|
|
|
With the release of our premier issue of Architronic last December, we made a few discoveries about e-mail and our readers. The first regards e-mail accounts. Apparently, many individuals have quite small e-mail accounts. As a result, some fell victim to overloaded accounts. Since we are constantly working with large graphic files, we were caught off guard when we discovered that as little as 239K of data could overload these accounts. To those whom we may have inconvenienced, we express our sincerest apologies. To address this situation, we have provided two alternative means of retrieving this issue, using FTP or a Gopher. These will be described further in this essay. The second discovery we made was that many of our readers are either new to the Internet or have not ventured beyond the basics of electronic mail. To assist our readers with both of these issues, we have prepared a brief overview of a few of the tools available for accessing the resources of the Internet.
In this essay, the term "Internet," unless otherwise specified, refers to a series of interconnected networks that includes local area, regional, and national backbone networks. It carries many kinds of traffic, of which BITNET (now CREN), USENET and the TCP/IP Internet are just a few.
Traditionally, the forum for exchanging architectural ideas on the cutting edge has been conferences, such as those of the ACSA. Several factors influence one's participation such as distance, timing, and available funds. The forum that can reduce the impact of these factors is the global Internet. Through the Internet, one can "travel" to distant libraries, participate in global discussions, and collaborate with other experts on research. In this medium, distance and time are minimized.
Internet Tools and Resources
There are several ways to access the Internet. The most common are through electronic mail, file transfer, and remote login. To make things a little easier, a variety of client/server programs have recently been developed, such as the Gophers.
In its most basic form, e-mail is the online messaging between computer users. Because e-mail tends to be informal and a fast means of sending information, it has become a popular means to communicate with others -- even locally. It is useful not only for sending files to another individual, but also for communicating with a group of individuals. E-mail communication has developed into LISTs. LISTs are forums for online discussions on a variety of topics. There are three basic forms that LISTs can take: unmoderated, moderated, and digested. Architronic falls into the last category of digested e-mail.
To subscribe to a mailing list, you would normally send an e-mail message requesting a subscriptionto the LIST. Many LISTs are maintained using LISTSERV software. To subscribe to a LISTSERV, the steps are similar, but you must route the message to the LISTSERV, leaving the subject line blank, format the body of the message as follows:
SUBSCRIBE
The following two are discussion lists related to the topic of
architecture:
News Readers (USENET)
Another means of accessing discussion lists is through USENET
news. USENET is the set of people who exchange articles tagged
with one or more universally recognized labels (called
"newsgroups"). The program "rn" uses the NNTP remote news
protocol to access newsgroups and articles on an NNTP server,
thus allowing users to read news from personal computers by
accessing a central news repository. This is our first view of a
client/server process which we will discuss a little more when we
look at the Gopher client/servers. A few architecture-related
newsgroups are 'alt.architecture," "alt.planning.urban," and
"alt.cad."
Remote Login
Remote logins gives a user the ability to connect to a remote
site. The most common method is through a telnet program.
Telnet allows you limited use of a remote computer as if you were
sitting in front of it. Limited use because only text driven
applications can be used in this manner. To be able to display
any graphics requires an X-Windows environment. The new SPIRO
database, created at the University of California at Berkeley,
has this as one of its requirements. You can read more on this
in the News section of this issue.
FTP
"FTP" stands for File Transfer Protocol. On many systems it is
also the name of the user-level program that implements that
protocol. FTP is similar to a remote login except that its
connection is specifically used for locating and transferring
data files to and from a remote network site, generally connected
via the Internet. If your system has FTP capability and is
connected to the TCP/IP Internet, there are many archives of
software and information available to you via anonymous FTP.
Anonymous FTP permits you to log in with the username,
"anonymous." When prompted for a password, type your e-mail
address. (Note that the archive site for Architronic is a VAX
running VMS and does not have 'Anonymous FTP' available.)
Given the large number of hosts being used as archive sites, it
often becomes difficult to locate a needed archive. To help
alleviate this problem, the School of Computer Science at McGill
University developed Archie. Archie is a central database that
maintains a list of hundreds of Internet-accessible sites
containing archives of software and documents. It allows users
to use keywords to search for files that are accessible through
anonymous ftp.
Connect to an Archie server using telnet and type "archie" as
username. There is no password. To get help, type 'help'.
The Internet Gopher is the name of a client/server program that
was developed at the University of Minnesota. Client/Server
involves a program on a local computer which requests services
from a remote computer. Client/server software splits up the
tasks of retrieving information from remote computers. This
allows users to access computers all over the network but feel as
if the interaction is with the local computer. Through
hierarchical menus and full-text searching, Gopher will help
users find and retrieve relevant documents. While we have
included Architronic on a local Gopher server, graphic files
accompanying any article are not available on this Gopher.
If you do not have a Gopher client and would like to see how one
operates, you may access a Gopher by telneting to one of the
telnet-accessible anonymous Gopher clients. The following is a
short list. Use the closest to you to minimize network lag.
To take advantage of the client/server aspect, it is highly
advisable that you run the client on your local computer. Gopher
client software is available through anonymous ftp to boombox.micro.umn.edu.
The University of Michigan, has a new dedicated Gopher server for
architecture-related topics (see the News section in this
issue).
Other Internet Tools
Other Internet tools include Hytelnet, Wide-Area Information
Servers, and World-Wide Web. For more information on the
availability and specifics of these Internet tools, contact your
local system administrator.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jeanne Brown. "Internet Resources for Architecture Studies,"
College & Research Libraries News, v.54, no.4 (April 1993),
p. 189.
Ed Krol. The Whole Internet: User's Guide and Catalog
(Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly and Associates, 1992).
Mary Page. "A Personal View of the Internet," College & Research
Libraries News, v.54, no.3 (March 1993), pp.127-132.
Henry A. Pisciotta. "An Index to Reproductions of Modern
Architecture: The Shoe Box Card File in a Networked Environment,"
Art Reference Services Quarterly, vol. 1 (1993), pp. 3-16.
Material appearing in Architronic may be distributed freely by
electronic or any other means, providing that any such
distribution is without charge (unless for purposes of cost
recovery by interlibrary loan services) and that Architronic is
acknowledged as the source. However, no article may be reprinted
in any publication without the explicit written permission of
the author(s). This statement must accompany all distributions
of Architronic, whether complete or partial.
a. FACXCH-L@PSUVM -Art, Architecture and Design Faculty Exchanges
b. STUXCH-L@PSUVM -Art, Architecture and Design Student Exchanges
Sample Session:
ftp ksuvxa.kent.edu # identifies node to connect with
LOGIN: architecture #
PASSWD: archives #
ftp> ls # (or dir) lists files & directories;
# with some systems, you may have to
# change directories (cd directory)
# to find the files desired.
ftp> bin # sets the mode of transfer to binary
# if you are downloading any image or
# archived files
ftp> get file.ext # retrieves file to local filesystem
ftp> bye # quits the program
Archie
Archie Servers:
archie.mcgill.ca () (Canada)
archie.sura.net (128.167.254.179) (USA [MD])
archie.unl.edu (password: archie1) (USA [NE])
archie.ans.net (147.225.1.2) (USA [NY])
archie.au (139.130.4.6) (Australia)
archie.funet.fi (128.214.6.100) (Finland/Europe)
archie.th-darmstadt.de (130.83.128.111) (Germany)
archie.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp (130.54.20.1) (Japan)
archie.doc.ic.ac.uk (146.169.3.7) (UK/Ireland)
Gopher
How to access Architronic using a Gopher client:
Host=gopher.saed.kent.edu
Port=70
Hostname Login Area
--------------------------------------- ------- --------
consultant.micro.umn.edu (134.84.132.4) gopher (USA)
gopher.uiuc.edu (128.174.33.160) gopher (USA)
panda.uiowa.edu (128.255.40.201) panda (USA)
info.anu.edu.au (150.203.84.20) info (Aussie)
gopher.chalmers.se (129.16.221.40) gopher (Sweden)
Unix: /pub/gopher/Unix/.
DOS: /pub/gopher/PC_client/.
Macintosh: /pub/gopher/Macintosh_TurboGopher/.
Copyright 1993 Fred Lucak, Jr.
School of Architecture and Environmental Design,
Kent State University