The Online World Part 9

Planning your holidays ---------------------- CompuServe invites you to read reviews of theater performances, books, movies and restaurants, opera, symphonies, ballets, dance, museums and art galleries. They have information about airline schedules and prices, hotels and the latest ski weather forecast.

Televerket's Datatorg in Norway offers air tickets and hotel reservations through SMART LINK, a self-serve system operated by the Norwegian travel agencies. Entertainment and travel are also popular on Prestel. Most British tour operators have an "office"

there.

Several international services, including CompuServe and Dow Jones News/Retrieval, offer OAG (The Official Airline Guide) and Eaasy Sabre (the American Airlines reservation system).

Worldscan/Travel shopper is on CompuServe and Delphi. The Travel Forum on CompuServe administers a member travel discount program. Download HOTEL.SAV in Library 0 for information about lower rates on hotel room and car-rental rates.

It's often possible to book hotel rooms and rent cars online.

Travelshopper has a built-in hotel guide, searchable by city around the world. OAG has a database of over 40,000 hotels worldwide (1992). It has the AA Rated European Hotels & Restaurants menu, which covers trips from Andorra to Yugoslavia. Accu-Weather provides three-day weather forecasts for 450 cities worldwide, updated hourly.

Travel agents are also operative through the Internet. One alternative is at [email protected] . Telnet lib.dartmouth.edu for a World Factbook on countries.

Is this your first visit to j.a.pan? Why not prepare your visit through the online service TWICS in Tokyo. It presents itself like this:

"j.a.pan is an island nation, full of communities in villages, towns, and cities squeezed in between the mountains and the sea, with ports of various sizes and shapes through which communication flows between communities.

Our own online community is organized in the same terms, an island community "BEEJIMA" (Bee Island), with our village ("MURA"), a port ("MINATO"), and our very own volcanic mountain ("YAMA").

In the village, there is a village office ("YAKUBA"), a community meeting place ("YORIAI"), a high-tech corner ("AKIHABARA") named after the famous electronics district in Tokyo, a health center ("EMEDICA"), a place to hang around and read things ("HON YA"), a school ("GAKKOU"), and a market ("ICHIBA"). The port has holding areas and leads to other parts of j.a.pan ("NIPPON") and the world ("SEKAI"). The mountain has a hot springs ("ONSEN") recreational area, and a lively outdoor bath ("IN THE OFURO") which has become the social center of our island.

Add to this soc.culture.j.a.pan on Usenet, the BITNET discussion list [email protected], the j.a.pan Forum on CompuServe, and "j.a.pAN" on RelayNet.

Did you say the former "Soviet Union?" Here are phone numbers to some "local" bulletin board systems:

Moscow Fair (Moscow): +7 095 366 5209 SUEARN NIC BBS (Moscow): +7 095 938 3618 Kreit BBS (Leningrad): +7 812 112 2611 Amber Way BBS (Vilnius, Lithuania): +7 012 222 7194 UFO BBS (Riga, Latvia): +7 013 232 3983 Post Square #1 (Kiev, Ukrain): +7 044 417 5700

BITNET club TRAVEL-L ([email protected]) for those interested in tourism. ILINK and The Well have conferences under the name TRAVEL.

Many conferences in online land concentrate on particular parts of the world. [email protected] is focusing on the Baltic states.

In [email protected] they discuss Africa. On Usenet, the news group is called soc.culture.african.

To brush up your Portuguese, consider joining BRAS-NET, It is a Brazilian mailing list/network. Send your subscription request to [email protected] . For general information about other Brazilian interest groups, write [email protected] .

For those who are into Spanish, why not check out CHILE-L (at [email protected]), or FOLLAC, a mailing list about 'Folklore Latino, Latinoamericano y Caribeno'. To join, write Emily Socolov at [email protected] .

Here are some other African sources: the French language Algeria News List (ALGNEWS) is on [email protected] TUNISNET (on [email protected]) is The Tunisia Network. EGYPT-NET (write: [email protected]) is the Egypt Discussion and News forum.

Send mail to [email protected] to get a list of Internet/Bitnet mailing lists that focus on African, African- American, African-Caribbean or African-Latin issues, and a list of African information sites.

In the soc.culture hierarchy on Usenet, you'll find area codes like asian, african, arabic, asean, australian, bangladesh, british, canada, china, celtic, europe, filipino, french, german, greek, hongkong, indian, iranian, italian, jewish, korean, latin- american, lebanon, magyar, nepal, new-zealand, nordic, pakistan, polish, soviet, spain, sri-lanka, taiwan, thai, turkish, vietnamese and yugoslavia.

In "argentina," you can read about how to make empanadas while sharpening up your Spanish before visiting Buenos Aires. (Contact: [email protected]).

CompuServe's Travel Forum has sections called United States, Canada, Mexico/Central America, Caribbean, South America, Oceania, Asia, Europe, Africa/Middle East and Hawaii.

If you're off to London, check out the UK Travel section in CompuServe's UK Computing Forum. Its library contains files with tips about affordable hotels, British road signs, and a list of London theatre shows with ticket-buying tips.

If your destination is Germany, practice Deutch in the Deutches Forum (GO GERNET).

Search for additional background information using CompuServe's Magazine Database Plus, if you don't mind paying a wee surcharge.

Look up places to stay in the ABC Worldwide Hotel Listing.

On America Online, you can research National Geographic and National Geographic Traveler Magazines online. You can look up your destination in the electronic Comptons Encyclopedia.

GEnie has a j.a.pan RoundTable and a Deutchland RoundTable.

Both provide for interaction with users from those respective countries.

If you are responsible for your company's business travels, check out the following newsletters on NewsNet: BUSINESS TRAVEL NEWS, and TOUR & TRAVEL NEWS. (You can also search NewsNet's newsletters through CompuServe's IQuest, Dialog, and others).

NewsNet has searchable newsletters focusing on the conditions in particular countries or parts of the world (news, travel and political risk a.n.a.lysis, political stability, etc.).

Politics -------- Many of these conferences and forums are filled to the brim with political discussions. For information about the United Nations, subscribe to UN (on [email protected]).

Chapter 5: Home, education and work ===================================

House, garden and finances -------------------------- FidoNet has a long list of interesting conferences:

HOME-N-GRDN Home and Garden Questions HOMEAUT Home Automation HOMESCHL Homeschooling support HOME_IMP Improvements around the house.

HOME_OFFICE Home Office HOME_REPAIR Home Repair and Remodelling ZYMURGY Beer Homebrewing

The EXEC-PC BBS has "Home Repair." The FUTUREHOME TECHNOLOGY NEWS newsletter is available through NewsNet. On ILINK, you will find the HOMEGARDEN conference. Usenet has misc.consumers.house . Here they discuss anything related to owning and maintaining a house. On the Well, check out "Homeowners."

In Ziff-Davis' Magazine Database Plus you can search and read articles from the Good Housekeeping Magazine. This full-text article database is available from CompuServe and other services.

Through UUCP you can get to the conference "Antiques" (Contact: [email protected]).

CompuServe also has the Gardening Forum. It is operated by the National Gardening a.s.sociation, which publishes National Gardening magazine.

The various services' software libraries contain many great shareware and public domain programs. You can download software that will help you prepare tax return forms, plan next year's taxes, calculate interests and down-payments on your loans. You'll find double-entry money-managing systems for non-accountants that will help you with personal bookkeeping and checkbook balancing.

Other programs will help you plan and maintain your house.

There are personal inventory programs (to help you keep track of belongings), and programs that can help you plan allocation of the s.p.a.ce in your home. . .

Join CompuServe's Investors Forum to learn how to play the stock and money markets, and other moneymaking 'instruments'.

Discuss investment techniques with others, read reports about economical trends, and retrieve useful programs for your personal computer.

RelayNet offers the international conference INVESTOR. Usenet has misc.invest .

If you want to adopt a child, check out ADOPTION on FidoNet, or subscribe to a UUCP conference of the same name. For access, write [email protected] . The National Issues Forum on CompuServe has a message section called "Adoption Today."

Addicted TV-viewers may be interested in alt.tv.twin-peaks or alt.tv.muppets on Usenet. "Mystery" on FidoNet and UUCP is for those preferring mystery novels by the fire place in the living room.

There are even offerings for "the perfect house wife." I can think of no better pastime than origami, the traditional j.a.panese art of folding paper. (Contact: [email protected] on UUCP).

Oh, I almost forgot: The BONSAI conference is essential (on [email protected]). This is where to discuss the art and craft of Bonsai and related art forms. Bonsai is the Oriental Art of miniaturizing trees and plants into forms that mimic nature.

Education, teaching and the exchange of knowledge ------------------------------------------------- The list of conferences, forums, clubs, and other services focusing on education - in its broadest meaning of the word - is long. You are offered online courses, workshops, and seminars for students of all ages, databases to help you select a school for yourself or your kids, and all kinds of discussion forums for educators.

Usenet, BITNET, Internet, and UUCP have long traditions in education. You'll find offerings for teachers within all subject areas, from finance and accounting, through history, languages and geography to technical subjects on all levels.

Two guides listing forums of interest to Educators can be retrieved by anonymous FTP from the pub/ednet directory at nic.uma.s.s.edu . Use the following commands (see "FTP by email" at the end of Chapter 12):

get educatrs.lst get edusenet.gde

KIDSPHERE (subscribe through [email protected]) is a discussion forum for teachers of students from the age of kindergarten through high school and higher.

This is a selection of other BITNET discussion lists to suggest the span of topics:

CHEMED-L ([email protected]) Chemistry Education Discussion CHRONICL ([email protected]) On-Line Chronicle of Higher Ed CIVIL-L ([email protected]) Civil Engineering Research & Ed.

COMLAW-L ([email protected]) Computers and Legal Education DRUGABUS ([email protected]) Drug Abuse Education Information JOURNET ([email protected]) Discussion List for Journalism Ed MEDIA-L ([email protected]) Media in Education MULTI-L ([email protected]) Language and Education in Multi- Lingual Settings MUSIC-ED ([email protected]) MUSIC-ED Music Education PANET-L ([email protected]) Medical Education and Health Info TAG-L ([email protected]) TAG-L Talented and Gifted Ed WORLD-L ([email protected]) Non-Eurocentric World History

Here are some Usenet conferences:

comp.edu Computer science education sci.edu The science of education comp.ai.edu Applications of Artificial Intelligence to Education

There are many similar offerings on the commercial services and free bulletin boards.

K12Net is a decentralized network for schools available on FidoNet and Usenet. Write [email protected] for information.

FidoNet also has

A_THEIST A_Theism Education and Enlightenment HIGH_ED Education, Post Secondary HISTORY International History MAC_GAMES Macintosh Entertainment & Education

CompuServe has 12 forums focusing on education. Among these you'll find the Disabilities Forum, Computer Training Forum, Education Forum, Education Research forum, Science/Math Educational Forum, Foreign Language Forum, LOGO and Students Forum.

Ken and Carrie Loss-Cutler are coordinating the section for Home/Alternative Education in CompuServe's Education Forum. They educate their two children at home instead of sending them to a public school.

The Foreign Language Forum has the sections Potpourri/Polyglot, Spanish/Portuguese, French, German/Germanic, Latin/Greek, Slavic/E.

European, English, East Asian, Esperanto, Others, FL Education, Translators, Computers/CAI-CALL, The Directory, Jobs/Careers, New Uploads and Using the Forum.

If you're into reading/writing the African language Kiswahili (Swahili), write [email protected] to get onto the SWAHILI-L mailing list.

The more occupational oriented forums include Communications Industry Forum, Environmental Forum, Firenet (for volunteer fire brigades), Industrial Hygiene Forum, AAMSI Medical Forum, ASCMD Forum, HealthNet, OP-Net Forum, the MICRO MD Network, Legal SIG, Aviation SIG, CB Society and CEMSIG (computers and electronics).

Bergen By Byte has the Norwegian language conference Schools.

This conference is for validated users only.

| There are many private conferences in the online world. All | | conferences referred to in this book are open for anybody to | | join, unless explicitly told to be private. |