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After a week off from the internet, I was a bit rusty getting back to
the
mode of things. I had to begin another quest Dr. James assigned us.
This would be report three dealing with Gopher, which I later found out
is a text-based internet server that gives information on several queries
that I type out. I realize that this would be a grueling search because
there would not be any pictures or graphics on the pages. One advantage
I thought would be the shorter amount of time it would take since there
wouldnt be any graphic material the computer has to process. Dr. James
threw out so many different computer terms that I couldnt follow what he
was saying. I told myself that I would have to get on the computer
during lab and look for some of those words that he mentioned.
Dr. James gave us instructions as to how we would get to lynx. At first
I thought he meant links, which weve done in other reports to get to
other pages on the internet. I laughed at that silly mistake. When he
started to mention Veronica, somehow I knew it couldnt be links. It had
to be something else. What did Veronica have to do with links? During lab
I looked around at what others were doing. I finally had to ask someone
sitting next to me. He told me to type out lynx at the % prompt on my
UNIX account. I felt awkward at that moment, thinking how dumb of me to
think links. Well, they did sound the same to me. Of course, I didnt
tell my classmate that little foolish mistake then. I felt too
embarrassed to move on, so I got out of lynx which I also had trouble
doing since there were no buttons that said exit or something to prompt
me to get out. I went to the file and completely quit the telnet. I
opened another one to attempt another work Dr. James gave us. I had
enough of Gopher for that day.
Dr. James sent out an e-mail that gave instructions on using lynx on our
UNIX account. I was feeling more confident that day, so I decided to get
back on it and try it out. This time I think I would get somewhere.
These are the step-by-step instructions he gave which I followed:
1. Run lynx by typing lynx at the UHUNIX% prompt (it works
differently
at the www% prompt, I think). Look at the commands at the bottom of the
screen.
2. Type the letter "o" which should bring up the Options menu.
3. Then type the letter "u" to get to the user mode option.
4. The User mode option should be highlighted at this point. So
now you
should use the right arrow key to change the user mode to "ADVANCED".
5. Hit Enter to set the user Mode.
6. Type the letter "r" which will return you back to the WebBrowser
Mode.
Now you should be able to see the URL at the bottom of the field.
I was on the uhunix information page, and I used the arrow keys at the
right hand side to move around the page. The arrow pointing up allowed
me to scroll back up on the page. The left arrow took me back to the
previous page. I used the down arrow to scroll down the page which
flashed from link to link. The right arrow is similar to punching in the
"enter" key because it took me to the page of that link I was on. I had
scrolled down to Search and Explore the On-Line Universe and pressed
enter or the right arrow. There I found another page with more options.
I scrolled down again and clicked on Lycos (Carnegie Mellon University),
which was one of the choices under Searching the Net.
I had fallen into Lycos, Inc. Home Page so I scrolled down until I
was on
the line to type out the word Veronica for my search. I clicked enter
and waited and waited. There was nothing appeariong on the screen.
Finally I realized that I had to press enter again so it would shift to
Go Get It. I was given several options so I tried Veronica Index to all
Gopher Menus by Keyword. More options appeared so I randomly picked one
of the Gopher Directories. I was given a Gopher Menu which listed down a
bunch of interesting titles that I read through. All I kept getting when
I clicked on these were two choices. One was (FILE)Why this entry was
returned and (DIR)Titlenet. I decided to see what File was about and
found that it had been moved to the Titlenet. As I pressed on other
titles on the menu, I received the same status of FILE and DIR. At this
moment I was getting a liitle frustrated.
I was beginning to question why we had to do a search on Veronica when
the previous searches weve been doing on our database had already brought
on some success. Why did we have to use this text-only search engine? I
really didnt see the point to all this work. Where was it leading to?
This was all nonsense. There had to be some way of getting information
from this darn thing or Dr. James is just letting us go on a wild goose
chase....or shall I say gopher hunt.
Okay! I think I just needed to close my eyes for a few minutes to
relax.
Let me try this again!! I think Im getting somewhere with this new
attitude. I entered (DIR)TitleNet - An Inforonics Service for
Publishers. It gave me more list on directories and I figured why not
try one of the question marks for another query. I typed in
relationships again with the Keyword Cross. I found an interesting topic
entitled
Confronting Relationship Challenges, so I looked through the
information given about it. This addresses different issues involved in
relationships especially how people construct meaningful interpretations
of themselves, others, and the complexities of the relationship iteself.
This seemed like a good link for my database.
There were no addresses at the page I was on, so I went to the
previous pages and found one that began with gopher:// so I took that
down. It seemed as though the address wasn't complete so I tried to
click on it to see if there was more to it but it didn't move or do
anything. I'm hoping this will be a link for this paper if I write
the address down successfully. I'm not too sure how this gopher thing
works and I am a bit lost at this point. Where exactly will this
address lead me? Will it work like the http:// address that I place
links for in my other reports? I'll just have to find out later when
I load this up on my CSS account.
Using the left arrow key I went back to the Gopher Menu and used
Search Gopherspace. I typed out relationships to see if I would get
different entries from the Directory option I picked out earlier in my
search. I searched through several titles and some gave me responses
like: Alert! Unable to access document and Does not exist. Others
seemed unfinished. They were just listings or headings of a memo or
something. I was getting very restless at this point after looking
through so many different entries. I looked around the room to see if
any of my classmates were successful in their attempts. Some were
getting just as angry as I was. Others had a puzzled look on their
faces wondering if what they were doing was correct. I'm getting a
very bad headache with this Veronica search. I've been on this
computer so long now and I'm not getting any positive feedback. I
can't give up yet because I've actually only begun my search.
Browsing through more topics I found one entitled Psychology of
Relationships. These were notes between people on e-mail discussing
relationships. I read through some of the messages. I'm not sure if
it pertains to my database, but it seems interesting enough to make
the effort to get to it. I wrote down the address of this as well
just like how I found the first one I mentioned. Still at this point
I'm not sure if that is the address for it.
I tried a new word for searching through the Gopherspace. I typed
out confessions and got some hilarious topics like Confessions of a
Square Dancer, English Opium Eater, and Poetry Slammer. I figured I
needed to be specific on my search and tried what Dr. James kept
saying in class about Boolean searches that we could perform on
Veronica searches. I went back to the beginning and tried
'confessions and relationships'. I wasn't very successful in that
attempt because I just got garbage back. I had 0 out of 0 and a
statement saying Veronica will end soon. Still I tried other
Gopherspace searches and the output was "...your search returned
nothing..." What was I doing wrong?
I went back almost to the beginning of my Veronica search on Lycos
and clicked on number five which read Gopher Search at Veronica. I typed
out relationship and confessions once again and received nothing. At
this point I figured I will not be able to type out words in Boolean
manner.
I just typed out relationship instead and got something. There were so
many topics that appeared some were similar to what I got from my first
queries earlier. I realized this is a broad search and the only way I
could get anywhere was to read through the titles.
I would be able to
eliminate titles about the environment or some odd topic that definitely
would not pertain to my database on Confessions: Relationship Things.
As I clicked on one of the many possible selections I was taken to more
menus. I did the same thing by going to Keyword Cross. This time I
discovered something new. I was able to use Boolean searching. I typed
out relationships and confessions and there were several entries to
choose from. In the midst of my search, my connection was cut off. I
guess the computer is telling me to go to sleep now. I will have to
resume my search tomorrow at one of the labs on campus.
I think I've just about had it with Lynx searching. I will try
another search on Veronica using a different method. Earlier this week,
I found some help from my fellow classmates during lab session. They
were using the WS Gopher from the main menu to do their search. I think
this brand new day calls for a brand new style of searching. I'm feeling
more positive at this moment now that my body doesn't ache or my stomach
isn't growling. I'd better get on with this search before I get restless
once again. Well here goes my search on WS Gopher.
I clicked on the little gopher icon in the Communications window and
landed on another menu. I selected Other
Gopher and Information Servers. Then I chose
Search
Gopherspace Using Veronica. I realized
most of the choices look exactly like those in my Lycos search via Lynx.
I hope this isn't going to be another dead end search. I chose one from
the menu with a magnifying glass picture beside it
Search
(veronica) via PSINet.
Gopherspace . I guess it means a search or probing through something.
I typed out relationship things for my search and was disappointed to see
the words "too many connections...try again soon". I pressed search once
again and the output was nothing returned. Okay. there has to be
something in here for me. I tried all kinds of words in different orders
like "relationship and confessions" and "relationship confessions". I
thought it was the "and" that was not giving me any output so I tried all
kinds of combinations with these two words. Still it said nothing
returned. I decided why not go for it all and I typed out relationship,
confessions, friendship, family. I wasn't sure if it would read all
these words including the comma but at this point I was willing to try
anything.
Wow! I actually got something back other than a blank page. I read
throught he titles and most of them were family issues. There was
usually an error that occurs everytime I click on it. At the very end it
said there were about 6,000 or so entries left for my searches but I
didn't know how to retrieve them. I kept pressing enter but I still
didn't get anything. On problem with this WS Gopher search is that you
always need the mouse to exit a screen. The arrow keys aren't helpful in
this method. I spend a lot of time playimg with the mouse because it is
difficult to get it to the close option. Anyone using the computers in
school will encounter this problem. I think there's some loose
connectionm with the mouse. It is such a hassle!
I tried combinations of words again. Finally I settled just on
"friendships" and found an amazing story entitled Special
Friendships Are
By-Products of S.O. Volunteer Duty. This is a story about two men who
volunteer at the Yale-hosted Special Olympics event. They immediately
develop a bond between each other and experience a whole day of laughter
and fun. What came out of this day other than the goodness of
volunteeering is a lifetime friendship between the two men. I was greatly
moved by this story.
I want a link to this article but I've already
asked for help and no one can help me here at the clic lab. The guy
helping me spent a good ten minutes trying to figure out how we could get
the URL address for gopher. He clicked on the bookmarks section but
wasn't very successful. He told me after several attempts that there was
no way of getting to it. I was very disappointed in him. I thought these
people working at the computer lab were suppose to know everything we ask
them. I'm sure there was a way to get the address.
Someone...anyone...I'm in dire need of help!!
I'm definitely lost. My whole gopher screen is
gone now. I don't know what that guy did to it. I guess it was my
fault for letting him touch my keyboard. That's a no-no with Dr.
James. Well, he was trying to figure out the address so I couldn't
actually tell him to let me do the typing. He might think I
knew better than he did. I have to go
back to the beginning to get back on my gopher search again.
I went through the same process I described earlier with WS Gopher. I
was still worried about how I was going to figure out the URL address so
I can place a link for this report to those great stories I found. I
clicked through several entries and finally something told me to try all
the choices at the top. I went to the file menu and read through the
choices. One was Info on the Item, so I clicked on that and what do you
know....I was floating on cloud nine. I actually figured this out all by
myself. I found the URL address for my stories. I was overly joyful at
this discovery. Wow! I thought I was better than that computer guy who
tried to help me. Here I was a little psych major who figured out
something that computer whiz wasn't able to. Oh boy! I think I'm letting
this get to me. Let me enjoy this excitement for a while until I come
across another obstacle.
I found my way back to the list of topics for my search on
friendships. I'm finding many interesting topics for my database. This
is looking really good. I am so glad to finally be getting positive
feedback from this gopher search. One search I am looking at right now is
called
Best Relationships Are Friendships. This is an article written by Darren
Willaiams. This is like a coming of age except of course he's in his
early twenties, understanding the true meaning of friendship. The
importance of friendship as a relationship becomes even more meaningful as
our way of thinking matures with age.
That ends the list of topics for friendship so I decided to try
relationships once again using this search. Oh goodness! Another endless
list of titles for me to read through. My eyes are getting crossed and my
shoulders ache. I still have a few more links to make. I'm getting very
irritated with this tedious task of having to use the mouse to constantly
exit out of the screen and go back to the previous one. It takes so much
time. I get so disappointed especially when I go through all that
trouble of waiting for a connection and all I get is error or connection
denied or some other junk that appears on my screen.
I feel like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character. All my troubles go away
so quickly and I'm in an elated mood whenever I strike something worth
reading and taking down for a link. Then suddenly when I'm through with
writing all the information down. My happy personality goes away as
quickly as it came. I feel so frustrated and begin banging on the keys
and talking to myself asking...why? why? I continue with my search
aimlessly clicking through the selection of topics.
After clicking through one topic, I was taken to another menu of topics
actually dates that I could choose from. I clicked on all three
of them and found the February issue pertaining to the subject of my
database. It was an article entitled Why are Gopher Addresses so Long...
I just got through writing the URL address for one article
I found and I wonder why they go through so much trouble
tagging it with a long address. Gopher addresses aren't as
short and sweet as those in http. It's more likely for a user
to make a mistake somewhere in typing out the address. Why did
they make it so long? I have to slowly check if I punched in
the correct keys making my work all the more tedious and
boring.
Relationships
are Like Trees is one of the many links that has this lengthy
address. I get frustrated after typing the whole thing out and then the
darn thing doesn't work.
I could just kick myself right now. I just realized an easier way to
transfer my addresses without any worries of typing out the wrong
address. All I needed to do was copy and paste. Stupid me!! Here I was
the whole time trying to write out a long one (just look at the view
source of these links I made and you'll just be amazed at the length of
the address). I had to trace back to my searches and do this. Although
it took more time, my work was more precise and the links finally
worked. Yeah!!!
I didn't particularly enjoy this search on Gopher. There were no
pictures to enjoy and the searching seemed so complex. I also had a very
difficult time working out the links I got through Lynx. I went back to
delete those because I can't find a way to make them work. That is why I
don't have links at the beginning of my report. I was actually
overwhelmed by the different links each page offered that I had fallen
into. I'm just glad I finally finished this report. I don't think I
will choose to ever search on Gopher in the future. I've mentioned
earlier about the advantage of it taking less time to connect than going
through searches on Netscape. However, there is usually less output from
the computer which means greater disappointment and frustration.Back to the Top
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My Instructor's Home Page Dr. James