COMversations returns with more tips and tricks to help you through CyberSpaceHi there, and welcome to COMversations ’96! It’s been a year since the last COMversations episode hit the pages of PC Quest, and a lot has happened since we last met.

For those who came in late….

COMversations first appeared in January 1993 issue of PC Quest. Those were “the dark ages” when a modem was considered a white elephant in India. Until December 1994, this column attempted to introduce readers to new things in the field of datacommunication, as well as give them helpful tips and tricks to make them more productive online.

There was no COMversations in 1995 for the simple reason that nothing new was happening on the Indian Datacommunication scene.

Well, things have changed. In August of 1995, India “got” the Internet (whether is really did is debatable – in fact, we shall debate it in the future). Many of us spend huge amounts of time “surfing the net” (a term I dislike intensely), hopping aimlessly from place to place in the search of Electronic Nirvana.

And hence, COMversations is back!

Let’s get on with it

Getting an Internet account

A year ago, getting onto the Internet from India was a task best left to magicians or millionaires. These days, the task is as trivial as hopping across to the nearest VSNL office and paying them Rs.6,000 for an account.

But hold everything – VSNL has so many types of accounts! Which one should you choose?

The account types fall into two basic categories : “Shell Accounts” and “TCP/IP Accounts”. (I’ll be discussing them in detail a little later).

Shell accounts cost Rs.5,000 (plus Rs.1,000 registration charges). The subscription amount covers 250 hours of access.

TCP/IP accounts cost Rs.15,000 (plus Rs.1,000 registration charges). Again, the subscription amount covers 250 hours of access.

Within each category, VSNL provides a number of classes (like in the Government, where one is classified as an employee belonging to Class 1, 2, 3….). All the classes provide exactly the same content – i.e. the quantity and quality of services offered are the same. What changes is the price tag.

If you sign up as an individual, Shell and TCP/IP accounts cost you Rs.5,000 and Rs.15,000 respectively. If you sign up as a company, you pay Rs.25,000 for either, with no additional benefits.

Since VSNL is violating MRTP rules (charging differentially for the same quality and quantity of service) anyway, you should therefore do the smart thing – sign on as an individual, using a personal cheque or DD or even cash. If you are in fact representing a company, get the amount reimbursed from the company.

With that behind us, let’s proceed to the selection of type of account.

Shell or TCP/IP?

Shell accounts limit you to the text-only tools provided by VSNL – Telnet, FTP, Lynx (character-based World Wide Web Browsing) and E-Mail.

TCP/IP accounts let you use any of the thousands of Internet tools that are available without any restrictions at all from VSNL, and they are usually graphically based.

So which do you go for?

If your requirement is just basic Electronic Mail, don’t even consider the TCP/IP accounts unless you have prior experience with such things and can afford paying Rs.10,000 more for the same thing. The reason is that the e-mail facilities of VSNL are pretty good even at Shell account levels, and definitely beat taking an account with a commercial e-mail vendor who charges you on a per-message basis. With a VSNL Shell account, you do not pay for each individual message – you pay only for the 250 hours of access time that are covered by the Rs.5,000 subscription charge.

The Shell account is a great and cheap introduction to using the Internet, and if you do not have any Internet experience at all, this is definitely something you should try first. Remember that you can upgrade at any time to a TCP/IP account by paying the additional Rs.10,000.

If you are familiar with the Internet, and have the need to go beyond the functionality of a Shell account (such if you want to do Graphical Web Browsing or wish to use TCP/IP-based facilities that are not available in the Shell account), then you could consider taking a TCP/IP account.

With a TCP/IP account, you still have to dial into the VSNL computer, but instead of using facilities available on VSNL, you make use of programs that reside on your local hard disk, such as Netscape, FTP for Windows, IRC, etc.

A TCP/IP account is also easier to use for plain E-Mail because you can use programs such as Eudora or Microsoft Exchange for Windows 95 to send and receive mail. However, you may not be able to justify the additional Rs.10,000 just for this feature.

There is possibly one more additional reason for you to get a Shell account rather than a TCP/IP account – if you are not located in a city where VSNL has a direct dial-up hub. In such a case, you would be using INET or GPSS to access the VSNL Internet Gateways, and inspite of what VSNL will try and convince you of – TCP/IP over INET or GPSS is virtually impossible.

The bottom-line is that you will probably be better off “getting your feet wet” on the Internet with the cheaper Shell account option, upgrading to TCP/IP only if you really need to.

The Modem Game….

When I first started this column way back in 1993, I did so with an article on how to buy a modem. I am not going to repeat all that again now, but here are a few pointers:

Buy a cheap modem (where cheap applies to both price as well as quality) and you will probably have a lousy time online. VSNL is not very comfortable with setting modems, and though it uses great modems at their end (Motorola Codex 3266), those modems are pretty badly set. Which means that if you come along and connect with a bad modem, you are going to wish you never heard of the Internet.

If you haven’t already bought a modem, buy one that your local BBS uses. BBS Sysops usually have gone through many generations of modems, and when they use one consistently, there is usually a very good reason for it. Call him/her up and ask them.

If you do not have the luxury of a BBS in your city, you are stuck with trial and error. I cannot recommend any specific brands – the best brand is the one that you have actually tried from your place. Don’t settle on the first one that works – try at least three before you decide.

A cheapo 14,400 bps modem will cost you around Rs.8-10,000, a really great one will cost you around Rs.15,000. If you can afford it, buy a V.34 28,800 bps modem (cheap ones will cost you around Rs.20,000, really good ones will cost you around Rs.30,000). VSNL does not yet offer 28,800 bps access, but indications are that they will, and pretty soon, too.

You do not have to invest in a 16550 based serial card, but the presence of one will definitely make life simpler for you at high speed.

And, as always, stay away from internal card modems – a good external modem will prove its worth very quickly.

Software

If you have a Shell account, you will need a good Terminal Emulation communication software. I strongly recommend the shareware program Telix, but the HyperTerm program that ships with Windows 95 is also good. Stay away from Windows 3.x’s Windows Terminal!!! That program is lousy, as are programs like BitCom and older versions of QL2Fax.

In general, communications under Windows 3.x is an exercise in futility – stick to DOS based programs for Shell access. Under Windows 95 most communication programs run decently. Under OS/2 Warp, they soar.

Make sure that whatever program you select has VT100 Terminal Emulation and supports Zmodem file transfers. A good scripting facility is also highly desirable, as is the ability to capture ASCII text appearing on your screen.

When it comes to TCP/IP, you are looking at a different class of programs. Here you basically leave the DOS world – what you require is Microsoft Windows and something called WinSock – a program layer that talks TCP/IP to the remote host.

The most common used under Windows 3.x is Trumpet Winsock, but you have a catch 22 situation here. Trumpet Winsock Version 2.1 or later work only for 30 days without registration. Version 2.0 works forever, but the required PPP support (that is needed to connect on TCP/IP mode to VSNL) is faulty and does not work.

Rather than struggle with archaic stuff like this, upgrade to Windows 95, which has built-in TCP/IP support and works like a charm. It is also extremely easy to set up, provided you also have the Windows 95 PLUS! Pack. Without the Plus pack, you’ll find things rough going.

OS/2 Warp with the Bonus pack is also usable and very easy to set up.

OK, once you have established the TCP/IP connection, you need TCP/IP clients such as FTP, Telnet, E-Mail, etc. These are easily available in the shareware domain on many FTP sites. If you are using Windows 95, you’ll find that most of them are already on your hard disk. The same applies to OS/2 Warp.

Winding Down

OK, that’s how much space I have this month. Next month, I will take you by the hand and take you through the actual process of connecting to the Internet – including some useful tips you won’t be able to live without.

Before I leave you, let me point you at my own Web pages on the World Wide Web. The main gateway to my pages is at http://pobox.com/~achitnis, and from there, you will be able to reach other sites, including the wellknown View from the Ground pages that Kishore Bhargava and I maintain on the web. Do drop by!

Cheerio!

+++ATH0

(click)

NO CARRIER

How to connect to the Internet and use the VSNL Shell account – with a few useful tips…Welcome back.

Last month, I explained what sort of Internet accounts you can get in India (at the moment – things are likely to change soon now that the government has lifted the barrier on private Internet providers).

This month, I am going to address the actual connection process, and also give you a few hints on how get the most out of such a connection. We will be specifically discussing the VSNL Shell Account this month.

Before you connect…

Connecting to the Internet in with a Shell account is pretty easy – you dial the number of your Internet gateway using your modem, log in using your account name (User ID) and password, and you are on.

But hold on – let’s make sure that we have all our settings in place before we do that.

First of all, check your modem. Is it an error-correcting one? It better be – trying to connect without MNP or V.42 is an exercise in frustration.

If you are using an external modem (as you should be), make sure that your serial cable that connects your modem to your PC is a good one. Specifically, ensure that the 9 critical wires on the 25-pin side of the cable (which connects to the modem) are properly connected to their counterparts on the other end of the cable (which connects to your PC). The 9 critical wires are those that are connected to pins 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 20 and 22. If you are using a cable with a 25-pin connector at each end, then these should be connected in a one-to-one fashion (i.e. pin 2 is connected to pin 2 on the other end, etc.). If you are using a 9-pin connector at the PC end of the cable, make sure they are connected in the following fashion:

25-pin 9-pin

2 -> 3

3 -> 2

4 -> 7

5 -> 8

6 -> 6

7 -> 5

8 -> 1

20 -> 4

22 -> 9

Some modem vendors try to get away with an incomplete cable – make sure that this is not the case with your cable. If it is, get a replacement before you try anything else.

Next, make sure you have the right communication software. Many of you are still using DOS and/or Windows 3.x. In this case, stay away from Windows-based communication programs and stick to DOS programs. If you are using Windows 95 or OS/2, Windows-based programs are feasible – the ones shipping with these two operating systems are pretty decent. For the moment, I assume you are using a DOS based program, specifically the one called Telix.

Configure the communication program so that your terminal speed is no more than 19200 bps, that terminal emulation is set to VT100 (or VT102), and that Hardware Flow Control (RTS/CTS) is enabled.

Next, use this program to configure your modem. Ensure that the modem is set for Hardware Flow Control (usually ATQ3). Set the modem so that it does not get cut off by the 5 minute beep (ATS10=200) and also set the dial time-out to 90 instead of the default 45 (ATS7=90). Save these settings (AT&W) so that you do not have to repeat this everytime.

Connecting to the Internet

When you connect the first few times, I strongly suggest that you do so at 2400 bps instead of 9600/14400. The reason is that if your modem or line quality is not very good, you will have a disappointing time. Force your modem to connect at 2400 by making the appropriate setting in the modem (ATS37=6 in most cases, ATB6 in Motorola FasTalks at AT&N14 in ZyXEL modems).

Now you are ready to call into the Internet. But just before you dial, take a second to open a capture (log) file. In Telix, press Alt-L and enter a filename (e.g. SESSLOG.CAP). From now on, everything that appears on your screen will also be saved in this file.

Now dial the Internet number by typing ATDP followed by the correct number (if you have Tone Dialling available on your line, use ATDT instead). You can also make an entry in Telix’s Dialling Directory (Alt-D) and use that to dial instead.

Once you connect to the Internet (in this case via VSNL’s Gateway Internet Access Service), you will be prompted for a User ID and a Password. Enter them exactly as told to you by the Service Provider (remember that case is important – PRASANTO is not the same as prasanto or Prasanto – ditto for the password).

Online to the Internet

One you are connected and logged in, you will be shown a menu of options (VSNL has promised to give full shell access Real Soon Now, but for the moment you are still stuck with the menu).

Now, pay attention. If you are connected to a VSNL site other than Bombay, your VSNL user shell may have a horrible bug that could lock you out of your account if you are not careful. Follow these steps exactly to avoid this:

1. Select the KERMIT option from the menu.
2. Type this command : del shell.sem
3. After you get a confirmation that the file has been deleted, type exit to quit from the Kermit program.
4. If you do not follow these steps and lose the connection at some point (without specifically logging out), you may find that you cannot log in again and will have to call the 24-hour VSNL HelpDesk (which works from 9 to 5) to get the account released.

Exploring

Right, now you are all set and can explore the various options available to you in the VSNL menu.

There aren’t too many choices to be made here. You have an Electronic Mail facility, you can use telnet to connect to other computers, ftp to transfer files from other computers and Lynx to browse the World Wide Web in text mode.

Here are a few tips that should speed up operations for you.

Electronic Mail

VSNL does not provide you with any way to download all your mail in one shot. But there is a way by which you can do this. Here are the steps:

1. Select the Download with Zmodem option.
2. Some sites will now show you a list of files in your directory. Press Enter until, you are asked for a filename.
3. Now type in the following very carefully: /usr/spool/mail/userid, where userid should be replaced with the name of your account (the login name you use to log in). For example, if your userid is “prasanto”, enter /usr/spool/mail/prasanto.
4. Now the contents of your e-mail file will begin to transfer to your computer. (If you have not enabled Auto-Zmodem download in your communication package, you will have to start the transfer manually by pressing PgDn and selecting Zmodem).
5. When the transfer is completed successfully, verify that the file is now on your disk (it will be a file with a filename the same as your userid – in this case prasanto). You can do this by dropping down to DOS (in Telix this is with Alt-J) and using the DIR command to check it.
6. While you are there, rename the file to a unique name (I use the convention yymmdd.eml, where yy is the year, mm is the month and dd is the day. For example, email I download on the 10th of January, 1996, would be renamed to 960110.eml). This step is important because the next time you download a mailbox, the same name would be used and your existing mail-file could get over-written.
7. Now return to your communication program by typing EXIT.
8. Now select the KERMIT option from the VSNL Shell Menu and delete the mail on the VSNL host by typing the command del /usr/spool/mail/userid (remembering to replace userid with your own login name).
9. Now you can log out of VSNL and disconnect, then read you mail at leisure offline, using a text editor or a word processor.

Posting a message is cumbersome on VSNL – here is a way to speed things up:

1. First of all, before connecting, create your message using a pure-ASCII text editor (such as NE, my own Teddy or the Windows Notepad). Save it as a file.
2. Next, connect to VSNL, and select the E-Mail option. Choose to Compose a message. Now you will be asked the address to which the message is to be sent. Enter it exactly as it has been told to you (for example, my address is atul@iisc.ernet.in).
3. Next, enter a subject for the message.
4. Finally, your cursor will enter the message text area on the screen. Don’t type anything now. Instead, press PgUp, which will bring up the Upload menu in Telix, and select ASCII. You will be asked for a filename – enter the name of the file in which you have saved the prepared message. Telix will now quickly send the prepared text to VSNL. At the other end, the E-Mail editor will think you are the fastest typist on earth, and will accept the text as if you have typed it yourself online.
5. Once the message transfer is complete and the transfer screen disappears, press Ctrl-X to send the message on its way.

A better way to FTP

Most people will use the FTP facility offered in the VSNL menu to transfer files from remote computers to the VSNL computer. Here is a smarter way to do it:

1. Select the Lynx – Browse the World Wide Web option from the menu.
2. Once the screen settles down, press “g”. You will be asked for a URL. Here enter the site you wish to connect to, prefixed with ftp://. For example, if you wish to connect to ftp.microsoft.com, enter ftp://ftp.microsoft.com. Press Enter.
3. Now Lynx will connect to that site, and will show you a scrollable menu of directories and files available there. Navigate to the directory you are interested in, and highlight the file that you want. Now press Enter to download it to the VSNL computer.
4. Lynx may now ask you what to do with the file – select Download.
5. The file will now begin transferring to the VSNL computer. When it is complete, it will ask you what to do with it – select Save. It will ask you for a filename – the default is the original filename of the file, and pressing Enter now will accept it as such.
6. Now Select “q” to quit from Lynx, and use the Zmodem Download option from the VSNL shell menu to transfer the file to your computer.

Accessing the UseNet

VSNL had promised UseNet (Newsgroups) access in its brochure, but appeared to have changed its mind later. Bottomline is that there is no convenient way to access the thousands of Newsgroups that form the heart of the Internet.

Well, where there is a will. There is a way…

1. First of all, you need to configure the E-Mail program to read news. To do this, start the E-Mail facility,a nd choose Setup , then Config.
2. Scroll down to the item that says NNTP Server and press “a”. Enter the following exactly as shown: news.uni-stuttgart.de
3. Press enter, then “e” to exit from the configuration process. Then Quit from the E-Mail program.
4. Next, you need a file that contains the various newsgroup names, called .newsrc – which is actually just a text file that you can create yourself. It is simply a list of newsgroup names, each followed by a colon “:”.For example:….
   comp.os.linux.announce:
   comp.os.linux.answers:
   comp.os.linux.development.apps:
   comp.os.linux.development.system:
   comp.os.linux.development:
   comp.os.linux.hardware:
   comp.os.linux.misc:
   comp.os.linux.networking:
   comp.os.linux.setup:
   ….

   You can create a file with your favourite newsgroups, and call it .newsrc (the initial dot is important), and place it in your VSNL home directory.

5. Now get back into the e-mail program Pine.
6. Select Folders.
7. Cursor down to the News groups item and press Enter.
8. A little while later, the newsgroups will appear and you can select one. This will cause all the message topics in that newsgroup to be retrieved – unfortunately, this can take some time. Be patient.
9. Finally, select the messages you want to read.

Have fun!

Winding down

OK, that’s it for this month. Next month I’ll give you more tips on how to make your life on the Internet a little easier.

In the meanwhile, let me know how you fare! Got any tips you think others should know about? Found any interesting places to visit? Let me know via E-Mail,a nd I’ll try and cover them in future articles.

See you soon.

Proprietary network technologies are history. If you want to survive, look at INTRAnets – very, very seriously“Could you pick up my messages please?”

“Please get me a printout of the latest sales figures”

“I think we should print a company-wide newsletter”

“Please put this on the notice board”

Where do you think you get to hear the above statements?

Right, in the technically challenged CEO’s office.

It is a crying shame that in a technically advanced 21st century style world of corporate communication technology, CEOs and top management still rely on 17th century technology for their decision support material.

This can be most terrifying when you hear people talking about “trickle down” of technology, meaning that it is used at the highest levels first, and eventually by the entire company. Assuming that this is true for a company, one can see trouble ahead.

In reality, this “trickle-down” of technology usage does not exist – in fact “Trickle Up” is probably more like it.

But even trickle up does not seem to reach the places where it would really make a difference – at the top management and CEO levels.

One of the biggest stumble-blocks has always been the learning curve – CEOs often just simply do not have the time to learn to use the ever-changing applications that the rest of the company may be using. Nor do they wish to look silly asking someone, so they dismiss it with a “I pay people to do this for me”.

But it need not be like this!

A perfect world

You, the CEO, walk into your office. You switch on your PC, which starts up the single application available on it that interfaces with all the data-sources you need to refer to. A single front end that lets you, at a click of a mouse button, access information, reports and data generated by your company that you can use in your decision making process.

You choose to see this month’s sales figures. Click. There they are. Let’s have a look at last month’s sales figures to judge performance. Click. OK, now let’s review how the competition has been doing in the same period. Click.

OK, now let’s check the notice board for any items of interest. Click. Interesting, the specs for the new model of a product are now finalised, and are open to comment. More details available here…Click. Someone has also put up reviews of the competition’s equivalent product. Click.

The latest issue of the company’s newsletter is now available. Click. Finance department has written a strongly worded article about telephone costs of the company. Details available here…Click. Ouch, apparently the marketing department is the biggest offender on this front. A breakup of the costs is available…Click. Hmmm, this needs a memo right from the top. A direct link to the internal e-mail system is available, all it requires is a …Click.

Time to check out the messages received. Click, and up comes the integrated e-mail system, which quickly retrieves all messages and displays them. Hmmm, lots of it – let’s sort this on basis of the sender…Click. OK, now one can conveniently read the messages, and reply to the ones that demand immediate attention. Someone else could handle some of them better. Click to forward the message to this person, along with a few covering comments.

Utopia? Science Fiction?

In fact, this is the real world – this is something you can do today, implementing it at minimal cost. What we have just described is all possible using technology that first evolved on the Internet, but very quickly moved into the closed perimeters of the office, to become known as The INTRAnet.

A little bit of history

To understand where the INTRAnet came from, we must first look at its origins: the mother of all networks – the Internet.

Though many presume the Internet to be a fairly recent phenomenon, it actually started off in the late 1960′s, and has been growing ever since. But until the early 1990′s, few people actually used the Internet for anything even remotely resembling business.

In 1993, things changed a lot, with the introduction of a new technology, called the World Wide Web. Actually, this technology wasn’t actually new – it just bound together existing technologies into a new form. But the Web (as it is referred to today) made a startling difference to the usage of the Internet – it was “human compatible” and could be used by just about anyone without any formal training.

Instead of arcane, text based Unix commands and heavily technical operations, all a user needed to get going was a computer of some sort. Then he needed an Internet connection, a mouse, and one single application that allowed access to all the information that made the Internet the biggest information source in history – the Web Browser.

To navigate the Web, this was sufficient – even the keyboard (every CEO’s nightmare) became an optional accessory, used only very rarely. It was entirely possible to search for, and find, useful information on the Web without so much as touching the keyboard!

This was every CEO’s dream come true. Many of them, who so far had shied away from using computers themselves in the office, happily set up and used a computer at home to access the Internet.

The Net within…

It wasn’t long before they began wondering why they couldn’t use this kind of technology back at the office. If corporate information would be this easy to find, access and use, they wouldn’t hesitate to use computers at work, too.

The ease by which their bosses took to the World Wide Web wasn’t lost on the Information Systems people who were responsible for delivering company information to the management. And even the vendors who were so far catering to the Internet in terms of software and hardware soon realised that a massive new field was opening up here – the use of Internet technology to deliver internal information over the local area network.

And with that, the concept of the INTRAnet was born.

Once the idea was in place, setting things up was so simple, it seemed ridiculous that no one had thought of it before.

Most companies already had LANs in place. Effectively, that meant that all the required hardware was already up and running. All that was needed were the applications, and a bit of standardisation.

The main application (at least the front end) was already in place, and had gained acceptance – the Web Browser. And Netscape and Microsoft were just falling over themselves producing newer and more powerful versions, at costs that ranged from free to about $50 – laughable, considering the cost of most corporate applications.

The backend (the web server) was a different story – they were available, but at pretty high costs, and usually not for “low end” platforms like PCs or PC servers. The Internet was built around powerful Unix machines such as the powerful workstations and servers produced by Sun, and these machines meant big bucks. Naturally, applications written for them were priced proportionally.

But that soon changed. Companies like Netscape started producing web server software for the PC platform (typically for Windows NT or Windows 95), and Microsoft, in recent times, even bundles and automatically installs a web server with Windows NT.

More pieces falling into place.

The final hurdle was the protocol used for communication on the network. The Internet uses the protocol known as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), while most LANs used Novell’s IPX or Microsoft’s NETBEUI. The traditional operating systems used on the user’s PCs (DOS or Windows 3.x) did not include any network support, and definitely not TCP/IP.

The arrival of Windows 95 changed all that. For one, it included TCP/IP as a natively installable network protocol, and, even better, allowed the simultaneous use of several protocols at once, including IPX, NETBEUI and TCP/IP.

That was the clincher. Every piece was now in place, and very soon, the first few internal web pages started making their appearance on corporate LANs.

The INTRAnet had arrived.

Growing Up

As the demand for INTRAnet technology implementations grew in corporate circles, so did the demand for applications that catered to this new field.

The absence of tools designed specifically for this market was no issue at all. Since INTRAnets employed exactly the same technologies used on the Internet, and with the incredible growth experienced by the Internet itself, applications were available in abundance, and their numbers grew every passing day.

The same HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language – the code used for building web pages) editors used to design those glorious web pages for the Internet were used for the production of in-house web pages. The same web browsers, the same tools and utilities…this market was exploding.

It didn’t take long for software companies to realise which side of the bread was buttered. As new versions of their applications (word processors, spreadsheets, database programs) started appearing, they brought with them built-in Internet (and thereby INTRAnet) capabilities. No longer was it necessary to hand-code an HTML page from existing text. To produce a web page from an existing word-processing document, all the user had to do was to save the document as HTML, and the job was done!

Internet v/s INTRAnet

Trying to differentiate the Internet from INTRAnets is more or less an exercise in futility. The two use the same technology, the same applications and the same concepts – one could say that they are identical twins, born four years apart.

But there are subtle differences that differentiate the two.

The biggest difference is the issue of bandwidth.

The Internet is forever starved of bandwidth – things just don’t seem to move fast enough. Users are typically connected to the Internet using 28.8K dialup modems, 64K/128K ISDN and leased lines or 1.5mbps T1 lines. Therefore, the design of the network needs to include this bandwidth factor – make things too big, and they slow down when they hit the bottlenecks of the Internet.

In sharp contrast, INTRAnets have more than enough bandwidth available to them. Even the slowest LAN today boasts of 10mbps Ethernet speeds, while more modern LANs offer 100mbps and faster speeds.

Therefore, and application designed to run fast on the Internet will be greased lightning on an INTRAnet.

However, the opposite is not always true. An application, or a heavy duty, multimedia rich HTML page may work just fine on an INTRAnet, but could choke on the Internet’s lack of bandwidth.

The other difference is, of course, accessibility and security. The Internet is an open place – anything published there is essentially for public viewing. INTRAnet based information, on the other hand, is secured and contained within the company – the information is not accessible to people on the outside. This is an important difference – without it, the INTRAnet would become meaningless as one would not be able to trust it to protect the information it contains from snoopers, competition and other prying eyes.

The cheque is in the mail

Most people assume that the term “INTRAnet” essentially means an in-house website.

In reality, that is not true. Just like the Internet does not consist of by the World Wide Web alone, INTRAnets incorporate many technologies.

The most powerful one, and the one that really makes an impact that can be measured in real money, is the concept of in-house electronic mail.

In the past, electronic mail on the LAN was an expensive affair. Using proprietary products from various vendors, it was possible to establish an e-mail network, but it would be anything but “standards based”. No product could interact with another without expensive add-ons, and no product worked quite the same way.

The Internet, and thereby INTRAnets, changed all that. The Internet uses just one mail protocol (SMTP – Simple Mail Transport Protocol), and it is in use worldwide. It is, in fact, as much a standard as TCP/IP is today for networking. SMTP mail server software made by different vendors use the same protocol, and therefore can interact effortlessly.

SMTP based e-mail also does away with proprietary front-ends and closed mail architecture, and slashes prices to almost nothing. One of the most popular e-mail applications, Eudora, is free for personal use, while Windows 95 incorporates the Exchange Client for free. Any e-mail program can be deployed in an Internet or INTRAnet setup, provided it follows SMTP for mail delivery (and a similar protocol, POP3, for mail receipt by end-users). In fact, most web browsers today incorporate e-mail capabilities, rapidly evolving into that dream scenario – “one application does it all”.

Setting up an in-house e-mail server is usually a question of picking up any of the many offerings available today (typically costing far less than their proprietary predecessors.) This is then installed on one of the LAN servers (usually, a dedicated machine is not required), and pointing the e-mail client software on the users’ machines to that server.

In fact, provided you have a spare machine available for the purpose, you can use a freeware operating system like Linux (a Unix-like operating system) as a mail server for free! Linux includes all required programs, server software, etc. This is a solution we at Exocore Consulting often resort to, resulting in massive short term and long term savings for our clients.

The other major advantage that immediately emerges is the fact that external (i.e. Internet) mail can easily be linked into the internal setup, thereby creating a completely seamless solution. No more worrying about compatibility issues, or expensive gateways!

The Future: Full Service INTRAnets

While the basic concept of INTRAnets incorporate specific functionality, such as internal web services, file transfers and electronic mail, things are rapidly moving beyond that.

Already, INTRAnets are evolving towards offering services that have traditionally been the domain of proprietary Network Operating Systems such as Novell NetWare and Microsoft Windows NT, including file and print services. These enhanced INTRAnets are now becoming known as “Full Service INTRAnets”.

Forrester Research defines a Full Service INTRAnet as follows:

“A corporate TCP/IP network which delivers reliable, feature-rich applications that share five core, standards-based services — directory, e-mail, file, print, and network management. ”

This may sound futuristic, but as the following timeline shows, it is already work in progress.

So what does all this mean? If you guessed “non-proprietary networks” and “vendor independence”, you are well on your way to realising the benefits of INTRAnets.

Traditionally the incompatibility between services offered by proprietary network operating systems from different vendors is so great, it isn’t funny. Too many systems managers have had to battle with issues ranging from simple file exchange (different network operating systems use different file access methods) to planning for growth (proprietary NOSs translate into big bucks for the vendor at the higher end).

By embracing standards (true standards, not “vendor defined wannabe standards”), the INTRAnet gives managers the freedom to look elsewhere for solutions, without having to worry about compatibility between existing setups and those in the future.

The implementation of an INTRAnet

If you are at this point not quite convinced about the feasibility of INTRAnets, then this point may just do it:

Implementing an INTRAnet today does not require doses of black magic. As the accompanying articles about migrating to INTRAnets will show you, it is simplicity in itself, with absolutely minimum intrusion into your existing setup. Given a basic LAN, you can deploy a basic INTRAnet overnight on top of your existing facilities, and can graduate to a “Full Service” INTRAnet as you get comfortable with it.

Considering all the advantages, the only thing one can say is what has been nicely summarised by Forrester Research:

“By 2000, smart companies will utilise the Full Service Intranet for all the networking services they used to rely on proprietary NOS to provide. Companies that fail to grasp this will be at a significant competitive disadvantage.”
– Forrester Report (March 1996)

How to really mess up a great conceptIn June 1995, Kishore Bhargava and I were planning a seminar tour. We were finalising the “story line” of the seminar – with me sitting in Bangalore and Kishore in Delhi.

In a span of about 2 hours, we sent each other almost 50 messages, occasionally dragging in other friends into the discussion, seeking advice and suggestions from them. It was almost a real time conference, and looking at the saved messages today, I marvel at what we achieved.

Today, when virtually anyone can have an e-mail account, thanks to VSNL’s low priced Internet services, the number of messages we PC Quest columnists and editors receive daily is staggering. Before VSNL’s services came into the picture, I used to receive something like 20-30 messages a day – today that number sometimes crosses a hundred messages. PC Quest receives close to 4000 messages a month from readers alone! The input from our readers has helped us make our magazine what it is today.

Electronic Mail is probably the real “world shrinker” – not air travel. Using electronic mail you can, in a couple of seconds, send a message to someone anywhere in the world, and it costs you virtually nothing. And people can send you a message equally quickly. The wonderful world of the Internet makes this possible today, since messages are usually delivered in a few seconds.

However, the ease of sending and receiving mail has brought along its own problems. And almost all of them arise out of improper usage. I refer to them as the Seven Deadly Sins, and am documenting them here as a warning.

Sin #1: Flames

World War I was triggered by the assassination of Duke Ferdinand, World War II by Hitler’s annexation of Germany’s neighbours. World War III will probably triggered by an inappropriate e-mail message.

Picture this:

You are upset with someone. You put together a quick, nasty message, get online and send it off to the victim of your ire.

Seconds later you realise that you shouldn’t have done that, because the note will probably destroy your relationship with that person. But it is too late – in those few seconds, the message has been delivered and can no longer be stopped. The message is already in the addressee’s mailbox, and there is nothing you can do to prevent him from reading it, getting upset and terminating his relationship with you.

A nasty message like this is called a flame – a message in which you violently disagree with someone, and might even stoop so low as to abuse him.

The way to avoid this is simple – allow a message written in an angry state of mind cool for an hour or two before you send it. Before you actually send it, read it once more, and make sure you still mean what you said in the message.

Sin #2: Excessive (or Pointless) Quoting

Most E-Mail programs (including VSNL’s Pine program) have an option for quoting a received message in a reply you write. This is convenient when you are replying to some points or questions you have received.

However, many people just miss the point when it comes to quoting. Many just write their replies, and attach a fully quoted copy of the original message at the bottom of their reply. This unnecessarily adds to the message size, and serves virtually no useful purpose, and is called Pointless Quoting.

Quoting becomes useful when you intermingle the quoted text with your reply. Here is an example:

> Will you attend the meeting?
Yes, I will, but I will probably come in a bit late.

> Where is the report on the Western Sector?
I had e-mailed it to PKR for his comments. He will probably
pass it on to you later today.

> Have you played Quake yet?
Yes, and got motion-sick.Talk about virtual reality - those
butterflies in my stomach were real!  

As you can see in the example above, lines from the original message are quoted (with a leading “>” mark), while the answers follow each question/point.

Some people simply quote back the entire message, “breaking in” at appropriate points to add their replies. This is called Excessive Quoting. You should only quote as much as is required to jog the memory of the person who is reading it. This should never be more than two lines.

Sin #3: Delayed Replies

E-Mail makes sense only if you reply to the sender immediately. Many newcomers to the e-mail scene do not actually reply to a message for some time, having been spoiled by postal delays that have always been easy to blame.

In the world of e-mail, people expect a reply, and virtually instantaneously (or at least as soon as you have read the message). Non-receipt of a reply is taken as a sign of the message not having reached (an increasingly rare situation these days) or that you aren’t interested in replying.

When you receive an e-mail message, reply immediately, even if it is just to day that you have received the message and will be replying in a day or two, after you have gathered the required information. Keep the flow and momentum going – if you “break the stride” of e-mail communication, you could be signalling that further communication with you is useless.

Sin #4: Account Sharing

Unless you are also in the habit of sharing your toothbrush with others, never ever share your e-mail account with others, nor use someone else’s account for sending your messages.

E-Mail is something that is considered very personal. Should your correspondent feel that more than one person can read messages sent to your account, he will probably not ever send you a message offering you a job with twice the salary you are currently earning, nor will he ever tell you anything private or in secret (like a business tip that he doesn’t want others to know that it originated from him).

Make sure you have your own e-mail account, with your name in the “From:” line. It is very easy to detect a shared account – it usually is in a company name, or the name of the signatory and the name in the “From:” line don’t match.

Sin #5: Massive Attachments

This may have happened to you in the past – it has definitely happened to me. One morning, I send my PC out to retrieve my mail, and one hour later, it is still retrieving it. Often, my connection drops, causing me to lose mail. At other times, it is simply frustrating.

Someone has sent me a message with a megabyte sized attachment that I haven’t asked for.

This is almost the worst possible offence you can commit with e-mail – sending a massive file attachment.

File transfers using e-mail are not uncommon, but there are limits of tolerance. Internet norms have it that no message should exceed 40KB in size. Some gateways on the Internet have real physical limitations when dealing with messages exceeding 64K (for architecture reasons). And most important of all, the person who receives the file may not be equipped to handle such a massive attachment.

Recently, a client of mine managed to hold up his entire e-mail batch for two days while several 500K messages were in the pipeline – the receiving gateway refused the entire batch meant for that site.

Don’t get caught in such a situation when you are sending file attachments. First of all, make sure that the receiver is equipped to handle such large messages, and make sure that he can decode the message back into a binary file. E-Mail messages are exclusively 7-bit ASCII text, which means that the binary file enclosure will be converted into text using the uuencode or MIME process. Ensure that the receiver has such decoding capabilities.

Many good e-mail packages (such as Eudora) have an option that will automatically break a large message into several parts. Use this option. The different parts will be received by the recipient, and he can then put the parts together and decode the whole file.

Sin #6: Unsolicited Joke-a-Day

Also known as the DA (Daily Atrocity) problem, this is a syndrome that bites many “newbies” (newcomers on the net). Essentially, what they do is every now and then (usually once or twice a day), they send some funny message they have received (or found on the net) to a bunch of people – usually without checking with them first.

What these people do not realise is that they aren’t the only once doing the hapless recipient this “favour” – in the past, I have had the same joke sent to me by several people – on the same day!

Even worse, these people, in their complete ignorance, usually mail these messages with the e-mail addresses of all the recipients in the “To:” or “CC:” field, which means that everyone who receives these messages now has a ready-made mailing list which he in turn can use to unleash his Daily Atrocity!

Two points – first of all, never send such unsolicited mail to people without checking with them first. And secondly, never put the list of e-mail addresses in the “To:” or “CC:” fields where they can be seen by everyone – put them in the “BCC:” (Blind Carbon Copy) field instead, which effectively suppresses the display of the e-mail addresses being targeted.

Sin #7: Junk Mail

Probably the worst possible thing you can do is overdo it. In recent times, many inconsiderate and ruthless users of e-mail have begun mass-mailing people on VSNL, offering their wares or services.

VSNL itself has been pretty docile about it, and has even been contributing to the cause by regularly sending system bulletins to all users – complete with all addresses in the “To:” field. This, of course, gives an unscrupulous vendor all he needs to do his mass mailing.

Recently, such an incident took place at Bangalore, which caused many users (and me) to take VSNL to task for not doing something about it. VSNL has finally agreed to take harsher action – probably to the extent of suspending the offending user’s account for a couple of months.

However, this may not be sufficient. The real action has to come from you. You should immediately reply back to the offender, thanking him for pointing out the product/service that will hence be blacklisted by you. Additionally, you should immediately put up a note on your company’s bulletin board, and circulate a memo, asking all departments to take note of the blacklisting of the vendor’s product or service.

Winding down

These then are the seven deadly sins of Electronic Mail. Make sure you note them down carefully – by avoiding them, you will become a more productive e-mailer, and a cherished and trusted correspondent.

Tips on setting up serious Internet accounts, with PPP and SLIPKishore Bhargava and I just took off from Madras, en route to Calcutta for the next leg of our “Business on the Internet” seminar tour. Though the flight feels somewhat like a one-eyed drunken sailor in a sack race, I have reasons to grin:

I am using my notebook computer in mid-air.

For a change, I am actually getting some work done on the flight, instead of looking out of the window staring at boring clouds. This is what notebook computers were designed for.

Just a year back, I would have been chained and handcuffed for even carrying it on board the flight in my hand baggage. Today, an unobtrusive announcement by the Indian Airlines stewardess just asks me not to use the computer during takeoff and landing.

Oh tempora, oh mores!

If only the others would come to their senses! Apart from Indian Airlines and ModiLuft, no other airline in India permits the use of computers on the flight. Considering that most of them position themselves against Indian Airlines by stating that they cater to businessmen, this is rather ridiculous!

Anyway, now that I have some (enforced) free time (the flight was delayed by an hour to begin with – some things never change), let me continue with my series on using the VSNL Internet accounts.

TCP/IP Accounts

In previous columns, I stated that the VSNL Internet gateways make almost no sense to business houses. Well, I need to restructure that statement – the SHELL accounts are effectively useless to them. The TCP/IP accounts can be surprisingly good value if used properly.

To re-cap – with a shell account, you can use just those services available off VSNL’s menu (which apparantly has no standard – it varies dependant on the city!).

However, with a TCP/IP account, you can run whatever software you want at your end – no one can limit you there. There are plenty of excellent packages available all over the Internet, and Windows 95 even ships with some pretty decent ones that you can use to retrieve more stuff.

VSNL initially tried to sell a package called “Explore” to its subscribers, but apparently could not keep up with either support or supplies. While workable (the stuff is made by FTP Software who have been around for ages and know their business), there are plenty of freeware and shareware options that work much better.

If you still use Windows 3.x (not a very good idea these days), you will require a Winsock (Windows TCP/IP sockets) program. An excellent one is Trumpet Winsock (available from ftp.trumpet.com.au). Make sure that you get version 2.1f or later. Version 2.1 is timelimited and will stop working after 30 days unless you register it. Version 2.0b is also pretty usable, and does not time out.

However, the PPP support of all versions of Trumpet Winsock earlier than version 2.1f is kaputt – don’t even try using them for PPP (PPP is the protocol used to get TCP/IP going over the serial line).

However, a little known fact is that VSNL’s routers also support SLIP (another TCP/IP-over-serial-lines protocol). Older versions of Trumpet Winsock work perfectly with SLIP, so you may want to use that instead (more on this later). The same applies to OS/2 users – the Internet Diallers shipped with most versions of OS/2 3.0 Warp have disabled or defective PPP suppport.

If you use Windows 95, you are almost there. You will need another little package known as Microsoft PLUS! for Windows 95 – cheap and easily available from any Microsoft dealer. The Plus! pack has an Internet Wizard that will quickly guide you through the process of setting up your connection.

Setting up Winsock

No matter what package you use, there are certain parameters you have to set before you strike out.

You will have to set up your IP address to begin with. Because you can never know what your IP address is going to be when you connect (it is assigned to you dynamically from a pool of addresses), set this to “0.0.0.0″.

Next comes your net mask. I don’t want to get too technical here, so just set this to “255.255.255.0″ and move on.

Some packages will ask you for your gateway address – you can usually skip this, but can also use the IP address of your remote VSNL server (shown to you when you connect).

Next comes a mission critical option – the DNS entries.

DNS (Domain Name Service) is the process that resolves internet host names to their corresponding IPaddresses. For example, if you ask your web browser to connect to “http://ece.iisc.ernet.in/monster”, the DNS will lookup “ece.iisc.ernet.in” and return the IP address (which is 144.16.64.2). Without this service, you would be limited to using IP addresses instead of host names.

Until recently, VSNL used ERnet’s Sangam and Soochak hosts as DNS servers. After complaints poured in from ERnet users about massive degradation of performance due to this, VSNL was forced to set up its own DNS servers. Their IP addresses are 202.54.1.30 and 202.54.1.18. These are the two addresses you should enter in the DNS fields (Windows 95 names them “primary” and “secondary” DNS servers, so enter one address in each of them, while trumpet has only one field – enter bother addresses there seperated by a space).

You will have to choose a modem or communications port (the latter is the one your modem is attached to). Trumpet Winsock users should ensure that the “Carrier Detect” box is checked.

Finally, you need to decide whether you are going to use the PPP or the SLIP protocol. Most people (anyone using Windows 95 for sure) will chose PPP, but you can also use SLIP.

In Windows 95, you also need to tell the Internet Dialer that a terminal window should be brought up after connection is made.

Right, now we are almost there. If you are a PPP user, you just need to dial the VSNL TCP/IP number, enter your user ID and password, then, at the “giasxxro>” prompt, enter “ppp”, and press enter. Once the acknowledgement appears stating what your IP address is, press “Continue”.

If you use Trumpet Winsock, select “Manual Dialing” and type the various modem commands required to connect to VSNL and to log in. At the “giasxxro>” prompt, type “ppp” and press Enter. Then press Escape to give control to trumpet Winsock.

You should now have a TCP/IP connection. To check this, use the “Ping” program (supplied with any TCP/IP suite, including Windows 95, OS/2 Warp and Trumpet) to check if you are getting a response from some server (try “giasbm01.vsnl.net.in”). You will know that you have been successful if you begin to see timings appearing (measured in ms). This will prove that both your TCP/IP and DNS are working – the Ping program will report the IP address of “giasbm01.vsnl.net.in” (which is 202.54.1.18).

The above procedure is fine for PPP, but SLIP is another animal.

Unlike PPP (which negotiates the IP address on its own, you have to specifically tell SLIP what IP address has been assigned to you. Unfortunately, this means that you have to resort to a script before you can get useful work done. Examples are shipped with Trumpet Winsock, please go through them and modify them as required. Make sure that your script says “slip default” instead of “ppp” in the procedure above.

Now that you are on…

If you are using Windows 95 or OS/2 Warp, you will already have some elementary TCP/IP applications, such as Telnet and FTP. If not, you will need to get some in order to foray out into the Internet wilderness. You can simply get one frrom a friend, or use the Shell account that comes with your TCP/IP account to retrieve one (all TCP/IP accounts also have a shell account – simply call the Shell account numbers and log in with your TCP/IP userid and password. You can also change your TCP/IP password from here). Use Lynx to connect to “http://ece.iisc.ernet.in/monster” and check out the Library there for some useful stuff you can download. These are just links to the files – the files themselves are not stored on our pages. Instead, selecting the links will cause the files to be transferred from their homesites – wherever in the world that may be.

Useful TCP/IP applications

Here are some definite “must-haves” for your TCP/IP suite of programs.

Netscape Navigator: The Web browser of choice. Now in version 2.0, this browser owns 75% of the market. It is free for download and personal use. Available for both Windows 95 and Windows 3.x (as well as the Macintosh), it installs quickly and easily. Also handles FTP and News reading, as well as E-Mail.

WS FTP: Probably the most usable FTP program for Windows. Again available for both flavours of Windows, this program does away with the kludgy FTP commands and allows you to click, choose, drag and drop your way through the file godowns of the Internet.

WS Archie: Don’t know where a file is located on the Internet? Use this useful applet to quickly locate them. Beats telneting to busy

Archie sites and remembering sitenames. It also works great in combination with WS FTP. Once the file has been located, just click on it, and WS Archie invokes WS FTP to download it.

Eudora: The best known among the Windows based E-Mail programs. Don’t leave home without it. Even allows file attachments, and handles Mime and UUencode/decode. However, this application is superfluous if you have Windows 95 and the Plus! Pack installed – this gives you Microsoft Exchange, which is a far more powerful E-Mail program. (OS/2 users will learn to love a program called PMMAIL – similar to Eudora, it is very fast, very usable and very powerful.)

Juggling Internet apps

Many people with past experience in communication will find a pleasant surprise waiting for them, once they are connected in TCP/IP mode – you can not only run multiple applications at a time (that’s what Windows is for, after all) but can also have multiple connections running over the single TCP/IP link, as well! For example, you could tell WS FTP to start transferring a file, then switch over to Eudora and send it off despatching and receiving e-mail, and the start up a telnet connection to an IRC server to go into a chat session with someone – all at the same time, over the same link!

Winding down

That’s about what I have space for this month. But before I sign off, I’d like to apologise to the many people who write to me via e-mail. The volume of e-mail I have been receiving from PC Quest readers has increased tremendously over the past few months, and it has become virtually impossible to answer each and every message I receive. This does not mean that I don’t want you to write – your inputs are extremely valuable to PC Quest and me, because it helps shape this column into something that reflects what you are looking for.

So keep the notes, tips, comments and criticisms coming!

Cheerio!

In August and September of ’94, Kishore Bhargava and I were on tour around the country holding seminars on datacommunications. Though we expected (and got) a lot of questions from the 450+ people who attended the seminars, one question really stumped us:

“Why aren’t there more women online?”

This was a rather embarrassing question – Kishore and I usually had to look at each other and shrug our shoulders. Being men, it was almost impossible for us to supply an answer to this one without sounding flippant or confirmed MCPs.

The plot thickened on reaching Delhi, when a member of Kishore’s ECTCnet BBS, asked the same question – online.

Time to do some serious thinking.

Have I the right…?

Traditionally, any field is initially dominated by the people who first spawn and nurture it. Now no one is saying that Cyberspace is a male invention – God knows that women played an equally important role in the development of the online community.

Then why is it that everyone assumes that Cyberspace is a male domain? Why do even women pre-assume this and stay away?

Now that I have had some time to think about it, maybe I can come up with some answers. I hope that I have it right. I am not exactly qualified to handle a subject of this sort since I am male, but I hope that I spark off discussions that will reveal more.

The male ego

The first answer fairly leaped out at me when I saw some responses to the question – from guys who seemed to represent the average online male – “…such a discussion leads nowhere…”, “…pointless…”, “…have kitty parties…”, etc.

The male ego rearing its head.

I am all for superiority – but not a gender war. Superiority of humans over, say, worms – yes. Superiority over other members of the race – no! What I was seeing here were males clearly stating that they consider women online as a waste of time. Sexist remarks flew thick and heavy. If you were the target of such ridicule, would you want to be online?

So there was the first answer. Online males consider online females as people who have nothing to contribute. And this, naturally, causes women to shy away.

Geeks

The next answer came out of the original question itself. She asked why everyone was discussing anything and everything about computers without paying attention to non-computing subjects.

Ouch! That hurt.

Being a “geek” (a computer fanatic), I naturally like to discuss computing issues. So do a whole lot of other people in the field. To be online, you need to use a computer, so the combination of our interests and the medium tends to ensure that the topic of discussion is computers.

Do women get upset with this? I don’t think so. I have had technical “wars” and discussions with possibly thousands of people online. I never realised just how many of them were women. It is a provable fact that the percentage of women in a professional field tends to be extremely high in the computing field.

Then why is the “computer oriented discussion angle” so prominent in this context?

It seems to me that the problem is not just that of women. I could easily ask the question “why aren’t there more doctors online?” or “why aren’t there more writers online?” and arrive at the same conclusion – computer discussions can make someone shy away if she (or he!) feels that they aren’t technically qualified to participate in the discussion.

This doesn’t apply to women alone – men are equally scared of being ridiculed for asking a stupid question.

Here is the official Atul Chitnis definition of a stupid question: “A stupid question isn’t one that lacks knowledge or content – a stupid question is one that isn’t asked.”

Once the hurdle of “getting active online” is crossed, things more or less fall into place. It is the “getting there” that is difficult. Which brings me back to the subject at hand.

Feeling at home

A common complaint from women is that no one takes them seriously. We all have heard jokes about “women drivers”, seen sexist remarks, etc.

This attitude isn’t the fault of women – men are the problem here. If someone has a natural “superior” attitude (I admit that I am one of these creatures), then it tends to show up in messages posted by such a person. A good example is the sort of response the lady with the question initially got to her questions.

If you want someone to interact with you, you must make that person WANT to interact with you, i.e. make him or her feel at home. “Shooting down” someone in a public forum will almost guarantee that the victim of your ridicule will stay away from future discussions.

Why should men feel “superior” in Cyberspace? For that matter, why should men feel superior at all – in any space?

In a recent issue of PC Quest, some egotistic reader wrote a letter that was supposed to prove that women are inferior in the computing field. Good grief! What a moron! His “research” was based on asking MEN – and naturally the answers he got were slanted towards the male gender. If he would have looked around he would have found that, especially here in India, the computer industry would COLLAPSE without women!

If women are so critical in the computer industry, then why do men think they can dominate the online world?

Listen up, my friend

Women have something to say to you. And you better listen. Many of my most critical insights in life came from discussions with women. Without their viewpoints, my own look at life would be completely one dimensional. Discussions with them have helped me resolve situations I couldn’t have tackled otherwise.

And not because they are women. They are human, like everyone else I discuss with. Their HUMAN viewpoints were what was of value to me.

We men, with our misplaced attitude of male superiority, are effectively cutting out 50% of our intellectual resources. We are missing out on a lot of things. Women many times can see things that we don’t – the term “female intuition” has a lot of merit to it. We lose access to that if we do not encourage them to speak up. And that is an awful price to pay. Keep out the women, and you are effectively shooting yourself in the foot.

What can we do?

The first thing to do is to think twice before you shoot down anyone in public. This doesn’t apply to women alone, but is more critical here. If you need to make a remark you think you get away with because of the supposed male dominance in Cyberspace, write it down on a piece of paper first and then read it as if it was addressed to you. Would you still feel the same?

The next thing to do is reply to questions in a supporting (but NOT patronising) manner. Anyone who has ever been online knows the warm feeling of acceptance when someone replies to his message. It encourages him to ask more questions, join discussions, and begin answering queries himself. And the same applies to women.

Some BBSs in India have now begun slamming and even debarring male users who try to “be funny” at the expense of women. I know for a fact that such attitude is not encouraged on Kishore’s ECTCnet (which is effectively run by his wife Jyoti and his sister Mala) and on my BBS (I would be skinned alive by my wife). Other BBSs are getting into the act, and it is a good thing.

ECTCnet, Primal Scream and my own BBS now also have areas that are “women only”. These areas aren’t meant to segregate women or to have any sort of apartheid. Instead, they are areas that will help women get started online, without having to worry about stupid male remarks. Once they are comfortable with online concepts, they feel more confident about venturing out into “mixed” forums – something we sysops very much encourage.

Parlez vous Anglais ?

She also pointed out another pretty elementary thing to me. When we “geeks” write messages, we use a language that sometimes cannot be understood by a person online for the first time. For example, I told someone that “I will send it to you as an attachment. When you read the message, you will be told that there is a binary attached, and you can download it.” Now all this makes sense to a computer person comfortable with online terms, but to the average Joe or Jane Ramaswamy, who have come online looking for information about, say, good restaurants in Delhi or something as serious as child abuse, this seems to be complete nonsense.

Though many women use computers, they don’t necessarily come online fully equipped with the jargon some of us use. Try using plain English for a change – if a person can understand you, he or she will probably stick around. If not – cul8r (see you later)…..

Peekaboo!

One factor that is guaranteed to keep women away is the existance of so called “adult areas” – which are in reality male-oriented cheap-thrills areas. Recent articles in various magazines (even one Indian one) have unfortunately given the impression that Cyberspace is all about GIF pictures of scantily dressed ladies and steamy discussions. Naturally, women get the feeling that they have no place in such a world. If you are a sysop reading this and have such “adult” areas on your BBS in order to attract users, think again – you are scaring away 50% of your audience! Get rid of such areas and watch your user base double.

Non-Geek Discussions

As users, you carry an equally great responsibility. Sure, you may be primarily interested in computers, but please remember that not everyone is. The computer-oriented population of this planet is miniscule. Though many people use computers, they don’t make them their life’s focal point. A good example of this are the Sports or Music forums on ECTCnet, PCQO and CiX. Confirmed “geeks”, who would discuss nothing but computers, suddenly were discussing things completely unrelated with computers! Take a pointer from that – there are more things to discuss than computers. A discussion about non-computer subjects is almost guaranteed to draw in massive and enjoyable participation from “normal” people. Women included.

Cyberspace isn’t policed in any way. But it IS the Sysop’s job to maintain law and order on the system. Don’t be lax about it, even if you are an MCP. If you see a user saying something offensive about women, warn him immediately and remove the offending message. While this COULD be called censorship, I’d call it “weeding”. If the user persists with his attitude, give him the chop, and inform your fellow sysops about it. The “nasty” guy will soon find himself persona non grata on every system in town.

Let you female users know that you care and appreciate their presence on your system, like it is with every other user. If you get complaints, react immediately, and hang the offender from the electronic castle wall as an example to others.

If you maintain areas accessible to women only, make sure that you verify a new female user by calling her up before granting access to such an area. You never know when somw slime is trying to be “cute” by saying he is female just to get into those areas.

This, then, seems to be an extremely painful rap across the knuckles for the sysops of the Cyberspace. If women aren’t staying online, then we aren’t doing our job – which is to make available a facility for the discussion of ANY subject under the sun, making available information about subjects NOT only related to computers. We are creating “elitist” worlds – a concept completely alien to the free world we are supposed to live in.

As I review the preceding paragraphs, I am getting the feeling that the problem of “women online” does not exist. The problem is really that of “humans online”. People with interests other than computers, people with a wider perspective of life, people who have something to say and nowhere to say it. Give them a chance. After all, even you were human once….

Late April was a rather busy time for me. I was in Delhi setting up PCQ Online. Now Delhi is a hot place in the month of April, but that wasn’t really bothering me (I could even live with the fact that PCQ got hit by a 440 volt surge and that PKR’s air conditioner didn’t like me and blew every time I walked in).What really bothered me was a series of meetings I had with the growing number of BBS sysops (system operators) in Delhi. They had some really disturbing statistics for me.

These statistics were about the growing number of people who log into BBSs only to download files, completely disregarding the very principle behind the concept of BBSs.

Dana Smith, the mysterious and elusive sysop of the DelhiCom BBS, called these guys “File Suckers” and has even built up a genetic hierarchy describing the genus. During dinner (yes guys – not only do I own one of the best notebook computers in the country – I have also had dinner with Dana. Now you can REALLY eat your hearts out !) Dana recited some pretty horrible statistics – more than 80% of his BBS users call to download files ! Kishore of ECTCnet echoed the same concerns, and sadly even I have to report similar statistics from my BBS.

When I started writing for PCQ, few people had heard of BBSs – today everyone and his uncle has. Surprisingly, many of them have even bought modems and are busy logging into BBSs around the country.

Almost all of them (sadly) head for the file libraries and start downloading everything in sight. Then log off.

Very condusive to information exchange, right ?

Wrong.

Settle in – this is another of those notorious “Atul Chitnis Litanies”.

Why start a BBS?

Let’s look at some background here.

Take a guy like Kishore Bhargava, the sysop of ECTCnet in Delhi. He puts up a 386, with a modem and a telephone line, to run a BBS from his home. He didn’t do it because he wanted to get rich on it (he doesn’t charge for access), nor did he do it because he wanted to become gun-bait for some perverted DoT policy.

He (like Dana [DelhiCom], Suchit [LWBBS, Bombay], myself [CiX, Bangalore] and now PKR [PC Quest Online]), did it because he wanted to help people share information, and be a part of ongoing discussions, etc.

Unfortunately, most of the BBS users in India haven’t quite got the drift of things yet, and in the process are killing the concept.

Downloading files isn’t what BBSing is all about – it’s interaction!

Many BBSs abroad do not even have file libraries. They are simply central meeting points for discussions, and they are very successful at it.

The soul of a BBS

I have had many interesting discussion threads on my BBS, as well as on other BBSs. Good examples are the “Windows v/s Macintosh”, “Unix v/s DOS”, “C v/s Pascal” wars. Some of them ran into hundreds of messages, with various angles being reviewed, and in many cases some solid good has come out of them (I learned to respect the Macintosh, installed Unix tap its power, have had users switch from C to Pascal to be more productive in their development).

In recent times, I have been involved in a discussion about the DoT’s brain damaged BBS policy – a discussion that ran simultaneously on both ECTCnet and CiX. It helped all of us to understand the policy better, and we managed to find a lot of loopholes in it. You should have seen Harsha of Knoxware take off on the policy ! (Read it in the DoT forum on CiX or ECTCnet).

Take a look at the PRG (Programming) forum on my BBS next time you pass by my BBS. There we have programming heroes like Harsha (Knoxware) answering technical queries, veterans like Siddhartha (PSI Data) arbitrating highly animated technical discussions about C and Pascal and embedded systems professionals like Mahi (Innovex) floating new and revolutionary ideas.

On Delhicom, you can find Anindo Ghosh (Active Solutions) solving problems for desperate users, while Dana Smith bends over backwards solving tricky communication problems for his users. ECTCnet has Dr.Arun Mehta (Delhi Management Association) giving the mature angle to discussions ranging from Unix v/s DOS to DoT bashing, with ECTCnet sysop Kishore taking time off to educate people on all sorts of things, including tricky WordPerfect macros, Windows installations, etc.

Then there is Suchit’s LWBBS, which has the distinction of being the only one currently on the FidoNet (a worldwide network that echoes discussions from all over the planet earth).

And then we (finally) have PKR of PC Quest Online – his thirst for interaction has lead him to start up the first BBS sponsored by an Indian publication. Though it is the “newest kid on the block”, PCQ Online is already beginning to see discussions about BBSing, modem usage, reader submissions, review-bashing, etc. Look into the LET (Letters to the Editor) forum to get a taste of things.

Making it worthwhile

As a user of BBS, you have responsibilities, too. Many BBS users seem to think that it is their “right” to come in and block the line downloading files, without contributing anything at all to the BBS.

This is as damaging to the BBS as any weird DoT policy could be. A lot of us went up in arms when the DoT policy taxing BBSs was proposed – but have you seriously thought about your own policy ?

Look, put yourself into the shoes of the average sysop. He (or she) takes all the trouble to set up a BBS for the users, hoping to see it become a center of focussed interaction. If it was just to handle file distribution, then there are better ways of doing it, like saying “come over with a diskette and take a copy”. This is much cheaper because you don’t have to block a phone line, a machine and a modem for it.

File snatchers can be really disheartening. Picture this: you write a book, slaving over it for months or years. Then you make it available free of charge. People pick it up by the droves, but they don’t read it – they use the paper to wrap “channas” ! This isn’t what you dreamt about when you spent all that time writing the book, right ? Well, sysops have dreams too.

You, as the user of a BBS, have to help make the sysop’s dream come true, otherwise the sysop will lose interest and the BBS may just go off the air. And nothing encourages a sysop more than seeing his users thrashing out issues, resolving problems, having group discussions and actually benefitting from using the BBS.

Let me give you an example:

Some months back, the DoT “leaked” its infamous policy to tax BBSs. Horrified, all sysops all over the country asked their users for reactions. The response was stupendous. In an online-uproar, users began pouring in their views. Other users reacted to these messages by putting in their own messages. This triggered off a chain-reaction that had to be seen to be believed.

The outcome was rather phenomenal. Massive discussions among the online community (which the DoT naturally didn’t officially partake in, but was watching nevertheless – make no mistake about it) saw the word “BBS” disappearing from the policy just 48 hours before it was officially announced.

The sysops on whose BBSs these discussions took place really felt a warm glow in their bellies. Their labours of love had actually produced results at the national level that could be attributed to their BBSs. These are things that make it all seem worth the while.

Read your mail !

Another nasty thing done by many users is to ignore the “You have mail waiting” notice and the system bulletins. They immediately head for the file libraries and start downloading.

This means that they miss all the news, announcements and any mail that may have been sent by the Sysop and/or other users. Since they do not read mail and do not reply, the other users lose interest and hence will not attempt again to establish contact.

The FileSnatcher mentality

While I was in Delhi, I floated an idea at a sysop meeting. Simply put, it involved knocking off all file libraries from the BBSs and making them discussion-only systems. We decided to ask a couple of users. The reactions ?

“Pleeeaassee sir, don’t do that ! Without files the BBS will surely die.”

“Ridiculous ! What do I have to gain from calling your BBS then?”

“I wouldn’t know what to write in a message. Why should I write a message then ?”

“I am not a technical person. I just want the games.”

Good grief !

When PCQ Online went on the air, complaints immediately came in because there weren’t many files – only those that were talked about in PC Quest. Tell me, did you really think that PCQ set up a BBS to cater to FileSnatchers? Not at all ! You don’t become India’s best loved computer publication by doing that. PCQ Online is supposed to cater to discussions, issues, news, etc. – NOT to supply the lates games !

Changing colours

How then do you become a “good” BBS user ?

It is simpler than you can imagine. To start off, head for a forum/area that is meant for general discussions. Post a message introducing yourself, and let people know what your interests are. You are sure to get responses, which will allow you and other users get to know each other.

Next, read all the messages in forums that cover a topic you are either familiar with or are interested in. If you see a message that asks a question you feel you can answer – do so ! If you have a question yourself – post it in a forum, no matter how silly you think it may be. BBS users are there to help you. Being stupid isn’t defined as asking silly questions – being stupid is defined as NOT asking questions !

Be regular – once people realise that you are willing to interact, they will wish to continue doing so.

And don’t type your messages online. I am not saying that to save you online time – there are better reasons.

When you type a message online, it is usually on the spur of the moment, and not very well thought out. This can lead to misleading responses or even errors in your message – not exactly a shining example of a good message.

Instead, capture all messages to a log file (use Alt-L or Alt-F1 to do this in your comm package). Then log off, and read the messages carefully. Fire up a text editor (Norton Editor, Teddy, WordStar in non-document mode, etc.) and carefully write your reply. Take your time – there is no hurry. After you finish, read your entire reply again. Find places where you can shorten sentences, check spellings and make sure that your reply in fact answers the original question.

Then go back online, and choose to reply to the message. When the BBS asks you to start typing your message, simply ASCII upload the prepared text file into the editor. Then save the message, and there you are! Now sit back and watch while people start reacting.

+++ATH0

Right, that’s it for this time. Just before I go – PCQ is running a BBS now (called PCQ Online, running at Delhi-6451734), and there is a forum called COL (Columnists Den). If you wish to ask your first questions online, why not do it there ?

Cheerio !

Here’s a question for you -Q: “What is the fastest way to drive Atul Chitnis round the bend ?”

A: “Send him to a place where he can’t connect his notebook computer’s modem to the telephone line !”

In the past few months, I have written about various modem aspects, but all of them were aimed at desktop users. Notebook computer users are increasing in numbers – it’s time to address their problems.

WHAT ? NO RJ11 SOCKET ????

This has happened to me too many times in the past. I go to a place, need to connect my modem to the phone line, and find a “strange” phone line connector.

If this was the US of A, I wouldn’t have that problem – a missing RJ11 socket (that little plastic plug found on modem-to-line cables) is more or less a federal offence, punishable with three years of potato peeling in the kitchen.

In India, such offenders would have a field day.

The RJ11 cable is probably the ultimate definition of civilised standards. The sight of that little square hole in the wall is reassuring – it is a clear indication that the establishment you are in cares. It lets you plug in your phone with minimal fuss. It is secure – no loose, crackly connection is likely. It is a standard – ANY telecommunication equipment will plug right in without a second thought, including a modem.

Tell that to the Indian P&T. They still prefer to use those miserable Bakelite boxes with lots of screws and “Y” connectors, exactly the same kind they used this time last century. Talk about resistance to change !

A TRAVELLING COMMUNICATOR’S TOOLKIT

When I travel around the country, I have to prepare myself for all sorts of “weird” connectors, and here is what you’ll find when you take a peep into my little black bag:

First of all you’ll find a standard RJ11 cable. The RJ11 cable is the lifeline from your modem to your telephone line. It usually comes in two flavours in India – one with RJ11 plugs at each end, one with an RJ11 plug at one end and “Y” lugs at the other.

My personal cable is ALWAYS one with a RJ11 plug at each end.

“So how do you use it in places where there is no RJ11 socket ?”

That’s where the other little gimmicks in my bag come into play.

There are two little connectors there. Each of them has an RJ11 socket at one end. One of them has a set of “Y” lugs at the other end, the other connector has a set of crocodile clips instead. I call the first one “Lugsy” and the second one “Jaws”, for obvious reasons.

If I go to a place where RJ11 sockets are available, then I simply use my standard RJ11 cable to plug in.

If the place is prehistoric, and uses the P&T’s ugly Bakelite box, then I have two choices.

If I am going to be in that place for an extended period of time (like a hotel room), then I connect Lugsy’s “Y” lugs to the phone line’s connector box. That will give me a semi-permanent RJ11 socket that I can plug into whenever I need to.

If I am going to be in the place for a very short time (like at a client’s place) where I will probably be history in under an hour, then I use Jaws. I simply clip the connector to the phone line using the crocodile clips. That again gives me an RJ11 socket that I can use, though of a more temporary kind.

Why not use Jaws in every situation ? Simple – crocodile connectors are convenient, but do not provide a very stable connection in the long run, since a little movement can disconnect them.

Note, too, that the connectors I use are of very good quality. Gold plated connectors are preferable, since they virtually eliminate “crackling” connections (naturally, they can’t do anything about the noise the P&T supplies).

The next piece of equipment is very obvious – a small screwdriver. I use the one that comes with my Multitech modems – it has a small flat end at one end, and a small Phillips type star head at the other. Very handy – kudos to Multitech for being the ONLY manufacturer who supplies this much needed item with their modems.

The final piece of equipment is one needed by most notebook computer communicators. Unlike normal modems, notebook modems tend to have only one connection – one for the phone line. There is rarely a provision to plug in a phone in parallel, as you would do with a desktop modem.

So Raju (my partner and the innovative ‘lectronics brain in my company) threw in a strange looking connector. He cut my RJ11 cable about 4 inches from the end where it plugs into my notebook’s modem, and wired a RJ11 socket in parallel with the RJ11 plug, then taped the whole thing up again.

The result looks hilarious – this schizophrenic cable can act as a modem cable, a phone extension cable, or both! One end has a standard RJ11 plug for connecting to the phone line, the other end has a RJ11 plug AND a RJ11 socket. The plug goes into my modem, and the socket is used if I need to plug in a phone, too (very handy when the hotel management phones in and asks if I have a modem/fax connected to my room line – I can very innocently say “If I had connected a modem, how am I talking to you now ?”)

All these connectors together cost me about Rs.200 – not much in terms of money, but invaluable when you need them.

ON THE MACHINE

Now that we have our modem securely connected, let’s see what’s on the machine.

I am a Windows freak, and since my notebook computer is emminently suited for Windows usage (it is a Compaq Contura 4/25cx, with 4 MB of RAM, a 80486-25DX, a 209 MB hard disk, a built-in 14400 bps fax modem, a built-in trackball and a glorious Active Matrix Colour VGA display – eat your hearts out !), I prefer using Windows programs for communication. Procomm Plus for Windows is the premier choice.

But most laptops and noteboooks in India tend to be more mortal – they are usually 80386SX machines with 40-80 MB of hard disk space, with only 2 MB of RAM. Running Windows under such circumstances is the rough equivalent to new shoes – they look great, but feel terrible. Also, Procomm Plus for Windows is HUGE. You may not have that much hard disk space to spare.

So the fallback is to use a DOS based communication program. Procomm Plus for DOS V2.x is best suited for this. Why ? More on this later.

I use only legal software, so the stuff I use tends to be expensive (Procomm Plus for DOS costs about Rs.9000 in India). A less expensive way is to use a shareware program like Telix.

Telix is very similar to the shareware version of Procomm (supplied with many modems), but has the added advantage of the Zmodem file transfer protocol. Since Zmodem is the ONLY way I recommend for file transfer, Telix is a given. Pick it up from my BBS next time you are on. It can be found in the COM forum’s library.

Some poor souls who purchased modems with their laptops/notebooks very soon find that they have been conned – their modems have nor error correction – a violation of Atul’s First Principle, which is “Thou shallst not attempt communication in India without MNP/V.42″. For such victims (who obviously didn’t read PC Quest before buying a modem), the solution is a program called Odyssey (also found on my BBS). Odyssey is very similar to Telix, but has built in MNP emulation. It is slower than a real MNP connection, but better than no MNP connection.

COMMUNICATIONS TO GO

Now that we are equipped with everything we need, let’s see how we tackle the problem of phone numbers.

“What’s the problem ?” you ask, “just enter the number in the comm program’s dialler, and pick it everytime you need to call”

Not so simple, my friend. Picture this.

When I am in Bangalore (sigh – what a nice place to be), I dial 011-6845520 to connect to Kishore’s BBS in Delhi, and 022-5787812 to connect to Suchit’s BBS in Bombay. And I dial 341137 to connect to my own BBS.

But if I enter these numbers into Procomm’s dialler, then I am in trouble when I go to Bombay or Delhi, since the STD codes will not apply. And I am too lazy to edit each and every phone number in the dialling directory for a 24 hour visit to Bombay or Delhi.

So what I do is to use the Long Distance Codes feature found in Procomm.

I have set it up so that “B” stands for Bombay, and contains “022″. “D” stands for Delhi and holds “011″, and “H” stands for Home (Bangalore) and holds nothing.

In the dialler, I have set up the phone numbers as B5787812, D6845520 and H341137. When I dial, Procom replaces those characters (B,D and H) with the numbers contained in them (022, 011 and nothing).

Now, when I go to Bombay, I simply edit these definitions – now B is set to blank and H is set to “080″. Voila ! On dialling, the applicable STD code is used.

This is the reason why I use Procomm – I haven’t come across any other communication program that is as powerful as Procomm, yet this easy to use.

TO TONE OR PULSE, THAT IS THE QUESTION

In Bangalore, I have tone dialling in most places (naturally, Bangalore is highly civilised and the P&T is very co-operative – they give you a phone line within 10 years of application, but don’t use BEEPs to indicate the 3/5 minute local call interval).

But when I go to other cities, I may have to deal with pulse dialling.

I get around this by defining Procomm’s dialing prefix as “ATD” instead of “ATDP” or “ATDT”. Using ATD, the modem will use the dialling method last used or whichever is found in the NVRAM’s setup.

Now, when I go to a pulse-dialling city, is simply type “ATP&W” once to the modem, and from then on, the modem will only pulse-dial. Back in Bangalore, an “ATT&W” sets things back to normal. Much easier and faster than going through Procomm’s setup.

On the other hand, there are some situations where I HAVE to use Procomm’s dialling prefix setting – for example in a hotel room.

Most hotels require you to dial “0″ or “9″ (or even “72″) before you get the P&T’s dialling tone. So if I am in such a place, I set Procomm’s dialling prefix to “ATDT0W”. This causes Procomm to dial “0″ first, then wait for the P&T tone before dialling the actual number.

THE COLOUR OF MONEY

Many BBSs (including mine) tend to make life colourful for you – literally. They use ANSI sequences to change colours for you, pop up fancy menus, etc.

But fancy ANSI screens can create deep holes in your pocket if you are calling long distance, or calling from a hotel that charges you Rs.7 per local call, since they can take a long time to draw.

A seasoned communicator (meaning one who has received a stupendous phone bill at least once) learns very quickly that while fancy ANSI screens are nice to look at, it is cheaper to turn them off. Most BBSs let you do this. I advise you to avail of that feature if possible. Raw text is faster. So if you are asked whether you want Colour, B&W or None, choose None.

+++ATH0

Before I sign off for this month, I’d like to send a note of appreciation to all those who send me monthly “critical reviews” of my columns. Especially those people living in the USA and in UK, who seem to get their copies of PCQ before anyone else does. Thanks a lot, guys. Your input is much appreciated, since the ultimate compliment to a writer is when someone takes the trouble to write in his or her comments – a postive proof that he or she has READ the column !

And hurray for PKR, PCQ’s editor. He has finally got around to buying a modem ! Nothing less than a 14400 bps model ! Let’s give him a standing ovation !

Ciao till next month.

In the past few articles I have been writing about how to communicate using modems. While a lot of ground has been covered there, we have been assuming that you are calling from one place to another via a direct telephone call.This is OK if you are talking about calling within the same city, since it is just a local call. Once you start communicating with computers that are in another city, a new (and nasty) factor shows up – long distance phone charges.

“Aaaaarrrrrrggghhhhhh!!!!!!”

The above expletive is heard in most offices at least once every two months – the time when the phone bill arrives.

Phone bills are so high due to two factors – the totally unreasonable tariff that our phone company places on us, and our own incredible desire to talk/communicate for as long as possible once we make a connection.

The first factor is something we can do very little about (apart from praying daily for privatisation in the telecom business). Unless all of us decide to shift office hours to after 10pm at night (when phone rates are at their lowest), it is unlikely that we are going to see any lowering of the phone tariff.

The second factor is human nature, and I am no judge of mankind, so I won’t try and discuss that here.

Instead, I’ll introduce you to another way of extending your reach that doesn’t cost as much as a STD/ISD call.

The Big Controversy

No aspect of Indian Telecommunication has created so much controversy and misunderstanding as the facility introduced by the D.O.T in 1992 – INET.

The controversy arose from the fact that no one, including the D.O.T. people themselves, could clearly say what INET was all about – was it a service, was it a facilty, what could one do with it, was it cheaper than STD, etc.

The misunderstandings arose when the above questions were not clearly answered.

I am not the D.O.T., but I hope that by the time you finish reading this article, you’ll understand and appreciate INET much more.

Understanding INET

To make things very simple to understand, let’s look back at how a modem works – it converts a computer’s digital signals to audio tones so that it can send them over the phone line, and at the far end another modem turns these audio tones back to digital signals.

This convoluted process is necessary because the telephone lines were not meant to carry electrical (digital) signals.

But imagine that someone rigs up a bunch of phone lines across the country that can transfer digital signals (data) instead of voice. And, because this data was controlled by computers, it could maintain many connections over a single line. And, because of this “multiplexing”, the rates were MUCH lower than a STD call.

Seems like a dream ? But it isn’t ! What I have just described is an X.25 carrier network. (As usual, X.25 is YET another CCITT label for some standard or the other, and in itself tells you nothing except that it is official.)

INET is such an X.25 network.

X.25 – looking under the hood

How does an X.25 network perform this miracle ?

Actually, it is quite simple. What happens is that the network uses an X.25 Packet Assembler-Disassembler (PAD) to break the data it receives into little packets, each one carrying “address” information that can be used to guide it to its final destination.

Then the network throws these little packets into a big stream of data that flows throughout the country. The stream consists of thousands of data packets. As the stream of data flows through each city, the local PAD examines each packet’s address information. If it is meant for that city, then it diverts this packet to it’s final destination within the city, and lets the other packets continue on their journey.

This sounds complex and slow, but in reality it is fast – VERY fast – because the PAD-to-PAD links are pure digital lines that let the PADs talk to each other at upto 64000 bits per second, or almost 30 times the speed of your ordinary 2400 bps modem ! This is in theory – in India, INET PADs are linked by 9600 bps lines as I am writing this, which is late March – but at a recent INET meet, we were promised 64Kbps links between PADs sometime in June/July. Pity they didn’t specify which year.

Anyway, this speed is divided over the users connected to the network, so that the net throughput is not much less than a direct modem connection. And, because the X.25 network is servicing many people at the same time, the line costs per user are much lower, since physically only one line is in use !

Sounds great ! So lets throw away our modems and use INET instead !

Er…nice try, but no cigar.

Connecting to INET

To connect to INET, you still need a modem. INET PADs are spread across the country, in all the metros (Bombay, Delhi, Madras and Calcutta) plus a few non-metros (Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad). Yep, there is one even in Bangalore (hurray!) which is STILL classified as a non-metro (booooo!).

So to get connected to your nearest INET PAD, you have to fire up your modem and call to a local INET number. That’s not too bad, because it is a local call.

OK, so once you are connected to INET, what do you do ? Can you directly log into my BBS in Bangalore from Delhi ?

Unfortunately – no. At least not yet.

INET Connections

There are three kinds of INET connections -

- X.28 Dialup lines – X.28 Leased lines – X.25 leased lines

INET X.28 dialups allow you to ORIGINATE calls, but not receive any.

X.28 leased lines DO allow you to receive calls, but the provided X.28 leased lines are so terrible, under-featured and useless that they can actually be only used for calling out, by people who don’t like making phone calls with their modems. If you have an X.28 leased line, you’ll know what I am talking about. If you don’t have one, count your blessings. X.28 leased lines are SO useless that I will not sully my column any further with any reference to them.

You have to have an X.25 leased line to be able to RECEIVE calls via INET. X.25 leased lines are phenomenally expensive, and getting worse. I took a nap the other day, and when I woke up, INET had raised its tariff for X.25 leased lines. To top that, you need to buy expensive X.25 equipment. The whole exercise can cost you as much as 1.5 to 2 lakhs, not counting line rentals.

So what CAN you call using INET ?

Well, to start with, you can connect to many international services such as Compuserve, MCI Mail, Bix and Dialog. Many of these require you to have a means of paying by a credit card valid outside India (which at this time is not possible unless you have benefactors abroad). The tariff for international calls via INET is Rs.200 per 64 KB of data plus Rs.4 per minute. The same 64 KB would cost you about Rs.350 if you were to call ISD.

Also, many companies in India now are setting up X.25 hosts accessible via INET. All but a few of them are completely private, meant for intra-company communications only. But some have recently thrown open their services to the public. At least three software companies I know of are planning to make their support BBS available on INET.

And finally, there is something new brewing.

INET “DialOut”

INET recently announced that they would allow “dial-out” from INET connections to non-INET subscribers. This would be something like dialling from Delhi to Bangalore on STD, but at the lower rates that are typical of INET. For example, a call from Delhi to Bangalore would cost you Rs.50 per 64 K of data. During daytime, such an exercise would cost you about Rs.160 on STD, so the savings are obvious.

Now THAT will really add a new twist. You would be able to connect to any communication host in the country at a tariff much lower than STD, even if the host itself is not running on INET.

How will this work ? Simple, actually. You connect to INET in your city, provide the phone number in the remote city along with a special code, and the call is routed to the INET PAD nearest to the called number. From there, the PAD will use a modem to dial out to the requested number, and that’s it.

At the time of writing, this facility is not yet available, but is under test in select locations in India, and is expected to be available to the rest of the country sometime this year. (To quote the king of computer journalists, Jerry Pournelle – “Real Soon Now”).

Where do you go from here ?

Well, to begin with, I’d suggest that you get yourself an INET X.28 dial-up account in your city. This will cost you about Rs.2000 initially, and will take you between 2-3 months, though INET is known to spring surprises – a friend of mine recently applied and got his account in a month’s time !

If you plan to set up a host yourself, you got the choice of blowing 2 lakhs on an X.25 connection, which will take you about a year to get.

Or you could wait for the INET DialOut facility, which we hope to see this year.

There are about 150 companies at this time who have X.25 leased line connections in India, and about 1000 X.28 dialup subscribers. The latter is likely to increase by a factor of 5 over the next year, making it more and more difficult to get such connections, so better get cracking right away.

If you are in charge of the communications department of a largish corporation, earn brownie points by investigating the use of X.25 lines. You will need one X.25 leased line to your head office (or wherever you plan to install the host), and X.28 dialup accounts in the various cities where you have your offices. The total cost of setting up the host should be between 2-3 lakhs, plus about Rs.2000 per for each outstation office X.28 dialup account.

One bonus for corporations is that if you have an X.25 host running, you can accept “Reverse Charge” calls. This means that you remote office places the call and connects to your host, but the INET charges are debited to you central account ! It is almost as if the central host has originated the call, so effective INET charges at the remote office end will be almost nil (apart from minimum charges).

INET Issues

There are some issues that you should be aware of when dealing with INET. INET is a “new kid on the block” and, though already active and useful, will show up with a few problems every now and then.

The biggest one you’ll run into is network congestion, caused by the “slow” inter-PAD connections of INET. This should be resolved soon.

The second one concerns file transfers. INET X.25 operations are not as transperant as one would wish them to be, so you may have trouble while transferring files using XMODEM or YMODEM. ZMODEM and KERMIT are fine, but still require some special setup. Work is afoot to resolve this, and I’ll keep you informed through this column on its progress.

The third problem is that of confusion. The INET staff at times cannot help you because they themselves do not have sufficient information at hand. This problem, too, should be history once INET settles in properly.

Winding up

Yikes, page three already ?

OK, time to wind up. Next month, I take a break from “monologing” and will provide answers to a whole bunch of questions that I have been receiving via my BBS, post and phone calls. After all, if PCQUEST and myself don’t answer your questions, who will ?

Beep, beep !

Many of you who have attended my seminars across the country will be very surprised seeing an article by me that actually acknowledges faxes. My (opiniated??) stand about faxing seems to be legendary – I don’t like faxes, and I don’t hesitate in saying so.Yet I must accept the fact that faxing is a way of life, especially in India, where the concept of electronic mail is yet to get widespread acceptance.

And as my job is to make you more productive, I must show you how to get the most out of faxing.

The first step is to junk your fax machine.

Ha ! Gottcha !

The Fax of the case

There is a lot to be said about faxing, and if you don’t pull the reigns on me now, not much of it is going to be complimentary. [Whoa! - Ed]

Well, let me do a Keith Timmons (of Santa Barbara fame) and state the facts of the case:

Dig out one of the more recent faxes you have received. Look at it closely. Does it look very nice? Is it at all legible ? No ? Well, there you have the first problem. Unless you are using one of those phenomenally expensive plain paper fax machines, you are looking a fading image. The thermal paper that is used by your fax machine over time loses its image, fading to a point of oblivion.

Next, look at the image itself (if you can). See those dropouts, those blurs, those smudges ? Well, that’s what you can expect with a fax machine. You see, the fax machine is really WISIWYG. Yep, no spell goof there – WISIWYG stands for “What IT sees is what YOU get”. The fax scans your printed page, and anything it “sees” is sent as part of the image – including the dirt on the scanning element, the fingerprint on the page, the ink smear in the typed matter, etc.

Then dig out the reception report that your fax machine generated after the page was received. You mean you can’t find it ? Well, go on and look for it, I’ll wait….

Got it ? OK, look at the column that tells you how long it took to receive that page. Hmmmm, almost 90 seconds ? For that single sheet of paper that didn’t have much matter on it in first place? Seems a bit much, doesn’t it ? Oh, you say it isn’t your problem, since you weren’t paying for the call ! How nice. Keep that in mind next time you send a fax.

You see, since the fax machine picked up everything that wasn’t white on the original page, it also sent a whole lot of things the sender didn’t want to send (the smudges, the stains, the dirt on the scan element, etc.) Sending all that takes time, and that is why it took so long to send the page. Add to that the fact that most fax machines only work at 9600 bps, and the seconds add up. If you are doing the sending, seconds=money.

There has to be a better way.

Enter the Fax Modem

A modem is really meant for sending data (like text, files, programs, ZIPs, etc.), but most modems today can send and receive faxes too. As a matter of fact – if you haven’t been careful, you may be the proud owner of a modem that is useless for anything else but faxing.

Fax Modems come in a variety of flavours (internal/external, cheap/expensive, good/bad), but that is a point we will discuss some other time. For the moment we will assume that you have a working fax modem.

The fax modem is effectively the same thing as your fax machine, except that it doesn’t have a scan unit, and it doesn’t print on that flimsy thermal paper.

Consider for a moment where your original printed page came from. From your word processor, right ? OK, in that case, why print it on paper, then run it through the fax machine, where the scanner’s quality can really muck things up ? Why not send the text itself ?

That’s what fax software does. It takes your text (or graphics), turns it into a fax image, then sends it on its way. Since the scanning step is bypassed altogether, there is no chance of any smudges, fingerprints or dirt on the scanner ruining the page, or adding extra overhead to the transmission time. Just because all the “scanning errors” are eliminated, you may cut your transmission time by almost 30% !

And, because of this speed increase, you will be more tempted to send high resolution faxes (which normally take more time), resulting in much better output at the far end, which is much more likely to make your customer release the payment that you asked for in the fax message.

Anyway, to look further into the case of fax modem v/s fax machine, consider the fact that most fax modems today can transmit and receive faxes at 14400 bps, which is 50% faster than most fax machines can handle. That adds up to quite a lot if you are a frequent faxer. The page that takes 90 seconds to send via a fax machine may go out in under 60 seconds if both ends are equipped with 14400 bps fax modems. If you send on an average 10 faxes a day from Bangalore to Delhi, that could mean savings of 30×10 seconds, or about Rs.150 a day !

Finally, if you receive faxes using a fax modem, then the received image isn’t printed on flimsy fax paper, but lands on your hard disk in the form of a file. This file can be printed out on just about anything capable of graphics printing, including your laser printer, ink jet printer or plain old dot matrix printer. More savings ! With the added advantage that you don’t have to print it out at all – you can view it on your screen, anytime you want. Or print it out – any number of copies, anytime you need them.

Naturally, the quality of your fax software is very important – there is good and bad stuff out there. Make sure that you choose the right fax software. Bad fax software can make even your fax machine look good and cheap.

Fax Software

Over the past two years, I have used a variety of fax software packages. And I have generally arrived at the conclusion that DOS based fax software is simply not good enough. These packages (such as QL2FAX, BITFAX, DOSFAX, etc.) simply don’t have what it takes in the modern world of fonts, italics, graphics, etc. Sure, they are quick and convenient, but there is more to life than just sending text – you want to give the message a touch of class.

Thankfully, we are not stuck with that – nowadays we have Microsoft Windows, which makes faxing a delight (if you like faxes).

Windows based fax software (such as Winfax Pro, Winfax Lite, Bitfax for Windows, etc.) treat the faxmodem as a printer, and supply printer drivers to make the job easy. You simply fire up your copy of Word for Windows (or even better, Q&A Write for Windows) or Windows Write or Ami Pro or even PageMaker or Ventura, create a document (with fonts, italics, underlines, drop caps, flourishes, kerning and what not), add graphics (such as letter heads, signatures, logos), then tell your application to print, after selecting the fax software’s printer driver. Voila ! What you see is actually what you get ! The fax software (disguised as a Windows printer driver) takes it from there – it asks you for the phone number to send it to, and the document goes out crystal clear and faster than you can say “Department of Telecommunications”.

The Fax of Life

Now that we have you sending faxes with abandon, we can look into more important things – like managing your faxing.

If you own a fax machine, then you must have used the “delayed send” feature at some time, in order to send a fax message late at night in order to save on costs. But the drawback is that you can set up only one message like that. What if you want to send a number of messages, to different people, all in the middle of the night ?

Well, fax software does that for you. You can schedule fax transmissions (any number of them to any number of destinations) so that they go out after 9 pm (so that you pay 25% of the long distance costs). And no fancy stacking of pages required, either – the fax software will do all that for you.

And then there is this problem of fax numbers – can you really recollect every fax number you need without looking at that directory of yours ? Well, fax software lets you maintain phonebooks, so that when you are ready to send a fax, you simply point at the number it should go to – the software will pick up that number and get to work.

Good fax software (like Winfax Pro) also have a “failed pages” feature, meaning that if in the middle of a multi-page transmission the line goes chop, the software will call right back and continue from that page onwards, instead of sending everything all over again.

Even better, all fax software packages will allow you to produce reports of fax transmissions and receipts, so that you can use the data in another packages (say, your accounting system) to analyse the costs.

And if you need to quickly find that fax you sent to someone a few months back, with the keyword “PAYMENT” – well, good fax software will let you find and view the desired fax document in a jiffy.

Getting under the Covers

Windows based fax software will also let you do something more – you can send “intelligent” fax cover pages, which will have all the required data automatically filled in (such as name of sender, addresseem date, time, number of pages to follow, etc.). Winfax Pro even lets you create “designer covers”, which lets you choose a cover page with some fancy graphic most suitable to the occasion (such as a guy with boxing gloves, with a message below it “Pay up, before we get tough”).

Cover pages can actually replace the need for a separate message – you can simply fill in your message on the cover sheet, and send it, rather than going the multi-page way with a cover page, followed by a page with the message on it.

Some tips and tricks

The biggest complaint about fax modems is that you can’t get your signature on the sheet.

Sez who ?

Two years ago, I simply signed on a sheet of paper using a black sketchpen, then used a scanner to get that image onto disk. After that, all I have to do in my word processor is to add the signature graphic in the right place. I have been using this signature file (which I have heavily encrypted using a custom crypt program to avoid misuse) ever since. No one knows the difference.

You say you don’t have a scanner. Heck, that’s no problem ! Just set up your fax modem for reception, then hoof it over to a place where you can use a fax machine. Fax your letter head with signature to your fax modem, then save the received image. Next time you need your letterhead/signature, just dig up this file !

Another tip is to avoid “Standard Resolution” faxes. If a bit of noise on the way junks part of the line, a standard resolution fax (100 DPI) is almost impossible to read. On the other hand, a High resolution fax message (200 DPI) sends more info about the line, increasing the chances of the page being readable even if the line is very noisy. Naturally, a HighRes fax takes a wee bit longer to send, but if it saves you from having to retransmit the message because of “line hits”, it will pay for itself.

If you are buying a new fax modem, make sure that you get good fax software along with it. If you are offered Bitfax or QL2FAX (or any other DOS based fax software), look for another modem or vendor – nothing less than a true Windows based fax package will do.

When using a Windows based fax software, always use TrueType fonts in your document, since they usually turn out best in the final fax image.

Some of you are still using pre-historic computers (like 8088/80286 based machines) which cannot run Windows properly (or at all). In such a case, try various DOS based fax software packages before you decide which to use. Look for a well known name (such as Delrina, who produce DOSfax) or at least good references from existing users. Don’t even consider clunkers like BitFax or QL2FAX, which are outdated and unreliable.

Though I do not want to make faxmodem selection a point in this article, I should tell you that there are four kinds of faxmodems:

1. Fax Only cards : The JTFax card is a typical one. Since it isn’t a real modem, you cannot use it with software like WinFax Pro. Avoid these cards.

2. Class 1 FaxModems : These are true modems with fax capabilities. But because the Class 1 fax operations depend on a really fast machine (80386 preferred), and is a pain to implement. Because of its timing-sensitive nature, the Class 1 standard tends to produce more failed faxes than others. Not all Fax software packages support Class 1.

3. Class 2 FaxModems : Again, these are true modems. The Class 2 implementation is very sturdy and is widely accepted. 99% of all fax software packages support Class 2. It is excellent when working in an environment like Windows, because the modem does most of the work.

4. Class 2.0 FaxModems : A true modem, but with a fatal flaw. The Class 2.0 “standard” is in reality completely unsupported at this time. No Class 2.0 fax software exists. Until some appears, lay off such modems.

Finally, consider abandoning faxes altogether. E-Mail is much better, faster, more convenient, more secure, cheaper, widely accepted, etc. etc.

There – I did it again.

Cheerio !