- 2001.10.19
Email, the Internet, and newsgroups began for me - as it did for
many other people - in about 1994 with one central application.
There were a number of them available; America Online, eWorld,
Prodigy, and CompuServe were among the most popular. We signed up
for America Online and received its benefits. Instant messages,
email, newsgroups, FTP, and, of course, the Internet.
Back then you could access AOL with a Macintosh Plus and 4 MB of RAM. I
remember downloading software and screen savers by FTP. AOL
provided pretty much direct access to FTP, and you could download
software updates and shareware/freeware right in the AOL
application. If you downloaded the optional browser, you could have
access to the Internet with AOL and look up almost anything you
could think of.
The Internet has changed a lot since 1995, some for the better,
some for the worse. In the mid 90s, most of the Internet was
text-based, occasionally containing a few images. Right now, it is
almost impossible to find a site without 5 or 6 images. Many sites
use Java, Shockwave, and Flash animation, which greatly slows down
the Internet - especially for those who don't have high speed
Internet access or use an older computer. I prefer a good solid
site with text and few pictures - no Flash, Java, or other things
to slow your browsing experience down.
The latest version of AOL requires a Power Macintosh with Mac OS
7.5.5 and at least 16 MB of RAM (32 MB for OS 8.5). Many of the
other ISPs are gone or have updated their programs so that they are
completely different from how they used to be. A good example of
this is CompuServe. These days, it is just like AOL in appearance
and functions - in fact, it is owned by AOL.
AOL offers much more than it used to. You can now get news,
movie clips, audio clips, weather, and much more.
You can also do the same from your Web browser. The QuickTime Web site is a
good place to go for movie trailers. You can get news from the Apple start page. If tech news
is what you're after, TechNN
is a great place for that. Weather can be obtained from the Weather Channel website. Search
engines have been much improved. With Google, you can search for images,
text, or browse the Web by category.
It used to be somewhat hard to find things on the Internet (I
might look up "dog" and get something written by a 10 year old
telling the world why she loves her dog so much), but these days it
is hard not to find what you are looking for. (In many search
engines, you can omit things from the results. If I wanted
information about a dog, I could type in "girl" in the "words to
omit" box, and it would only display those things that did not
contain that word.) With all of the new technologies for searching,
there is almost no way you can miss what you want to find.
Newsgroups can now be found both on
the Internet and in Entourage or Outlook Express. There is a
newsgroup for almost any topic that you might think of, from
Macintosh computers to antique porcelain.
You can send and receive instant messages with the AOL Instant
Messenger (AIM) program, talk to your online buddies with your
microphone, and send files back and forth through AIM. You can also
change color, font, and style of the text. None of that was
possible in AOL 2.7.
FTP is still around and very useful. With an FTP client like
Fetch (yes, it's still around - and for Mac OS X, too), you
can download some great shareware and freeware applications. You
can still do it in AOL by typing "FTP" in the keyword box.
These days the Internet is more than an online encyclopedia, and
you no longer need an "all in one" ISP to experience all of the
things the Internet can offer. You can now do your banking online,
buy books online (Amazon.com),
bid on online auctions (eBay),
and more. However, you do have to be careful. Don't give out
private information, such as credit card numbers, your address, and
your telephone number, unless it's a secure site and you trust it
with your personal information.
Next week: what to do if you aren't getting the Internet
performance you want.
