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Subject:MISC> The World Wide Web by E-mail (fwd) From:Gleason Sackman <sackman -at- plains -dot- nodak -dot- edu> To:net-happenings <net-happenings -at- is -dot- internic -dot- net> Date:Sun, 21 Aug 1994 15:42:54 -0500 (CDT)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: presno -at- grida -dot- no (Odd de Presno)
Newsgroups: alt.bbs.internet,alt.internet.services
Subject: the world wide web by email
Date: 20 Aug 1994 06:51:10 -0500
Feel free to redistribute:
The World Wide Web by Email
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
by
Odd de Presno
<opresno -at- extern -dot- uio -dot- no)
_____________________________________________________________
Sample text from the August issue of the Online World Monitor
Newsletter (volume 1, issue 2). (C) by Odd de Presno, Norway.
_____________________________________________________________
Most people only have email access to the Internet, and are therefore
deprived of interactive access to the World Wide Web.
The good news is that most pages are available by email!
Request WWW pages by sending email to listproc -at- www0 -dot- cern -dot- ch . Put your
retrieval commands in the BODY of the mail, like this
That's all. Lean back and wait. You will get a page filled with hints on
how to use the WebCrawler service. The mail will look like this:
.--------------------- Example 5 ----------------------------------------
|Date: Mon, 15 Aug 1994 18:10:44 +0200
|From: daemon -at- www0 -dot- cern -dot- ch (The CERN WWW Team Administration)
|Subject: Hints for Searching the WebCrawler Index (was: )
|
|This is a test version. Please mail any comments to www-request -at- info -dot- cern -dot- ch
|
|The document you requested, which URL is
|http://www.biotech.washington.edu/WebCrawler/WebCrawlerExamples.html,
|follows
|
|
| Hints for Searching the WebCrawler Index
| The WebCrawler knows about a lot of documents, so it pays to make precise
| queries. Often, though, you can be too precise, so finding what you want
| may take a couple of queries. Here are some suggestions about what to do
| when you don't get what you want, some examples to help you out, and
| detailed explanation of what happens to your query before it's run.
|
| WHAT TO DO WHEN...
|
| Your search produces no results. Check your spelling! If that looks OK,
| then try to be less specific in your query. For instance, the query
| molecular biotechnology DNA sequencing genetics chromosome human genome
| project is too specific -- no one document contains all of those keywords.
| Something like molecular biotechnology DNA sequencing is more appropriate.
|
| Your search produces too many results. Be more specific, and make sure you
| have the AND button checked. Try to think of words that uniquely identify
| what you're looking for. Some words are of little value, because they
| identify lots of documents in the WebCrawler's index. For instance, the
| words information and university together identify nearly half the
| documents in the index, so they're not very useful in trying to
| narrow down the search.
|
| You get an error from the WebCrawler. The WebCrawler will return an
| unfriendly error message if it's too busy, or if it chokes on your query.
| If it repeatedly has trouble with your query, please let me know, as I'm
| trying to eliminate these problems. Thanks!
|
|Examples
|
| Most specific queries work quite well. For instance, if you're looking
| for information on the music group They Might Be Giants, search for They
| Might Be Giants, or just TMBG.
|
| Some keywords are found in many places. For example, instead of
| searching for kermit, use something more descriptive like kermit
| columbia or kermit source code communication. Make sure the
| "AND" button is checked.
|
| To find references to the New York Times, try the query New York Times.
| To be more specific, try something like New York Times online newspaper.
|
|How a query works
|
| The query is parsed in to keywords on space and punctuation boundaries.
|
| Each word is folded to lower case, and any endings are stripped (NeXT
| Computers becomes next computer).
|
| Each word is checked against a stop list, to see if it's too common to
| worry about (to be or not to be is a null query!).
|
| Each word is fed to the index, and the resulting lists of documents are
| combined.
|
| bp -at- cs -dot- washington -dot- edu[1]
|
|*** References from this document ***
|[1] http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/bp/bp.html
|
.------------------------------------------------------------------------
The last line of the report is interesting. The "[1]" refers to the
following entry in the page's text:
bp -at- cs -dot- washington -dot- edu[1]
Interactive WWW users can click at this reference to see the associated
page. Those using email must send the URL at the bottom of the report back
to the LISTPROC to get it.
Actually, there is also a WWWmail command called "deep" that allows you to
get all documents in the URL you mentioned. If you replace "www" above with
For more information about this WWW by mail service, send the word "help"
to listproc -at- www0 -dot- cern -dot- ch .
Experiences
===========
I have tried to send search requests to the Lycos data base search page,
but so far without luck. If you find a way of doing this, please share. It
would make searching so much more productive for me.
--- end ---
The Online World Monitor newsletter
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
is a bi-monthly, ASCII online product. Initially meant as a free, optional
offering for supporters of The Online World resources handbook, it is also
open for subscription by others.
The newsletter and the book are companions. While the book describes the
online world as it is, the newsletter tracks changes. It can more freely
focus on selected offerings or phenomena than can be done within the strict
framework of the book.
For more about the newsletter, send email to LISTSERV -at- VM1 -dot- NODAK -dot- EDU with
the following command in the TEXT of your mail: GET TOW MONITOR
Add the following command for information about The Online World resources
handbook: GET TOW INDEX
Information is also available by gopher cosn.org. Select Networking
Information/Reference/The Online World.
