What you wanted to know about the internet but didn't know who to ask...
By Robert M. Toups, Jr.
It's everywhere. I mean everywhere. You can't turn on the TV, read a magazine
or even escape it on a bus, it's the Internet. Dot COM this, dot COM that.
The global information superhighway hype machine. Don't worry if you haven't
leapt onto the Magic Bus for a ride yet, I'll give you a little Internet
history and sites to explore.
The Internet is the collection of millions of extremely fancy computer systems
around the world tied into each other through a complicated network of expensive
wiring that you can use almost for free. The Internet has been referred
to as the "Information Superhighway," not because it is a means
of public transportation, but as a description of those billion wires criss-crossing
the planet, letting someone in Duluth send a note about the weather to a
meteorologist in Denmark in less than 10 seconds.
It all started in the 70's. Instead of a means to catch up on the latest
episode of Beverly Hills 90210, the Internet, called ARPANET then, was designed
to let scientists at universities communicate with engineers at the Pentagon
and military bases around the world. What we 'surf' on today was originally
designed as a response to the Cold War. As the 80's rolled in and the threat
of Soviet nuclear attack lessened, ARPANET started its progression into
the Internet, as a purely academic communications tool.
By 1990, its connections had spread outside the U.S. borders. College students
took over the former digital network of atomic destruction to talk about
bad college cafeteria cuisine, Star Trek, and if the surviving members of
Led Zeppelin would ever get back together. To capitalize on the new audience,
there are now thousands of World Wide Web pages and the Internet has gone
commercial.
For all the media hype, most of the Internet is completely boring. The World
Wide Web, itself, can make quadratic equations look like something worthwhile
to do. Fortunately, this is starting to change, just as television has changed
since its beginning - remember it took four decades before MTV (http://www.mtv.com)
hit the airwaves with The Bugles' song, Video Killed the Radio Star. In
fact, television is invading the Internet. Networks such as CBS (http://www.cbs.com/),
ABC (http://www.abctelevision.com/),
NBC (http://www.nbc.com/), CNN (http://www.cnn.com/),
Sci-Fi Channel (http://www.scifi. com), Comedy Central (http://www. comcentral.com/)
and Fox (http: //www.fox.com/) are
filling the World Wide Web with program listings, show trivia, live video
and contests. The networks are predicting in the future that television
and the Internet will be the same system - the 500 channel TV we have heard
about for the last 10 years that you can never seem to order from the cable
company.
The best way to 'surf the net' is by using search engines, the card catalog
system of the Internet. Companies such as Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com/),
Excite (http://www.excite.com/), InfoSeek
(http://www.infoseek.com/) and Alta
Vista (http://altavista. digital.com/)
have searched the World Wide Web and Usenet Newsgroups, collected all the
relevant information and put it in giant databases for free. Gee, isn't
that nice_ All you have to do is come up with a keyword to search the Internet
such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Taco Bell or College Admissions and these
search engines will display web sites and newsgroup postings matching your
request. But how do you know if these sites are worth surfing_ One company,
Point Communications (http://www.
pointcom.com/), has taken it upon itself to review thousands of web
sites and compile a list of the best 5% of the World Wide Web.
Now for something really important, what about that friend that moved away,
you haven't talked with in a long while and still has your treasured Nirvana
album - how ever will you find them_ At Switchboard (http://
www.switchboard.com/), you can look up phone numbers around the United
States for free. You type in their last name, city and state and in seconds
a listing of phone numbers and street addresses will pour out on your browser
window. Isn't that convenient_ If that old friend of yours has misplaced
Nirvana and you can't get no satisfaction, log into the U.S. Gazetteer (http://
wings.buffalo.edu/geogw), type in their city name and you will get complete
maps right to them. Then join the U.S. ARMY (http://
www.goarmy.com) and invade. Or if you like the subtle method, visit
the U.S. Post Office (http://www.usps.gov/),
learn the best way to send a letter and look up their correct ZIP+4 Code.
Remember, the pen is mightier than the sword. If you are a philatelist (aren't
we all_), the U.S. Postal Service Web site has a full-color catalog of current
stamps for the avid collector.
Okay, I know, where are the games and all those things you're not supposed
to know_ Where's the real fun_ Sorry, this is a literary journal so you
are going to be forced to learn something. To aid in that learning process,
you can use Webster's Dictionary (http://
c.gp.cs.cmu.edu:5103/prog/webster) to look up what 'philatelist' means
or use Roget's Thesaurus (gopher://odie.niaid.nih.gov/77/.thesaurus/index)
to find a synonym that everyone can understand. Then after you fully understand
what 'philatelist' means, you can search through Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
(http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/bartlett/)
to see what others have said on the subject.
Now that you have had fun with 'philatelist', impress your uber-cybergeek
friends - who wired into everything except the English language, by hyperlinking
to The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (http://wombat.
doc.ic.ac.uk/). So now when they tell you to flip your DIP or seat your
SIMMs, you'll know exactly what they mean. And the next time they don't
like what you are wearing tell them "I'm 'WYSIWYG' baby!" (pronounced
Wizzy-Wig).
In addition, if you are interested in life after High School and what it
might lead too, click on over to the Link, The College Magaziner DIGITAL
CAMPUS Web Site (http://www.linkmag.com/).
It's the web site that I design for my magazine's readers. With over 500
web pages and 5,500 links to other web sites around the world, it is the
most comprehensive college web site around. I put up the latest and greatest
information about colleges from listings of over 1,000 university web sites
that cover everything from college sports to financing your education.
Don't worry if you find the Internet confusing, we all do. The technology
fueling this world wide communication machine changes everyday, causing
even computer experts and 'net know it alls' to sit back and scratch their
heads. Go out and explore. Click on the link less traveled, you never know
what you will discover.
Robert M. Toups, Jr. is the Director of Internet Operations at Link, The
College Magazine, and the Webmaster of Digital Campus. He has been sighted
in over 250 publications for his internet expertise and web designs.
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