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
