The Cole Digest, February 7, 1996

Christopher Ryan of the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina is explaining how to build a simple World-Wide Web research system for your newsroom; in this installment he tells what you need to build this sort of custom "front-end" for the Internet:

Hardware: A stand-alone Windows PC, preferably at least a '486-based system, or virtually any Macintosh system running at least System 7 and 8mb of RAM, with a 14.4 Kbps (or faster) modem and an ordinary Touch-Tone telephone line.

Internet account: Get a PPP or serial line interface protocol (SLIP) account from a commercial Internet access company or university. Go with the PPP account if you have a choice. These typically cost $20 to $40 a month for 40 to 50 hours of connect time. There may also be a setup fee of about $50.

To find a local Internet access company, browse through the ads in your local computer newspaper or newsletter (these days, even the Yellow Pages in some cities will have a listing). Internet access is a booming business now, so almost certainly you'll find several of these companies in your area. If you have access to the Web already and would like to compare your Internet provider to others in your region, check out http://thelist.com.

There are also national Internet access companies, such as Netcom, that offer accounts through 800 numbers. They advertise in most of the national computer magazines.

Network software: You will need software to interpret the language of the Internet (called TCP/IP) into something that a PC or Mac can understand. This software also establishes and maintains the Internet connection.

Fortunately, there are lots of ways to get this software. Here are a few:

*The easiest solution is to buy a commercial TCP/IP package, such as NetManage Inc.'s Internet Chameleon for Windows or Spry Inc.'s Internet In a Box. These packages cost $100 to $200, but are simple to install and are quite robust.

*Operating systems such as IBM's OS/2 Warp, Apple's System 7.5 and Microsoft's Windows 95 have this Internet software built in.

*The cheapest route is to purchase one of the numerous Internet books that include low-end SLIP/PPP software. Several books, for example, contain a stripped-down version of NetManage's Internet Chameleon package called the Chameleon Sampler. The Mac books have MacTCP (you need at least version 2.0.4).

*A well-regarded shareware product for Windows called Trumpet Winsock is available on the Internet at the address ftp://ftp.utas.edu.au in the /pc/trumpet/winsock directory. The registration fee is $20.

*Finally, many commercial SLIP/PPP Internet access companies offer network software as part of their setup fee. Be sure to ask about this.

Note that you will have to configure the network software to work with your PPP or SLIP account. This is essentially a fill-in-the-blank process. You will get a form from your Internet access company listing your Internet address and other information about your SLIP/PPP account.

Enter this information into the network software. (Caution -- this may be the most daunting part of this exercise.)

Client software: Once you have the TCP/IP network software in place, you can run client Internet software on your computer. This software connects with server computers elsewhere on the Internet and transmits commands to the server systems.

The most vital piece of client software is a World-Wide Web browser program, such as Netscape Navigator or NCSA Mosaic. These programs display hypertext markup language (HTML) documents as formatted pages on your computer screen and manage the connections between hypertext documents across the Internet.

In other words, they let you click on a phrase like "U.S. House of Representatives" in a hypertext document and automatically connect to the House's computer system.

Netscape Navigator is available on the Internet at the address http://home.netscape.com. The software is free for educational use and costs $39 for individual or commercial use.

Mosaic is available on the Internet at the address ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in the /Mosaic directory. It also is free.

If you don't like these, there are literally dozens of other browser programs available.

Note that you will need to tell your World-Wide Web browser program which types of files should start the viewer programs running. This is almost automatic with Netscape Navigator. But with Mosaic, you will have to edit a setup file called mosaic.ini. Fortunately, Mosaic's instructions cover this pretty well.

Congratulations! All of the necessary software is installed and configured. (Whew!)

Next week, the fun part: writing your own custom hypertext documents for your newsroom.

Onward.

\dmc

[THE COLE DIGEST is written by consultant David M. Cole, editor and publisher of the industry newsletter THE COLE PAPERS. The DIGEST is made available to PressLink subscribers every Wednesday at no extra charge. Send comments by e-mail to cole@plink.geis.com. The COLE DIGEST is the property of The Cole Group, a California sole proprietorship. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of The Cole Group is prohibited. Copyright (C) 1996, The Cole Group. Opinions expressed are those of The Cole Group, unless otherwise noted.

[THE COLE PAPERS is a monthly newsletter devoting itself to technology, journalism and publishing. Subscriptions are $139 for 12 issues ($159 outside the U.S.). MasterCard, Visa and American Express cards are accepted. For more information, e-mail COLE, call (415) 673-2424, fax (415) 673-2449 or write The Cole Group, 2590 Greenwich St., Ste. 9, San Francisco USA 94123-3333.]