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- The World-Wide-Web
-
- The World-Wide-Web (WWW) is the much-touted hypertext
- interface to a wide range of internet resources. On the Exec-PC
- Internet Gateway, we have the Lynx WWW browser. Lynx is text-based,
- which means you won't be able to view the imbedded images. This is
- not as much of a handicap as you might think; many areas of the Web
- have been designed with both text and graphics users in mind. In
- Lynx, the arrow keys move between hypertext selections, and "h" brings
- up comprehensive help. The hypertext selections are boldfaced, but if
- your terminal does not show boldfacing, then just press the arrow
- keys, and you should be able to see individual selections.
-
- The joy of browsing the Web is just going from place to place,
- following the links until you find something interesting, which is
- bound to have links to somewhere else that is also interesting. If
- you find a page on the Web that you like, you can press "a" to add it
- to your bookmark file. Then later, perhaps another day, you can press
- "v" to view all your bookmarks, and jump right to your favorite
- places.
-
- Every page on the Web has a unique name, a URL. A URL looks
- like this: "http://info.cern.ch", which, in this case, is a page in
- Switzerland. If you read news, or perhaps talk to other people out
- there in net-land, you might see URLs posted for things you want to
- see. To go to a specific URL in Lynx, just type "g", and then type in
- the URL, and away you go!
-
- If you have questions regarding the World Wide Web, or using
- Lynx, don't hesitate to leave mail to help.
-
- **Note** You MUST be using a VT100 terminal emulation to use
- Lynx. In fact, we recommend that you use a VT100 emulation whenever
- you call this system. If you find that the arrow keys on your
- computer do not do what they should, there is a good chance that your
- VT100 emulation does not handle the arrow keys correctly. If this is
- the case, feel free to send mail to help, and we will do what we can
- to help you get things working properly
-
- Tunneling through Gopherspace
-
- Gopher was the first popular Internet information browser.
- When you select gopher, you're presented with a menu of options. You
- can choose an option via the arrow keys, or by just typing the number.
- If an option ends in "/", it's another menu. You can keep following
- these menus, conceiveably forever, and just explore. By moving from
- menu to menu, you're often seamlessly moving from computer to compuer,
- literally all over the world. At any time, you can press the left
- arrow to go back to wherever you came from.
-
- If you find a page in gopherspace you find particularly
- intriguing, you can press "a", to add it to your bookmark file. This
- will be permanently saved, so that when you come back another day, you
- can just press "v" to view bookmarks, and jump right to your favorite
- spot.
-
- One option you might run across frequently is "Veronica".
- Veroinica is a search engine. You tell veronica what you want to look
- for, and she runs off and checks every cubbyhole in gopherspace, and
- brings back a menu of places where you can find what you're looking
- for. Searches sometimes time out because too many people are using
- the search engine, so please be paitent, or select a different
- Veronica server.
-
- If you like Gopher, you might also want to give the World Wide
- Web (Lynx) a try.
-
- **Note** You MUST be using a VT100 terminal emulation to use
- Gopher. In fact, we recommend that you use a VT100 emulation whenever
- you call this system. If you find that the arrow keys on your
- computer do not do what they should, there is a good chance that your
- VT100 emulation does not handle the arrow keys correctly. If this is
- the case, feel free to send mail to help, and we will do what we can
- to help you get things working properly
-
- IRC - Internet Relay Chat
-
- IRC is a popular service for chatting with people from all
- over the Internet, on a multitude of topics. When you select this
- option, the menu will launch you into a special program on this system
- which will connect you up to an IRC "server". This server manages the
- connections between you and all the other people who are using IRC.
- Once you get into IRC, you will receive some basic instructions,
- including how to get into the online help system there. We suggest
- that, if you've never used IRC before, you browse the help system a
- bit right off to get an idea of how it all works. While IRC has been
- known to be addictive, it can also be a good way to take a break and
- have some fun chattting with others around the net. Enjoy!
-