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OK, I'm here on the Internet. Now What?
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[Although the information in this article is dated, it's still a good example of the kind of work we can do for you. -- Jeff Berger, April, 2001.]
Last month, Hotlist explored how the Internet works – how it started, how it became commercialized, the birth of the World Wide Web, and so on.
In that article, we explained that TIAC puts you directly on the Internet – not in some server in TIAC's headquarters.
When you're on the Internet, there are many things you can do – using electronic mail and accessing the World Wide Web are only two of them. This month, we look at all your options. . . .
A World of Options. . .
When you signed up with TIAC, you probably did it to gain access to either electronic mail or the World Wide Web – or both.
The fact is, however, that those two "products" are merely part of a much larger, highly interesting Internet. When you log on to the Internet through TIAC, many options are available to you beyond simply surfing the Web or sending e-mail to a friend or business associate. This article, prepared with TIAC Customer Service Manager Jared Fennelly, tells you about all those alternatives.
A preview:
- E-mail: Although TIAC provides Eudora e-mail software, the fact is that many other products are available. Your TIAC connection enables you to use virtually any of them.
- World Wide Web: The exploding commercial Internet marketplace, the web can take you around the world with a click of your mouse. Today everyone can have a web page – and many people do. We'll talk about browsers from MSIE, Netscape, and more.
- Newsgroups: These easy-to-access Bulletin Boards post information on every conceivable topic – and some that are not-so-conceivable. We'll tell you what they are and how to get to them. Side dish: SPAM, anyone?
- IRC: "IRC" is the highly addictive Internet Relay Chat. Talk with any of millions of people on the Internet, anywhere, as if you were on the phone. But cheaper. We'll tell you where to get software and how to log on.
- Videoconferencing and Video E-mail: Lots of news is coming on this subject, but not quite yet. . .
- FTP: It's not an oil additive (that's STP), it's File Transfer Protocol. It's how you download files – primarily from the Web. There's also FTP-specific software that you can use to "FTP" your web page to your host – TIAC, of course.
- Internet Telephony: What new technology lets you call anyone else anywhere in the world who has a telephony-equipped PC phone – at the price of a local call? It's a great idea that yields awful sound quality but nonetheless is an oncoming headache for AT&T, Sprint, MCI, and all their competitors.
Internet Option #1: Electronic Mail
Twenty years ago, it didn't exist, except in VERY limited government circles. The only way for individuals or companies to get messages across to distant recipients was to call them or fax them – which also required an expensive telephone call.
Although it started in government, electronic mail quickly became a business necessity, widely used in corporations starting in the early 1980s. Through arcane commands, participating companies could link their e-mail systems via the Internet in ways that allowed computer users in either company "talk" to, or e-mail, others.
Today, anyone on the Internet, individuals or corporate CEOs or the President of the United States, can "e-mail" anyone else, anywhere, instantly, just by using electronic mail.
Because e-mail allows users to attach and mail electronic files, e-mail has been a huge boost to virtual offices. It no longer matters where someone is physically; if they have e-mail, they can have a virtual office, work anywhere, and still participate fully in their employer's business.
TIAC provides all its users with Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 for Windows 95. Easy to configure, the software enables you to send and receive e-mail to/from anyone whose e-mail address you know.
Some people, for business or other purposes, want e-mail software that has more depth than Eudora Light. TIAC's technical support staff will help you configure such non-provided software for use on TIAC, but TIAC can't provide in-depth customer support for non-provided software.
If you feel you may need something more robust than Eudora Light 1.5.4, you may wish to consider these well-regarded alternatives:
- Eudora Light 3.0.2 for Windows 95: The latest Eudora Light software, released in 1997, will be easy for any former Eudora user to adapt to. It has an easy-to-use regimen for adding and sorting e-mail addresses. Free. Download it from http://www.eudora.com. Eudora offers this program to entice users to check out its Pro software, the new 4.0 version of which is due for introduction this fall. The Eudora website also has 30-day try-before-you-buy Pro versions you can download. Eudora Pro 4.0 has new, more sophisticated filters to (more) effectively block "junk" e-mail (spam), and many other new features.
- Pegasus Mail for Windows, Version 2.5 (for Windows 95): Pegasus is a robust program downloadable free from http://www.pegasus.usa.com. It has a very good tutorial which facilitates setup. One of its most attractive features is that it lets you see what e-mail is waiting for you BEFORE you download, which means you can screen and delete anything objectionable OR easily NOT download mail with attached files from unknown sources. Pegasus developer David Harris offers to sell you his inexpensive user guide, but the extensive online guide may be all you need.
When you configure any electronic mail software, there are a few questions you'll need to answer. They are:
- What is the POP3 server address?
Answer: pop.tiac.net
- What username do I use to check my e-mail?
Answer: your username@pop.tiac.net
- What's my password for checking my e-mail?
Answer: (have your password handy)
- What host does the e-mail software use to check e-mail?
Answer: pop.tiac.net
- What is the address of your SMTP server?
Answer: mail.tiac.net
Although TIAC can't provide technical support for e-mail products it doesn't distribute, Tech Support will help you configure your new e-mail program particularly regarding the above steps.
TIAC's website has more information on electronic mail options.
Internet Option #2: The World Wide Web
Football, food, and sex are three of the very few things in the world people are focusing on more these days than the World Wide Web – and, except in New England and a few cities spread around the country, "football" has real competition from the Web.
The two most popular web browsers are products of Netscape and Microsoft. Developed by Microsoft, a new customized TIAC version of Microsoft Internet Explorer is available for free download from TIAC's home page. This "MSIE" includes special TIAC buttons.
Using a web browser is easy: connect to TIAC, launch the browser, and type in the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of the site: for example, http://www.tiac.net for TIAC.
Or, you can be adventurous: simply type in a name you're curious about. You may well find a website to match it. Some examples:
- www.cars.com
- www.storms.com
- www.snow.com
- www.Christmas.com
- www.superbowl.com
- www.ice.com
- www.turkey.com
- www.plymouth.com
Check them out, but remember: when you surf, you don't always get what you might expect – which is one of the enjoyable aspects of surfing.
Search engines. Finding what you want on the World Wide Web requires the use of search engines, which will be the subject of a future article in Hotlist. One hint here: it often helps to use phrases in your web searches. But, find out beforehand how to present phrases to the search engine so they are properly recognized.
For example, Digital's AltaVista search engine (altavista.digital.com) asks you to put a semicolon between words in a phase. To search for Cupecoy Beach, enter Cupecoy;Beach . . . any other entry is likely to get you anything on the Web that deals with "Cupecoy" or "Beach" but not necessarily both, together.
Download sites. There are many places on the Web where you can download freeware or shareware or trialware software. Simply enter the URL and check out your opportunities. Some examples:
- TIAC: Use your web browser to access ftp://ftp.tiac.net/pub, select your operating system, then go to TIAC's FTP site (FTP is covered later in this article). There, if you follow the Windows 95 link (for example), you will find a directory of downloadable software:
06/28/97 08:56PM Directory desktop_themes
06/28/97 08:56PM Directory ftp
06/28/97 08:57PM Directory graphics_tools
06/28/97 08:57PM Directory html_editors
06/28/97 08:57PM Directory irc
06/28/97 08:57PM Directory mail
06/28/97 08:57PM Directory net_utilities
06/28/97 08:57PM Directory newsreaders
06/28/97 08:58PM Directory telnet
06/28/97 08:58PM Directory utilities
06/28/97 08:58PM Directory viewers
06/28/97 08:58PM Directory web_browsers
- Shareware.com and download.com, both operated by CNET, give you thousands of shareware titles to choose from – utilities, browsers, beta software, and more. Supports both Windows and Mac platforms. Many links here to other download opportunities, too.
- ZDNET, from Ziff-Davis (www.zdnet.com) gives you lots of product information from Ziff publications plus downloads.
Internet Option #3: Newsgroups
Newsgroups used to be superb sources of information on virtually any topic. The "Bulletin Boards" of the Internet, they enabled tens of thousands of people to post information on an infinity of topics.
Then, commercial interests started flooding the newsgroups with messages which have nothing to do with the newsgroup's topic. Newsgroups are where "SPAMMING (previously covered in Hotlist) first became a problem. In some cases today, less than 20% of newsgroup postings actually deal with the subject.
To access newsgroups, you need a newsreader. As noted under TIAC in the World Wide Web section of this article, newsreaders are downloadable from TIAC. If you use Windows 95, you'll want to download Free Agent for Windows 95.
The software is intuitive; with it, you access the server, then electronically access a list of available newsgroups. Choose one that's of interest, and take it from there. Sadly, however, you are likely to find many irrelevant commercial postings.
There are a number of things you can do with newsgroups. You can simply examine them to see what articles are of interest to you. You can post a question, then check back to see if it's been answered (or expect e-mail answers, possibly hordes of them, and possibly some "SPAM" as well). Or you can subscribe to newsgroups, in which case you are updated on new postings.
Private TIAC Newsgroups. If you'd rather not get into an Internet newsgroup but are looking for valuable information, you should check out TIAC newsgroups at news.tiac.net. You'll find more than a dozen newsgroups here, open to TIAC members only (others can view but cannot post). TIAC newsgroups are therefore relatively free of SPAM. There's even a newsgroup for providing feedback to TIAC and for discussing TIAC among users. Although TIAC does not formally respond to most postings, it does look closely at all of them.
Internet Option #4: IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
This is where Internet "chatting" really took off.
To chat on the Internet requires software which you can download from TIAC's FTP site (see World Wide Web section of this article). The directory you're after is IRC.
Download "MIRC" or "COMIC CHAT"; the former is straightforward, while the latter uses comic-book style characters to identify who's "chatting." (You may remember Sandra Bullock using similar software in The Net.)
Intuitively you'll be able to find groups actively chatting on the Internet worldwide, in many languages, and you can easily pop into the conversation in any of them and feel welcomed. One morning when I was working on this article I entered a local chat consisting mostly of insomniac Malaysians (home, in Malaysia); later that morning I bumped into several friendly people from Texas. Folks readily show you how to "log" sites you like so you can easily return.
As is the case with any strangers you encounter on the Internet, don't download files from people you don't know. If you do it anyway, be sure to scan those files with the most up-to-date available anti-virus software, which you can download from download.com or shareware.com, both also described in the Web section of this article.
DCC file transfer, part of IRC, is covered under FTP later in this article.
IRC users say using IRC can be highly addictive!
Internet Option #5: Videoconferencing & Video E-mail
Videoconferencing on the Internet is crude, since you're trying to transmit high-bandwidth information (tv pictures) over a low-bandwidth channel (phone lines). Eventually the bandwidth of phone lines will increase, but nobody really knows when or to what extent.
To execute videoconferencing, both you and the person you're conferencing with must have desktop video cameras (generally now available for about $199), plus software such as CU-see me, also available at most computer outlets. You also need a "reflector" site to which images from you and your conferee go and are transmitted to each participant's computer.
Videoconferencing is used primarily by businesses. Those who would use it recreationally find the jerky video irritating, although quality sound is not a problem. Business users find it equally irritating but for them it can still be productive.
Video e-mail, long a dream, is rapidly moving to reality. Several companies have been working on it for years, facing formidable obstacles -- not the least of which has been the huge size of video files and long upload/download times.
A few companies are on the verge of introducing products. Cubic VideoComm, part of Cubic Corporation, introduces its entry this fall (www.cvideonow.com).
Cubic told Hotlist that it expected its software product to be bundled with a video camera and sell for around $300.
Far more intriguing is the mysterious suite of products from a company cloaked in secrecy, whose totally new technology will permit "more efficient business to user communications, on a global basis." The company keeps changing its name to keep its efforts totally secret.
Startlingly, its initial offering will be free. The video e-mail component will be incredibly simple and inexpensive to use and will not require a special made-for-PC video camera. Much more to come here.
[We can NOT tell you more at this point, so please don't ask. When they go live, we'll link to their site so you can download their software here. --jeff.]
Internet Option #6: FTP
FTP is "File Transfer Protocol," the file transfer method which has been greatly simplified by the World Wide Web.
Go to microsoft.com, tiac.net, shareware.com, download.com, or zdnet.com, or any of hundreds of other download sites and you will use FTP software to download files. Use the web to download and FTP is automatically invoked.
There are other FTP products as well, which you can use to send a file to another domain or to your personal website. Perhaps the best known of these is WS-FTP (www.ipswitch.com).
If you're sending a file that's less than 1 MB in size, you can easily do that by attaching it to e-mail. Try to e-mail larger size files, however, and your system is likely to time-out, aborting the transmission. That's where WS-FTP comes in. It quickly transports files to virtually any directory and is ideal for updating websites. Personal version is free.
DCC, a feature of IRC, also allows computer-to-computer file transmission. If you use MIRC, just click on the DCC icon to activate file transfer.
Internet Option #7: Internet Telephony
This Internet capability is scaring the wits out of long distance telephone companies, and it's reportedly what's behind their efforts to tack extra charges onto the bills of phone users who are logging onto the public switched telephone network (PSTN) with computers/modems.
Internet telephony, equipment for which can be purchased at most computer stores, enables you to make long distance calls via the internet for the price of local calls.
Two hitches:
- Voice quality is not as good as the PSTN, and
- The person receiving your call must also be using Internet Telephony (you can't call from your computer to your rich Aunt Mildred on her retirement estate on Maui if she doesn't own a computer.)
This will be interesting to watch as it develops. . . .
Internet Option #8: Corporate Tunneling
Finally, think a bit about this one:
An increasing number of companies use Internet "tunneling" to allow employees to gain secure access to the corporate LAN via the Internet. What's it mean? Think of the gas you could save commuting from your bedroom to your home office instead of driving 40 miles one way this winter in a raging blizzard.
That's an Internet alternative we can all live with.
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