Big Dummy's Guide To The Internet - Electronic Frontier Foundation (reading rainbow books .txt) 📗

class="calibre1">bring you to the particular line within a menu, rather than show you the

entire menu.

If you ever want to delete a bookmark, hit V within gopher, select

the item you want to get rid of, and then hit your D key.

One more hint:

If you want to find the address of a particular gopher service, hit

your = key after you’ve highlighted its entry in a gopher menu. You’ll

get back a couple of lines, most of which will be technicalese of no

immediate value to most folks, but some of which will consist of the

site’s address.

8.3. GOPHER COMMANDS

a Add a line in a gopher menu to your bookmark list.

A Add an entire gopher menu or a database query to your bookmark

list.

d Delete an entry from your bookmark list (you have to hit v

first).

q Quit, or exit, a gopher. You’ll be asked if you really want to.

Q Quit, or exit, a gopher without being asked if you’re sure.

s Save a highlighted file to your home directory.

u Move back up a gopher menu structure

v View your bookmark list.

= Get information on the originating site of a gopher entry.

> Move ahead one screen in a gopher menu.

< Move back one screen in a gopher menu.

8.4. SOME INTERESTING GOPHERS

There are now hundreds of gopher sites around the world. What

follows is a list of some of them. Assuming your site has a gopher

“client” installed, you can reach them by typing

gopher sitename

at your command prompt. Can’t find what you’re looking for? Remember to

use veronica to look up categories and topics!

AGRICULTURE

cyfer.esusda.gov More agricultural statistics and regulations

most people will ever need.

usda.mannlib.cornell.edu More than 140 different types of agricultural

data, most in Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet format.

ANIMALS

saimiri.primate.wisc.edu Information on primates and animal-welfare

laws.

ARCHITECTURE

libra.arch.umich.edu Maintains online exhibits of a variety of

architectural images.

ART

marvel.loc.gov The Library of Congress runs several online

“galleries” of images from exhibits at the

library. Many of these pictures, in GIF or JPEG

format, are HUGE, so be careful what you get

first. Exhibits include works of art from the

Vatican, copies of once secret Soviet documents

and pictures of artifacts related to Columbus’s

1492 voyage. At the main menu, select 2 and then

“Exhibits.”

galaxy.ucr.edu The California Museum of Photography maintains its

own online galery here. At the main menu,

select “Campus Events,” then “California

Museum of Photography,” then “Network Ex-

hibitions.”

ASTRONOMY

cast0.ast.cam.ac.uk A gopher devoted to astronomy, run by the

Institute of Astronomy and the Royal Greenwich

Observatory, Cambridge, England.

CENSUS

bigcat.missouri.edu You’ll find detailed federal census data for

communities of more than 10,000 people, as well

as for states and counties here. At the main

menu, select “Reference and Information Center,”

then “United States and Missouri Census

Information” and “United States Census.”

COMPUTERS

wuarchive.wustl.edu Dozens of directories with software for all sorts

of computers. Most programs have to be

“un-compressed” before you can use them.

sumex-aim.stanford.edu A similar type of system, with the emphasis on

Macintosh programs and files.

DISABILITY

val-dor.cc.buffalo.edu The Cornucopia of Disability Information carries

numerous information resources on disability issues

and links to other disability-related services.

ENVIRONMENT

ecosys.drdr.virginia.edu Copies of Environmental Protection Agency

factsheets on hundreds of chemicals, searchable

by keyword. Select “Education” and then

“Environmental fact sheets.”

envirolink.org Dozens of documents and files related to

environmental activism around the world.

ENTOMOLOGY

spider.ento.csiro.au All about creepy-crawly things, both the good

and the bad ones.

GEOLOGY

gopher.stolaf.edu Select “Internet Resources” and then “Weather

and geography” for information on recent

earthquakes.

GOVERNMENT

marvel.loc.gov Run by the Library of Congress, this site

provides numerous resources, including access

to the Library card catalog and all manner of

information about the U.S. Congress.

gopher.lib.umich.edu Wide variety of government information, from

Congressional committee assignments to economic

statistics and NAFTA information.

ecix.doc.gov Information on conversion of military

installations to private uses.

sunsite.unc.edu Copies of current and past federal budgets can

be found by selecting “Sunsite archives,” then

“Politics,” then “Sunsite politcal science

archives.”

wiretap.spies.com Documents related to Canadian government can be

found in the “Government docs” menu.

stis.nih.gov Select the “Other U.S. government gopher

servers” for access to numerous other federal

gophers.

HEALTH

odie.niaid.nih.gov National Institutes of Health databases on AIDS,

in the “AIDS related information” menu.

helix.nih.gov For National Cancer Institute factsheets on

different cancers, select “Health and clinical

information” and then “Cancernet information.”

nysernet.org Look for information on breast cancer in the

“Special Collections: Breast Cancer” menu.

welchlink.welch.jhu.edu This is Johns Hopkins University’s medical

gopher.

HISTORY

See under Art.

INTERNET

gopher.lib.umich.edu Home to several guides to Internet resources

in specific fields, for example, social

sciences. Select “What’s New & Featured

Resources” and then “Clearinghouse.”

ISRAEL

jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il This Israeli system offers numerous documents

on Israel and Jewish life.

JAPAN

gopher.ncc.go.jp Look in the “Japan information” menu for

documents related to Japanese life and culture.

MUSIC

mtv.com Run by Adam Curry, an MTV video jock, this site

has music news and Curry’s daily “Cybersleaze”

celebrity report.

NATURE

ucmp1.berkeley.edu The University of California at Berkeley’s

Museum of Paleontology runs several online

exhibits here. You can obtain GIF images of

plants and animals from the “Remote Nature” menu.

The “Origin of the Species” menu lets you read

Darwin’s work or search it by keyword.

SPORTS

culine.colorado.edu Look up schedules for teams in various professional

sports leagues here, under “Professional Sports

Schedules.”

WEATHER

wx.atmos.uiuc.edu Look up weather forecasts for North America or

bone up on your weather facts.

8.5. WIDE-AREA INFORMATION SERVERS

Now you know there are hundreds of databases and library catalogs

you can search through. But as you look, you begin to realize that each

seems to have its own unique method for searching. If you connect to

several, this can become a pain. Gophers reduce this problem somewhat.

Wide-area information servers promise another way to zero in on

information hidden on the Net. In a WAIS, the user sees only one

interface — the program worries about how to access information on

dozens, even hundreds, of different databases. You tell give a WAIS a

word and it scours the net looking for places where it’s mentioned. You

get a menu of documents, each ranked according to how relevant to your

search the WAIS thinks it is.

Like gophers, WAIS “client” programs can already be found on many

public-access Internet sites. If your system has a WAIS client, type

swais

at the command prompt and hit enter (the “s” stands for “simple”). If it

doesn’t, telnet to bbs.oit.unc.edu, which is run by the University of North

Carolina At the “login:” prompt, type

bbs

and hit enter. You’ll be asked to register and will then get a list of

“bulletins,’’ which are various files explaining how the system works.

When done with those, hit your Q key and you’ll get another menu. Hit 4

for the “simple WAIS client,” and you’ll see something like this:

SWAIS Source Selection Sources: 23#

Server Source Cost

001: [ archie.au] aarnet-resource-guide Free

002: [ archive.orst.edu] aeronautics Free

003: [nostromo.oes.orst.ed] agricultural-market-news Free

004: [sun-wais.oit.unc.edu] alt-sys-sun Free

005: [ archive.orst.edu] alt.drugs Free

006: [ wais.oit.unc.edu] alt.gopher Free

007: [sun-wais.oit.unc.edu] alt.sys.sun Free

008: [ wais.oit.unc.edu] alt.wais Free

009: [ archive.orst.edu] archie-orst.edu Free

010: [