Re: FTP for other harp stuff...

[Patrick Hester <ph@xxxxxxxxxx>]

HarpSPAH@xxxxxxx writes:
>
>Hey Chris,
>When you put this gopher stuff in the FTP, whatever that is, what will we
>need to access it?  Some of us are just simple folk sending and receiving
>E-mail through Online America, etc. and will want to know what we will need
>to get to all that good stuff.

AOL, Compu$erve and similar services will NOT get you FTP access. They
provide email and access to their download libraries. You do not get any
direct internet hookup. You can't FTP, rlogin, web surf or finger. You
can only read mail and download from their archives. To make files
available to users of these services, the files must be uploaded to the
particular service's libraries.

Another possibility is a binaries mailing list or news group. Files can
be encoded and mailed as ascii. This is VERY HIGH VOLUME and should NOT
happen here on Harp-L. Most systems won't have room for such a group.

With an FTP site you can get what you want when you want it, but you
gotta have direct internet access over SLIP or PPP and that aint cheap.

My advice is this: When you aren't working your regular gig playing
harp in blues bars, start visiting nerd hangouts like schools and
offices. Watch professional geeks at work and note their style.
Watch old hacker videos like War Games, Tron and Max Headroom.
Always carry around a modem in case you get a chance to plug in.
Practice your mouse and keyboard techniques whenever you can. I know
lots of cyberdudes who got their start this way, and it can work
for you too. Most of all, don't give up. Keep at it and one day you
will be surfing like a virtual kahuna.

                 / /
          _______L_L_______
        _/                 \_
      _/      D B - 2 5      \_   "Don't start my data transfer
     /_________________________\   I'll dump every byte I know"
    ( o o o o o o o o o o o o o )           - SVr2
     \_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_/