Internet is coming to NPR! To some, this will be long awaited, good news; to others, it won't mean much. If you want to find out what the Internet is, how and when NPR is going to use it, join us for a presentation and discussion, on Friday, April 29, at noon in the Board Room. If you can't make the seminar, here's the gist of the presentation:
Internet is a collection of computer networks that is connected around the world. It began as a communications link between defense and scientific research institutions, but today is the fastest growing "organization," such that any statistic on the numbers of connected computers and users is obsolete before the numbers are uttered. The term "organization" is used loosely to refer to the Internet, because only the link among computers and users are managed, which is simply for self-preservation/replication. A code of "netiquette" exists among users and within user groups, but otherwise you pay your money, find your niche and take your chances.
A number of services exist to permit communication among users, to navigate around the various computers on the "net", and to access and use the enormous amounts of available data. The most powerful, EMAIL, is very similar to our own VAXmail, person@computer.organization.country. EMAIL services include both public and private mail, news groups and discussion groups. TELNET allows a user to travel to other computers to access data. Friendly software, like GOPHER, VERONICA, WORLD WIDE WEB, MOSAIC and CELLO provide easy access to the data on these other computers.
To ease ourselves onto the Internet securely, NPR has isolated a computer that will serve our communications needs, and we have built a firewall between it and the rest of the NPR computer network. We will offer EMAIL ONLY, at first. Internet EMAIL will provide us the biggest bang for the least impact on hardware, software and staff support. To get access to EMAIL, an employee must complete a separate Internet Account Application Form (available from CIS) and attend a one hour training session (to be offered at least once a day).