------------------------------------------------------------------------ Computer-Mediated Communication Practicum John December Lesson 2: Mosaic = a Window into Cyberspace 31 Jan 94 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Introduction In the early 1990s, the high-energy physics community working at CERN in Geneva Switzerland developed a system for sharing information. Called the World Wide Web (WWW), this system used hypertext in the form of line-mode ASCII text. WWW gave researchers at remote sites a way to share and link information. Released to the high-energy physics community in late 1991/early 1992, the use of WWW spread quickly. In September 1993, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) released version 2.0 of Mosaic, an X Window System browser for WWW. By October 1993, there were 500 known servers using the hypertext transfer protocol (WWW's protocol). On December 8, 1993, John Markoff of New York Times reported on Mosaic on the front page of the business section and, at Internet World '93 in New York City, O'Reilly & Associates announced "Internet-in-a-Box," a personal-computer based application and telecommunications package that will bring WWW and Mosaic into homes. During 1993, WWW traffic on the NSF backbone increased immensely--from a monthly total in January of 122 MB (out of a 5,159,543 MB total) to 225,443 MB in December (out of a 10,185,121 MB total). This was a 184,600% increase in WWW traffic (or going from 0.00236455% of total traffic to 2.5% of total traffic). I think Mosaic is the "killer ap" of the Internet--I think Mosaic will popularize the use of the Internet much as Lotus popularized the use of personal computers (or Mosaic may kill the Internet! :) ). Mosaic integrates network information retrieval and communication tools using a graphical user interface. It makes it easy for users to access the WWW as well as gopher, ftp, and other network information tools. Advances in the Mosaic interface are making possible new forms of hyptertext communication and expression. Core Skills: you will learn how to o Use Mosaic o Work from a Course Web Page as a launching point for exploring the Internet Key concepts to understand o Mosaic is an interface that takes care of the details of many information retrieval tasks for you. o A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the "call number" for a resource on the Internet. You can use a URL in Mosaic to obtain that resource. o Like the z-mail graphical user interface, Mosaic works only on X workstations (you cannot use it from home dialup). (You can obtain (for free from NCSA) Mosaic for MS Windows, Macintosh or Amiga; I would recommend this to advanced students.) Setup for lesson: 1. Login to a Unix workstation using your userid and password. 2. Bring up a Unix window. 3. Ready the sound and motion graphics players: At the Unix prompt, enter these commands (sorry about this, but the sound and graphics players aren't automatically hooked up for you): (use cut and paste methods to do this.) ln -s ~leehm/public/bin/sun4c_411/mpeg_play ~/bin/mpeg_play echo "cat \$1 > /dev/audio" > ~/bin/showaudio chmod +x ~/bin/showaudio 4. Bring up Mosaic: At the Unix prompt, enter setup mosaic-2.0 mosaic & Note: the default version of Mosaic on the RCS is 1.0, so you need to explicitly setup mosaic-2.0. Lesson: 1. Explore the Mosaic graphical interface by using the left mouse button and clicking on items you see on the Mosaic screen. 2. Using the "Navigate" option from the top menu bar, select "Internet Resources Meta-Index" or "Internet Starting Points" and follow your whims to explore. 3. After you have explored, bring up this course's web page: a. Click the left mouse on the "Open..." button on the bottom of Mosaic (fifth one in from the left). b. In the URL To Open: box, type this exactly: file:///afs/rpi.edu/dept/llc/cmc/web/course.html c. Click on the "Open" button in the dialogue box (the window on which you entered the URL). 4. Save this URL in your hotlist: a. Click on the "Navigate" option on title bar. b. Click on "Add Current To Hotlist" 5. You can bring up your hotlist: a. Click on the "Navigate" option on title bar. b. Click on "Hotlist..." 6. Explore the Internet Web Page. Notes: Click on the spinning globe to stop a network retrieval task. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Extras" (Optional): o Write your own Web Page! ************************************************************************ HOMEWORK 2: ======================================================================== During the course of this week, follow your interests in the Web, collect a set of links that you find fascinating (or troubling), and describe what you find (50 lines or so.) Turn in this homework by posting to the course discussion list no later than class time next week. In your writeup, you might include the URL codes so that others might access what you found. ************************************************************************ Comments: In the next lesson, we'll look in detail at many other forums for communication and information, examining in detail my Internet Tools Summary. ........................................................................ Copyright (c) 1994 John December