There are so many sources of information and services out there, and each of them has to be searched or used separately. Therefore, half the battle is figuring out where to look.
Information is abundant, even overwhelming. At risk of drowning in that vast sea, anyone navigating the online world needs to know what is available, and how to find and use it.
Getting there takes time, but the potential rewards are interesting:
You will also discover that using the online resource can be quite fun and entertaining. After all, there is more to life than business and work.
My wife has a rare and dangerous kidney disease. One day her doctor joined us on an online research session to look for experiences and advice in other countries. We sat down in my office in Norway. I turned on my personal computer and started a communications program.
After some keystrokes, we could hear the attached modem dial the number of CompuServe, a North American information utility. (A modem is a piece of equipment that converts computer signals to and from sound codes, so data can be sent by phone.)
It took just a few seconds to make the connection. A greeting scrolled over our screen, followed by a menu of available choices.
For an introduction to practical telecommunications, check out appendix 2 and 3. in this book.
We selected "Health," and "Database for Rare diseases" from a new menu. Here, we found the address of a foundation for "cysts in kidneys," which is the name of her disease. My wife made contact. Since then, she has received regular reports of research results and experiences gained in the field. (The organization is called Polycystic Kidney Research Foundation. You can reach them at http://www.kumc.edu/pkrf/.)
We sent a request for help to an electronic forum for doctors. This resulted in several useful pointers. We searched a magazine database for medical articles containing the word "kidney." Paper copies of the most interesting finds arrived by mail a few days later. My wife gave them to her hospital doctor as background reading.
Kenya Saikawa is paralyzed. He communicates with his PC and modem using light key strokes and Morse code. Online communications allow Kenya to be in regular contact with people outside the walls of his Tokyo hospital.
We met online in a "Handicap Club" on a computer center called TWICS in Tokyo. He was there to exchange experiences with others with disabilities. I called in by modem from Norway. Geographical distance is no problem in the online world.
CompuServe's Cancer Forum has a similar function. "It's a blessing that I can visit here 24 hours a day," one visitor said. "When I'm unable to sleep at night, I often sit down by the PC to read and write messages to others."
The forum works like a family. The file library is full of information about cancer. Members can go in there and pick up whatever they want to read.
Dave Hughes from Old Colorado Springs, Colorado in the United States has had a long career as a professional soldier. He has fought in places like the Yalue river in Korea and Vietnam's jungle. When he retired, he became a political online force.
"I'm using the new tools of the individual mind to change the world," he says. Native American Indians are among those, who have benefited from Dave's energy and knowledge. He has helped them show their culture to the outside world in a graphical form.
Vladimir Makarenkov from the Crimea in the Ukraine is manager in a company called VINKO. In early 1993, he distributed an offer of partnership with foreign companies through a mailing list for traders on Internet. VINKO is into aluminium processing. He wrote:
"From our own production we can offer some one metals and aniline dye for cotton, viscose, wool, silk, leather. We are interested in deliveries of chemical production (gamma acid, H-acid) and not quickly deteriorating foods (food concentrates, canned food etc.)."
George Pavlov is Planning and Reporting manager with an American computer manufacturer. Daily, he logs on to online services to monitor industry product announcements and daily news from several electronic sources. It helps him stay ahead of rapid technological developments.
Chairman Bill Gates of Microsoft says messaging is his most important application personally. He spends as much as five times more time in electronic mail as in spreadsheets or word processing, and claims "it's probably the most mission-critical application for Microsoft in running the company."
IBM relies on the Internet to give users and developers around the world a way to retrieve documentation, technical interface specifications, fixes and upgrades.
Eduardo Salom heads Software Plus SA in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He discovered the online world in 1988, and uses it to find information that can help his company develop industrial applications.
The Norwegian civil engineer Kai Oestreng regularly calls specialized online computer clubs to discuss his computational needs, fetch programs and monitor developments.
Mary Lou Rebelo was born in southern Brazil. Today, she is married to a Japanese and lives in Tokyo. She teaches Portuguese and works as a translator. The modem enables her to keep in touch with others around the world interested in Portuguese and Spanish language and culture.
Sheena Macleod teaches in a primary school in Lusaka, Zambia. She integrates the online world in her teaching to motivate her students. Her classes are involved in international projects with schools all over the globe.
In August 1991, the "Old Stalinists" made a coup d'etat in the Soviet Union. The news media were silenced, but they forgot the country's many bulletin boards. Early one morning, a foreign caller picked up the following messages from a Moscow BBS:
From: Valery Koulkov To: All Msg #560, 00:42am 20-Aug-91 Subject: Moscow, August 19, 23:00 Some news from the square news RSFSR white building, 23:00. Local inhabitants are very welcome for the people guarding 'white building', they carry food and some garments to the square. Approx. 8 tanks stand by the house under the RSFSR flags! There is an information that 'white house' is surrounded by the soldiers from Vysshee Desantnoye uchilische from Ryazan. The people are not so desperate than some hours ago. There are more and more people. From: Stas Stas To: Alexey Zabrodin Msg #562, 02:53pm 20-Aug-91 Subject: Russia In Agency news I have sent two files RIA4.txt & ria5.txt It's msgs of Russia Information Agency Spread it as much as you can!!! From: Andrew Brown To: All Msg #563, 06:31pm 20-Aug-91 Subject: What's happening? I am a journalist on the London Daily newspaper *The Independent*, and I am trying to discover whether this technology, like fax machines, is being used for independent communication now that the censors have clamped down on everything else. Can people describe what is happening, and what they see? Something similar was done on Compuserve during the Gulf War, by subscribers who where in Israel and were able to describe Scud missile attacks without censorship. Andrew Brown Select: 564 From: Valery Koulkov To: All Msg #564, 00:52am 21-Aug-91 Subject: Moscow events There is shooting near the American embassy and RSFSR state building. Informer said (by phone) that he saw several victims shot and killed under the tanks. there is fire near the RSFSR building. Moscow, August 21, 1:15 am
Telecommunications played a role in this historic event. While CNN televised the coup, it was not the images, but the words of men like Yeltsin that held sway for Russian citizens. Within hours of Yeltsin's statement in defiance of the coup leaders, handbills reproducing his statement papered the walls of the Moscow metro and Leningrad houses.
Another one: On Friday, Feb. 26 1993 at 12:18 p.m., a bomb exploded in the World Trade Center in New York City, U.S.A. Four minutes later, the Dow Jones News Service flashed this headline: "NYC Fire Dept. Says Fire At 3 World Trade Center."
Then there is this Norwegian friend of mine, Svein-Erik Dahl, photographer by profession. His passion in life is playing bridge. Each night, he logs on to BPLive (http://www.bridgeplayer.com/~bridge/bplive.html). Here, he fights other enthusiasts of the green table until the early morning.
Online communication is not just for the privileged or those with a special interest in computers. It is for you, me, everybody.
There is much to learn in the "online land," and the medium is fascinating. It makes learning fun. You can learn about your hobbies, your profession, life in other countries, languages, other people's views about whatever, and more. Often, you will find reports about experiences and know-how that it is hard or impractical to get in other ways.
Some go online to learn how to do things better. Teachers want to give their students a better and more motivating learning environment. Architects, engineers and companies want increased competitiveness and sales. They seek timely information about competitors, technologies and tools, partners and trends.
You can take a Masters Degree in Business Administration while sitting in front of your computer at home. You can join online seminars arranged by local or foreign educational institutes. You can even study at night, when the rest of your family has calmed down.
Some build their own educational programs supported by databases, online forums and associations of various kinds.
You may feel helpless in hospital, or when visiting your doctor. Knowledge about your disease will make you better equipped to handle the situation.
The online resource is just keystrokes away, and knowledge is power.
To get this power, you must know what you can get from the online world. This book is filled with examples of what are available, and practical tips about how to use the many offerings.
Most of us belong to one or several networks. They consist of persons that we can call on when we need help. Your network may be private, like your family. You may be member of associations, or part of a group of people with common interests within a company or organization.
The modem allows you to be part of more personal networks than you can possibly cope with in the "real world." Besides, it's easier to develop personal networks in the online world.
We have used words like "clubs" and "associations." By this we mean groups of people interested in helping You and in participating in what You happen to be interested in. That is what networking is all about.
Today's communications technology lets us network with people in other countries at a very low cost. Many describe it as networking "beyond time and space." Write a message and send it to someone in your network. It arrives in his/her "mailbox" within minutes (sometimes seconds), and stays there until the recipient wants to read it.
This built-in ability to send messages to other people's electronic mailboxes reduces the power that time and geographical distances have over our lives.
A friend in a remote country gets out of bed nine hours after you, but keeps going well into what, for you, is the next morning. No problem. You can send letters when you are awake, and receive replies when asleep. Pick up and read your friend's messages the next day or when you feel like doing it. This is how two people as far apart as Arendal, Norway and Auckland, New Zealand could be involved in the development of this book.
Sometimes "real time" discussions are important. Consider the cancer forum example above. You can call there any time, day or night, seven days a week. Whenever you feel like it. You will always find someone to chat with who understands and shares your problems.
There are millions of online databases out there. These infobases are repositories of electronic information. They contain full-text and reference books, magazines, newspapers, radio and TV shows, reports, and more. In the online world, you will find information about almost anything.
There are also hundreds of thousand online forums or conferences where people call in to read messages and information, or just have a good time.
The entrepreneur sees the online world as a new, profitable playground. Many have made it their profession to search for information for others, and they earn a good living doing so.
Others advertise and sell products and services by modem. Some set up their own services to sell knowledge and know-how, be it of aqua culture, wine production, marketing, or about the petroleum offshore market.
In business, it pays to be one step ahead of the competition. Early warnings of customers' needs, competitors' moves, and emerging opportunities can be turned into fortunes. This can reduce potential losses and help develop businesses in more profitable directions.
Turn this to your advantage. Build your personal early warning system to monitor online information sources and networks.
The online world has an abundance of joke clubs, dramatic adventure games with multiple players, and large archives filled with computer game software. You can transfer these programs to your personal computer and be ready to play in minutes.
Others may feel more entertained when things get "interesting." Surely, those calling Moscow in August 1991 for news about the coup must have had a strange sensation in the stomach.
Some online users react quickly when dramatic events occur. They go online to read news directly from the wires, from Associated Press, TASS, Reuters, Xinhua Press, Kyodo News and all the others.
Usually, online news comes directly to you from the journalists' keyboards. Often, you heard it here first.
Others prefer to socialize. They meet in online "meeting places" to debate everything from Africa and the administration of kindergartens to poetry, LISP programming, and compressed video for multimedia applications.
Some claim that increased use of online networking in a country can effect social changes within politics, economics, communication and science. It can support democratic tendencies, the transition to a market economy, the formation and support of businesses, the spreading of interpersonal and mass communication, the forging of invisible colleges among scientists, and breaking-up of traditional and closed information systems developed in some societies.
No matter whether your application is useful or just a pastime, online services queue up to help give your life a better content.
Some people fear that language might be a problem, and in particular if English is not their first language. Don't worry. There are many other languages used in the online world, and increasing. Besides, you are in the driver's seat. If something is hard to understand, just log off to study the difficult text. Take your time. Nobody is watching. Remember Albert Einstein's words:
"A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new."
Will your being member of the online world make you rich? Probably not. On the other hand, it provides the means to help you achieve such a goal, no matter how you define the word "rich."
Go for it!