your regular Telnet excursions. Either way, you might find a MUD client program a useful addition to your personal Internet toolbox. You can get a client program for your computer by anonymous FTP. These client programs may work better for you than a standard Telnet program.
Inside the Internet, Cobb Group
Since practically everyone who uses the Internet can send and receive E-mail, LISTSERVs are a popular way for people with similar interests to communicate. However, LISTSERVs make membership lists available to anyone who asks. Therefore, some agencies might find a list's membership a tempting target audience for an unsolicited advertising campaign. Although this doesn t happen often, why take the chance?
You can avoid some unsolicited advertisements by removing your name and E-mail address from a membership list. You do this easily with LISTSERV's set listname conceal command.
If you send a LISTSERV a review listname command, it will mail to you a list of nearly everyone who subscribes to that particular list. This feature can be handy when you want to write someone but can't find his or her E-mail address. With the list, all you have to do is look for the correct name.
Practice using the review listname command with a quick example. Ask listserv@indycms.iupui.edu to send you a copy of the distribution list for the discussion group mailing ACCESS-L. To do so, you simply address an E-mail message to the LISTSERV and place the command review ACCESS-L in the body of your message.
After a while, you'll receive a copy of the distribution list. Usually, anyone who subscribes to a mailing list can get this roster.
Some companies or organizations may try to collect your E-mail address in hopes that you're a potential customer or convert. If this happens, you'll most likely receive some unwanted E-mail messages. Although this behavior is a breach of network etiquette, the temptation still exists. To reduce the chances that anyone will obtain your name with the review command, LISTSERVs have a conceal command that keeps your name and address off these lists.
Once you subscribe to a LISTSERV discussion group list, it's easy to keep the LISTSERV from distributing your name. If you subscribe to the ACCESS-L list, for example, you d send the following E-mail message to listserv@indycms.iupui.edu:
set ACCESS-L mail conceal
Soon after you send this message, a LISTSERV will return an acknowledgment of your request. Note that your E-mail settings will change to reflect your desire to conceal your name from anyone who requests a membership list from the LISTSERV.
In addition to LISTSERV, there are several other mailing-list server applications. For instance, LISTSERVs come in both the LISTSERV IBM VMS system mainframe version and the LISTSERV UNIX version. These applications work almost identically with respect to the review and conceal commands.
Two common UNIX E-mail managers include ListProcessor and Majordomo. Lists managed by these systems may or may not allow you to use review- and conceal-type commands (at the list manager's discretion). However, you may be able to conceal your name from the distribution lists of these programs anyway. For instance, the ListProcessor program by Anastasios Kotsikonas in our example (we'll call it listproc) also allows you to hide your name from curious observers. Let's look at this program more closely.
You can often tell when ListProcessor manages a list. You'll see a line at the beginning (the header) of an E-mail message that reads something like
Sender: listproc@murphys.net
If you discover that you use a ListProcessor mail program, you can conceal your address from their membership lists too. Simply send a message to the ListProcessor and place the command
set listname conceal yes
in the body of your message. As with a LISTSERV, you ll soon receive a message that notes your new settings.
Are you aware that your computer can play movies? All you need is a movie file and a utility to view the movies. You can use the Internet to collect and view movie files -- in particular, MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) movie format.
The idea of making movie files available on the Internet has--as has much of the Internet's gain in popularity--been fueled by multimedia-capable Internet applications, such as Netscape, NCSA Mosaic, and Mosaic's many licensees. The drawback of multimedia Internet applications is that they often create the need to move larger files from the Internet to your computer. Moving those files quickly is often difficult. Larger files require more bandwidth (the amount of information your computer can receive from the Internet in a second), and movie files are among the biggest you can find on the Internet.
As more people and businesses make faster connections to the Internet, we have the luxury of working with technologies that require lots and lots of bandwidth. Loosely translated, "lots and lots of bandwidth" equates to the fastest modem or Internet connection you can possibly afford. Movie files, because they're often so huge, require that you have a great deal of bandwidth--or a great deal of patience.
Even if you don't have the latest-and-greatest digital modem or router, you can still get movies from several sources on the Internet. But pulling these images across the Internet may take some time with most modems--typically the 14.4-Kbps (kilobits per second) or V.32bis variety. After all, movie files are one of the largest data types you can find. Out of this need to pour vast quantities of data into--and out of--a computer, MPEG was born.
Video and audio information takes up a lot of disk space when you put it into digital format. Without some way to reduce that space requirement, we couldn't use these types of information on the Internet--or even on a desktop computer. MPEG formatting is a method of data compression and decompression that squeezes video and audio data to a fraction of its original size. The amount of compression depends on the particular piece of video or audio data that's compressed. However, you can expect close to a 25 to 1 ratio on video data and a 6 to 1 ratio on audio data with the current version of MPEG compression.
Even so, movie files on the Internet often weigh in at several megabytes. You'll want the fastest modem or Internet connection you can find to move those files into your computer. But you'll first need some software to play those movies.
To see a movie, you need a viewing utility, often referred to as a player. The player you need and its supporting software depend on the type of computer you use and the type of file you wish to view. There are players available for Macs, Windows PCs, and various UNIX implementations.
Sparkle, a freeware program written by New Zealander Maynard Handley, is currently the standard Macintosh Internet MPEG movie viewer. It uses the standard Macintosh QuickTime movie controller as the basis for its interface, as shown in Figure A.
When you encounter an MPEG movie on a Web page, many browsers such as MacWeb, Netscape, and NCSA's Mosaic use Sparkle to play MPEG movies. Sparkle's 2.3.1 release requires that your Mac have
According to the documentation that accompanies Sparkle, the next release may require that Mac users upgrade to System 7.5. You can use File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to receive a current copy of Sparkle. Use any of these Internet locations:
ftp://ftp.utexas.edu/pub/mac/graphics/sparkle-231-fat.hqx
ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/.3/net/infosys/Mac-Mosaic/Helpers/
ftp://sumex-aim.stanford.edu/info-mac/grf/util/
ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Mac/Mosaic/Helpers/
ftp://freebsd.cdrom.com/.13/mac/umich/graphics/graphicsutil/
gopher://gopher.archive.umich.edu:7055/11/mac/graphics/graphicsutil/sparkle 2.3.sit.hqx
MPEGPLAY, written by Michael Simmons, is a good MPEG viewer for Windows users. The latest version of MPEGPLAY (1.61) requires that your Windows 3.1 installation include the 32-bit Windows enhancements--Win32 version 1.15a or later. (The mpegw32g.zip archive includes the Win32 enhancements.) MPEGPLAY also works under Windows NT version 3.5 or later.
You can find MPEGPLAY at several sites on the Internet. Look for the mpegw32h.zip file at these Internet locations or in many CICA mirrors:
ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu//Mosaic/Windows/viewers/
ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/micro/msdos/win3/desktop/
ftp://ftp.orst.edu//pub/mirrors/ftp.cica.indiana.edu/win3/desktop/
ftp://ftp.netcom.com//pub/ms/msimmons/
You can also use FTP to obtain MPEGPLAY at ftp://papa.indstate.edu. Look in the /winsock-l/WWW-Browsers/Players/ directory for the file mpegw32h.zip.
Both Windows and DOS users can take advantage of a program called VMPEG12a, which is shown in Figure B. Version 1.2a of the program provides about a 30-percent speed improvement over previous releases. VMPEG12a requires a PC with a 386 or better processor and at least 4 MB of RAM. You can find VMPEG12a at ftp://ftp.netcom.com//pub/cf/cfogg/mpeg1/vmpeg12a.zip.
The FTP site at s2k-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu maintains MPEG players for several platforms. Look in the /pub/multimedia/mpeg/Ports/ directory for a player that will work for you.
If you're cruising the Internet with a graphical Web browser, you'll probably want to configure it to play MPEG movies on demand. Each browser will require a slightly different procedure to do so.
Windows users will need to tell their particular Web browser how to recognize and play movie files automatically. If you use NCSA's Mosaic for Windows, you can find these instructions online at
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/WinMosaic/viewers.html
If you use one of the other popular Web browsers, look to the home pages of the company or the organization that develops your software for specific instructions. Some Web browsers, such as Netscape, will prompt you to configure a helper application for viewing MPEG movies if one isn't already set up.
If you use Lynx, DOSLynx, Gopher, or simple command line-driven FTP to get your files, you don't need to worry--as long as you can run the player on your computer, you can still get and play MPEG movies. All you need to do is download the player to your personal computer, install it, and then get some MPEG movies. Just because you don't use a graphical Web browser doesn't mean you're out of the graphics game. As a matter of fact, you may find that you can download files to your personal directory much more quickly. Then, you can download those files to your own computer when it's more convenient.
If you configure your browser to accept MPEG movies or simply download the MPEG player and use it as a stand-alone application, you'll want to gather some MPEG movies to play. You'll find more and more movie files available on the Net every day.
You can collect movies from many Internet resources: FTP sites, the World-Wide Web (using your Web browser), and Gopher. The s2k-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu FTP site contains a number of MPEG files. Look for files that end with .mpg or .mpeg extensions. You'll find some in the /pub/multimedia/mpeg/movies directory.
The Web includes numerous sites that provide MPEG files. A few places you might look include
http://www.ccsf.caltech.edu/~johns/sl9.html http://newproducts.jpl.nasa.gov/sl9/images.html
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/sl9/sl9.html
http://mtvoddities.viacom.com/animate_t.html
http://s2k-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu:8000/multimedia/mpeg/movies/
http://ice.ucdavis.edu/whimsy/fun_stuff/fun_stuff_movies.html
http://www.best.com/~johnp/fun.html
http://www.wit.com/
Gopher and FTP sites offer several MPEG libraries to choose from. Start by searching in your local Gopher archives for MPEG information. Then, check out the offerings at
gopher://ftp.cs.ttu.edu/11/pub/mpeg/movies
gopher://epoch.CS.Berkeley.EDU:70/11/multimedia/mpeg/movies
gopher://samisdat.unh.edu:70/1/internet/mpeg
ftp://havefun.stanford.edu/pub/mpeg
Playing MPEG movies is easy. After you collect the files you think will be interesting, simply start up your MPEG viewer and load your movie. If you use a Web browser to locate MPEG movies, you can usually view the movie immediately from your browser.
As you play back an MPEG file, you may notice that at some points the action will seem jerky. To reduce this phenomena, you should keep a few things in mind. The following tips will increase the performance of your movie players:
Some MPEG programs perform better than other programs do.
In most parts of the US and in many European countries, you can connect your computer to the world with a super-fast technology called ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network). It lets you work with more information faster and more efficiently than you'd ever dream a traditional phone line and modem connection could.
But there's more. ISDN opens a whole galaxy of possibilities, including video conferencing, the ability to let two people in remote locations work on the same project, digital audio transmission, and a multitude of other opportunities--as well as providing traditional voice phone service.
Speed is one distinct advantage ISDN has over traditional modem connections. Documents that once took hours to send with regular modems can transfer in minutes with ISDN. Graphic designers and engineers can collaborate on designs without waiting for overnight delivery service. Telecommuters, advertising agents, lawyers, students, writers, and business people can take advantage of this technology to manage tasks from home or remote offices rather than scheduling trips to do so.
Another advantage is ISDN's practically noiseless connection. Digital signals are far less likely to suffer from line problems than traditional analog phone connections.
What's more, ISDN can work over the same wires that currently drive your regular telephone. ISDN can even replace your current phone line. If your local phone company can provide you with ISDN service, you can easily upgrade to--or add--an ISDN phone line in your home or office.
ISDN is a completely digital connection--all the way from the phone company to you. This is a big improvement over today's phone service. To see the advantages of ISDN's digital connection, you need to know a bit about how traditional phone service works.
The average phone requires an analog connection--that is, sound that pumps through a phone (or out of a modem) in a series of electrical currents similar to what drives speakers and microphones on a stereo. This analog signal isn't very efficient, can be difficult to transmit clearly over long distances, and takes more time to reach a destination than its digital counterpart.
The phone companies once used only analog equipment to transmit sound. After a while, they discovered that if they converted sound to a digital format at the central office, they could transfer that audio information from place to place faster and more efficiently.
Today, most phone services use a hybrid of analog and digital technologies. Your phones and modems send out a raw, inefficient analog signal. The phone company converts the analog signal into digital form once it reaches the switching equipment at the central office. The phone service converts the signal back to analog before the connection reaches the destination phone or modem.
An advantage to this analog-to-digital-to-analog conversion is that it's cheap to implement and easy to maintain. However, the cost is mediocre sound quality because the audio doesn't need to be exact. Modems are severely limited by this poor sound quality as well. The human ear and mind can easily handle inconsistencies in signal quality. Your modem, however, isn't quite as smart as you are and requires more clarity.
Computers just can't process information like humans can. Even the slightest noise or a momentary interruption can create critical errors in a computer signal that will cause your modem to disconnect. That's one of the problems with using modems in conjuction with analog phone lines.
Because the phone company restricts the audio quality an analog phone connection can produce, it also limits the amount of data a modem can squeeze into those analog lines. Since moving data is what the Internet is all about, your modem is often the tightest bottleneck in your Internet connection. This bottleneck can turn your surf through cyberspace into something akin to a slow canoe trip.
Your computer can move much more information than a standard modem can fit into the archaic analog phone line. ISDN completely eliminates the analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog (AD/DA) conversions, thus providing your computer the capability to push more data than a standard modem would allow.
The ISDN connection is completely digital. Your signal isn't limited to the narrow constraints of an analog phone line's "last mile" from the central office to your home or business. Also, your connection doesn't lag as a result of the AD/DA conversions, which impose their own sets of costs and inefficiencies. For your Internet surf sessions, ISDN's digital connection means more dependable Internet connections at much higher speeds.
Since ISDN provides a completely digital connection from one point to another, your connection is very fast. As a matter of fact, a basic-rate ISDN, or BRI (basic rate interface), line provides a multichannel digital connection that consists of three separate channels: two 64-Kbps (kilobits per second) B (bearer) channels and one 16-Kbps D (Delta) channel, commonly referred to as 2B+D. (Another word for the amount of information measured in Kbps is bandwidth.)
The B channels in an ISDN line move data at transmission rates of up to 64,000 bps per channel--before any sort of data compression. ISDN's smaller D channel manages the B channel connections and control information, such as a busy signal, and connection information. Since the D channel demands only 16 Kbps to check to see if a line is busy, the connection is much more efficient for the phone companies to handle and, therefore, faster. As a result, ISDN's digital communication lets your computer create nearly instant connections to other ISDN services, such as your Internet provider.
An ISDN line to your home or office costs a little bit more than traditional analog phone lines do right now. However, the extra advantages over basic analog phone service far outweigh the costs.
ISDN's multichannel lines provide the ability to make more than one connection at a time. For example, with ISDN, you can talk on the phone with one of the B channels while simultaneously looking up information on the Internet with another. By using equipment designed to do so, you could also bond both B channels to produce a 128-Kbps signal, thus creating a very fast Internet connection from your home or office.
Since ISDN uses technology different from standard modems to transmit information, you'll need some new hardware to take advantage of this digital technology. Your Internet service provider must also have the hardware to support ISDN. In addition, you'll need to ask your local phone company to install an ISDN line in your home or office.
When your phone company installs the ISDN line, you'll need a network termination device--called an NT or an NT-1--to convert the ISDN signal into something your computer can use. An NT-1 will also let you attach other devices to the ISDN line.
To make the connection from your computer to the NT-1, you need an ISDN terminal adapter (TA)--the digital equivalent of a modem. This TA will connect to the NT-1. Many of the newer TAs include a built-in NT-1. This is a good feature to look for in TAs--especially if you plan to use ISDN for digital communication between computers and the Internet.
You might want to rush out and buy ISDN equipment right away. However, there are a few options you should consider before making your purchases.
There are several configurations you can choose from when you look for ISDN equipment. For the single user, you can connect your computer directly to a TA with a built-in NT-1 for the easiest and least-expensive solution. For small offices, a TA with an Ethernet connection may provide the best way for more than one computer to connect to the Internet.
ISDN equipment needs to interact closely with your local phone company's and Internet provider's hardware. Although most newer ISDN equipment should support a wide variety of standard phone equipment, you should consult your Internet provider before making your final purchase. An Internet provider will most likely have experience with a variety of ISDN options and can guide you to those vendors whose products the provider can support. Your Internet service provider can also give you an idea of how much your ISDN hardware and connection should cost.
All this technology does come at some price. However, that cost isn't as high as you might think. Currently, an ISDN line can cost anywhere from $40 to $200 for installation if your local phone company provides the service in your area. Connection fees can run anywhere from $25 to $100 per month for a single BRI 2B+D line. Your Internet service provider may also charge an increased rate for ISDN access. Finally, expect to pay prices that start around $495 and up for a TA with a built-in NT-1.
In order to offset the cost, you can attach regular phones to your ISDN line if you use the right equipment. Some TAs include an analog phone-line connector and the circuitry to convert an analog signal to a digital signal. This lets you plug a standard desk phone into your TA and use it as you would an analog line. Again, your Internet service provider can help you in these matters.
With over two million users, Prodigy is one of the largest online service providers. Now, Prodigy offers its new Internet services to Windows users. (Macintosh users will have to wait until later this year.) In this article, we'll take a brief look at Prodigy's Internet offerings and how they perform.
Prodigy Internet services are additions to the basic software package. In fact, you can expect to see a great deal of the Prodigy interface change in the next few months as Prodigy works to develop its new software interface--code-named P2. Prodigy currently offers these basic Internet services:
You can get to the Internet screen by using the Prodigy Jump feature and the keyword Internet.
Prodigy operates as a distributed network; that is, it maintains several servers all over the country instead of housing all its information in one huge computer complex. Consequently, Prodigy keeps copies of the most recently accessed Web documents and Usenet news feeds at each of its sites. This cuts down on Internet traffic and speeds delivery of information to Prodigy Internet users--a necessary step, since some local Prodigy sites don't yet have the faster 14,400-bps modems necessary to effectively cruise the Web or download large files and news feeds.
Since IBM and Sears jointly own Prodigy, the service is marketed well to the public and has a large network infrastructure that can connect many parts of the country. As a result, Prodigy has huge potential as a full-fledged Internet service provider.
As mentioned earlier, Prodigy offers enhancements to its basic software to provide Internet access. The service automatically transfers the necessary files as you request each Internet service for the first time. For example, when you request access to Usenet newsgroups, Prodigy immediately downloads its newsreader software to your PC for you.
As we connected to each of the Internet offerings and to Prodigy's E-mail software, we found that Prodigy upgrades its software with each new Internet product you try. Before you can get the upgrade and use any Internet services, however, Prodigy makes you go through a rather puzzling routine.
For example, when you select an option to browse the Web or access Usenet newsgroups, Prodigy alerts you with the message This feature may contain uncensored, adult-oriented content. Since several persons--including children--can log in with individual IDs under a single account, Prodigy requires you to exercise your parental options and allow or disallow Internet access for each of the login IDs.
Once you configure the service to access a particular Internet application, you'll receive the software for that option. Let's look at some of these applications, beginning with Usenet newsgroups.
Prodigy's newsreader is basic. By default, the service subscribes you to its support newsgroups. To easily search for other newsgroups, Prodigy includes a Find feature as part of its suite of newsgroup-handling features. As you can see in Figure B, the Find feature can search through all available newsgroups for any particular text pattern.
Other obvious features are the ability to download individual messages or threads of messages to a text file, an option to ignore messages from a particular individual, the ability to view messages sent since a particular date, and a customizable signature file the service appends to the end of each message.
The Prodigy newsreader's feature set could use a bit of polish. However, many of the basics necessary to get into and use newsgroups exist. If Prodigy adds the ability to save multiple messages to disk so you can read your messages offline, for example, the service may become more attractive.
If you grow tired of the Usenet E-mail-based discussion groups, you can check out the most exciting feature of Prodigy's Internet offerings--its Web browser. Prodigy's Web browser provides the interface for many of its Internet features, including Web, Gopher, and FTP access. As with the newsreader software, Prodigy copies the Web browser software to your hard drive after you request it.
In terms of performance, Prodigy's Web browser isn't on par with many commercial browsers such as Netscape, MacWeb, or the various licensed versions of NCSA's Mosaic. The Prodigy browser supports the more common features such as forms (so you can fill out all those Internet questionnaires and query documents) and the ability to save a Web page's Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) source code (although this isn't plainly referenced in the menus).
Prodigy's browser works, but at present, it's fairly rudimentary. Fortunately, Prodigy can easily supply its users with upgrades. The browser doesn't yet support many Web features, such as mailto:, an HTML tag that allows you to call up a message window simply by clicking on a Web page link. Also, the style-tag definitions don't seem to make much sense. For example, the Prodigy Web browser's Heading 2 HTML style looks exactly like the smallest heading style--Heading 6. In addition, clickable image maps don't yet work correctly.
Finally, Prodigy software is severely limited by modem speed. At the local node's top speed of 9,600 baud, an average-sized (40-KB) image takes over a minute to load. We hope that the release of the upcoming P2 upgrade will relieve this speed issue and provide other needed enhancements.
Here's your chance to send your Internet-savvy friends something more than a congratulatory E-mail message or sonnet of love. Among its many fun and visionary offerings, the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) makes digital postcards available to World-Wide Web users. To send or view a digital postcard, all you need is access to a graphical Web browser such as Mosaic or Netscape.
If you want to send someone a digital postcard, you'll first need to know his or her E-mail address. In addition, you'll need to know whether your recipient has access to the Web via a graphical browser in order to view the postcard. Once you've established your chosen party's Web awareness, all you need to do is go to the MIT Postcard Store, select the card you want, and enter your message.
To begin, you'll need to go to The Electric Postcard page. To get there, use your Web browser's Open URL feature and enter the address
http://postcards.www.media.mit.edu/Postcards/
After a few seconds, you should arrive at the main entrance to the postcard page. Here's where you need to make a few decisions.
When you arrive at the postcard page, select the first option--To send a postcard go to the Postcard Rack. This will take you to a list of postcard picture options you can browse through. The variety of images range from Kandinsky's Black and Violet to rainbow trout. Chances are, you'll find an image to suit whatever postcard-sending occasions might arise.
Once you select a picture that you want to use, click on the image. You'll soon arrive at a new screen where you can enter your electronic postcard's text. At this point, all you need to do is fill in the blanks and send your message.
Interestingly enough, if you know the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), you can create formatted text in your document. If you're really adventurous, you can even include in your message any HTML format links to other documents or resources on the Internet.
If you include links and HTML formatting, you can even check your handiwork before you send the card. Simply use the preview option, which is at the bottom of the Electric Postcard Writing screen. Figure A shows an example of a postcard in progress. You'll notice the postcard has some simple HTML tags. With HTML tags and the preview option, your electronic postcard can get your point across more effectively, and you can have more fun.
When your postcard is ready to send, make sure you fill in the address to which you want the postcard sent. Also, fill in the appropriate box with your own E-mail address. Finally, be sure you check the Mail the postcard radio button on the Electric Postcard Writing screen, then press the Mail (or preview) the postcard button. In a moment, the server will notify you that your message is on the way.
If you plan to send the message to more than one person, you can quite easily do so. Simply use your Web browser's Back feature, as shown in Figure B, to return you to the Electric Postcard Writing screen. There, you can simply replace the old E-mail address with a new one and send the postcard again.
You'll want to test the postcard E-mail to see how the procedure works on both ends. To do so, simply enter your own E-mail address in the recipient field and send the postcard.
The recipient of your electronic postcard should receive notification within a few minutes that a postcard awaits. The E-mail message will look something similar to what's shown in Figure C. As you can see, the message includes the URL (uniform resource locator) and the claim number. The recipient need only copy and paste the URL into his or her Web browser to access the Web site.
To receive the postcard, use the URL listed in the note to go to the Electric Postcard page. When you get there, select the Pickup Window option. Then, enter the claim number found in the E-mail notification--in this instance, kbendl.200317, as shown in Figure D. In a few moments, the message will appear.
Although the MIT Media Lab works to develop new ideas and strategies for cutting-edge technologies, some of the great ideas are simple indeed. It may just be a matter of time before a commercial greeting card company uses an idea such as the Postcard Store, making that page available as an even higher quality product than MIT's offering--and at a small price.
If you use an Internet access provider, you need a password to log into that provider before you can get onto the Internet. Your password is your first line of security. One way to protect yourself from the casual marauder is to change your password regularly.
One of the best protections against someone accidentally running up the hours on your Internet account is to change your password often. Doing this can save you embarrassment if someone uses your Internet account to conduct less-than-savory activities, and it will save you money if you pay for your account by the hour.
It's easy to change your password if you have a shell account on a UNIX or VMS system. For example, to change your password on most UNIX systems, type the passwd command at your UNIX $ prompt. Your UNIX system then prompts you to enter your current password. (In the spirit of security, your UNIX server won't echo your password to the screen.) When you type it in correctly, the system will prompt you to enter a new password. Once again, that password isn't visible. Finally, the UNIX system will ask you to retype your new password.
VMS, a type of operating system found in many schools and businesses, allows you to change your password in a slightly different way. You can use the set pass command to create your new password.
Most online services give you the opportunity to change your password online. CompuServe maintains a customer service forum in which you can set your password. America Online lets you use the Keyword feature from the GoTo menu item. Then you type password as your keyword option to bring up the password editing screen.
One of the most embarrassing moments in your online career may be the time you forget your password. Don't worry, however--everyone tends to forget things at one time or another.
When you realize that you don't remember the latest rendition of your password, call your network administrator or your online provider's technical support number. These people handle requests such as this on a daily basis. The security of new passwords far outweighs any inconvenience.
When you design your passwords, many systems require that you use at least six characters and that some of those characters be numbers. Here's your chance to get "cre8tive." As you get better at designing new passwords, you'll forget that you were once intimidated by Internet and online security measures. If you can't come up with something new for a password, try to keep it as memorable as possible--without choosing one that's easy to guess. You should avoid birthdays, anniversaries, and initials. That type of information is the first target of electronic intruders with malicious intent.
If you use a shell account to access the Internet, you may know that even if you download the latest copy of DOOM or the latest electronic tax forms, you still have to get those files from your host system to your desktop computer. You may also encounter several obstacles when you try to transfer files from a host computer to your own PC. For instance, a common obstacle is deciding what protocol to use to transfer files. Examples of common protocols are xmodem, ymodem, gmodem, and kermit.
One of the fastest methods to transfer files is with a popular protocol called zmodem. From a UNIX shell account, the zmodem protocol allows you to copy files from your home directory on the server to your desktop computer. In this article, we'll show you how to transfer files from a shell account to your PC and back. First, let's look at some differences in the common protocols and explain what makes zmodem a good choice when you transfer files.
Although modems can move information between computers, both computers need to have a set of rules to exchange files properly. These rules, called file transfer protocols, allow your computer to break files up into chunks called packets, transmit them, and allow the receiving computer to reassemble the file.
Most file transfer protocols guarantee error-free transmissions between modems. However, even if two modems make a reliable connection, the data between each computer and its modem may not be as reliable. The zmodem protocol ensures that the information you transfer between your computer and the host is completely error free. Moreover, zmodem is fast, so you can reliably transfer files more quickly than with older, slower file transfer protocols such as ymodem, xmodem, or kermit.
The zmodem protocol also provides error checking and the ability to pick up where you left off if your phone line disconnects in the middle of a download. This kind of error recovery can save you time and money.
When you download a file from the Internet with your shell account--either via FTP, Gopher, or an E-mail enclosure--that file usually ends up in your home directory on the service provider's computer. If that file is a binary file, you can then use zmodem to transfer it to your personal computer.
Before you begin to transfer your file, use the UNIX command ls -l or ls -a to get a list of the files in your home directory, as shown in Figure A. You can use this information to check the exact spelling of the filename you want to transfer.
You can also use the filename information you get from the ls -l or ls -a command to download the files you need from your home directory to your desktop computer. To receive a file from your UNIX shell account, type at your system prompt the command sz followed by the filename. When you press [Enter], your file should begin to download to your computer. Afterwards, your screen should look like the one shown in Figure B. It's important to note that most communications programs that support zmodem will detect when you download a file with that protocol. These programs will automatically receive the file. However, if your communications program doesn't support this automatic feature, you can simply set your software to receive the file with zmodem.
Occasionally, you may want to use your PC to send a file to another user. First, you'll want to copy that file into your home directory. You'd use the rz command, which tells your UNIX host to get ready to receive a file with the zmodem protocol. After you enter the command and press the [Enter] key, you can use your communications package to send via zmodem the file or files you want transferred to your home directory.
Once you've downloaded a file from your UNIX shell account and taken the opportunity to test it out, you'll want to delete the file from your shell account's home directory. This saves space on the server and can also save you money, since many Internet service providers charge you extra if you use too much disk storage space. To delete a file from your home directory, use the rm command followed by the complete filename you wish to delete. An example is
rm filename.ext
The rm in the command's name is short for remove. You can also use the rm command--in conjunction with wildcards--to remove more than one file at a time. For instance, if you want to remove both files doom19s.zip and doom19s.txt, you can use the command
rm doom*
In this case, the system will prompt you to make sure you want to delete each file that starts with the letters doom. The prompts are a result of a system default that sets file deletions to interactive mode.
If you use a UNIX system and want to learn more about how to use the rm command, type man rm at your system prompt. This will display electronic manual pages for the rm command.
Macintosh users can talk to each other over the Internet with a piece of software called NetPhone. Unlike traditional Internet communications that allow people to send text or graphics to each other electronically, NetPhone allows you to actually speak to other people using your Internet-connected Macintosh.
NetPhone employs a variety of compression and decompression (codec) techniques that squeeze audio into small bits of information that your computer can send to another NetPhone user. This compression and decompression takes place in each computer. Therefore, the speed of your computer has an impact on the performance of NetPhone.
Any Mac with at least a 68030 processor and a v.32bis class (14,400) modem can get decent results with NetPhone. Your Mac will need a microphone connection (almost all Macs since the IIsi include one) and a microphone. Since most Macs have all the audio components built in, you don't need to purchase any extra equipment to test NetPhone. You will, however, need a dial-up IP (SLIP or PPP) Internet connection.
The Electric Magic Company produces NetPhone and distributes demo copies of it over the Internet. The demo version limits the length of your call to 90 seconds. You can look on your local FTP server to see if it has a copy. Electric Magic distributes the demo freely, so your local Internet provider may have a copy for you. If your local server doesn't archive a copy, you can obtain the software via FTP through one of these URLs:
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/
/pub/em/emagic/NetPhoneDemo111.hqx
ftp://sumex-aim.stanford.edu/
/info-mac/comm/tcp/net-phone-111-demo.hqx
As you can see, the second of these servers is Stanford University's info-mac archive. You can search through one of the several info-mac archives if the Stanford server is busy.
Once you download NetPhone and decode the BinHex'd file, you can extract the file to your hard drive. Before you start NetPhone, make sure you set your Sound In controls in the Sound control panel to Microphone, as shown in Figure A. (Many CD-ROM users may set the Sound control panel to play audio CDs. You must switch to the Microphone setting for NetPhone to work.)
The latest version of NetPhone, 1.2, is a great improvement over its predecessors. When we tested the product, we found that audio quality on a low-end Power PC was quite intelligible. We quickly adjusted to the slight audio delays and the walkie-talkie-like conversations. The package was extremely easy to use.
The controls for NetPhone are very simple. As you can see, you can view details about your connection, such as the length of your call, the Internet address of the person you're speaking to, and the compression delay.
The most difficult part of making a NetPhone connection is placing the call. You need to know the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the other NetPhone user's computer. (In our example, we called Andrew Green of Electric Magic. His Mac's FQDN is adelaide.emagic.com.)
As of print time, NetPhone doesn't include a CB or chat mode as does VocalTec's Internet Phone. However, this will change. By the time you read this, Electric Magic should have a new product and service in place called NetPub. NetPub gives NetPhone users a place to gather and speak to other NetPhone users--a sort of neighborhood pub in cyberspace. This addition will place NetPhone on par with the VocalTec product.
Also in NetPhone's future is a Windows version, currently in development. This is an exciting product. The ability to connect Macintosh and Windows users will greatly expand NetPhone's usefulness.
The rtfm.mit.edu FTP server is one of the Internet's largest repositories of FAQ (frequently asked questions and answers). As you know, you can send a request to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu and receive any of the FTP server's FAQ archives. Some of these files can be quite large, possibly too large for your E-mail system to handle.
Many E-mail systems won't accept messages over a certain size. In order to compensate for this action, the mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu will automatically break each file it sends into smaller chunks that you then reassemble. The server splits files into approximately 50-Kb pieces by default.
Since your E-mail system may accept larger or smaller E-mail messages, the rtfm mail server allows you to adjust the size of the chunks you receive.
To adjust the size of messages the mail server sends, use the size command. For instance, if your E-mail software requires that you receive messages no larger than 32 Kb, simply send the command size 32000 along with your request.
On the other hand, your E-mail package may allow for large E-mail transfers. In this case, you'll want the mail server to send the file or files whole. To do this, add the size 0 command to your E-mail request.
When you go on vacation, leave town for a conference, or are away for an extended period of time, it's a good idea to let people know you're gone. If you have voice mail or an answering machine, it's easy to let callers know you aren't available--simply change your outgoing message. Then when someone calls, that person gets the news that you're away. However, E-mail is usually a different story.
When a person sends an E-mail message, that person often expects a response in a day or two. But if you're out of town, you can't respond to your messages. Fortunately, many UNIX-based E-mail systems include a simple workaround.
If you use a UNIX-based E-mail package, such as Pine or Elm, a special utility called vacation lets you leave messages for people who send you E-mail. Before going on a trip, you can turn the vacation utility on. Then, when someone sends you E-mail, he or she will get an automatic "vacation message" that says you're out of commission for a few days.
The vacation feature can help prevent hurt feelings, scheduling problems, and a whole host of communication-breakdown issues. What's more, it's easy to set up. In this article, we'll explain how to set up the vacation E-mail utility and give some reasons why you might want to use it.
To install vacation, enter the command vacation with no arguments at your UNIX command line prompt. The vacation utility requires that you have two files in your home user directory: .vacation.msg and .forward.
When you run vacation, it first checks to see if you have a .vacation.msg file in your directory. This file contains the message that everyone receives after you enable the vacation utility. You can edit this file to suit your needs (If .vacation.msg doesn't exist, the vacation utility will automatically load a basic message file with one of several UNIX text editors. (The VISUAL or EDITOR environment variable determines which text editor your vacation utility uses. Most UNIX systems will default to the vi text editor.)
Vacation.msg should include a Subject: line. Avoid using a From: or To: line since this can confuse some E-mail packages. If you add "$SUBJECT" to your message, vacation will replace that with the Subject: line information from the sender's message. It's not necessary that you do this, but it looks impressive and a bit more personal to the person who reads your message. After you edit .vacation.msg, you should save it and then exit your text editor.
The vacation utility also creates the .forward file (if one doesn't already exist in your home directory). The .forward file contains a single line of commands that tells the UNIX mail program what to do when it receives a message. The line looks similar to this:
\username, "~/usr/bin/vacation username"
The vacation utility sends one copy of an incoming message to your E-mail account, \username, and pipes (pipe is the ~ character) another copy of the message to the vacation utility--"~/usr/bin/vacation username".
The vacation utility also creates a couple of other files--.vacation.pag and .vacation.dir. These files will contain a list of addresses of people who sent you mail while you were away. These files are in a binary format, which means that a text reader can't read them. However, vacation will refer to these files before it sends your message to see if the sender has already received a vacation message from you.
Vacation will allow you to adjust the amount of time it will wait before it responds to the same person's E-mail messages. That way, someone can send you several E-mail messages while you're away and not get bombarded by your automatic vacation message. You'll want to use this if you're gone beyond the default vacation time of one week.
To adjust your time setting, add the -tN command to the .forward file. For example, if you plan to be gone for two weeks, you'd add the -t2w command to your .forward file's command line
\username, "~/usr/bin/vacation username" -t2w
In this case, vacation won't send your vacation message more than once--unless the first message was sent more than two weeks ago. You can also adjust your vacation utility to send out replies to new messages from the same person after seconds, minutes, hours, days, or weeks by using an s, m, h, d, or w modifier, respectively.
When you return from your trip, you'll need to run the vacation utility by typing vacation at the UNIX prompt. You'll likely see a series of prompts similar to those shown in Figure C. If vacation detects a .forward file, it asks if you want to delete it.
If the .forward file isn't present in your home directory, vacation won't run. To quickly disable the vacation feature, remove (rm) or rename (move) the .forward file.
The next time you enable the vacation utility, some of its files, such as .vacation.msg, will already exist in your home directory. You'll likely want to replace your old vacation message with a new version.
The vacation -I command clears the vacation log files (.vacation.pag and .vacation.dir), erasing the list of senders from your previous vacation session. It's always a good idea to clear the .vacation.pag and .vacation.dir files every once in a while if you receive a bundle of E-mail while you're away. You can, however, simply type the vacation command at your UNIX command line prompt and then answer the prompts accordingly. The vacation feature will still work.
You might find flying around the Internet a tiring job. As you know, all work and no play can make Internet users cranky.
Are you interested in a game containing all the elements of strategy, politics and economics rolled up in a flashy graphical package? One that throws you into a universe with other races who, depending on their leaders, want to peacefully co-exist or dominate your area of space? One that lets you form alliances, build armadas, capture enemy ships, betray friendships and pummel starbases? Your goal, should you answer "yes" to any of these questions, is to vanquish those around you before they destroy you. If this prospect sounds interesting to you, then VGA Planets fills the bill.
VGA Planets simulates interaction between up to 11 space-traveling races. Players compete to achieve economic and military domination of the universe on a 3000-by-3000-point grid containing 500 planets. In most situations, you start the game with a few freighter ships, a starbase and a home world. Although planet locations remain fixed from game to game, the minerals and native life forms occupying the planets are completely random. Therefore, no two games evolve the same way. You decide where to take the game.
One other twist in the game comes from special race advantages. Each race displays different attributes that provide strengths and weaknesses beyond their shipbuilding abilities. So, if you find the challenge of leading one race getting boring, switch to another and your tactics must change as well.
You create your strategy in a full graphical environment that offers both colorful information readouts and easy use. The intuitive interface makes creating your moves as interesting as observing the results. Figure A shows a sample planet information screen from the game.
Although players interact within the game, the game works on a turn-submission basis. In other words, all players decide their actions for a particular turn and then submit them to a central host program. The host program processes the turn files for redistribution to the players. This system allows you to play against people all over the world or just within your office or home--even on different time schedules. You can play the game via E-mail or on a central computer.
VGA Planets' documentation does an excellent job of explaining all aspects of the game; you'll have little trouble getting started. However, if you encounter something you don't understand, check the USENET newsgroup that supports the game--alt.games.vga-planets.
The newsgroup periodically posts a FAQ based on the game that explains anything from how to get the full registered version to initial strategies for beginners.
In addition to the FAQ, the newsgroup serves as a meeting ground for potential players and hosts. Frequently, you'll see messages about new games forming from many places in the world, including Germany, France and Canada, through Internet mail. You need to move quickly, however--games fill up fast.
You'll also find excellent support for the game. You can reach the author through E-mail should you discover a bug in the system or you can discuss your problems and solutions with others on the newsgroup. The author supports the game through the Internet, so the most recent updates are placed on the UCSC FTP site we mentioned in the where to get it section.
You'll find support and ongoing VGA Planets games on the Internet. First, you can find the shareware version on the FTP site at
ftp.ucsc.edu
the files are located in the
/PC/vgaplanets-3.0
directory. Make sure to set your transfer to binary and have the PKUNZIP decompression utility on hand.
Before you begin vying for universal domination, VGA Planets requires a few things. First, the game runs on an IBM compatible 286 or higher processor with VGA graphic capability. You can request an 8088 version, if necessary, but it doesn't come with the standard distribution. Beyond the system requirements, you only need some friends and some spare time.
If you're overwhelmed by the sheer number of terms on the Internet, you're not alone. Fortunately, the Internet has several reference materials that help you absorb all those terms. Here are four references you can use to defend yourself against techno-babble.
If a particular abbreviation or acronym has you stumped, glance through Babel: A Glossary of Computer Oriented Abbreviations and Acronyms, which is maintained by Irving Kind of Baltimore, Maryland. The list's name is apt. It contains hundreds of computer-related abbreviations and acronyms--from the mundane to the arcane.
In 1989, Kind began his list out of frustration as he struggled with computer magazine articles, help-wanted ads, and sales brochures, which often include abbreviations and acronyms with no easily referenced meaning. For example, the glossary contains a definition for ABEND, BIOS, DSU/CSU, IRQ, SIPP, and XMS. Kind distributes updates to the list three times per year.
You can easily find the list on Temple University's FTP and Gopher servers. At the time of this writing, the current version is BABEL94B. (By the time you read this, BABEL94C should be out.)
You can get the latest version of Babel via anonymous FTP. The URL for the Babel glossary is
ftp://ftp.temple.edu/pub/info/help-net/babel94b.txt
You can also obtain the Babel glossary by using a Gopher or World-Wide Web client. Point your Gopher to the gopher.temple.edu server. Follow this path to access the glossary:
Internet & Bitnet Information (Help-Net)
Glossary of Computer Abbreviations and Acronyms
(BABEL94B.TXT)
If you use a Web client, such as Mosaic, you can easily access Temple's Gopher server. Open a URL to
gopher://gopher.temple.edu/
Once your client makes the connection, you follow the same path as the one we described for a Gopher connection. No matter which protocol you use to get to Babel, the file is large. You'll want to save it to disk for later viewing.
You can also locate the Babel glossary via E-mail. To do so, just address your message to listserv@vm.temple.edu. You don't need to include anything in the Subject line. In the body of the message, type the following command (be sure there's no period between babel94B and txt):
get babel94B txt help-net
The Temple LISTSERV will intercept this message. After a few minutes, you'll receive E-mail with the glossary in the body of the message.
The Hacker's Dictionary/Jargon File is maintained on a server in Austria. You'll find plenty of interesting slang to throw around in this online lexicon, such as the definition for the term sagan. You can access the Hacker's Dictionary/Jargon File by using any Web browser. To do so, open a URL to
http://iicm.tu-graz.ac.at/Cjargon
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (FOLDOC) by Denis Howe (dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk) is a dictionary of acronyms, architectures, history, jargon, mathematics, networking, programming languages, telecommunications information, theory, and tools. It covers just about anything to do with computing and the Internet.
The people who maintain FOLDOC update the dictionary continuously. You can search it via the Web rather than get the file itself. That way, you always access the latest version of the database. Figure B shows a sample of FOLDOC's Web interface. Using your client, you can select words within a definition that allow you to jump to related topics and explore FOLDOC through logical association.
You can get the dictionary files via anonymous FTP. However, if you live in the US, the overseas connection slows your transfer times considerably. Therefore, we don't recommend that course of action. If you want the files, open one of the following URLs:
ftp://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk//pub/Acronyms.gz
ftp://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk//pub/Dictionary.gz
ftp://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk//pub/Internet.gz
ftp://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk//pub/Jargon.gz
FOLDOC is also available via Gopher at wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk, using port 70. Once again, the overseas connection is slow, particularly during business hours. Access this server during evenings and weekends for faster response.
The file fyi18.txt contains a fairly complete glossary of the terms an Internet user will stumble across. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) wrote this document, which concentrates on Internet terms. You can get fyi18.txt via anonymous FTP from several sites. The following URL points to a server where you can find a copy:
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu//pub/docs/rfc/fyi18.txt
If you're planning a trip, you should check out the vast resources available on the Internet. You'll find tips for every travel eventuality. And there's no waiting for weeks on end for a tourism board to send brochures. On the Internet, you can find information such as tips for hitchhiking in Europe, subway schedules, RV (recreational vehicle) pointers, techniques for getting the best airline fares, and directions to vegetarian restaurants.
The University of Manitoba stores over 15 Mb of travel information online in text and hypertext format. If you access the server with Mosaic or one of its spin-offs, you can link to several other travel and vacation resources. To get to one of the Internet's top sources of travel information with your Web browser, open a URL to
ftp://ftp.cc.umanitoba.ca/rec-travel/online-info.html
There, you'll find plenty of links to travel topics. As you can see, the URL begins with ftp://, indicating that you can also access these archives with an FTP-capable program. Let's look at this more closely.
If you have only FTP access, you can open a connection to ftp.cc.umanitoba.ca and browse the files in the /rec-travel/ directory. We recommend you get the file ftp://ftp.cc.umanitoba.ca//rec-travel/00index. It's a list of travel-related filenames and databases that includes the type of connection you'll need for each piece of information. Many other files in this directory contain information helpful to the savvy traveler.
If you have E-mail-only access to the Internet, you can still get the 00index file easily. The list is over 60 Kb in size, so the file may arrive in two or more messages. To get the file via E-mail, send a message to one of these ftpmail sites:
ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com
ftpmail@src.doc.ic.ac.uk
ftpmail@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr
Include the following lines:
REPLY your_address@domain.ext
CONNECT ftp.cc.umanitoba.ca
ASCII
GET rec-travel/00index
QUIT
You can also get to the 00index file through Princeton University's BITFTP server. Send a message either to bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu or to bitftp@pucc.bitnet. In the body of the message, place these commands:
ftp ftp.cc.umanitoba.ca
user anonymous
ascii
get rec-travel/00index
quit
If you use the BITFTP server, it forces all files to UUencode--even if you specify ASCII for the file transfer type. Make sure you have a UUdecoder if you plan to use BITFTP.
You can get tons of information from USENET news groups. Many universities, online services, and Internet providers offer USENET news feeds to their users. You can gather information for your vacation plans by participating in any of the travel-related news groups.
In addition to the news group soc.culture.europe, USENET carries nearly 100 cultural discussions. Look to these news groups for ideas on how you can hone your interpersonal skills as you travel abroad.
Mother Jones magazine maintains a hypertext page of information for some of the travel agencies that advertise in the magazine. Direct your Web client to open a URL to
http://www.mojones.com/escape.routes.html
You can get the official word on current affairs from the State Department by using Gopher, the Web, FTP, or E-mail. Here's how:
Via Gopher:
gopher.stolaf.edu
Internet Resources
US-State-Department-Travel-Advisories
Current-Advisories
http://www.stolaf.edu/network/travel-advisories.html
ftp://ftp.stolaf.edu/pub/travel-advisories/archive
ftp://ftp.stolaf.edu/pub/travel-advisories/advisories/country
(The country placeholder stands for the name of any given country.)
Send mail to ftpbymail@stolaf.edu. For information, include only the word help in the body of your message.
To receive a list of available advisories via E-mail, send these commands:
cd /pub/travel-advisories/advisories/
dir
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) collects environmental information from 10,000 locations around the world. You can obtain information about the current weather conditions at practically any location from the NOAA Gopher site. Point your Gopher client at
esdim1.nodc.noaa.gov
to access the latest weather information. Links to weather maps and oceanographic data are available through the NOAA Gopher.