RESOURCES AVAILABLE THROUGH THE INTERNET Prepared by Danny Powell, Rice University Copyright (c) 1993, 1994 Rice University v 1.1 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this guide provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this booklet under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this booklet into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved by the author. ``Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.'' Samuel Johnson Letter to Lord Chesterfield February, 1755 INTRODUCTION Professionals have known for a long time that ready access to accurate information is critical to operating an efficient business. In today's world networked computers can bring people and information files from all across the globe together in real time even though they are separated geographically by thousands of miles. Millions of people are taking advantage of this global computer network every day. Tools are continually being developed and improved upon to help people find and retrieve information that will assist them in their professional or personal lives. Knowing how to use these tools will certainly benefit the person working to be successful in the '90s and beyond. Computer networks have jumped the first hurdle on the path which all technologies must run. They are now very reliable. You can press a few buttons and know that your message will be received in a few seconds by someone thousands of miles away. Today, global computer networks are used daily by millions of people who don't know much more about computers than the average person knows about the inner workings of a television set. The largest problem people face when first using a network is grasping all that's available. Even seasoned users find themselves surprised when they discover a new service or feature that they'd never known even existed. Once acquainted with the terminology and sufficiently comfortable with making occasional mistakes, the learning process will drastically speed up. If your computer is connected to the Internet, you have a virtually unlimited wealth of resources available for your everyday use. Here's a partial list of the many ways you can use the Internet: Communicating with other people: exchange electronic mail engage in online, real time discussion with other Internet users subscribe to discussion or subscription groups of people sharing your interests Accessing the resources of other Internet computers: copy computer files or software from archives access databases for a wide variety of information obtain free electronic books use educational and information services find Internet directory services browse through electronic library catalogues access supercomputer sites Every Internet user is different, but nonetheless most network activities are based on three basic skills: using electronic mail, copying files from remote computers (FTP, Gopher, Mosaic), and logging in to remote computers (Telnet). Once you have mastered these tools, you will be able to take advantage of most Internet services. This document provides information to help you learn to navigate the Internet for resources available to you. It is not comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination - it is meant simply to assist the novice Internet user in getting started. To gain the most advantage from this document, you should save it as a file on your computer, get with your site's network manager, and customize the various sections to match up with what works on your particular computer and site network. You can retrieve the file from (softlib.cs.rice.edu) in two ways. 1. send email to (softlib@cs.rice.edu). In the message body, say: send irg 2. ftp the file at (softlib.cs.rice.edu) in the directory (pub/irg) 3. gopher to (softlib.cs.rice.edu) and retrieve the file (irg) I recommend retrieving the file using FTP or Gopher. The file is currently provided in Microsoft Word for the Macintosh and also as ascii text. If you are going to use it on a Macintosh, retrieve it in binary form. The file is rather large, so if you retrieve it via email (method 1 above), the file will be sent to you in several pieces which you will then have to cut and paste back together. This is the second full draft of this document. It will be edited and updated over time with comments coming from the user community. If you have any comments or recommendations, please make them as concise as possible and send them to Danny Powell at (danny@rice.edu). Now go explore and have fun. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................. 4 NETWORKS..................................................................................... 5 INTERNET ADDRESSES................................................................ 7 ELECTRONIC MAIL Sending Email....................................................................... 10 Receiving Email.................................................................... 11 Email Etiquette...................................................................... 11 Discussion Groups................................................................ 12 News Groups......................................................................... 13 Email Retrieval Systems....................................................... 14 FTP Create the Connection........................................................... 16 Basic Commands.................................................................... 16 Binary vs ASCII Transfers..................................................... 18 Sample FTP Session................................................................ 18 Fetch - FTP for Macs............................................................... 19 Finding FTP Sites.................................................................... 19 TELNET How Do You Use Telnet....................................................... 20 Information for PC Users...................................................... 21 A Few Telnet Sites.................................................................. 21 Some Telnet Commands....................................................... 22 GOPHER Gopher Clients....................................................................... 23 How Gopher Works.............................................................. 24 Moving to Other Servers...................................................... 25 WORLD WIDE WEB (and the application Mosaic) WWW Clients........................................................................ 26 Using WWW......................................................................... 26 OTHER APPLICATIONS YOU CAN USE The archie Server Using archie............................................................... 27 archie Clients............................................................. 29 Mailing archie............................................................ 29 The whatis Database................................................. 29 WAIS....................................................................................... 30 SOME RESOURCES AVAILABLE IN THE INTERNET WORLD Internet Resource Guides.................................................... 31 Federal Research Agencies Information Sources............. 31 Miscellaneous Resource Files.............................................. 36 GLOSSARY........................................................................................ 47 REFERENCES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................... 55 TRADEMARKS AND COPYRIGHTS........................................... 57 NETWORKS Internet The Internet is a world-wide network of networks which is able to inter-connect computers ranging from the simplest PCs to the most sophisticated mainframes. There is no one network known as the Internet; rather regional nets like SesquiNet, PrepNet, NearNet, et al., are all inter-connected (``inter-networked'') together into one great living thing, communicating at amazing speeds using the TCP/IP protocol. TCP/IP is a set of standardized communication protocols that make certain that two or more computers reach an agreement about the basic rules of data exchange, and guarantees that messages are properly packaged and transmitted through the network. All activity takes place in ``real-time.'' Non Internet Networks There are several very important national level computer networks in the US which do not use the TCP/IP protocols, and thus, are not technically part of the Internet. The difficulty for Internet users is that it is not possible, or else very difficult, to perform remote logins to computers in such networks. You can, however, communicate with users and computers on many non- Internet networks via email messages sent to electronic "gateways". These "gateways" are responsible for translating messages from TCP/IP networks to networks using other protocols. The following list shows, for various networks: (1) addressing syntax from within the other network, and (2) addressing syntax for mail sent from the Internet Applelink (1) user-id (2) user-id@applelink.apple.com BITNET (1) user-id@site (2) user-id@site.bitnet CompuServe (1) 7xxxx,yy (2) 7xxxx.yy@compuserve.com EASYnet/ (1) user-id@host DECnet (2) user-id@host.enet.dec.com ESnet (1) user-id@host (2) user-id@lbl.dnet.nasa.gov FidoNet (1) FirstName LastName at 1:2/3 (2) FirstName.LastName@f3.n2.z1.fidonet.org JANET (1) user-id@A.Janet.Domain.Address (2) user-id%A.Janet.Domain.Address@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk MCI (1) FirstName LastName (123-4567), where 123-4567 is an MCI phone id# (2) 123-4567@mcimail.com PSInet (1) user-id@host (2) user-id%host@uu.psi.com Sinet (1) node::user-id (2) user-id@node.sinet.slb.com SPAN (1) user-id@host (2) user-id@host.span.nasa.gov THEnet (1) user-id@host (2) user-id@node.decnet@relay.the.net UUNet (1) user-id@site (2) user-id%site@uunet.uu.net VNET (1) user-id@host (2) user-id@vnetsite.ibm.com INTERNET ADDRESSES In order to communicate and navigate within the Internet global village, you have to know how to read and write Internet addresses. You need to specify an Internet address every time you send mail to an Internet user, or when you access Internet services like electronic library catalogues. Internet addresses are very similar to postal mail addresses in form and function. For example: John Public 6100 Main Street Houston, Texas USA In Internet form, the postal address might be formatted like: US Mail JohnPublic,6100MainStreet,Houston,Texas An Internet address would take the form: Internet jpublic@ibmpc23.cs.rice.edu The Internet address contains the following parts: jpublic a "user ID" (user identification) @ "this user ID is located at..." ibmpc23 a particular Internet host computer within.. cs the computer science department of rice the Rice University network within.. edu the education-oriented portion of the Internet in the US Every "user ID" is at @ a computer address. The (ibmpc23) represents a particular host machine. The rest of the address represents subdomains and domains, heirarchically arranged. The last part of an Internet address always represents a "top level" domain. For example, in the US: com Usually a company or other commercial institution or organization, like Convex Computers (convex.com). edu An educational institution, e.g. New York University, named nyu.edu. gov A government site; for example, NASA is nasa.gov. mil A military site, like the Air Force (af.mil). net Gateways and other administrative hosts for a network (it does not mean all of the hosts in a network). {One such gateway is near.net.} org This is a domain reserved for private organizations, who don't comfortably fit in the other classes of domains. One example is the Electronic Frontier Foundation named eff.org. Each country also has its own top-level domain. For example, the "us" domain includes each of the fifty states. Other countries represented with domains include: au Australia ca Canada fr France uk The United Kingdom. These also have sub-domains of things like ac.uk for academic sites and co.uk for commercial ones. FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) The proper terminology for a site's domain name (somewhere.domain above) is its Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). It is usually selected to give a clear indication of the site's organization or sponsoring agent. For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's FQDN is mit.edu; similarly, Apple Computer's domain name is apple.com. While such obvious names are usually the norm, there are the occasional exceptions that are ambiguous enough to mislead---like vt.edu, which on first impulse one might surmise is an educational institution of some sort in Vermont; not so. It's actually the domain name for Virginia Tech. In most cases it's relatively easy to glean the meaning of a domain name---such confusion is far from the norm. It will eventually reach a point when you are able to make a reasonably accurate guess at what domain name a certain college, university, or company might have, given just their name. ex. clinton@whitehouse.gov brewer@utdallas.edu Internet Numbers Sometimes you will see an Internet address (for a computer) shown as a number. For example the computer: ibmpc23.cs.rice.edu might have the following address: 123.45.67.890 Every single machine on the Internet has a unique address, called its Internet number or IP Address. It's actually a 32-bit number, but is most commonly represented as four numbers joined by periods (.), like 147.31.254.130. This is sometimes also called a dotted quad; there are literally billions of different possible dotted quads. The ARPAnet (the parent to today's Internet) originally only had the capacity to have up to 256 systems on it because of the way each system was addressed. In the early eighties, it became clear that things would fast outgrow such a small limit; the 32-bit addressing method was born, freeing thousands of host numbers. IP addresses and domain names aren't assigned arbitrarily---that would lead to unbelievable confusion. An application for an IP address or a domain name must be filed with the Network Information Center (NIC), either electronically (to hostmaster@nic.ddn.mil) or via regular mail. ELECTRONIC MAIL (EMail) If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have an apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. George Bernard Shaw Millions of people read electronic mail everyday. Like voice-mail or answering machines, you drop a note (or send a document) when it's convenient for you. The message waits for your correspondents to respond when it's convenient for them. An analogous system is the U.S. Postal Service. It is a "store and forward" service in which mail is passed from one machine to another until it finally arrives; only faster - within seconds, instead of days. There are many kinds of email software programs, each with different special features -- so it's impossible to include instructions for every kind of email software in this document. All email software, however, usually include the same few simple steps - get your computer center staff to help you with details. Sending Email: 1. Start the mail software package - usually by typing it's name (or in the case of computers like the Macs, clicking on an icon). Mail packages are often run by typing "mail" or something similar. 2. Type in one or more email addresses as your recipients. Note: Many mail software programs provide extra useful features here, such as "cc:" for sending "carbon copies". 3. Supply a "subject" , which should be a VERY brief description of what the letter is about. 4. Type your message. Usually you will have a simple word processing program included in the email software to help you edit the message. Note: Check with your computer center staff to see how to send documents or other files without having to type in the entire document (or file) into the message area - for many unix-based mail systems, this is done with the command (~r ). 5. Send your email message. Note: After you have sent your message, in some cases, you must quit the email program before continuing with your other work. In many cases you can leave the email program on in background while going on about your other business. Receiving Email: Usually the same software which allows you to write and send email is also used for receiving and for displaying your incoming email. Incoming messages are usually stored in an electronic "mailbox" which allows you to scan the subjects and user-ids of mail that has come in. 1. Reading your email. Usually this is done with the mail editor. 2. Reply back to the sender. Again, this is usually done with the mail editor. Get with your computer center staff for details. 3. Print the message or save it as a file on your computer. Get with your computer center staff for details. Email Etiquette: As with all kinds of etiquette, there are no absolute rights and wrongs, only modes of behavior deemed acceptable by the community of people with whom you are communicating. Below are just a few taken from a list included in the NorthWest User Services Internet Resource Guide: Be brief. (time is valuable to each of us) Use mixed upper and lower case and standard capitalization. USING UPPER CASE WHEN YOU WRITE IS LIKE SCREAMING WHEN YOU SPEAK! Most computer terminals do not display underlined, bold, or italicized characters. To emphasize something, use all-capital letters. Avoid using control sequences (like "ctrl z") or special keys (like tab bars), even if they seem to work fine on the message you are writing. Such characters may alter the display of your message making it virtually unreadable on the other person's computer. When responding to someone else's mail, you might want to include short, relevant passages from the original message. This keeps your reply in context and easier to follow. Note: Don't include the entire original message if it's not necessary - be brief. In face-to-face conversation, there are many subtle cues provided by body language and intonation that let us know how what we are saying is affecting the other person. These cues are completely absent when using email, so strive to be concise, clear, and polite in your own writing, and flexible in your interpretation of other people's mail. This follows an old networking axiom: "be precise in what you send, and forgiving of what your receive". Discussion Groups (Bulletin Boards and Listservs) Electronic discussion groups are a forum allowing the user to discuss issues with large and distributed audiences. The two most common types of discussion forums are electronic bulletin boards and listserv groups. Hundreds of topics are explored in these groups: - academic and research areas - computers (supercomputers to laptops) - libraries (legal, political and other issues) - education (K-12, higher-ed) - fields of interest (subjects ranging from anglo saxon history to zen) These discussion lists can be set up in a variety of ways, but inevitably includes the creation of a centrally maintained email "alias" (a special email address set up so that any message sent to it will be sent automatically to everyone on a list). In some cases, there is a list administrator who adds or subtracts user-ids upon request. In this case, to add your name to the list, send email to the discussion group alias (or to the administrator if you know his/her address) and request that your email address be added to the list. Bulletin Boards are usually more informal than listservs, and are often set up within individual departments, or specific project groups to enable a simple method of communicating information to that group, or allowing discussion of a topic of interest to that group. Anyone who knows how to set up an "alias" can set up an informal bulletin board. There are many thousands of these set up across the country. Bulletin boards can be monitored or unmonitored. In an unmonitored list, everything sent to the "alias" is re-sent to everyone in the group. In a monitored list, all information is first received by a person who decides which information will be sent or not sent to the members of the list - this is meant to reduce extraneous messages received by group members, but can be very time consuming for the "monitor". In other cases, especially where the group is large (and time consuming for one administrator to handle), software is used to automatically maintain the list. One such software system is listserv, which is a computer program installed on computers in the BITNET network (and sometimes on the Internet) to manage discussion groups. To subscribe to the listserv you are interested in send an e-mail message to the listserv (the subject line will be ignored). The first line should contain the command subscribe followed by the listserv name desired and your full name. Mail: listserv@jhuvm.bitnet Subject: (nothing needed here) Message: subscribe nihdis-l wanda brewer Some useful (and basic) listserv commands are: list global A list of known listserv groups get help A brief list of listserv commands get refcard An expanded list of listserv commands subscribe (listname) your name Subscribe to a listserv unsubscribe (listname) your name Cancel a listserv subscription index (listname) Get a list of files on the listserver get (filename filetype) Get a particular file from the index list A sample list of useful listserv systems for university research administrators includes: grants@nsf.gov - This listserv distributes the monthly NSF bulletin and updates to STIS are sent out weekly on this server. To get on or off the list, or for additional information about the list, send a message to: grants-request@nsf.gov (Internet) grants-r@NSF (BITNET) eps-l@nsf.gov - This listserv serves faculty and research administrators who are interested in NSF's electronic proposal submission. nihgde-l@jhuvm.bitnet- NIH Guide Primary Distribution. This listserv provides the full text of the NIH Guide each week. ncura-l@umab.bitnet - This is the NCURA newsletter distribution list. Some members send their newsletter electronically others send them via snail mail. ResAdm-L - This is a listserv for research administrators. To join, send email to: listserv@albynydh2 (bitnet) or listserv@albynydh2.bitnet (Internet) Newsgroups (USENET) USENET is another service of the Internet that allows you to participate in discussions on topics of interest with a widely distributed audience. The basic purpose is very similar to listservs - allowing people with shared interests to communicate quickly and easily. The main difference, however, is in how the information is distributed. Every person subscribed to a listserv receives a copy of every file sent to the group - this means you will have to handle each file whether it is interesting to you or not. With USENET, each subscribing Internet site receives a single copy of each article which is stored on a single computer at your site - you then scan the titles of the stored articles and read the one(s) you want. To read USENET articles, you must have "newsreader software" installed on your computer. If you're not sure if you have newsreader software on your computer, ask your local users services staff for help. Once you have this software installed on your computer a typical session usually involves: 1. Start the newsreader software 2. Select a newsgroup 3. Scan the titles of articles 4. Read, save or print articles you find interesting 5. Send email to another USENET user 6. Post an article to the newsgroup 7. Clear any articles you don't want to appear in your next session 8. Select another newsgroup 9. Repeat steps 3 through 8 as desired 10. End your USENET session You should get a "help" manual to learn how to handle your USENET session. The novice USENET reader should retrieve the document "A Primer on How to Work With the USENET Community" via FTP from (pit-manager.mit.edu) in the directory (pub/usenet-by-heirarchy/news/ announce/ newusers) - see section on FTP for information on how to use FTP. ftp pit-manager.mit.edu cd pub/usenet-by-heirarchy/news/ announce/ newusers get (filename) Most usenet groups have a Frequently Asked Questions (with answers) document known as an FAQ. Some regular reader of the group will maintain the FAQ and post it periodically. The FAQ is a good place to start when looking for information about a group or its subject. Because the USENET is so popular, there are rules of etiquette regarding its use, especially regarding what you post to the group. Please be kind to the other users of your newsgroup and learn a little about how to use the system before you make your first posting. Otherwise, you may learn what it means to be "flamed" . Using Email to Retrieve Files (Electronic Mail Servers) Many databases can be accessed through electronic mail. When the user sends a specific command in an e-mail message, a computer retrieves the information and returns it to the user. These commands are usually the first text line (not the subject) of the message. Some files may be too large to transfer through e-mail (over 2k bytes). In these cases, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) will be needed (see section on FTP). We'll use the NSF STIS system as an example of how to access an electronic mail server: Mail: stis@nsf.gov Subject: (nothing needed here) Message: send (filename) The message "send index" will enable most email server programs to retrieve an index file containing information on each of the available files and send it back to you via an email message. Another helpful message is "send help" for information on how to use that particular system (they all vary to some degree). If you already know the name of the file you want (e.g. you know that the STIS User's Guide is "NSF 94-10") all you need to do is issue the message: "send nsf9410" Another document you can retrieve is this document from the Softlib system at Rice University by sending email to softlib@cs.rice.edu and issuing the message "send irg.txt". In this case, however, the file is too large to be sent in a single email, so it would be sent to you in several different parts. It would benefit you to FTP this document from Softlib rather than using the email server capabilities (connect to "softlib.cs.rice.edu"). FTP (File Transfer Protocol) FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a primary method of transferring files over the Internet. These files may be free software, electronic books, documents, maps, graphics, high-tech images, and even sound. On many systems, FTP is also the name of the program that implements the protocol. Given proper permission, it's possible to copy a file from a computer across the world at very fast speeds. This normally requires either a user id on both systems or a special configuration set up by the system administrator(s). There is a good way around this restriction---the anonymous FTP service. It essentially will let anyone in the world have access to a certain area of disk space in a non-threatening way. With this, people can make files publicly available with little hassle. Some systems have dedicated entire disks or even entire computers to maintaining extensive archives of source code and information. We will restrict our discussion here to using anonymous FTP - where the user can only retrieve files from another computer, and can't install new files or modify existing files at the other site. Create the Connection Using FTP is fairly straight forward. The command: ftp (remote machine name) starts the FTP program and connects to the named remote machine. (Note: if you don't have an FTP program on your machine, you should see your Computer Center about getting one) Once connected, the remote machine will ask you for a login name and a password. For anonymous FTP, login as "anonymous". Protocol is that you use your email address as your password, so the remote system managers have an idea who is using their service and can contact you if needed. Basic Commands When using FTP, you frequently don't know exactly what files you want or where they are located. You usually need to browse around to figure out what you really want to transfer. The basic commands to list directory information on the remote machine are "dir" and "ls". Each of these commands will list the files in the remote directory on your screen. (The "dir" listing gives more information about each file (size, type, etc.) than the "ls" listing.) If you want to put the listing of a particular remote directory on your local machine to browse at your leisure (e.g. if there is a large list), you use the command: dir (directory name on the remote machine) (local file name) "Local file name" will be the name of the file with the listing as it now appears on your machine. If you want to list the files of the current directory and of each of the subdirectories as well, use the command "ls -lR (local file name)". At the beginning of an FTP session, you will be in a "top level" directory. Use the "ls" or "dir" command to show you a few directory/file names. Then you can use the "cd" command to move into other directories to see what's available there. For example: cd mac will put you into the /mac directory (probably where files are kept that work on Macintoshes). If you get lost while moving around in directories, and want to go back to an earlier directory (or even the "home" directory), use the "pwd" command to show you the path of your current location. Another common method is to type "cd .." to return you one level up from where you were. Some basic and useful commands are: ascii transfer text files binary transfer binary files cd change remote working directory close ends the FTP session with a particular machine, but stays in FTP mode dir full directory listing on remote system get get file from remote host help print help information lcd change "local" directory (on your machine) to the named directory ls gives a short listing of the directory you are in from the remote machine ls -lR lists all files in the current directory and files from all subdirectories too mget get multiple files from remote host open connect to new system, after closing your connection to a prior machine put move file to remote system (usually not used on anonymous FTP) quit closes any connections, and exits FTP Once you have found a file you want to get, issue the "get" command (or "mget" in the case of retrieving multiple files). The basic command: get (filename from remote computer) (local file name) will place the file on your computer under the name you have given it. If you leave off the "local file name" or if you type "-", it will transfer the file into your computer and give it the same name as is shown on the remote computer. The command: mget (n*) will transfer all files in the remote directory that start with the letter "n" onto your computer. The "*" is a standard wild card character (or set of characters). Binary vs. ASCII Transfers FTP has two common modes of transferring data, called binary and ASCII. In binary transfer, the bit sequence of the file is preserved so that the original and the copy are bit-by-bit identical. So, if you transfer an executable file meant for a Mac to your IBM, the file could not be executed on your system. It could, however, be copied from your system to another Mac in binary and be executed there. ASCII mode is really "text" mode. In ASCII mode, transfers are treated as sets of characters. Transferring text files presents no problem . Transferring binary executable files in the ASCII mode may, however, damage some of the data making the file unusable. On most computers, ASCII mode usually assumes that the most significant bit of each character is meaningless, if the ASCII character set doesn't use it. If you are transferring a binary file, all the bits are important. If you know that the file being transferred is meant to work on your system, binary mode will work for both text files and data files. To set the transfer mode, type in the command "binary" or "ASCII", whichever you want to use. The following chart give you hints for common file types: Text file ASCII, by definition Spreadsheet Probably binary Database file Probably binary, possibly ASCII Word Processor file Probably binary, possibly ASCII Program source code ASCII Email messages ASCII Unix "shell archive" ASCII Unix "tar file" Binary Backup file Binary "Compressed file" Binary "Uuencoded file" ASCII Executable file Probably binary "Postscript" file ASCII Sample FTP Sessions Now that you know some of the basics, lets run a sample FTP session. Let's FTP to the NSF STIS archive and get a list of the files available. The "%" and the "ftp>" are prompts, not commands. % ftp stis.nsf.gov % login: anonymous % password: jqpublic@cs.rice.edu ftp> ls (you'll get a very long list of files in this top directory on your screen) ftp> get index stis.index ftp> quit You now have a file called stis.index on your computer, with a descriptive listing of the files available on the top level directory of STIS. In the case of STIS, this is where the files are stored for your retrieval. One file you'll see is "NSF 94-10", which is the STIS User's Guide. The command "get nsf9410 (your.file.name)" will put this file on your computer to read and get more comfortable with STIS. Fetch as an Easy FTP Tool for Macintoshes Fetch is a graphical FTP interface for Macintosh users. Because Fetch is a point- and-click application, it is very easy to use. It uses icons for files and folders. Fetch places it in the directory of your choice under the name of your choice. If you are using a Macintosh for your Internet FTP access, with Fetch you will navigate the Internet with ease. How To Find FTP Sites and Resources Archie is a database of anonymous FTP sites and their contents. To access archie, Telnet (see section on Telnet) to an existing archie server and login as "archie". Some archie servers are "archie.sura.net", "archie.rutgers.edu", "archie.unl.edu". Once connected, you are then prompted to provide a search command. The command "prog (search string)" is the normal method. Type "quit" at the prompt to leave archie. For more information on archie, see the archie section in this document or retrieve one of the "help" files on the archie servers. TELNET Telnet allows a user to sit at a keyboard connected to one computer and login to another computer that may be across the room, across campus, or in a distant corner of the world. When you are connected, it is as if your keyboard is connected directly to that remote computer. You can access whatever services that machine provides to its local terminals. You can run a normal interactive session (login, search directories, read files, execute commands), or you can access many special services. Telnet users connect to electronic library catalogues, Internet information services, campus-wide information systems, high performance computers on which you have an account, a huge variety of informational databases, and other resources all over the world. How Do You Use Telnet? Like FTP, Telnet is an application that must be on your computer. If Telnet is installed on your computer, you can usually type "telnet" followed by another computer's Internet address. (NOTE: on the Mac, you will probably click a telnet icon to start.) For example, to login to the National Science Foundation STIS computer, type: telnet stis.nsf.gov In a couple of seconds, the computer at NSF should prompt you for a login id; just type "public" after the word "login": login: public From here, you should just follow the information provided for you on your screen. By logging in as "public" you will be telling this particular program that you are a new user (or someone who has forgotten your STIS login name). You will then be queried for information about your name, institution, etc. and will then create your own login id. Then you will be asked what kind of terminal you are using. Terminal type does not mean Macintosh or IBM mainframe but rather "what kind of terminal can your computer emulate". Any computer, depending upon installed software, can emulate one or more terminal types. You will be given some choices. (NOTE: If you get confused during a Telnet session, just type "help" or "?".) Unless you know what emulation software you have on your machine, just put in "vt100" and try it out. This is a very common emulator. If you have problems making commands work while in a telnet session, you should get with your computer center staff to find out what kind of terminal emulator you should be choosing. You should continue to follow the directions given to you on the screen. It's a relatively user friendly system, complete with a menu of items across the top of the screen. You'll maneuver through the selections with either the cursor keys or by using keys designated (by STIS) to move up, down, right or left. If you get lost, the escape "ESC" key will take you out of the screen and move you back up the directory hierarchy. There's a wealth of NSF information on STIS. You'll find proposal guidelines on available programs for funding, minutes and reports from several important NSF and NSB committee meetings, a "phone book" of NSF personnel, recent personnel changes at NSF, interesting articles on results of some NSF sponsored research activities, results of studies on a wide range of topics sponsored by the NSF, and a host of other topics that are interesting and beneficial to researchers and research administrators. Additional Information for Personal Computer Users If you are connecting to the Internet from a personal computer, there are two main ways to use Telnet: 1. If you are a modem user, you can login to a mainframe or a telecommunications provider using a terminal emulation program, and then use the mainframe or telecommunication provider's Telnet software. 2. If you are using a personal computer connected directly to the Internet you may be able to use a Telnet program installed on your personal computer. The telnet examples shown are based on using a Unix system's C shell. If you're using some other computer system (like DOS, VAX/VMS, or a Macintosh) the commands are fundamentally the same, though the details might be slightly different. Here are a Few Telnet Sites Name Internet Address Login Needed Services CARL pac.carl.org none needed Library catalogs, DDN NIC nic.ddn.mil none needed Internet info, Find computer addresses, etc. STIS stis.nsf.gov public Many kinds of very useful info. from/about NSF Space Link 128.158.13.250 user: newuser NASA and Space info. pass: newuser UMD INFO info.umd.edu login: info Many kinds of useful information UNC INFO info.acs.unc.edu login: info Univ. North Carolina information The best way to learn about Telnet is to use it. If you are using a UNIX machine, you can type "man telnet" to get UNIX specific help on Telnet (in UNIX language, "man" is short for "manual page" - a built in user manual). Likewise the "man" command will give you detailed info on FTP, email, and a variety of other subjects specific to the UNIX environment. The process of connecting to a guest account on another computer is essentially the same: you type "telnet internet.host.address". But once you are connected, every site has different features and user interfaces. Don't get nervous. If you don't understand the directions usually given to you on the screen, just type "help" or "?" and get an expanded help file. If you have something highlighted on your screen, the help message will be about the highlighted item. telnet machine.Internet.address Trying... Connected to (the location of the other machine) Escape character is '^]'. For this and most Telnet sessions, pressing the "Ctrl" or "Control" key followed by the "]" key will close your Telnet connection to the other machine. The "^" character is the standard abbreviation for the control key in most manuals. Some Useful Telnet Commands: close end session open start a connection quit exit telnet z suspend telnet help print help information GOPHER Gopher is a distributed information system, linking resources from various sites into a single network. Because of its ease of use and its powerful tools, Gopher very quickly became a very popular method for navigating the network looking for information. Unlike FTP, you don't have to back completely out of one session before going to another session. Gopher is a directory based system, it represents data as either a directory or a file, much like FTP and like DOS and Unix themselves. Unlike them, however, gopher serves information more graphically, and allows either cursor based or point-and-click commands. Selecting a directory from a menu 'opens' the directory and displays a new menu from its contents. Selecting a file results in the text of the file being displayed, usually in another window. Gopher sites are represented as directories, so getting the menu from another site is simply a matter of selecting that directory, like any other directory in the menu. Many gopher sites also serve as gateways to other applications. For example, it is possible to read (but not post) usenet news through a gopher connection. Gopher Clients To access the Gopher system, you need a gopher "client" program. The special client software must be installed on a computer which is on the Internet. There are free gopher clients for just about any computer you might have: UNIX, Macintosh, IBM/PC, X Windows, VAX/VMS, and probably more by now. Each client has the "look and feel" of the system it runs on. Source code for gopher client programs can be found at "boom- box.micro.umn.edu" in the directory "pub/gopher". You can get what you need there via anonymous FTP, or you can use "archie" (see section on archie) to find other source code for client software. Whenever you install a client software program, it will be pre-configured with the Internet address of some gopher home server (which means you will be using gopher through that server and it's setup). Since most servers are public, it doesn't really matter which server your client is pointed to initially. You can start the client, get a menu, and use gopher. When you have some experience, you can decide which gopher server you want to be your home and change the configurations accordingly. There are also (at least) two "public" gopher clients: consultant.micro.umn.edu and gopher.uiuc.edu You can try gopher out on either of these before you go through the trouble of installing a client on your machine. Just telnet to one of them and use the login name "gopher". If you do this, you will find that the interface is a UNIX curses gopher. Almost anything you can do with one gopher client you can do on another. It may be a little easier if you use a mouse, but it works just fine without one. Find a client program that suits your taste. Gopher's features allow you to move files from anonymous FTP servers to the computer running your gopher client - if you are using a "public-access" gopher client, be careful because you'll be moving the files to whatever machine the public access client is on instead of your machine. How Gopher Works When you start up a gopher session, the client contacts its home server and brings up its main menu. You'll see a number of descriptive directories. Go through the directory menu and "choose" the one you want to investigate further. On a UNIX machine you would start the gopher client with the command: % gopher Gopher subcommands: q quit from Gopher u return to previous item m mail an item to you s save an item in a file On the Mac, you would just click the gopher icon to get it started. Whichever home server you choose, your first menu will look something like this: Home Gopher Server Internet Gopher (c) 1991-1993 University of Minnesota 1. Information about Gopher 2. Computer Information 3. Discussion Groups 4. Fun and 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 To access a directory, either type in it's number (e.g. 4 for Fun and Games) and press "Enter", or move your cursor to the appropriate directory and "Enter". If you reach a file (instead of a directory), you can read the contents of the file by selecting it in the same manner as you did the directory. The information on the screen will tell you to press the space bar to continue reading (it will move one page at a time - but there are ways to scroll back and forth) or to type "q" to quit reading the document. When you reach the end of the document (or type "q"), the information on the screen will ask you want to return to the menu, mail the file to a particular email address, or save the file on your computer with a filename that you specify. Some menu items are for searching indexes for information (e.g. menu item #10 in the example shown). If you select this menu item, you will be asked for some search "clues" (keywords or other types of information) to aid the search. You'll also find that you can connect to resources using telnet as an interface as well. Menu items with the marker "" at the end indicate that you will be entering a telnet session. The gopher program actually loses control while you are in a telnet session, but will regain control when the telnet session is over. Moving to Other Servers By exploring Gopher on the home server you started with, you might find most everything you ever could think of looking for. But if you are curious about what else you might be able to find, go look around on other servers. Your main menu will probably have a menu item that looks something like: Other gopher and information servers It may be called "other services" or something like that, but it is always there somewhere. Moving from one server to another is no different than moving through the menus and picking a resource. You should pick several other gopher servers and see what they have that may be different. You'll find that many are general servers (like the one above) and others are more specifically directed (e.g. the Cornell Law School server is more directed toward law). If you find one you find more useful, reconfigure your client program to make it your home server. In searching around, you'll find literally thousands of very interesting locations. Since you can't remember all the locations, Gopher provides a way to establish a file of "Bookmarks" . This is very easy to do. On the Mac, when you reach an interesting location you want to return to again, just pull down the menu item "Gopher" and click on the "Set Bookmark". When you're ready to go back, just open your Bookmark file and click on the location you want to return to. WORLD WIDE WEB - WWW (and the application Mosaic) WWW is the newest entry in the informations systems category, and is growing extremely rapidly in popularity. In particular, the WWW application, Mosaic is quickly becoming the most popular Internet navigation tool. Like gopher, WWW is a distributed system. Unlike gopher, however, WWW incorporates hypertext in its data presentation. An easy way to think of WWW is as gopher with pictures and sound. A single WWW hypertext document can include formatted text, inlined images, and clickable buttons to deliver sound anf movies. Another difference between gopher and WWW is that WWW doesn't seperate directories and files into seperate concepts. Instead, text (or images) within one document are 'linked' to another document. Selecting the link (usually by point- and-click) causes the new page to be displayed. An additional feature of WWW is that all WWW clients can also serve as gopher clients, ftp clients, and telnet clients. This means that a single user-interface can be learned to utilize these resources, easing the users as well as the administrators task. WWW Clients Like Gopher, you need a client program for World Wide Web. Currently the most popular family of clients are the Mosaic family written by NCSA at the University of Illinois. Mosaic clients are available for Macintosh, X-windows, and Microsoft Windows. They can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from (ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu) in the pub/mosaic directory. A text based WWW client is also avaiable under the name of lynx. It will work with any terminal-based system that has VT100 functionality. Using WWW Also like gopher, WWW clients will have a default home-page. In the case of Mosaic, this page may be slow to retrieve, so customization may be needed. On the client display, hypertext links will be highlighted in some manner: Mosaic underlines them, lynx Bold Fonts them. Clicking on a link (or otherwise selecting it) will resolve the link. Links can be to images, sounds, to other hypertext pages, or to ftp or gopher sites. Mosaic is easily the most diverse information system currently on the internet. The only way to really find out what is available is to explore. But, as a pointer, the usenet groups comp.infosystems.announce and comp.infosystems.www list new sites regularly. OTHER APPLICATIONS YOU CAN USE The archie Server (helping you find anonymous FTP resources) Archie is a database of anonymous FTP sites and their contents. It keeps track of the entire contents of over 1200 anonymous FTP servers and allows you to search for files (currently about 2.1 million files) on those sites using various different kinds of filename searches. Once every 30 days the archie software uses FTP to connect to each site and obtain an updated directory listing of the files available for anonymous FTP from the particular source. This large amount of information is duplicated at a number of geographically distributed archie servers around the world. Users should telnet to any one of several archie servers, then perform a keyword search to find the data you are looking for. When you find the file you want, you will be given its Internet address so you can FTP it to your computer. There are several archie servers across the world. To access archie interactively, telnet to an existing server nearest you. If you login and the server is too busy with other users to help you at the moment, a message will appear with the following sites (and many more) for you to use: archie.ans.net (sites connected to the ANS network, USA) archie.rutgers.edu (Northeastern USA) archie.sura.net (Southeastern USA) archie.unl.edu (Western, USA) archie.mcgill.ca (Canada) Once you are logged in, you ask archie to either find filenames which contain a certain search string, or suggest files whose description contains a certain word. When you find the file you want, you then FTP the file to your computer. Using archie To connect to archie, issue the command: "telnet (archie.site)". At the "login:" prompt, enter "archie". At the "archie>" prompt, enter your search command. Using "help" will yield instructions on using the "prog" command to make queries, set to control various aspects of the server's operation, et al. Type "quit" at the prompt to leave archie. If you wanted to check out the Eudora software to do electronic mail from your Macintosh: % telnet archie.sura.net login: archie archie> prog eudora # matches / % database searched 40/16% The last line in this example shows you how the search is progressing. Be careful of how you structure your search, or you can end up with hundreds, or even thousands of file listings. When the search is finished, you will have a list of servers and filenames that fit the criteria. In the case of Eudora, there are a large number of servers with the software package Eudora, or with descriptive files about Eudora. Three of the listings are shown below: Host ftp.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4) Last updated 10:08 25 Dec 1993 Location: /systems/mac/umich.edu/util/comm FILE -r--r--r-- 379544 bytes 15:58 25 Sep 1993 eudora1.4.cpt.hqx FILE -r--r--r-- 959989 bytes 11:07 9 Oct 1993 eudora1.4docs.cpt.hqx Location: /systems/ibmpc/win3/uploads FILE -r--r--r-- 275600 bytes 08:12 17 Dec 1993 eudora14.exe FILE -r--r--r-- 1464 bytes 13:42 19 Dec 1993 eudora14.txt Host ftp.cac.psu.edu (128.118.2.23) Last updated 08:59 29 Apr 1994 Location: /pub/access/test FILE -rw-rw-r-- 344929 bytes 12:13 20 Dec 1993 pceudora.exe Location: /pub/access/windows FILE -rw-rw-r-- 354126 bytes 17:54 18 Jan 1994 pceudora.exe Host sumex-aim.stanford.edu (36.44.0.6) Last updated 13:53 24 Apr 1994 Location: /info-mac/comm/net FILE -rw-r--r-- 395674 bytes 22:25 20 Dec 1993 eudora-141.hqx If you want to send the result of the search to an email address, type: archie> mail (your.email.address) Then to quit the session, type: archie> quit bye Now you can FTP the file(s) you want from the location information you have been given by the archie server. It's that simple. Some other archie commands (at the "archie>" prompt) are: help Gets you a list of archie commands list Displays a list of anonymous FTP servers indexed in archie mail Mail result of last search back to you prog xxxx Search for a file by name quit Exit program servers Gets a current list of all the known archie servers set search Change search type (to exact, regexp, case or subcase) show search Show current search type site (computer) Lists all the files available at the anonymous FTP server named (computer) whatis Search through descriptive index archie Clients The most convenient way to do "archie prog" searches is with the archie command installed on your system. To find the same information you tried with the server command "prog", you would just type "archie eudora" (or some other search string) - without requiring an interactive telnet session to the server. The real value of using an archie client is that you can give the archie system a variety of modifiers to control the type of search. For example, you could tell the system to only send you X files (where you specify the number X). Read the "help" documents to learn more about what modifiers you have available. Note that your system administrator may not have installed the archie clients yet; the source is available on each of the archie servers, in the directory "archie/clients". Using the X-windows client is much more intuitive---if it's installed, just read its man page and give it a whirl. Mailing archie Users limited to email connectivity to the Internet should send a message to the address archie@archie.mcgill.ca with the single word "help" in the body (not the message header line) of the email message. An email message will be returned explaining how to use the email archie server, along with the details of using FTPmail. Most of the commands offered by the telnet interface can be used with the mail server. The whatis database In addition to offering access to anonymous FTP listings, archie also permits access to the whatis description database. It includes the names and brief synopses for over 3,500 public domain software packages, datasets and informational documents located on the Internet. Additional whatis databases are scheduled to be added in the future. Planned offerings include listings for the names and locations of on-line library catalog programs, the names of publicly accessible electronic mailing lists, compilations of Frequently Asked Questions lists, and archive sites for the most popular Usenet news groups. WAIS Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS servers) are great for searching through indexed material and finding articles based on what they contain. They help you look through Internet archives for articles that contain groups of words - a distributed text search system. A large number of WAIS servers are available on many topics and the number and variety are growing daily. A few samples: cert-advisories.src Computer security advisories from CERT eric-digest.src The ERIC digest of educational abstracts hacker-jargon.src "The Hacker's Dictionary" of computer jargon rfc-index.src Index of Internet "Request for Comment" documents risks-digest.src The "Risks of Computing" mailing list roget-thesaurus.src Roget's Thesaurus world-factbook.src "The CIA World Factbook" of political geography WAIS makes it possible to access information distributed on servers around the world from clients that may be running on a number of different platforms. The WAIS user does not need to know anything about the type of computers on which the desired information is stored. You might want to use a public server to try out WAIS. Public Servers include "quake.think.com" and "nnsc.nsf.net". You can access either of these servers by telnet: telnet quake.think.com (login as wais) telnet nnsc.nsf.net (login as wais) When connected, you will see some instructions on your screen instructing you on how to negotiate through a menu of topics. If you want to look through the instructions, type "?". Use a "q" to exit. If you want to use WAIS more often, like gopher, you should have a WAIS client. These are available free from a variety of locations. Use archie to find them. You can also retrieve them via anonymous FTP from the machine "think.com" in the directory called "wais". You'll find WAIS to be a very useful tool, and quite easy to negotiate, especially with the instructions given to you on the screen. You can also search for WAIS servers by using gopher. Under the menu item "Other gopher and information systems" (or something similar), you will find a menu item called "Directory of WAIS servers". When you select this item, you will be prompted to enter one or more keywords. Gopher will then conduct the WAIS search and display the names and descriptions of WAIS servers which match them. SOME RESOURCES AVAILABLE IN THE INTERNET WORLD Internet Resource Guides: NSF Network Service Center (NNSC) compiles and makes available an Internet Resource Guide (IRG). The goal of the guide is to increase the visibility of various Internet resources that may help users do their work better. While not an exhaustive list, the guide is a useful compendium of many resources and can be a helpful reference for a new user. The current edition of the IRG is available via: ftp nnsc.nsf.net cd resource-guide NorthWestNet Users Internet Resource Guide (NUSIRG): This is a very helpful guide to understanding the Internet and how to access it's resources. It is organized into a series of self-contained chapters in postscript files. NUSIRG is available via anonymous FTP from: ftp ftphost.nwnet.net login: anonymous cd nic/nwnet/user-guide Zen and the Art of the Internet: Another very helpful guide to learning how to navigate the Internet and its resources. It is available in text files ftp ftp.cs.widener.edu login: anonymous cd pub/zen Internet Information Search: Many of the standard IRGs and texts are indexed and contained here. Includes some of the entries mentioned above and "Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet", "Netiquette", and others as well. Access via: WAIS internet_info.src Federal Research Agencies Information Sources The Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Every year the Federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) compiles a directory of all federal grant programs. Now, rather than thumbing through the unwieldy 1,130 page document (plus Appendices), you can search it online by entering keywords. The CFDA gives information such as the Federal Agency that administers the program, Authorizations, Objectives, Eligibility, Application Procedures and Deadlines, Financial Information, etc. Access: gopher marvel.loc.gov / Federal Government Information / Federal Information Resources / Information by Agency / General Information Resources / Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (Search?). Alternate Access: telnet fedworld.gov / Subsystems/Databases/ Government Grants (CFDA) The DoEd Bulletin Board System: The Department of Education's Grants and Contracts Services Bulletin Board System (BBS) is the definitive source for DoEd grant information. DoEd recently began placing the full text of all grant information it transmits to the Federal Register on its bulletin board, which means you often don't need to go beyond the DoEd BBS for all your grant needs. Among the useful grant data: The Database of Grant Program Announcements--searchable by program office, announcement date, or current availability; DoEd's Combined Application Notice (CAN)--lists comprehensive notice published in September of every year; Guide to Grant Programs--general information about DoEd grant programs, including eligibility requirements and contacts. There are two ways to access the DoEd BBS: dialing direct (requires a modem and long-distance phone charges) or through FedWorld, a federal system that allows free access to a variety of government services via the Internet (including connections to previously unavailable bulletin boards). FedWorld is discussed in more detail below. Access (free): telnet fedworld.gov / (D) Enter Federal Gateway / (D) Connect to Gov't Sys/database (Enter "110" at prompt for access to DoEd BBS). Alternate Access (expensive): direct dial with modem (202/260-9950). The Federal Register (Partial Access via Internet:) Federal agencies are required to print grant program information, including notices of proposed and final regulations and requests for proposals (RFPs), in the Federal Register. Counterpoint Publishing (one of those annoying D.C. firms I mentioned earlier) graciously allows partial public access to their commercial Federal Register files over the Internet. They do not allow full text retrieval, but their partial access does provide a nice way to search for initial information; retrievable information includes the program title or agency action, the administering agency, deadlines, financial information, and a summary of the full text. You can access information by Federal Agency, Date of Issue, or Subject Category. For the broadest searches, I suggest you search for keywords by yearly quarters (includes 3 months of Federal Register issues). Access: gopher gopher.counterpoint.com / Federal Register (ignore US Commerce Business Daily and Code of Federal Regulations--Counterpoint Publishing doesn't allow even partial public access to either of them). Alternate Access: gopher marvel.loc.gov / Federal Government Information / Federal Information Resources / Information by Agency / General Information Resources / Federal Register Once you have a program title and the date it was published in the Federal Register, you can retrieve the full text in a variety of ways. 1) Get ahold of a printed copy (from the agency or your Grants & Contracts Office). These usually arrive about 3 weeks after publication. 2) Check other sources listed here and download (e.g. NIH, NSF, etc) 3) Purchase access to full text access from a vendor (e.g. Counterpoint). FEDIX AND MOLIS: FEDIX and MOLIS, on-line services of Federal Information Exchange, Inc., are the information links between the Federal government and academia. They save time and money by allowing "one-stop shopping" for participating agencies' research and educational opportunities. They also provide the latest information on participating agencies and minority institutions, and update daily information available from Commerce Business Daily and Federal Register. FEDIX databases provide on-line information on agency research opportunities, program contacts, scholarships, research equipment, procurement notices, and minority opportunities. An electronic mail feature is also provided for users to communicate with the system operators. MOLIS databases support the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) by providing capability information on 107 HBCUs and 32 Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and Universities. This on- line information includes research centers, facilities, equipment; pre-college and education programs; scholarships and fellowships; emerging capabilities; revenues and expenditures, degrees and enrollment; faculty profiles; and administrative personnel data. PARTICIPATING AGENCIES Department of Energy (DOE) Department of Commerce (DOC) Department of Education (DOEd) Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Science Foundation (NSF) National Security Agency (NSA) Office of Naval Research (ONR) U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Any microcomputer or dumb terminal with communications software and a modem operating at 1200, 2400, or 9600 baud or any system/terminal with access to the Internet can access the system. FEDIX and MOLIS (301) 258-0953 Washington Metro Area 1-800-783-3349 All Others MODEM SETUP : 8 databits, NO parity, 1 stopbit INTERNET ADDRESS : telnet fedix.fie.com login as: fedix OR molis INTERNET MAIL: comments@fedix.fie.com Free User Guides are available for both FEDIX and MOLIS. Call (301) 975-0103. FedWorld: FedWorld is a federally operated systems that allows Internet access to a variety of government data and information, including access to previously unavailable federal bulletin boards. FedWorld is nice because it allows access to bulletin boards without having to dial direct with a modem and accrue enormous long distance phone bills. For example, FedWorld allows free access to: o #70 NIHGL The NIH Grant Line o #108 ACF-BBS (HHS) Admin. for Children and Families Grant Inf. o #110 ED Board (DoEd) Dept. of Ed Grant & Contract Info. Access: telnet fedworld.gov / (D) GateWay System / (D) Connect to Gov't Sys/database (required to enter list number of desired BBS--#110 for DoEd). Alternate Access: gopher marvel.loc.gov / Federal Government Information / Federal Information Resources / Information by Agency / General Information Resources / Connect to Fedworld (telnet) In addition, you can access and search the CFDA through FedWorld. Access: telnet fedworld.gov / Subsystems/Databases / Government Grants (CFDA) National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health offer an electronic version of the NIH Guide via the NIH gopher server. You may search for NIH grants over the last 6 weeks or from Jan. 1992 to the present and retrieve full texts of Requests For Applications (RFAs) and Program Announcements. Access: gopher gopher.nih.gov / Grants and Research Information STIS - The Science & Technology Information System at the National Science Foundation - STIS is an electronic information dissemination system which provides easy access to the National Science Foundation publications. The full text of publications can be searched on-line, and copied from the system. There is no charge for connect time and no need to register for a password. Some publications available on STIS are: * the NSF Bulletin, * the Guide to Programs, * grants booklet -- including forms, * program announcements, * press releases, * NSF telephone book, * reports of the National Science Board, * descriptions of research projects funded by NSF -- with abstracts, * analytical reports and news from the International Programs Division. New materials are added weekly. Some will be removed or replaced as they become out of date; others will remain permanently. STIS can be accessed via gopher, telnet, FTP, or electronic mail: gopher stis.nsf.gov / or telnet stis.nsf.gov or ftp stis.nsf.gov or mail: stis@nsf.gov body of message: send (filename) Most NSF Publications have numbers consisting of the year and a sequential publication number, for example, NSF 94-10. To find these in the "index" file, do a string search for the publication number leaving out the punctuation. For example, to find NSF 94-10, search for "nsf9410". 1. STIS documents are also available through an on-line system that features full- text search and retrieval software. For information on this service, retrieve the file nsf9110. A User's Guide for the on-line system is file nsf9410. 2. STIS has a "direct mail" service in which you can get, via e-mail, the full text of all documents added to STIS. For information on this service, retrieve the file "stisdirm". 3. If you would like a weekly summary of the new documents on STIS, you can get on the summary mailing list. Send a message to "listserv@nsf.gov" (Internet) or "listserv@NSF" (BITNET). Place the following command in the text of the message: subscribe STSSUM-L (Put your name where the example shows "your name".) 4. If you know an award number, you can ftp a file containing the award abstract and other information about the award. Here's how to ftp the file: a. After you connect to stis.nsf.gov, change directories to the subdirectory formed by concatenating "awd" and the first 4 digits of the award number. For example, if the award number is 9212987, you would use the following command: ftp> cd awards92/awd9212 b. The filename is composed of "a" plus the award number. Continuing the above example, to download the award use the following command: ftp> get a9212987 You can use the on-line system, described above, to find specific abstracts in your area of interest. 5. For your convenience, all the documents have symbolic links in the root directory. This means that once you find the file name you can retrieve the file with a simple "get filename" command, without having to change directories. Miscellaneous Resource Files Academic Position Network: This is a new service that includes job advertisements for professors and college administrators. Job openings are posted for an unlimited time period for a single (relatively small) fee. Computer users can browse through the listings at their discretion. As of March 1993, there were about 60 jobs listed. The listings are accessible using gopher. Those who need additional help can send email to (apn@staff.tc.umn.edu). CIA World Factbook: The CIA maintains a dossier on every country in the world. This is the 1990 version, with 249 nations. Contains information on population, economic condition, trade, conflicts, politics - basic information - nothing on weapon arsenals or anything like that. Access via: WAIS world-factbook.src CICA: Center for Innovative Computer Applications: An anonymous-ftp clearinghouse for MicroSoft Windows (version 3.x only) applications, tips, utilities, drivers, bitmaps, etc. CICA currently provides to the anonymous ftp user, free of charge, over 300Mb of PUBLIC DOMAIN and SHAREWARE Windows-related files. ftp ftp.cica.indiana.edu or 129.79.20.84 The Cleveland Freenet: The prototypical city freenet. Very comprehensive and user-friendly telnet site. It contains an enormous number of complete historical documents, a vast amount of information about the Arts, Science and Technology, Medicine, Education, Business, and provides and up to date news service. One section, of particular interest to educators is the Academy One, which is an NPTN experimental program designed to meet the information and communication needs of students and educators. This Telnet site is definitely one of the easiest to log on to, one of the easiest to use, and one of the most comprehensive in terms of a variety of information available. So it is a great telnet site for the rookie on the Internet as well as a great resource for the veteran user. telnet freenet-in-a.cwru.edu Compression and Archival Software Summary: A table listing available software, by type of computer, to do and undo archiving and compression. ( The more you retrieve files via the Internet, the more you''ll need this file.) ftp ux1.cso.uiuc.edu login: anonymous cd doc/pcnet get compression Computational Biology (Welchlab - Johns Hopkins University): Electronic access to documents pertaining to Computational Biology. Searches of Genbank, Swiss-Prot, PDB, PIR, LiMB, TFD, AAtDB, ACEDB, CompoundKB, PROSITE EC Enzyme Database searches (via Indiana, Houston, Harvard, the Netherlands and NIH); Searches of NRL_3D Protein-Sequence-Structure Database, Eukaryotic Promoter Database (EPD), and Cloning Vector Database, Expressed Sequence Tag Database (ESTDB), Online Mendelian Inheritance Man (OMIM), Sequence Analysis; Bibliographic Reference Data Bank (Seqanalref), Database Taxonomy (Genbank, Swiss-Prot) and many more (run here at Welchlab); Direct links to other Gophers which provide information relevant to biology; Links to over 70 ftp sites with data and software for biology; Searches to help you find other biologists - by name, location and research interests; full text of "Mathmatics and Biology" (current and future trends at the interface between mathematics and biology). gopher.gdb.org 70 Congressional Contact Information: Names, addresses and phone numbers of members of Congress. It can be searched by name, city, state, or postal code. Access via: WAIS congress.src Cooking: The Internet provides access to many recipe archives. Most of these recipes have appeared on the various USENET news groups over the years. The recipes at gatekeeper.dec.com are organized by title: To access this archive ftp to: ftp gatekeeper.dec.com cd pub/recipes For more information send e-mail to gw-archives@pa.dec.com Directory of Electronic Journals and Newsletters: Information about existing electronic journals. Also tips for starting and running new ones. Mail: listserv@acadvm1.uottawa.ca Header: (nothing needed here) Body: get ejournl1 directry get ejournl2 directry Earth Science Internet Resources by Bill Thoen: Earth Science Anonymous FTP Sites; Telnet Addresses; Commercial Sources; or Govt. Sources Requiring Fees; Groundwater Modeling Software; Coordinate Projection Contacts; Software for TIGER data; World Cities Data Digital Chart of the World; National Geophysical Data Center; Commercial Data Vendors; National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center Satellite Image Sources; Coordinate Conversion, Map Projection gopher infoserver.ciesin.org Electronic Books from Project Gutenberg: There are quite a few books made available in electronic form through the Project Gutenberg. FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg aarchives: ftp mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (or you can ftp quake.think.com) login: anonymous password: yourid@address cd etext Environmental Protection Agency Gopher: Information on people at EPA who can give you more information; Agriculture; Air, Water, Land; EnergyGraphics; Industrial ecology; Megatrends Project; Population; Technology; TRI-Toxic Release Inventory; Video Examples; other environmental gophers. gopher futures.wic.epa.gov or info.umd.edu infoM/ReadingRoom/Environment FDA Electronic Bulletin Board: The FDA electronic bulletin board contains information regarding the Food and Drug Administration. This information includes its actions, congressional testimony, news releases, consumer information, information on AIDS, and information on veterinary medicine. This telnet site is very friendly. Anyone interested in exploring the site will find it easy to use. telnet fdabbs.fda.gov 150.148.8.48 Free Software Foundation (FSF): The FSF is devoted to the creation and dissemination of software free from licensing fees and restrictions. Software is distributed under the "General Public License" which fits the foundations goals and principles. FSF software is available from many places -the archive listed below is one of the more complete and up to date guides. Note the file "copying" contains the general public license. ftp prep.ai.mit.edu login: anonymous cd pub/gnu Gateways: WUGATE at Washington University in St. Louis provides WUGATE, a program that gives information and Internet access to various resources. WUGATE includes information on Internet-accessible libraries, freenets, campus- wide information services, databases, and other telnet-accessible services. ftp wuarchive.wustl.edu login: anonymous password: my-email@school.edu Genealogical Information: Genealogical information of all types. Database programs, lists of various genealogical societies, magazines, newsletters, and cemetery information. And a list of tips for the beginner. All files that are not programs have a ".zip" extension. ftp hallc1.cebaf.gov login: anonymous cd genealogy Gopher Jewels: compiled by David Riggins (Texas) lists gopher sites by technical areas (e.g. Agriculture, Astronomy, etc.). It also provides access to a variety of directories and documents. Access: gopher marvel.loc.gov / Internet Resources / Internet guides, policies and informational services / Internet Guides & FAQs. GRIN, National Genetic Resources Program, USDA-ARS: The NGRP gopher server provides germplasm information about plants, animals, microbes and insects within the National Genetic Resources Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS). In addition, connections to other biological gopher servers around the world are provided. gopher gopher.ars-grin.gov Health: Handicapped News Archives: This resource provides information regarding disabilities. The Handicap News Archive provides files such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and Information from the American Council for the Blind. The Handicap News Archives also contains information beyond disabilities including: a calendar of conferences, caregiver information, chronic fatigues syndrome, educational software, cerebral palsy, and amputee information. Note: start with the readme file to get around. ftp handicap.shel.isc-br.com login: anonymous HEALTHLINE: University of Montana Student Health Services gopher. Physical and mental health (sexuality, drug & alcohol information, academic tips and dietary facts), pointers to information for the disabled, information about the effect of computers on health, health-related USENET newsgroups, Electronic Books for the Blind and other similar projects, various "Extension Service" Gophers, environmental health and safety issues, and health-related information provided via U.S. Federal Agencies. gopher gopher selway.umt.edu (port 700) Info-Mac archives at Stanford University: Large FTP archive for new Macintosh freeware and shareware. Has a science-math subdirectory. ftp sumex-aim.stanford.edu IUBIO Archive for Biology, Indiana University: Molecular biology is the area of concentration, and it is also a home for Drosophila research data. Includes software for Macintosh, VAX- VMS, Unix, MS-DOS. ftp bio.indiana.edu or 129.79.224.25 InterNIC: In the spring of 1992, NSF funded three organizations to provide and/or coordinate services for the NSFNET community. The 3 areas of service are Registration Services (to assist in registering networks, domains, etc.), Directory and Database Services (contains information on FTP sites, various types of servers, data archives, etc), and Information Services (information services for midlevel and campus network organizations, and for the networking community at large). Beginning April 1, 1993, the InterNIC Directory and Database server will be freely available to all end users on the Internet. Access is available through WAIS (userid is wais), archie (userid is archie), telnet (login as "guest") or anonymous FTP to: ds.internic.net To obtain user information via email, send a message to mailserv@ds.internic.net and include the command "help" in the body of the message. Kidsphere: Mailing list for elementary and secondary teachers, who use it to arrange joint projects and discuss educational telecommunications. Access: to subscribe, send Email to kidsphere-request@vms.cis.pitt.edu or to joinkids@vms.cis.pitt.edu Knowbot Information Service: This service is a "white pages" service that will search for a name through a large number of Internet databases. Useful for looking up people. Will get more convenient to use over time - a relatively new service. telnet sol.bucknell.edu 185 or telnet nri.weston.va.us 185 Libraries: Some organizations on the Internet have taken advantage of their network connection by providing access to their libraries' electronic catalogs. Many of these libraries also provide access to useful reference information. The most difficult task associated with some library systems is figuring out how to disconnect. Library of Congress Files contain 26 million materials catalogued and held by the library. Users can also find records from some other research institutions and agencies. The files include: *Federal Legislation introduced since 1973. *Material regestered for copyright since 1978. *Audio tapes and materials written in Braille. *Abstracts and citations of foreign laws and regulations. Telnet locis.loc.gov or Telnet 140.147.254.3 UNT's Accessing On-Line Bibliographic Databases is made available by Bill Barron. For more information regarding this database contact billy@unt.edu. A list of online bibliographic databases (library catalogs online) of note include: libraries.txt ASCII version libraries.ps Postscript version libraries.wp5 WordPerfect 5.1 source (transfer in binary mode) libraries.adr Numeric IP addresses of Internet libraries ftp ftp.unt.edu login: anonymous cd library Listserv Groups: Directory of listservs, or discussion groups available on BITNET. Includes the name of the listserv, address, contact person, short descriptions, and instructions on how to get on and off (some) of the lists. ftp lilac.berkeley.edu login: anonymous cd netinfo MacSciTech Macintosh Science and Technology Archive: Naval Research Lab's public archive of hundreds of Macintosh programs, demos, and text files on programming, biology, math, imaging, visualization, graphing, artificial intelligence, electrical engineering, chemistry, digital signal processing, data acquisition, astronomy, optics, psychology, and physics. ftp ra.nrl.navy.mil /MacSciTech Medical resources (Health Sciences Resource): A large (182K) list of health and medical related Internet resources, including many bitnet listserves, ftp archive sites, Usenet newsgroups, electronic publications, WAIS and Gopher servers, etc. ftp ftp.sura.net /pub/nic/medical.resources MIDI Information: Archives of technical documents and discussions about MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) - a common interface for computer assisted music. Access via: WAIS midi.src Molecular Biology FTP and Server List: A list of molecular biology FTP sites and what information can be found. ftp ucselx.sdsu.edu login: anonymous cd /pub/doc/netinfo/molecular-biology.resources Multimedia: There is a repository node on the Internet containing demonstration versions of Macintosh- and Widows- based multimedia courseware developed using Macromedia's authoring tools-Authorware Professional and Director. You can download demonstration versions of courseware from a wide range of subject areas. If you have developed multimedia courseware using Authorware or Director, you can submit a 1 MB demonstration version of this software to the repository. ftp m-media.muohio.edu login: guest Music: The University of Wisconsin at Parkside provides many music files available on their gopher server at cs.uwp.edu port 70. Their server of song lyrics (full text and/or searchable by keyword) is very popular. They've gathered many files of interest to lovers of music from every period. Sound bytes of certain groups are available as are guitar chord TAB files courtesy of the University of Nevada Las Vegas. They also provide a list of other FTP sites for music information including sites of MIDI archives. ftp ftp.uwp.edu 70 (port 70) login:anonymous password: my-email@school.edu cd pub/music NNSC Internet Resource Guide: The NSF Network Service Center asks people offering a service on the Internet to submit a description of the service - these descriptions are collected and made available in their database. Access via: WAIS internet-resource-guide.src Oxford Dictionary of Familiar Quotations: A search interface to the book. You give it words to search for, and it returns referenced quotes containing those words. telnet info.rutgers.edu select: library then select: reference PC Magazine: Electronic versions of the PC Magazine published by Ziff Davis. There are several places that make this available (search archie with "pcmag"). ftp wuarchive.wustl.edu login: anonymous cd mirrors/msdos/pcmag Roget's Thesaurus: One of the Project Gutenberg texts. Available either as a file or as a searchable text through WAIS or Gopher. Access via: WAIS roget-thesaurus.src Scientists on Disk: Johns Hopkins University History of Science and Medicine gopher, including material from the J. Robert Oppenheimer collection at the Library of Congress, transcripts of interviews with important figures from 20th Century Aerospace, The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, and Miscellany; lecture transcripts; image-library of architectural photographs, American quilts, and miscellany. gopher gopher.hs.jhu.edu Software and Aids for Teaching Mathematics: A collection of software to aid teaching mathematics at the college/university level. Mostly included IBM PC compatible software, but may support other computers in the future. ftp wuarchive.wustl.edu login: anonymous cd etc/math Some Universities have their own Electronic Bulletin Board with a variety of information included. The following example is from the University of Texas at Dallas in the "Sponsored Project Bulletin Board" directory: telnet sioux.utdallas.edu login: UTDINFO cd Sponsored Project Bulletin Board (various subdirectories here include:) 1. OSP NEWS 2. PROPOSAL HELPS 3. AGENCY DEADLINES 4. NIH GUIDE 5. NSF BULLETIN Spacelink: NASA's Spacelink is a space-related informational database provided by the NASA Educational Affairs Division and operated by the Marshall Space Flight Center. Spacelink is specifically designed for K-12 teachers and students although people from a wide variety of backgrounds use it. NASA Spacelink does not provide for interaction between callers. However, it allows callers to leave questions and comments for NASA. Spacelink also includes a section on Technology Transfer which has NASA's area of research interests, and patent and licensing information. telnet spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov login: newuser Password: newuser The Scientist: The *complete* text of each issue of The Scientist, a biweekly tabloid newspaper, published in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, U.S.A.) and distributed internationally to research scientists, managers, and administrators in industry, academia, and government. Although it is targeted at all science professionals, the majority of the 30,000 subscribers are associated with the life sciences and the burgeoning biotechnology marketplace. gopher inforM.umd.edu /inforM/Educational_Resources/ReadingRoom/Miscellaneous/Science ftp ds.internic.net /pub/the-scientist UNIX Reference Card: A good source of UNIX commands. ftp ucselx.sdsu.edu login: anonymouss cd pub/doc/general US Supreme Court Decisions: Posts recent decisions of the US Supreme Court. Project Hermes is one of several sources. Access via: WAIS supreme-court.src WAIS Documents: - "Wide Area Information Servers", (overview sheet) Brewster Kahle, Thinking Machines, April, 1991. One page overview of the Internet release of WAIS. Available via anonymous ftp: (quake.think.com) /pub/wais/wais-discussion/overview.txt - "WAIStation, A User Interface for WAIS", February 1991, Thinking Machines technical report TMC-203. User interface documentation with screen shots. Available via anonymous ftp: (quake.think.com) /pub/wais/doc/waistation_users_guide.txt Weather: Ever wonder what the weather will be like in Washington D.C. for an upcoming meeting? How about ski conditions in Aspen? The University of Michigan maintains "Weather Underground" which uses data from the Zephyr Weather Information Service to provide forecasts for selected U.S. and Canadian cities, ski condition, long-range forecasts, earthquake reports, hurricane advisories, and severe weather warnings. telnet madlab.sprl.umich.edu 3000 (port 3000) WUARCHIVE: Washington U. Public Domain Archives: Wuarchive is one of the biggest ftp sites in the entire world. It is known as a mirror site, that is, it is a site that copies other ftp sites. For example all of the Macintosh files from Stanford University are archived here. Therefore Wuarchive is a very useful site for educators since most major ftp sites are archived here. Wuarchive also has a huge depository of graphics which could be of interest to educators. It is a very useful archive for math teachers and life science teachers. Subdirectories contain both ftp programs and text files on the following subjects; calculus.reform, linear.algebra, mac (various math programs for the mac), mac-files.txt, mac- newsletter, msdos (math programs), msdos-files.txt, msdos- newsletter, life.sciences (programs), and life.sciences- files.txt. ftp wuarchive.wustl.edu or 128.252.135.4 GLOSSARY This glossary is only a tiny subset of all of the various terms and other things that people regularly use on The Net. For a more complete (and very entertaining) reference, it's suggested you get a copy of The New Hacker's Dictionary. It is available from the MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02142; its ISBN number is 0-262-68069-6. Also see RFC- 1208, A Glossary of Networking Terms. :-) This odd symbol is one of the ways a person can portray ``mood'' in the very flat medium of computers---by using ``smilies.'' This is `metacommunication', and there are literally hundreds of them, from the obvious to the obscure. anonymous FTP Also known as ``anon FTP''; a service provided to make files available to the general Internet community. ANSI The American National Standards Institute disseminates basic standards like ASCII, and acts as the United States' delegate to the ISO. Standards can be ordered from ANSI by writing to the ANSI Sales Department, 1430 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, or by telephoning (212) 354-3300. archie A service which provides lookups for packages in a database of the offerings of countless of anonymous FTP sites. archive server An email-based file transfer facility offered by some systems. ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) Former name of DARPA, the government agency that funded ARPAnet and later the DARPA Internet asynchronous Transmission by individual bytes, not related to specific timing on the transmitting end. auto-magic Something which happens pseudo-automatically, and is usually too complex to go into any further than to say it happens ``auto-magically.'' backbone A high-speed connection within a network that connects shorter, usually slower circuits. Also used in reference to a system that acts as a ``hub'' for activity (although those are becoming much less prevalent now than they were ten years ago). bandwidth The capacity of a medium to transmit a signal. More informally, the mythical ``size'' of The Net, and its ability to carry the files and messages of those that use it. Some view certain kinds of traffic (FTPing hundreds of graphics images, for example) as a ``waste of bandwidth'' and look down upon them. BITNET (Because It's Time Network) An NJE-based international educational network. bounce The return of a piece of mail because of an error in its delivery. CFV (Call For Votes) Initiates the voting period for a Usenet newsgroup. At least one (occasionally two or more) email address is customarily included as a repository for the votes. client The user of a network service; also used to describe a computer that relies upon another for some or all of its resources. Cyberspace A term coined by William Gibson in his fantasy novel Neuromancer to describe the ``world'' of computers, and the society that gathers around them. datagram The basic unit of information passed across the Internet. It contains a source and destination address along with data. Large messages are broken down into a sequence of IP datagrams. disassembling Converting a binary program into human-readable machine language code. DNS (Domain Name System) The method used to convert Internet names to their corresponding Internet numbers. domain A part of the naming hierarchy. Syntactically, a domain name consists of a sequence of names or other words separated by dots. dotted quad A set of four numbers connected with periods that make up an Internet address; for example, 147.31.254.130. email The vernacular abbreviation for electronic mail. email address The UUCP or domain-based address that a user is referred to with. For example, wanda@utdallas.edu. ethernet A 10-million bit per second networking scheme originally developed by Xerox Corporation. Ethernet is widely used for LANs because it can network a wide variety of computers, it is not proprietary, and components are widely available from many commercial sources. FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) An emerging standard for network technology based on fiber optics that has been established by ANSI. FDDI specifies a 100-million bit per second data rate. The access control mechanism uses token ring technology. flame A piece of mail or a Usenet posting which is violently argumentative. FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) The FQDN is the full site name of a system, rather than just its hostname. For example, the system lisa at Widener University has a FQDN of lisa.cs.widener.edu. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) The Internet standard high-level protocol for transferring files from one gateway A special-purpose dedicated computer that attaches to two or more networks and routes packets from one network to the other. In particular, an Internet gateway routes IP datagrams among the networks it connects. Gateways route packets to other gateways until they can be delivered to the final destination directly across one physical network. Gopher Very popular network navigation application developed by the University of Minnesota. Gopher is a distributed information system, linking resources from various sites into a single network. Gopher is a directory based system, representing data as either a directory or a file, much like FTP and like DOS and Unix themselves. header The portion of a packet, preceding the actual data, containing source and destination addresses and error-checking fields. Also part of a message or news article. hostname The name given to a machine. (See also FQDN.) Internet A concatenation of many individual TCP/IP campus, state, regional, and national networks (such as NSFnet, ARPAnet, and Milnet) into one single logical network all sharing a common addressing scheme. Internet number The dotted-quad address used to specify a certain system. The Internet number for the site cs.widener.edu is 147.31.254.130. A resolver is used to translate between hostnames and Internet addresses. interoperate The ability of multi-vendor computers to work together using a common set of protocols. With interoperability, PCs, Macs, Suns, Dec VAXen, CDC Cybers, etc, all work together allowing one host computer to communicate with and take advantage of the resources of another. ISO (International Organization for Standardization) Coordinator of the main networking standards that are put into use today. kernel The level of an operating system or networking system that contains the system-level commands or all of the functions hidden from the user. In a Unix system, the kernel is a program that contains the device drivers, the memory management routines, the scheduler, and system calls. This program is always running while the system is operating. LAN (Local Area Network) Any physical network technology that operates at high speed over short distances (up to a few thousand meters). mail gateway A machine that connects to two or more electronic mail systems (especially dissimilar mail systems on two different networks) and transfers mail messages among them. mailing list A possibly moderated discussion group, distributed via email from a central computer maintaining the list of people involved in the discussion. mail path A series of machine names used to direct electronic mail from one user to another. Mosaic A very popular application of the World Wide Web (WWW). Can be thought of (somewhat naively) as Gopher with hypertext links for sound, pictures and video. multiplex The division of a single transmission medium into multiple logical channels supporting many simultaneous sessions. For example, one network may have simultaneous FTP, telnet, rlogin, and SMTP connections, all going at the same time. net.citizen An inhabitant of Cyberspace. One usually tries to be a good net.citizen, lest one be flamed. netiquette A pun on ``etiquette''; proper behavior on The Net. Usenet Netiquette. network A group of machines connected together so they can transmit information to one another. There are two kinds of networks: local networks and remote networks. NFS (Network File System) A method developed by Sun Microsystems to allow computers to share files across a network in a way that makes them appear as if they're ``local'' to the system. NIC The Network Information Center. node A computer that is attached to a network; also called a host. packet The unit of data sent across a packet switching network. The term is used loosely. While some Internet literature uses it to refer specifically to data sent across a physical network, other literature views the Internet as a packet switching network and describes IP datagrams as packets. polling Connecting to another system to check for things like mail or news. postmaster The person responsible for taking care of mail problems, answering queries about users, and other related work at a site. protocols A formal description of message formats and the rules two computers must follow to exchange those messages. Protocols can describe low-level details of machine-to-machine interfaces (e.g., the order in which bits and bytes are sent across a wire) or high-level exchanges between allocation programs (e.g., the way in which two programs transfer a file across the Internet). recursion The facility of a programming language to be able to call functions from within themselves. resolve Translate an Internet name into its equivalent IP address or other DNS information. RFD (Request For Discussion) Usually a two- to three-week period in which the particulars of newsgroup creation are battled out. route The path that network traffic takes from its source to its destination. router A dedicated computer (or other device) that sends packets from one place to another, paying attention to the current state of the network. RTFM (Read The Fantastic Manual). This anacronym is often used when someone asks a simple or common question. The word `Fantastic' is usually replaced with one much more vulgar. SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) The Internet standard protocol for transferring electronic mail messages from one computer to another. SMTP specifies how two mail systems interact and the format of control messages they exchange to transfer mail. server A computer that shares its resources, such as printers and files, with other computers on the network. An example of this is a Network File System (NFS) server which shares its disk space with other computers. signal-to-noise ratio When used in reference to Usenet activity, signal-to-noise ratio describes the relation between amount of actual information in a discussion, compared to their quantity. More often than not, there's substantial activity in a newsgroup, but a very small number of those articles actually contain anything useful. signature The small, usually four-line message at the bottom of a piece of email or a Usenet article. In Unix, it's added by creating a file ..signature in the user's home directory. Large signatures are a no-no. synchronous Data communications in which transmissions are sent at a fixed rate, with the sending and receiving devices synchronized. TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) A set of protocols, resulting from ARPA efforts, used by the Internet to support services such as remote login (telnet), file transfer (FTP) and mail (SMTP). telnet The Internet standard protocol for remote terminal connection service. Telnet allows a user to interact with a remote timesharing system at another site as if the user's terminal were connected directly to the remote computer. terminal server A small, specialized, networked computer that connects many terminals to a LAN through one network connection. Any user on the network can then connect to various network hosts. TeX A free typesetting system by Donald Knuth. twisted pair Cable made up of a pair of insulated copper wires wrapped around each other to cancel the effects of electrical noise. UUCP (Unix to Unix Copy Program) A store-and-forward system, primarily for Unix systems but currently supported on other platforms (e.g. VMS and personal computers). WAN (Wide-Area Network) A network spanning hundreds or thousands of miles. workstation A networked personal computing device with more power than a standard IBM PC or Macintosh. Typically, a workstation has an operating system such as unix that is capable of running several tasks at the same time. It has several megabytes of memory and a large, high-resolution display. Examples are Sun workstations and Digital DECstations. worm A computer program which replicates itself. The Internet worm (The Internet Worm) was perhaps the most famous; it successfully (and accidentally) duplicated itself on systems across the Internet. WWW World Wide Web (WWW)is the newest entry in the informations systems category. In particular, the WWW application, Mosaic is quickly becoming the most popular Internet navigation tool. Like gopher, WWW is a distributed system. Unlike gopher, however, WWW incorporates hypertext in its data presentation. An easy way to think of WWW is as gopher with pictures and sound. REFERENCES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Acknowledgements Originally, much of this document is derived from the following key resources: 1. The Whole Internet Catalog and User's Guide by Ed Krol 2. Zen and the Art of Internet by Brendan P. Kehoe 3. NorthWestNet User Services Internet Resource Guide (NUSIRG) by Jonathan Kochmer Each of these documents are very helpful resources and should be reviewed if you are serious about learning more about navigating the Internet for its resources. In addition, a significant amount of the information in this document was derived from a variety of other Internet files accessed via email, FTP, and Telnet. Acknowledgements are also due to: Wanda Brewer of UT Dallas who gave a talk on Internet resources at the 1992 NCURA conference in Washington D.C. and let me borrow her notes. Logan Ratner at Rice University, who has reviewed this document and provided comments and new material. James M. Kearney from the College of Education at the University of Idaho, who compiled the document "A Grant Getter's Guide to the Internet", copyright March 22, 1994. If you are interested in a full version of his document, you can contact him at (jkearney@uidaho.edu). Many people who claimed they REALLY DID benefit from version 1.0 of this document, prodding me to go ahead and produce version 1.1 References Hitchikers Guide to the Internet (available electronically - anonymous FTP to "nnsc.nsf.net" , change to the directory "rfc", and get the file "rfc1118.txt" ) Internet Resources Guide, NSF Network Service Center, (1988- ), Cambridge, MA. (available electronically - see "Internet Resources Guides:" in the "Some Resources Available in the Internet World") NorthWest Net User Services Internet Resource Guide (NUSIRG), NYSERNet, Inc. 1991, Syracuse, NY.(available electronically - see "Internet Resources Guides:" in the "Some Resources Available in the Internet World") The Whole Internet Catalog and User's Guide by Ed Krol, September 1992 O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Zen and the Art of Internet by Brendan P. Kehoe (available electronically - see "Internet Resources Guides:" in the "Some Resources Available in the Internet World") TRADEMARKS AND COPYRIGHTS Apple is a trademark of Apple Computers, Inc. DEC, DECNET, VAX, and VMS are registered trademarks of the Digital Equipment Corporation. Fido and FidoNet are trademarks of Tom Jennings. IBM and IBM PC are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. Knowbot is a trademark of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives. Macintosh is a trademark licensed to Apple Computers, Inc. PostScript is a trademark of Adobe Systems, Inc. Unix is a registered trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories.