The Online World Part 17

Most online services have "Find this File" commands. The most powerful ones are often found on free bulletin boards.

On CompuServe, type GO AMIGA to get to CBMNET and get the following welcome menu:

Amiga Forums 1 Amiga Arts Forum 2 Amiga Tech Forum 3 Amiga User's Forum 4 Amiga Vendor Forum 5 Amiga File Finder

Commodore Forums 6 Commodore Arts and Games 7 Commodore Applications Forum 8 Commodore Service Forum 9 Commodore Newsletter

A while ago, we visited CBMNET to find a communications program.

From the menu above, selection five took us to The Amiga File Finder service, and this menu:

File Finder AMIGA

1 About File Finder 2 Instructions For Searching 3 How to Locate Keywords

4 Access File Finder

5 Your Comments About File Finder

Choice four lets us search for files using keywords, file creation dates, forum names, file types, file name extension, file name or author. Our choice was searching by keywords. The result was a long list of alternatives:

Enter Search Term: comm

Amiga File Finder

1 AMIGATECH/C Programming COMSRC.ARC 2 AMIGATECH/C Programming PMDSRC.LZH 3 AMIGATECH/C Programming PNTSRC.LZH 4 AMIGAUSER/Communications BBSIND.LZH 5 AMIGAUSER/Communications INTOUC.ARC etc.

By entering numbers, we asked for short descriptions of file number 4 through 13. Here is one of them:

Filename : INTOUC.ARC Forum: AMIGAUSER Lib: Communications Lib #: 5 Submitter: [76702,337] 24-Mar-89 Size: 51200 Accesses: 157

This is a modified Comm1.34. It supports both VT100 and ANSI.

The VT100 emulation is based on Dave Wecker's VT100 program.

There is automatic dialer, split screen that is configurable, phone book, and other nice features.

This is what we were looking for. First, enter GO AMIGAUSER to get to the forum. Enter "DL 5" to get to Downloading Library number 5.

INTOUCH.ARC was retrieved using the CompuServe Quick B transfer protocol. This protocol is usually the most efficient choice on this service.

There are also active Amiga forums on BIX, GEnie, and CIX (England).

Apple users ----------- FidoNet has an APPLE conference. BITNET has APPLE2-L (APPLE2- [email protected]). CompuServe has Apple II Programmers Forum, Apple II Users Forum, Apple II Vendor Forum, Mac Community Clubhouse Forum, Mac Developers Forum, Mac Fun/Entertainment Forum, Mac Hypertext Forum, Mac New Users/Help Forum, Mac System 7.0 Forum, Mac System Software Forum, MacUser Forum and MacWEEK Forum.

Similar services are found on many other online services. You will also find conferences devoted to support of popular commercial software for Apple computers.

Other computers --------------- There are so many types of computers: Atari computers, the TRS-80 series and others from Tandy, DEC computers, mainframes from IBM, Hewlett-Packard computers, CP/M machines, users of LDOS/TRSDOS or OS9, Apricot, Z88, Timex/Sinclair, Archimedes, Psion, and Armstrad.

Even so, there is a high probability that you can find online support for almost all of them. This is so even if the vendor is out of business long ago. CompuServe is a good place to start.

Chapter 9: Your electronic daily news =====================================

Read national and global news before they are announced by the traditional media. Get those interesting background facts. Read special interest news stories that seldom appear in print.

Sure, you read newspapers, watch TV, and listen to radio. But did you know how limited their stories are?

Traditional news media just give you a small part of the news.

Their editors are not concerned about YOUR particular interests.

They serve a large group of readers, viewers or listeners with different interests in mind.

Go online to discover the difference. The online news has an enormous width and depth. Besides "popular" news, you will find stories that few editors bother to print. This may give you better insight in current developments, and in as much details as you can take.

Most commercial online services offer news. Most of their stories come from large news agencies and newspapers. You can also read and search articles from magazines, newsletters and other special publications.

The online users' ability to search today and yesterday's news makes these offerings particularly useful.

The cost of reading a given news item varies by online service.

What will set you back 20 cents on one service, will cost you two dollars on another.

It may be many times more expensive (or cheap) to read the same article from the same news provider on another online service. So, professional online users compare prices.

National news ------------- In Norway, we have long been able to read local language news from print media like Aftenposten, Dagens Naeringsliv, Kapital, and news wires from NTB and other local sources. Similarly, local language news is available online in most countries.

The cost of reading local news on national online services tends to be more expensive than on major global online services. As compet.i.tion among global news providers increases, however, this is bound to change.

International news ------------------ "The Global Village" is an old idea in the online world. News from most parts of the world has long been globally available.

A while ago, a well-known Norwegian industrialist visited my office. I showed off online searching in NewsNet newsletters and stumbled over a story about his company. "Incredible!" he said. "We haven't even told our Norwegian employees about this yet."

Often, American online services give news from other countries earlier you can get it on online services from these countries.

Besides, the stories will be in English.

| In 1991, the United States had 56 percent of the world's online | | databases (Source: the research company IQ, September 1991). |

Sure, most Norwegians prefer to read news in Norwegian. The j.a.panese want news in their language, and the French in French. If they can get the news earlier than their compet.i.tors, however, most are willing to read English.

Few master many languages. Unless you live in a country where they talk Arabic, Chinese or French, chances are that you cannot read news in these languages. English, however, is a popular second choice in many countries, and it has become the unofficial language of the online world.

Another thing is that reading local language news is risky.

Translators often make mistakes. One reason is time pressure, another poor knowledge of the source language.

The risk of inaccuracies increases when a story, for example initially translated from Spanish into English, then are being translated into a third language.

Avoid news that has been translated more than once. If not, you may experience something like this:

On September 19, 1991, Norwegian TV brought news from Moscow.

They told that Russian president Boris Yeltsin had a heart attack.

The online report from a.s.sociated Press, which arrived 7.5 hours earlier, talked about "a minor heart attack" with the following additional explanation: "In Russian, the phrase 'heart attack' has a broader meaning than in English. It is commonly used to refer to a range of ailments from chest pains to actual heart failure."

Your "personal online daily newspaper" will often give you the news faster and more correctly than traditional print media. Some news is only made available in electronic form.

Seven minutes in 1991 --------------------- On September 19, I called CompuServe to read news and gather information about online news sources.

According to my log, I connected through Infonet in Oslo (see Chapter 13). The total cost for seven minutes was US$6.00, which included the cost of a long distance call to Oslo.

I read some stories, while they scrolled over the screen. All was captured to a file on my hard disk for later study. The size of this file grew to 32.000 characters, or almost 15 single-s.p.a.ced typewritten pages (A-4 size). If I had spent less time reviewing the lists of available stories, seven minutes would have given a larger file.

When I had entered my user ID and pa.s.sword, a menu of stories came up on my screen. The headline read "News from CompuServe."

The two first items caught my attention, and I requested the text. One had 20 lines about an easier method of finding files in the forum libraries. The other had ten lines about how to write addresses for international fax messages.

The command GO APV brought me directly to a.s.sociated Press News Wires. You'll find such tricks by reading the online services' user manuals. This command produced the following menu:

AP Online APV-1

1 Latest News-Updated Hourly 2 Weather 3 Sports 4 National 5 Washington 6 World 7 Political 8 Entertainment 9 Business News 10 Wall Street 11 Dow Jones Average 12 Feature News 13 Today in History

I entered "9" for business news, and got a new list of stories:

AP Online

1 Women, Minority Businesses Lag 2 Child World Accuses Toys R Us 3 UPI May Cancel Worker Benefits 4 Drilling Plan Worries Florida 5 UK Stocks Dip, Tokyo's Higher 6 Dollar Higher, Gold Up 7 Farm Exports Seen Declining 8 Supermarket Coupons Big Bucks 9 Cattlemen Tout Supply, Prices 0 Tokyo Stocks, Dollar Higher