WindoWatch                   The Electronic Windows Magazine of the Internet
 Preview Issue                                                   October 1994

 You forgot the dot....Dummy!

 Before everyone gets bent out of  shape -  the dummy is me!  My home BBS has
 just become a full Internet access service and we can hardly wait to get on
 and go, -- what's it called, -- surfing?  Very early in the AM,  I finished
 my usual routine of bringing in mail and files, uploading messages and
 checking out some new bulletins.  I promised myself that this morning was
 going to be different because I was prepared to give the expanded Internet
 service of Channel One in Cambridge, Massachusetts a test drive.

 I won't bore you with the lurid, and embarrassing details but try as I might
 I could not break through the syntax barrier to get onto an FTP site.  To
 make it perfectly clear, and even more humiliating,  I am a supporter of the
 Free Net server, Nyx10, at the University of Denver. I have been on that
 system numerous times, transferring files to the server from far away places,
 and have even done some browsing at the Library of Congress.  Even so, I
 still couldn't break through!

 I did try several times.  I knew it was a syntax error and brought up the
 on-line help. I tried several combinations of the command, deleted parts of
 the command, and finally, yelled at the blinking screen in front of me. It
 was all in vain because--in unison now- - she still couldn't break thru!

 I had decided some weeks back that I needed some very basic remediation in
 using the Internet and more specifically, using UNIX commands. I requested
 a sample copy from the Cobb Group's "Inside the Internet" carrying a
 subscription price of $39 per year.  The sample copy arrived the very after-
 noon of the too frustrating morning, and in its own way, this quite small
 newsletter, is almost a roadmap.  After looking through the nifty twelve
 page document which is written in un-Unix English.....I mailed off my check.
 I now understand that the WEB is "to combine all the diverse resources on
 the Internet.  That's quite a goal to be articulated at all, but when
 it's said in plain English, it becomes a goal I can relate to.  Indeed, one
 can access it all from the WEB.

 There is a file called FTP.FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) originated
 by Tom Czarnik and now maintained by Perry Rovers (perry.rovers@kub.nl) This
 file contains a huge amount of general Internet information as well as
 current listings of anonymous FTP sites.

 Some have said that the death of the BBS is near at hand. If what I have
 observed over the last weeks is any clue to the future of BBSing,  we may be
 seeing , an even larger segment of moxy computer users joining the Internet
 with their own style, values, and standards of excellence.  At a minimum
 someone is sure to write a better off-line reader for old time Internet
 users connecting to VAX systems - poste haste -please!

 Note: The Cobb Group is published monthly and is owned by the Ziff Communications Corp.