toto article listarticle list
November 00 Edition
The Spire Project: An Intelligent Introduction to the Internet
Article ListSpire Project LightSpireProject.zipThe Information Research FAQ/eBook The internet has become a global communication vehicle, a heady cocktail of innovative advertising and surprisingly detailed publications.

The internet taunts most newcomers with incredible information but finding what you need comes slowly. There are ways to successfully search the internet but without some understanding of information structures, norms and search tools, finding the information you seek will always be particularly difficult.

This is a short tutorial previously developed for government staff. The tutorial is pitched at novices but attempts to build a framework for staff to understand what they experience when they go online.

Certain information has aged a little but this approach is rewarding for those partially familiar with the internet.

David Novak - The Spire Project

to article list Table of Contents:
webpage Section 1: - Alternative descriptions:
· The physical structure of the computer network
webpage Section 2: - There are two obstacles on the internet
· The address: a tool for specifying location
· Becoming familiar with the technology
webpage Section 3 - Internet as virtual landscape of information
· Who puts the information on the Net?
· Finding the Address
webpage Section 4: - Internet as community
webpage Section 5: - Pulling value from the internet:
· Is this the right place to look?
· What is the quality of information I retrieve?
· Publishing on the internet
· A little advice on using the internet quickly



---------- Section 1 ----------

The Internet - Alternative Descriptions:
Let us start with a discussion about what the internet is:

1) The internet is the 5 million computers permanently in communication across a network of dedicated phone lines, fiber optic cables and satellite links spanning the globe. Millions of additional computers connect to this network for brief periods of time.

2) The internet is the virtual landscape, often called Cyberspace, of information and detail. A vast variety of information resources, services and what I will coin ‘information structures’.

3) The internet is the community of 150 million individuals (and an additional two million each month) who access the internet. Each individual tries to find, provide or accomplish something with these resources and in the process establish norms and habits others can follow.

Just as a society is more than the cities and roads that connect them, there is more to the interne than the computer networks. As internet travelers, we must learn more about the way information is organized if we are to successfully interact and gain value from our time online.

We must focus concretely on this last point: We must gain value from our time.

Under many circumstances, you will conclude the internet has only a select few resources of value to you now. In time, the internet will have much more but temper your enthusiasm with a value for your own time.

The Physical Structure of the Network
Let us start with this description. There are several components to an internet connection.

At this end, there is the computer, the modem, the telephone line and the software. We turn on the power to the computer and modem, instruct the modem to dial in to a computer nearby and ‘establish a connection’ to the internet.

The Information flows from your computer out through the telephone line, into the computer of your internet access provider, out through their connection to a network of communicating computers (the internet) and into the computer you designate. That computer acts upon your message, often sending information in the reverse path.

This is incredibly inexpensive to use, reasonably fast and reliable enough to be worth the effort ... usually.



---------- Section 2 ----------

Quotation:

There are two obstacles on the internet. First you must become at least passingly familiar with a whole host of programs. Secondly, you must know the address of the resource you want to contact.

In reverse, if you are familiar with the programs, and you know the address, there is little reason you will not get to the information.

David Novak, The Spire Project.

Ask. Someone Knows.

Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet (Electronic Frontiers Foundation).

The Address - a tool for specifying location:
Every computer, file or person has a unique identifier. The standard format for addresses looks like this:

connection tool://computer name/directory tree

examples: http://www.doc.gov/
http://www.wa.gov.au/gov/commerce/resources.html
gopher://bubl.bath.ac.uk:7070/11/Link/Catriona
telnet://library.uwa.edu.au
ftp://plaza.aarnet.edu.au/usenet/FAQs/
http://201.19.21.1/gipsland/gifs
- or if its mail, consists of something like this:
david@spireproject.com
postmaster@osi.wa.gov.au

Each address has a number of common elements:
· A portion identifying a computer including various short words (domains), separated by full stops - never with spaces.
· An indicator of the type of internet tool required to connect with the information resource: (http, gopher, telnet, ftp, email etc...)
· Perhaps additional information such as a directory tree, port number, filename or password.

The portion of the address identifying the computer also tells us important information about the country and often the organization maintaining the information.

Take my old address of david @ cn .net .au · The au means Australia - plaza.aarnet.edu.au is also Australian. uk, ca, de and jp are also common. If there is no designator, it is US.
· net means network - com is commercial, edu is educational, gov is government. Mil is military and while ever-present, rarely seen.
· cn is for Community Networking.

Passingly familiar with the technology:
Two software programs will be sufficient for most of your needs: a Web browser like Netscape and an email package like Pine.

Netscape is called a web browser but can interact with a wide collection of resources with names like gopher, ftp, telnet and occasionally even news and wais.

When you start Netscape, the web browser opens up a standard page. By changing the address to the destination you wish to visit, the web browser will establish a link to a specific resource, be it a list of files, a visually appealing page with text and graphics or something else.

Most of the current developments on the internet are prepared with web browsers in mind.

There are a small collection of tasks you need to be familiar with:
1) Changing the address
(just overtype the current address then press return)
2) Stopping traffic prior to completely downloading
(The stop sign)
3) Reloading from the original source
(the reload button)
4) Saving or printing the document
(both under the File Menu)
5) Moving back and forward between pages.
(Back and forward buttons)

Pine (the system on your computers) is a simple, functional email program. This will enable you to send and receive mail, to attach documents to your messages and to save files for later use on other computers.

While the Web is the fastest growing segment of the internet, everyone of the 50 to 70 million internet users have access to mail. Mail is also the most user-friendly system of delivering information, far more suited for use in inaccessible areas.

There are a small collection of tasks you need to be familiar with:
1) Addressing your mail (under message menu)
2) Reading your mail (double click message)
3) Saving or printing your mail (under File menu)
4) Attaching documents to your mail (also under message menu)



---------- Section 3 ----------

The internet as virtual landscape of information:
Information is present in many different forms on the internet. We have:
1) The library card catalogue (Example Liswa)
2) Zines and professional Journals (Amnesty International Human Rights)
3) Archives of Information (EFF Legal archive or Commerce and Trade's archive)
4) Packaged files not for viewing (Software, sound files, movie clips)
5) Discussion groups like mailing lists (Information Professionals List)
6) Newsgroups (Clarinet and Alt.sex.fetish)
7) Books and articles (The Online Book Initiative, Computer Select)
8) Large Databases, both commercial and free (Computer Select, Dialog)
9) Internet Relay Chat and online conferencing.
10) New or less common information structures (Remote access to super computers, VR)

This landscape has a variety of different values and different topics are discussed in different ways in different location. Your understanding of how the information is arranged will ultimately determine the success you have in locating the information you want.

One useful distinction to make is the apparent quality of information and the quality to noise ratio in these information structures.

Newsgroups, for instance, typically have the lowest value to noise ratio as anyone can post to these groups. Moderated newsgroups can provide more quality than books and periodicals with very little noise. There are some very serious exceptions; the Clarinet newsgroups provide world class news and many mailing lists have too little discussion to be worthwhile.

Let us visualize the information in the internet as a landscape. There are low areas of marginal quality like the newsgroups and chat. There are high plateaus of quality discussion like certain government web archives and established mailing lists.

In some corners of this landscape, you must step very carefully lest the locals take offense, where as other regions permit almost anything.

Who puts the Information on the Net?:
An alternative way to look at internet content)

- Well meaning individuals giving back to their community.
Typified by "John's list of Accounting Resources on the internet" being a simple list of what John believes is the most useful internet resources in his field of expertise.

- New and old cyber-organizations
Large organizations like the Electronic Frontiers Foundation have created amazing networks, provide brilliant services in their chosen field and have extensive membership. Most associations, however, are still in the very early days of establishing an internet presence.

- Corporations
Most commercial sites are into advertising and beautiful graphics but some extend beyond this to provide useful services to the internet community.

- Government pages
Government agencies are supposed to be leading the community in adapting to this new medium. If you can find an agency with a sizable web site -it is usually top quality work created in a local context, well thought out by paid employees.

- Independently supported projects
There are a number of highly influential projects with independent sponsorship - often as government grants or if network related, university funding. These sites are highly motivated towards providing state of the art content and information for an international context and . I would classify projects like US Patents online, the M-bone, the internet Talk Radio, banned books online, the Online Book Initiative and the organization in Seattle working to combat racism on the Net. My own project, Western Australian Regional Forums in this classification is similarly positioned.

- Network Related Resources
Certain projects have been around for so long that their existence appears to be maintained by academic individuals, continuous government grants or through the fees all users pay. This would include the high powered internet Virus agencies, the newsgroups, libraries, web page indexes and emerging projects like the internet White pages.

Finding the Address:
If we know the address we can put this into either the web browser (Netscape) or the email reader (Pine) and connect. If we don't know the address, connection is a little more difficult.

Finding addresses, unfortunately, is one of the most time-consuming tasks. This is not because addresses are difficult to find but rather because it is so difficult to find that specific address you need.

There are several efforts in the near future attempting to catalogue all of the resources on the internet but do not expect this task to become easier.

1) What does Lycos and Webcrawler suggest?
- http://www.lycos.com http://www.webcrawler.com
2) What do the Guidebooks indicate?
- ftp://iinet.net.au/mirrors/inetdirsstacks/
3) Is there an FAQs?
- ftp://plaza.aarnet.edu.au/usenet/FAQs
4) Are there unique assistance tools developed for this topic?
- FAQs, Guidebooks, Mailing lists or experience
5) Which mailing list will you query?
- Guidebooks, FAQs, experience or http://
6) Are there others more experienced you can ask?
- Mailing List, friends, others
7) Guess!
- Particularly when you know the name.



---------- Section 4 ----------

The internet as community:
The development of a sense of community is often overshadowed by the impersonal manner we interact with so much information on the network. There is, however, a very active sense of international community on the internet bridging the ‘Tyranny of Distance.’

One sense of community is conveyed in various chat groups (behaving like international CB Radios). A more considered sense of community centers around mailing lists - one of the few locations in the Cyberscape maintaining a high value/noise ratio.

In mailing lists, as within the greater internet, there are several norms and mores we should respect and work with.

1) Bandwidth is precious and should not be squandered. Think before you post 200Kb to a group of people who have no interest.

2) Wasting other people's time with irrelevant messages is bad manners. Try to post to the most suitable forum.

3) Advertising must not be blatant. Firstly this is likely to illicit mail bombing and secondly, overt advertising can waste time. - a lot of people time. Advertising is acceptable if you entice the individual to come to you. Never give advertising information not requested.

4) Share information freely. If you pull value from the internet, give back to the internet community by helping other people, providing directions or adding to the discussion.

5) Participation is highly desired. Forums in particular need discussion to develop and can fail without it. Never be afraid to jump in and add to a discussion.

6) There is no modem tax, no easy way to make a million and no good reason to post to every newsgroup and mailing list with your question or sales pitch. It is also considered bad form to believe Hollywood versions of the internet.

The most involved sense of community, of course, is the friends you may develop and directly post to.



---------- Section 5 ----------

Pulling value from the internet:
If we wish to pull value from the internet, we need to combine a proper understanding of just how confusing a vast reservoir of information can be with a detailed understanding of just what you are looking for.

· The internet is far more confusing than many first suspect · If you approach the internet to try to learn something about electronic publishing, you will find a mountain. Even electronic publishing law looks more like a hill.

Once you have refined your topic, ask two questions:

Question #1: Is the internet the appropriate place to look?
The internet is filling full of information on every topic imaginable. If we select a topic just emerging online, we should naturally expect few resources to be in place at this time.

A efficient approach to this is to ask "Who would put this information on the internet?" Would it be cyberpreneurs, government agencies, independently sponsored projects, well meaning citizens or corporations?

· Are developing resources worth viewing yet?
· Where else could I look beyond the internet?
· Are the commercial databases better suited to this type of question?
· Can I interact with someone with more experience on the internet.

Question #2: What is the quality of the information I retrieve?
I have not yet experienced considerable variation between internet resources and other resources. Similarly faking web sites has not become an occupation yet.

Usually the information you will find on the internet speaks for itself. It will come from well-meaning individuals or organizations who know more about the topic than you. There are, however, some further steps to consider.

1) Is the address the official address of a government agency? If the information is placed on a .gov web site, it comes from the government.

2) What internet structure (and what level of public access) are you using? Usenet and IRC are notorious for poor quality (qualify this statement) while closed moderated mailing lists are often far better than books and periodicals.

3) Is there money involved? Corporate information is very important to companies. Anyone who pays $1400 for a private address has invested something into providing you information.

4) Who wrote it? When? Much internet information include dates and author information.

5) Does is sound sensible? Use your experience to judge if the information is coming from a professor of legal studies or just some bystander expressing an opinion. Is the web page the result of a well meaning individual within her area of expertise or created by someone on battery acid?

Pitfalls and Developments:

1) Email can be faked.
2) Web pages are usually password protected and passwords can be broken.
3) Internet Security is a huge industry. Expect better protection in the near future.
4) PGP and similar programs can provide security now if required.
5) Internet Libel and breach of copyright can be legally punished.
6) Incorrect posts or libelous posts can be removed after publication.

Publishing on the internet:
Each web page is essentially a compilation of a simple language called HTML. This is a very simple method of including basic details about the placement and development of text and graphics on a written page. The publisher can not designate the type font or size of the text and can only poorly control the placement of pictures on the page.

<img src = "picture.gif">

The opening and introductory message appearing on the agency web page.

Family and Children's Services has two web sites: a private internal web site and a public external web site. Policy will shortly be cemented to allow for far simpler development of your external web site. Several large documents have already been converted and are electronically available now.

· Web page publication costs a fraction of ordinary publication,
· Web page publication can be accomplished quickly, a single day if required.

In preparation for that day, please keep in mind publication costs can be dramatically reduced if you:
· Keep digital or photographic pictures as pictures scanned from printed documents are not suitable.
· Keep a word processor file of all future publications. Electronic copies retrieved from the publisher are far more difficult to convert. Try to keep a copy of any last minute changes as well.

A little advice on using the internet quickly
· By clicking on the Netscape File:New Window menu choice, you can run a second web browser for you to point in another direction. I habitually work with three or four versions pointing in different directions. This does not speed up the real speed of downloading but does improve the apparent speed as information is always being retrieved.

· Look for a good FAQ for a knotty problem, or another similar compiled description.

· Begin to develop an awareness of the information structures and information providers on the internet.

to article listThe Spire Project - a better way to find information.
Like this? Download the entire website as free shareware and receive our monthly update notice.
Article List | Project Background | Feedback | SpireProject.com | SpireProject.co.uk. Copyright©David Novak 2000.