The Project Gutenberg EBook of Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet, by Electronic Frontier Foundation

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

** This is a COPYRIGHTED Project Gutenberg eBook, Details Below ** ** Please follow the copyright guidelines in this file. **

Title: Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet

Author: Electronic Frontier Foundation

Posting Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #118] Release Date: March, 1994

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIG DUMMY'S GUIDE TO THE INTERNET ***

Big Dummy's Guide To The Internet

(C)1993, 1994 by the Electronic Frontier Foundation [EFF]

***************************************************************************** Copyright 1993, 1994 Electronic Frontier Foundation, all rights reserved. Redistribution, excerpting, republication, copying, archiving, and reposting are permitted, provided that the work is not sold for profit, that EFF contact information, copyright notice, and distribution information remains intact, and that the work is not qualitatively modified (translation, reformatting, and excerpting expressly permitted however - feel free to produce versions of the Guide for use with typesetting, hypertext, display, etc. applications, but please do not change the text other than to translate it to another language. Excerpts should be credited and follow standard fair use doctrine.) Electronic Frontier Foundation, 1001 G St. NW, Suite 950 E, Washington DC 20001 USA, +1 202 347 5400 (voice) 393 5509 (fax.) Basic info: [email protected]; General and Guide related queries: [email protected]. *****************************************************************************

                    Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet, v.2.2
               copyright Electronic Frontier Foundation 1993, 1994
                                TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword by Mitchell Kapor, co-founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Preface by Adam Gaffin, senior writer, Network World.

Chapter 1: Setting up and jacking in 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

Chapter 2: E-mail 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

Chapter 3: Usenet I 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

Chapter 4: Usenet II 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 Amendment as local ordinance 4.7 Usenet history 4.8 When things go wrong 4.9 FYI

Chapter 5: Mailing lists and Bitnet 5.1 Internet mailing lists 5.2 Bitnet

Chapter 6: Telnet 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 When things go wrong 6.8 FYI

Chapter 7: FTP 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 you tell me! 7.8 Project Gutenberg — electronic books 7.9 When things go wrong 7.10 FYI

Chapter 8: Gophers, WAISs and the World-Wide Web 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 the Web 8.8 When things go wrong 8.9 FYI

Chapter 9: Advanced E-mail 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

Chapter 10: News of the world 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 10.7 FYI

Chapter 11: IRC, MUDs and other things that are more fun than they sound 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

Chapter 12: Education and the Net 12.1 The Net in the Classroom 12.2 Some specific resources for students and teachers 12.3 Usenet and Bitnet in the classroom

Chapter 13: Business on the Net 13.1 Setting up shop 13.2 FYI

Chapter 14: Conclusion — The end?

Appendix A: Lingo

Appendix B: Electronic Frontier Foundation Information

Foreword
By Mitchell Kapor,
Co-founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Welcome to the World of the Internet

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, D.C., dedicated to ensuring that everyone has access to the newly emerging communications technologies vital to active participation in the events of our world. As more and more information is available online, new doors open up for those who have access to that information. Unfortunately, unless access is broadly encouraged, individuals can be disenfranchised and doors can close, as well. The Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet was written to help open some doors to the vast amounts of information available on the world's largest network, the Internet. The spark for the Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet was ignited in a few informal conversations that included myself and Steve Cisler of Apple Computer, Inc., in June of 1991. With the support of Apple Computer, EFF engaged Adam Gaffin to write the book and actually took on the project in September of 1991. The idea was to write a guide to the Internet for people who had little or no experience with network communications. We intended to post this guide to the Net in ASCII and HyperCard formats and to give it away on disk, as well as have a print edition available. We have more than realized our goal. Individuals from as geographically far away as Germany, Italy, Canada, South Africa, Japan, Scotland, Norway, and Antarctica have all sent electronic mail to say that they downloaded the Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet. The guide is now available in a wide array of formats, including ACSCII text, HyperCard, World Wide Web, PostScript and AmigaGuide. And the guide will be published in a