Big Dummy's Guide To The Internet Part 29

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 doc.u.ments, 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 your system has a WAIS client, 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:

selects, w for keywords, arrows move, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce, 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? Choose 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 Sourcet.i.tleLines 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) [email protected] 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) [email protected] 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) [email protected] Re: VEGAN: Honey Granola63 014: [ 400] ( recipes) [email protected] 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 doc.u.ment are "linked" to other doc.u.ments. 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

ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Log on as: www. 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, 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 doc.u.ments 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 backs.p.a.ce all the way back to the first line if you want to give it a simpler name.

Backs.p.a.ce 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- [email protected] (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:"