---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide SunFLASH Vol 38 #9 February 1992 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article from Brendan Kehoe describes an excellent introductory guide to the Internet. It can be ftp-ed from the internet. I will send a uu-encoded, compressed postscipt version to anyone who wants a copy but lacks internet access. (I'd rather not as the uu-encoded, compressed postscipt is just over 262k.) -johnj ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'd like to announce the availability of the first edition of booklet that I hope will find a wide-spread audience. It's called ``Zen and the Art of the Internet'', and serves as an introductory text to using the Internet in its various incarnations. In approximately 100 pages, Zen addresses domain names, electronic mail, telnet and ftp, and a variety of other topics. An extensive glossary and fairly decent bibliography are also included. This booklet explicitly avoids being oriented towards one specific operating system or computing environment. It's not Unix-heavy, nor does it directly address VMS or any other OS. Rather, it provides the fundamental concepts and ideas behind using the Internet, and leaves the specific details of command options and usage to the local site. Directors of academic computing services departments for universities and colleges are encouraged to make copies for their user communities; system administrators are welcome to offer it to their users, whether the system be private, commercial, or public; any companies in need of training or other educational literature may use this booklet as an aid; and, most of all, "normal users" are invited to use it to help expand their knowledge of the Internet and the possibilities it offers. The author is keenly interested in hearing from anyone considering large distribution; if you're going to do such a thing, please drop me a line just to satisfy my curiosity. Now, how to get it. Printed copies are currently unavailable (Widener has no mechanism to deal with this sort of publishing). However, the guide is available via anonymous FTP from a number of sites. It's stored in three forms: a .tar.Z file (Unix-ites will know what to do with this), a .dvi file (output from the TeX typesetting system), and a .PS (Postscript) file. Right now there isn't an ASCII version, but it's in the works to make one widely available. * ftp.uu.net [137.39.1.9] in /inet/doc * ftp.cs.toronto.edu [128.100.3.6] in pub/zen * ftp.cs.widener.edu [147.31.254.132] in pub/zen as zen-1.0.tar.Z, zen-1.0.dvi, and zen-1.0.PS * ftp.sura.net [128.167.254.179] in pub/nic as zen-1.0.PS If you're limited to UUCP, you can get it anonymously by calling UUNET at 900/GOT-SRCS and get the file /inet/doc/FILES. Please send any comments, questions, whatever, to guide-notes@cs.widener.edu. Thanks, and I hope you find it useful! Brendan Kehoe, Sun Network Manager brendan@cs.widener.edu Widener University Chester, PA <<< From the Zen README file - johnj >>> [Last changed: 02/02/92] This is the first edition of a booklet entitled ``Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide to the Internet''. It's roughly 100 pages in length, and is divided into the following sections: * Chapter 1--Network Basics * Chapter 2--Electronic Mail * Chapter 3--Anonymous FTP * Chapter 4--Usenet News * Chapter 5--Telnet * Chapter 6--Tools (finger/ping/etc) * Chapter 7--Commercial Uses of the Internet * Chapter 8--Things you'll hear about (projects/organizations) * Chapter 9--Finding Out More * An appendix on reaching other networks * An appendix on mail-based file retrieval (FTPmail, archive servers) * An appendix on how to create a newsgroup * A glossary of 80+ terms * A bibliography of over a dozen books and two dozen papers and magazines related to the Internet and similar topics. Why do you want this? Well, for one thing it's free. It's also unique--there presently exists no single comprehensive collection of the information directly related to being connected to the Internet. Most users learn by word of mouth and stumbling upon things. This guide should give you a reference to consult if you're curious about what can be done with the Internet. It also presents the fundamental topics that are all too often assumed and considered trivial by many network users. This is your first "virtual quickie." If you have any comments or questions, please send them to the address guide-bugs@cs.widener.edu. I hope this guide is of use to you! Brendan Kehoe Department of Computer Science Widener University ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For information send mail to info-sunflash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. 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