by Jeff Carrell, E-Mail Liaison
reprinted from Signals June 1995 (IEEE FtWorth Section Newsletter)
So far, the last three articles I've written cover all basics of how, who and with what to get Internet access. Now let's back up a bit and discuss why you would even want to get access to the 'Net.
Why and What:
Why do you send e-mail? What do you use Internet access for? What else can you do? These questions have numerous replies, some easy, and most not so easy.
First I'd like to pass on information gathered from some of our Section's members, sharing a little bit of what they use Internet access for. Remember, we have people from all walks of life, working in just about every industry available, therefore having needs that are very different. One member is a student who needs access to research papers from many different sources. Another member uses his own access for company business, since the company does not have any access available. Yet another member has access at work, but also does research on his favorite hobby (non-work hours of course :-) Some members use 'Net access everyday for business purposes. My company has locations all over the world, therefore we use the 'Net for communications on a daily basis.
Other reasons/needs:
One member has family overseas and wants to communicate via e-mail. Not only can he save a bit on postage, but the time delay in information exchange is greatly reduced. He has e-mail access at work, his brother has SprintMail and his parents have Compuserve. Since all of these systems can intercommunicate, he can simply draft his letter, address it to his brother and parents and hit the "send" key and wait for their replies.
Some *cool* WWW sites:
http://www.ieee.org/ IEEE home page
http://www.ibm.com/ IBM home page
http://www.microsoft.com/ Microsoft home page
http://www.ziff.com/ Ziff-Davis home page (all their magazines)
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/DataSources/Archives/RFC_sites.html RFC (Request For Comments) listing
http://www.utdallas.edu:80/DFW/dfw-www.html A *great* listing of many systems available in the DFW
metroplex area
http://www.metronet.com/ Texas Metronet Inc. home page
http://www.pic.net/ Pic Net home page
http://www.onramp.net/ OnRamp Technologies home page
http://www.connect.net/ Connect's home page
http://www.dfw.net/ DFW's home page
I plan to start listing WWW sites in my column each month, so if you have a *cool* WWW site that you think others would like, plz e-mail me the info.
Receiving e-mail from your e-mail guy:
I am currently collecting every e-mail id I can get for FTW-Section members so plz send me an e-mail. I receive all kinds of information from IEEE-HDQ that each member may have an interest in. When I get these emails, I forward them on. So, if your not getting anything from me, I don't know who you are. (If you do not wish or cannot receive this info, plz send me an e-mail to that effect, and I'll remove your id from my distribution list.)
IEEE e-mail alias:
Did you know that with your IEEE membership you can get a personalized IEEE address? It is so cool to advertise to your peers, colleagues and strangers, that *you* are an IEEE member. It costs you nothing extra and is very easy to obtain. The other big benefit, by having this as your alias address, you publish one id for the world to send you e-mail to, then even if you change companies, access providers, etc., you don't have to notify the world about that change. Just send the change info to IEEE-HDQ.
What happens: 1) you get an alias ID, 2) the alias basically forwards any e-mail to your real system, 3) you reply to e-mail as normal, 4) you get your emails just about as fast as before. I have been using mine for five months now, and I can do almost instantaneous emails with other folks without any delays.
So you ask, "Jeff how do I get this great thing?" Well I say, "follow these simple steps and then you too can proudly tell the world that you are an IEEE member (and therefore know *exactly* what you are talking about)".
Send an e-mail message to "aliases@ieee.org" containing the following information and using separate lines for each item:
Send any future changes to "alias.update@ieee.org".
You will be sent a reply e-mail containing your alias id. The format is generally first intial.last name at ieee.org (ex. j.carrell@ieee.org)
Back issues of my articles:
Today, this is not an easy task (although it should be, sometimes all the technology just doesn't make up for lack of budget ;-) Most of my writing is done in MSWord and MSExcel (Windows). So if you want the files, you have to be able to either read them directly or convert from these formats. Soon I hope to have a way that you can download them, but that will be in the future. If all else fails, I can either fax or snail-mail them to you. If you would like any back issues, just contact me (as some already have).
Information from you:
I collect info, all kinds of info (my wife says I'm a packrat). So everyone who can, send me a quick e-mail telling me what you do, what you use e-mail (or Internet access) for, and anything else you feel important. When sending me info, also include anything related to engineers, engineering, services or products for engineers, anything that we (IEEE) members might find useful. Remember, I can't see or hear about everything, but collectively, we should know about everything! Also, what do you me to talk about? I have received a few suggestions (Bob-here's yours on WWW sites!) and will incorporate them as best I can.
In closing, I'm just a clearing house for IEEE information for the FTW-Section. Any info I get, I pass on. Any info you get that could of interest to other members, send it to me I'll get it out to the rest of us.
Contact me at: