The Internet is a useful part of the super information highway, but
you have to manage its resources if to avoid futile hours in a
cul-de-sac
One of the great strengths of the Internet is the ability to
move around large amounts of information almost instantly, without
having to worry about traffic delays, hold-ups with the postal
service, or any other of the numerous problems that can beset
conventional communication. Because of this, the Internet can be
the perfect tool to improve the efficiency of your business.
However, there is a price to pay. Just as the network has to be
managed, so does a website, whether it is to be hosted on the
Internet itself, or on an internal intranet.
The Internet excels at moving information efficiently and your
business can increase its profitability if it can harness the
efficiencies that the Internet provides. It is possible to use a
computer thousands of miles away to search out a nugget of
information in a remote database you can transfer any one of
millions of files and programs to your own system and find
companies, products and services that meet your needs. However, you
will need to become adept at searching out information. If the
Internet lacks anything, it is a coherent way for finding what you
are after. As the Internet becomes the world's information
marketplace, there will be advantages for businesses that set out
their own stall.While a great deal of the traffic on the Internet
is still from one person to another, more and more information is
being made available for transfer ( not to a single specified
individual, but to anyone with an interest in the content on offer.
Although this facility started when the Internet was the exclusive
preserve of an academic community eager to share research results
and ideas, it has not been outmoded by the commercial orientation
of today's online offices and workers. The Internet has always been
a community for computer users and has strong links to the world of
software developers. It's not just a world of freeware or shareware
either. Lotus, IBM and others are using the Internet to ship new
software to their users, fix problems and provide support for
products in the field. There is an informal global support network
waiting to help with problems, too. The Internet facility called
Usenet newsgroups is a fantastically efficient way to get a scoop
on anything from computer-related ills to the best place for a
business dinner in San Francisco.Here's a personal example: I was
installing Insignia's Soft Windows, a package that lets you run
Windows software, on a Sun workstation on a Sunday morning in
England and hit a snag during installation. I fiddled about, reread
the manual and was still stymied.The product had to be up and
running for Monday mornings, so in desperation, I posted a message
to the Usenet newsgroup that I thought would have the right sort of
readership. In a matter of hours (this was still the wee hours in
parts of the US on a Sunday, don't forget), I had a half dozen good
suggestions resolving the impasse. To my delight, I also got a call
from Insignia's support department at 9am on Monday to make sure
that everything was all right. The power of the Internet!While
there is a lot of good information available for many business
missions, it can sometimes be difficult to zero in on what you
need. It's particularly important for information providers to make
it easy for customers to find and evaluate your expertise in a
particular field of endeavour.There are several techniques you can
put your information easily and quickly onto the desktops of
potential customers.One of the basic Internet functions is the
ability to log into a remote computer, subject to security
restrictions, and use it as if it were right by your desk. That is
the purpose of Telnet. Telnet is the name of both the bit of
software on your computer and the capability for remote operation.
Telnet was an important element of the first computers that made up
the Internet, which ran on one flavour, or another of UNIX. Long
before the ascendancy of the graphical windowing user interface,
people had to use ASCII terminals that had no or very limited
graphical capabilities. Telnet is therefore regarded as fairly
primitive because it is restricted to plain text. There is power in
simplicity, however. It takes a fair amount of computer power and
communications bandwidth to connect two graphically based
computers. Telnet can cram an awful lot of information down a
modest telephone connection without demanding a Pentium PC or more
at both ends. Telnet is perfect for reading email or conducting
simple database queries. As long as you can handle the security
implications of allowing remote users to telnet into your system,
it can be a very efficient way to meet the needs of travelling or
remote workers.There are a number of public Telnet facilities that
allow you to use the power of someone else's computer system to
search databases or pass information. You can use text-based Archie
or Gopher clients to navigate resources. You can get there by
Telnet. One sterling example of a public Telnet facility has been
created by the US Federal Aviation Administration with their DUATS
(Direct User Access System). The system enabled the FAA to cut
costs and simultaneously improve its vital, safety related services
to pilots. Now pilots can get the latest weather and confirm their
navigational calculations without having to talk to a human briefer
or wait in a telephone queue for the next flesh and blood person to
read the weather to them.Finding Telnet resources is somewhat more
problematic. There is no central listing of Telnet hosts that
afford public access. However, when you need to use a public
service like a Gopher client or a government server like DUATS, you
will be able to find all for the details needed to make your
connection. A number of Internet access providers sell Telnet-only
access to their host systems - which is fine for email and Usenet
newsgroups but not for much more. FTP was also one of the original
Internet utilities that got the name of its client software from
the protocol used to perform its role in Net life. In the case of
FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, there is more complexity than with
Telnet to allow for additional functionality.FTP transfers files
from one computer to another on the Internet (or intranet.) The
reason to transfer files in this way (rather than attaching them to
an email) is that not all email packages handle attachments in the
same way. Some cannot handle MIME binary attachment, while other
deal in Uuencoded BinHex. There may also be some file size
limitations using certain email systems. Most of us have used FTP,
although you may not be aware of it. Each time you click on a link
on a Web page that downloads a file to your PC, you are using
FTP.FTP has a fairly verbose command syntax, which means that it
doesn't matter if you are trying to retrieve files created by UNIX
machines, or on a Mac to use on your PC. However, this doesn't
necessarily mean that you will be able to run the programs, but it
is a good way to transfer files without having to contend with
different file formats.If you have a system that contains files
that you would your mobile workforce to have available, it is
simple to set up your server as an FTP site. However, you must be
sure that you have addressed all of the security implications.
Passwording directories, using invisible files and password
protecting files can provide additional security. Other search
tools include Archie; the Internet's archive file location service
what was named after a comic book character, is a system that lets
you search file indexes rather than have to search each and every
FTP site that might have the file that you want. It's the best
place to start a search for a file on the Internet. Archie can find
text documents, data files and executable programs with equal
aplomb. You don't even have to know the exact filename for the
object of your exploration. You can search for a certain string
likely to be in a filename or the file's description. You could
also try Gopher. Gopher allows you to browse through directories
and retrieve files, rather like FTP. However, Gopher retrieves
files in a fashion that is appropriate for their contents. If you
request an image file, Gopher will start the right view
application. If the file is text, it will open into a text editor.
You may have heard intimations that the Internet is a community. If
you can get away from the point-to-point messaging you will find
most interest groups represented. Its all there: the world is
reflected in the Internet. That includes your potential
customers.There are a plethora of search engines designed to make
it easy for people to find an answer to any query. Most feature
advertising and may direct search results to specific companies.
Search engines work by sending software robots out into the
Internet that follow every link that they come across. Every page
they find is crunched through and indexing process that discards
common words like "the" or "and" and list significant words like
"money" or "security" or " computer". It then annotates those words
with the URL of the page where they were found. When you come along
and ask for pages that contain the words "computer" and "security"
the search engine runs through its lists and finds the pages where
the search terms are present. Advanced search engines like Alta
Vista also do fuzzy logic searches. If you are looking for
vegetables, Alta Vista will return pages that include "carrot" or
"potato" even if the word "vegetable" is absent. Even the meanest
search engine takes a great deal of computing power, gigabytes of
RAM and very large disk arrays.Commercial search organisations like
Yahoo or InfoSeek are beginning to extract their investment in
computer hardware or software buy selling advertising space,
charging a fee for searches or both. Businesses that charge for
searching services often include more than just web pages in their
search: Infoseek includes other Internet resources such as Usenet
newsgroups; Individual includes many print publications.If you are
trying to attract attention to a commercial site of your own, it's
a good idea to email the person responsible at each of the search
engines to get instructions on including your site in their
database. Importantly be sure that the heading and text of your
lead pages contain all the hooks necessary to assist even the most
inept searcher to find you. If you deal in cameras for instance,
your home page should also contain the words "photograph",
"optical", "picture" "film", "lens" etc.The ability to find your
Web pages is of paramount importance, more important even than
smart graphics or dazzling Java animation (which will probably
consume most of your site building budget). The text is the key to
today's searching technology and your written material needs to be
assembled with that in mind. The wealth of information on the
Internet isn't very well organised so it is important to have a
good handle of the various resources and techniques at your
disposal. It might even be worthwhile to develop an in-house
Internet. If you are trying to make the Internet a place where your
business is recognised, some thought in making your Internet sites
easy to find will pay dividends. Using the Internet to publicise
your presence is extremely cost effective.Rachel Hodgkins