16-Nov-91 15:16:14Sb: Back & Forth softwareFm: Joan HealyTo: John Nelson
Changed my mind about GrandView:
1. Learning curve like Mt. Everest. Give me intuitive or give medeath.2. Lack of patience with " ".3. Lack of time.4. It may be unsuited for what I wanted (outlining a book). Sincebecoming a born-again Galaxian, I've started using that for theoutline, and I'm happy. There's nothing like a decision and apermanent bonding and lifelong commitment to make a womanhappy. Remember that, you louts. :-)
Many users prefer open conference messages to private email for their technical discussions. This gives "the group" a chance to read, comment, provide additional facts, and return with new questions. The reactions to one simple question may be overwhelming, but most of the time the contributions are useful and educational. Since the discussion is public, regard it as your personal online university. Offer opinions when you have something to contribute, or keep silent. In most conferences, some members are critical to "lurkers." A "lurker" is someone who read without ever contributing. Don't let them get to you. Do not feel bad about being silent. Most other members are there only to watch and learn as well. If you consider buying a newly released computer program, tune in to the section of your favorite online service that deals with products from this manufacturer. Count messages with complaints of the new program before buying. When you have received your new program, return to read other users' experiences and to pick up practical advice. It will never hurt to offer your own two cents' worth in the process.
| Visit online services that have many users who know more than | | most. There, you will usually get faster and better replies to | | your questions. It is far cheaper to ask than to search. |
Start with bulletin boards. If you have never visited a BBS, call one in your neighborhood to get a feel for what this is. Most of them can be accessed free. Usually, their only requirement is that you answer some self-presentation questions before being granted full access to their system. Most bulletin boards offer conferencing and archives filled with shareware and public domain software. Many also have files or bulletins listing telephone numbers of other boards in your country or area. The trick is to find know-how. The larger the online service, the more skilled people are likely to "meet" there regularly. Therefore, if local bulletin boards fail to satisfy your needs, visit the large commercial services. CompuServe and EXEC-PC are two services in the top league. BIX is another good source of information for professional computer specialists. One exception: When you need contact with ONE particular person, who knows YOUR problem in detail, go where he uses to go. Examples: If you need top advice about the communications program GALINK, call Mike's BBS in Oslo (at +472 -416588). If you buy modems from Semafor A/S, the best place for expert advice is Semaforum BBS (tel. +4741-370-11710). If you have a Novell local area network, visit the Novell forums on CompuServe.
For users of MS-DOS computers ——————————————- I visit the following CompuServe forums regularly:
IBM Communication - about communication software for MS-DOScomputers.IBM Hardware - about new IBM compatibles, expansion cards,displays, hard disks, IBM PS/2, software for performanceevaluation, printers, etc.IBM Systems/Utilities - about DOS, utilities, shells, fileutilities, and much more. A large software library.IBM Applications - about all kind of applications. The forumhas a large file library full of shareware and publicdomain software.
Many CompuServe forums are operated or sponsored by software and hardware vendors, like:
Adobe Systems Inc., Aldus Corp., Ashton-Tate Corp., AutodeskInc., Borland International, Broderbund Software Inc., ButtonwareInc., Cadkey Inc., Crosstalk Communications, Customs Technologies,Enable Software, Datastorm Technologies Inc., Microsoft Systems,Nantucket Corp., Lotus Development Corp., Novell Inc., Peter NortonComputing, Quarterdeck Office Systems, Quicksoft, Sun Microsystems(TOPS Division), Symantec Corp., Toshiba, Turbopower Software, andWordPerfect Corp.
CompuServe has hundreds of other forums with associated librariesof files and programs.FidoNet has the PC_TECH and PCUG conferences, and a long listof product specific echos like QUICKBBS, PCTOOLS, ZMODEM, DESQVIEWand WINDOWS.SHAREW .BITNET has CLIPPER (CLIPPER@BRUFPB), I-IBMPC (I-IBMPC@UIUCVMD),PC-L (PC-L@UFRJ), and the abstract service INFO-IBMPC (IBMPC-L@BNANDP11). On EXEC-PC, look under MS-DOS systems. Usenet hasmany offerings including the following:
comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc Discussion about IBM personal computers. comp.sys.ibm.pc.digest The IBM PC, PC-XT, and PC-AT. (Moderated) comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware XT/AT/EISA hardware, any vendor. comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt Topics related to IBM's RT computer. comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware Microchannel hardware, any vendor.
For help with Lotus 1-2-3, there are two CompuServe forums. There is a LOTUS conference on RelayNet. WordPerfect Corp. has a support forum on CompuServe. WORDPERF is the equivalent offering on RelayNet. On ILINK, visit WORDPERFECT. For support about Ami Pro, visit CompuServe's LDC Word Processing Forum.
For owners of Amiga computers ——————————————- FidoNet has a long list of conferences for Amiga users:
AMIGA Amiga International EchoAMIGAGAMES Amiga GamingAMIGA_COMMS Amiga Communications Software and HardwareAMIGA_DESKTOP Amiga Desktop PublishingAMIGA_INFO AMIGA_INFOAMIGA_LC Amiga Lattice/SASC C EchoAMIGA_NET_DEV Amiga Network Developers.AMIGA_PDREVIEW Amiga PD Reviews & RequestsAMIGA_PERFECT Amiga Word Perfect & Word ProcessingAMIGA_PROG Amiga Programmer's International ConferenceAMIGA_SYSOP Amiga SysOp's Discussion/ADS EchoAMIGA_UG Amiga User's GroupsAMIGA_VIDEO Amiga Video and Animation
EXEC-PC has the Amiga Hardware and Amiga Software conferences, and a large library with shareware and public domain files. ILINK has the AMIGA conference. Usenet's com.sys.amiga hierarchy has entries like advocacy, announce applications, audio, datacomm, emulations, games, graphics, hardware, introduction, marketplace, multimedia, misc, programmer, reviews and more. Abstracts of comp.sys.amiga conferences are available through several BITNET mailing lists, like AMIGAHAR@DEARN, AMIGA-D@NDSUVM1, and AMIGA-S@NDSUVM1. Most online services have "Find this File" commands. The most powerful ones are often found on free bulletin boards. On CompuServe, type GO AMIGA to get to CBMNET and get the following welcome menu:
Amiga Forums 1 Amiga Arts Forum 2 Amiga Tech Forum 3 Amiga User's Forum 4 Amiga Vendor Forum 5 Amiga File Finder
Commodore Forums 6 Commodore Arts and Games 7 Commodore Applications Forum 8 Commodore Service Forum 9 Commodore Newsletter
A while ago, we visited CBMNET to find a communications program.From the menu above, selection five took us to The Amiga FileFinder service, and this menu:
File Finder AMIGA
1 About File Finder 2 Instructions For Searching 3 How to Locate Keywords
4 Access File Finder
5 Your Comments About File Finder
Choice four lets us search for files using keywords, file creation dates, forum names, file types, file name extension, file name or author. Our choice was searching by keywords. The result was a long list of alternatives:
Enter Search Term: comm
Amiga File Finder
1 AMIGATECH/C Programming COMSRC.ARC 2 AMIGATECH/C Programming PMDSRC.LZH 3 AMIGATECH/C Programming PNTSRC.LZH 4 AMIGAUSER/Communications BBSIND.LZH 5 AMIGAUSER/Communications INTOUC.ARC etc.
By entering numbers, we asked for short descriptions of file number 4 through 13. Here is one of them:
Filename : INTOUC.ARC Forum: AMIGAUSERLib: Communications Lib #: 5Submitter: [76702,337] 24-Mar-89Size: 51200 Accesses: 157
This is a modified Comm1.34. It supports both VT100 and ANSI.The VT100 emulation is based on Dave Wecker's VT100 program.There is automatic dialer, split screen that is configurable,phone book, and other nice features.
This is what we were looking for. First, enter GO AMIGAUSER to get to the forum. Enter "DL 5" to get to Downloading Library number 5. INTOUCH.ARC was retrieved using the CompuServe Quick B transfer protocol. This protocol is usually the most efficient choice on this service. There are also active Amiga forums on BIX, GEnie, and CIX (England).
Apple users—————-FidoNet has an APPLE conference. BITNET has APPLE2-L (APPLE2-L@BROWNVM). CompuServe has Apple II Programmers Forum, Apple IIUsers Forum, Apple II Vendor Forum, Mac Community Clubhouse Forum,Mac Developers Forum, Mac Fun/Entertainment Forum, Mac HypertextForum, Mac New Users/Help Forum, Mac System 7.0 Forum, Mac SystemSoftware Forum, MacUser Forum and MacWEEK Forum.Similar services are found on many other online services. Youwill also find conferences devoted to support of popular commercialsoftware for Apple computers.
Other computers ———————- There are so many types of computers: Atari computers, the TRS-80 series and others from Tandy, DEC computers, mainframes from IBM, Hewlett-Packard computers, CP/M machines, users of LDOS/TRSDOS or OS9, Apricot, Z88, Timex/Sinclair, Archimedes, Psion, and Armstrad. Even so, there is a high probability that you can find online support for almost all of them. This is so even if the vendor is out of business long ago. CompuServe is a good place to start.
Read national and global news before they are announced by the traditional media. Get those interesting background facts. Read special interest news stories that seldom appear in print.
Sure, you read newspapers, watch TV, and listen to radio. But did you know how limited their stories are? Traditional news media just give you a small part of the news. Their editors are not concerned about YOUR particular interests. They serve a large group of readers, viewers or listeners with different interests in mind. Go online to discover the difference. The online news has an enormous width and depth. Besides "popular" news, you will find stories that few editors bother to print. This may give you better insight in current developments, and in as much details as you can take. Most commercial online services offer news. Most of their stories come from large news agencies and newspapers. You can also read and search articles from magazines, newsletters and other special publications. The online users' ability to search today and yesterday's news makes these offerings particularly useful. The cost of reading a given news item varies by online service. What will set you back 20 cents on one service, will cost you two dollars on another. It may be many times more expensive (or cheap) to read the same article from the same news provider on another online service. So, professional online users compare prices.
National news ——————- In Norway, we have long been able to read local language news from print media like Aftenposten, Dagens Naeringsliv, Kapital, and news wires from NTB and other local sources. Similarly, local language news is available online in most countries. The cost of reading local news on national online services tends to be more expensive than on major global online services. As competition among global news providers increases, however, this is bound to change.
International news ————————— "The Global Village" is an old idea in the online world. News from most parts of the world has long been globally available. A while ago, a well-known Norwegian industrialist visited my office. I showed off online searching in NewsNet newsletters and stumbled over a story about his company. "Incredible!" he said. "We haven't even told our Norwegian employees about this yet." Often, American online services give news from other countries earlier you can get it on online services from these countries. Besides, the stories will be in English.
| In 1991, the United States had 56 percent of the world's online | | databases (Source: the research company IQ, September 1991). |
Sure, most Norwegians prefer to read news in Norwegian. The Japanese want news in their language, and the French in French. If they can get the news earlier than their competitors, however, most are willing to read English. Few master many languages. Unless you live in a country where they talk Arabic, Chinese or French, chances are that you cannot read news in these languages. English, however, is a popular second choice in many countries, and it has become the unofficial language of the online world. Another thing is that reading local language news is risky. Translators often make mistakes. One reason is time pressure, another poor knowledge of the source language. The risk of inaccuracies increases when a story, for example initially translated from Spanish into English, then are being translated into a third language. Avoid news that has been translated more than once. If not, you may experience something like this:
On September 19, 1991, Norwegian TV brought news from Moscow. They told that Russian president Boris Yeltsin had a heart attack.
The online report from Associated Press, which arrived 7.5 hours earlier, talked about "a minor heart attack" with the following additional explanation: "In Russian, the phrase 'heart attack' has a broader meaning than in English. It is commonly used to refer to a range of ailments from chest pains to actual heart failure."
Your "personal online daily newspaper" will often give you the news faster and more correctly than traditional print media. Some news is only made available in electronic form.
Seven minutes in 1991 ——————————- On September 19, I called CompuServe to read news and gather information about online news sources. According to my log, I connected through Infonet in Oslo (see Chapter 13). The total cost for seven minutes was US$6.00, which included the cost of a long distance call to Oslo. I read some stories, while they scrolled over the screen. All was captured to a file on my hard disk for later study. The size of this file grew to 32.000 characters, or almost 15 single-spaced typewritten pages (A-4 size). If I had spent less time reviewing the lists of available stories, seven minutes would have given a larger file. When I had entered my user ID and password, a menu of stories came up on my screen. The headline read "News from CompuServe." The two first items caught my attention, and I requested the text. One had 20 lines about an easier method of finding files in the forum libraries. The other had ten lines about how to write addresses for international fax messages. The command GO APV brought me directly to Associated Press News Wires. You'll find such tricks by reading the online services' user manuals. This command produced the following menu:
AP Online APV-1
1 Latest News-Updated Hourly2 Weather3 Sports4 National5 Washington6 World7 Political8 Entertainment9 Business News10 Wall Street11 Dow Jones Average12 Feature News13 Today in History
I entered "9" for business news, and got a new list of stories:
AP Online
1 Women, Minority Businesses Lag 2 Child World Accuses Toys R Us 3 UPI May Cancel Worker Benefits 4 Drilling Plan Worries Florida 5 UK Stocks Dip, Tokyo's Higher 6 Dollar Higher, Gold Up 7 Farm Exports Seen Declining 8 Supermarket Coupons Big Bucks 9 Cattlemen Tout Supply, Prices 0 Tokyo Stocks, Dollar Higher
The screen stopped scrolling by "MORE !". Pressing ENTER gave a new list. None of them were of any interest. Pressing M (for previous menu) returned me to the APV-1 menu (the videotext page number is given in the upper right corner of each menu display). I selected "World" for global news, which gave me this list:
AP Online
6 Two Killed In Nagorno Karabakh 7 Yugoslavia Fighting Rages On 8 Storm Kills Five In Japan 9 Afghan Rebels Going To Moscow? 0 19 Killed in Guatemala Quakes
Oh, a storm in Japan! Interesting. I was due to leave for Japan in a couple of weeks, and entered 8 at the MORE ! prompt to read. A screenful of text was transferred in a few seconds. "This is for later study," I said, pressed M to return to the menu, and then ENTER to get the next listing:
AP Online
1 Bomblets Kill American Troops? 2 No Movement On Hostage Release 3 Baker Plans Return To Syria 4 Baker, King Hussein To Confer 5 Madame Chiang Leaving Taiwan? 6 Baker Leaves Syria for Jordan 7 Klaus Barbie Hospitalized 8 Iraq Denounces U.S. Threat 9 Yelstin Said Resting At Home 0 SS Auschwitz Guard Found Dead
Here, I used another trick from the user manual. Entering "5,6,9" gave three stories in one batch with no pauses between them. Five screens with text. If I had read the menu more carefully, I might probably also have selected story 0. It looked like an interesting item. "This is enough of the Associated Press," I thought, and typed G NEWS. This gave me an overview of all available news sources ("G NEWS" is an abbreviation for "GO NEWS," or "GO to the main NEWS menu"):
News/Weather/Sports NEWS
1 Executive News Service ($)2 NewsGrid3 Associated Press Online4 Weather5 Sports6 The Business Wire7 Newspaper Library8 UK News/Sports9 Entertainment News/Info10 Online Today Daily Edition11 Soviet Crisis
First, a quick glance at 6. The service presented itself in these words: "Throughout the day The Business Wire makes available press releases, news stories, and other information from the world of business. Information on hundreds of different companies is transmitted daily to The Business Wire's subscribers." Then #7: "This database contains selected full-text stories from 48 newspapers from across the United States. Classified ads are NOT included in the full-text of each paper." The list of newspapers included Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle (known for many interesting inside stories from Silicon Valley). Choice 8 gave news from England. There, I selected UK News Clips, which gave the following options:
U.K. News Clips
93 stories selected
1 RTw 09/19 0818 YUGOSLAV AIR FORCE HITS CROATIAN COMMUNICATIONS2 RTw 09/19 0755 CROATIA BATTLES CONTINUE AS EC PONDERS PEACE FORCE3 RTw 09/19 0753 ARAB PAPERS SAY MOSCOW WANTS MIDEAST PARLEY DELAYED4 RTw 09/19 0749 DOLLAR STANDS STILL, SHARES DRIFT LOWER IN …5 RTw 09/19 0729 EARNINGS GLOOM REVERSES LONDON STOCKS' EARLY GAINS6 RTw 09/19 0716 SOVIETS NEED 14.7 BILLION DOLLARS FOOD AID, EC SAYS7 RTw 09/19 0707 IRA SAYS IT KILLED TIMBER YARD WORKER IN BELFAST DOCKS8 RTw 09/19 0706 BRITISH CONSERVATIVE CHIEF PLAYS DOWN TALK OF …9 RTw 09/19 0630 FINANCE RATES10 RTw 09/19 0603 REUTER WORLD NEWS SCHEDULE AT 1000 GMT THURSDAY …
The numbers in column four are the release times of the stories. They flow in from the wires in a continuous stream. Next stop was the UK Newspaper Library. Here, you can search in full-text stories from The Daily and Sunday Telegraph, Financial Times, The Guardian, UK News (with selected stories from The Daily & Sunday Telegraph, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times/Sunday Times, Today, The Independent, Lloyd's List and The Observer). Searching the UK Newspaper Library costs US$6.00 for up to ten hits. You get a selection menu of the first ten stories found. A menu with an additional ten stories costs another $6.00, etc. You pay US$6.00 to read the full text of selected stories. These rates are added to CompuServe's normal access rates. The news service Soviet Crisis was my final destination. This was just a few weeks after the attempted coup in Moscow, and I was eager for reports. I found the following interesting story from OTC NewsAlert:
This selection gave me three screens with information about a new online service. Briefly, this is what it said:
"The SovData DiaLine service includes an on-line library of more than 250 Soviet newspapers, business and economic periodicals, profiles of more than 2,500 Soviet firms and key executives that do business with the West, legislative reports and other information."
It also said that part of the database was available through Mead Data Central (Nexis/Lexis), and that it would be made available through like Data-Star, FT Profile, Reuters, Westlaw, and GBI. Undoubtedly, the name has changed by the time you read this. Finally, a fresh story about the fate of KGB. I read another fifty lines, entered OFF (for "goodbye CompuServe"), and received the following verdict:
Thank you for using CompuServe!
Off at 09:03 EDT 19-Sep-91Connect time = 0:07
Seven minutes. Fifteen typed pages of text. US$6.00. Not bad!
An overwhelming choice ——————————— I am confident that your "daily online newspaper" will contain other stories. If you're into computers, you may want to start with Online Today, CompuServe's daily newspaper. It brings short, informative news stories about the computer industry. NewsBytes is another interesting source for computer news. It offers global headline news from its bureaus around the world. The articles are sorted in sections called APPLE, BUSINESS, GENERAL, GOVERNMENT, IBM, REVIEW, TELECOM, TRENDS and UNIX. A favorite! Newsnet is also available through Genie, ZiffNet on CompuServe, NewsNet, Dialog, in the newsgroup clari.nb on Usenet, and various BBS systems around the world. I read it through a Norwegian BBS (EuroNet in Haugesund). For general news, start with major newswires, like Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Xinhua, Reuters, and the like. You will find them on many commercial services including NewsNet, CompuServe, and Dialog.
FROGNET - The French Way ———————————— If you know French, check out FROGNET. This French language service brings daily news from Agence France Press, and often has added excerpts from the French dailies. FROG is distributed by the services of the French embassy in Washington. It covers world affairs, European and French items, assembled, naturally, from a French point of view. The service is free. To subscribe, send a message through the Internet to FROG@GUVAX.GEORGETOWN.EDU . It should contain your answers to the following electronic application form. Replace the %s with your inputs (This is French, right?):
Complicated? OK, here's some instructions in "French ASCII":
* Pour les dates veuillez utiliser le format Francais(DD/MM/YY). Arrivee: c'est la date d'arrivee dans le paysou vous etes actuellement.* QUALITE: Etes vous VSN, PHD, MASTER, INGENIEUR, POST-DOC …?* ECOLE D'ORIGINE: Diplome obtenu en France* PAYS: US, Australie ….* STATE: pour les US en 2 lettres (NY, TX, CA)* UNIVERSITE: actuelle ou societe* RECHERCHE: Soyez explicite !* MOTSCLES: (ex: Neuronaux, polymeres, TVHD…)* DOMAINE: En 3 lettres confere nomenclature ci-dessous
Nomenclature de la National Science Foundation.
AGR AGRICULTUREBIO BIOLOGICAL SCIENCESHES HEALTH SCIENCESENG ENGINEERINGCIS COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SC.MAT MATHEMATICSPHY PHYSICAL SCIENCESAST AstronomyATM Atmospheric & Meteorological SciencesCHE ChemistryGEO Geological SciencesPHS PhysicsOPH Other Physical SciencesPSY PSYCHOLOGYSOS SOCIAL SCIENCESHUM HUMANITIESHIS HistoryLET LettersFLL Foreign Languages & LiteratureOHU Other HumanitiesEDU EDUCATIONEDG Education GeneralTED Teacher EducationTEF Teaching fieldsPRF PROFESSIONAL FIELDSBUS Business & ManagementCOM CommunicationsPFO Other Professional FieldsOTH OTHER FIELDS
News is more than news ——————————— After some time, your definition of the notion "news" may change. Since so many conferences are interesting sources, they should also be a part of your news gathering strategy. Check in regularly to read what members report about what they have seen, done, heard, or discovered. By the way, professional news hunters have also discovered this. Online conferences are popular hunting grounds for reporters of the traditional press. FidoNet has many conferences with specialized news contents:
ANEWS News of the US and WorldBBNS BBS News ServiceBIONEWS Environmental NewsEL_SALVADOR Analysis and News About El SalvadorNICANET Analysis and News About NicaraguaPACIFIC_NEWS Pacific NewsPANAMA Analysis and News About Panama
BITNET has mailing lists like:
CHINA-NN CHINA-NN@ASUACAD China News Digest (Global News)CURRENTS CURRENTS@PCCVM South Asian News and CultureINDIA-L INDIA-L@TEMPLEVM The India News NetworkPAKISTAN PAKISTAN@ASUACAD Pakistan News ServiceSEDSNEWS SEDSNEWS@TAMVM1 News about Space from SEDSTSSNEWS TSSNEWS@PSUVM Tunisian Scientific Society News
RFERL-L (on LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU) distributes the RFE/RL Research Institute Daily Report. It is a digest of the latest developments in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The report is published Monday through Friday by the RFE/RL Research Institute, a division of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Inc. in Germany. Some mailing lists bring a steady flow of news from various sources. SEASIA-L@MSU - The Southeast Asia Discussion List - is one example. The list is "designed to facilitate communication between researchers, scholars, students, teachers, and others interested in Southeast Asian studies with an emphasis on current events." SEASIA-L defines Southeast Asia loosely as Burma/Myanmar across to Hong Kong and down through Australia and New Zealand. Regularly, it brings full-text news stories from Inter Press Service, regional news agencies, and newspapers/radio. Some examples: On Jul. 30, 1992, a full-text story from IPS: "PHILIPPINES: RAMOS URGES REPEAL OF ANTI-COMMUNIST LAW." On Aug. 13, 1992, full- text story from The New Straits Times (Singapore): "Schoolgirs involved in flesh trade, says Farid." On Aug. 31, "ANTI-VIETNAMESE FORCE TURNS UP IN CAMBODIA" (Reuter). SEASIA-L also brings "underground" reports like "The Burma Focus," a bimonthly newsletter published by the All Burma Students' Democratic Front. ECUADOR brings news from Ecuador. Daily news bulletins from "Diario Hoy" are posted to the list. Send rone@skat.usc.edu your subscription request. Many CompuServe forums have news sections. If you're into Hot News and Rumors about Amiga Computers, read messages in section 3 of the Amiga Tech Forum. Consumer Electronics Forum has the section "New Products/News." The Journalist Forum has "Fast Breaking News!" The Motor Sports Forum has "Racing News/Notes." The Online Today Forum has "In the News." NewsNet's list of newsletters that you can read or search online is long, and back issues are also available. For example:
Africa News, Agence France-Presse International News, AppliedGenetics News, Asian Economic News, Asian Political News,Business Travel News, Catholic News Service, CD ComputingNews, Computer Reseller News, Electronic Materials TechnologyNews, Electronic Trade & Transport News, Electronic WorldNews, High Tech Ceramics News, Inter Press ServiceInternational News, International Businessman News Report,News From France, Northern Ireland News Service, OnlineProduct News, Sourcemex — economic news on Mexico, andXINHUA English language news service (China).
The Inter Press Service's newsletter International News focuses on Third World countries, and news from Europe/North America of interest to these countries (also available through Impress on Nexis). Usenet brings news from Bangladesh, India and Nepal in misc.news.southasia. The ClariNet hierarchy gateways newsgroups from commercial news services and "other official" sources, like:
biz.commodity Commodity news and price reports. feature Feature columns and products canada.briefs Regular updates of Canadian News in Brief. biz.economy Economic news and indicators biz.top Top business news books Books & publishing. briefs Regular news summaries. bulletin Major breaking stories of the week. consumer Consumer news, car reviews etc. demonstration Demonstrations around the world. disaster Major problems, accidents & natural disasters. economy General economic news. entertain Entertainment industry news & features. europe News related to Europe. fighting Clashes around the world. hot.east_europe News from Eastern Europe. hot.iraq The Gulf Crisis hot.panama Panama and General Noriega. news.top Top US news stories. news.top.world Top international news stories. news.trends Surveys and trends. news.urgent Major breaking stories of the day.
A feed of ClariNet news is available for a fee and execution of alicense. (Write info@clarinet.com for information.)UUCP has which brings regular news bulletins from Poland(Contact: przemek@ndcvx.cc.nd.edu).
Behind the news ———————- In an effort to garner new subscribers and retain current readers, magazine publishers turn to online services to create an ancillary electronic version of their print product. Their readers are being transformed from passive recipients of information into active participants in publishing. You can "talk" to BYTE's writers on BIX, and with PC Magazine's writers through ZiffNet on CompuServe. Their forums function as expert sources. Here, you will often learn about products and trends sometimes before the magazines hit the newsstand. InfoWorld, an American computer magazine, runs the InfoWorld OnLine service on CompuServe. Enter GO INF to get to the following menu:
InfoWorld On-Line INFOWORLD
WELCOME TO INFOWORLD1 About InfoWorld Online2 Read Current Week's News - 1/13/923 Read Prior Week's News - 1/06/924 Download Current Week's Reviews,Comparisons and Test Drives ($)5 Download Prior Week's Reviews,Comparisons and Test Drives ($)6 Searching Help7 Search Review/Comparisons/Impressions/Test Drives8 Comments to InfoWorld
InfoWorld highlights comprehensive computer product comparisons and reports. You can browse this or previous weeks' comparisons and reviews, or search the entire collection. You can search by company name, product, software and hardware category. Britain's two best-selling PC magazines share the PC Plus/PC Answers Online forum on CompuServe (GO PCPLUS). PC Magazine, another American magazine, has several forums on CompuServe. They also operate a bulletin board. People from AI Expert Magazine can be encountered in the AI Expert Forum. Dr. Dobb's Journal is in the Dr. Dobb's Journal Forum. The Entrepreneur's Small Business Forum (CompuServe) is managed by representatives from the magazine. Live Sound!, a magazine devoted to the MIDI sound field, occupies section and library 9 of the MIDI B Vendor Forum. Time magazine has a forum on America Online. There, readers can discuss with magazine reporters and editors, and even read the text of entire issues of Time electronically before it is available on newsstands. The Online World shareware book, the one you're reading just now, also has a forum. For information about how to join, send email to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu (or LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 on BITNET). In the text of your message, write the command "GET TOW MASTER".
Experienced users regularly clip news from online services, and store selected parts of it on their personal computers' hard disks. They use powerful tools to search their data, and know how to use the information in other applications. Regular clipping of news is highly recommended. It is often quicker and easier to search your own databases than to do it online. Since your data is a subset of previous searches, your stories are likely to have a high degree of relevancy. There are many powerful programs for personal computers that let you search your personal data for information. Read Chapter 14 for more on this. While secondary research can never replace primary information gathering, it often satisfies most information needs related to any task or project. Besides, it points in the direction of primary sources from where more in-depth information may be elicited.
When your personal database fails to deliver —————————————————————— Regular "clipping" can indeed help you build a powerful personal database, but it will never satisfy all your information needs. Occasionally, you must go online for additional facts. When this happens, you may feel like Don Quixote, as he was looking "for a needle in a bottle of hay." The large number of online offerings is bewildering. To be successful, you must have a sound search strategy. Your first task is to locate useful SOURCES of information. The next, to decide how best to find that specific piece of information online. You must PLAN your search. Although one source of information, like an online database, is supposed to cover your area of interest, it may still be unable to give you what you want. Let me explain with an example:
You're tracking a company called IBM (International Business Machines). Your first inclination is to visit forums and clubs concerned with products delivered by this company. There, you plan to search message bases and file libraries.
What is likely to happen, is that the search term IBM gives so many hits that you almost drown. To find anything of interest in these forums, your search terms must be very specific.
General news providers, like Associated Press, may be a better alternative. Usually, they just publish one or two stories on IBM per week. Don't expect to learn about details that are not of interest to the general public.
AP's stories may be too general for you. Maybe you'll be more content with industry insiders' expert views, as provided by the NewsNet newsletters OUTLOOK ON IBM, or THE REPORT ON IBM.
The level of details in a given story depends in part on the news providers' readers, and the nature of the source. The amount of "noise" (the level of irrelevancy) also varies. In most public forums, expect to wade through many uninteresting messages before finding things of interest. We suggest the following strategy:
Step 1: Locate sources that provide relevant information,
Step 2: Check if the information from these sources is at a satisfactory level of details, and that the volume is acceptable (not too much, neither too little).
Step 3: Study the service's search commands and procedures,PLAN, and then SEARCH.
Start by asking others! ———————————- Step 1 is not an easy one. Start by asking other online people for advice. This may be the fastest way to interesting sources. If looking for information about agriculture and fisheries, visit conferences about related topics. Ask members there what they are using. If you want information about computers or electronics, ask in such conferences.
| When you don't know where to start your search, ask others! || Their know-how is usually the quickest way to the sources. |
If this doesn't help, check out GEnie's Home Office/Small BusinessRoundTable, a hangout of online searchers. Visit CompuServe'sWorking From Home Forum, which has a section for informationprofessionals (#4), and the section for new librarians in theJournalism Forum.Patent searchers are a very specialized group. They discusscommon problems on Dialog's DialMail. Their bulletin board is namedPIUG.
Buy user manuals ———————— Some online services send free user information manuals to their users. Others charge extra for them. If they do, buy! They're worth their weight in gold. The user manuals from Dialog, Dow Jones News/Retrieval and CompuServe make good reading. The last two also publish monthly magazines full of search tips, information about new sources, user experiences, and more. Dialog distributes the monthly newsletter Chronolog. NewsNet customers periodically receive a printed listing of available newsletters by subject area, and a presentation of their information providers. The NewsNet Action Letter (monthly) is also distributed by mail. On some services, you can retrieve the help texts in electronic form. Doing that is not a bad idea. It is often quicker to search a help file on your disk, than to browse through a book.
Monitor the offerings ——————————- Professional information searchers monitor the activity in the online world. They search databases for information about new sources of information, and regularly read about new services. On most online services, you can search databases of available offerings, and a section with advertisements about their own 'superiorities'. Keep an eye on what is being posted there. NewsNet lets you read and search the following newsletters: Worldwide Videotex Update, Worldwide Databases (#PB44), Online Newsletter, The Online Newsletter, and The Online Libraries and Microcomputers. The last two are also available as a database from Information Intelligence, Inc., (P.O. Box 31098, Phoenix, AZ 85046, U.S.A. Tel.: +1-602-996-2283). You can read the text on NewsNet about one week before it appears in print. These two newsletters can also be read and searched on Dialog and Data-Star, as part of the Information Access PTS Newsletter Database. Information Access is a full-text database with many specialized newsletters for business and industry. On CompuServe, you can get to Information Access through the IQuest gateway to NewsNet. Subscribing to THE ONLINE NEWSLETTER costs US$50.00 per year (10 issues) for companies, and US$35.00 for personal use (1991). For both newsletters, the price is US$75.00. These newsletters are also available on CD-ROM. The disk contains four databases: the Online Newsletter, Online Hotline, Online Libraries and Microcomputers, Major Online Vendors and *Joblines* with more than eight thousand full-text articles from January 1980 until today. The CD-ROM version is delivered with a menu-driven searching program. Each word in every article and headline has been indexed and can be located in all databases. The price for subscriptions of the printed version is US$99.95. Price for nonsubscribers: US$199.95. The September 1991 issue of The Online Newsletter had the following index (partial):
***************************** *NEW & FORTHCOMING DATABASES* *****************************
10) MULTIMEDIA CIA WORLD FACT BOOK (CD-ROM) [REVIEW] 11) NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS ON CD-ROM (CD-ROM) [REVIEW] 12) WORLD CERAMICS ABSTRACTS (ORBIT) 13) GENE-TOX (TOXNET/NLM) 14) UK TRADEMARKS (ORBIT) [RENAMED] 15) BRS ADDS DATABASES TO ITS OFFERINGS 16) CURRENT PATENTS (ORBIT) 17) NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE ON CD-ROM (CD-ROM) 18) ALUMINUM STANDARDS DATABASE [AAASD] (STN 19) PLASNEWS (STN INTERNATIONAL) 20) EPIC ANNOUNCES NEW DATABASES 21) DISCLIT: AMERICAN AUTHORS (CD-ROM - OCLC) 22) CROSS-CULTURAL: CRIME AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS (CD-ROM) 23) INTERNATIONAL PHARMACEUTICAL ABSTRACTS (CD-ROM) 24) RINGDOC (CD-ROM - SILVERPLATTER) 25) CODUS (ESA-IRS) 26) MOODY'S COMPANY DATA (CD-ROM) 27) FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE (DIALOG) 28) INPADOC DATABASE TO BE MADE AVAILABLE IN JAPAN (DIALOG) 29) SOFTWARE CD: DESCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS (CD-ROM) 30) MONARCH NOTES ON CD-ROM (CD-ROM)
An earlier issue of the newsletter reviewed The Encyclopedia of Information Systems and Services, a three-volume "bible" for online users and producers (9th edition): EISS covers more than 30,000 organizations, systems, services, more than five thousand databases, publications, software products, etc. Their international listing covers 1,350 information organizations in 70 countries, and has 535 pages. Topics: online host services, videotex/teletext information services, PC oriented services, data collection and analysis services, abstracting and indexing services, computerized searching services, software producers, magnetic tape/diskette providers, micrographic applications and services, library and information networks, library management systems, information on demand services, transactional services (new category), document delivery services, SDI/current awareness services, consultants, associations, research and research projects, and electronic mail applications. Contact: Gale Research Company, 645 Griswold, Detroit, MI 48226, U.S.A. Tel.: +1-313-961-2242. Price per set: US$ 420.00.
The European Common Market ————————————— Many services bring news and information from the European Common Market. The Common Market's free database service, I'M-GUIDE, is a good place to start. I'M-GUIDE is available through ECHO in Luxembourg by telnet to echo.lu . At the question "PLEASE ENTER YOUR CODE," enter ECHO and press Return. You can search I'M-GUIDE for information sources, send email inquiries to ECHO, and more. Searches can be done in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, and Portuguese. If you have problems using I'M-GUIDE, call the ECHO Help Desk in Luxembourg at +352-34 98 11.
More sources about sources ————————————— The "Internet-Accessible Library Catalogs and Databases" report is available by email from LISTSERV@UNMVM.BITNET. Put the following command in the TEXT of your message:
Cuadra/Elsevier (Box 872, Madison Square Station, New York, NY 10159-2101, U.S.A. Tel.: +1 212 633 3980) sells a Directory of Online Databases, which lists databases available around the world. The catalog can be searched on Orbit and Data-Star. The Online Access Publishing Group Inc. (Chicago) sells "The Online Access Guide." Annual subscription for this printed manual costs US$18.95 (six issues - 1992). The LINK-UP magazine is another interesting source. If living in North America, contact Learned Information Inc., 143 Old Mariton Pike, Medford, NJ 08055-8707, U.S.A.. If living elsewhere, contact Learned Information (Europe) Ltd., Woodside, Hinskey Hill, Oxford OX1 5AU, England, if you live outside North America. Tel.: +44 865 730 275. Price: US$25.00 for six issues/year (1993). An online version is available through ZiffNet's Business Database Plus on CompuServe. Two monthly magazines, Information World Review (price: GBP 30/year) and FULLTEXT SOURCES ONLINE from BiblioData Inc. in the United States, is also available through Learned Information. (BiblioData, P.O. Box 61, Needham Heights, MA 02194, U.S.A.) FULLTEXT SOURCES ONLINE publishes their listing of full-text databases twice per year. The price is GBP 50 GBP per booklet or GBP 90 per year. The newsletter SCANNET TODAY (c/o Helsinki University of Techn. Library, Otnaesvaegen 9, SF-02150 ESBO, Finland) presents news of Scandinavian databases by country. Subscription is free. Computer Readable Databases from Gale Research is available both in print and online through Dialog. Write to Gale Research Company, 645 Griswold, Detroit, MI 48226, U.S.A. Many electronic journals and newsletters are available through the Internet, covering fields from literature to molecular biology. For a complete list, send a message to LISTSERV@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA with the following commands in the BODY of your text:
Practical hints about online searching ——————————————————— We cannot give a simple, universal recipe valid for all online services. What is the best approach on one service, may be useless on others. Most services offer full online documentation of their search commands. You can read the help text on screen while connected, or retrieve it for later study. Make a note about the following general tricks:
In conferences and forums: ————————————— Many services have commands for selective reading of messages. For example, on CompuServe you can limit your search to given sections. You can also select messages to be read based on text strings in the subject titles. The command
rs;s;CIS Access from Japan;62928
displays all messages with the text "CIS Access from Japan" in their subject titles starting with message number 62928.
Online searching often starts by selecting databases. The next step is to enter search words (or text strings), and a valid time frame (as in "between 1/1/90 and 1/1/91").
The following sample search terms are used on NewsNet:
VIDEO* search for all words starting with VIDEO. "*" is a wild-card character referring to any ending of the word. VIDEO* matches words like VIDEOTEXT and VIDEOCONFERENCE.
SONY AND VIDEO The word SONY and the word VIDEO. Bothwords must be present in the documentto give a match.
SONY WITHIN/10 VIDEO Both words must be present in the text,but they must not be farther apart thanten words. (Proximity operators)
IBM OR APPLE Either one word OR the other.
Many services let you reuse your search terms in new search commands. This can save you time and money, if there are too many hits. For example: if IBM OR APPLE gives 1,000 hits, limit the search by adding "FROM JANUARY 1st.," or by adding the search word "NOTEBOOK*".
In file libraries————————-The commands used to find files are similar to those used intraditional databases. Often, you can limit the search bylibrary, date, file name, or file extension. You can search fortext strings in the description of the contents of a file, oruse key words.
Example: You're visiting a bulletin board based on the BBS program RBBS-PC. You want a program that can show GIF graphics picture files. Such files are typically described like this:
VUIMG31.EXE 103105 07-15-91 GIF*/TIFF/PCX Picture Viewer/Printer
From left to right: file name, size in bytes, date available, and a 40 character description.
You can search the file descriptions for the string "gif". You do this by entering the term "s gif all". This will probably give you a list of files. Some will have the letters GIF in the file name. Others will have them in the description field.
Using ANDs and ORs ————————— Boolean searching may seem confusing at first, unless you already understand the logic. There are three Boolean operators that searchers use to combine search terms: AND, OR, and NOT. Use the Boolean operator AND to retrieve smaller amounts of information. Use AND when multiple words must be present in your search results (MERCEDES AND VOLVO AND CITROEN AND PRICES). Use OR to express related concepts or synonyms for your search term (FRUIT OR APPLES OR PEARS OR BANANAS OR PEACHES). Be careful when using the NOT operator. It gets rid of any record in a database that contains the word that you've "notted" out. For example, searching for "IBM NOT APPLE" drops records containing the sentence, "IBM and Apple are computer giants." The record will be dropped, even if this is the only mention of Apple in an article, and though it is solely about IBM. Use NOT to drop sets of hits that you have already seen. Use NOT to exclude records with multiple meanings, like "CHIPS Not POTATO" (if you are looking for chips rather than snack foods). Often, it pays to start with a "quick-and-dirty" search by throwing in words you think will do the trick. Then look at the first five or 10 records, but look only at the headline and the indexing. This will show you what terms are used by indexers to describe your idea and the potential for confusion with other ideas. Use proximity operators to search multiword terms. If searching for "market share," you want the two words within so many words of another. The order of the words, however, doesn't matter. You can accept both "market share" and "share of the market."
Searching by email ————————— MCI Mail and MCI Fax have a program called Information Advantage, under which online services and newsletters can deliver search results and other information over the online services. Dialog, Dun & Bradstreet, NewsNet, and Individual Inc. have signed up for the program. You can request a search by direct email to say Dialog. The search results will be returned to you via MCI Mail or MCI Fax. With Dun and Bradstreet, you call them for a credit report and they send it to you. With History Associates, you send them a message via MCI Mail, and they report to you.
Using BITNET discussion lists through Internet ——————————————————————— To get a directory of Internet/BITNET mailing lists, send the following email message:
To: LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDUSubject: (keep this blank)Text:LIST GLOBAL
You will receive a LONG list of available sources of information. A recent copy had over two thousand lines of text. Each mailing list is described with one line. All these mailing lists can be used by email through the Internet. Here is a random selection:
Network-wide ID Full address List title———————- —————— —————AESRG-L AESRG-L@UMCVMB Applied Expert Systems Research Group ListAGRIC-L AGRIC-L@UGA Agriculture DiscussionAIDSNEWS AIDSNEWS@EB0UB011 AIDS/HIV NewsANIME-L ANIME-L@VTVM1 Japanese animedia and other animation news.BANYAN BANYAN-L@AKRONVM Banyan Networks Discussion ListBRIDGE BRIDGE@NDSUVM1 Bridge Communication productsCHEM-L CHEM-L@UOGUELPH Chemistry discussionEJCREC EJCREC@RPIECS Electronic Journal of CommunicationFAMCOMM FAMCOMM@RPICICGE Marital/family & relational communicationSOVNET-L SOVNET-L@INDYCMS USSR electronic communication list
The column "Network-wide ID" contains the names of the mailing lists. "Full address" contains their BITNET email addresses. "List title" is a short textual description of each conference. Keep the list on your hard disk. This makes it easier to find sources of information, when you need them.
Subscribing to mailing lists —————————————— Each line in the list above refers to a mailing list, also often called 'discussion list'. They work like online conferences or message sections on bulletin boards, but technically they are different. (Read about KIDLINK in Chapter 2 for background information.) All BITNET mailing lists are controlled by a program called LISTSERV on the host computer given in column two above (for example @UMCVMB). They offer "conferencing" with the following important functions:
* All "discussion items" (i.e., electronic messages sent to thelists' email address) are distributed to all subscribers.* All messages are automatically stored in notebook archives.You can search these log files, and you can have them sentto you as electronic mail.* Files can be stored in the lists' associated file librariesfor distribution to subscribers on demand.
Where to send a subscription request, depends on where you are communicating from relative to the host running the LISTSERV. If this host is your nearest BITNET LISTSERV, then send the request to the address in column two by replacing the list name by LISTSERV.
Example:AESRG-L@UMCVMB is administered by LISTSERV@UMCVMB. Subscribe(or signoff) by email to LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET .
If there is a LISTSERV closer to where you live, then you should subscribe to the nearby system rather than to the remote. This helps keep the total costs of the international network down.
Example:You live in Norway. The nearest LISTSERV is at FINHUTC. Tosubscribe to AESRG-L@UMCVMB, send to LISTSERV@FINHUTC.BITNET .
Use the addresses in column two when sending messages to the other members of the discussion lists, but do NOT send your subscription requests to this address!! If you do, it will be forwarded to all members of the mailing list. Chances are that nothing will happen, and everybody will see how sloppy you are. So, you subscribe by sending a command to a LISTSERV. The method is similar to what we did when subscribing to Infonets in Chapter 7. If your name is Jens Jensen, and you want to subscribe to SOVNET-L, send this message through the Internet (assuming that NDSUM1 is your nearest LISTSERV host):
To: LISTSERV@NDSUVM1.BITNETSubject: (You can write anything here. Will be ignored.)Text: SUB SOVNET-L Jens Jensen
When your subscription has been registered, you will receive a confirmation. From this date, all messages sent to the list will be forwarded to your mailbox. (Send "SIGNOFF SOVNET-L" to this address, when you have had enough.) Some lists will forward each message to you upon receipt. Others will send a periodic digest (weekly, monthly, etc.). To send a message to SOVNET-L, send to the BITNET address in column two above. Send to
Review the following example. Most BITNET lists will accept these commands.
Example: Subscription to the China list ———————————————————- CHINA-NN is listed like this in the List of Lists:
CHINA-NN CHINA-NN@ASUACAD China News Digest (Global News)
Scandinavians may subscribe to CHINA-NN by Internet mail toLISTSERV@FINHUTC.BITNET . North American users may send their mailto LISTSERV@NDSUVM1.BITNET .If your name is Winston Hansen, write the following command in theTEXT of the message
SUB CHINA-NN Winston Hansen
When you want to leave CHINA-NN, send a cancellation message like this:
To: LISTSERV@NDSUVM1.BITNETSubject: (nothing here)SIGNOFF CHINA-NN
NOTE: Send the cancellation command to the address you used, when subscribing! If you subscribed through LISTSERV@FINHUTC, sending the SIGNOFF command to LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 will get you nowhere. Send to LISTSERV@FINHUTC. Never send the SIGNOFF command to the discussion list itself! Always send to the LISTSERV.
Monitoring the action ——————————- THINKNET is an online magazine forum dedicated to "thoughtfulness in the cybertime environment." It brings reviews of significant and thought-provoking exchanges within our new electronic nation. This electronic publication is free. If you're interested in philosophy, subscribe by sending a message through Internet to thinknet@world.std.com . Write the following in the TEXT of the message:
SEND THINKNET TO Your-Full-Name AT UserId@Your-Internet-Email-Address
Example:If your email address is opresno@extern.uio.no and your nameOdd de Presno, use the following command:
SEND THINKNET TO Odd de Presno AT OPRESNO@EXTERN.UIO.NO
THINKNET is also available through the Philosophy conference on The Well, and on GEnie in the Philosophy category under the Religion and Ethics Bulletin Board. (Hard copy versions can be bought through THINKNET, PO BOX 8383, Orange CA 92664-8383, U.S.A.). If you're on The Well, read the topic "News from Around Well Conferences" to learn about new developments. These are some mailing lists that may help you locate sources of interest:
NETSCOUT (NETSCOUT@VMTECMEX) The BITnet/Internet scouts.Subscribe by email to LISTSERV@VMTECMEX.BITNETwith the following in the TEXT of your messageSUB NETSCOUT yourfirstname yourlastname
This is where you can discuss and exchange informationabout servers, FTP sites, Filelists, lists, tools, andany related aspects.
HELP-NET (HELP-NET@TEMPLEVM) BITNET/CREN/INTERNET Help Resource.Send email to LISTSERV@TEMPLEVM.BITNET with the textSUB HELP-NET yourfirstname yourlastname
The list's main purpose is to help solve user problems with utilities and software related to the Internet and BITNET networks. The library contains several good help files for novice networkers. A great place for new Internet users!
Other sources available through the Internet —————————————————————— The Interest Groups List of Lists is available by electronic mail from mail-server@nisc.sri.com . Send a message with the following text in the message body:
Send netinfo/interest-groups
Note that as of April 1993, the file was over 1,100,000 bytes in size. It will be returned to you in moderately sized pieces. You can search the List of Lists by email. Say you're looking for a mailing list related to Robotics. To find out, send a message to LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU containing the following commands:
//ListSrch JOB Echo=NoDatabase Search DD=Rules//Rules DD *search robotics in listsindexsearch robotics in intgroupindexsearch robotics in new-listindex
Replace the search word 'robotics' with whatever else you may be looking for. The Usenet list of news groups and mailing lists is available on hosts that run Usenet News or NetNews servers and/or clients in the newsgroups news.announce.newusers and news.lists. The members of news.newusers.questions, alt.internet.help, alt.internet.access.wanted, and alt.internet.new-users readily accept your help requests. Alt.internet.services focuses on information about services available on the Internet. It is for people with Internet accounts who want to explore beyond their local computers, to take advantage of the wealth of information and services on the net. Services for discussion include: * things you can telnet to (weather, library catalogs, databases, and more), * things you can FTP (like pictures, sounds, programs, data) * clients/servers (like MUDs, IRC, Archie) Every second week, a list of Internet services called the "Special Internet Connections list" is posted to this newsgroup. It includes everything from where to FTP pictures from space, how to find agricultural information, public UNIX, online directories and books, you name it. Dartmouth maintains a merged list of the LISTSERV lists on BITNET and the Interest Group lists on the Internet. Each mailing list is represented by one line. To obtain this list, send a message to LISTSERV@DARTCMS1.BITNET . Enter the following command in the text of the message:
InterNIC Information Service maintains an announcement-only service at LISTSERV@is.internic.net called net-happenings. It distributes announcements about tools, conferences, calls for papers, news items, new mailing lists, electronic newsletters like EDUPAGE, and more. To subscribe, send a message to the LISTSERV containing this command:
subscribe net-happenings Your Name
InterNIC's automated mail service is at MAILSERV@RS.INTERNIC.NET. It allows access to documents and files via email. To use it, send email to the Mailserv with the word "HELP" in the subject field of your mail.
How to get more out of your magazine subscriptions ————————————————————————— PC Magazine (U.S.A.) is one of those magazines that arrives here by mail. We butcher them, whenever we find something of interest. The "corpses" are dumped in a high pile on the floor. To retrieve a story in this pile is difficult and time consuming, unless the title is printed on the cover. Luckily, there are shortcuts. Logon to PC MagNet on CompuServe. Type GO PCMAG to get the following menu:
PC MagNet
1 Download a PC Magazine Utility2 PC Magazine Utilities/Tips Forum3 PC Magazine Editorial Forum4 PC Magazine Programming Forum5 PC Magazine After Hours Forum6 PC Magazine Product Reviews Index7 Free! - Take a Survey8 Submissions to PC Magazine9 Letters to the Editor10 Subscribe to PC Magazine
Choice six lets you search for stories. Once you have a list with page/issue references, turning the pages gets much easier. PC Magazine is owned by the media giant Ziff-Davis. PC MagNet is a part of ZiffNet on CompuServe. So is Computer Database Plus, which lets you search through more than 250,000 articles from over 200 popular newspapers and magazines. The oldest articles are from early 1987. The database is also available on CD-ROM, but the discs cover only one year at a time. CDP contains full-text from around 50 magazines, like Personal Computing, Electronic News, MacWeek and Electronic Business. Stories from the other magazines are available in abstracted form only. To search the database, CDP, you pay an extra US$24.00 per hour. In addition, you pay US$1.00 per abstract and US$1.50 per full-text article (1992). These fees are added to your normal CompuServe access rates. ZiffNet also offers Magazine Database Plus, a database with stories from over 90 magazines covering science, business, sport, people, personal finance, family, art and handicraft, cooking, education, environment, travel, politics, consumer opinions, and reviews of books and films. The magazines include: Administrative Management, Aging, Changing Times, The Atlantic, Canadian Business, Datamation, Cosmopolitan, Dun's Business Month, The Economist, The Futurist, High Technology Business, Journal of Small Business Management, Management Today, The Nation, The New Republic, Online, Playboy, Inc., Popular Science, Research & Development, Sales & Marketing Management, Scientific American, Technology Review, UN Chronicle, UNESCO Courier and U.S. News & World Report. In the next chapter, we will present another ZiffNet magazine database: the Business Database Plus. Magazine Index (MI), from Information Access Company (U.S.A.), is another source worth looking at. It covers over 500 consumer and general-interest periodicals as diverse as Special Libraries and Sky & Telescope, Motor Trend and Modern Maturity, Reader's Digest and Rolling Stone. Many titles go as far back as 1959. Although most of the database consists of brief citations, MI also contains the complete text of selected stories from a long list of periodicals. It is available through Dialog, CompuServe, BRS, Data-Star, Dow Jones News/Retrieval, Nexis, and others. Say you so often get references to a given magazine that you want a paper subscription. Try the Electronic Newsstand, which is available by gopher or telnet to gopher.netsys.com. If these Internet commands are unavailable, try mail to staff@enews.com.
Finding that book ————————- Over 270 libraries around the world are accessible by the Internet telnet command. Some of them can also be accessed by Internet mail. This is the case with BIBSYS, a database operated by the Norwegian universities' libraries. I am into transcendental meditation. I'm therefore constantly looking for books on narrow topics like "mantra". To search BIBSYS for titles of interest, I sent mail to genserv@pollux.bibsys.no . The search word was entered in the subject title of the message. By return email, I got the following report:
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 93 13:54:18 NORFrom: GENSERV@POLLUX.BIBSYS.NOSubject: Searching BIBSYS
Search request : MANTRADatabase-id : BIBSYSSearch result : 5 hits.
The following is one of the references. I have forwarded it to my local library for processing:
Forfatter : Gonda, J.Tittel : Mantra interpretation in the Satapatha-Brahmana/ by J. Gonda.Trykt : Leiden : E.J. Brill, 1988.Sidetall : X, 285 s.I serie : (Orientalia Rheno-traiectina ; 32)ISBN : 90-04-08776-11 - UHF 90ka03324 - UHF/INDO Rh III b Gon
The Danish library database REX may be accessed through most international packet switching networks. Its Network User Address (NUA) is 23824125080000. When connected, enter RC8000 and press return. Press ESC once. The system will respond with ATT. Enter KB REX, and you're ready to search Dansk Bogfortegnelse since 1980, Dansk Musikfortegnelse since 1980, and ISDS Denmark. BARTON is the library system of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its database contains everything received since 1974 except magazine articles, brochures, and technical reports from sources outside M.I.T. Phone: +1-617-258-6700 (1200 bps). Press ENTER a couple of times to access the system. On CompuServe, there is a section for book collectors in the Coin/Stamp/Collectibles Forum, and a Weekly Book Chat section in the ScienceFiction & Fantasy Forum. In the Electronic Mall, you can buy books directly from Ballantine Books, Penguin Books, Small Computer Book Club, The McGraw-Hill Book Company, Time-Life Books and Walden Computer Books. On the Internet, Roswell Computer Books Ltd. (Canada) has an online bookstore with a database of over 7,000 titles (1993). Gopher to nstn.ns.ca, select "Other Gophers in Nova Scotia", and then "Roswell Electronic Computer Bookstore". Failing access to gopher, send your email requests to roswell@fox.nstn.ns.ca . The Book Review Digest (GO BOOKREVIEW) is CompuServe's database of bibliographical references and abstracts of reviews (since 1983). You can search by title, author, and keywords found in the text of book reviews. CompuServe also offers book reviews through Magazine Database Plus. "Books in print" is a North American bibliographic reference database. It is available on BRS and CompuServe. South African Bibliographic and Information Network has a gopher service at info2.sabinet.co.za. FidoNet has COMICS (The Comic Book Echo), BITNET the list Rare Book and Special Collections Catalogers (NOTRBCAT@INDYCMS). NewsNet has the COMPUTER BOOK REVIEW newsletter and on The Well you'll find the "Computer Books" conference. OCLC's WorldCat is a reference database covering books and materials in libraries worldwide. Bookworms may appreciate the BITNET discussion list DOROTHYL (LISTSERV@KENTVM.KENT.EDU), and especially if they like Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey and Dorothy L. Sayers. On Usenet, you will find alt.books.reviews, k12.library, alt.books.technical, rec.arts.books, and misc. books.technical, and more. On the Internet, there are a rapidly growing number of library online public-access catalogs (OPACs) from all over the world. Some provide users with access to additional resources, such as periodical indexes of specialized databases. More than 270 library catalogs are now online (1992). An up-to-date directory of libraries that are interactively accessible through Internet can be had by anonymous ftp from ftp.unt.edu (then: cd library). File name: LIBRARIES.TXT. Check out the end of Chapter 12 for how to get the file by email (ftpmail). You will also find full electronic versions of books. This book is one example. Many texts are courtesy of Project Gutenberg, an organization whose goal is to develop a library of 10,000 public domain electronic texts by the year 2000. Since books are often quite large, they are somewhat bulky for email transfer. If you have direct Internet access, use anonymous ftp instead. Many books are available through the /pub/almanac/etext directory at oes.orst.edu. For more about how to use the Almanac information server, send Almanac@oes.orst.edu the following email command: