Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet

1.1 Ready, set... 1.2 Go! 1.3 Public-access Internet providers 1.4 If your town doesn't have direct access 1.5 Net origins 1.6 How it works 1.7 When things go wrong 1.8 FYI

2.1. The basics 2.2 Elm -- a better way 2.3 Pine -- even better than Elm 2.4 Smileys 2.5 Sending e-mail to other networks 2.6 Seven Unix commands you can't live without

3.1 The global watering hole 3.2 Navigating Usenet with nn 3.3 nn commands 3.4 Using rn 3.5 rn commands 3.6 Essential newsgroups 3.7 Speaking up 3.8 Cross-posting

4.1 Flame, blather and spew 4.2 Killfiles, the cure for what ails you 4.3 Some Usenet hints 4.4 The Brain-Tumor Boy, the modem tax and the chain letter 4.5 Big Sig 4.6 The First...

6.1 Mining the Net 6.2 Library catalogs 6.3 Some interesting telnet sites 6.4 Telnet bulletin-board systems 6.5 Putting the finger on someone 6.6 Finding someone on the Net 6.7...

7.1 Tons of files 7.2 Your friend archie 7.3 Getting the files 7.4 Odd letters -- decoding file endings 7.5 The keyboard cabal 7.6 Some interesting ftp sites 7.7 ncftp -- now yo...

8.1 Gophers 8.2 Burrowing deeper 8.3 Gopher commands 8.4 Some interesting gophers 8.5 Wide-Area Information Servers 8.6 The World-Wide Web 8.7 Clients, or how to snare more on t...

9.1 The file's in the mail 9.2 Receiving files 9.3 Sending files to non-Internet sites 9.4 Getting ftp files via e-mail 9.5 The all knowing Oracle

10.1 Clarinet: UPI, Dave Barry and Dilbert 10.2 Reuters 10.3 USA Today 10.4 National Public Radio 10.5 The World Today: From Belarus to Brazil 10.6 E-mailing news organizations...

11.1 Talk 11.2 Internet Relay Chat 11.3 IRC commands 11.4 IRC in times of crisis 11.5 MUDs 11.6 Go, go, go (and chess, too)! 11.7 The other side of the coin 11.8 FYI

24 words

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is proud to have sponsored the production of the Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet. EFF is a nonprofit organization based in Washington,...

The world is just a phone call away. With a computer and modem, you'll be able to connect to the Internet, the world's largest computer network (and if you're lucky, you won't e...

systems that let you access services through menus are noted; otherwise assume that when you connect, you'll be dumped right into Unix (a.k.a. MS-DOS with a college degree). Sev...

Electronic mail, or e-mail, is your personal connection to the world of the Net. All of the millions of people around the world who use the Net have their own e-mail addresses....

Imagine a conversation carried out over a period of hours and days, as if people were leaving messages and responses on a bulletin board. Or imagine the electronic equivalent of...

Something about online communications seems to make some people particularly irritable. Perhaps it's the immediacy and semi-anonymity of it all. Whatever it is, there are whole...

Usenet is not the only forum on the Net. Scores of "mailing lists" represent another way to interact with other Net users. Unlike Usenet messages, which are stored in one centra...

Like any large community, cyberspace has its libraries, places you can go to look up information or take out a good book. Telnet is one of your keys to these libraries. Telnet i...

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...

Even with tools like Hytelnet and archie, telnet and ftp can still be frustrating. There are all those telnet and ftp addresses to remember. Telnet services often have their own...

E-mail by itself is a powerful tool, and by now you may be sending e-mail messages all over the place. You might even be on a mailing list or two. But there is a lot more to e-m...

Usenet "newsgroups" can be something of a misnomer. They may be interesting, informative and educational, but they are often not news, at least, not the way most people would th...

E-mail by itself is a powerful tool, and by now you may be sending e-mail messages all over the place. You might even be on a mailing list or two. But there is a lot more to e-m...

Usenet "newsgroups" can be something of a misnomer. They may be interesting, informative and educational, but they are often not news, at least, not the way most people would th...

Many Net systems provide access to a series of interactive services that let you hold live "chats" or play online games with people around the world. To find out if your host sy...

If you're a teacher, you've probably already begun to see the potential the Net has for use in the class. Usenet, ftp and telnet have tremendous educational potential, from keep...

Back in olden days, oh, before 1990 or so, there were no markets in the virtual community -- if you wanted to buy a book, you still had to jump in your car and drive to the near...

The revolution is just beginning. New communications systems and digital technologies have already meant dramatic changes in the way we live. Think of what is already routine th...

ASCII Has two meanings. ASCII is a universal computer code for English letters and characters. Computers store all information as binary numbers. In ASCII, the letter "A" is sto...