Big Dummy's Guide To The Internet Part 27

Gophers actually let you perform some relatively sophisticated Boolean searches. For example, if you want to search only for files that contain the words "MS-DOS" and "Macintosh," you'd type

ms-dos and macintosh

(gophers are not case-sensitive) in the keyword field. Alternately, if you want to get a list of files that mention either "MS-DOS" or "Macintosh," you'd type

ms-dos or macintosh

8.2 BURROWING DEEPER

As fascinating as it can be to explore "gophers.p.a.ce," you might one day want to quickly retrieve some information or a file. Or you might grow tired of calling up endless menus to get to the one you want.

Fortunately, there are ways to make even gophers easier to use.

One is with archie's friend, veronica (it allegedly is an acronym, but don't believe that for a second), who does for gophers.p.a.ce what archie does for ftp sites.

In most gophers, you'll find veronica by selecting "Other gopher and information services" at the main menu and then "Searching through gophers.p.a.ce using veronica." Select this and you'll get something like this:

Internet Gopher Information Client v1.1

Search t.i.tles in Gophers.p.a.ce using veronica

--> 1. .

2. FAQ: Frequently-Asked Questions about veronica (1993/08/23).

3. How to compose veronica queries (NEW June 24) READ ME!!.

4. Search Gopher Directory t.i.tles at PSINet 5. Search Gopher Directory t.i.tles at SUNET 6. Search Gopher Directory t.i.tles at U. of Manitoba 7. Search Gopher Directory t.i.tles at University of Cologne 8. Search gophers.p.a.ce at PSINet 9. Search gophers.p.a.ce at SUNET 10. Search gophers.p.a.ce at U. of Manitoba 11. Search gophers.p.a.ce at University of Cologne

Press ? for Help, q to Quit, u to go up a menu Page: 1/1

A few choices there! First, the difference between searching directory t.i.tles and just plain ol' gophers.p.a.ce. If you already know the sort of directory you're looking for (say a directory containing MS-DOS programs), do a directory-t.i.tle search. But if you're not sure what kind of directory your information might be in, then do a general gophers.p.a.ce search. In general, it doesn't matter which of the particular veronicas you use -- they should all be able to produce the same results.

The reason there is more than one is because the Internet has become so popular that only one veronica (or one gopher or one of almost anything) would quickly be overwhelmed by all the information requests from around the world.

You can use veronica to search for almost anything. Want to find museums that might have online displays from their exhibits? Try searching for "museum." Looking for a copy of the Declaration of Independence? Try "declaration."

In many cases, your search will bring up a new gopher menu of choices to try.

Say you want to impress those guests coming over for dinner on Friday by cooking cherries flambe. If you were to call up veronica and type in "flambe" after calling up veronica, you would soon get a menu listing several flambe recipes, including one called "dessert flambe."

Put your cursor on that line of the menu and hit enter, and you'll find it's a menu for cherries flambe. Then hit your q key to quit, and gopher will ask you if you want to save the file in your home directory on your public-access site or whether you want to e-mail it somewhere.

As you can see, you can use veronica as an alternative to archie, which, because of the Internet's growing popularity, seems to take longer and longer to work.

In addition to archie and veronica, we now also have jugheads (no bettys yet, though). These work the same as veronicas, but their searches are limited to the specific gopher systems on which they reside.

If there are particular gopher resources you use frequently, there are a couple of ways to get to them even more directly.

One is to use gopher in a manner similar to the way you can use telnet. If you know a particular gopher's Internet address (often the same as its telnet or ftp address), you can connect to it directly, rather than going through menus. For example, say you want to use the gopher at info.umd.edu. If your public-access site has a gopher system installed, type this

gopher info.umd.edu

at your command prompt and you'll be connected.

But even that can get tedious if there are several gophers you use frequently. That's where bookmarks come in. Gophers let you create a list of your favorite gopher sites and even database queries. Then, instead of digging ever deeper into the gopher directory structure, you just call up your bookmark list and select the service you want.

To create a bookmark for a particular gopher site, first call up gopher. Then go through all the gopher menus until you get to the menu you want. Type a capital A. You'll be given a suggested name for the bookmark enty, which you can change if you want by backs.p.a.cing over the suggestion and typing in your own. When done, hit enter. Now, whenever you're in gophers.p.a.ce and want to zip back to that particular gopher service, just hit your V key (upper- or lower-case; in this instance, gopher doesn't care) anywhere within gopher. This will bring up a list of your bookmarks. Move to the one you want and hit enter, and you'll be connected.

Using a capital A is also good for saving particular database or veronica queries that you use frequently (for example, searching for news stories on a particular topic if your public-access site maintains an indexed archive of wire-service news).

Instead of a capital A, you can also hit a lower-case a. This will bring you to the particular line within a menu, rather than show you the entire menu.

If you ever want to delete a bookmark, hit V within gopher, select the item you want to get rid of, and then hit your D key.

One more hint: If you want to find the address of a particular gopher service, hit your = key after you've highlighted its entry in a gopher menu. You'll get back a couple of lines, most of which will be technicalese of no immediate value to most folks, but some of which will consist of the site's address.

8.3. GOPHER COMMANDS

a Add a line in a gopher menu to your bookmark list.

A Add an entire gopher menu or a database query to your bookmark list.

d Delete an entry from your bookmark list (you have to hit v first).

q Quit, or exit, a gopher. You'll be asked if you really want to.

Q Quit, or exit, a gopher without being asked if you're sure.

s Save a highlighted file to your home directory.

u Move back up a gopher menu structure

v View your bookmark list.

= Get information on the originating site of a gopher entry.

> Move ahead one screen in a gopher menu.

< move="" back="" one="" screen="" in="" a="" gopher="">

8.4. SOME INTERESTING GOPHERS

There are now hundreds of gopher sites around the world. What follows is a list of some of them. a.s.suming your site has a gopher "client" installed, you can reach them by typing

gopher sitename

at your command prompt. Can't find what you're looking for? Remember to use veronica to look up categories and topics!

AGRICULTURE

cyfer.esusda.gov More agricultural statistics and regulations most people will ever need.

usda.mannlib.cornell.edu More than 140 different types of agricultural data, most in Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet format.

ANIMALS

saimiri.primate.wisc.edu Information on primates and animal-welfare laws.

ARCHITECTURE

libra.arch.umich.edu Maintains online exhibits of a variety of architectural images.

ART