1.0 The Basics
There are a variety of free and shareware applications available to support both Macintosh and Wintel platforms. Some of them are listed below. To obtain these, you will usually need to use an ftp client of some sort. Anonymous ftp is performed by using the word anonymous as the username and your e-mail address as the password, when logging onto an ftp server. You can also perform ftp using a World Wide Web browser, such as Netscape or Mosaic.
For those of you who are using a Macintosh, there are several free or shareware applications that will make life easier, if your ISP supports them.
An excellent resource for Macintosh applications is the Info-Mac HyperArchive Root. There is an excellent search engine there to help you find what you are looking for. Most items available have an abstract. You can choose to download items you select. You will need a de-binhex helper and an unstuffit helper.
Stuffit Expander works best for both functions.
There are two FTP clients, Fetch and Anarchie. I am partial to Fetch. The original is available at: ftp://ftp.dartmouth.edu/pub/mac.
FTP by e-mail is also available from the Dartmouth host. Send a message to ftpMAIL@ftp.Dartmouth.edu with the word "help" as the text.
You will receive a return message with instructions for ftpmail.
Anarchie is an FTP and Archie client. It will let you browse FTP sites, download files, or find them using an Archie server. It is (in Peter Lewis' humble opinion) the easiest way for users with MacTCP to fetch a file with a partially known name or to browse around the anonymous FTP archives. It includes a menu listing all the Archie servers, as well as FTP bookmarks for all the popular Macintosh FTP sites (including around 40 mirrors to UMich and Info-Mac). It requires System 7 and MacTCP 1.1 or later. Unfortunately many Archie servers are a bit on the flaky side, but don't worry, just try another server! The Anarchie FTP client original is available at ftp://ftp.amug.org/pub/peterlewis/ . The Arizona Macintosh Users Group (AMUG) server is often too busy to log onto. Look for this on on the Info-Mac HyperArchive Root, also. AMUG is also a UMICH mirror.
InterNews, a sophisticated USENET newsgroup reader is available at: ftp://ftp.dartmouth.edu/pub/mac. Another very useful application, MacPing, is also available at this site.
A somewhat less sophisticated, but very usable newsgroup reader called NewsWatcher is available at: ftp://ftp.acns.nwu.edu/pub/newswatcher .
If you are using Netscape to view this Web Page you already have a powerful newsgroup reader built in.
The hot one in Cyberspace right now is Netscape from Netscape Communications. This World Wide Web browser is superb -- fast, versatile and it looks nice. Netscape Communications has gone commercial and they want you to spend $40-60 for the software now. You can still download an evaluation version of Netscape from their ftp site.
From your web browser, you can download the latest version by starting at http://www.netscape.com/comprod/mirror/index.html
The latest version of Netscape can be obtained via anonymous ftp either :
ftp://ftp2.mcom.com/Mac ,
ftp://ftp3.mcom.com/Mac ,
ftp://ftp4.mcom.com/Mac ,
ftp://ftp5.mcom.com/Mac ,
ftp://ftp6.mcom.com/Mac ,
ftp://ftp7.mcom.com/Mac , or
ftp://ftp8.mcom.com/Mac .
The Mosaic World Wide Web (WWW) browser is available at: ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Web/Mosaic/Mac .
TurboGopher is the application of choice. It is available via anonymous ftp at ftp://boombox.micro.umn.edu//pub/gopher as /Macintosh-TurboGopher . If you need help in using or getting started with gopher, send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu, with, "send usenet/news.answers/gopher-faq", in the message body.
The Telnet terminal emulator and ftp client is available at: ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu//Mac/Telnet . The current version is Telnet 2.7.
Eudora is a very nice offline mail client. It requires a POP3 mail server running on a UNIX computer. Eudora automatically logs onto the host, at predetermined intervals, and copies all pending mail to your computer. Eudora comes in two flavors, a freeware version, and a commercial version ($60/copy), from Qualcomm. If you are interested in the commercial version, which does provide many enhanced functions, either contact Qualcomm or check out your favorite computer software catalog. The freeware version of Eudora may be obtained via anonymous ftp at: ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com/quest/eudora/mac/ .
A Mac version of POPMail is available via anonymous ftp at:
ftp://boombox.micro.umn.edu//pub/POPmail/macintosh .
So far, I have come across two IRC Clients. ircle and Homer. ircle was written by Olaf Titz (s_titz@ira.uka.de), and modified by Onno R. Tijdgat (tijdgat@knoware.nl). ircle is shareware, can be found many places, including The Ircle Home Page . This is a small very simple application.
Homer is a slick and sophistocated IRC application, and can be found at ftp://ftp.undernet.org/undernet/clients/macintosh/homer .
Aladdin Systems, http://www.aladdinsys.com/, has two superb applications available to help with StuffIt archives and binhex encoding. They are the freeware application Stuffit Expander, and the shareware application DropStuff. Your best bet is to user your browser, starting at the above link and selecting Freeware/Shareware.
Aladdin Systems Stuffit applications can be obtained via anonymous FTP at: ftp://ftp.aladdinsys.com/pub/ . Stuffit Expander can also be downloaded from Info-Mac HyperArchive at http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive/Archive/cmp/stuffit-expander-352.bin .
Compact Pro archives (.cpt) are probably the second most common type you will encounter. The Compact Pro applications compact-pro-151 and cpt-expand can be found at any Info-Mac archive site, such as: ftp://grind.isca.uiowa.edu//3/mac/infomac/cmp
If you find PC files in .zip archive format, you can unzip them using the Unzip utility, which can also be found at: ftp://grind.isca.uiowa.edu//3/mac/infomac/cmp
Many encoding and decoding functions are built into Mac applications. As an example, AppleSingle, AppleDouble and Binhex are built into Eudora. Fetch has BinHex, AppleSingle, and MacBinary II built in.
The BinHex 4.0, and BinHex 5.0 applications are available via anonymous ftp at any Info-Mac archive site, such as: ftp://grind.isca.uiowa.edu//3/mac/infomac/cmp
When you run across files that need to be either uuencoded or uudecoded, you can use either UUundo 1.0 or UUTool, available at the same site. I am partial to UUTool -- it seems more robust and able to handle exceptions easier.
The following was updated by Steve Bushore, bushore@best.com.
The best site today is www.tucows.com for all your Microsoft Windows 3.1x and 95 network software needs. As an alternative, most PC programs can be obtained at any of the major Internet archives, including but not limited to wuarchive.wustl.edu (fsp, gopher), ftp.cica.indiana.edu (ftp, fsp, gopher), oak.oakland.edu (ftp) and their mirror sites.
One very good FTP client is WS_FTP. It is very user friendly (point and click), is availble in 16 or 32 bit versions and includes a directory of popular FTP sites. For ARCHIE searches, WSARCHIE is available in version 07 or later.
The easiest to use newsreader is Wintrumpet by Peter Tattam peter@psychnet.psychol.utas.edu.au. This shareware program is a bargain at $40 and evaluation copies may be obtained at all major archive sites.
There is also a public domain newsreader called WinVN which is available at most archive sites that is more powerful, but is not as easy to set up for use as Wintrumpet.
Netscape with over 70% of web users is the browser of choice. This World Wide Web browser is superb -- fast, versatile and it looks nice. Netscape is shareware, but has liberal free options for nonprofit users. You can download the newest beta version from their ftp site. Netscape Communications also has a ton of mirror sites, which you can view at http://www.netscape.com/comprod/mirror/index.html
The latest version of Netscape can be obtained via their home page at http://www.netscape.com or from their ftp sites at
ftp://ftp1.netscape.com , through
ftp://ftp8.netscape.com .
Another "also ran" browser is produced by everyone's friends at Microsoft. Known as Internet Explorer, 16 and 32 bit versions of this program may be obtained directly from ftp.microsoft.com if you must.
Also available is the Mosaic World Wide Web (WWW) browser at: ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu//Web/Mosaic/Windows
TurboGopher is the application of choice. The DOS version is available via anonymous ftp at ftp://boombox.micro.umn.edu//pub/gopher/PC_client, and the Windows version is available at: ftp://boombox.micro.umn.edu//pub/gopher/Windows
If you need help in using or getting started with gopher, send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu, with, send usenet/news.answers/gopher-faq, in the message body.
Most available Telnet clients will perform well, but EWAN is probably the easiest to use for normal internet telnet operatons.
If your telnet requirements include logging into PC bulletin boards via internet, you will need the PC ANSI support that NetTerm (16 or 32 bit) or ComNet (Win 95 only) provide. Both of these shareware programs support PC ANSI and normal telnet terminal modes.
Eudora is a very nice offline mail client. It requires a POP mail server running on a UNIX computer. Eudora automatically logs onto the host, at predetermined intervals, and copies all pending mail to your computer. Eudora comes in two flavors, a freeware version, and a commercial version ($50/copy), from Qualcomm. If you are interested in the commercial version, which does provide many enhanced functions, either contact Qualcomm or check out your favorite computer software catalog. The freeware version of Eudora may be obtained via anonymous ftp at: ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com//quest/eudora/windows .
A PC version of POPMail is available via anonymous ftp at:
ftp://boombox.micro.umn.edu//pub/pc/popmail
The Wintrumpet Newsreader Client described above also provides Electronic Mail as an offline mail client via POP mail on a UNIX server.
Netscape (beta version 2.0b4 and beyond) also supports POP mail.
Following are a number of MSDos IRC Clients. I don't know anything about them. If someone can give me a critique of what is good and what is not, I'll annotate this list accordingly:
Windows clients require the WINSOCK software, which can be obtained various places in including: ftp://ftp.undernet.org//pub/irc/clients/windows/winsock. Here are Windows IRC Clients:
And, just for good measure, here are some OS/2 IRC Clients:
Lachlan Cranswick (lachlan@dmp.CSIRO.AU), from Australia, has a single self extracting archive of all necessary Internet applications for a Windows computer. This stuff is located at ftp://sol.dmp.csiro.au:/pub/internet/all , as file internet.exe. HD disk images of this software are located at ftp://sol.dmp.csiro.au:/pub/internet/floppy as files internt1.exe, and internt2.exe . There is a US mirror site at (expires in October) ftp://ftp.alumni.caltech.edu/pub/dank/internet-kit . There is a Canadian Mirror at ftp://gwrp.cciw.ca/pub/internet .
The software in this kit includes the following:
- Trumpet winsock
- Shareware TCP-IP software (one of the best!)
- WINQVT
- Mainly telnet (but has other services - i.e., POP mail, NEWS, FTP) (you can print telnet screens to printer with ALT F2)
- NCSA Mosaic WWW client
- Old 16 bit version with picture viewer pre-installed. (easy to load). A new fast 32 bit version is available but requires Win32s to be installed prior to use for Win 3.1 and 3.11.
- HGOPHER
- Gopher client software
- WINTRUMPET
- Presently the best user-friendly Usenet newsreader around (Also has decent POP Mail) (my opinion only).
- WS_FTP
- Very user friendly FTP program (point and click).
- TRMPTEL
- Simple no-frills VT100 telnet program.
Read the install.txt file for details on system requirements and how to install the software.
An MS DOS version of a BinHex application is available at ftp://boombox.micro.umn.edu//pub/binhex .
PKZip is the archiver of choice, and version 2.04g is the latest. It is free for personal use and is available at almost any ftp site as pkz204g.exe. Registration gets you the added multiple disk compression and auto validation functions.
You should also get the latest shareware copies of arj and lha to handle those occasional files using these methods compression. A few die-hards are using .arj and .lha(.lzh is the same thing). These methods are sometimes used for distribution, usually as self extracting archives.
Windows 3.1x users may also use WizUnzip from within windows and for Windows 95 users, WINZIP (shareware) works very well. Both of these programs are available from www.tucows.com.
For DOS, the best choice is UDEC.EXE (udec1_0.zip) by Peter Liebel (liebel@cip.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de). This universal decoding program handles UUENCODE, XXENCODE, MPACK(MIME), SHIP and HEXBIN files.
For Windows, the decoder of choice is WINCODE (wmcode26.zip) by George.Silva@wadsworth.org which handles UUENCODE, XXENCODE, MPACK(MIME), and HEXBIN.
Both programs are FREEWARE and are available at most archive sites.
I will gratefully accept any corrections or additions to this document. Please send mail to me:The MacScouter.
Check out The The MacScouter home page, particularly if you are looking for Shaggy Dog Stories, Tall Tales and Campfire Stories, Skits and Gross Songs, Scouts Own material, The Dutch Oven Cookbook, Embroidery companies and lots more.
Scouting on the Internet by R. Gary Hendra and Michael F. Bowman is provided as a service to the World Scouting Community by R. Gary Hendra -- The MacScouter --CA Pack 92 & MC Troop 92, Milpitas, California
