Microcomputers and Workstations

Ask Dr. Micro: How can I find answers to computer questions through the Internet?

"Ask Dr. Micro" provides answers to workstation and microcomputer questions of general interest. Readers can submit questions by sending electronic mail to drmicro@garnet.berkeley.edu, by calling 642-8899, or by visiting the consulting office in 264 Evans Hall. The Workstation Consulting staff will reply to questions as quickly as possible. Answers to common questions are available through the Workstation Support Services World-Wide Web server (http://wss-www.berkeley.edu/). Dr. Micro had help from Seth Novogrodsky in answering this question.

Dear Dr. Micro: Whenever I have a problem with my computer, I know that I can ask you for help, but I would like to be able to find these answers for myself. I am aware that there are various resources available through the network, but I am not sure what they are or how to use them. Do you have any advice for me? --Inquisitive

Dear Inquisitive: Dr. Micro is very glad you asked this question. Many resources are available through the campus network and the Internet that can help you solve problems and learn more about your computer and software. Dr. Micro uses these resources regularly, and you can too.

There are a number of advantages to using these resources. You may be able to find answers to your questions more quickly, and you may be able to get answers to questions that Dr. Micro cannot answer; for example, Dr. Micro is unable to provide support for commercial application programs or products that Dr. Micro has no experience with.

The World-Wide Web

The World-Wide Web has become perhaps the most useful resource available through the Internet for finding answers to many types of questions. The Web is a worldwide information system organized as an interconnected web of associations; documents on the Web can contain "hypertext" links to other documents. You can activate a hypertext link by selecting a highlighted word, phrase, or graphic; activating the link will take you to another document, which can be located anywhere in the world on the Internet. (For a more detailed discussion of the Web, please see Ask Dr. Micro: What is the World-Wide Web and how do I get on it? in the September-October 1995 Berkeley Computing and Communications.)

Web sites on campus. There are a number of Web servers on campus that provide information useful for computer users. A good starting point for campus microcomputer and workstation users is the Workstation Support Services Web server (http://wss-www.berkeley.edu/), which is maintained by Dr. Micro's colleagues in the Workstation Software Support Group (WSSG). Resources that you can easily access through this Web server include the following:

• "Help with computers" page (http://wss-www.berkeley.edu/help.html), which includes links to information on getting started with computing on campus, links to frequently asked questions, information on campus computer consulting services, and other useful information.

• WSSG Software Distribution page (http://wss-www.berkeley.edu/softcat/), which includes general information about the distribution of site-licensed and other software as well as the Software Catalog, which contains a listing of software distributed to the campus by the Workstation Software Support Group, order forms for software, and information on software discount programs that the campus is participating in.

• The Berkeley Macintosh Support Web server (http://cobweb.berkeley.edu/), which contains frequently asked questions, links to Macintosh software, documentation, and a variety of information of interest to campus Macintosh users. This server is an excellent starting point for campus Macintosh users.

• The Berkeley PC/Windows Support Web server (http://depot.berkeley.edu/), which contains frequently asked questions, links to PC software, documentation, and a variety of information of interest to campus PC users. This server is an excellent starting point for campus PC users.

• The Berkeley UNIX Support page (http://wss-www.berkeley.edu/unix/), which contains frequently asked questions, information on obtaining UNIX software, documentation, and links to a variety of information of interest to campus users of UNIX workstations. This page is an excellent starting point for campus UNIX workstation users.

• The E-Mail & Internet page (http://wss-www.berkeley.edu/email.html), which provides links to information on the UCLink electronic mail service, the Berkeley Internet Kit (software for accessing the Internet remotely), and Internet service providers.

• A "Documentation and publications" page (http://wss-www.berkeley.edu/pubs.html), which contains links to local and off-campus computer-related documentation and periodicals

• The Scholar's Workstation Web server (http://www.tsw.berkeley.edu/), which contains price lists for hardware and software available at educational discounts from the campus computer store.

Other useful resources available through this site include the Workstation & Microcomputer Facilities Web page (http://wss-www.berkeley.edu/facility/), which provides news and information about the campus general-access microcomputer facilities; and information about the Workstation Hardware Support Group (http://wss-www.berkeley.edu/hardware.html), which offers warranty and post-warranty repair service for computers sold by The Scholar's Workstation.

Other useful sites on campus for computer users include the following:

• Information Systems and Technology (IST) home page (http://ist.berkeley.edu:5555/). IST is the central computing organization on campus, and it provides a variety of computing services to the campus community. Workstation Support Services is one of the departments in IST.

• IST Publications home page (http://istpub.berkeley.edu:4201/), which includes the Guide to Computing and Communications Resources, an excellent overview of computing services available on campus; the Berkeley Computing and Communications newsletter; and the IST Computer Course Schedule, which lists noncredit classes (both free and for a fee) on various computer-related topics. The Berkeley Computing and Communications site is particularly useful for finding answers to questions about computing on campus. All issues dating back to November-December 1991 are available, including all the "Ask Dr. Micro" columns. You can search (see http://istpub.berkeley.edu:4201/bcc/search.html) for articles on specific topics by typing in keywords or phrases.

• The Information Technology Architecture (ITA) home page (http://ita.berkeley.edu/ita), which contains pointers to campus computing and communications information, from standards such as the Recommended PC Configuration (http://ita.berkeley.edu/ita/components/pc.html) to Acronyms (http://ita.berkeley.edu/ita/acronyms.html) that one encounters in the campus information environment.

• Data Communication and Network Services (DCNS) home page (http://www.berkeley.edu/dcns/). DCNS is the IST department that designs and maintains the campus network, runs the campus general-access (and other) modems, and provides a variety of other network services. This Web page provides detailed information about DCNS services, a glossary of networking terms, and other useful information.

Off-campus Web sites. There is a tremendous amount of computer-related information available on sites throughout the World-Wide Web:

• Vendor sites. Many computer vendors--including Apple (http://www.apple.com/), IBM (http://www.ibm.com/), Dell (http://www.dell.com/), Digital Equipment Corporation (http://www.digital.com/), Sun Microsystems (http://www.sun.com/), and Hewlett-Packard (http://www.hp.com/)--and software vendors--including Claris (http://www.claris.com/), Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/), and Novell (http://www.novell.com/)--run Web servers that provide product specifications, troubleshooting information, and, in many cases, software updates. Some vendors have "knowledge bases," such as the Apple Tech Info Library (http://til.info.apple.com/til/til.html) and the Microsoft Technical Support Knowledge Base (http://www.microsoft.com/kb/), that allow you to search for information on specific problems. If you do not know whether a particular vendor you are interested in has a Web site, you can try entering an address of http://www.companyname.com/, where companyname is the name of the company you are interested in, or you can trying using one of the search engines described below.

• Search engines. Because there are so many Web sites all over the world containing vast amounts of information, a number of services on the Web have been created to allow users to search for specific information. With these services, you can type in keywords that describe the information you wish to find using your Web browser. The search service will send back a list of matches; you can then select these matches, which will take you to the appropriate sites. The home page for Netscape has a useful search page (http://home.netscape.com/home/internet-search.html/), which contains links to other search pages. Other useful search pages include the University of Geneva's W3 Search Engines page (http://cuiwww.unige.ch/meta-index.html, Web Search's search form page (http://www.web-search.com/simple.html), and WebCrawler (http://webcrawler.com/).

• Internet directories. Pretty much of all the Internet directories on the Web have sections on computing. These include Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/), WebCrawler Select (http://www.webcrawler.com/select/comput.new.html), and the WWW Virtual Library (http://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/bySubject/Computing/Overview.html).

• Computer magazines. Computer magazines have long been an excellent source of information, and now many computer magazines are available through the Web, often with the complete text of articles. Computer magazines available through the Web include BYTE (http://www.byte.com/), InfoWorld (http://www.infoworld.com/), MacUser (http://www.zdnet.com/macuser/), Macworld (http://www.macworld.com/), PC World (http://www.pcworld.com/), PC Magazine (http://www.pcmag.com/), and local publications such as MicroTimes (http://www.microtimes.com/) and Computer Currents (http://www.currents.net/). A useful list of computer magazines on the Web is available at http://library.microsoft.com/compmags.htm.

The MELVYL Computer Articles Database

As mentioned above, computer magazines can be an excellent source of information about computers and software. MELVYL, the systemwide University of California library catalog, contains a database of citations, abstracts, and the full text of many articles from more than 200 computer-related journals and magazines dating back to January 1, 1988. This database is particularly useful for finding reviews of products that you may be considering purchasing.

To use this database, simply connect to MELVYL using a terminal emulation program (such as NCSA Telnet or Host Presenter) and type comp at the MELVYL prompt. Once you have connected, you can type help for information on how to get started. You will need a password to access this database if you are connecting to MELVYL directly from the Annex terminal servers using the library or ucb-library service; you won't need a password if you are connecting from a computer on the campus network or if you are using the Home IP service. Faculty, students, and staff with proper identification may apply for a password at any UC Library Reference desk.

The Library regularly teaches free seminars on how to use MELVYL and access specific databases; for information, see the Teaching Library home page (http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/).

Usenet newsgroups

Usenet newsgroups are electronic forums for discussing different topics with other computer users and are excellent resources for finding answers to many computer-related questions. Newsgroups operate like bulletin boards; you "post" a message (an "article") and other users will respond, either by posting to the newsgroup or by sending you electronic mail. Because newsgroups often reach thousands of users, they can be a good place to find answers that are too obscure for Dr. Micro to be able to answer readily.

Newsgroups on computer-related topics. There are newsgroups on many computer-related topics. The more popular newsgroups often have regular postings containing lists of frequently asked questions (FAQs) and answers. These FAQs are updated regularly and are often extremely useful; you should read these FAQs before posting your question because your question may already have been answered. If you don't know in which newsgroup a particular FAQ may be found, the FAQs for a number of popular newsgroups are regularly posted to the newsgroup news.answers.

For Macintosh users, some of the more useful newsgroups include comp.sys.mac.system, comp.sys.mac.apps, comp.sys.mac.comm, and comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc.

Useful newsgroups for PC users include comp.os.ms-windows.apps.misc, comp.os.ms-windows.setup, comp.os.msdos.apps, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.comm, and comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc.

Newsgroups for UNIX users include comp.unix.admin, comp.unix.internals, comp.unix.shell, and comp.unix.questions; there are also newsgroups for specific versions of UNIX including comp.unix.aix, comp.unix.bsd.misc, comp.unix.osf.osf1, comp.unix.solaris, and comp.unix.ultrix.

The newsgroups listed so far just barely scratch the surface of what is available. There are also newsgroups devoted to specific applications (alt.aldus.pagemaker), specific types of applications (comp.sys.mac.databases), hardware from specific manufacturers (comp.sys.sun.hardware and comp.sys.hp.hardware), and peripheral equipment (comp.dcom.modems and comp.periphs.printers). In addition, there are local newsgroups specifically for campus computer users, including ucb.net.home-ip.discussion for users of the Home IP service, ucb.sysadmin for campus UNIX system administrators, and ucb.net.discussion for discussions related to the campus network. A complete list of all the newsgroups on the campus news server (agate.berkeley.edu) is available.

Newsreaders. To access newsgroups, you will need to use a program called a "newsreader". Many World-Wide Web browsers, such as Netscape Navigator, can function as a newsreader or call up a newsreader as a helper application. Note that if you use a Web browser as a newsreader, you will need to enter the name of the newsgroup in a form that will typically look like news:name.of.newsgroup. Newsreader programs, such as NewsWatcher for the Macintosh and FreeAgent for Windows, often offer more features and may be easier to use for accessing newsgroups than a Web browser. Many shared campus UNIX computers including Garnet, UCLink, UCLink2, UCLink3, and Violet, have the tin, rn, and trn newsreaders.

Usenet resources on the Web. The FAQ lists from Usenet newsgroups are available through a number of sites on the Web including http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/bngusenet/top.html and http://www.austin.unimelb.edu.au/faq.html. (Usenet FAQs are also available by anonymous FTP from sites including ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.answers and ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group. For information on FTP, see Ask Dr. Micro: What is FTP and how do I use it? in the September 1994 Berkeley Computing and Communications. Most Web browsers can obtain files by FTP.) Note that many of the Usenet FAQs have nothing to do with computers.

In addition, there are search engines on the Web that allow you to search through articles that have been posted to Usenet newsgroups. Deja News (http://www.dejanews.com/) is probably the best known of these services for searching Usenet articles, but a number of the general Web search engines, such as Infoseek (http://guide.infoseek.com/), HotBot (http://www.hotbot.com/), and Excite (http://www.excite.com/), can search Usenet articles.

Electronic mail assistance

In addition to the drmicro@garnet.berkeley.edu electronic mail address, there are other campus mailing addresses for specific types of questions and numerous specialized mailing lists on various computer-related topics.

Campus mailing addresses. A few of the other campus mailing addresses for specific types of questions are the following:

• accounts@garnet.berkeley.edu is the address to send questions about accounts on central shared computers and IST services.

• annex@nic.berkeley.edu is the address for reporting problems with the Annex terminal servers.

• caltec@garnet.berkeley.edu is the address to reach Workstation Hardware Support, which repairs products sold through The Scholar's Workstation and some other computer hardware and peripherals.

• consult@cmsa.berkeley.edu, consult@garnet.berkeley.edu, consult@socrates.berkeley.edu, consult@uclink.berkeley.edu, and consult@violet.bekeley.edu are the addresses to use for sending questions relating specifically to these shared campus computers.

• dcns@violet.berkeley.edu is the address for the Data Communication and Network Services help line.

• dialup@nic.berkeley.edu is an address for reporting dialup problems with the campus modems

• postmaster@nic.berkeley.edu provides assistance with electronic mail address problems.

• products@garnet.berkeley.edu provides information about the distribution of software distributed to the campus by WSSG.

• trouble@garnet.berkeley.edu is the address to report to the Trouble Desk problems with the campus network or the shared systems CMSA, Garnet, Socrates, UCLink, UCLink2, UCLink3, UCLink4, or Violet. (The preferred method for contacting the Trouble Desk is to call 642-4920.)

• tswinfo@garnet.berkeley.edu is the address to contact the campus computer store, The Scholar's Workstation.

Mailing lists. Mailing lists are similar to Usenet newsgroups except that you use your electronic mail program to send and receive messages instead of a newsreader. There are a number of mailing lists that have been set up specifically for campus user groups that consist of people who provide support for other campus computer users or who administer networks of computers. For information about these user groups, see User groups at the back of this issue.

In addition to mailing lists for those groups, there are many other lists on all varieties of computer-related topics (and non-computer-related topics as well). There are mailing lists devoted to Macintoshes, PCs, UNIX workstations, programming languages, and networking. Some of these lists are very specialized. The most comprehensive list of publicly accessible mailing lists is regularly posted as a multipart document to the Usenet newsgroup news.lists and is also available on the Web at http://www.NeoSoft.com:80/internet/paml/. Another useful resource for locating electronic mailing lists is the Liszt Searchable Directory of E-Mail Discussion Groups (http://www.liszt.com/).

For more information

The best way to learn about these resources and other resources available through the Internet is to start using them. "Surfing" the World-Wide Web is an excellent way to learn about what is available through the Internet.