The internet talk facility allows users on the internet to communicate
with one another in real time. This is done by invoking the talk
command from the unix shell. For example, talk dattner@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
would send a message to me, indicating the name of the user trying to connect to
me and the site from which he or she is calling from. For example, if I were to
try to chat with another user on the internet they would see the following:
Message from Talk_Daemon@fr at 16:53 ...
talk: Connection Requested by dattner@fr.
talk: !!!! RESPOND WITH: talk dattner@fr
At this point the user can decide whether or not to respond. Once a connection is established, the user's window or screen splits into an upper and lower portion. The user can then send messages in the bottom portion of the window and receive messages, in real time, in the top portion of the window.
I personally find this internet tool very useful, in that it is a free way to chat with friends who live far away. Unlike phoning these people, as a university student, it costs me nothing to use this technology. The obvious limitations to this system is that one can only communicate as fast as he or she can type; and this gets frustrating and time consuming sometimes. I guess every technology has its positive and negative attributes.
The IRC is the Internet's real time teleconferencing system. By running an IRC client, a user can connect to one of several IRC relay sites to conference with other users. The conference is split into user defined "channels" to which access may be restricted to an invited group or left open for public access.
In a research setting, the system can be invaluable in handling teleconferences between colleagues within the research group.
One of the most widely used internet tools is electronic mail. E-mail allows users around the world to send mail messages to one another, just as we would send mail in the real world. The main difference is that e-mail arrives much more quickly than regular mail and buying stamps is unnecessary. Different software has been created to handle electronic mail. Some examples include ELM and PINE. A typical mail handler looks something like this (ELM and PINE respectively):
I find e-mail very useful, especially when I need to leave short messages for other class mates. The other nice thing about e-mail is that I can leave messages for friends who have internet accounts in different places around the world and it doesn't cost me as a phone call would. Moreover, it is easier to write them an e-mail than to go through the hastle of writing a letter and mailing it.
The internet News forum is also a great way to gain information about a wide array of topics. News on the internet allows the user to read about topics that interest him or her while giving the user an opportunity to leave news messages of their own. This is a great way for a person to pose questions about a particular topic to experts or hobbiests around the world who have interests in the same topic. The different news groups vary over a wide array of topics. Here is a short example of some news groups stored in the .newsrc file:
alt.language.telugu.literature: 1-31
humanities.language.sanskrit: 1-86
rec.music.makers.squeezebox: 1-690
alt.future.millennium: 1-292
bionet.biology.deepsea: 1-3
rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz: 1-867
soc.culture.hawaii: 1-664
misc.taxes.moderated: 1-372
comp.sys.be: 1-1396
soc.culture.indian.karnataka: 1-398
alt.chinese.text.hz: 1-594
alt.support.glaucoma: 1-20
alt.games.command-n-conq: 1-580
comp.os.ms-windows.networking.win95: 1-764
The numbers to the right of the newsgroup indicate the number of messages that exist in the group to be read. Different programs can be used to read news, such as rn, netscape and mosaic. News is similar to e-mail in that the user can send and receive messages over the internet, except the difference is in e-mail you send your message to one or more specific people, and in news you post your message for anyone on the internet to see.
News forums can be used in technical institutions to allow professors and other experts on certain topics to communicate and pass information globaly to one another. This enables them to pose questions to other experts who normally would not be so easily contacted.