Introduction to the Internet
The Internet is a huge network of computers that spans the globe.
It originated in the late 1960s from an American military project
which was intended to provide reliable communications in the event
of a nuclear war. The network started with just four computers
but grew rapidly over the next few years. An estimated 60 million
computers are now connected to it, and this number is growing
by about 10% each year. Although access was originally restricted
to government departments and organizations such as universities,
the Internet has been opened up to everybody. It is now used by
people and organizations from all walks of life, including commercial
organizations, university departments, hospitals and medical
schools, as well as a growing number of individual users dialing
in from home. It is estimated that 25% of Internet traffic is
healthcare related.
Surging computer use by MDs
More than one-third of Canadian physicians (41%) now use the Internet
and of those who do 1 in 4 (23%) is logging on to the World Wide
Web daily and almost half (46%) are using e-mail every day. The
data, compiled from the CMA's 1997 Physician Resource Questionnaire
(PRQ), are the first detailed statistics dealing with the use
of computers and the Internet by Canadian doctors. The PRQ was
mailed in January and by mid-April 3400 completed forms had been
returned, for a response rate of 45%.
"The numbers indicate the CMA made the right move when it became
the world's first national medical association to provide an Internet-based
information service in 1995," said Stephen Prudhomme, the director
of professional development. "I'm impressed that more than 40%
of doctors are now using the Internet and that 39% of those who
don't use it say they expect to within the next year. We've been
witnessing the growth with CMA Online [www.cma.ca]. What does it do?
The Internet is best regarded as a framework which allows the
free exchange of information between computers. With new services
and users connecting to the network every day, it is becoming
increasingly valuable as an information resource and communications
superhighway. Among other things, it is now possible to access
thousands of databases at universities and other research centres
all over the world, read electronic journals, view and buy products
from numerous companies, exchange news and views on a wide range
of specialist subjects, and send virtually instantaneous electronic
mail to any organization, company, or individual connected to
the Internet.
How do I get on to the Internet?
Accessing the Internet is very easy. You need a computer and a
modem connected to a telephone line, You will also need to
contact an Internet service provider who will supply you with
suitable software to load on to your computer, an Internet telephone
number and password, an e-mail address, and access to a help desk.
Good software will store the telephone number of your service
provider and your password during installation, and after that
clicking on the connect button will automatically log you on to
the net within a few seconds.
When selecting a service provider you should consider not only
the initial connection charge and monthly service costs, but also
the distance to the nearest access point. You may be able to find
a local service provider but, if not, several of the larger companies
offer a range of access points (called virtual points of presence
or POPs) all over the country. Long distance telephone calls add
considerably to the cost of using the service. One of the greatest
advantages of the Internet is that connection to any other computer,
whether it is just down the road or on the other side of the world,
should cost no more than a local phone call.
What to do when connected?
Once you have connected to the Internet you normally see the service
provider's home page, which is like a menu. The page gives information
about how to use and get the most from the Internet. It will also
guide you towards search facilities which scan the Internet for
the information or products that you require and FTP (file transfer
protocol) sites which store programs, pictures, sound, and video
files that you can download for use on your own computer.
The World Wide Web (often referred to as WWW) is the most interesting
development on the Internet. It offers user-friendly access to
millions of pages of information on computers all over the world.
To access the Web you need a graphical browsing program (running
under Windows, Macintosh, or OS/2). A program such as Netscape
(latest version 4 - Netscape Communicator) or Internet Explorer
(latest version IE.4) should be supplied as part of the package
you purchase from the Internet service provider. You can also
download them from these sites http://www.netscape.com/ and http://www.microsoft.com/ie/. Some ISPs have their own browser like AOL.
Navigating the World Wide Web
Almost every page on the Web has a number of hypertext links to
other pages on the same computer or to pages stored on another
computers (often on the other side of the world). These appear
as coloured text and are the easiest way to navigate around the
Internet. Simply clicking on the text with the mouse takes you
to the relevant page within a few seconds. Browsing programs keep
a temporary list of the pages that you have viewed during a session,
and it is easy to move backwards or forwards through the list
one page at a time. You can also get a pull-down list of the pages
that have been accessed and go directly to any given page. Particularly
useful pages can be tagged with a permanent bookmark, which allows
you to return to that page at any time in the future.
Uniform resource locator (URL)
All Web sites have an Internet address termed a Uniform Resource
Locator (URL). If you know the address for a particular Web site,
type it into the location box of your browser and you will automatically
be connected to the correct site. The inset below gives some useful
addresses that you could use as a starting point for exploring
the Internet using hypertext links and bookmarks. You should,
however, bear in mind that the Internet is constantly evolving
and that addresses do change sometimes. Up-to-date lists of addresses
can be found in Internet magazines and increasingly in medical
journals.
Resources to Which Links Can Point
Links can point to more than just Web pages. They can point to
a variety of files and other Internet resources, too. A link can
point to a video, pictures, or even a plain text file. It can
also point to an FTP server, Gopher server, or a UseNet newsgroup.
Table 1 describes the other types of things a link can point to,
and shows you what the URL looks like.
Table1 - Resources to Which a Link Can Point Electronic mail
E-mail ranks alongside the World Wide Web as one of the main attractions
of the Internet. It allows you to send messages to other people
in just a few seconds even if they are thousands of miles away.
You pay only the cost of the telephone call to your service provider.
The same message can just as easily be broadcast to a group of
people. In addition to simple text, you can send documents, graphics,
sound files, and even programs, although you will need additional
software (UU encoding/decoding) to do this. You could, for example,
send a note to a colleague asking for an opinion on a clinical
photograph, research data in a spreadsheet, or even a set of slides
for a lecture.
Although you can write messages while connected to the Internet,
it is more cost effective to write your messages before connection
(off line). Your service provider will usually supply you with
a program to do this. The program puts all your outgoing mail
into a packet which is automatically dispatched the next time
you dial into the Internet, while messages addressed to you are
simultaneously delivered to your computer.
It is not uncommon to get a reply to an e-mail message within a
few minutes. If an e-mail message cannot be delivered for any reason
(for example, an incorrect e-mail address) the system will usually
let you know, but there is no reliable way of telling if someone
has not dialed in to collect the message.
Mailing Lists
There are three types of listserver software in wide use today:
Listserv, Listproc and Majordomo. All operate similarly, in that
they maintain lists of subscribers and forward all mail received
to all subscribers.
Commands such as "subscribe," "unsubscribe," or "review" are sent
directly to the listserver. Usually that address begins: "listserv,"
"majordomo," or "listname-request" @domainname. Some basic commands
and the syntax required by different listservers are shown below.
Messages for distribution to the subscribers must sent to an entirely
different address. Usually that address begins: "listname" @domainname.
When you subscribe to a discussion group the listserver will automatically
send you basic information about the group, including how to post
messages and how to unsubscribe. It is a good idea to save that
message.
Important note: Many listservers are very particular about the address you use
for sending commands or posting messages. Be sure to subscribe
to a discussion group from the same e-mail address you plan to
use for receiving and posting messages or your messages may be
refused. Consider unsubscribing and then re-subscribing when you
change e-mail addresses.
B. Majordomo Discussion Groups (Most common type at commercial
Internet providers)
C. Listproc Discussion Groups
Some offer keyword searching. Some provide information about the
list, and some let you subscribe right from their Web site.
Newsgroups
CompuServe calls them forums. The Microsoft Network calls them
BBSs (bulletin board systems). At your office, they're possibly
known as cork boards. They are all places where people come together
to exchange ideas and opinions, post public notices, or look for
help. The Internet has such a place, too. On the Internet, it's
called UseNet newsgroups, or just newsgroups for short.
UseNet newsgroups are strikingly similar in operation to e-mail,
since both involve sending messages that often have file attachments,
and like e-mail, newsgroup functionality is also starting to turn
up in Web browsers.
The first UseNet newsgroup was set up in 1979 by Tom Truscott
and Steve Bellovin using UUCP (UNIX-to-UNIX Communication Protocol)
between Duke University and the University of North Carolina.
Newsgroups are a bit more complicated than forums, BBSs, and cork
boards. Not in a technical sense, but in a cultural sense. Newsgroups
don't have official rules that are enforced by anyone in particular.
They have unofficial rules that newsgroup peers enforce. Newsgroups
concentrate cultures, from all over the world, in one place; a
source of a lot of conflict as you can imagine.
So, take a few moments to study this section before you dive into
newsgroups head first. Make sure that you understand how newsgroups
and the UseNet culture works. If you're particularly sensitive
or easily offended, newsgroups may not be right for you. Unlike
the forums and BBSs on commercial online systems, no one is watching
over the content on newsgroups. The material is often very offensive
to some folks. You'll find plenty of nasty language and abusive
remarks in some newsgroups, just like you'd expect to find in
some pubs.
If you've ever used a forum or BBS on a commercial online service,
you're already familiar with the concept of a newsgroup. Readers
post messages, or articles, to newsgroups for other people to
read. They can also reply to articles that they read on a newsgroup.
It's one way for people like yourself to communicate with millions
of people around the world.
Newsgroups are a bit looser, however. A newsgroup doesn't necessarily
have a watch dog other than the readers themselves. As a result,
the organization is a bit looser, and the content of the messages
is often way out of focus. The seemingly chaotic nature of newsgroups,
however, produces some of the most interesting information you'll
find anywhere.
The variety of content is exactly what makes newsgroups so appealing.
There are newsgroups for expressing opinions; no matter how benign
or how radical. There are other newsgroups for asking questions
or getting help. And, best of all, there are newsgroups for those
seeking companionship, whether they're looking for a soul-mate
or longing to find someone with a similar interest in whittling.
The following is a sample of the types of newsgroups you'll find:
Not all the newsgroups available are true UseNet newsgroups. Some
newsgroups are created to serve a particular region or are so
obscure that they wouldn't make it through the rigorous UseNet
approval process. If something looks like a newsgroup and acts
like a newsgroup, however, it can find its way onto your news
server.
Here are some examples:
Moderated newsgroups are a bit more civil, and the articles are
typically more focused than unmoderated newsgroups. Moderators
look at every article posted to their newsgroup before making
it available for everyone to read. If they judge it to be inappropriate,
they nuke it.
So what are the advantages of a moderated newsgroup? You don't
have to wade through 10 pounds of garbage to find one ounce of
treasure. Check out some of the alternative newsgroups and you'll
get the picture. Most the alternative newsgroups are unmoderated.
As such, they're a free-for-all of profanity, abusiveness, and childish
bickering. The value and quality of the information that you'll
find in moderated newsgroups is much higher than their unmoderated
cousins.
The disadvantages, on the other hand, are just as clear. Some
people believe that moderating a newsgroup is the equivalent of
censorship. Instead of the group as a whole determining the content
of a newsgroups, the judgment of a single individual determines
the content of the newsgroups. Another significant disadvantage
is timeliness. Articles posted to moderated newsgroups can be
delayed days or weeks.
Every Internet resource that you want to use requires a client
program on your computer. Newsgroups are no exception. The program
that you use to read newsgroups is called a newsreader.
A newsreader lets you browse the newsgroups that are available,
reading and posting articles along the way. Most newsreaders also
have more advanced features that make using newsgroups a bit more
productive. A newsreader can be part of your browser as it is in
Communicator and Explorer.
NNTP (Network News Transport Protocol) is used to move the news
from one server to another. It's very similar to e-mail in a lot
of respects. Instead of all the messages sitting on your machine,
however, they are stored on an NNTP news server that many other
people can access. Therefore, the news only has to be sent to
the server, instead of each user. Each user is then responsible
for retrieving the articles she or he is interested in.
UseNet news makes its way to your news server using a process
called flooding. That is, all the news servers are networked together.
A particular news server may be fed by one news server, while
it feeds three other news servers in turn. Periodically, it's
flooded with news from the news server that's feeding it, and
it floods all of its news to the news servers that it feeds.
Sometimes, you'll feel like you're knee deep in newsgroups. There
are over 10,000 newsgroups available. Wading through them all
to find what you want can be a daunting task. What's a new user
to do?
It's all right there in front of you. There's a lot of logic to
the way newsgroups are named. Once you learn it, you'll be able
to pluck out a newsgroup just by how it's named. You'll also find
tools to help you locate just the right newsgroup, as well as
a few newsgroups that provide helpful advice and pointers to new
users.
Newsgroups are organized into a hierarchy of categories and subcategories.
Take a look at the alt.tv.simpsons newsgroup discussed earlier.
The top-level category is alt. The subcategory is tv. The subcategory
under that is simpsons. The name goes from general to specific,
left to right. You'll also find other newsgroups under alt.tv,
such as alt.tv.friends and alt.tv.home-improvement. alt.tv.* is a notational convention that means all the newsgroups available
under the alt.tv category. There are many different top-level categories available. Table
2 shows some that you probably have available on your news server.
Table 2 - Internet Top-Level Newsgroup Categories
Exactly which newsgroups are available on your news server is
largely under the control of the administrator. Some administrators
filter out regional newsgroups that don't apply to your area.
Some also filter out the alt newsgroups because of their potentially
offensive content.
Scouring the categories for a particular newsgroup may not be
the most efficient way to find what you want. Here are a couple
of tools that help you find newsgroups based upon keywords that
you type:
Liszt of Newsgroup http://www.liszt.com/news/ UseNet is good for a lot more than just blathering and downloading
questionable art. There's a lot of news and great information
coming from a variety of sources. You'll find "real" news, current
Internet events, organizational newsgroups, and regional newsgroups
as well, all of which make newsgroups worth every bit of trouble.
You can be the first kid on the block with the current news. ClariNet
is a news service that clips articles from sources such as the
AP and Reuters news wires. They post these services to the clari.*
newsgroups. These newsgroups aren't free, though. They sell these
newsgroups on a subscription basis. You wouldn't want to pay for
them, either, because they can be expensive. Many independent
service providers do subscribe, however, as a part of their service.
ClariNet has more than 300 newsgroups from which to choose. For
your convenience, table 3 describes each ClariNet news category.
You'll find individual newsgroups under each category. Under the
clari.living category, for example, you'll find arts, books, music,
and movies.
Table 3- ClariNet News Categories at a Glance If it seems that the Internet is moving too fast to keep up with,
you're right; without help, anyway. The comp.internet.net-happenings newsgroup helps you keep track of new events on the Internet,
including the World Wide Web, mailing lists, UseNet, and so on.
The subject line of each article tells you a lot about the announcement.
Take, for example, the following announcement:
The first part tells you that the announcement is about a World
Wide Web site. You'll find many other categories such as FAQ,
EMAG, LISTS, and MISC. The second part is a brief description
about the announcement. Most of the time, the description is enough
to tell you whether you want to see more information by opening
the article. The article itself is a few paragraphs about the
announcement, with the address or subscription information near
the top.
DejaNews is a Web tool that searches all the newsgroup articles,
past and present, for terms that you specify. Point your Web browser
at http://www.dejanews.com/home_ps.shtml . To search UseNet, fill in the form and click Search. DejaNews
displays another Web page that contains a list of the newsgroup
articles it found. You can click any of these articles to read
them, or click Get Next 25 Hits to display the next page full
of articles. The following are a couple of other things you should
know:
In the past year or so, many Web browsers have exceeded their
original purpose of simply displaying HTML pages. Many Web browsers
are becoming all-purpose Internet tools that can also be used
for accessing non-Web Internet services such as e-mail, newsgroups,
FTP, Gopher and Telnet.
FTP
FTP, short for file transfer protocol, is an Internet protocol
that allows you to upload or download text or binary files. FTP
is most often used to download files from an archival storage
site. In the past few years, numerous FTP sites have sprung up
all over the Internet as repositories for shareware, freeware,
and general PC utilities and various support files.
It has also become fairly common for computer hardware and software
manufacturers to set up FTP sites for customer support. These
FTP sites are stocked with software updates and hardware support
drivers, which are free for customers to download.
FTP sites that are used for hardware and software support are
usually advertised so users who need access to their contents
can easily find the sites and the files they store. Unfortunately,
many FTP sites do not fall in this category and largely remain
unknown, except when passed from user to user, or when these sites
are included in a list of FTP sites in sites like this. Fortunately,
there is another way to locate files on FTP sites. In 1990 Peter
Deutsch, Alan Emtage, and Bill Heelan created a program they called
Archie, which can be used to locate files stored (or archived,
hence the name Archie) on FTP sites. A listing of Archie servers
can be found at http://pubweb.nexor.co.uk/public/archie/servers.html
You should know that file transfer may require special software. Two useful software are CuteFTP http://www.cuteftp.com and WS-FTP http://www.ipswitch.com/Products/WS_FTP/index.html Gophers
Accessing Gopher servers is another non-Web function being taken
over by Web browsers. Gopher servers, or simply Gophers, first
appeared on the Internet in 1991, and were originally created
and released by the University of Minnesota by Paul Lindner and
Mark P. McCahill. (Gophers were named after the UM mascot, the
Golden Gopher.)
Gophers are similar in operation to FTP sites in that they are
established as repositories for files. Gopher files, however,
are largely academic and informational text documents, and are
meticulously arranged by subject under a hierarchical menu structure.
Accessing a Gopher server to search for documents by subject is
similar to using a Web search engine such as Lycos or WebCrawler.
The only problem is that Gophers differ in the subjects they contain
documents for. To solve this problem, developers at the University
of Nevada in 1992 devised a Gopher database search program, which
they dubbed Veronica. Veronica works to create its database of
Gopher documents and menus like the robot search tools used in
many Web search engines. It continuously scans Gopher servers
to see what menus and documents are being stored.
If you want to see how Gophers and Veronica work, point your (Gopher-functioning)
Web browser to Telnet is an ancient (as old as the Internet) way to access services
on the Internet. When people speak of the Internet, they are generally
referring to those computers that are on and connected to the
Internet all the time. If you have a direct or dial-up connection,
your computer has an IP (Internet Protocol) address and is "part
of the Internet."
Telnet, like the World Wide Web, works because all the computers
of the Internet are on and connected all the time.You can think
of Telnet as making your computer a dumb terminal for the system
you are "telnetting" to. A dumb terminal was called such because
it was only a keyboard and screen, directly wired into the host
computer. Dumb terminals are called dumb because they have no
processor inside. Terminals were manufactured in standard designs
so they would be compatible with many different computers. A common
type of terminal was the VT series manufactured by Digital Equipment
Corporation. VT terminals came in several models (VT100, VT102,
VT220, and so on). Your personal computer is enormously more powerful
than a VT100 terminal, so a Telnet terminal emulator acts like
a terminal in order to let your computer communicate with computers
that are set up to connect to VT100 terminals. In other words,
every time you run Telnet, you are reducing your high-end state-of-the-art
personal computer to the level of a keyboard and screen.
What you get for lobotomizing your great workstation is the ability
to connect to many computer systems that, in some cases, don't
have any other connectivity available. Also, because Telnet is
the lowest common denominator of computer power, almost everyone
can participate. Windows 95 and Windows NT include Telnet applications
in the Windows folder.
You can configure Netscape or IE to launch a Telnet application
as a supporting application. Telnet applications are available
from Netscape's Helper Applications Web page at URL http://home.netscape.com/assist/helper_apps/index.html. To use these applications with Netscape, you need to download
and uncompress the files, then configure the application as a
helper application in the General window of the Options menu.
One specific Telnet application is Wintel, NCSA's Telnet application
for Windows. Wintel is available through Netscape's Helper Applications
Web page as listed earlier, or it may be downloaded directly from
the FTP site ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/micro/msdos/win3/winsock/wintelb3.zip.
Remember that, because the FTP site does not start with ftp, you
have to type the URL type (ftp://) before the hostname.
If you have Windows 95 or Windows NT installed on your machine,
you already have a Telnet application installed in C:\WINDOWS\
folder as TELNET.EXE.
Because Telnet and Gopher are both early Internet tools, many
Telnet sites are most easily found through Gopher menus. For example,
use your browser to view the Gopher menu at URL gopher://gopher.micro.umn.edu.
A Telnet site provides a great deal of information
to its clients via its Telnet host computers. However, not all
Telnet sessions are used for information gathering. Multi-User
Dungeons (MUDs) are computer programs that people can explore
by adopting a character and typing commands for the character
to move, talk, and do other things. MUDs are commonly used for
social interaction between people. There are many different types
of MUDs, both in types of programming involved in their creation
and extension, and in the types of interaction typically occurring.
Some MUDs are socially oriented chat discussion, some are fantasy
role-playing in nature, and others are oriented to foreign language
practice. While Telnet applications may be used for MUDs, many
of the various types of MUDs have specific client applications
that were created to optimize some aspects of performance on a
given type of MUD. For more information on multi-user games, see
Yahoo's directory of multi-user games at http://www.yahoo.com/Recreation/Games/Internet_Games/MUDs_MUSHes__MOOs_etc_/
The Internet
Can Med Assoc J - July 15,1997
Type
Sample URL
Web Page
http://www.geocities.com/soho/gallery/mod1bi.html
Files
file://C:/picture.bmp
Multimedia
http://www.mysite.com/video.avi
E-mail
mailto:hra@mailexcite.com
FTP
ftp://ftp.mysite.com
Gopher
gopher://gopher.mysite.com
Newsgroup
news:sci.med.cardiology
Telnet
telnet://mysite.com
E-mail, Mailing lists, Newsgoups- Information about listserver software
- Basic Commands for Three Types of Listservers
A. Listserv Discussion Groups (Most common type for University-based
lists)
- Websites where you can search for discussion lists:
Marketing-Related Lists contains descriptions and subscription information for most on-line
marketing lists.
A UseNet Primer
The Basics of Using Newsgroups
Newsgroup Variety Is Good
Alternative and Regional Newsgroups
Moderated Newsgroups
Participating in a Newsgroup
Wading Through UseNet
Newsgroup Organization
Category
Description
alt
Alternative newsgroups
bit
BitNet LISTSERV mailing lists
biz
Advertisements for businesses
clarinet
News clipping service by subscription only
comp
Computer-related topics: hardware and software
k12
Educational, kindergarten through grade 12
misc
Topics that don't fit the other categories
news
News and information about UseNet
rec
Recreational, sports, hobbies, music, games
sci
Applied sciences
soc
Social and cultural topics
talk
Discussion of more controversial topics
These categories help you nail down exactly which newsgroup you're
looking for. A bit of practice helps as well. If you're looking
for information about Windows 95, for example, start looking at
the comp top-level category. You'll find an os category, which
probably represents operating systems. Under that category, you'll
find an ms-windows category.
Searching for Newsgroups on the Web
The Good Health Web - Newsgroup http://www.social.com/health/newsgroups.html
DejaNews http://www.dejanews.com/home_ps.shtml
http://alabanza.com/kabacoff/Inter-Links/usenet.html
Getting Real News on UseNet
ClariNet
Category
Description
clari.news
General and national news
clari.biz
Business and financial news
clari.sports
Sports and athletic news
clari.living
Lifestyle and human interest stories
clari.world
News about other countries
clari.local
States and local areas
clari.feature
Special syndicated features
clari.tw
Technical and scientific news
clari.matrix_news
A networking newsletter
clari.nb
Newsbytes, computer industry news
clari.sfbay
San Francisco Bay Area news
clari.net
Information about ClariNet
clari.apbl
Special groups for the AP BulletinLine
Net-happenings
Searching UseNet with DejaNews
Other Internet Services Accessed Through the Web: FTP, Gopher, Telnet
After downloading and installing them on your system you can easily
use FTP on the Internet.
Gopher://veronica.scs.unr.edu/11/veronica.
Telnet