* Control Data Institute: Diploma of
Programming Technology - 1984
* Computerlink Pty Ltd: CONTACT: Bob
Hollingsworth
* Businesslink Pty Ltd: Business partnership
with Bob Hollingsworth
1984 - 1991 ( Full Time )
1991 - 1995 ( Part Time Consultant)
* Private Consultancy Services ( 1988 - 1995 )
Communications
Internet Connectivity
TCP/IP, SLIP/PPP, Winsock Applications
WWW and HTML Development
CompuServe connectivity
Computer Remote Maintenance
Commodore Amiga
Computer Graphics and Animation
AMOS & AMOS Professional Development
C Tool Development
FoxPro Development
Beta tester for FOX UNIX
Beta tester for VISUAL FoxPro 3.0
CPRO Development environment for Computerlink
Trade Union Membership System
General Ledger System / Debtor Inventory System
SUBSCRNX 2.0 & 3.0
Association Management system
Extensive FoxPro "programming" experience.
Navigating the Internet with CompuServe.
Sams.net Publishing - July 1995
Discover the World Wide Web with your Sportster
Sams.net Publishing - August 1995
Navigating the Internet with America Online
Sams.net Publishing - November 1995
Teach yourself Netscape Web Publishing in a Week.
Sams.net Publishing - In development
User reference Manuals for many of the
applications developed by Computerlink.
Newslink Newsagency Newsletter.
Business Plans and Marketing Proposals BRIZ 31
Columnist the Internet Daily News - http://tvp.com/
CompuServe related articles for ACAR
Including:
What is CompuServe
Autopilot for the AMIGA
Internet related articles for INTERNET AUSTRALASIA
Including:
Service Provider profiles
Net Searching
Netnews
WWW Publishing
Product Reviews - WIN 95, Netscape.
Other magazines:
Australian PC REVIEW
Database column
Australian PC User
Monthly CompuServe Column (in development)
Other Areas
Floor Management
Production Management
Location Management
Script Writing and Editing
Online and Offline Editing
* Freelance Production
Aspley Video Productions - Cameraman,
Director, Computer Animation, Location
Management
Blacksmith Productions - Cameraman, Floor
Manager
Starbuck Productions - Director
Insight Productions - Cameraman, Floor
Manager, Director, Computer Graphics
Catholic Media Productions - Director,
Cameraman
TTV Productions - Director, Cameraman
COC Productions - Director
* BRIZ 31 - Community TV Station ( 1991 - 1994)
General
- Association President
- Station Manager during Setup and
Implementation
- Newsletter Correspondent
- National CBAA Newsletter Correspondent.
- Developed and Wrote Business Proposals
- Writer Managed Program Access
Guidelines.
Host / Presenter
- In Studio "News and Current Affairs Program"
Training and Courseware
- Introduction to TELEVISION
- Studio techniques
- Camera Techniques
(Published Internet Australasia)
The "Fan"zine fever that was once the driving
force behind information about Film Stars, Television
and Movies has, in recent years, received a new burst
of life, driven for the most part by the growth of Film
and TV related WWW sites and newsgroups.
Almost as fast as Hollywood releases a movie, the
Internet is creating discussion groups, distributing
reviews and hounding down the latest gossip. In fact,
for some movies, like the much awaited James bond
movie 'GoldenEye', there is already a wealth of
information available online, including AVI movie
files and stills from the soon to be released movie
trailer. If you would like to download a copy of the
GoldenEye trailer or just catch up on all the latest
007 gossip, point your WWW browser to
http://www.mcs.net/~klast/www/bond.html. Mind
you, make sure you have a fast modem before
attempting the download, at 4.7 meg in size, it could
take quite a while to download the file on a slow
system.
The powerful force which drives "fan"dom has
seen the creation of some amazing services on the
Internet, not the least of which in the Internet Movie
Database, known informally - though incorrectly - as
the Cardiff Movie Database. If you want to know
anything about movies this database is the place to
start.
Created by a group of dedicated volunteers over a
period of some years, the Internet Movie Database is
the most extensive online repository of Movie related
information. The credits and other details, including
synopsies and reviews, of thousands of movie titles
have been entered into this database, along with
profiles of Actors, Directors, Producers,
Cinematographers and many other supporting staff.
Now, while much of this information can also be
found in any of the more popular movie books by
people like Leonard Molten and John 'Hollywood'
Howsan, where the Internet Movie Database comes
into its own, is through it's powerful search tools and
WWW based interface. In addition, the information
online is as up to date as the people who maintain the
site can make it. That means not having to run out
and but a copy of the latest information every six
months.
By connecting to the Internet Movie Database
home site at http://www.cm.cf.ac.uk/Movies/ or it's
Australian mirror at
http://ballet.cit.gu.edu.au/Movies/, you can search the
entire list using requests such as 'give me a list of
every movie made by Clint Eastwood, that he also
directed and produced'. You make this request, by
selecting from a list of options and check boxes and by
entering a list of keywords. Then, when you are
happy, clicking on the Search button will produce a
list of Movies or Actors or whatever you have
requested. In addition, many of the entries also
contain links to other WWW pages containing
additional details such as talent profiles.
Apart from the Movie Database there are
hundreds and possibly thousands of other Movie
related WWW sites on the Internet, some dedicated to
specific movies and others acting as directories
containing links to related sites. While the remainder
of this article could easily be taken up with a
shopping list of favourite sites, instead, I have
included a separate table that lists some of the top
Film and Television directories. The purpose of this
list is to provide you with a starting point for your
own explorations. After all, part of the fun of 'fandom'
is actually locating the information.
Having said that, the question most asked by
people I talk to regarding Movies on the Internet is,
"What sort of information do these sites contain".
Frankly, it really depends on the site, but many
contain detailed profiles of Actors and Actresses,
Audio samples, Video clips a and still pictures as well.
Other sites also maintain extensive directories of
reviews and commentaries, and even the occasional
real time chat session using WebCHAT or links to
related IRC and Usenet newsgroups. In addition,
many of the major directories such as, the Hollyweb
Online Film Guide at
http://www.ingress.com/users/spease/hw/hollyweb.ht
ml, organise their listing into various categories and
some also offer special feature areas such as Industry
News pages.
Over the last twelve months, the popularity of
World Wide Web sites has also caught the attention
of a number major film production studios, who now
operate their own WWW sites, either internally or as
apart of other Internet services. These sites, for
example Buena Vista Pictures at
http://bvp.wdp.com/BVPM/index.html, MCA /
Universal at http://www.mca.com/index.html and the
MGM/UA: Lion's Den at
http://www.digiplanet.com/DP/MGM/index.html are a
great source of information about new movies, such
as 'GoldenEye' or 'Tankgirl' and the recently released
'Lord of Illusions'.
As is so often the case these days, any discussion
of movies and films eventually turns its attention
away from the big screen to the smaller but in many
ways more pervasive little black box called the
television.
If you thought there were a lot of movie related
sites on the Internet, then wait till you check out the
offerings from the television community. Just about
every prime time US TV series in existence has at
least one WWW site devoted to it. Be it 'Home
Improvement' at
http://pmwww.cs.vu.nl/service/sitcoms/HomeImprovement/
or the hit hospital emergency room series 'ER'
at
http://www.nbc.com/entertainment/shows/er/index.html
the world Wide Web has it covered.
Its not just the new series that get all the
attention either. Many old TV series like StarTrek,
the Rockford Files, M*A*S*H and The Avengers also
have strong folowings on the Internet. At last count,
one directory site reportedly contained nearly 500
separate links to World Wide Web sites alone, not
including Gopher, IRC and Newsgroup related links.
To wade through this swath of WWW sites there
is really only one site that you need ever visit. TVNet
at http://tvnet.com/TVnet.htm is a one stop link to
every known Television related WWW site,
Newsgroup and FAQ currently in existence. It
contains links to all of the major Network TV sites,
offers services to the professional television industry -
including a trading post and monthly industry
newsletter - and houses an interactive indexed
directory organised by program category.
Where this site also stands out on its own, is in
the area of International coverage. Not content with
catering to just the US market, as is so often the case
with many sites, TVNet also contains an extensive
list of links to many international television
networks. Depending on the site, this information
may contain information about, programs, WWW
pages, contact information or in many cases a list of
E-mail address.
While I said earlier that TVNet is the only place
you even need to visit, this is not exactly true. TVNet
is of course still only a directory that links all the
other television related WWW sites together. As you
being to explore many of these sites, one of the things
that is bound to amaze you is the amount of detailed
information some sites manage to accumulate. You
will sometimes find detailed transcripts of entire
series, hundreds of screen shots all organised in
episode order and sound clips or video clip files
hidden in the many subpages these sites contain. At
other sites, synopsies of coming episodes - often
courtesy of a programs producers - have been made
available along with promotional pictures and profiles
of a shows stars.
As was the case for the movie industry, most of
the major television production companies such as
CBS at http://www.cbs.com/, NBC at
http://www.nbc.com and the BBC at
http://auntie.bbcnc.org.uk/, all operate WWW sites
offering information about the programs and services
they offer.
So far, this article has dealt mainly with sites
dedicated to US based film and television interests,
and until recently, it would have been very difficult to
scrape together more than a paragraph or two
covering sites dedicated to Australian Film and
Television.
This has now, however, all changed for the
better. To start off this look at Australian sites, lets
turn our attention to the RML Movie page at
http://werple.mira.net.au/%7Ehaze/. In the words of
its developer, "this site is designed to cause you to
waste lots of time finding out lots of useless things
about MOVIES". While, not the most concise
collection of Film related topics ever compiled, this
sites does have a good collection of subjects with
Australian relevance. To complement this site,
Griffith University in Queensland maintains a mirror
of the CineMedia directory which contains a number
of links to Australian sites. You can reach this site
using this URL:
http://www.gu.edu.au/gwis/cinemedia/CineMedia.home.html
But what about Australian stars? If you are
interested in finding out about Aussie stars made
good, there is Mel Gibson site at
http://s9000.furman.edu/~riley/mel_gibson.html. Also,
for Models Inc fans, check out the Cameron Daddo
page located at
http://metaverse.com/modelsinc/cameron.html
Australian television networks, unlike their US
counterparts, have been slow climbing onto the
Internet bandwagon, but the tide is starting to turn
here are well. Recently, Channel 9 in Brisbane
launched its own WWW site, which contains
information about some of it's locally produced shows
including Extra, the National Nine News and the
Footy Show. To take a look at this site use the
following URL:
http://design.net.au/nine/pages/home.html.
The ABC and SBS also operate sites of their own.
The ABC site at http://www.abc.net.au/ is the home of
the popular computers and technology television
series "HotChips". In addition, you will also find
information about Quantum, ABC Radio and Triple J
stored on this site, along with a corporate profile. For
people interested in programs broadcast on the
Special Broadcasting Service - SBS, the site at
http://www.sofcom.com.au/SBS/ is the place to go.
To complement all these new TV sites, Sofcom
recently installed a TV Guide WWW page at
http://www.sofcom.com.au/TV/index.html, for
television viewers in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne
and Perth. All of the weekly program listings for 10,
7, 9, the ABC and SBS are available online at this
site, which you can search for specific programs and
view by Channel or Program Time.
Finally, while most of the Film and Television
sites on the Interent tend to deal with the glamor side
of the industry, there are a number of new sites
beginning to appear that provide information about
production. Of these, Mandy's Film and TV
Production Directory at http://www.mandy.com/
offers access to production crew, technicians, facilities
and producers worldwide. TVNet - mentioned
previously - also provides a number of services for
film and television professional.
The Directors Guild of America also operates its
own WWW site at http://leonardo.net/dga/index.html"
as does the Academy of Motion Picture Arts &
Sciences at http://www.lightside.com/ampas/.
The past 12 months has seen the start of many
wide and sweeping changes across the face of the
Internet in Australia. As numerous commercial
operators begin to offer private Internet connections,
interest in the Internet and services such as the
World Wide Web have grown immensely.
Now it seems the tide is about to turn again with
the introduction of an entirely new type of Internet
Service provider.
On the 8th of December 1994, Ipswich City in
Queensland became the first municipality in
Australia and one of the first in the world to
electronically link its households, schools, businesses
and community organisations to the global
information highway.
As the Ipswich City Council saw its community
slipping into recession, with ever increasing levels of
unemployment due in the large part to the closure of
many of the industries and coal mines that had once
been its livelihood, the Council decided to set Ipswich
on a new course towards the future. Their goal was to
make Ipswich Australia's "smart" city. To make this
goal a reality the Global Info Links project was born.
To achieve this goal the Ipswich City Council
defined two main objectives for Global Info Links. In
the words of Scott Balson, the Development Manger
for Global Info Links, "The main objectives of Global
Info Links are firstly to Create Employment and
Business opportunities for the people of Ipswich and
secondly to bring the people of Ipswich into the
information age".
At its heart Global Info Links or GILS as it has
become know is an Internet service provider. Like
any of the new Internet providers, members of the
public can purchase accounts with Global Info Links,
which allow them dial up access to the Internet.
What makes this service so unique however are the
other services which it provides and in no small part
the connection fees it charges for access to these
services.
For those people that always want to know these
things. Global Info Links is connected to the Internet
via a 128K ISDN link with the University of
Queensland. At the business end of the system lies a
Hewlett Packard E25 Precision Architecture -
Reduced Instruction Set Computer (PA-RISC). It
boasts 128 megabytes of main memory and currently
has 15 Gigabytes of online hard disk storage.
While the system is capable of providing business
users with high speed ISDN, Microwave and
permanent hardwire connections, the facility which
will be of interest to most users is the dialup
connection option.
Currently Global Info Links can handle up to 30
dial-in users at any given time at speeds up to 14400.
By the time you see this article however access
speeds into the system should have been increased to
28800 and an additional 15 lines added to bring the
total up to 45 simultaneous dial up connections.
Global Info Links offers user a wide variety of
subscription options starting at a low rate of $10 a
month which gives you 5 hours connection time per
week, extending up to a $280 yearly subscription
which gives a user 20 hours connection time per
week.
In addition to help you get started, Global Info
Links has developed a Subscribers kit, which is
available free of charge form Global Info Links and a
number of local computer stores. The kit includes a
disk full of software and installation utilities which
includes the Trumpet Winsock, NCSA Mosaic and the
Trumpet Newsreader as well as a handy installation
guide to assist users through the Setup process.
If providing the community with Internet access
was all it took to create a smart city then our article
would be at an end, however as I mentioned earlier it
is only the beginning.
On the hardware front, Global Info Links offers
the community access to news levels of computer
technology. Global Info Links is located in the newly
constructed 13 million dollar Ipswich Global
Information Centre. In basic terms this centre is a
Library - but a library like very few others. Housed in
the library along with the usual collection of books
and other resources are publicly available Internet
terminals which are directly connected to the Global
Info links Server. These terminals all run Netscape
and provide public access to the World Wide Web.
There are also a number of Multimedia Workstations
and CDROM Workstations which users can take
advantage of.
Members of the community visiting the Global
Information Centre can take advantage these
facilities for a minimal fee. In addition, hands on
training and support for all of Global Info Links
services are available from the centre's staff.
"For the first time ever many members of the
Ipswich community now have access to the
Information highway and our community is rapidly
becoming very Internet aware" This availability of
this new technology is beginning to have wide
ranging effects on the local community. A recent
survey reported that 75 percent of the families in the
Ipswich area with school aged children now have a
computer in their home.
Another side effect of this growth has seen a
significant increase in the number of computer based
jobs and related business opportunities in the Ipswich
area, with new businesses opening on a weekly basis,
to provide the new level of computer and Internet
support demanded by a "Smarter" community.
To make this bold project work the Global Info
Links team realised early on that education was one
of the keys to building a smarter city. As a result
every school in the Ipswich region - nearly 120 in all
were offered a free Internet account and a Modem.
To date over 80 of the schools have taken up the
offer, with students in classes as young as Grade 2
now using the Internet as a part of their weekly
studies.
One of the major advantages of this new
technology is the ability to extend the a class's studies
beyond the usual bounds of the classroom.
Many of students at Bundamba State School, one
of the early Internet starters, regularly use EMAIL to
communicate with students in classes on the other
side of the world. The Bundamba State School
students see their EMAIL peers as classmates who
just happen to be far away. One of the most popular
features of these regular exchanges are small stuffed
toys called Travel Buddies. These little guys are sent
to a class overseas that communicates via EMAIL
with one of the local classes. Once they arrive they
become the focus of EMAIL reports covering the toys
activities while on its stay overseas.
As a result the Internet has given schools the
ability to bring "Real Life" into the class room. The
difference is focus. Instead of writing letters to
imaginary people to expand writing skills, these same
students can now write an EMAIL letter to a real
person, with the added bonus that they will get a
letter back.
The students are not the only ones to benefit from
these new Internet services either. For people like
Librarian Lindy McKeown the benefits have been
enormous. "As the schools information broker it is my
job to provide teachers with resources and other
materials. In the past due to the nature of printed
material the information was often limited and out of
date. Now I can obtain the latest up to the minute
information through tools like the World Wide Web
and have it on a teachers desk before classes
commence."
School students are not the only ones benefiting
this new technology. Many parents are also
developing new skills as they assist their children
both at school and at home. "Due to limited resources
it is not possible or practical for students to type in all
their own EMAIL messages. To help get through the
ever increasing EMAIL load, a number of parents
assist us by entering many of the EMAIL messages
for the students and by doing tasks such as collating
the incoming messages as they arrive."
One of the key components of the entire Global
Info Links system is its aim to develop one of
Australia's most comprehensive World Wide Web
sites. To date there is already over 37,000 pages of
information stored on the Global Info Links system
with this number growing daily.
The Global Info Links Web is broken into 4 main
categories. The first of these is Ipswich City Web
pages. This section contains arguably the most
comprehensive collection of information ever
published on the Internet about an Australian city. A
user can look up information about the cities history,
economy, lifestyles and also allows people access to
information such as regular updates covering what's
happening around town each day.
The second section is reserved for what Global
Info Links call special events. During the recent
Indycar race on the Queensland Gold Coast, the
Global Info Links provided to the minute updates live
from track side giving users background information
and on-track gossip as it happened.
As the service grows there are plans to bring a
number of government services online. In these early
stages the Online Government Services section
contains only a few entries. Most significant of these
is extensive information about Austudy 95 as well as
the Queensland department of Industries.
Of all the Web services offered by Global Info
Links the last one is probably the most unique.
Although currently only in its early stages the Global
Electronic Market project is already a source of
considerable interest around the World.
The principal behind the Global Electronic
Market Web pages revolves around the fact that for
business to succeed in the coming international
market their products and information must be
available to the entire world. To do this Global Info
Links has developed a new type of service know as
Packaged Information.
For a $50 flat fee software developers, businesses
and organisations will be able to place computer
programs, multimedia information packages and
product brochures online thus making them available
to the world.
In addition, the Global Electronic Market system
will also manage the sale of items such as computer
programs, using an online billing system that issues a
monthly creditors statement and payment cheque to
the product's owner once sales transactions are
approved.
The other major component of the Global
Electronic Markets project is its aim to develop
targeted markets using the expertise and resources
available at Global Info Links.
Once a market is chosen, for example the RURAL
and GARDENING GEMs which are already online,
the staff at Global Info Links develop an extensive
online resource providing links to all know
information about the topic across the Internet.
Over the coming months and years Global Info
Links plans to develop Free Nets catering to a wide
variety of community needs and business
applications, all of which are aimed at developing the
business prosperity and information technology of the
Ipswich, Queensland and ultimately the Australian
community.
Finally, to complement the Global Electronic
Market services Global Info Links also offers
businesses and other users the opportunity to setting
up their own WWW pages. As with all services on the
Global Info Links system these WWW pages can be
tailored to a persons specific needs, budget and
individual capabilities.
If you would like more information about Global
Info Links and the services they provide they can be
contacted during business hours on 07 810 6789.
Alternatively you can visit the Global Info Links
WWW site by selecting
http://gil.ipswichcity.qld.gov.au/home.html as the
home page.
Ultimately, Global Info Links is all about using
the Internet as a tool to build a brighter future for
the Ipswich Community. As to its success only time
will tell, but in the mean time there are few places
anywhere in the world where you can find a family
sitting in a public library exploring the World Wide
Web. Now that's what I call a real Internet
community !!
On the 4th of November 1994 the Internet
Society announced that the number of hosts
connected to the Internet had passed the 3.8 million
mark. When you consider the number of files and
the quantity of information contained in all these
computers, locating a specific item brings to mind
the legendary story of the needle in a haystack.
To solve or at very least reduce this problem, a
number of projects commenced in the late 1980's
that aimed to cataloguing the Internet. As a result
there are now a number of services available that
offer users flexible and efficient methods of
searching the net.
Archie - The FTP Database
For many people the Internet is the place to find
Software. If a program has been placed in the Public
Domain or released by a Shareware Author, it is a
reasonable bet that there is a copy located on one of
the 950+ FTP sites scattered around the world.
In an effort to keep track of all these sites, a
group of programmers at the McGill School of
Computing developed a tool called Archie. On a
regular basis Archie retrieves the directory lists of
each FTP site and stores them in a database. This
database, Archie in turn makes available for
querying by users across the Net.
Archie Clients
Accessing Archie is a relatively simple process.
If you have a Web client such as Netscape or
Mosaic the easiest way to access Archie is via an
ArchiePlex page.
These pages can be found in a number of
locations around the world and offer users an
effective form based Archie interface. Making an
Archie request using these pages is simplicity in
itself. The user enters the name of a file or related
directory into the search field and selects the search
button. Within about thirty seconds a list of all the
sites and files that meet you search criterion are
listed on a Web page. From here you can simply
select the file you want and automatically download
it to you computer.
To try ArchiePlex, contact the local Web page
operated by Telecom Australia at
http://www.tansu.com.au/Services/ArchiePlex/archieplex.html.
WSArchie
While ArchiePlex offers a simple interface many
users prefer to use a dedicated Winsock client.
WSArchie is available via FTP from
ftp.monash.edu.au in the /pub/win3/winsock/
directory. Although still in alpha testing, WSArchie
is a powerful program which integrates seamlessly
with WS_FTP, a popular FTP client also available
from Monash.
People with terminal based connections have not
been left out either. By Telneting to the public
Archie client at archie.au, requests can be made of
the Archie database, with the results being displayed
on your terminal or posted to your Email address.
Searching the Web
In recent months the largest growth phenomena
on the net has been the development of new World
Wide Web pages. This growth has brought with it
problems similar to those experienced by FTP users.
To answer this growth a number of Web search
projects are currently under development.
These projects fall into two broad categories,
manually updated and robot generated lists. The
newer robot generated lists operate by literally
crawling across the net, page by page, site by site
and are rapidly developing extensive databases.
Some people argue however that they collect too
much information and suggest that the older
manually collected and maintained lists are more
useable.
Hunting the Web
By far the most wide reaching Web search
engine to date is Lycos. At last count Lycos had
indexed over 1.53 million Web pages, with hundreds
and possibly thousands more pages being added
daily. Using Lycos, like ArchiePlex, is simply a
matter of contacting the correct home page. In this
case, the Lycos home page can be found at
http://lycos.cs.cmu.edu.
Once connected, users are guided though a
simple process, again based on a Web data entry
form. The end result of this process is a new Web
page, listing the results of your search with links to
the related pages, allowing the user to easily jump to
the desired page.
The other major feature of Lycos is its ongoing
development. New features such as Boolean logic,
page redundancy checking and relevance feedback
will be added shortly thus increasing Lycos's already
formidable capabilities.
The World Wide Web Worm, WebCrawler and
Jumpstation II have also gain considerable notoriety
as Web search tools with each offering different
search capabilities and retrieval methods.
On the other side of the coin, there are a number
of home pages which offer tree based directories
covering large sections of the net. Amongst these
YAHOO at - http://akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo/
and the Global On-Line Directory at
http://www.gold.net/gold/ offer ideal starting points.
To define which Web search method is best
however really comes down to personal choice. To
assist users with this choice the developers of
Netscape offer a Web page at
http://home.mcom.com/home/internet-search.html
which contains links to many of the Web search
tools and also provides some information about their
functionality and capabilities.
WAIS
No discussion of Internet search tools could
ever be complete without a discussion of possibly
the most ambitious Internet indexing system of all -
WAIS. The Wide Area Information Server project
was launched in 1990 by developers at Thinking
Machines Corporation in an attempt to bring "the
library to the users desk".
Whether or not WAIS has or will ever achieve
this lofty goal is a topic which will be discussed for
many years to come. That being said, WAIS is a
very powerful tool which offers users a novel and in
many ways unique method of locating information.
The power behind WAIS lies in its ability to
search a wide variety of text based documents, at
extremely high speed, using natural language queries
and in its ability to access and search a wide variety
of databases available across the net.
At last count there were over 450 databases
registered at the Thinking Machines WAIS
Directory of Directories, covering topics as diverse
as the Australian 1993 Census, the CIA Fact Book,
Aboriginal Studies and the King James Bible. Using
simple commands WAIS allows users to search
these databases, cross reference and cross relate the
search results and then retrieve the documents found
by the WAIS search.
To use WAIS you will need a client application
such as WinWAIS, this program can be downloaded
from ftp.wais.com in the file
/pub/freeware/dos/wwais24.zip.
Alternatively, owners of the latest version of
Netscape or Mosaic, can utilise special gateway
servers such as WEBGATE. This server, operated
by Wais Inc. at http://wais.com/waisgate-announce.html,
gives Web users similar WAIS query capabilities to
those offered by dedicated WAIS clients.
Netsurfing
Ultimately, the best way to find out which
Internet search tool suits your needs is to spend
some time exploring the options available. As is
often the case with the Internet you might be
pleasantly surprised what you discover.
After all, "that's what Netsurfing is all about".
wtatters@world.net
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