Introduction to E-mail and the Internet at Florida Tech Dr. Ringwald Department of Physics and Space Sciences Version of 1999 August 29 There are two computer labs on campus that are connected to the Internet computer network. They are in the library (on the second floor) and in the Harris lab (on the second floor of Crawford). Ask them for an account. If you already have an account, such as on winnie, ask them how to get started on their machines. Another good source of help is the Academic Support Center, on the ground floor of the building the library is in. 1) PRELIMINARIES How to log in: You may have to press the Return (ir Enter) key, to wake the machine up. For a text-based machine, you might have to type: c winnie or: telnet winnie.fit.edu to connect to the machine winnie; the machines in front of you are just terminals, which can connect to many computers on the Internet. When something appears on the screen, at the words: login: Type in your username and press the Return key. The following should appear: password: Type in your password and press Return. From now on, at the end of any command, I'll not mention having to press the return key. It's at the end of nearly every command; it tells the computer you're finished typing the command, so now do it! If you have an account, and have typed in your username and password correctly, the machine should start up. 2) E-MAIL To start e-mail, type: pine and follow the instructions. Typing a ? gives the help. There are also on-screen menus, and the available commands are listed at the bottom of the screen. The ^ character means press the Control key (at the left-hand side of the keyboard) at the same time as they key mentioned after it. For example ^x means press Command and x at the same time (this tells pine to send a message); ^^ means press Command and Shift and 6 keys at the same time. 3) The World Wide Web The World Wide Web is a method of exchanging information over the worldwide computer network, the Internet, in the form of pictures, which often makes it easy to use and understand. A program that shows pictures from different sites on the World Wide Web, also called Web pages, is called an Internet browser. One of the most widely used Internet browsers is called Netscape. Other such programs include Internet Explorer, which is used on many PCs that run Windows 95, and Mosaic. Web pages have addresses that tell the computers (and you) their locations. These addresses are also called URLs (which stands for Uniform Resource Locator). Nearly all of them start with: http:// so that many people now omit this. In other words, the Web address (or URL) of SPS 1010 (Introductory Astronomy, 1999 Fall) is: http://www.astro.fit.edu/ringwald/f99sps1010.html but some people would write it: www.astro.fit.edu/ringwald/f99sps1010.html I will retain the http:// to make sure students know to type it in. To use Netscape, go to one of the machines in the Harris lab (on the second floor of Crawford), or one of the graphics machines in the second-floor lab in Evans Library. (There is also a cluster on the first floor of Evans, but they're primarily for library use: after 30 minutes, they cut you off.) Log in, and at the prompt (usually a > if it's a machine that runs the UNIX operating system) type: netscape or better, netscape & since this will allow you to still use the text window, when netscape is running. On the other hand, if you have a machine with a graphical user interface, look around for and click on the appropriate icon, or menu selection. Netscape includes its own e-mail program, which you may use, although I still like pine, which you can run on nearly any computer, including a plain, old, all-text terminal. (There are still some in the Evans lab.) You can't run Netscape on them, since they can't display graphics, and so can't display that nice box that Netscape runs in. When the Netscape box comes up, use the mouse to put the cursor in this box, and click the left button (or the only button, if you're using a Macintosh). This will bring up the Web page loaded in your version of Netscape to come up first, also called your home page. If you want to change it, click on "Options" in the top menu bar, choose General preferences, and fill in the home page you want in the appropriate box. Bookmarks are a way for Netscape to remember Web pages you've found, eitehr by typing the addresses into the Location box at the top of the Netscape box, or by clicking on pages' addresses installed in other pages, called links. To remember the URL of a page, pull down the Bookmarks menu bar, and select Add Bookmark (or hit Alt-a, or in other words, press the Alt and a keys at the same time). You can edit the bookmarks you have stored by pulling down the Window menu bar and selecting Bookmarks, or hitting Alt-b. And now you're off and running! Of course, the best way to learn this is to sit down behind a machine that can run either e-mail or Netscape, and practice the appropriate program. Don't be afraid to try things out. Remember, it's usually not possible to harm a computer physically by pressing any combination of keys, unless you press them very hard.