Test drive ————— Several commercial systems let you try the service for free or at lower rates. You can check what's out there without paying for the exploratory connect time, and get some free training in how to use the service. CompuServe's Practice Forum (GO PRACTICE) does not carry any connect charges, but applicable communication surcharges are still in effect. They also have a free 'Guided Tour'. Free trials are particularly useful before a search in an expensive database. Use DialIndex on Dialog. Orbit has DBIN (The database Index), and Data-Star has CROS. They are master indexes to the databases on the system. First, select a general subject area, then enter your search terms. The systems will respond with lists of databases and hit counts. Note: You must go to the 'real' databases for results. You cannot retrieve actual information during a test drive.
Selecting an expert level ————————————- Most services regard all new users as novices. The software designers assume that users don't want (or are unable) to read lengthy explanations. They think that most users prefer navigation by going from menu to menu. Commercial services may support this view for financial reasons, and especially when charging for access by the minute. (Some of them let you read their help screens for free, though.) Menus are important when browsing new offerings, or accessing services that we seldom use. Frequent users of a service, however, quickly learn how to do things. Menus may soon begin to annoy rather than please. Reading them costs money, and it slows our communications down. We do not need menus when accessing online services in fully automated mode. Your communications program remembers exactly what to do, and does all the typing for you. There is no point in paying extra for having menus. You'll not read them anyway. The objective is to access the service at maximum speed and the lowest possible cost. Most online services can be tailored to your personal needs and preferences. Many let you choose between:
* Full menus
* Short menus
* A prompt line with a list of the most often used
commands,
* a prompt character or word (see "prompt" in appendix 4
for examples). Prompts can be used by automatic
communication script files to trigger the next action.
If concerned about costs, note that you can use expert mode without being a true expert. Just print the menus, and keep them by your keyboard while moving around. Some users draw 'road maps' of the services to navigate more quickly. Others automate the process using automatic communications scripts.
Tailoring your services ———————————- The need to tailor the online service's prompts and menus differs considerably from user to user, as they use all kinds of computers for communication. Some screens are large. Other screens can only display a few lines of text at a time. One user of my BBS even used a Hewlett Packard pocket calculator with a tiny, tiny screen. Many online services allow you to tailor the way information is sent to you. If you are satisfied with how things are, skip the next couple of pages and read from "Connecting the first time." If curious of your options, read on for a somewhat brief and technical overview. Besides a selection of various types of menus, you can usually also set the following preferences:
* What menu is to be the first, when you access the service?
* The first menu is to be a tailored menu containing your
favorite offerings, and nothing else.
* Colors, graphics, or no colors/graphics.
* Preferred file transfer protocol (to avoid a question each
time you want to transfer a file).
* Desired terminal emulator, like TTY, VT-100 or VT-52.
* CAPITAL LETTERS or Mixed Case.
* What ASCII character code to use for the DELETE function.
* How many spaces to insert when expanding TABs in your mail.
* Number of lines per screen (for example, 24 on an IBM PC, or
eight on a TRS-80 Model 100. Whether scrolling is to pause
after each screenful or not.)
* Number of characters per line (for example, 80 lines on a PC,
or 40 on a TRS-80 Model 100.
* If the linefeed character is to be sent or not.
* If blank lines are to be sent.
* Whether the service is to check when you log on to see if
you're using special software (as in 'Inquire for VIDTEX' on
CompuServe).
* The use of 'echo'. Is the service to return the characters
that you enter on your keyboard?
* Use of delay when sending linefeeds. (Useful if capturing
text to a dumb printing terminal. If text scrolls too fast
for the printer, you risk losing some of it.)
* Choice of prompt character, or prompt text string. This is
useful when communicating by script files. On CompuServe, I
have asked the system to add the BackSpace character (ASCII
character number 8) to the end of all forum prompts. Since
this character is rarely found in messages or other texts,
I can safely let scripts depend on this prompt character for
unattended communication.
Displaying information on the screen —————————————————— An 'A' is not an 'A' no matter what service you use. If you call Tocolo BBS in Japan (Tel.: +81-3-205-9315. 1200 bps, 8,N,1.) with a non-Japanese MS-DOS computer, chances are that the welcome text will look like this:
*———————————————————————————————* * D0:[ BBS (<^/9] 7.8) * * 62>] =3 —-> 3 (@^2K.3 03-205-9315) * * 3]V3 <^6] —-> 24 <^6] 6D^3 C=D A-3 * * (Wed 9:00-17:00 J R]C I @R 5T=P C^=) * *———————————————————————————————*
You'll need a Japanese ROM (Read-Only Memory) in your computer, a special graphics program, or a Japanese language operating system to have the Kanji characters displayed properly on your screen. The characters that you see on your computer's screen are based on a code. The computer finds the characters to display from a table built into your system's hardware or software. Most personal computers can be preset to use various tables depending on your needs. When communicating in English, you may want it to show Latin characters. When writing in Japanese, you may want it to display Kanji characters. Those writing in Norwegian, often want to use the special Scandinavian characters . If the first two of these Nordic characters read like the symbols for Yen and Cent, you're not set up for Scandinavian characters. If your system is set up correctly, they should look like an 'o' and an 'O' overwritten by a '/'. The code telling your computer what to display, may also contain information about where to put characters and what colors to use. Thus, an online service may order your computer to display a given character in column 10 on line 2, and to print it in blinking red color. If you're not set up correctly, these codes may show as garbage on your screen rather than as a colorful character in a given position. If you call a service set to display text in VT-52 format, and your communications program is set accordingly, then you should be OK. VT-52 is a setup that makes a program or a service 'behave' like a DEC VT-52 terminal. Being able to view VT-52 coded text on your screen, does not guarantee that you can capture this 'picture' to a file on your disk. Your communications program may need special features to do that. If these features are missing, you are in for a surprise. The text in your capture file may look like in this example (it came on a single, long line on my computer):
—————————————————————————————————— *H*J*Y"4 Innhold*Y%> *Y&4Emneoversikt 1 Brukerprofil 6*Y)4Stikkord A-] 2 Bruker- *Y*4 veiledning 7*Y,4Informasjons- *Y- 4leverand|rer A-] 3 Teledatanytt*Y.W 8*Y04Personlig indeks 4*Y2H *Y34Meldingstjenesten 5 Avslutte 9*Y64 ]pningsside *00# *Y 4TELEDATA 880823-1538*Y74 NTA01-00a*Y74 *Y74*Y74