in the School of Business Administration at UM - St. Louis |
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MSIS 480: Management Information Systems
Internet Tools 
Gopher is an Internet application protocol in which hierarchically-organized file structures are maintained on
servers that themselves are part of an overall information structure. Gopher provided a way to bring text files
from all over the world to a viewer on your computer. Popular for several years, especially in universities,
Gopher was a step toward the World Wide Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Although most Gopher browsers and files are text-based, Gopher browsers, notably HyperGopher, were developed that displayed
graphic images (GIF and JPEG files) that were included in Gopher file directories.
Gopher Menu at University of Minnesota
Archie locates files, usually software, available for public FTP access.
Archie is an index on many anonymous FTP-servers all over the world. If you are looking for a file, Archie is the way to tell where you can
find this file. There are many Archie-servers located all over the world. They don't cover the same FTP-servers. Some Archie systems track
archive sites globally, others only track the archive sites in their country, region or continent in order to reduce the load on transoceanic
links.There are different ways to get the information from a Archie-server, like telnet, e-mail, the World Wide Web or a client-program like fpArchie. These client-programs communicate via the Prospero™ protocol with Archie and compatible servers, which perform the specified queries and return the results to the user.
Vague, general Search Strings, such as "binary", "jpeg", "WWW", etc., will not work. If you are not searching a specific file, try a different service, such as The Virtual Library or Yahoo.
Veronica is an index and retrieval system which can locate items on
most of the gopher servers in the Internet. It is an indexing spider that visits the
Gopher sites, reads all the directory and file names, and then indexes them in one large index. A user can then
query Veronica, which checks the query against its index. To use Veronica, you can Telnet or link through your
Web browser to a server that you know has Veronica on it and then enter search commands. Veronica finds resources by searching for WORDS in TITLES. It does not do a
full-text search of the contents of the resources.Jughead is a tool used by researchers and librarians for searching the information on Gopher sites for particular
subjects. It can also be used to build a searchable menu of a particular Gopher hierarchy of menus. It is less sophisticated than Veronica searches,
and intended for searching a smaller Gopher area.Ping is a basic Internet program that lets you verify that a particular Internet address exists and can accept
requests. The verb ping means the act of using the ping utility or command. Ping is used diagnostically to ensure
that a host computer you are trying to reach is actually operating. If, for example, a user can't ping a host, then the user will be unable
to use the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to send files to that host. Ping can also be used with a host that is operating to see how long it
takes to get a response back. Using ping, you can learn the number form of the IP address from the symbolic domain name. Loosely, ping means "to get the attention of" or "to check for the presence of" another party online. Ping operates by sending a packet to a designated address and waiting for a response. The computer acronym was contrived to match the submariners' term for the sound of a returned sonar pulse.
Ping can also refer to the process of sending a message to all the members of a mailing list requesting an ACK (acknowledgement code). This is done before sending e-mail in order to confirm that all of the addresses are reachable.
FTPstands for File Transfer Protocol, and is part of the TCP/IP protocol suite. It is
the protocol, or set of rules, which enables files to be transferred between
computers. FTP is a powerful tool which allows files to be transferred from "computer A" to "computer B", or vice versa. Files that can be transferred are stored on computers called FTP servers. To access these files, an FTP client program is used. This is an interface that allows the user to locate the file(s) to be transferred and initiate the transfer process.
Anonymous FTP allows a user to access a wealth of publicly available information. No special account or password is needed. However, an anonymous FTP site will sometimes ask that users login with the name "anonymous" and use their electronic mail address as the password.
We will use FTP to place our web pages on the web server. A step by step example is available.
TELNET is a software program or application that allows you to connect to a text-based computer
system. It is a means of enabling a user to log in to another computer on the Internet and use its
resources as though they existed on the users machine. Telnet connections are usually established using a stand-alone
terminal program (or client). By telneting to another computer, a user has access to that computer (or
a part of that computer), providing the login and password are known.
- URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~sauter/480/internet_tools.html
- Page Owner: Professor Sauter (Vicki.Sauter@umsl.edu)
- Page Owner: Professor Sauter (Vicki.Sauter@umsl.edu)