|
... ent
earthquakes around the world.
jtchern@ocf.berkeley.edu Current major-league baseball standings and
results of the previous day's games.
nasanews@space.mit.edu The day's events at NASA.
coke@cs.cmu.edu See how many cans of each type of soda
are left in a particular soda machine
in the computer-science department of
Carnegie-Mellon University.
6.6 FINDING SOMEONE ON THE NET
So you have a friend and you want to find out if he has an Internet
account to which you can write? The quickest way may be to just pick up
the phone, call him and ask him. Although there are a variety of "white
pages" services available on the Internet, they are far from complete --
college students, users of commercial services such as CompuServe and
many Internet public-access sites, and many others simply won't be
listed. Major e-mail providers are working on a universal directory
system, but that could be some time away.
In the meantime, a couple of "white pages" services might give you
some leads, or even just entertain you as you look up famous people or
long-lost acquaintances.
The whois directory provides names, e-mail and postal mail address
and often phone numbers for people listed in it. To use it, telnet to
web designer new jersey internic.net
No log-on is needed. The quickest way to use it is to type
whois name
at the prompt, where "name" is the last name or organization name you're
looking for.
Another service worth trying, especially since it seems to give
beginners fewer problems, is the Knowbot Information Service reachable by
telnet at
info.cnri.reston.va.us 185
Again, no log-on is needed. This service actually searches through a
variety of other "white pages" systems, including the user directory for
MCIMail.
To look for web gaphic designer somebody, type
query name
where "name" is the last name of the person you're looking for. You can
get details of other commands by hitting a question mark at the prompt.
You can also use the knowbot system by e-mail. Start a message to
netaddress@info.cnri.reston.va.us
You can leave the "subject:" line blank. As your message, type
query name
for the simplest type of search.
If you want details on more complex
searches, add another line:
man
Another way to search is via the Usenet name server. This is a
system at MIT that keeps track of the e-mail addresses of everybody who
posts a Usenet message that appears at MIT. It works by e-mail. Send a
message to
mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu
Leave the "subject:" line blank. As your message, write
send usenet-addresses/lastname
where "lastname" is the last name of the person you're looking for.
6.7 WHEN THINGS GO WRONG
* Nothing happens when you try to connect to a telnet site.
The site could be down for maintenance or problems.
* You get a "host unavailable" message. The telnet site is down
for some reason.
Try again later.
* You get a "host unknown" message.
Check your spelling of web gaphic designer the site name.
* You type in a password on a telnet site that requires one, and
you get a "login incorrect" message.
Try logging in again. If you get the message again, hit your
control and ] web gaphic web designer new jersey designer keys at the same time to disengage and return to your web designer new jersey host
system.
* You can't seem to disconnect from a telnet site.
Use control-] to disengage and return to your host system.
6.8 FYI
The Usenet newsgroups alt.internet.services and alt.bbs.internet
can provide pointers to new telnet systems. Scott Yanoff periodically
posts his "Updated Internet Services List" in the former. The
alt.bbs.internet newsgroup is also where you'll find Aydin Edguer's
compendium of FAQs related to Internet bulletin-board systems.
Peter Scott, who maintains the Hytelnet database, runs a
mailing list about new telnet services and changes in existing ones.
To get on the list, send him a note at scott@sklib.usask.ca.
Gleason Sackman maintains another mailing list dedicated to new
Internet services and news about the new uses to which the Net is being
put. To subscribe, send a message to listserv@internic.net. Leave the
"subject:" line blank, and as your message, write: Sub net-happenings
Your Name.
Chapter 7: FTP
7.1 TONS OF FILES
Hundreds of systems connected to Internet have file libraries, or
archives, accessible to the public. Much of this consists of free or low-
cost shareware programs for virtually every make of computer. If you
want a different communications program for your IBM, or feel web designer new jersey like
playing a new game on your Amiga, you'll be able to get it from the Net.
But there are also libraries of documents as well. If you
want a copy of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, you can find it on
the Net. Copies of historical documents, from the Magna Carta to the
Declaration of Independence are also yours for the asking, along with a
translation of a telegram from Lenin ordering the execution of
rebellious peasants. You can also find song lyrics, poems, even
summaries of every "Lost in Space" episode ever made. You can also find
extensive files detailing everything you could ever possibly want to know
about the Net itself. First you'll see how to get these files; then
we'll show you where they're kept.
The commonest way to get these files is through the file transfer
protocol, or ftp. As with telnet, not all systems that connect to the
Net have access to ftp. However, if your system is one of these, you'll
be able to get many of these files through e-mail (see the next chapter).
Starting ftp is as easy as using telnet. At your host system's command
line, type
ftp site.name
and hit enter, where "site.name" is the address of the ftp site you want
to reach. One major difference between telnet and ftp is that it is
considered bad form to connect to most ftp sites during their business
hours (generally 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time). This is because
transferring files across the network takes up considerable computing
power, which during the day is likely to be needed for whatever the
computer's main function is.
There are some ftp sites that are
accessible to the public 24 hours a day, though. You'll find these noted
in the list of ftp sites in section 7.6
7.2 YOUR FRIEND ARCHIE
How do you find a file you want, though?
Until a few years ago, this could be quite the pain -- there was lan flash designer
no master directory to tell you where a given file might be stored on
the Net. Who'd want to slog through hundreds of file libraries looking
for something?
Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan and Peter Deutsch, students at McGill
University in Montreal, asked the same question. Unlike the weather,
though, they did something about it.
They created a database system, called archie, that would
periodically call up file libraries and basically find out what they had
available. In turn, anybody could dial into archie, type in a file name,
and see where on the Net it was available. Archie web gaphic designer currently catalogs
close to 1,000 file libraries around the world.
Today, there are three ways to ask archie to find a file fo ... |
