Description
This article is from the Internet Writer Resource Guide FAQ, by Trevor Lawrence trevor@bel.avonibp.co.uk with numerous contributions by
others.
8) WWW: Cyberspatial Presses (Internet Writer Resource Guide)
(By L.Detweiler)
The World Wide Web has grown at a breathtaking pace, in some ways more
so than the actual physical growth of the Internet. There appears to
be a great "cyberspatial Web rush" as diverse individuals and
organizations work to "broadcast their signal" via home pages,
electronic brochures and advertisements, etc. The age of the
cyberspatial printing press has arrived.
The old cliche goes that "freedom of speech only belongs to people who
own presses". Doesn't this strike you as a kind of oppressive
sentiment? Why should freedom of speech have anything to do with
money or status? Indeed, the invention of the printing press by
Gutenberg broke down entrenched barriers in exactly this realm. And
the logical conclusion of this "equality, egalitarianism, and
populism" in the ability to disseminate ideas is evident in the Web.
Suddenly the computer and networks, "cyberspace", is engendering the
same type of revolution that the printing press did, with a
fundamental difference: the press made available cheap *books* for
distribution, i.e. the burden of the *receiver* was diminished
greatly, but sophisticated skill and expertise was still required of
the *sender*. Today, anyone can set up a "printing press in
cyberspace" for a very minimal cost that is dropping rapidly.
Let me give an example of how to set up a cyberspatial broadcasting
station for about $20 a month such that you don't even need to own
a computer. The Internet provider Netcom provides unlimited internet
access for $20 a month, including an anonymous FTP directory, and
many providers provide a similar service. The anonymous FTP is
capable of supporting not only the mundane (sometimes tedious and
arcane) FTP access, but the seamless, transparent, smooth access of
hypertext browsers such as Lynx and Mosaic.
Netcom is going through growing pains, but provides the most universal
Internet coverage in the U.S. for the least amount of money, and
makes FTP setup a snap, and the system is entrenched with many local
users creating their own stops, so I am going to describe this
provider here.
The steps involved in setting up a cyberspatial broadcasting system
to cyberspace are simply:
1. Contact Netcom, 1 800 353 6600 or info@netcom.com, or telnet to
netcom.com as "guest". Set up an account. With a credit card, you
can get a login in *hours*.
2. Read their FAQ 119 with the command "faq 119". This tells you how
the FTP setup works. Send mail to support@netcom.com saying "I have
read faq 119". In a few days they will send you back a message,
indicating they have set up an account.
4. Run "lynx" to access the WWW. Type "help". In the menu you will find
help on the subject of HTML, the Hypertext Markup Language. HTML
is easy to learn. Or, leap to any site and while viewing a document
hit "\" which allows you to see the embedded commands in a file,
and you can emulate the style and see how different commands are
formatted.
5. In the FTP directory, create a file called "home.html" that contains
your own billboard in cyberspace. Add files in subdirectories. Link
the files to each other. Link to other sites. Its as easy as editing
text files. Make sure rights are ok (chmod command) so people can get
at them! No Catholic Church suppression here!
6. Test using the command "lynx home.html". You can also make sure
rights are correct by going through the ftp interface, lynx
ftp://ftp.netcom/pub/[you]/home.html
7. Voila! You are now ready to unveil your masterpiece to the world.
Advertise in a relevant newsgroup. Watch enthusiastic people send
you mail.
8. Two people at Netcom provide neat services to help you advertise
and monitor the accesses to your files. noring@netcom.com keeps
a list of all public pages and short descriptions. report@webcom.com
provides a slick service of counting accesses to your files,
and who accessed them.
This is all it takes to run your own pseudo-BBS or "broadcasting
station"! Imagine being able to bypass and thwart the entire World
Media Monopoly with these simple steps! I claimed earlier that you
don't even have to *own* a computer to accomplish all this, and it's
true. Many libraries and some copier shops have public access
terminals that would allow you to accomplish all these steps. If they
have floppy disk drives, you could upload your own data!
The SF novel about a bleak dystopian future by Ray Bradbury,
Farenheit 451, was written on a typewriter in a library in about a
week, according to his foreword. Will there be a similar case of a
brilliant, fledgling, struggling author dazzling the world with his
masterpieces in the same way, in cyberspace? I certainly have done my
part to encourage you to do so!
One of the fantastic aspects of WWW is that it demonstrates how
utterly important the role of *organizing* and *editing* information.
In a sense our society is undergoing a fundamental shift from a phase
of *generating* massive reams of information to now *organizing* it
in cyberspace. And there is hidden gold, all over the place, waiting
for the patient, methodical, inspired "cyberscholar" to plug it all
together and revolutionize the world. Even the mere act of compiling
your "favorite links" to the world is an immense service to your
fellow citizens of cyberspace.
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