oniÓÁ ======== Veronica is a "Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives." Veronica's name is a play on the concepts of both gopher and archie. (Remember the comic book couple Archie and Veronica? Veronica does for gopher what archie does for anonymous FTP.) Veronica searches through hundreds of gopher holes looking for anything that matches a keyword supplied by the user, and assembles a list of gopher servers that contain items of interest. Note: veronica checks *titles* of gopher items only, not their contents. At present, there are no veronica clients; veronica is a gopher tool. An informal veronica FAQ is posted regularly in `comp.infosystems.gopher' and archived on `veronica.scs.unr.edu' as `veronica/veronica-faq'. Wide-Area Information Servers ============================= Now you know there are hundreds of databases and library catalogs you can search through. But as you look, you begin to realize that each seems to have its own unique method for searching. If you connect to several, this can become a pain. Gophers reduce this problem somewhat. Wide-area information servers promise another way to zero in on information hidden on the Net. In a WAIS, the user sees only one interface - the program worries about how to access information on dozens, even hundreds, of different databases. You tell give a WAIS a word and it scours the net looking for places where it's mentioned. You get a menu of documents, each ranked according to how relevant to your search the WAIS thinks it is. Like gophers, WAIS "client" programs can already be found on many public-access Internet sites. If it does, type swais at the command line and hit enter (the "s" stands for "simple"). If it doesn't, telnet to bbs.oit.unc.edu, which is run by the University of North Carolina At the "login:" prompt, type bbs and hit enter. You'll be asked to register and will then get a list of "bulletins," which are various files explaining how the system works. When done with those, hit your Q key and you'll get another menu. Hit 4 for the "simple WAIS client," and you'll see something like this: SWAIS Source Selection Sources: 23# Server Source Cost 001: [ archie.au] aarnet-resource-guide Free 002: [ archive.orst.edu] aeronautics Free 003: [nostromo.oes.orst.ed] agricultural-market-news Free 004: [sun-wais.oit.unc.edu] alt-sys-sun Free 005: [ archive.orst.edu] alt.drugs Free 006: [ wais.oit.unc.edu] alt.gopher Free 007: [sun-wais.oit.unc.edu] alt.sys.sun Free 008: [ wais.oit.unc.edu] alt.wais Free 009: [ archive.orst.edu] archie-orst.edu Free 010: [ archie.au] archie.au-amiga-readmes Free 011: [ archie.au] archie.au-ls-lRt Free 012: [ archie.au] archie.au-mac-readmes Free 013: [ archie.au] archie.au-pc-readmes Free 014: [ pc2.pc.maricopa.edu] ascd-education Free 015: [ archie.au] au-directory-of-servers Free 016: [ cirm2.univ-mrs.fr] bib-cirm Free 017: [ cmns-sun.think.com] bible Free 018: [ zenon.inria.fr] bibs-zenon-inria-fr Free Keywords: selects, w for keywords, arrows move, searches, q quits, ? Each line represents a different database (the .au at the end of some of them means they are in Australia; the .fr on the last line represents a database in France). And this is just the first page! If you type a capital K, you'll go to the next page (there are several pages). Hitting a capital J will move you back a page. The first thing you want to do is tell the WAIS program which databases you want searched. To select a database, move the cursor bar over the line you want (using your down and up arrow keys) and hit your space bar. An asterisk will appear next to the line number. Repeat this until you've selected all of the databases you want searched. Then hit your W key, after which you'll be prompted for the key words you're looking for. You can type in an entire line of these words - separate each with a space, not a comma. Hit return, and the search begins. Let's say you're utterly fascinated with wheat. So you might select agricultural-market-news to find its current world price. But you also want to see if it has any religious implications, so you choose the Bible and the Book of Mormon. What do you do with the stuff? Select recipes and usenet-cookbook. Are there any recent Supreme Court decisions involving the plant? Chose supreme-court. How about synonyms? Try roget-thesaurus and just plain thesaurus. Now hit w and type in wheat. Hit enter, and the WAIS program begins its search. As it looks, it tells you whether any of the databases are offline, and if so, when they might be ready for a search. In about a minute, the program tells you how many hits it's found. Then you get a new menu, that looks something like this: Keywords: # Score SourceTitleLines 001: [1000] (roget-thesaurus) #465. [results of comparison. 1] Di 19 002: [1000] (roget-thesaurus) #609. Choice. -- N. choice, option; 36 003: [1000] (roget-thesaurus) #465. [results of comparison. 1] Di 19 004: [1000] (roget-thesaurus) #609. Choice. -- N. choice, option; 36 005: [1000] (recipes) aem@mthvax Re: MONTHLY: Rec.Food.Recipes 425 006: [1000] ( Book_of_Mormon) Mosiah 9:96 007: [1000] ( Book_of_Mormon) 3 Nephi 18:185 008: [1000] (agricultural-ma) Re: JO GR115, WEEKLY GRAIN82 009: [ 822] (agricultural-ma) Re: WA CB351 PROSPECTIVE PLANTINGS 552 010: [ 800] ( recipes) kms@apss.a Re: REQUEST: Wheat-free, Suga 35 011: [ 750] (agricultural-ma) Re: WA CB101 CROP PRODUCTION258 012: [ 643] (agricultural-ma) Re: SJ GR850 DAILY NAT GRN SUM72 013: [ 400] ( recipes) pat@jaamer Re: VEGAN: Honey Granola63 014: [ 400] ( recipes) jrtrint@pa Re: OVO-LACTO: Sourdough/Trit 142 Each of these represents an article or citing that contains the word wheat, or some related word. Move the cursor bar (with the down and up arrow keys) to the one you want to see, hit enter, and it will begin to appear on your screen. The "score" is a WAIS attempt to gauge how closely the citing matches your request. Doesn't look like the Supreme Court has had anything to say about the plant of late! Now think of how much time you would have spent logging onto various databases just to find these relatively trivial examples. But as more databases are added to WAIS programs, a problem arises that is similar to the one WAISs were supposed to solve: how do you find the specific databases you want? Scrolling through page after page of database listings becomes rather tedious rather quickly and you could wind up missing the one database you really need. That's the next step in WAIS research. World-Wide Web ============== Developed by researchers at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, the World-Wide Web project is somewhat similar to a WAIS. But it's designed on a system known as hypertext. Words in one document are "linked" to other documents. It's sort of like sitting with an encyclopedia - you're reading one article, see a reference that intrigues you and so you flip the pages to look up that reference. To take a walk on The Web try the WWW's (or W3 in the project's own jargon), default telnet site: info.cern.ch No log in is needed. When you connect, you'll see: Overview of the Web GENERAL OVERVIEW There is no "top" to the World-Wide Web. You can look at it from many points of view. If you have no other bias, here are some places to start: by Subject[1] A classification by subject of interest. Incomplete but easiest to use. by Type[2] Looking by type of service (access protocol, etc) may allow to find things if you know what you are looking for. About WWW[3] About the World-Wide Web global information sharing project Starting somewhere else To use a different default page, perhaps one representing your field of interest, see "customizing your home page"[4]. What happened to CERN? 1-6, Up, for more, Quit, or Help: Ok. Now type `3', and get the following screen: The World Wide Web project WORLD WIDE WEB The WorldWideWeb (W3) is a wide-area hypermedia[1] information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents. Everything there is online about W3 is linked directly or indirectly to this document, including an executive summary[2] of the project, an illustrated talk[3] , Mailing lists[4] , Policy[5] and Conditions[6] , May's W3 news[7] , Frequently Asked Questions[8] . What's out there?[9] Pointers to the world's online information, subjects[10] , W3 servers[11] , etc. WWW Software Products[12] What there is and how to get it: clients, servers and tools. Technical[13] Details of protocols, formats, program internals etc Bibliography[14] Paper documentation on W3 and references. Also: manuals[15] . 1-20, Back, Up, for more, Quit, or Help: You navigate the web by typing the number next to a given reference. So if you want to know more about the web, hit 2. This is another system that bears playing with. ólients ======= If you are used to plain-vanilla Unix or MS-DOS, then the way these gophers and WAISs work seems quite straightforward. But if you're used to a computer with a graphical interface, such as a Macintosh, an IBM compatible with Windows or a Next, you'll probably regard their interfaces as somewhat primitive. There are, however, ways to integrate these services into your graphical user interface. In fact, there are now ways to tie into the Internet directly, rather than relying on whatever interface your public-access system uses. There is now a growing number of these "client" programs for everything from ftp to gopher. PSI of Reston, Va., which offers nationwide Internet access, in fact, requires its customers to use these programs. Using protocols known as SLIP and PPP, these programs communicate with the Net using the same basic data packets as much larger computers online. Beyond integration with your own computer's "desktop," client programs let you do more than one thing at once on the net - while your downloading a large file in one window, you can be chatting with a friend through an Internet chat program in another. These client programs have a couple of disadvantages. One is that you'll need a 9600-baud modem - while it is possible to connect to the Net with them at lower speeds, you will likely find them painfully slow. Not all public-access sites are set up to allow such connections. And those that are usually charge far more for them. Your system administrator can give you more information on setting up one of these connections. FYI: ==== See the Usenet newsgroups `comp.infosystems.*': `comp.infosystems.gopher', `comp.infosystems.wais', and `comp.infosystems.www' are places to go for technical discussions about Gopher, WAISs, and the World-Wide Web project respectively. Moreover there are `comp.infosystems' for more general discussion of related issues. The group `comp.infosystems.gis' relates to Geographic Information Systems, and thus is more specialized on this subject. There even exists a Gopher service to read Usenet news: `gopher gopher.msu.edu 4320'. But, the lines behind this service are few, and thus it's likely that you get the following message, when trying to enter: We are sorry, but our Usenet News gateway limits the number of simultaneous connections. If you were attempting to read news and were instead directed to this file, all of those connections are in use. We offer this gateway as a "last resort" for people who have no other access for reading Usenet. We do not have the capacity to serve as the Usenet gateway for large numbers of users around the Internet. Individuals who like this style of access should ask their Internet service providers to offer the same sort of gateway on their local Gopher server. Individuals and campuses should consider installing local news feeds and local news readers (such as RN, NN, TIN, or Trumpet) so that users can read and post to Usenet newsgroups conveniently. For system administrators: the software we use to implement this gateway is the go4gw Gopher gateway software from Roland Schemers of Stanford University. This software should be available by anonymous ftp from boombox.micro.umn.edu, somewhere under /pub/gopher. -- The Michigan State University Gopher Team *"Reliable information is the basis of successful planning."* -- Christoph Columbus  * Advanced E-mail *  *************** E-mail by itself is a powerful tool, and by now you may be sending e-mail messages all over the place. You might even be on a mailing list or two. But there is a lot more to e-mail than just sending messages. If your host system does not have access to ftp, or it doesn't have access to every ftp site on the Net, you can have programs and files sent right to your mailbox. And using some simple techniques, you can use e-mail to send data files such as spreadsheets, or even whole programs, to friends and colleagues around the world. A key to both is a set of programs known as encoders and decoders. For all its basic power, Net e-mail has a big problem: it can't handle graphics characters or the control codes found in even the simplest of computer programs. Encoders however, can translate these into forms usable in e-mail, while decoders turn them back into a form that you can actually use. If you are using a Unix-based host system, chances are it already has an encoder and decoder online that you can use. These programs will also let you use programs posted in several Usenet newsgroups, such as `comp.binaries.ibm.pc'. To help people without ftp access, a number of ftp sites have set up mail servers (also known as archive servers) that allow you to get files via e-mail. You send a request to one of these machines and they send back the file you want. As with ftp, you'll be able to find everything from historical documents to software (but please note that if you do have access to ftp, that method is always quicker and ties up fewer resources than using e-mail). Some interesting or useful mail servers include: Files of "frequently asked questions" related to Usenet; state-by-state lists of U.S. representatives and Senators and their addresses and office phone numbers. Information about the Electronic Frontier Foundation; documents about legal issues on the Net. Back copies of the Computer Underground Digest and every possible fact you could want to know about "The Simpsons." Programs for many types of personal computers; archives of past postings from many Usenet newsgroups. Space-related text and graphics (GIF-format) files. Detailed information about Internet. Most mail servers work pretty much the same - you send an e-mail message that tells them what file you want and how you want it sent to you. The most important command is "send," which tells the computer you want it to send you a particular file. First, though, you'll need to know where the mail server stores that file, because you have to tell it which directory or sub-directory it's in. There are a couple of ways to do this. You can send an e-mail message to the archive-server that consists of one line: index The server will then send you a directory listing of its main, or root directory. You'll then have to send a second message to the archive server with one line: index directory/subdirectory where that is the directory or directory path for which you want a listing. An alternative is to send an e-mail message to our old friend archie, which should send you back the file's exact location on the archive-server (along with similar listings for all the other sites that may have the file, however) Once you have the file name and its directory path, compose a message to the archive server like this: send directory/subdirectory/file Send off the message and, anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of days later, you'll find a new message in your mailbox: a copy of the file you requested. The exact time it will take a file to get to you depends on a variety of factors, including how many requests are in line before yours (mail servers can only process so many requests at a time) and the state of the connections between the server and you. Seems simple enough. It gets a little more complicated when you request a program rather than a document. Programs or other files that contain unusual characters or lines longer than 130 characters (graphics files, for example) require special processing by both the mail server to ensure they are transmitted via e-mail. Then you'll have to run them through at least one converter program to put them in a form you can actually use. To ensure that a program or other "non-mailable" file actually gets to you, include another line in your e-mail message to the server: encoder This converts the file into an encoded form. To decode it, you'll first have to transfer the file message into a file in your home directory. If you are using the simple mail program, go into mail and type w # file.name where `#' is the number of the message you want to transfer and file.name is what you want to call the resulting file. In pine, call up the message and hit your `O' key and then `E'. You'll then be asked for a file name. In elm, call up the message and hit your `S' key. You'll get something that looks like this: =file.request Type a new file name and hit enter (if you hit enter without typing a file name, the message will be saved to another mail folder, not your home directory). Exit mail to return to your host system's command line. Because the file has been encoded for mail delivery, you now have to run a decoder. At the command line, type uudecode file.name where `file.name' is the file you created while in mail. Uudecode will create a new, uncompressed file. In some cases, you may have to run it through some other programs (for example, if it is in "tar" form), but generally it should now be ready for you to download to your own computer. One further complication comes when you request a particularly long file. Many Net sites can only handle so much mail at a time. To make sure you get the entire file, tell the mail server to break it up into smaller pieces, with another line in your e-mail request like this: size 100000 This gives the mail server the maximum size, in bytes, of each file segment. This particular size is good for UUCP sites. Internet and Bitnet sites can generally go up to 300000. When you get all of these files in mail, transfer them to your home directory. Exit mail and call up each file in your host system's text processor and delete each one's entire header and footer (or "signature" at the end). When done with this, at your host system's command line, type cat file1 file2 >bigfile where file1 is the first file, file2 the second file, and so on. The > tells your host system to combine them into a new megafile called bigfile (or whatever you want to call it). You can then run uudecode, tar, etc. One word of caution, though: if the file you want is long enough that it has to be broken into pieces, think of how much time it's going to take you to download the whole thing - especially if you're using a 2400-baud modem! There are a number of other mail servers. To get a list, send an e-mail message to: send usenet/comp.sources.wanted/How_to_find_sources_(READ_THIS_BEFORE_POSTING) You'll have to spell it exactly as listed above. Some mail servers use different software, which will require slightly different commands than the ones listed here. In general, if you send a message to a mail server that says only help you should get back a file detailing all of its commands. But what if the file you want is not on one of these mail servers? That's where ftpmail comes in. Run by Digital Equipment Corp. in California, this service can connect to almost any ftp site in the world, get the file you want and then mail it to you. Using it is fairly simple - you send an e-mail message to ftpmail that includes a series of commands telling the system where to find the file you want and how to format it to mail to you. Compose an e-mail message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com Leave the "subject:" line blank. Inside the message, there are several commands you can give. The first line should be reply address where "address" is your e-mail address. The next line should be connect host where "host" is the system that has the file you want (for example: wuarchive.wustl.edu). Other commands you should consider using are "binary" (required for program files); "compress" (reduces the file size for quicker transmission) and "uuencode" (which encodes the file so you can do something with it when it arrives). The last line of your message should be the word "quit". Let's say you want a copy of the U.S. constitution. Using archie, you've found a file called, surprise!, `constitution', at the ftp site `archive.cis.ohio-state.edu', in the `/pub/firearms/politics/ rkba' directory. You'd send a message to that looks like this: reply adamg@world.std.com connect archive.cis.ohio-state.edu binary compress uuencode get pub/firearms/politics/rkba/constitution quit When you get the file in your mailbox, use the above procedure for copying it to a file. Run it through uudecode. Then type uncompress file.name to make it usable. Since this was a text file, you could have changed the "binary" to "ascii" and then eliminated the "uuencode" file. For programs, though, you'll want to keep these lines. Sending your own files through the mail ======================================= The uuencode and uudecode programs will also come in handy if you ever want to send your own files to somebody else. If both you and your intended recipient communicate via Unix-based host systems, then it's pretty easy, because almost all Unix host systems will have encoder/decoder programs online. First, upload the file you want to send to your friend to your host site. Ask your system administrator how to upload a file to your name or "home" directory. Then type uuencode file file >file.uu and hit enter. "File" is the name of the file you want to prepare for mailing, and yes, you have to type the name twice! The > is a Unix command that tells the system to call the "encoded" file "file.uu" (you could actually call it anything you want). Now to get it into a mail message. The quick and dirty way is to type mail friend where "friend" is your friend's address. At the subject line, tell her the name of the enclosed file. When you get the blank line, type ~r file.uu or whatever you called the file, and hit enter. (on some systems, the `~' may not work; if so, ask your system administrator what to use). This inserts the file into your mail message. Hit control-D, and your file is on its way! On the other end, when your friend goes into his mailbox, she should transfer it to her home directory. Then your friend should type uudecode file.name and hit enter. This creates a new file in her name directory with whatever name you originally gave it. She can then download it to her own computer. Before she can actually use it, though, she'll have to open it up with a text processor and delete the mail header that has been "stamped" on it. If you use a mailer program that automatically appends a "signature," tell her about that so she can delete that as well. But what if your friend only connects with a non-Unix system, such as CompuServe or MCIMail? There are programs available for MS-DOS, Apple and Amiga computers that will encode and decode files. Of course, since you can't send one of these programs to them via e-mail (how would they un-encode it?), you'll have to mail or give them a diskette with the program on it first. Then, they can get their message, run it through a text editor to delete the header, and finally decode the file. If they want to send you files in return, they'll also want an encoder For MS-DOS machines, you'll want to get `uunecode.com' and `uudecode.com'. Both can be found through anonymous ftp at `wuarchive.wustl.edu' in the `/mirrors/msdos/starter' directory. The MS-DOS version is as easy to use as the Unix one: Just type uudecode filename.ext and hit enter. Mac users should get a program called uutool, which can be found in the `info-mac/util' directory on `sumex-aim.stanford.edu'. Once again, be careful with large files. Although large sites connected directly to the Internet can probably handle mega-files, many smaller systems cannot. Some commercial systems, such as CompuServe and MCIMail limit the size of mail messages their users can receive. Fidonet doesn't even allow encoded messages. In general, a file size of 30,000 or so bytes is a safe upper limit for non-Internet systems. One other thing you can do through e-mail is consult with the Usenet Oracle. You can ask the Oracle anything at all and get back an answer (whether you like the answer is another question). First, you'll want to get instructions on how to address the Oracle (he, or she, or it, is very particular about such things and likes being addressed in august, solemn and particularly sycophantic tones). Start an e-mail message to oracle@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu In the "subject:" line, type help and hit enter. You don't actually have to say anything in the message itself - at least not yet. Hit control-D to send off your request for help. Within a few hours, the Oracle will mail you back detailed instructions. It's a fairly long file, so before you start reading it, turn on your communications software's logging function, to save it to your computer (or save the message to a file on your host system's home directory and then download the file). After you've digested it, you can compose your question to the Oracle. Mail it to the above address, only this time with a subject line that describes your question. Expect an answer within a couple of days. And don't be surprised if you also find a question in your mailbox - the Oracle extracts payment by making seekers of knowledge answer questions as well! *"If just one piece of mail gets lost, well, they'll just think they forgot to send it. But if *two* pieces of mail get lost, hell, they'll just think the other guy hasn't gotten around to answering his mail. And if *fifty* pieces of mail get lost, can you imagine it, if *fifty* pieces of mail get lost, why they'll think someone *else* is broken! And if 1GB of mail gets lost, they'll just *know* that Arpa is down and think it's a conspiracy to keep them from their God given right to receive Net Mail ..."* -- Leith `Casey' Leedom  * News of the World *  ***************** Usenet "newsgroups" can be something of a misnomer. They may be interesting, informative and educational, but they are often not news, at least, not what you'd think of as news. But there are several sources of news, sports and weather on the Net. One of the largest is *Clarinet*, a company in Cupertino, Calf., that distributes wire-service news and columns, along with a news service devoted to computers, in Usenet form. *USA Today* also has a presence on the Net, through the Cleveland Free-Net system, and we'll show you how to get news of eastern Europe and Brazil as well. Distributed in Usenet form, Clarinet stories and columns are organized into more than 100 newsgroups (in this case, a truly appropriate name), some of them with an extremely narrow focus, for example, `clari.news.gov.taxes'. The general news and sports come from United Press International; the computer news from the NewsBytes service; the features from several syndicates. Because Clarinet charges for its service, not all host systems carry its dispatches. Those that do carry them as Usenet groups starting with `clari.*' As with other Usenet hierarchies, these are named starting with broad area and ending with more specific categories. Some of these include business news (`clari.biz'); general national and foreign news, politics and the like (`clari.news'), sports (`clari.sports'); columns by MIKE ROYKO, MISS MANNERS, DAVE BARRY and others (`clari.feature'); and NewsBytes computer and telecommunications reports (`clari.nb'). Because Clarinet started in Canada, there is a separate set of `clari.canada' newsgroups. The clari.nb newsgroups are divided into specific computer types (`clari.nb.apple', for example). Clari news groups feature stories updated around the clock. There are even a couple of "bulletin" newsgroups for breaking stories: `clari.news.bulletin' and `clari.news.urgent'. Clarinet also sets up new newsgroups for breaking stories that become ongoing ones (such as major natural disasters, coups in large countries and the like). Occasionally, you will see stories in clari newsgroups that just don't seem to belong there. Stories about former Washington, D.C. mayor MARION BARRY, for example, often wind interspersed among columns by DAVE BARRY. This happens because of the way wire services work. UPI uses three-letter codes to route its stories to the newspapers and radio stations that make up most of its clientele, and harried editors on deadline sometimes punch in the wrong code. USA TodaÕ ========= If your host system doesn't carry the clari newsgroups, you might be able to keep up with the news a different way over the Net. USA Today has been something of an online newspaper pioneer, selling its stories to bulletin-board and online systems across the country. Cleveland Free-Net provides the online version of USA Today (along with all its other services) for free. Currently, the paper only publishes five days a week, so you'll have to get your weekend news fix elsewhere. Telnet: `freenet-in-a.cwru.edu' or `freenet-in-b.cwru.edu' After you connect and log in, look for this menu entry: NPTN/USA TODAY HEADLINE NEWS. Type the number next to it and hit enter. You'll then get a menu listing a series of broad categories, such as sports and telecommunications. Choose one, and you'll get a yet another menu, listing the ten most recent dates of publication. Each of these contains one-paragraph summaries of the day's news in that particular subject. ôhe World TodaÕ =============== Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty are American radio stations that broadcast to the former Communist countries of eastern Europe. Every day, their news departments prepare a summary of news in those countries, which is then disseminated via the Net. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Leave the subject line blank, and as a message, write: subscribe rferl-l Your Name Daily Brazilian news updates are available (in Portuguese) from the University of Sao Paulo. Use anonymous ftp to connect to uspif.if.usp.br Use cd to switch to the whois directory. The news summaries are stored in files with this form: `NEWS.23OCT92;1'. But to get them, leave off the semicolon and the one, and don't capitalize anything, for example: get news.23oct92 FYI: ==== The `clari.net.newusers' newsgroup on Usenet provides a number of articles about Clarinet and ways of finding news stories of interest to you. *"Be it true or false, so it be news."* -- Ben Johnson, "News from the World" *"In a medium in which a News piece takes a minute and an `In-Depth' piece takes two minutes, the Simple will drive out the Complex."* -- Frank Mankiewicz  * IRC, MUDs and other things that are more fun than they sound *  ************************************************************ Many Net systems provide access to a series of interactive services that let you hold live "chats" or play online games with people around the world. To find out if your host system offers these, you can ask your system administrator or just try them - if nothing happens, then your system does not provide them. In general, if you can use telnet and ftp, chances are good you can use these services as well. ôalk ==== This is the Net equivalent of a telephone conversation and requires that both you and the person you want to talk to have access to this function and are online at the same time. To use it, type talk user@site.name where that is the e-mail address of the other person. She will see something like this on her screen: talk: connection requested by yourname@site.name talk: respond with: talk yourname@site.name To start the conversation, she should then type (at her host system's command line): talk yourname@site.name where that is your e-mail address. Both of you will then get a top and bottom window on your screen. She will see everything you type in one window; you'll see everything she types in the other. To disconnect, hit control-C. One note: Public-access sites that use Sun computers sometimes have trouble with the talk program. If talk does not work, try typing `otalk' ot `ntalk' instead. However, the party at the other end will have to have the same program online for the connection to work. Internet Relay Chat =================== IRC is a program that lets you hold live keyboard conversations with people around the world. It's a lot like an international CB radio - it even uses "channels." Type something on your computer and it's instantly echoed around the world to whoever happens to be on the same channel with you. You can join in existing public group chats or set up your own. You can even create a private channel for yourself and as few as one or two other people. And just like on a CB radio, you can give yourself a unique "handle" or nickname. IRC currently links host systems in 20 different countries, from Australia to Hong Kong to Israel. Unfortunately, it's like telnet - either your site has it or it doesn't. If your host system does have it, Just type irc and hit enter. You'll get something like this: *** Connecting to port 6667 of server world.std.com *** Welcome to the Internet Relay Network, adamg *** Your host is world.std.com, running version 2.7.1e+4 *** You have new mail. *** If you have not already done so, please read the new user information with +/HELP NEWUSER *** This server was created Sat Apr 18 1992 at 16:27:02 EDT *** There are 364 users on 140 servers *** 45 users have connection to the twilight zone *** There are 124 channels. *** I have 1 clients and 3 servers MOTD - world.std.com Message of the Day - MOTD - Be careful out there... MOTD - MOTD - ->Spike * End of /MOTD command. 23:13 [1] adamg [Mail: 32] * type /help for help You are now in channel 0, the "null" channel, in which you can look up various help files, but not much else. As you can see, IRC takes over your entire screen. The top of the screen is where messages will appear. The last line is where you type IRC commands and messages. All IRC commands begin with a `/'. The slash tells the computer you are about to enter a command, rather than a message. To see what channels are available, type /list and hit enter. You'll get something like this: *** Channel Users Topic *** #Money 1 School CA$H (/msg SOS_AID help) *** #Gone 1 ----->> Gone with the wind!!! ------>>>>> *** #mee 1 *** #eclipse 1 *** #hiya 2 *** #saigon 4 *** #screwed 3 *** #z 2 *** #comix 1 LET'S TALK 'BOUT COMIX!!!!! *** #Drama 1 *** #RayTrace 1 Rendering to Reality and Back *** #NeXT 1 *** #wicca 4 Mr. Potato Head, R. I. P. *** #dde^mhe` 1 no'ng chay? mo*? ...ba` con o*iiii *** #jgm 1 *** #ucd 1 *** #Maine 2 *** #Snuffland 1 *** #p/g! 4 *** #DragonSrv 1 Because IRC allows for a large number of channels, the list might scroll off your screen, so you might want to turn on your computer's screen capture to capture the entire list. Note that the channels always have names, instead of numbers. Each line in the listing tells you the channel name, the number of people currently in it, and whether there's a specific topic for it. To switch to a particular channel, type /join #channel where `#channel' is the channel name and hit enter. Some "public" channels actually require an invitation from somebody already on it. To request an invitation, type /who #channel-name where `channel-name' is the name of the channel, and hit enter. Then ask someone with an @ next to their name if you can join in. Note that whenever you enter a channel, you have to include the `#'. Choose one with a number of users, so you can see IRC in action. If it's a busy channel, as soon as you join it, the top of your screen will quickly be filled with messages. Each will start with a person's IRC nickname, followed by his message. It may seem awfully confusing at first. There could be two or three conversations going on at the same time and sometimes the messages will come in so fast you'll wonder how you can read them all. Eventually, though, you'll get into the rhythm of the channel and things will begin to make more sense. You might even want to add your two cents (in fact, don't be surprised if a message to you shows up on your screen right away; on some channels, newcomers are welcomed immediately). To enter a public message, simply type it on that bottom line (the computer knows it's a message because you haven't started the line with a slash) and hit enter. Public messages have a user's nickname in brackets, like this: If you receive a private message from somebody, his name will be between asterisks, like this: *tomg* For more information on using IRC, see the IRC command box. You can find discussions about IRC in the `alt.irc' newsgroup. IRC Commands ============ Note: Hit enter after each command. `/away' When you're called away to put out a grease fire in the kitchen, issue this command to let others know you're still connected but just away from your terminal or computer for awhile. `/help' Brings up a list of commands for which there is a help file. You will get a