716 lines
35 KiB
Plaintext
716 lines
35 KiB
Plaintext
From emoryu1!phoenix.Princeton.EDU!nancyamm Thu Feb 3 23:33:31 1994 remote from awwe
|
|
Received: by awwe.UUCP (1.65/waf)
|
|
via UUCP; Fri, 04 Feb 94 02:14:16 EST
|
|
for root
|
|
Received: from emory.mathcs.emory.edu by
|
|
emoryu1.cc.emory.edu (5.65/Emory_cc.3.4.16) via SMTP
|
|
id AA23889 ; Thu, 3 Feb 94 23:33:28 -0500
|
|
Received: from Princeton.EDU by
|
|
emory.mathcs.emory.edu (5.65/Emory_mathcs.3.4.18) via SMTP
|
|
id AA08302 ; Thu, 3 Feb 94 23:33:21 -0500
|
|
Return-Path: nancyamm@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
|
|
Received: from ponyexpress.Princeton.EDU by Princeton.EDU (5.65b/2.104/princeton)
|
|
id AA01643; Thu, 3 Feb 94 23:17:03 -0500
|
|
Received: from flagstaff.Princeton.EDU by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.113/newPE)
|
|
id AA11772; Thu, 3 Feb 1994 23:17:01 -0500
|
|
Received: by flagstaff.Princeton.EDU (4.1/Phoenix_Cluster_Client)
|
|
id AA10362; Thu, 3 Feb 94 23:17:00 EST
|
|
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 23:16:54 -0500 (EST)
|
|
From: Nancy Ammerman <emoryu1!phoenix.Princeton.EDU!nancyamm>
|
|
To: Jackie Ammerman <emory!emoryu1!awwe!root@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
|
|
Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9402032338.J3501-0100000@flagstaff.Princeton.EDU>
|
|
Mime-Version: 1.0
|
|
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
|
|
|
|
Chapter 8: GOPHERS, WAISs AND THE WORLDWIDE WEB
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
8.1. GOPHERS
|
|
|
|
|
|
Even with tools like Hytelnet and archie, telnet and ftp can still
|
|
be frustrating. There are all those telnet and ftp addresses to
|
|
remember. Telnet services often have their own unique commands. And,
|
|
oh, those weird directory and file names!
|
|
But now that the Net has become a rich repository of information,
|
|
people are developing ways to make it far easier to find and retrieve
|
|
information and files. Gophers and Wide-Area Information Servers (WAISs)
|
|
are two services that could ultimately make the Internet as easy to
|
|
navigate as commercial networks such as CompuServe or Prodigy.
|
|
Both gophers and WAISs essentially take a request for information
|
|
and then scan the Net for it, so you don't have to. Both also work
|
|
through menus -- instead of typing in some long sequence of characters,
|
|
you just move a cursor to your choice and hit enter. Gophers even
|
|
let you select files and programs from ftp sites this way.
|
|
Let's first look at gophers (named for the official mascot of the
|
|
University of Minnesota, where the system was developed).
|
|
Many public-access sites now have gophers online. To use one, type
|
|
|
|
gopher
|
|
|
|
at the command prompt and hit enter. If you know your site does not have
|
|
a gopher, or if nothing happens when you type that, telnet to
|
|
|
|
consultant.micro.umn.edu
|
|
|
|
At the log-in prompt, type
|
|
|
|
gopher
|
|
|
|
and hit enter. You'll be asked what type of terminal emulation you're
|
|
using, after which you'll see something like this:
|
|
|
|
Internet Gopher Information Client v1.03
|
|
|
|
Root gopher server: gopher.micro.umn.edu
|
|
|
|
--> 1. Information About Gopher/
|
|
2. Computer Information/
|
|
3. Discussion Groups/
|
|
4. Fun & Games/
|
|
5. Internet file server (ftp) sites/
|
|
6. Libraries/
|
|
7. News/
|
|
8. Other Gopher and Information Servers/
|
|
9. Phone Books/
|
|
10. Search lots of places at the U of M <?>
|
|
11. University of Minnesota Campus Information/
|
|
|
|
Press ? for Help, q to Quit, u to go up a menu Page: 1/1
|
|
|
|
Assuming you're using VT100 or some other VT emulation, you'll be
|
|
able to move among the choices with your up and down arrow keys. When
|
|
you have your cursor on an entry that looks interesting, just hit enter,
|
|
and you'll either get a new menu of choices, a database entry form, or a
|
|
text file, depending on what the menu entry is linked to (more on how to
|
|
tell which you'll get in a moment).
|
|
Gophers are great for exploring the resources of the Net. Just keep
|
|
making choices to see what pops up. Play with it; see where it takes
|
|
you. Some choices will be documents. When you read one of these and
|
|
either come to the end or hit a lower-case q to quit reading it, you'll
|
|
be given the choice of saving a copy to your home directory or e-mailing
|
|
it to yourself. Other choices are simple databases that let you enter a
|
|
word to look for in a particular database. To get back to where you
|
|
started on a gopher, hit your u key at a menu prompt, which will move you
|
|
back "up" through the gopher menu structure (much like "cd .." in ftp).
|
|
Notice that one of your choices above is "Internet file server (ftp)
|
|
sites." Choose this, and you'll be connected to a modified archie
|
|
program -- an archie with a difference. When you search for a file
|
|
through a gopher archie, you'll get a menu of sites that have the file
|
|
you're looking for, just as with the old archie. Only now, instead of
|
|
having to write down or remember an ftp address and directory, all you
|
|
have to do is position the cursor next to one of the numbers in the menu
|
|
and hit enter. You'll be connected to the ftp site, from which you can
|
|
then choose the file you want. This time, move the cursor to the file
|
|
you want and hit a lower-case s. You'll be asked for a name in your home
|
|
directory to use for the file, after which the file will be copied to
|
|
your home system. Unfortunately, this file-transfer process does not yet
|
|
work with all public-access sites for computer programs and compressed
|
|
files. If it doesn't work with yours, you'll have to get the file the
|
|
old-fashioned way, via anonymous ftp.
|
|
In addition to ftp sites, there are hundreds of databases and
|
|
libraries around the world accessible through gophers. There is not yet
|
|
a common gopher interface for library catalogs, so be prepared to follow
|
|
the online directions more closely when you use gopher to connect to
|
|
one.
|
|
Gopher menu entries that end in a / are gateways to another menu of
|
|
options. Entries that end in a period are text, graphics or program
|
|
files, which you can retrieve to your home directory (or e-mail to
|
|
yourself or to somebody else). A line that ends in <?> or <CSO>
|
|
represents a request you can make to a database for information. The
|
|
difference is that <?> entries call up one-line interfaces in which you
|
|
can search for a keyword or words, while <CSO> brings up an electronic
|
|
form with several fields for you to fill out (you might see this in
|
|
online "White Pages" directories at colleges).
|
|
Gophers actually let you perform some relatively sophisticated
|
|
Boolean searches. For example, if you want to search only for files that
|
|
contain the words "MS-DOS" and "Macintosh," you'd type
|
|
|
|
ms-dos and macintosh
|
|
|
|
(gophers are not case-sensitive) in the keyword field. Alternately, if
|
|
you want to get a list of files that mention either "MS-DOS" or
|
|
"Macintosh," you'd type
|
|
|
|
ms-dos or macintosh
|
|
|
|
|
|
8.2 BURROWING DEEPER
|
|
|
|
|
|
As fascinating as it can be to explore "gopherspace," you might one
|
|
day want to quickly retrieve some information or a file. Or you might
|
|
grow tired of calling up endless menus to get to the one you want.
|
|
Fortunately, there are ways to make even gophers easier to use.
|
|
One is with archie's friend, veronica (it allegedly is an acronym,
|
|
but don't believe that for a second), who does for gopherspace what
|
|
archie does for ftp sites.
|
|
In most gophers, you'll find veronica by selecting "Other gopher and
|
|
information services" at the main menu and then "Searching through
|
|
gopherspace using veronica." Select this and you'll get something like
|
|
this:
|
|
|
|
Internet Gopher Information Client v1.1
|
|
|
|
Search titles in Gopherspace using veronica
|
|
|
|
--> 1. .
|
|
2. FAQ: Frequently-Asked Questions about veronica (1993/08/23).
|
|
3. How to compose veronica queries (NEW June 24) READ ME!!.
|
|
4. Search Gopher Directory Titles at PSINet <?>
|
|
5. Search Gopher Directory Titles at SUNET <?>
|
|
6. Search Gopher Directory Titles at U. of Manitoba <?>
|
|
7. Search Gopher Directory Titles at University of Cologne <?>
|
|
8. Search gopherspace at PSINet <?>
|
|
9. Search gopherspace at SUNET <?>
|
|
10. Search gopherspace at U. of Manitoba <?>
|
|
11. Search gopherspace at University of Cologne <?>
|
|
|
|
|
|
Press ? for Help, q to Quit, u to go up a menu Page: 1/1
|
|
|
|
A few choices there! First, the difference between searching
|
|
directory titles and just plain ol' gopherspace. If you already know the
|
|
sort of directory you're looking for (say a directory containing MS-DOS
|
|
programs), do a directory-title search. But if you're not sure what kind
|
|
of directory your information might be in, then do a general
|
|
gopherspace search. In general, it doesn't matter which of the particular
|
|
veronicas you use -- they should all be able to produce the same results.
|
|
The reason there is more than one is because the Internet has become so
|
|
popular that only one veronica (or one gopher or one of almost anything)
|
|
would quickly be overwhelmed by all the information requests from around
|
|
the world.
|
|
You can use veronica to search for almost anything. Want to find
|
|
museums that might have online displays from their exhibits? Try
|
|
searching for "museum." Looking for a copy of the Declaration of
|
|
Independence? Try "declaration."
|
|
In many cases, your search will bring up a new gopher menu of
|
|
choices to try.
|
|
Say yo want to impress those guests coming over for dinner on
|
|
Friday by cooking cherries flambe. If you were to call up veronica and
|
|
type in "flambe" after calling up veronica, you would soon get a menu
|
|
listing several flambe recipes, including one called "dessert flambe."
|
|
Put your cursor on that line of the menu and hit enter, and you'll find
|
|
it's a menu for cherries flambe. Then hit your q key to quit, and gopher
|
|
will ask you if you want to save the file in your home directory on your
|
|
public-access site or whether you want to e-mail it somewhere.
|
|
As you can see, you can use veronica as an alternative to archie,
|
|
which, because of the Internet's growing popularity, seems to take longer
|
|
and longer to work.
|
|
In addition to archie and veronica, we now also have jugheads (no
|
|
bettys yet, though). These work the same as veronicas, but their
|
|
searches are limited to the specific gopher systems on which they reside.
|
|
If there are particular gopher resources you use frequently, there
|
|
are a couple of ways to get to them even more directly.
|
|
One is to use gopher in a manner similar to the way you can use
|
|
telnet. If you know a particular gopher's Internet address (often the
|
|
same as its telnet or ftp address), you can connect to it directly,
|
|
rather than going through menus. For example, say you want to use the
|
|
gopher at info.umd.edu. If your public-access site has a gopher system
|
|
installed, type this at your command prompt
|
|
|
|
gopher info.umd.edu
|
|
|
|
and you'll be connected.
|
|
But even that can get tedious if there are several gophers you use
|
|
frequently. That's where bookmarks come in. Gophers let you create a
|
|
list of your favorite gopher sites and even database queries. Then,
|
|
instead of digging ever deeper into the gopher directory structure, you
|
|
just call up your bookmark list and select the service you want.
|
|
To create a bookmark for a particular gopher site, first call up
|
|
gopher. Then go through all the gopher menus until you get to the menu
|
|
you want. Type a capital A. You'll be given a suggested name for the
|
|
bookmark enty, which you can change if you want by backspacing over the
|
|
suggestion and typing in your own. When done, hit enter. Now, whenever
|
|
you're in gopherspace and want to zip back to that particular gopher
|
|
service, just hit your V key (upper- or lower-case; in this instance,
|
|
gopher doesn't care) anywhere within gopher. This will bring up a list
|
|
of your bookmarks. Move to the one you want and hit enter, and you'll be
|
|
connected.
|
|
Using a capital A is also good for saving particular database or
|
|
veronica queries that you use frequently (for example, searching for
|
|
news stories on a particular topic if your public-access site maintains
|
|
an indexed archive of wire-service news).
|
|
Instead of a capital A, you can also hit a lower-case a. This will
|
|
bring you to the particular line within a menu, rather than show you the
|
|
entire menu.
|
|
If you ever want to delete a bookmark, hit V within gopher, select
|
|
the item you want to get rid of, and then hit your D key.
|
|
One more hint:
|
|
If you want to find the address of a particular gopher service, hit
|
|
your = key after you've highlighted its entry in a gopher menu. You'll
|
|
get back a couple of lines, most of which will be technicalese of no
|
|
immediate value to most folks, but some of which will consist of the
|
|
site's address.
|
|
|
|
|
|
8.3. GOPHER COMMANDS
|
|
|
|
|
|
a Add a line in a gopher menu to your bookmark list.
|
|
|
|
A Add an entire gopher menu or a database query to your bookmark
|
|
list.
|
|
|
|
d Delete an entry from your bookmark list (you have to hit v
|
|
first).
|
|
|
|
q Quit, or exit, a gopher. You'll be asked if you really want to.
|
|
|
|
Q Quit, or exit, a gopher without being asked if you're sure.
|
|
|
|
s Save a highlighted file to your home directory.
|
|
|
|
u Move back up a gopher menu structure
|
|
|
|
v View your bookmark list.
|
|
|
|
= Get information on the originating site of a gopher entry.
|
|
|
|
> Move ahead one screen in a gopher menu.
|
|
|
|
< Move back one screen in a gopher menu.
|
|
|
|
8.4. SOME INTERESTING GOPHERS
|
|
|
|
There are now hundreds of gopher sites around the world. What
|
|
follows is a list of some of them. Assuming your site has a gopher
|
|
"client" installed, you can reach them by typing
|
|
|
|
gopher sitename
|
|
|
|
at your command prompt. Can't find what you're looking for? Remember to
|
|
use veronica to look up categories and topics!
|
|
|
|
|
|
AGRICULTURE
|
|
|
|
cyfer.esusda.gov More agricultural statistics and regulations
|
|
most people will ever need.
|
|
|
|
usda.mannlib.cornell.edu More than 140 different types of agricultural
|
|
data, most in Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet format.
|
|
|
|
ANIMALS
|
|
|
|
saimiri.primate.wisc.edu Information on primates and animal-welfare
|
|
laws.
|
|
|
|
ARCHITECTURE
|
|
|
|
libra.arch.umich.edu Maintains online exhibits of a variety of
|
|
architectural images.
|
|
|
|
ART
|
|
|
|
seq1.loc.gov The Library of Congress runs several online
|
|
"galleries" of images from exhibits at the
|
|
library. Many of these pictures, in GIF or JPEG
|
|
format, are HUGE, so be careful what you get
|
|
first. Exhibits include works of art from the
|
|
Vatican, copies of once secret Soviet documents
|
|
and pictures of artifacts related to Columbus's
|
|
1492 voyage.
|
|
|
|
galaxy.ucr.edu The California Museum of Photography maintains its
|
|
own online galery here. At the main menu,
|
|
select "Campus Events," then "California
|
|
Museum of Photography," then "Network Ex-
|
|
hibitions."
|
|
|
|
ASTRONOMY
|
|
|
|
cast0.ast.cam.ac.uk A gopher devoted to astronomy, run by the
|
|
Institute of Astronomy and the Royal Greenwich
|
|
Observatory, Cambridge, England.
|
|
|
|
CENSUS
|
|
|
|
bigcat.missouri.edu You'll find detailed federal census data for
|
|
communities of more than 10,000 people, as well
|
|
as for states and counties here. At the main
|
|
menu, select "Reference and Information Center,"
|
|
then "United States and Missouri Census
|
|
Information" and "United States Census."
|
|
|
|
COMPUTERS
|
|
|
|
wuarchive.wustl.edu Dozens of directories with software for all sorts
|
|
of computers. Most programs have to be
|
|
"un-compressed" before you can use them.
|
|
|
|
sumex-aim.stanford.edu A similar type of system, with the emphasis on
|
|
Macintosh programs and files.
|
|
|
|
ENVIRONMENT
|
|
|
|
ecosys.drdr.virginia.edu Copies of Environmental Protection Agency
|
|
factsheets on hundreds of chemicals, searchable
|
|
by keyword. Select "Education" and then
|
|
"Environmental fact sheets."
|
|
|
|
envirolink.org Dozens of documents and files related to
|
|
environmental activism around the world.
|
|
|
|
ENTOMOLOGY
|
|
|
|
spider.ento.csiro.au All about creepy-crawly things, both the good
|
|
and the bad ones.
|
|
|
|
GEOLOGY
|
|
|
|
gopher.stolaf.edu Select "Internet Resources" and then "Weather
|
|
and geography" for information on recent
|
|
earthquakes.
|
|
|
|
GOVERNMENT
|
|
|
|
marvel.loc.gov Run by the Library of Congress, this site
|
|
provides numerous resources, including access
|
|
to the Library card catalog and all manner of
|
|
information about the U.S. Congress.
|
|
|
|
gopher.lib.umich.edu Wide variety of government information, from
|
|
Congressional committee assignments to economic
|
|
statistics and NAFTA information.
|
|
|
|
ecix.doc.gov Information on conversion of military
|
|
installations to private uses.
|
|
|
|
sunsite.unc.edu Copies of current and past federal budgets can
|
|
be found by selecting "Sunsite archives," then
|
|
"Politics," then "Sunsite politcal science
|
|
archives."
|
|
|
|
wiretap.spies.com Documents related to Canadian government can be
|
|
found in the "Government docs" menu.
|
|
|
|
stis.nih.gov Select the "Other U.S. government gopher
|
|
servers" for access to numerous other federal
|
|
gophers.
|
|
|
|
HEALTH
|
|
|
|
odie.niaid.nih.gov National Institutes of Health databases on AIDS,
|
|
in the "AIDS related information" menu.
|
|
|
|
helix.nih.gov For National Cancer Institute factsheets on
|
|
different cancers, select "Health and clinical
|
|
information" and then "Cancernet information."
|
|
|
|
nysernet.org Look for information on breast cancer in the
|
|
"Special Collections: Breast Cancer" menu.
|
|
|
|
welchlink.welch.jhu.edu This is Johns Hopkins University's medical
|
|
gopher.
|
|
|
|
HISTORY
|
|
|
|
See under Art.
|
|
|
|
INTERNET
|
|
|
|
gopher.lib.umich.edu Home to several guides to Internet resources
|
|
in specific fields, for example, social
|
|
sciences. Select "What's New & Featured
|
|
Resources" and then "Clearinghouse."
|
|
|
|
ISRAEL
|
|
|
|
jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il This Israeli system offers numerous documents
|
|
on Israel and Jewish life.
|
|
|
|
JAPAN
|
|
|
|
gopher.ncc.go.jp Look in the "Japan information" menu for
|
|
documents related to Japanese life and culture.
|
|
|
|
MUSIC
|
|
|
|
mtv.com Run by Adam Curry, an MTV video jock, this site
|
|
has music news and Curry's daily "Cybersleaze"
|
|
celebrity report.
|
|
|
|
NATURE
|
|
|
|
ucmp1.berkeley.edu The University of California at Berkeley's
|
|
Museum of Paleontology runs several online
|
|
exhibits here. You can obtain GIF images of
|
|
plants and animals from the "Remote Nature" menu.
|
|
The "Origin of the Species" menu lets you read
|
|
Darwin's work or search it by keyword.
|
|
|
|
SPORTS
|
|
|
|
culine.colorado.edu Look up schedules for teams in various professional
|
|
sports leagues here, under "Professional Sports
|
|
Schedules."
|
|
|
|
WEATHER
|
|
|
|
wx.atmos.uiuc.edu Look up weather forecasts for North America or
|
|
bone up on your weather facts.
|
|
|
|
|
|
8.5. 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 prompt 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:
|
|
|
|
<space> selects, w for keywords, arrows move, <return> searches, q quits, or ?
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
8.6. THE WORLD-WIDE WEB
|
|
|
|
|
|
Developed by researchers at the European Particle Physics
|
|
Laboratory in Geneva, the World-Wide Web 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 an article, see a reference that
|
|
intrigues you and so flip the pages to look up that reference.
|
|
To try the Worldwide Web, telnet to
|
|
|
|
info.cern.ch
|
|
|
|
No log in is needed. When you connect, you'll see something like:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Welcome to CERN
|
|
The World-Wide Web: CERN entry point
|
|
|
|
CERN is the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland.
|
|
Select by number information here, or elsewhere.
|
|
|
|
Help[1] About this program
|
|
|
|
World-Wide Web[2] About the W3 global information initiative.
|
|
|
|
CERN information[3] Information from and about this site
|
|
|
|
Particle Physics[4] Other HEP sites with information servers
|
|
|
|
Other Subjects[5] Catalogue of all online information by subject. Also:
|
|
by server type[6] .
|
|
|
|
** CHECK OUT X11 BROWSER "ViolaWWW": ANON FTP TO info.cern.ch in
|
|
/pub/www/src *** Still beta, so keep bug reports calm :-)
|
|
|
|
If you use this service frequently, please install this or any W3 browser on
|
|
your own machine (see instructions[7] ). You can configure it to start
|
|
1-7, <RETURN> 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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
8.7. CLIENTS, OR HOW TO SNARE MORE ON THE WEB
|
|
|
|
|
|
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. And even to a veteran MS-DOS user, the
|
|
World-Wide Web interface is rather clunky (and some of the documents and
|
|
files on the Web now use special formatting that would confuse your poor
|
|
computer).
|
|
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, through what are known as "client" programs.
|
|
These programs provide graphical interfaces for everything from ftp to
|
|
the World-Wide Web.
|
|
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 you're
|
|
downloading a large file in one window, you can be chatting with a
|
|
friend through an Internet chat program in another.
|
|
Unfortunately, using a client program can cost a lot of money. Some
|
|
require you to be connected directly to the Internet through an Ethernet
|
|
network for example. Others work through modem protocols, such as SLIP,
|
|
but public-access sites that allow such access may charge anywhere from
|
|
$25 to $200 a month extra for the service.
|
|
Your system administrator can give you more information on setting
|
|
up one of these connections.
|
|
|
|
|
|
8.8. WHEN THINGS GO WRONG
|
|
|
|
As the Internet grows ever more popular, its resources come under
|
|
more of a strain. If you try to use gopher in the middle of the day, at
|
|
least on the East Coast of the U.S., you'll sometimes notice that it
|
|
takes a very long time for particular menus or database searches to come
|
|
up. Sometimes, you'll even get a message that there are too many people
|
|
connected to whichever service you're trying to use and so you can't get
|
|
in. The only alternative is to either try again in 20 minutes or so, or
|
|
wait until later in the day, when the load might be lower. When this
|
|
happens in veronica, try one of the other veronica entries.
|
|
When you retrieve a file through gopher, you'll sometimes be asked
|
|
if you want to store it under some ludicrously long name (there go our
|
|
friends the system administrators again, using 128 characters just
|
|
because Unix lets them). With certain MS-DOS communications programs, if
|
|
that name is longer than one line, you won't be able to backspace all the
|
|
way back to the first line if you want to give it a simpler name.
|
|
Backspace as far as you can. Then, when you get ready to download it to
|
|
your home computer, remember that the file name will be truncated on your
|
|
end, because of MS-DOS's file-naming limitations. Worse, your computer
|
|
might even reject the whole thing. What to do? Instead of saving it to
|
|
your home directory, mail it to yourself. It should show up in your mail
|
|
by the time you exit gopher. Then, use your mail command for saving it
|
|
to your home directory -- at which point you can name it anything you want.
|
|
Now you can download it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
8.9 FYI
|
|
|
|
|
|
David Riggins maintains a list of gophers by type and category. You
|
|
can find the most recent one at the ftp site ftp.einet.net, in the pub
|
|
directory. Look for a file with a name like "gopher-jewels.txt."
|
|
Alternately, you can get on a mailing list to get the latest version sent
|
|
to your e-mailbox automatically. Send a mail message to gopherjewelslist-
|
|
request@tpis.cactus.org (yep, that first part is all one word). Leave
|
|
the "subject:" line blank, and as a message, write SUBSCRIBE.
|
|
Blake Gumprecht maintains a list of gopher and telnet sites related
|
|
to, or run by, the government. He posts it every three weeks to the
|
|
news.answers and soc.answers newsgroups on Usenet. It can also be
|
|
obtained via anonymous ftp from rtfm.mit.edu, as
|
|
/pub/usenet/news.answers/us-govt-net-pointers.
|
|
Students at the University of Michigan's School of Information and
|
|
Library Studies, recently compiled separate lists of Internet resources
|
|
in 11 specific areas, from aeronautics to theater. They can be obtained
|
|
via gopher at gopher.lib.umich.edu, in the "What's New and Featured
|
|
Resources" menu.
|
|
The Usenet newsgroups comp.infosystems.gopher and
|
|
comp.infosystems.wais are places to go for technical discussions about
|
|
gophers and WAISs respectively.
|
|
The Interpedia project is an attempt to take gopher one step
|
|
further, by creating an online repository of all of the interesting and
|
|
useful information availble on the Net and from its users. To get on the
|
|
mailing list for the project, send an e-mail message, with a "subject:"
|
|
of "subscribe" to interpedia-request@telerama.lm.com. You can get
|
|
supporting documentation for the project via anonymous ftp at ftp.lm.com
|
|
in the pub/interpedia directory.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253
|