Chapter 5 5

House, garden and finances ------------- FidoNet has a long list of interesting conferences:

HOME-N-GRDN Home and Garden Questions

HOMEAUT Home Automation

HOMESCHL Homeschooling support

HOME_IMP Improvements around the house.

HOME_OFFICE Home Office

HOME_REPAIR Home Repair and Remodelling

ZYMURGY Beer Homebrewing

The EXEC-PC BBS has "Home Repair." The FUTUREHOME TECHNOLOGY NEWS newsletter is available through NewsNet. On ILINK, you will find the HOMEGARDEN conference. Usenet has misc.consumers.house . Here they discuss anything related to owning and maintaining a house. On the Well, check out "Homeowners." In Ziff-Davis' Magazine Database Plus you can search and read articles from the Good Housekeeping Magazine. This full-text article database is available from CompuServe and other services. Through UUCP you can get to the conference "Antiques" (Contact: antiques-request@swbatl.sbc.com). CompuServe also has the Gardening Forum. It is operated by the National Gardening Association, which publishes National Gardening magazine. The various services' software libraries contain many great shareware and public domain programs. You can download software that will help you prepare tax return forms, plan next year's taxes, calculate interests and down-payments on your loans. You'll find double-entry money-managing systems for non-accountants that will help you with personal bookkeeping and checkbook balancing. Other programs will help you plan and maintain your house. There are personal inventory programs (to help you keep track of belongings), and programs that can help you plan allocation of the space in your home. . . Join CompuServe's Investors Forum to learn how to play the stock and money markets, and other moneymaking 'instruments'. Discuss investment techniques with others, read reports about economical trends, and retrieve useful programs for your personal computer. RelayNet offers the international conference INVESTOR. Usenet has misc.invest . If you want to adopt a child, check out ADOPTION on FidoNet, or subscribe to a UUCP conference of the same name. For access, write adoption-request@think.com . The National Issues Forum on CompuServe has a message section called "Adoption Today." Addicted TV-viewers may be interested in alt.tv.twin-peaks or alt.tv.muppets on Usenet. "Mystery" on FidoNet and UUCP is for those preferring mystery novels by the fire place in the living room. There are even offerings for "the perfect house wife." I can think of no better pastime than origami, the traditional Japanese art of folding paper. (Contact: origami-request@cs.utexas.edu on UUCP). Oh, I almost forgot: The BONSAI conference is essential (on LISTSERV@CMS.CC.WAYNE.EDU). This is where to discuss the art and craft of Bonsai and related art forms. Bonsai is the Oriental Art of miniaturizing trees and plants into forms that mimic nature.

Education, teaching and the exchange of knowledge ------------------------- The list of conferences, forums, clubs, and other services focusing on education - in its broadest meaning of the word - is long. You are offered online courses, workshops, and seminars for students of all ages, databases to help you select a school for yourself or your kids, and all kinds of discussion forums for educators. Usenet, BITNET, Internet, and UUCP have long traditions in education. You'll find offerings for teachers within all subject areas, from finance and accounting, through history, languages and geography to technical subjects on all levels. Two guides listing forums of interest to Educators can be retrieved by anonymous FTP from the pub/ednet directory at nic.umass.edu . Use the following commands (see "FTP by email" at the end of Chapter 12):

get educatrs.lst get edusenet.gde

KIDSPHERE (subscribe through JOINKIDS@vms.cis.pitt.edu) is a discussion forum for teachers of students from the age of kindergarten through high school and higher. This is a selection of other BITNET discussion lists to suggest the span of topics:

CHEMED-L (CHEMED-L@UWF) Chemistry Education Discussion

CHRONICL (CHRONICL@USCVM) On-Line Chronicle of Higher Ed

CIVIL-L (CIVIL-L@UNBVM1) Civil Engineering Research & Ed.

COMLAW-L (COMLAW-L@UALTAVM) Computers and Legal Education

DRUGABUS (DRUGABUS@UMAB) Drug Abuse Education Information

JOURNET (JOURNET@QUCDN) Discussion List for Journalism Ed

MEDIA-L (MEDIA-L@BINGVMB) Media in Education

MULTI-L (MULTI-L@BARILVM) Language and Education in Multi-

Lingual Settings

MUSIC-ED (MUSIC-ED@UMINN1) MUSIC-ED Music Education

PANET-L (PANET-L@YALEVM) Medical Education and Health Info

TAG-L (TAG-L@NDSUVM1) TAG-L Talented and Gifted Ed

WORLD-L (WORLD-L@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU)

Non-Eurocentric World History

Here are some Usenet conferences:

comp.edu Computer science education

sci.edu The science of education

comp.ai.edu Applications of Artificial Intelligence to

Education

There are many similar offerings on the commercial services and

free bulletin boards.

K12Net is a decentralized network for schools available on

FidoNet and Usenet. Write janet.murray@f23.n105.z1.fidonet.org for

information.

FidoNet also has

A_THEIST A_Theism Education and Enlightenment

HIGH_ED Education, Post Secondary

HISTORY International History

MAC_GAMES Macintosh Entertainment & Education

CompuServe has 12 forums focusing on education. Among these you'll

find the Disabilities Forum, Computer Training Forum, Education

Forum, Education Research forum, Science/Math Educational Forum,

Foreign Language Forum, LOGO and Students Forum.

Ken and Carrie Loss-Cutler are coordinating the section for

Home/Alternative Education in CompuServe's Education Forum. They

educate their two children at home instead of sending them to a

public school.

The Foreign Language Forum has the sections Potpourri/Polyglot,

Spanish/Portuguese, French, German/Germanic, Latin/Greek, Slavic/E.

European, English, East Asian, Esperanto, Others, FL Education,

Translators, Computers/CAI-CALL, The Directory, Jobs/Careers, New

Uploads and Using the Forum.

If you're into reading/writing the African language Kiswahili

(Swahili), write kuntz@macc.wisc.edu to get onto the SWAHILI-L

mailing list.

The more occupational oriented forums include Communications

Industry Forum, Environmental Forum, Firenet (for volunteer fire

brigades), Industrial Hygiene Forum, AAMSI Medical Forum, ASCMD

Forum, HealthNet, OP-Net Forum, the MICRO MD Network, Legal SIG,

Aviation SIG, CB Society and CEMSIG (computers and electronics).

Bergen By Byte has the Norwegian language conference Schools.

This conference is for validated users only.

| There are many private conferences in the online world. All | | conferences referred to in this book are open for anybody to | | join, unless explicitly told to be private. |

RelayNet has EDUCATION. NewsNet offers the newsletters EDUCATION DAILY, and the HELLER REPORT ON EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY. Many online services (including schools and universities) offer students accredited courses by modem. Connected Education at the New School for Social Research in the United States is one example, as is the University of Phoenix in Arizona. (Ask in CompuServe's Education Forum for more information.) The EDUPAGE newsletter is a twice-weekly summary of news items on information technology, provided by a consortium of colleges and universities "seeking to transform education through the use of information technology." Compact and informative. I like it. To subscribe, send a note to edupage@educom.edu with your name, institution name and email address. (EDUPAGE is also available for Gopher, WAIS and anonymous FTP access on EDUCOM's host machine, educom.edu .) INFOBITS (at listserv@gibbs.oit.unc.edu) is a monthly service reporting from a number of information and instruction technology sources. The Internet Resource Directory for Educators is available by anonymous FTP from tcet.unt.edu in the pub/telecomputing-info/IRD subdirectory. File names include:

IRD-telnet-sites.txt (226KB ASCII text)

IRD-ftp-archives.txt ( 73KB)

IRD-listservs.txt (201KB)

IRD-infusion-ideas.txt (202KB)

Example: KIDLINK -------- Many parents and teachers regard the online world as a learning opportunity for their kids. Some of them turn to KIDLINK, a global service for children between 10 - 15 years of age. The service is operated by a grassroots network of volunteers. The objective is to get as many children as possible involved in a global dialog. Participation is free. Before joining the discussion, however, each child must respond to the following four questions:

1. Who am I?

2. What do I want to be when I grow up?

3. How do I want the world to be better when I grow up?

4. What can I do Now to make this come true?

The kids can write in any language. Most answers are sent through the Internet to a large online database in North America. Anyone with an email connection to the Internet can search this database at will. When they have submitted their responses, they are invited to 'meet' the others in several KIDCAFEs. The cafes are split up by language. Here, they can discuss anything from pop music to how it is to live in other countries. KIDLINK grew from an idea in 1990 to over 10,000 participating children in 50 countries by May 1993. Schools all over the globe are integrating KIDLINK with their classes in languages, geography, history, environment, art, etc. To the kid participant, KIDCAFE may be the beginning of a personal network of international friends. For more information, send mail to LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU with the following command in the TEXT of your message:

GET KIDLINK GENERAL

Your personal network ----------- Network is a word with many meanings. It can be a system set up to transport data from one computer to another. It can be an online service with many conferences, and a friendly connection between people (like in "old boys' network"). Here, we use it in the latter meaning of the word. We use our personal networks more than most of us think of. We have a chain of people that we call on to ask for advice, help, and who we invite to participate in projects or parties. When they ask us for assistance, we lend a hand. The online world has some interesting characteristics. One is that most participants in online conferences already have received so much help from others that they feel obliged to pay back. They do this by helping others. Those who help, know that helping others will be rewarded. The reward, however, may not come directly from the persons that they help. They contributions help maintain and develop the online world as one giant personal network. A typical example: I wanted to buy a 425 megabyte hard disk for my Toshiba 5100 personal computer. I discover the existence of such a drive, when a user told about his experiences in CompuServe's Toshiba Forum. Before placing an order, I wrote to check if he was still satisfied with the disk. The happy user did more than reply. He told about other sellers and offered to help out with return shipment of my computer when done. He made it clear that he had no financial interest in the companies selling the upgrade. We had no previous contact with each other. The online world is full of similar examples. The list of what people do to help others is very, very long. In most conferences and forums you get help, just like that. There is always someone prepared to help. Still, the best long range strategy to build chances of getting help when you need it, is to be visually present in conferences, that matter to you. 'Being visually present' means that you should contribute in the discussions and help others as much as you can. The p o s i t i v e contributors get a lot of friends and a disproportional amount of help from others. That is all it takes to build a personal network. One day you may need it. It will give you an incredible advantage. I have seen people get jobs, partners and clients through such contacts. The online world is full of opportunities.

Watch your words -------- Written communications are deprived of the body language and tone of voice that convey so much in face-to-face meetings and even in telephone conversations. Therefore, it makes sense to work much harder to build in humor, sarcasm, or disagreement and avoid your words come across as stupidity, rudeness, or aggressiveness. One way of defusing misunderstanding is to include cues as to your emotional state. One popular technique is to use keyboard symbols like :-). We call these symbols emoticons. What :-) means? Tilt your head to the left and look again. Yes, it's a smiling face. Here are some other examples to challenge your imagination: ;-) (Winking Smiley), :-( (Sad), 8-) (User wears glasses), :-o (Shocked or surprised), and :-> (Hey hey). A bracketed is shorthand for grin, and means grinning, ducking, and running. Some people prefer to write their emotional state in full text, like in these two examples: *grin* and *smile*. Do not misunderstand. You still should not allow yourself to write the most appallingly insulting things to other people, and then try to shrug it off with a . Watch your words. They are so easy to store on a hard disk.

Religion and philosophy ------------ CompuServe's Religion Forum (GO RELIGION) has many message sections with associated file libraries. You can get into serious discussion about topics ranging from Christianity, Judaism, Eastern Religions, Islam, Interfaith Dialog, Limbo, Pagan/Occult, to Religion and Science, Liturgical Churches, Mormonism, Ethics and Values, and more. You may also want to check out the New Age Forum. Usenet's offerings include these:

soc.culture.jewish Jewish culture & religion.

soc.religion.christian Christianity and related topics.

soc.religion.eastern Discussions of Eastern religions.

soc.religion.islam Discussions of the Islamic faith.

talk.religion.misc Religious, ethical, & moral implications.

talk.religion.newage Esoteric and minority religions &

philosophies.

alt.pagan Discussions about paganism & religion.

alt.religion.computers People who believe computing is

"real life."

clari.news.religion Religion, religious leaders,

televangelists.

The BITNET/Internet arena has The Islamic Information & News Net on MUSLIMS (available through LISTSERV@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU). ISLAM-L (on LISTSERV@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU) is a non-sectarian forum for discussion, debate, and the exchange of information by students and scholars of the history of Islam. BUDDHA-L (on LISTSERV@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU) provides a means for those interested in Buddhist Studies to exchange information and views. BUDDHIST (on LISTSERV@JPNTUVM0.BITNET) is for non- academic discussions. BAPTIST (LISTSERV@UKCC.UKY.EDU) is the Open Baptist Discussion List. THEOLOGY (contact U16481%UICVM.BITNET@VM1.NODAK.EDU) is a mailing list dedicated to the intellectual discussion of religion. In its self-presentation, it says:

Intellectual is stressed as opposed to the "personal," the inspirational, or evangelistic. This does not mean one cannot evangelize, but rather that participants should persuade rather than brow-beat or attack those they disagree with. Arguments are inevitable, but they ultimately should resolve into mutual understanding or at least a truce.

Pagan (Contact: pagan-request@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu) is set up to discuss the religions and philosophies of paganism. BELIEF-L (on LISTSERV@BROWNVM.BITNET) is designed to be a forum where personal ideologies can be discussed, examined, and analyzed. The discussion list PHILCOMM@RPIECS.BITNET is where you debate the philosophy of communication. PHILOSOP@YORKVM1.BITNET is the Philosophy Discussion Forum. Several sacred texts and primary texts of religious interest are available by anonymous FTP or LISTSERV. The Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Koran (also spelled Quran) are available at many sites and in a variety of file formats. The Bible (King James Version) is available as bible10.zip and bible10.txt via FTP to mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.201.12) in the /extext/etext92/ directory. M.H. Shakir's translation of the Koran is available as 114 individual ASCII text chapters via FTP to quake.think.com (192.31.181.1) in the /pub/etext/koran/ directory. A short file containing quotes from the Koran is available via LISTSERV from LISTSERV@asuacad as PAKISTAN AL_QURAN. A collection of Sanskrit texts is available via FTP to ftp.bcc.ac.uk in the /pub/users/ucgadkw/indology/ directory. You may use the Archie service (see Appendix 4) to find other religious texts that are also available through the Internet. On FidoNet, check out JVArcServ.

Job-hunting by modem ---------- Unemployment is a global problem, and losing a job is often a bad experience. If this ever should happen to you, consider checking out the BITNET discussion list LAIDOFF@ARIZVM1 - "So, you've been laidoff?" Maybe you already have a job, but are constantly searching for something better. There are many forums and conferences devoted to help you get a new job. FidoNet has the JOBS conference, for those not in a hurry, and JOBS-NOW (Job & Employment offerings/listings) for those who have no more time to wait. On Bergen By Byte, it is called 'Job_market', and on ILINK CAREER. In many countries there are local bulletin boards operated by public employment agencies. On Televerket's Datatorg (Norway), you can browse jobs from the following menu (translated):

VACANT JOBS

Select desired profession Number 01 Technical, natural sciences ( 182) 02 Education, etc. ( 601) 03 Media,art ( 58) 04 Medicine, health care, etc. ( 951) 05 Social care ( 307) 06 Adm.,management, organization ( 348) 07 Finance,computers ( 100) 08 Secretarial, office work ( 138) 09 Sale,purchasing, advertising ( 576) 10 Agriculture,forestry,fishing ( 56) 11 Oil and gas, mining ( 38) 12 Transport,communication ( 68) 13 Workshop,fine mechanics,electro( 126) 14 craft,building and construction( 93) 15 Industry,ware-house,mechan. ( 68) 16 Hotel,restaurant,domestic work ( 133) 17 Service,surveillance,safety ( 170)

If your potential employers have an email address, you can send dozens of job resumes - while going for a cup of coffee! WORK-AT-HOME on FidoNet is for those planning to start their own business ("Take this job and shove it! I'll work at home!") CompuServe has the Working-From-Home Forum under the sysopship of online gurus Paul and Sarah Edwards. Its file library contains back issues of the electronic magazine "Making It on Your Own." GEnie has the Home Office Small Business forum (HOSB). Home based business opportunities may exist within areas such as desktop publishing, desktop video, high-tech equipment repair, import and export management, and professional practice management. Learn from others in forums or conferences on related topics. The good news is that many organizations are having problems finding qualified candidates for their vacant positions, and that some of them are turning to The Online World for help. One of them did it like this (from an online announcement):

Because it is difficult to locate qualified candidates for positions in special libraries and information centers, and to assist special librarians and information specialists to locate positions, the student chapter of the Special Libraries Association at Indiana University has formed a LISTSERV, SLAJOB, in connection with the Indiana Center for Database Systems. The LISTSERV, which is available on both the Internet and Bitnet, will help special libraries and information centers in the sciences, industry, the arts and within public and academic libraries to have a central location for announcing special library and information science positions. The LISTSERV is available to individuals or organizations that have an Internet or Bitnet network connection. For those on the network, subscribe by sending an email message to:

"LISTSERV@iubvm.bitnet" or "LISTSERV@iubvm.ucs.indiana.edu". Leave the subject line blank and then type the following in the message of the text:

subscribe SLAJOB [firstname] [lastname]

The Israelis have the mailing list CJI, Computer Jobs in Israel. Send mail to LISTSERV@JERUSALEM1.DATASRV.CO.IL with the usual "SUB CJI Your-Full-Name" in the text of your message. This will give you monthly updated lists of open computer jobs. When you get tired of hunting for a job, why not relax with HUMOR at LISTSERV@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU. This mailing list distributes humor of all types, topics and tastes. To subscribe, send the following command to the LISTSERV:

SUB HUMOR [firstname] [lastname]