The Internet is a loose amalgam of thousands of computer networks reaching millions of people all over the world. Although its original purpose was to provide researchers with access to expensive hardware resources, the Internet has demonstrated such speed and effectiveness as a communications medium that it has transcended the original mission. It has, in recent years, grown so large and powerful that it is now an information and communication tool you cannot afford to ignore. Today the Internet is being used by all sorts of people and organizations newspapers, publishers, TV stations, celebrities, teachers, librarians, hobbyists, and business people for a variety of purposes, from communicating with one another to accessing valuable services and resources. You can hardly pick up a newspaper or magazine without reading about how the Internet is playing a part in someone s life or project or discovery. To appreciate what the Internet has to offer you, imagine discovering a whole system of highways and high-speed connectors that cut hours off your commuting time. Or a library you can use any time of the night or day, with acres of books and resources, and unlimited browsing.WHENCE IT CAME The Internet universe was created by an unassuming bang in 1969 with the birth of ARPANET, an experimental project of the U.S. It had a humble mission, to explore experimental networking technologies that would link researchers with remote resources such as large computer systems and databases. The success of ARPANET helped cultivate numerous other networking initiatives, which grew up intertwined; 25 years later, these have evolved into an ever expanding, complex organism comprising tens of millions of people and tens of thousands of networks. Most users describe the Internet or the Net as a network of networks ; it appears to stretch forever. In this cyber-sphere, people in geographically distant lands communicate across time zones without ever seeing each other, and information is available 24 hours a day from thousands of places. The Internet is inhabited by millions of regular folks, non-techies who use it daily to communicate and search for information. When this book was first written in the spring of 1992, the Internet population was mostly researchers and academics, and there weren t many applications and interest groups of relevance to the general public. Two years later, mainstream services dominate use of the Internet.IT KEEPS GOING AND GOING... It s important to understand the significance of the Internet s growth and popularity.Similarly, stand-alone computers are useful, but their potential is limited by isolated applications word processors and spreadsheets, for example and the amount of money you have to spend on disk drives and CD-ROMs. A mere direct full-time or dial-up connection to the worldwide Internet gives you access to more info-goods, services, and people than you ll ever find on your own isolated computer or local-area network. The Internet is already the largest computer network in the world and, in terms of connected networks, people, and resources, it s getting larger, and therefore more valuable, literally by the minute. How large is the Internet? According to the Internet Society ISOC , a professional organization of Internet developers, influencers, and users, as of spring 1994, the Internet reached 69 countries directly and 146 via email gateways, and consisted of 23,659 networks and 2.217 million computers. The bulk of Internet computers and networks still belongs to the research and education communities. There s definitely a rising trend in commercial activity and connectivity; many businesses have realized that they can link their enterprise networks to the Internet and gain instant access to their customers. Some market research indicates that online services in general make up almost a billion-dollar industry, with an estimated 25 percent per year growth, so it stands to reason that providers of these services are migrating to the Internet, where the action is. The types of resources accessible via the Internet are growing at an astounding rate. Examples of some Internet resources are a database of regularly updated weather information in Michigan, an online magazine, a cartoon, and an archive of daily newspaper articles. A resource can also be a mailing list or a newsgroup that brings together people from all over the world to discuss shared interests such as soccer, cooking, and poetry. Suffice it to say that there are literally tens of thousands of servers, archive sites, mailing lists, newsgroups, and databases available on the Internet. The Success of the Internet It s hard to imagine how the Internet has grown so fast and been so successful without some ambitious organization or individual managing the project. Yet no one has a monopoly on access to or use of the Internet; there s no monolithic empire called Internet, Inc., controlling accounts and application development or roping off the backstage parts of cyberspace.Although you may not think about it often, standards play a big part in your everyday life. Libraries catalog books according to a standard system, so that once you learn it, you can walk into any library and find the books you need.Cooperation is a major ingredient to interoperability. The Internet nervous system does not have a central brain, such as a powerful supercomputer that controls its operation by feeding it commands and directing its limbs to perform key functions. The technology that makes it happen is known as internetworking; it creates a universality among disparate systems, enabling the networks and computers to communicate. Fundamentally, the Internet revolves around the concept of a packet, a basic building block or a digital brick. The packets are then individually routed from network to network until they reach their destination, where they are reassembled and presented to the user or computer process. This method of networking is very flexible and robust. If a network goes down meaning it isn t available to transfer information the packets can be rerouted to other networks in many cases.While most neophytes probably don t care about these standards and technical details, an understanding of the underlying infrastructure will help in learning to use the Internet properly and in taking full advantage of its powerful capabilities. It goes deeper than that though; understanding from the bottom up how separate computers and networks fit together will give you an appreciation for the net culture the sharing, cooperative spirit that is inherent in the Internet. Chapter 2 further defines these concepts of interoperability and open standards, as well as explaining how the protocols and networks come together to make the Internet work. THE EQUALIZER You can see how open standards enable businesses and individuals to compete on a level playing field in developing networking software and products. Once you, an Internet user, are jacked in, you have access to the same resources as the rest of the millions of Internet users, whether you re located in Sydney or Stockholm. The phrase democratization of communication often comes up in discussions about the Internet, which is, indeed, a truly democratic forum. The network doesn t care if you re president of a Fortune 500 company or a warehouse clerk, a potato farmer or a molecular biologist. Your tidings and opinions are handled the same way, and it s the worth and wit of what you have to say that determines who s willing to listen not your title. It s also never been so easy to be both a consumer and a producer of services. If you re ambitious enough and aspire to be an electronic entrepreneur who provides commercial services or Internet access, there s nothing to prevent you no long lines, no paperwork, and no regulations. Once your network is directly hooked into the Internet, all the computers on that network are accessible from every other Internet-connected computer. This environment empowers the individual; it encourages and stimulates participation, imagination, and innovation. There are numerous stories of how just one or two people have leveraged the Net to do great things, whether it s to publish a newsletter, make a name, or develop contacts. If you don t have access to a whiz-bang, high-speed Internet connection or to a large multi-user computer, that s not a problem. Your virtual storefront may be thousands of miles and two countries away, but it s probably a few seconds hyperdrive from every location.Ask an Internet wizard what this network is all about, and you ll probably get a long and dusty discourse studded with acronyms and techspeak. It s friendly if you approach it right, but potentially huge and terrifying, especially to people who don t know its special ways. Fortunately for you, the most important principle of all is that you don t have to fully understand how the Internet works to use it. Plenty of blissfully unaware Internet users are pounding away at keyboards and communicating merrily, with absolutely no knowledge of how the Internet fits together.A NETWORK OF NETWORKS The Internet is a worldwide web of interconnected university, business, military, and science networks. The Internet is made up of little Local Area Networks LANs , citywide Metropolitan Area Networks MANs , and huge Wide Area Networks WANs that connect computers for organizations all over the world. These networks are hooked together with everything from regular dial-up phone lines to high-speed dedicated leased lines, satellites, microwave links, and fiber optic links. This network web extends all over the world, but trying to describe all of it and how it fits together is a bit like trying to count the stars. Some network maps show the Internet as a cloud, because it s just too complex to draw in all of the links.What the Experts Are Saying . It s a biological phenomenon. John Perry Barlow, National Net 93 I m starting to think of the Internet as a kaleidoscope. Jean Armour Polly, Manager of Network Development and User Training, NYSERNet, Inc. So think of the Internet as a cloud of links. The cloud hides all the ugly details the hardware, the physical links, the acronyms, and the network engineers.Overall, the Internet is the fastest global network around.544Mbps for larger organizations. Gigabit-per-second network speeds currently being tested will allow even more advanced applications and services, such as complex weather prediction models produced by supercomputers and transmitted to weather centers. Or transmitting extremely large tens or hundreds of megabytes databases for example, earthquake data transferred from a collection site to the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics for analysis.IN THE BEGINNING The Internet was not born full-blown in its present worldwide form of thousands of networks and connections. The ARPANET, described in Chapter 1, initially linked researchers with remote computer centers, allowing them to share hardware and software resources, such as computer disk space, databases, and computers. The original ARPANET itself split into two networks in the early 1980s, the ARPANET and Milnet an unclassified military network , but connections made between the networks allowed communication to continue. At first this interconnection of experimental and production networks was called the DARPA Internet, but later the name was shortened to just the Internet. Access to the ARPANET in the early years was limited to the military, defense contractors, and universities doing defense research. Cooperative, decentralized networks such as UUCP, a worldwide Unix communications network, and USENET User s Network came into being in the late 1970s, initially serving the university community and, later, commercial organizations. In the early 1980s, more-coordinated networks, such as the Computer Science Network CSNET and BITNET, began providing nationwide networking to the academic and research communities. These networks were not part of the Internet, but later special connections were made to allow the exchange of information between the various communities. The next big moment in Internet history was the birth in 1986 of the National Science Foundation Network NSFNET , which linked researchers across the country with five supercomputer centers. Soon expanded to include the mid-level and statewide academic networks that connected universities and research consortiums, the NSFNET began to replace the ARPANET for research networking. CSNET soon found that many of its early members computer science departments were connected via the NSFNET, so it ceased to exist in 1991. HOW COMPUTERS TALK The computers on a network have to be able to talk to one another. There are lots of protocol standards out there, such as DECnet, SNA, IPX, and Appletalk, but to actually communicate, two computers have to be using the same protocol at the same time.Developed by DARPA in the 1970s, TCP IP was part of an experiment in internetworking that is, connecting different types of networks and computer systems. First used ubiquitously on the ARPANET in 1983, it was also implemented and made available at no cost for computers running the Berkeley Software Distribution BSD of the Unix operating system. TCP IP, developed with public funds, is considered an open, non-proprietary protocol, and there are now implementations of it for almost every type of computer on the planet. Non-proprietary means that no one company not IBM, not DEC, not Novell has exclusive rights to the products needed to connect to the Internet.TCP IP isn t the only protocol suite that is considered open. Since the early 1980s, the International Organization for Standardization ISO has been developing the Open Systems Interconnection OSI protocols. While many of the OSI protocols and applications are still evolving, a few are actually being used in some networks on the Internet, and more are planned.The whole idea of protocols and standards can get complicated, but as an Internet neophyte, all you need to be concerned with are the applications that TCP IP offers. The difference between applications and protocols is that you don t actually see the protocols they re invisible to the end user , but you will access the Internet using the applications that conform to these standards. The Internet Toolbox Three TCP IP applications electronic mail, remote login, and file transfer are the Internet equivalent of the hammer, screwdriver, and crescent wrench in your toolbox. There are plenty of fancier applications using variations on or combinations of these basic tools, but wherever you roam on the Internet, you should have the Big Three available to you. The three basic Internet services, as well as the more powerful and colorful applications, are covered in later chapters, but here s a quick introduction to get you on your way. Electronic mail, also known as email or messaging, is the most commonly available and most frequently used service on the Internet. For example, a third-grade student in Texas can send an email message to a third-grader in Japan to ask how kids spend their free time there.Remote login is an interactive tool that allows you to access the programs and applications available on another computer. For example, say Sven, a student at the University of Oslo, is heading out to a ski vacation in the Rocky Mountains and wants to check the weather conditions and snowfall there. An Internet computer at the University of Michigan houses a weather database called the Weather Underground, with temperatures, precipitation data, and even earthquake alerts for the entire United States. Sven uses the remote login tool to connect to this computer and interactively query the Weather Underground for the information he needs. File transfer, the third of the Big Three tools, allows files to be transferred from one computer to another. For example, you may be interested in information on Chernobyl from the Library of Congress s Glasnost online exhibit of documents from the former Soviet Union. Using file transfer, you can download those articles from the computer where they re stored onto your own personal computer, where you can read them, print them out, or clip and incorporate parts of them into a paper you re writing. There are quite a few applications available today that use a combination or variation of these three tools to hide details even further. These operate on a client server model that is you use the client on your computer, and it contacts servers for directions and information. Clients and servers don t have to be located in the same geographical area, and in many cases on the Internet, they aren t. This technology is very flexible; during one session, your client may access servers all over the world to help you find information.As the Internet grows larger, locating the information you need will become difficult unless you re using information discovery and retrieval tools. The major resource-browsing applications, which operate on the client server concept, include archie, Gopher, WorldWideWeb WWW , Wide Area Information Servers WAIS , and Mosaic.How Does TCP IP Work? When you re actually using the above-mentioned tools, information of various types is being transferred from one computer to another. Each packet contains a piece of the information or document several hundred characters, or bytes , plus some ID tags, such as the addresses of the sending and receiving computers. Suppose that you wanted to take apart an old covered bridge in New England and move it lock, stock, and barrel to California people do do these things . You would dismantle the sections, label them very carefully, and ship them out on three, four, maybe even five different trucks. The trucks get to California at various times, with one arriving a little later than the others, but your careful labels indicate which sections go up first, second, and third. Each packet, as TCP IP handles it with its addressing information, can travel just as independently. Just as you might drive a different route to work to save a few minutes here or there, the packets may travel different networks to get to the destination computer. The packets may arrive out of order, but that s okay, because each packet also contains sequence information about where the data it s carrying goes in the document, and the receiving computer can reconstruct the whole enchilada. The switches are computers called routers, which are programmed to figure out the best packet routes, just as a travel agent might help you find the best flights with the fewest layovers. So it can travel over a fighter-jet network running at Mach-whatever speeds and connecting supercomputers that interconnects with a biplane network operating a lot slower. The Networks That Make Up the Internet The Internet network connections don t follow any specific model, but there is a hierarchy of sorts. Mid-level networks, in turn, take traffic from the backbones and distribute it to member networks, the neighborhood roads of the networking world. For example, the Texas Higher Education Network THENet is a mid-level network, connecting over 100 universities and research facilities in Texas.Each of the network links have speed limitations, but speeds are determined by the technology used not by some packet policeman .544Mbps or 56Kbps. Local-area networks are much faster. Local-area network pipes are usually pretty large, and therefore more water or data can be blasted through them than can be pumped transmitted during the same amount of time through a wide-area network pipe. Seamless Worldwide Networking Once all the pipes networks are in place, the Internet, which is actually tens of thousands of networks, looks seamless to the user. By means of internetworking that is, by connecting networks together to enable communication and information exchange all the details are hidden from you: the packets, the routers, and all those interconnections. Despite legions of different computers and disparate networks, somehow the whole web works, and any computer directly connected to the Internet can talk to all the other computers on the Internet. So you, working on a computer in your office in Israel or in your spare bedroom in Los Angeles, can communicate with a colleague in South Africa or a friend in Calgary. A network neophyte,faced with a cryptic computer prompt, may find it hard to picture the Internet as a friendly, peopled place. Through email and the other methods of online communication, people have become best friends without ever seeing or talking to each other. It is not uncommon for people to turn to the Net for answers; a question posted to online communities mailing lists and conferences can yield dozens of invaluable tales of experiences and testimonials within hours. Online communication, perhaps the ultimate in democratic exchange of information, eliminates barriers.On the Internet, people can communicate asynchronously and in real time. Asynchronous Greek for not at the same time communication means that someone can type in a message and send it off, but the recipient doesn t have to be around to receive it. You can send messages whenever you want to, they reach their destination quickly, and the recipients can read and respond when they want to. Real-time, interactive communication such as the Internet Relay Chat facility described later in this chapter , in contrast, means that as someone is talking that is, typing you see it on your screen as it is typed.ALL OR ALMOST ALL ABOUT ELECTRONIC MAIL Electronic mail is the most popular application on the Internet today. It s hard to imagine any other form of communication that can be so intimate and yet so wide-reaching, so focused, or so expansive.Email is sometimes compared to fax, but there are some fundamental differences. Electronic mail on the Internet is, for the most part, text that can be sent over a variety of network links everything from dial-up to fiber-optic lines. It usually costs the same to send email to one person as it does to send it to a group of people, while it would cost more in time and maybe paper to send a fax to those same people, especially if they re a long-distance call away. Both are asynchronous forms of communication, eliminating telephone tag that is, it s not required for the recipient to be present to receive either electronic mail or a fax. Interestingly enough, there are some projects on the Internet that combine the capabilities of both fax and email, and while interest is growing, the ubiquitous ability to fax over the Internet is not available just yet. For example, a librarian using this experimental system in Canberra, Australia, could send a fax from his Internet-connected workstation to a remote printer fax machine in Riverside, California.hall.org. Historically, Internet email has been text-based without some of the frills that many local-area, network-based email systems have. Text-based means that the message is only words just like what you re reading right now and can t include graphics, forms, and so on. Internet email is starting to branch out with some implementations, including the ability to query distributed directory databases an online directory service for people s email addresses , encode decode messages for privacy purposes see the Security Issues section in Chapter 5 , and send formats other than just text, such as graphic images, sounds, and different character sets Asian language text, for example using Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions, commonly referred to as MIME. The reason you need something like MIME is that the current Internet email system cannot transfer a non-text file such as a picture without doing something special to it there are funny characters in these files that can mess up their transfer. If you have a need to transfer non-text documents via email, be sure to inquire whether or not your provider s email application offers MIME support.There are other ways of sending software and graphics within a message if you don t have MIME support. Many email applications some are mentioned below support automatic conversion of non-text files into ASCII format; that way, those funny codes in the binary file are converted to something the mail system can handle plain text without burping. One such program that s sensitive to the Internet s email digestive system and can convert binary files to text is called BinHex, and it s available for both Macs and PCs. To you, BinHex files will look like a bunch of nonsense random characters on the screen they begin with the line, This file must be converted with BinHex . . If you receive one of these in your email or through other means and it s not automatically converted for you , you ll need the BinHex utility to transform the file to its original format, a binary file. Normal Heroes Always Make a Detour In 1990, after 15 years as editor, journalist, translator, and head of the Moscow News Computer Department, Anatoly Voronov started exchanging email with Dave Caulkins, an American setting up GlasNet in Russia. Their offices were three blocks apart, but their messages went through the Moscow Teleport host in San Francisco, which had a connection to the Internet. Voronov ascribed the roundabout routing to the famous principle expounded in the Russian movie classic Atbolit-66, Normal niye geroi vsegda idut v obkhod Normal heroes always make a detour . GlasNet became fully operational in 1991, with Voronov on staff. I remember a posting from a Chinese student in America, a participant in the Tiananmen Square events in Beijing, offering to share his personal experiences of how to beat tanks in the heart of the city. People wondered why the KGB didn t cut our connection. And we had a trick: the UUCP connection was originated in San Francisco, because at that time a non-authorized person or organization could not call abroad from Moscow. Sending Email Email is really fast it is sent and received in seconds, minutes at the most. All you need is access to the Internet, an email program, and the email address of the person with whom you wish to communicate. Access to the Internet. Chapter 2 discussed the differences between being directly connected to the Internet and being on an outernet network such as UUCP or BITNET, or a commercial service like America Online or CompuServe.Email Programs. A common characteristic of email programs is that they let you compose and send email, and then read and organize the email you receive.Post Office Email Programs If you re accessing the Internet using a PC or Macintosh, there are several different ways you can read and send email.One of the more popular applications uses the Post Office Protocol POP . In a nutshell, the POP system allows your personal workstation to get its email from a big computer that serves as a post office, delivering the mail when you or your computer ask for it. In order to use a POP-based email application, you need Internet access via dial-up or full-time connectivity and a POP mail account on a post office computer ask your Internet provider .Email Addresses.Internet email addresses are, in fact, very simple. The host part of the address should be recognizable to you a series of words separated by dots, as discussed in the domain name section of Chapter 2.username hostname Suppose that you know that Dave s computer name is sullivan-theater.cbs.com.cbs.com. Sending It Off. Each email program is different, so if you re not familiar with yours, you may have to fumble around a bit or actually read the manual or online documentation. You will need to specify that you want to send a message, either by typing send, clicking a send button, or by performing some other wonderful computer incantation. The email program will prompt you for information, asking for the recipient s email address, the key piece of information the program needs to send the message to the recipient. A good subject description makes the person to whom you re sending aware of the nature of your message, whether it s important or whimsical. If there s someone else you think would be interested in the message, here s a chance to include his or her address. If you have the disk space, it s a good idea to send a copy to yourself so you ll have a record of your outgoing messages. There may come a day when you ll need to know exactly what you said to someone! After you ve answered all the email program prompts, you can compose your message, using your email program s editor, which may or may not be similar to the word processor with which you re familiar. It s important to make your message easy to read and understand; some hints for effective communication are discussed in detail in the Netiquette section of this chapter. Trading Places: New Dimensions to Interlibrary Loans Paula Garrett of Batavia, Illinois, and Katie Wilson of Sydney, Australia, in an effort to see how the other half lives, traded homes and jobs for six months.The venture was a complete success because of the Internet and the Australia Academic and Research Network AARNet , according to Katie. We found it made a huge difference to be able to keep up with our jobs and keep things flowing smoothly. Six months was not a very long time in which to learn the jobs, and they are senior with a lot of responsibility, so the constant email communication helped us hold it all together! There s no question that the Internet has helped end the cloistered image of librarians. Anatomy of an Email Message An email message has two basic parts, the header information and the body of the message. These normally don t concern you, but they are necessary for the email programs and for debugging purposes.From letterman sullivan-theater.cbs.com Fri Feb 4 11:51:36 EST 1994 Received: by sullivan-theater.cbs.com id AA06414 5.65 IDA-1.3.5.for melman ; Fri Feb 4 94 11:51:35 -0500 From: David Letterman letterman sullivan-theater.cbs.com Message-Id: 9402041651.AA06414 sullivan-theater.cbs.com Subject: Tonight s Show To: melman sullivan-theater.cbs.com Cc: letterman sullivan-theater.cbs.com Date: Fri, 4 Feb 94 11:51:34 EST Status: OR Larry Bud , For tonight s show, we d like you to stand on your head and sing the theme song to The Jetsons.please try to be a good sport and don t scare the children.Thanks, Dave In this made-up example, David Letterman has sent email to Larry Bud, asking him for a favor.Receiving and Keeping Up with the Mail Receiving email requires less effort than sending it. When you fire up your email program, it fetches your mail from an online mailbox if there s anything in it , and then usually displays a one-line summary for each message in there. This summary will include information such as the message number, the date the message was sent, the sender, and the subject. You can select which message you want to read by typing the corresponding number, or by selecting it with your mouse.Here s an example of a message summary line: 1 Feb 4 David Letterman 20 Tonight s Show This is message number 1 in Larry Bud s email box. In this example, the number in parentheses indicates the number of lines in the message 20 , but it could refer to the number of characters too. If you think you can t keep up with the junk mail that flows into your snail-mailbox each day, then just wait until you collect dozens of keypals and you re busily exchanging messages every day. Most everyone loves to get email it will probably give you a tiny thrill to see the message, You have new mail, when you check your electronic mailbox. But because it s so easy to send and receive email, you may find that you can t keep up with all the messages you receive! You should set up a good routine for sorting your mail, deleting trivial messages, and filing the rest by saving them in separate electronic folders sorted by people or topics. If you don t keep up with your email efficiently, your messages will stack up in the inbox as they proliferate, and your email program may slow to a crawl. Your email program may allow you to sort incoming messages by date, sender, subject, size, or in other ways, and these functions can help you dispense of messages quickly. Get ready to switch gears on the infobahn! Almost anything you can think of is there for the taking--graphics, software, books, library catalogs, bulletin boards, data, sounds, movies, journals, newsletters, newspapers, and magazines. There are many thousands of independent databases, archives, and online services available via the Internet, making it one huge virtual library. Unfortunately, this electronic library is not as well organized as a real library. However, graphical interfaces and user-friendly tools have entered the scene, and can help you chart a course through what at first may appear to be a vast and unnavigable info-jungle. Of course, not everything is online yet, but the amount and diversity of information available online is increasing so rapidly that today you can find quite a bit of what you are looking for. The first edition of this book reported an impressive number of free public offerings, most of which were found in the academic and research domains., provides online newspaper and professional articles, the Official Airline Guide, financial services, and pharmaceutical directories--all accessible to subscribers. The Lexis for legal research and Nexis for business, financial, and general news databases from Mead Data Central are also accessible. Libraries are the last democratic educational institution . --Gloria Steinem, speech at the American Library Association in July 1992. There are too many useful information resources to list. This chapter will help you take advantage of the Internet by engaging it as an external brain, a vast storehouse of information resources. Already there are applications that utilize distributed hypertext; they link related resources together, allowing users to travel a never-ending web of information. What are the implications of having such widespread, ready access to timely information?S. The world is on its way to becoming everyone s information oyster and, therefore, the ways we learn and do business will probably change. People who will succeed in tomorrow s world will be those who can learn, discern, and deal with issues rapidly and intelligently using information tools.Everything You Know About Intellectual Property Is Wrong Thus, the rights of invention and authorship adhered to activities in the physical world.In other words, the bottle was protected, not the wine. Now, as information enters cyberspace, the native home of Mind, these bottles are vanishing. With the advent of digitization, it is now possible to replace all previous information storage forms with one metabottle: complex and highly liquid patterns of ones and zeros. Source: John Perry Barlow, The Economy of Ideas: A Framework for Rethinking Patents and Copyrights in the Digital Age Everything you know about intellectual property is wrong , Wired magazine, March 1994. There are some things to keep in mind while accessing information over the Internet. As for the validity and accuracy of documents, keep in mind the plausible situation in which a document has been archived, downloaded, annotated, edited, and saved by a friend before being emailed to you.The following pages will walk you through the most basic Internet information access and retrieval tools: remote login and file transfer. It s useful to know about these applications and how they work, but with the proliferation of graphical and menued front ends, you may not need to pull them out of your info-toolbox. The latter half of this chapter explains how to get started with information discovery and retrieval applications such as archie, Gopher, WAIS, WWW, and Mosaic. CAN YOU GET THERE FROM HERE? Reading this chapter may tantalize and frustrate those who have only limited access to the Internet. If you really need access to a particular resource, your system gurus or provider may be able to offer you another path.USING ONLINE RESOURCES AND SERVICES There are several classes of info-tools described in this chapter. Also--and this is part of the Internet standard disclaimer--the tools may operate differently on your system, so be sure to read local documentation and any instructions shown on the screen. In some cases, you have to type the commands; in others, you may use a straightforward menu system; in others, you may be clicking icons. The examples used in this chapter will, for the most part, be from a command-level perspective, showing the commands most of them in lowercase as you would type them on many computers.The first info-tool class includes the very basic, low-level, devices you can use to access just about anything. These are interfaces, applications that present the Net as a graphical environment, using icons, which when selected will call up appropriate tools and select the right resources.Keep in mind that the services explained in this chapter will most likely not be located on your own computer. You re not transmitting and receiving communication as you were in the last chapter; you or your applications are going out and actively getting information from other places all over the globe. The point is, on the Internet, it doesn t matter where it is, nor do you need to know in many cases where it is. Let Me In! Despite system differences, you will usually need to know a few specific pieces of information, such as the name of the computer or host that you want to connect to, perhaps a login id, and a password. Some computer systems require that you know the magic word to be let in to an account, and usually please won t work. The id also known as a username or userid lets the computer know who you are, and the password which only you should know proves it s really you. If you live in Amsterdam, it s unlikely that you re going to have an account on a computer in Tokyo, unless you have some type of special arrangement with an organization there.Public Services If you don t have any accounts on other systems, you may be wondering what you can use these tools for. All you need to know is the login id or name of the service, and that s usually easily available or very well known. Most of these services don t require passwords or, if they do, they either publish them, accept anything as a password, or request that you type in your email address or some other information that lets them track who s using their resources. A word on the hospitality of people and organizations providing publicly accessible services, file transfer sites, databases, and other resources. Sometimes it s requested that you use a service after working hours; if so you should respect that rule, keeping in mind the time zone as well. Different Environments When you are accessing remote services, you are connecting to another environment that may look very different from what you re used to using on your own system.Bienvenidos a Mexico! Sometimes the benefits of networking come in subtle packages. The Bush School in Seattle, Washington, is one of the first schools in the world to give Internet accounts to all the students, not just the teachers. Fred Dust, the school s Headmaster, relates how the Internet plays a very important role in learning, professional development, and parental involvement at his school. For example, two ninth graders were experimenting one day with online library access. They d lived their lives in English-speaking Washington State, had taken classes in Spanish, but hadn t realized it was actually used somewhere. The interface--the face that the other computer presents to you--will probably be different from the one you re familiar with. Don t worry; the public interfaces to these systems are pretty robust, so you won t harm anything if you make a few mistakes. Most of these online services don t come with manuals, so you ll need to read the instructions and use the help screens that are shown when you sign on. A contact name is sometimes listed with the description of the service or on one of the initial login screens; if you have problems, you can email or call.Error Messages Occasionally you ll get an error message or just not be able to get to that computer. First--and most likely--is that you misspelled or mistyped the name of the computer, in which case you ll get a message such as unknown host.If you know that the computer exists and that you have the correct name, and you still get an error message, you can try something else. If this is the case, and you do know the IP address, you can always try substituting it for the computer name. If you have the right computer name, and the remote computer doesn t respond after you initiate a connection using an information tool, there may be problems with the network or the remote computer may be down --that is, not working or available.ACCESSING INTERACTIVE SERVICES Remote login is a basic tool that lets you fly electronically all over the world, reaching your destination in a fraction of a second.How It Works Remote login on the Internet is a lot like using your modem to dial into another computer, but it s usually much faster and you don t actually have to dial a phone number. The name of the protocol that enables remote login is Telnet, which is also the name of the command on many systems to allow you to login to other computers. When using Telnet to login to a computer, just issue the telnet command followed by a space and the name of the computer. For example, if you want to check out an online book order service called Book Stacks Unlimited, Inc., type the following: telnet books.com The Telnet program will make a connection to the books.com system. In this particular example, you ll be asked to type in your full name, pick a password, and specify your contact information email and address . You can then use the menu system to search and order books over 240,000 titles are offered , and participate in a book discussion group. Now, when you telnet to most other systems, you are usually greeted by a computerized Who goes there? routine. The typical prompt is Login: or Username:, at which time you type your login id or username followed by the RETURN key. It is not shown because your password is supposed to be secret, and you don t want any folks kibitzing behind you to see what it is. In some cases when you connect to a resource, you ll have to specify an additional identifier called a port number.telnet madlab.sprl.umich.edu 3000 Here it was necessary to specify the port number, 3000, because it identifies a specific program. Resource guides always include the port numbers with the instructions for accessing resources, so if you don t see one, don t worry about it. There s something for everyone, such as local weather reports, snow ski reports for some parts of the country, earthquake reports for other parts, and hurricane reports. Sometimes when you login to another system, you ll be asked about your terminal type. Some resources, such as online library catalogs, are running on IBM mainframes, however, so you might have to use a different version of Telnet called tn3270 if it exists on your system in order to emulate an IBM 3270 terminal.Now that you ve learned what you can do on the Internet and a bit about how it works, it s time to cover a few advanced Internet topics. The Internet is more thanjust how-to. And there are some technical niceties--such as directory services and advanced methods for finding email addresses--that you can master if you re willing. A Finding More Help section of this chapter gives some direction for times when you need additional information or help with an Internet problem. Put a few million people together anywhere, even in electronic cyberspace, and they ll develop some kind of culture--a fabric of shared experiences, shared recreation, shared fears, shared rules of behavior--that makes them all feel part of a community. Now it s time to learn about some of the less tangible aspects of the Internet culture, the Net legends, and the notable--and notorious--subculture of network games. LEGENDS ON THE INTERNET Probably everyone knows at least one story that qualifies as an urban legend --a story that, while it may have started with a grain of truth, has been embroidered and retold until it has passed into the realm of myth.The following stories document the most well known of the bunch. Be street smart and wary of any posting promising fame and fortune, or asking you to forward a message far and wide.The Infamous Modem Tax The FCC Modem Tax Scare is a classic example of an Internet legend that refuses to die. The tax was quickly squashed in a congressional committee, and it was not--repeat not--under reconsideration at the time this book was published. The scare resurfaces continually on the networks, just like Jason from the Friday the 13th movie series, riling new users at the prospect that their new-found electronic freedom is about to be taxed.The FCC story is essentially innocuous, although its constant recycling through the Internet wastes people s time, as well as network resources. It has also created a cry wolf situation, and if another modem tax ever is proposed, it will certainly be harder to mobilize the opposition.A Catchy Title Should Appear Here Dave Barry, noted author and nationally syndicated humor columnist for the Miami Herald, is an Internet regular.feature.dave barry , has been keeping users entertained on a weekly basis for several years. Wanting to understand the erudition and sensitivity of his articles, thousands of jacked-in Dave followers formed a USENET newsgroup called alt.fan.dave barry. There, fans from Waterloo to Waxahachie discuss his articles and books, recent Dave sightings, those witty postcard replies to his fans, and his thriving presidential campaign in 1992 his catchword was A Catchy Slogan Should Appear Here . When asked what he thought of his electronic devotees, the Internet, and this book, Barry had this to say: I think it is truly a wonderful thing that, through the Miracle of Computers, millions of people can read my column instead of leading productive lives. Humor abounds on the Internet, and even researchers and educators have been known to search out a laugh. Get-Well Cards Gone Amok Back in the mid-eighties, a British seven-year-old named Craig Shergold was diagnosed as having an inoperable brain tumor. Craig wanted to set the Guinness record for receiving the most get-well cards, and his efforts got worldwide publicity, from mimeographed sheets to email pleas. Shergold is in his late teens now, and he s doing just fine; his brain tumor was successfully treated. He did set the Guinness record for get-well cards in 1989, and has gotten more than thirty million cards to date.Incredibly, however, the Craig Shergold story keeps circulating on the Internet, as fresh as the day it started. The Shergolds Craig s parents , the hospital--even Ann Landers--have sent out pleas to stop the flow, but the story has taken on a life of its own, and the cards keep rolling in. The hospital and post office, which have to cope with all the mail, sell some of it to stamp collectors and paper recyclers.So, if you see a plea on the network for cards for a little boy who s dying with a brain tumor, pass it up.How to Win Enemies and Influence People Against You The promise of easy and fast money is one that few people can resist. If you don t want to Lose Your Friends or Lose Your Internet Access, just say no to chain letters and pyramid messages in general.Speaking of things not to send--everyone hates junk mail, but Internet users hate it even more. You may be tempted to take advantage of the Internet for your business marketing programs, but consider the consequences before broadcasting commercial product and service advertisements: literally thousands of angry people will bombard your email box and tie up your phone to tell you how much they don t appreciate your doing that. A recent widely publicized case involved a lawyer in Arizona who sent a description of his services to more than 9,000 USENET newsgroups. He received over 30,000 email messages, and it s probably safe to say that none of them are fit to print in this book. Just because the current models of advertising and direct mail don t work doesn t mean that you can t use the Internet to promote your products. It s perfectly acceptable to provide a database or archive with details of your offerings that people can peruse when they want to. Some recommended books and journals that explain this new fine art of doing business in cyberspace are listed in the Appendix. Following the Internet to the Letter Jayne Levin is an independent businesswoman who has successfully substituted Internet know-how for start-up capital to fund her own newsletter. She uses the Internet for interviews, production, reviews, marketing, and sales. After one year, her newsletter has been very successful, and she expects it to be profitable after the first year of publication. I decided to launch The Internet Letter after exploring and writing about the Internet for a year, feeding my intellectual curiosity and seeing its power to help companies cut communications costs, gather corporate intelligence, and leverage scant resources. As a start-up company, I didn t have much money . The Internet offered invaluable resources, including desktop publishing software that was much less expensive than similar software sold at a computer store. With an Internet account that cost only 15 a month, I greatly reduced long-distance phone bills, conducting interviews online. CARL, a free database service, provides abstracts sometimes full text on articles that have appeared in national dailies and other publications. The Internet also provided a vehicle to distribute and sell my newsletter. I was contacted, via email, by a person in the former Soviet Union who asked for permission to translate the newsletter into Russian. I received requests for trial subscriptions from people in Turkey, India, Brazil, Cuba, Singapore, and Israel, and others used the electronic subscription coupon to sign up as charter subscribers. Source: Jayne Levin, Editor and Publisher, Net Week, Inc. GAMES Just about every computer user has at least one game tucked away somewhere--the kind you play surreptitiously when the boss isn t watching or when you ve got a bad case of writer s block. There are shareware and freeware games you can download for your own computer, as well as game newsgroup discussions and email lists. There s the Trivia USENET Newsgroup, whose participants have gotten past naming all the seven dwarfs and have now moved on to higher-order thinking--naming all the characters in sitcoms from long ago Gilligan s Island, the Brady Bunch, Laverne Shirley .games.trivia . As you might imagine, the big games on the Internet tend to match the network itself in scale and complexity, and they are a world and culture unto themselves. The games can feature fantasy combat, booby traps, and magic. Players interact in real time, and can change the world in the game as they play it by creating environments, rules, and characters. All the games demand an intense learning process to figure out all the characters and game idiosyncrasies, not to mention the rules.Some people literally spend all of their waking hours in the game. Many of the game players seem to feel the need to leave their mark on the game, and generations of game variations have evolved. In most games, new players take on a persona and then participate in the game. To quote from the Frequently Asked Questions document for Multi-User Dungeons, You can walk around, chat with other characters, explore dangerous monster-infested areas, solve puzzles, and even create your very own rooms, descriptions, and items. If these games sound interesting, check out the USENET newsgroups under the hierarchy rec.games.muds or alt.mud.SECURITY ISSUES Computer security is a major issue no matter where you go, what type of computer you use, or whether or not your computer is connected to a network. This section will provide some insight into security on the Internet and the answers to those questions. First of all, you should realize that despite its military origins, the Internet is not a classified network. The ARPANET was a network research experiment, so there was a lot of collaboration, with information being transferred between machines and researchers. Besides, the ARPANET was a small community, and users left their doors unlocked, just as trusting folks in small towns do. Today, the Internet is a massive cooperative with tens of thousands of networks--several orders of magnitude larger than the ARPANET--all tied together.What s not so secure about the Internet? When a new computer arrives at an organization, all the factory-set passwords and network configurations need to be changed; if they re not, the host will be an easy target for break-ins and outside attacks. Since all parts must work together to make the entire Internet secure, it s probably best to assume that things just aren t and act accordingly. Fortunately, when they do, lessons are learned, holes or weaknesses get fixed, problems are highlighted, and the Internet takes another step toward becoming more secure. The Food Is Better in the Virtual Dorm, or, Finding the Quad on a Penta Chip A simple multi-user role playing game in cyberspace called Multi User Dungeons MUDs may turn out to be the key to an entirely new approach to education. Recent Internet explorers playing MUDs saw new applications for these interactive, virtual worlds that were far from the Dungeons and Dragons and Star Trek realms of the early MUDs and their derivatives. In an attempt to incorporate education and distance learning into the virtual environment, MIT s MicroMUSE Multi User Simulated Environment University laid the foundation for educational uses of a technology once viewed cynically as a time-wasting and resource-gobbling game. Over the last two years, virtual colleges have begun to appear. Unlike traditional online, email-based distance learning classes, virtual colleges provide micro-worlds that enhance the subject matter being presented and provide environments in which students and faculty interact in real time. Typical of these new environments are DeanzaMUSE at De Anza College in Cupertino, California, and MariMUSE at Phoenix Community College in Phoenix, Arizona. DeanzaMUSE is a precise replication of the real De Anza college. At the same time, the VR virtual reality campus serves as a metaphor for navigating the information resources of the Internet. For example, the DeanzaMUSE campus planetarium has specialized links to astronomical resources around the world, the Euphrat Gallery features exhibits of JPEG images drawn from a variety of sources, and the Bio-Sciences classrooms access data from similar programs at major universities and research centers.Phoenix College offers a credit course through its Language Arts division taught entirely on MariMUSE. Depending upon the course being offered, class might be held on the deck of a Viking ship, at a street corner in New York City, or in a quiet study in sixteenth-century England. With nearly two years of experience in the newly emerging field of virtual instruction, MariMUSE instructors are doing pioneering work in the development of instructional tools and techniques. Virtual colleges may provide an entirely new and highly cost-effective environment in which to explore education in the twenty-first century. Source: Stan Lim Breaking Down Account Doors The press regularly reports on hackers breaking into computers and causing damage. Hacker in the computer world is a term of respect--hackers are basically nuts about computers and like to learn systems inside and out. Real hackers aren t angels, but they don t get their kicks from breaking into other systems to exploit holes and snooping in someone else s information.mudhead n., with the consolation, however, that they made wizard level. When encountered in person, all a mudhead will talk about is two topics: the tactic, character, or wizard that is supposedly always unfairly stopping him her from becoming a wizard or beating a favorite MUD, and the MUD he or she is writing or going to write because all existing MUDs are so dreadful! Source:The New Hacker s Dictionary, edited by Eric S.What Can You Do? As a user of the Internet, you can t do much about fixing security problems if the computer you re using to access the Net is not your own.Most levels of service on the Internet require some type of authentication to prove it s really you accessing the service. Your userid is usually well known you give it out so people can send email, for example , so the only way you can protect yourself is with a secret password.If an undesirable gets your password and uses it to enter your account uninvited, worse things can happen than just your files being looked at, modified, or deleted.Never give anyone your password without a valid reason. When you do give it to someone so that he or she can obtain necessary information or perform an action, change the password as soon as he or she is done. If you get an account on another system, such as a public database or bulletin board, do not use the same password that you use on your local system. Don t write your password down and leave the paper in an obvious place, such as in the desk drawer next to your computer.Copying the scams in which callers try to get your credit card number over the phone, some potential intruders call or send email claiming to be a system administrator. These con artists will tell you that, for various reasons, you need to change the password for your account to the one they provide you.How to Pick a Password An easily guessed password is one of the most common causes of security problems. If you don t know how to change your password, put it at the top of your list of things to learn. They should also not be easily guessed, such as your husband s or wife s name, girlfriend s or boyfriend s name, the dog s name, your license plate, the street where you live, your birthday--you get the picture. So what can passwords be? It s recommended that the word be at least six characters long. This way the password is not a word, but it s easy to remember and hard to guess. It s also recommended to mix some numbers with the letters and throw in some punctuation for pizzazz, but never make your password all numbers. Don t Try This at Home . You can t point-and-click on CompuServe to make toast in Cairo, but way out on the frontiers of Internet development, the cognoscenti are whipping up elegant hacks to do just that. TGV, Inc., a networking software company in Santa Cruz, California, first got involved in networking home appliances at a chance meeting between then TGV Technical Support Manager Stuart Vance and Simon Hackett of the University of Adelaide. In December 1989, Stuart was in Adelaide for a networking conference, and discovered in conversation with Simon a mutual love of perverse interesting computer and networking applications. They decided that it should be easy to extend control across a network, using the TCP IP network management protocol SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol . Upon returning home, Stuart managed to persuade TGV management to fund Simon s development of a custom controller to interface to a Pioneer Stereo system. Engineers at TGV wrote a small IP stack for the microprocessor, and Hackett and Vance ported the Epilogue Technology SNMP agent to run on the controller. Additionally, they developed but never quite completed a home electronics SNMP Management Information Base for selecting input CD, tuner, cassette deck, phonograph , volume, tuner band and frequency, and other standard stereo features.The stereo system project led to further collaboration between TGV and Hackett, including: one of two independent implementations of an SNMP-manageable Sunbeam toaster; an SNMP-manageable Sony 60-disc CD jukebox; and the Interphone, a scheme for audio communication over TCP IP. Simon has since founded Internode Systems, a networking company in Australia, and continues to work with Stuart on connecting unconventional and conventional devices to the Internet.Perhaps Hackett and Vance were influenced by Stephen Wright a comedian , who several years ago told this story: In my house, there s this light switch that doesn t do anything. Source: Stuart Vance Can People Read My Email? Can they read it? But you need to realize that once email leaves your system, it may sit on another computer hundreds or thousands of miles away, and you have no control over who has access to it. The best thing to do is to realize that your email is not going to be secure, and to avoid transmitting sensitive material, as already recommended in Chapter 3. Even if no one reads your email while it s in transit, the recipient could forward the message on to whomever he or she pleases. It is physically possible to tap networks, just like tapping telephone lines. Encrypt means simply that it s encoded into something that no one else can read without the proper key the digital equivalent of a Captain Marvel decoder ring . There are no automatic mechanisms available in the Internet right now to encrypt email, but if you have the necessary software on your computer, you can do it. An increasing number of people are interested in the privacy of their correspondence, and a number of programs and solutions are popping up to assist them. PEM implementations are unfortunately not in widespread use yet, but they ve begun to proliferate, and may be coming soon to an email application near you. Another encryption program in use on the Internet is called Pretty Good Privacy PGP , and it s used a lot outside the United States.Once you re a regular on the Internet, you ll notice that a lot of computers out there run the Unix operating system. Unix was, and is, popular among researchers and computer science departments which made up the early Internet , partly because some of the first versions of TCP IP were distributed free with one version of Unix known as the Berkeley Software Distribution BSD . Many computer companies sell their machines with Unix and TCP IP bundled in, which makes it a more popular combination than some of the other computers and operating systems, for which TCP IP support has to be ordered separately. You don t have to be a Unix expert to use the Internet, but it doesn t hurt to know some of the basic commands. If you re using the Internet, however, sooner or later you ll have to deal with Unix face-to-face, so included in this chapter are some explanations of the more common idiosyncrasies and applications you may encounter when using Unix on the Internet. Knowing how to navigate through directories and use some of the basic Unix commands will make you a more powerful Internet user. Be aware that this chapter will give you only the barest of tools to get you started and help you accomplish what you need to do. If they don t, you should use the help facility explained below , or call your local help desk to find out what the proper command or sequence of commands is.LOGGING IN Let s start with the basics--getting access to your Unix account. login: At this point, type your userid. Passwd: When you type your password, it will not and should not display on the screen. Important!GETTING HELP Unix may not always offer a lot of help outright, but it does have a help facility called man, which stands for manual pages. If you ever need help with a command, type man command where command is the name of the command.More The man command uses another Unix program called more that lets you page through files--meaning it shows you one screen at a time of the file instead of letting it fly off the screen. To advance to the next page, simply hit the space bar once typing return will only advance the file by one line .Other Things to Know Many of the applications and commands mentioned below refer to control commands. When either of these precedes a letter, you should hold down the CTRL key, and at the same time, press the command letter. For example, if you see G, g, or CTRL-G written in documentation, you should hold down the control key while pressing the g key lowercase g . THE UNIX FILE SYSTEM The Unix file system--the way files are organized on the computer s hard disk--is hierarchical, similar to the DOS file system. If you understand how the DOS file system works, then it shouldn t take you long to find your way around Unix systems. Since a good number of the public file archive sites are computers running the Unix operating system, learning your way up and down a Unix directory as was discussed in Chapter 4 will come in pretty handy. As a user on a Unix Internet system, you have your own space on the file system. You can organize this file cabinet any way you want--it can be very structured, neat, and tidy, or it can be extremely messy and unorganized. If you like some order to your life, then you ll be happy to know that you can create directories that house files or other directories. A directory can be compared to a manila folder, which you can use to organize and store papers files and other folders directories . Miles of Files, Directories, and Commands Once you start surfing the Internet, you ll be pulling down articles, books, and software, among other things, from all over the place. You ll also probably be creating quite a few files, using either the Unix editors mentioned below, or by uploading them from your own PC or Mac if you re dialed-in to the Unix system . Because there are so many different types of files and so many ways to create them, you should definitely have an organized system for storing them. First of all, to see which files you have in your home directory, you can use the ls command to list them. If you type ls with no arguments, it will list your current directory which, if you ve just logged in, is your home directory . When you type ls -l, you ll see several columns of information that specify permissions, links, owner, group, size in bytes, and the time of the last modification for each file. Here s a sample listing of David Letterman s home directory after he types ls -l to get a long listing: sullivan-theater ls -l total 16 drwx------- 4 letterman cbs 1536 Feb 13 14:34 . drwx------ 1 letterman cbs 3449 Feb 13 10:49 Mail -rw-r--r-- 1 letterman cbs 9383 Jan 17 11:03 LightBulbJokes drwxr-xr-x 2 letterman cbs 1024 Feb 12 10:39 News -rw-r--r-- 1 letterman cbs 792 Feb 6 17:51 guest-list -rw------- 1 letterman cbs 5097 Jan 29 13:59 tonights-jokes -rw-r--r-- 1 letterman cbs 5039 Jan 1 10:59 top-ten-list The top two files indicate directories: . is the current directory, and .. is the parent directory. Your listing may not have as many columns as in this example. , parent .. , Mail, and News. Sometimes you need to know the size of a file, especially if you re running out of disk space on your account.When you login, your current directory is your home directory.Again, another warning about case sensitivity. You need to type commands and names exactly as they appear in resource guides, email, and news. If the output of an ls command shows a file called LightBulbJokes, and you want to look at that file, you need to type the name exactly as shown; lightbulbjokes or Lightbulbjokes simply will not work. This may seem a little tedious, so you might want to use the copy and paste functions of your workstation, if they re available. There are several commands to view files; one of the most common ones, already explained above, is more. more LightBulbJokes This program lets you page through a file.If you decide you don t want to keep the LightBulbJokes file anymore, use the remove file command, rm. rm LightBulbJokes Or, if you want to rename the file, you can use the move command, mv. mv LightBulbJokes LBJ This would rename the file LBJ. If you forget where you are--what directory you re in--type the print working directory command, pwd.If tracy wants to go back to her home directory, she can issue one of two commands in this example. She can type cd, which by itself automatically puts her back in her home directory home tracy no matter where she is. yes, that s cd and then two periods , which will change her current directory to the parent of the one she s currently in up one level .Back to the David Letterman example. mkdir jokes The next thing he should do is move the two joke files he has in his home directory to the jokes directory. mv LightBulbJokes jokes mv tonights-jokes jokes He is using the rename command to move the files, but they do keep their original names in the jokes directory. cd jokes Now his current directory is home letterman jokes. LightBulbJokes tonights-jokes He can then edit or look at the two files in that directory., and he ll be one level above home letterman . If he decides later on to remove the jokes directory, he needs to use the rm -r command: rm -r jokes This will recursively delete every file in the jokes directory, and the jokes directory entry as well.These instructions are the bare minimum, but they should get you started moving, removing, renaming, and looking at files and directories. Sydney Is Burning As I flipped through my email messages one morning, I suddenly received a new one entitled The Sydney Bush Fires. The mail was from my Australian keypal, and he was telling me and some of his other keypals what it was like to be experiencing the bush fires that were burning all round Sydney. Forgetting all about my other messages for the time being, I quickly wrote back and arranged to go with him to the KIDLINK IRC Internet Relay Chat . On IRC, a place where, amazingly, people can talk back and forth, I was able to ask my friend all about the disaster. It turned out he was less than ten kilometers from the fires, he could see the flame-tinged sky and smell the smoke from his window, and he was able to tell me how far the fires were from the famous Opera House and the Taronga Park Zoo. During the next several days, I communicated through email several times more with my Sydney friend, and the fires got even closer to his house. However, all week long the information about the Sydney fires that I brought to current events in my social studies class was more up-to-date than anything in the newspapers. That is only one of my amazing network experiences, but it is one that illustrates the way being on a computer network and having access to the Internet has changed my life in wonderful ways. From a winning essay, Networks: Where Have You Been All My Life? by Rachel Weston, rweston cap.gwu.edu, Grade 7, Georgetown Day School, Washington, D.C. Creating Files Perhaps one of the reasons Unix doesn t have a good reputation for being user-friendly is the choices of editors. They re not that hard to use--it s just that in most cases you can t use your mouse to point, click, and insert text. Or, you can create a file on your PC or Macintosh, and upload it transfer it from your PC or Mac to the Unix system .Uploading Files to the Unix System. If you decide to heck with learning another editor, and you d rather upload files you created with your easy-to-use word processor on your PC, here s what you need to do.Most likely the files you ve created on your home computer are not text files. For example, a word-processed file is not a text file because there are a lot of codes and symbols in it known only to your word processor program. You can also convert a word-processed file to a text file by saving it as text with line breaks or text with no line breaks. To transfer a text file from your own computer to the Unix computer, initiate Kermit on the Unix system by typing kermit -r; the -r option means that the Unix system is going to receive the file. You should then escape back to your PC or Macintosh and initiate the sending process on your home computer by specifying what file you re sending, either through the menu system choose Send file or by typing a command for example, send file1.txt . Unfortunately, there are so many communications packages that it is impossible to tell you here what to do in your particular situation. If everything goes according to plan, your text file should transfer nicely, and then it will be on the Unix system.If you decide to transfer a binary file, such as software or a word-processed document, you can do that too.Vi.Here s your basic survival guide. To create or edit an existing file, you type vi filename, where filename is the name of the file you want to create or modify. When you fire up vi, you ll recognize a vi session because your screen doesn t contain much explanatory information, just the text in the file or, if the file is empty, a bunch of s in the first column of every line.Upon initiating a vi session, you ll automatically be put into command mode. When you type i, it won t show up on your screen, but you will instantly be put into insert mode. Now everything you type goes into vi s temporary editing buffer. Here s a way to tell if you re in command mode or insert mode.You can move around and position your cursor by using the arrow keys. You can also use the letters h, j, k, l in command mode only to move left, down, up, and right, respectively. To delete characters when you re in command mode, position the cursor over the character to be deleted and type x.It s possible to include other files in a vi session. :r filename where filename is the name of the file located in your current directory. Notice that when you type a colon in command mode, the cursor automatically positions itself at the bottom of the screen.Finding out how to leave vi is the biggest question most newbies have right after they start it up. . SUMMARY OF VI COMMANDS Command Mode Insert Commands: i insert before the cursor a insert after the cursor o open or start inserting in the line below the cursor O open or start inserting in the line above the cursor Delete Commands: dd delete the current line dw delete word x delete the character under the cursor Exiting Commands: :w write or save file :q!:wq write save changes and quit Other: :r filename include filename in buffer ESC returns to Command Mode PICO.To edit a file with PICO, simply type pico filename. The top line is a status line, the third line from the bottom is used for informational messages, and the bottom two lines provide a summary of the commands you can execute.To perform functions, PICO makes use of the control commands mentioned above. For example, to delete a line, position the cursor on the line, and type CTRL-k hold down the control key and press the k key .To quit PICO, type CTRL-x X . The message line three lines from the bottom will ask you if you want to save your creation or changes before exiting. Unless you don t want to save your changes for some reason perhaps you made too many mistakes and would like to recover the old version , you should always save. It will default to the filename you specified at startup, so just press return if you want to write over that file.SUMMARY OF PICO COMMANDS G Get Help X Exit O WriteOut save changes J Justify format the current paragraph R Read file insert a file at cursor position W Where is position the cursor at a specified text string Y Previous page position the cursor at the previous screen page V Next page position the cursor at the next screen page K Delete line U Undelete line C Current position of cursor T Spell Emacs. emacs filename To learn about emacs, check out the online tutorial by typing H T. Now that you know what you want to do on the Internet, or at least where you want to go exploring, you ll wantto get connected. This chapter tells you what you need to get started, your choices for individual access, where to go for services, and the basics for connecting a business organization.S. Demand for Internet access is increasing worldwide, but there are more connectivity choices for individuals and businesses in the United States because of the many competing provider services there. EASY STREET If you work for an institution or a company with full-time access through a network connection to the Internet, you have the shortest path of all. All you need to do is sit down at your office terminal or workstation and, using the instructions and Internet applications supplied by your in-house computer gurus, log on and get going. For example, a college s local-area network LAN might get access to the Internet by making a connection through a leased phone line to a regional network. Once that connection is made, in most cases, every computer on the local-area network has full-time access-- meaning, the Internet is available all the time, day and night.ALL YOU NEED TO GET STARTED DIALING INTO THE INTERNET Fortunately, these days there are more and more ways to get access to the Internet if you re an individual computer user or small business. Connecting an entire business or organization s network is more complex than can be covered in detail here, but an overview of the major steps is included later in this chapter see Connecting Your Business or Organization .Modems If you re in the market for a modem, then read this section before whipping out your credit card. A little planning and research in the modem department on your part will make your journey to the Internet a bit easier. Modems are, simply put, computer appliances that convert the digital signal from your computer into an analog sound wave that can be transmitted over telephone lines. A modem at the other end converts the analog signal back into a digital signal that is understood by the computer you re talking to. As with any computer-related purchase, you should buy the very best modem you can afford--perhaps even a bit better than you can afford. Technology changes fast, and five years from now, today s high-speed modems will be as obsolete as that dinosaur of modems, the 300bps acoustic coupler. If you ve already got a slower modem, don t despair just yet. Many individuals are still using 2400bps or slower modems that they ve had for several years to access the Internet and other services. All of the access and information systems support them, and, for the occasional user, the difference in online and or long-distance charges may not be too significant. Using a 2400bps modem, you can access electronic mail, Telnet, FTP, and the terminal client gopher application. However, the bigger the message or file, the longer it will take to show on your screen or transfer to your computer.If you plan to spend a lot of time online and run applications like Mosaic, or if you need quick, error-free access, spring for a high-speed modem with error correction and data compression. You can use Mosaic if you re dialing into the Internet with a modem, but you must be using a modem that runs at least 9.6Kbps, preferably at 14.4Kbps or faster .S. . See the Full-Access Dial-up Connection section to learn how to use Mosaic and other client applications via a dial-up link. The ideal modem for telecommunications not only communicates at high speeds but also has error correction and data compression features. Error correction protocols help filter out line noise, which throws garbage characters--like pdf --on your screen, and they ensure an error-free transmission. Data compression, while a useful feature, may not help you much on some bulletin boards and information services that have already compressed their files because your modem can t compress them any further. So it would be wise, especially if you are planning to spend a lot for a high-speed modem, to check some independent sources before you buy.Communications Software The second required component is software that will enable communication. Communications software, which is installed on your personal computer, sets up the three-way conversation between your computer, the modem, and the remote computer or terminal server. Since you are dialing into the Internet, there are many types of communication packages available, enabling three different kinds of connections.TYPES OF CONNECTIONS The following sections explain the three basic access options you have as an individual independent user.Terminal Emulation What It Is. Using your modem and free or commercial communications software, such as Kermit, PROCOMM, WhiteKnight, or MicroPhone, you can dial into an Internet-connected computer or communications server and basically turn your PC or Mac into a dumb terminal that will most likely emulate a VT100, a venerable terminal produced in the millions by Digital Equipment Corporation DEC . And there are a number of free implementations, like Kermit, that are widely distributed through various channels, such as user groups, bulletin board systems, and the Internet. Once connected, everything you type is from the perspective of the remote computer into which you have dialed.COMMON MODEM STANDARDS AND TYPICAL SPEEDS The following specify some common modem standards. Many of these--the ones that begin with a V --are defined by the Consultative Committee for International Telegraph and Telephone CCITT , an international organization that develops communications standards. The third column estimates the time it would take to transfer a 100K file the average size of many documents or image files on the Internet . Modulation Standard Speed Approx.V.22 1200bps 14 minutes V.22bis 2400bps 7 minutes V.32 9.6Kbps 2 minutes V.32bis 14.4Kbps 1 minute V.34 28.8Kbps 30 seconds Standard Type V.42 Error Correction V.42bis Data Compression MNP 4 Error Correction MNP 5 Data Compression Notes: Speeds are represented here in bits per second bps , not in baud.Be aware that the other end must support the same standards in order to achieve the desired connection rate. V.34 is also known as V.fast, and is supposed to be available in the summer of 1994. A popular high-speed modem these days is one that conforms to V.32bis with V.42 and V.42bis.There are many other standards.When you use FTP or Gopher to transfer a file, be aware that you are transferring the file to the Internet- connected computer you are dialed into, not to your own computer. If you want the file to reside on your PC or Mac, then you have to execute another transfer process by downloading it using a different kind of file transfer protocol, such as Kermit, Xmodem, Ymodem, or Zmodem. This is perhaps one of the biggest stumbling blocks for new users--the confusion about where the file actually is and how to make it show up where you want. When you transfer a file to the middle guy using FTP or Gopher, remember that you then need to tell the middle guy to transfer it to your own computer.For example, suppose that you re using Kermit to dial into an Internet-connected computer on the Zilker Parknet a commercial Internet provider located in Austin, Texas . You re zipping around the planet checking out the scene, when you find an archive of online books available via anonymous FTP on host vtucs.cc.vt.edu in the Files infores books directory the URL is ftp: vtucs.cc.vt.edu Files infores books . After you browse the digital shelves looking for a book you can curl up with on your laptop and read, you decide on Walden by Henry David Thoreau.At this point, Walden is on the Zilker Parknet computer the middle guy , not on your own computer. You need to initiate another transfer using Kermit, Xmodem, Ymodem, or Zmodem, for example from Zilker Parknet to your PC or Mac. Here s how to do this if the middle-guy computer and your computer both have Kermit.edu, path Eris Information Services Eris Files Information Resources Books. Offline Software Access What It Is. Offline software access brings some of the Internet functions, such as electronic mail, USENET news, and file transfer, straight to your computer, but lets you work offline. When that happens, the software makes the connection, performs the required functions, such as transferring email back and forth, and then disconnects. In addition to taking care of the communications, this software also provides email, an editor for composing messages, and perhaps news readers.Although you re not interactively using the Internet, you can still do a lot of useful things, such as download electronic mail and news, reading messages and postings at your leisure on your home computer rather than tying up a phone line or running up connection charges. But be aware that not all of the Internet s applications, particularly remote login, Gopher, and Mosaic, are available to you, since you can t issue commands and receive information interactively when you re not connected. Despite this limited functionality, these client connections are recommended for novice users, because they are more user- friendly than many of the public-access systems. With such access, you work with a familiar graphical application on your PC or Macintosh, not on a foreign computer account. You also don t have to worry about taking the extra step of transferring files from a middle-guy Internet computer to your home computer as you do with dial-up terminal emulation access --the software does all of this for you. Full-Access Dial-up Connection What It Is. A more advanced client connection uses client networking software and a high-speed modem to actually become a directly connected computer on the Internet. This type of access differs from the services above because you are skipping the terminal-emulation middle guy, so to speak, and you re interactively using the Internet, not working offline. What makes this happen is a fast modem the fastest you can get, at least 9.6Kbps , and software that conforms to Serial Line Internet Protocol SLIP or Point-to-Point-Protocol PPP . Either of these, used in conjunction with graphical Internet client applications like Gopher and Mosaic, brings the power and flexibility of the Internet straight to your home computer over an ordinary telephone line. SLIP and PPP are different, but each performs essentially the same function--that is, they make your computer a peer computer on the Internet. A SLIP or PPP connection is a great way to connect, but it can be more expensive and a bit more difficult to configure. When you use this type of connection, you are actually executing Internet applications on your own computer, not on an Internet-connected computer that you ve dialed into. For example, if you want to transfer a file using FTP from a public-access site, you transfer that file straight to your home computer instead of working with the terminal-emulation middle guy.How It Works. You must dial into another computer or terminal server that is running SLIP if your computer is running SLIP or PPP if your computer is running PPP to make this connection. They help you get set up at the beginning of the connection, but they are essentially invisible after you get going. You ll also need a unique Internet Protocol IP address, because your computer must be identified on the network. Your provider will most likely assign you an address, or the remote SLIP PPP server will assign you a number to use when you make the connection. You may want a registered hostname as well, but as with the IP address and any other required information and parameters, your network provider will probably be able to assist you.Internet to the Rescue! Tired of those busy signals when you re trying to reach technical support for your computer? Over the past year, they ve gotten bug fixes and patches for their SUN Microsystems workstations and technical support from their router vendor, Cisco Systems.One of the company s software engineers told us about how the Internet recently saved the day and night for him when his boss needed a network monitoring problem fixed by Friday morning and it was 4:59 p.m. Source: Peter Ho, Unocal Corp. CHOOSING AN INDIVIDUAL ACCESS PROVIDER Network access for individuals is a new and evolving market, one that is growing very quickly. So finding the services you want, the access, and the right price is not as simple as picking a long-distance phone carrier, or getting phone service through your local phone company. Use the information here and in the Providers section of the Appendix as a general guide to starting your own research. Public Dial-up Internet Access Systems Lots of companies offer dial-in access to their large Internet-connected computer systems, giving you terminal emulation or if available SLIP PPP access to the Internet. All of these services offer file transfer, remote login, Gopher, and news services, in addition to electronic mail and depending on the system a variety of other services, including commercial databases. Access is usually via a phone call to the system s local number, although some systems also offer access via public data networks, such as CompuServe Public Network CPN . Many public-access providers are expanding and adding access points in more cities, so you may want to contact them for their latest local dial-in information.More often than not, the type of computer into which you re dialed is running the Unix operating system. Many providers also offer menu systems that eliminate the requirement of a computer science Unix internals degree and simplify things greatly. If you are forced to wade through the Unix muck, be sure to refer to Chapter 6, which includes information on some common commands, applications, and how to get help if you get stuck. To be fair, Unix isn t all that bad, and once you get the hang of the system, it can be quite fun to use.See the Providers section in the Appendix for a list of public access dialup systems compiled by Peter Kaminski. U.S.As mentioned in Chapter 2, there are lots of regional academic research and national commercial Internet providers that offer individual access to their networks. The commercial providers, such as CERFnet, UUNET, ANS CO RE, Sprint, and PSI, offer a wide range of access for individuals, from terminal emulation to full-time SLIP or PPP access.Everything-but-the-Kitchen-Sink Providers You ve probably been shaking your head at all the background work you have to do just to find graphical, user-friendly interfaces, and to find an Internet provider. Well, be on the lookout for commercial products that combine full Internet access, an Internet provider, and all the parts needed to make graphical client applications like Gopher, WAIS, and Mosaic work.Special Interest Professional Groups You may be eligible for inexpensive Internet access through a special interest or professional group. If you are a teacher and are interested in finding out more about access to the Internet, then contact your district s computer coordinator or regional computing consortium to find out about your access options. Community Networks Community networks are springing up in cities all over the world. In addition to acting as online town halls, providing information about city government and local functions, they often offer email and perhaps full access to the Internet.See the Appendix to find out if there s an education network or Freenet in your area. Alternative Phone Access The services listed above are great if you live in a big city with local dial-in access points. However, if you live in a rural area, you travel frequently, or your chosen system is an expensive long-distance call away, you should investigate other access methods.CompuServe Packet Network CPN . If your chosen system allows access via CPN, use your modem to dial CompuServe s information service, 800 848-4480 in the United States, to find your closest CPN access number.Toll-Free Service. There are some Internet providers in the United States that offer a toll-free 800 number that gets you access to a communications or terminal server. Be aware, however, that 800 numbers are not free, and the cost is passed on to you, just like a long-distance charge. The last thing you need is a big surprise on your bill, because those blissful Internet hours can add up quickly.Major City Dial-in Service. Access is usually made via the local phone system to a terminal server or communications server connected directly to the Internet. A terminal server is basically a bouncing off point to the Internet, a computer that accepts connections and allows you to use the Internet to remotely login to other computers. Terminal servers have modems attached to them so that users can dial in and, from there, remotely login to any computer on the Internet, or initiate a SLIP PPP connection to become directly connected. Who does it: UUNet s TAC Access, EUnet s Traveller major cities in Europe , and PSI s Global Dialing Service GDS offer local dial access in many cities.Imagine you are a florist and you can ship anywhere in the world. This is what Jennings Florists in Victoria, British Columbia is doing, with full-color pictures of its most popular gift baskets and flower arrangements. The only link you need to reach the Jennings Florists catalog on the World-Wide Web see Figure 1-1 Jennings Florists Web Site is called a URL, or Uniform Resource Locator http: www.islandnet.com JenningsFlorists .Or suppose you love tennis, and you want to collect and make available tennis news, equipment tips, and player information and set up an Internet tennis specialty shop. This is exactly what Tenagra Corporation decided to do; their WWW Tennis Server includes articles and links to tennis information throughout the Internet.tennisserver.com Or suppose your company sells computer software or hardware, and your phone lines are constantly busy with help questions and requests for the latest updates or pricing schedules. Many top high-tech companies, including Sun Microsystems, IBM, Microsoft, and Novell, post technical notes, price lists, and even software upgrades on the Internet that their users can download immediately see Figure 1-2 Sun Microsystems Web Site and Figure 1-3 IBM Web Site. http: www.sun.com http: www.ibm.com http: www.microsoft.com http: www.novell.com Or say you re a real estate broker, and you d like to advertise your properties more widely. A company called Coolware has set up a site at which it is soliciting realtors and home owners to list real estate for sale. See Figure 1-4 Palo Alto Real Estate Web Site for the sample of listings it has posted for the City of Palo Alto, California.coolware.com real realestate.html And the Encyclop dia Britannica is starting to provide the full text of all its volumes across the Internet see Figure 1-5 Britannica Online Web Site for a fee. The company is marketing the service to colleges and universities but plans to make it inexpensive enough that individuals will subscribe.eb.com As you can see, it s a new world in publishing. You don t even have to have a computer if you want to hire someone to publish on the Internet for you.Publishing on the Internet simply means putting information on one computer where it can be seen by others on the Internet. Although the commercial and marketing possibilities are creating enormous interest, the bulk of what is published today on the Internet is available for free. Companies are finding that traditional advertising techniques don t transfer well to the Internet; instead they are supplying detailed information and participating in technical forums in which their products are discussed. A Quick History of Internet Publishing Techniques Publishing on the Internet basically consists of making computer files available on one computer, usually called a server, and allowing others to view or download them via other computers, usually called clients.Programmers and computer technical administrators have used this procedure for many years. In fact, Gopher, WWW, and WAIS take very similar steps behind the scenes as you browse the Internet, blissfully oblivious to the details. File Transfer Protocol FTP File Transfer Protocol, or FTP, is the original method of using the Internet to transfer files between different computer systems. FTP requires that you know the name of the computer to which you wish to connect and have a login ID and password for that computer.For years anonymous FTP was the method of choice for publishing on the Internet. Anonymous FTP a term that s used as a noun and a verb on the Internet does not require the client to have an ID for the publishing computer in order to connect and download files.Anonymous FTP allowed true publishing to occur on the Internet, because once you made your information available via anonymous FTP, anyone on the Internet could download it. This method proved so popular among the programmers and technical people most Internet users in those days that thousands of FTP sites computers with files available for anonymous FTP downloads sprang up over the years. The problem was finding the site that had what you wanted and then locating the information in the thousands of files that might be stored on that same computer. Archie--Indexing FTP Sites In 1990 Peter Deutsch and Alan Emtage, grad students at McGill University in Canada, came up with Archie, an interesting approach to solving this problem.Net-wide Index to Computer Archives, rodent being a reference to the Gopher servers for Veronica indexes. Deutsch and Emtage set up one computer to connect automatically to a certain number of FTP servers every night and download their directory structures and indexes. They added these indexes to a database and then would allow anyone on the Internet to connect to their machine and run a search program. The search program allowed the user to search by file name and would return all the occurrences of a particular file name, complete with date, directory path, and FTP site address.e-mail the results to you.com an excellent DOS file lister from shareware author Vernon Buerg . Although Archie allowed users to quickly find the FTP sites with the most recent copies of particular files, it wasn t especially user friendly. While connected to an FTP site, you could make your way through the various directories by typing in the appropriate change directory or cd command, but you couldn t view a file to determine whether it contained what you were looking for. For that, you first needed to use the FTP get command, download it, and then look at it on your own machine.bunyip.com:8000 products archie archie.html Gopher and Gopher In 1991 the University of Minnesota made all this easier. Short connections between the client and server programs so the server could quickly handle a client s request and move on to the next Stateless connections no memory of previous contacts between client and server, so the server wouldn t have to remember what stage each client was at This approach resulted in a menulike system that allows users either to see the contents of a file or to follow a link to other menus or files on another system. Thus was born the ability to browse the Internet, because Gopher allows you to read the text files you come across and, depending on your computer, to view pictures or hear sound embedded in the files you select.The success of Gopher s simple interface led to explosive growth in the number of Gopher servers in the United States and then around the world. And it led to extensions of the original Gopher protocol to allow for such things as electronic forms, abstracts, alternate data formats, or views, and the ability to store meta-information or behind-the-scenes information about the files such as modification date, file size, language, and administrator of the file .Follow this link for a brief explanation of protocols. Veronica--Indexing Gopher Sites The hundreds, then thousands, of Gopher servers springing up created the need to be able to find specific items among all the Gopher sites. There, Steven Foster of UNR applied the Archie model to Gopherspace, the collection of all items in all Gopher servers in the world, and called it Veronica. That is, he set up a computer to connect to all the registered Gopher servers and directed it to follow their menus, collecting menu and file names as it went. The compilation was searchable, and what was especially nice was that the results showed up as one or more Gopher menus, which the user could follow directly to the files or Gopher servers themselves. As the obvious utility of this system became known, universities around the world began running Veronica servers, which soon forced each to introduce its offerings with an opening screen that allows the user to select a server and type of search to use. See Figure 1-9 for an example of the selection screen and Figure 1-10 for the results of a search on the word Gambia. The dynamic nature of this database meant that you could do a Veronica search one day and find three matches and then the next day do the same search and find 10 or 12 more, depending on what had been added. Suddenly, Gopher became much more powerful--instead of working your way through menu after menu, you could connect to a Veronica server and search all the menus and files with a specific word or phrase that might appear in their titles.Wide Area Information Server WAIS WAIS pronounced ways , started in 1988, was an experimental project designed to come up with easier ways to search Internet files for content. The team was headed by Brewster Kahle, then of Thinking Machines Corporation a producer of parallel-processing computers , in cooperation with Apple Computer, Dow Jones, and KPMG Peat Marwick. The goal was to create a way to easily search large amounts of text, images, or other files scattered among different computers. Based on the ANSI standard search-and-retrieval protocol Z39.50, then under development, WAIS allows users to type in a question in their natural language--it does not force the user to learn and use a particular computer language or syntax. The WAIS protocol then does the dirty work of translating the query into a WAIS computer language query format and sends it off to various WAIS servers on the Internet. The servers in turn search their full-text indexes and return to the user a list of hits, or matches, ranked by how well they match the original query.The companies that had formed the development team made the details and program source code for WAIS publicly available because they realized that WAIS would be much more useful--and have a shot at becoming an industry standard--if it were commonly accepted and used by others across the Internet. Although WAIS as a front end, or client, hasn t caught on nearly as well as Gopher or WWW, it has become the search mechanism of choice, running in the background of other front-end systems. World-Wide Web WWW The World-Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 in an attempt to efficiently store research data at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Berners-Lee, a consultant with a background in text-processing software development, wanted a system that would make it easy for various researchers to build up separate bodies of information and then link them electronically by matching the real links in the information such as going from a file about horses to more specific files about thoroughbreds, quarter horses, or Olympic three-day eventing . He based the system on the concept of hypertext, or text with links that can be followed electronically to other documents, files, sounds, images, or even programs. The main advantages, or power, of hypertext lie in its ability to link diff erent pieces of information in simple ways, at exactly the spot at which you thought of the connection. In a way, hypertext links are like footnotes, except that they are easier to follow and can be of any length. For example, if this page were hypertext, it could have links to the history of hypertext, examples of hypertext, and even a video of someone discussing hypertext.The World-Wide Web system is known by various names. WWW, W3, and Web are intuitive, but because it uses the HyperText Transfer Protocol HTTP and HyperText Markup Language HTML , the servers are technically called HTTP servers.One important contribution of WWW was the Uniform Resource Locator URL . This address system allows you to declare the name and port number a port is like a doorway, or loading dock, of a computer of the host computer, the protocol type of connection, such as FTP, Gopher, and so on , and the directory path and file name, all on one line. Net users made it common practice to include a URL for their home page a personal spot on the Web at the end of their e-mail messages.The other main innovation of WWW was HTML, or HyperText Markup Language. Briefly Chapter 4 goes into more depth , HTML is a relatively simple set of codes that turns ordinary text into hypertext when viewed by a WWW browser. In other words, an HTML file created on a Macintosh will look pretty much the same when viewed on a PC or a UNIX workstation. The ability to move a single file between different types of computer systems and have it work the same way in all of them is called portability, an essential ingredient when you want the whole world to use something. Although WWW was seeing some success--the number of servers was increasing steadily--the creation of a WWW browser called Mosaic by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications NCSA in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, led to an explosion of interest in WWW. This program, which was being given away free, was created first for X-Windows on UNIX and soon after for Macintosh and PCs running Microsoft Windows. Gopher was nice and easy to use, but Mosaic was fun and much more impressive in what it could display, mostly because publishers could interweave text and images in documents to create the equivalent of a glossy brochure distributed on the Internet. Among the more popular early demonstrations of WWW was a tour of the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois. Gopher could provide the same information but as menus, and the user could look at one element at a time but not the whole thing. That is, with Gopher you keep coming back to a menu from which you choose a text file, an image file, or a sound file.This difference has a big effect on the visual effects of a document browsed on the Internet. Imagine being able to use buttons or links from the colorful WWW page that activate sound files or run movie files that start as soon as you select that button. But WWW and Mosaic were designed in high-intensity computing environments, in which all participants had fast Internet connections and sophisticated workstations although they will work on a 386 PC running Windows with a 14,400-baud modem . When you start publishing on the Internet, it is good to remember that many people who want access to your information may in fact have slow Internet connections and not very powerful computers. If your company s home page takes 10 minutes to download and can only be appreciated on a top-of-the-line workstation, you may not get the audience you want. The reality of WWW is that graphic presentations are more attractive and exciting than plain text, but people won t see them if it takes five minutes or more for those images to appear on their screens. Your images won t slow down text-only Web browsers like Lynx because Lynx simply ignores them , but those using text-mode browsers won t see and enjoy your images. Summary Internet publishing consists of posting or putting material on the Internet where it can be viewed or downloaded from other computers. This process has evolved both in the user interface and in the tools that have been built to enable people to find them. We ve covered a lot of ground in this chapter, so let s review the terms--you re going to need them to understand the rest of this book: FTP File Transfer Protocol is a tried-and-true method for transferring files, but users have to know which computer has the directory and file they want, and the process is confusing to the novice. Archie is a program that actively goes out and indexes all the known anonymous FTP servers and makes that information freely available via the Archie client program. Gopher presents menus that lead to files that you can view easily, as well as links to other servers. The links are easy for the novice to follow, but with thousands of Gopher servers all over the world, finding what you want is often a problem. WAIS creates indexes of the full text of files, which it then allows you to search by writing a simple query in natural language. It then applies that query to a collection of full-text indexes, supplying you with a list of those documents that most closely match. For example, a search on wine might list hundreds of documents that you can then narrow down to those wines from California or Chile or France. Unfortunately, it does not lend itself to Veronica or Archie searches, although new indexing methods are being developed with a great deal of success.Three of the most popular publishing protocols are Gopher, World-Wide Web WWW , and Wide Area Information Server WAIS . They are three different protocols, or techniques for doing basically the same thing--locating a computer that has something you want, connecting to it, finding the file you re interested in, and then downloading or viewing it. Each consists of computers that act as servers, which wait for requests from other computers clients , and then send the files you request back over the Internet.This chapter discusses the groundwork you ll need to do and some of the steps involved in publishing on the Internet. Take a look at the list in the sidebar on page 20, and then we ll go through the steps one by one. Later, in Chapters 3, 4, and 5 on Gopher, WWW, and WAIS, we ll go through these steps in detail for each type of Internet server and use examples. You need not go through all these steps now, and they are not meant to scare you off or make the process seem intimidating. Instead, they are meant as a guideline or sort of check list for you to use to keep track of all the various elements involved. Joining the Internet Community Think of the Internet as a place to which you are moving and that you want to fit into. Your first job is to join the Internet community in the sense of learning how to make your way around and how to fit in. On the Internet you ll find a community of individuals, companies, and organizations that are discussing issues, modifying software, and creating new tools and techniques for publishing on the Internet, as well as publishing the most amazing variety of information. Keeping abreast of their activities through Usenet newsgroups and e-mail mailing lists and tracking the relevant subjects through Gopher and WWW indexes are essential parts of your publishing process because, like it or not, you are joining a community, and you need to be aware of what s going on out there. The first step is to start getting to know the people, organizations, and issues that shape what you do on the Internet.Now we ll go through the kinds of resources you ll come across and explain them in a little more detail. Later on, in Chapters 3, 4, and 5 on Gopher, WWW, and WAIS, you ll find tables of resources for each kind of server.Usenet Newsgroups Usenet News is an extremely large, international, cooperatively run system for exchanging messages.clarinet.com that provides Associated Press and Reuters newsfeeds through Usenet News for a fee. Disk space often is the limiting factor because a full Usenet newsfeed, consisting of all messages from all newsgroups all over the Internet, generates more than 5,400 megabytes per month. A newsgroup is basically a subject area that is created so that those who are interested in that subject may exchange messages.newusers.questions and news.announce.newusers. Other categories are often specific to a country or a university.News-reading programs exist for almost any computer platform conceivable--from mainframes to plain vanilla DOS PCs. I saw more than 8,000 newsgroups when I did this last at the University of California at Los Angeles, but UCLA has a Clarinet feed, which adds several thousand newsgroups. You then select those newsgroups to which you wish to subscribe. There s no charge unless you license a commercial service such as Clarinet. This isn t a permanent decision--it just helps narrow the focus a little. Once you ve subscribed to some newsgroups, you ll see depending on your news reader a number of threads or discussion chains.unc.edu usenet-b home.html Usenet newsgroups are an extremely dynamic source of information on the Internet. Asking questions is fine after you ve monitored the group for a little while and looked at any FAQ Frequently Asked Questions files available. Alternative newsgroups are the easiest to create, and they are often formed as an immediate reaction to something, either a new piece of software or a new protocol or just an idea. Later, if a subject gains wider interest, it might be voted in as an official newsgroup in comp or one of the other domains.Here are some newsgroups to check out.infosystems discusses various types of information servers, past, present, and future. infosystems.announce lists new information servers.answers is where many newsgroups post their FAQs and other documentation files.answers is a good way to keep track of at least some ways in which the Internet is growing.FAQ Frequently Asked Questions Files FAQ files are often extremely useful repositories of beginner and intermediate questions in different areas. They are usually composed by the regular readers of a newsgroup, so that habitués aren t constantly distracted by questions from newcomers.FAQs pop up on the most amazing subjects, and they are periodically reposted to the Usenet newsgroup alt.answers. Check out Figure 2-1 for the first of 28 screens of the FAQ archive at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT .mit.edu pub usenet news.answers . RFCs RFCs Requests for Comment are a valuable resource for the more technically inclined; I mention them here because they demonstrate an important part of Internet culture: the development of new technology through open and widespread discussion. First, someone develops an idea which could be a new protocol, standard, or even a new type of service or specific tool ; when they start to get serious about it, they write up an RFC document, which describes the idea in detail.Eventually, either the idea dies because of lack of interest, or it becomes a recognized guidepost standard has a more official meaning for Internet programmers, developers, and users.RFCs are available online via Gopher, FTP, and e-mail.internic.net:70 00 rfc rfc-retrieval.internic.net rfc .internic.net or call 800-444-4345 choose prompt 3 from the InterNIC voicemail menu . Mailing Lists Mailing lists are e-mail-based systems for carrying on discussion groups. Note: You ll hear these referred to as list servers or listservs as well, but list servers are actually the hardware software for mailing list administration. Basically, a computer is set up to accept mail at a certain address and redirect it to all members of the list. One advantage of mailing lists is that you will get the messages whether you look for them or not, usually within a few hours of when they are sent.Additionally, most mailing lists have archives, in which all their correspondence is saved. When you join a mailing list, you usually will receive a message that describes all the commands available for that list. If it doesn t, or if you don t want to subscribe to the list, try searching some Internet indexers to see if someone has put together an archive for that particular mailing list.internic.net--This announcements-only mailing list is for anyone interested in getting current information about InterNIC and the services it provides.internic.net, and in the body of the message type Subscribe announce your name . internic.net--This moderated list each message is approved or controlled by the moderator is intended for staff at midlevel, campus, and discipline-specific network information centers NICs . Content includes InterNIC services aimed specifically at NICs, and mail sent to this list will be oriented to providing services, including new training resources and documentation, to end users.internic.net in the body of the message type Subscribe nics your name . internic.net--This announcements-only list is a group effort of people all over the Internet to concentrate announcements of new resources on one list. If you would like more information about participating in the Net resources list by becoming a monitor, send a note to scout internic.net.internic.net; in the body of the message type Subscribe net-resources your name . RFC announcements are distributed via two mailing lists: the IETF-Announce list IETF stands for Internet Engineering Task Force , and the RFC-DIST list.reston.va.us.DDN.MIL.Magazines and Journals Print Newsstand and postal subscription magazines and journals that focus entirely on the Internet are starting to arrive on the scene, and established magazines are paying more attention to the Internet and the subject of cyberspace.Internet Business Advantage com.Internet Business Journal phoenix.ca sie iar-home.html .phoenix.ca sie ibj-home.html ; 613-565-0982; fax 613-565-4433; e-mail strangelove.comsubscriptions.Internet World com; http: www.mecklerweb.com NetGuide , bills itself as the Guide to Online Services and the Internet. It is available at newsstands.cmp.cmp.com net .Wired com for details.hotwired.com .S.; fax 415-222-6399; e-mail talkzsubs wired.com.Online Magazines and Journals Online magazines are growing rapidly. In the list that follows I ve included both print magazines that are starting to offer some or all of their text online, as well as true online magazines and journals that are published entirely on the Internet. Some are specifically oriented to Internet publishing issues, whereas others are computer magazines that talk about Internet issues, among other things.Computer-Mediated Communications Magazinei It is edited by John December, co-author of World Wide Web Unleashed, and reports on people, events, technology, public policy, culture, practices, research, and applications of computer-mediated communication.unc.edu cmc mag current toc.html GNN Global Network Navigator This WWW site developed by O Reilly and Associates publishers of Ed Krol s Whole Internet User s Guide and Catalog is one of the best and most popular examples of Internet publishing.digital.com gnn GNNhome.html HotWired These include technology, way new journalism, the arts, commerce, and electronic conversation.wired.com Public-Access Computer Systems Review This free journal published by the University of Houston is primarily aimed at librarians and others who maintain publicly accessible computers.lib.uh.edu:70 11 articles e-journals uhlibrary pacsreview San Jose Mercury News This daily newspaper in California s Silicon Valley has tons of computer industry and Internet news and is available by online subscription.sjmercury.com St.times.stpete.fl.us default.html TechWeb , offers links to many of the CMP magazines, including Communications Week, Comm Week International, Computer Reseller News, Computer Retail Week, Electronic Buyers News, Electronic Engineering Times, Home PC, Information Week , Interactive Age, Internet Business Report, Netguide, Network Computing, OEM Magazine, Open Systems Today, VAR Business, and Windows Magazine. The search feature is WAIS based, and you can choose all magazines or just specific ones and then perform the search.techweb.com Ziff-Davis Publishing This site offers links to many of the Ziff-Davis magazines, including PC Magazine, PCWeek, PC Computing, MacWeek, MacUser, Computer Shopper, and Windows Sources.ziff.com Also see this index of online journals: http: www.w3.org hypertext DataSources bySubject Electronic Journals.html . Internet Sites and Services of Interest to Internet Publishers Look around the Internet for relevant standards and operating procedures. The point is to be a good Internet citizen.The following sites offer Internet guidelines and reference information that you might find useful: InterNIC The service areas are Information Services run by General Atomics , Directory and Database Services run by AT T , and Registration Services by Network Solutions, Inc.internic.net or http: www.internic.net One particularly useful site provided by InterNIC is its archive, Internet Documentation RFCs, FYIs For Your Information files , and so on .internic.net:70 11 .ds .internetdocs Quality, Guidelines, and Standards for Internet Information Resources This is a collaborative gathering of thoughts and ideas on the subject of improving information servers of all kinds. Among other lists and documents to which it provides links is Top Ten Things Not to Do on a Web Page. http: coombs.anu.edu.au SpecialProj QLTY QltyHome.html The Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters, and Academic Discussion Lists cni.org:70 11 scomm edir Organizations and Associations You may not be a joiner, but you should be aware of these organizations, because they will be helping to shape the Internet in the years to come: The Internet Society This international nonprofit society s principal purpose is to maintain and extend the development and availability of the Internet and its associated technologies and applications--both as an end in itself, and as a means of enabling organizations, professions, and individuals worldwide to more effectively collaborate, cooperate, and innovate in their respective fields and interests. It offers both individual and organization memberships.isoc.org gopher: gopher.isoc.org ftp: ftp.isoc.org isoc The Electronic Frontier Foundation EFF The EFF is a nonprofit civil liberties organization working to protect freedom of expression, privacy, and access to online resources and information. It was founded in July 1990 by John Barlow, Mitch Kapor founder of Lotus , Steve Wozniak cofounder of Apple , and others to ensure that the principles embodied in the U.S.S.eff.org .org.Internet Engineering Task Force IETF The IETF is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet.ietf.cnri.reston.va.us The World-Wide Web Consortium W3C W3C operates under the leadership of Tim Berners-Lee, the author of WWW, and was formed to document and encourage the development of a common set of tools and basic programs for continued WWW development.w3.org Electronic Privacy Information Center EPIC C., is a public interest organization established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging privacy issues relating to the National Information Infrastructure better known as the Information Superhighway , such as the Clipper Chip, the Digital Telephony proposal, medical records privacy, national identification systems, and the sale of consumer data. EPIC publishes online newsletters and reports, pursues litigation under the Freedom of Information Act, and conducts policy research on emerging privacy issues.digicash.com epic or send e-mail to info epic.org.Internet Indexers and Directories Many excellent books and online guides are available if you need help finding what s out there.Make notes as you search through this material, because later you will want to be sure that your service is listed in these indexes, directories, newsgroups, and mailing lists.Also, learn from your competitors. Pay attention to how servers are set up and how documents are arranged, as well as what special features they provide to their users. For example, many sites allow you to search by key term, but one equipment manufacturer allows you to search by picture.Pay attention to feedback, searching, and charging mechanisms to see how easy and intuitive they are to use and which charging systems they are using. Netiquette Netiquette, short for network etiquette, is important. Likewise, it is far easier to take offense because online interaction excludes nuances of rhythm, mood, and context and all body language. Although flame wars angry messages are called flames have often broken out on unmoderated mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups, no one encourages the practice. Watch or lurk for a while in any mailing list or newsgroup to get a feel for the tone and to avoid asking newbie newcomer questions. No matter how strongly you feel about a subject, it is not appropriate to send information or opinions about it to unrelated groups.Most books about exploring the Internet talk about Internet manners, but you might want to look at Netiquette by Virginia Shea, published by Albion Books.bookport.com Albion catNetiquette.html Identifying Your Competition A word about competition might be appropriate here.Competition may not be quite the right word in your case, depending on the nature of the server and service you want to establish. Ideally, your server can work in combination with others to provide broader, more detailed resources to the Internet community instead of striving to kill someone off. Remember, the Internet has reached today s interesting state only because of the incredible spirit of cooperation that it has somehow inspired. Finding what s out there in your area of expertise is essential. For example, suppose for some reason you decided that your goal in life was to put up a WWW site dedicated to the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. Once you were finished, wouldn t you be surprised to learn that five other sites one each in the United States, France, Holland, Sweden, and Norway already are dedicated to Calvin and Hobbes ?eng.hawaii.edu Contribs justin Archive Index.html Defining Your Goals What can you sensibly hope to attain by publishing on the Internet?Or you might want to publish on the Internet because doing so decreases the amount of time your staff spends searching for or providing information, because you want to experiment with new technology that may benefit you or your company, or because you want to sell things and make money. One advantage of defining your goals early is that it enables you to look at how others are achieving similar goals. You can become more analytical as you scour the Internet, noting the techniques each site uses and adding them to your repertoire. And I should say something about experimenting and keeping your goals loosely defined. More than one company has found that a side benefit of publishing on the Internet became more important and potentially more profitable than its original goal., a builder of electrical connectors, started with the idea of putting its catalog of 80,000 parts on CD-ROMs. In the process the company developed a unique scheme for finding exactly the right part by picture, name, or part number.Identifying Your Audience What do you know about your audience? If you want to publish information about Macintosh computers, you ll be able to store files in Macintosh formats and ignore other file formats. On the other hand, if you want all those interested in political science to read your work--no matter whether they re coming from a Macintosh, Sun Microsystems workstation, PC, or mainframe--you should plan to put all your documents in a portable format such as plain text or HTML or in a variety of formats. Who is going to be happy to see your information on the Internet? If the members of your audience tend to flock to certain newsgroups or e-mail lists, you ll want to be sure to announce your server in those places. If someone is already doing this, you might consider offering to mirror, or duplicate, their service as a way to decrease the load on their server or staff.LOCATION For example, if you want to sell a service to an institution with a clearly defined range of Internet Protocol IP addresses, you could rely on the IP screening capabilities in almost all Gopher, WWW, and WAIS servers. However, if your users will be scattered all over the Internet, you might have to use individual password-based authentication instead, which is technologically more difficult and requires much more administrative overhead. EQUIPMENT Do you expect that your audience will primarily be dialing in from home, or will your clients have direct cable connections to the Internet? For dial-ins you ll want to make sure that downloading information over a slow modem does not take forever more than a minute or two , and if it does, perhaps you should rethink the information you want to display.CHARACTERISTICS SECURITY AND ACCESS What If I Don t Know? If you don t know what kind of audience to expect, you should consider adding a poll to your server. That way you can learn more about the people who connect to your server and decide later whether to focus more narrowly or broadly. Don t forget the possibility of contacting other, more experienced Web, Gopher, or WAIS providers to find out what they think you might expect. Identifying Your Data The point I m trying to make is that you need to identify and analyze the type of information files you want to make available on the Internet. Will you be making announcements, offering catalogs, posting press releases, product information, technical documents, collections of quotations, collections of photos, previews of movies, or the latest stock market quote? Will it be plain text, formatted text, hypertext, sound, picture, video, program to be run, program to be downloaded, or something else? In addition, think through what happens after your server is set up. If your data are timely, you should plan to update regularly, and be sure that the date you last updated the file is a prominent feature.Another part of identifying your data consists of finding and recruiting information providers, or those people or organizations that will provide you with what you plan to publish. For example, you might provide company press releases and arrange for the public relations departments to supply them to you with dates for posting and removal.Identifying Your Needs Internet publishing can be done with little cost and time, or it can be a massive million-dollar effort. Hardware Given the kind of informat