Outline handout for the Confe'rence des Grandes Ecoles / MIT / UC Berkeley "International Symposium III":

May 1, 1996

How to Get in Touch and Stay in Touch with Developments in Multimedia

by Jack Kessler, kessler@well.sf.ca.us

The following offers two things:

A. Some Multimedia resources online, and, B. How to get them:

A. Some Multimedia resources online:

What follows is only a personal selection... among many hundreds of possibilities to be found just online --

1.00 In France

et cetera... many others.

2.00 In the US

3.00 Elsewhere

4.00 And, tools --

The best way to find things about "Multimedia" or anything else online, as these things multiply and change, is to become familiar with and to use the online indexes: among these are --

-- try searching these for "Multimedia", but then when you retrieve for example "Altavista's" 900,000+ entries, try looking at the various sophisticated ways which these search engines offer for narrowing your search -- the problem no longer is too little information.

B. How to get them

1.00 From France

Internet Service Providers / ISP's (sometimes called Internet Access Providers) are plentiful now in France: the Yahoo Internet index (http://www.yahoo.com) currently lists over 50 in France. Many can be found online and in Minitel listings. Most large French institutions now offer some form of Internet account to anyone having a proper affiliation: universities, government departments, large corporations, research institutes, bibliothe`ques municipales, and, thanks to RENATER and other recent government programs, nearly any institution of "higher learning" in the country.

Users in France and elsewhere also have the option of using the Minitel to reach the Internet: try 3615INTERNET or 3616EMAIL or 3619USNET (the last is Rupert Murdoch's Delphi Service).

2.00 From the US

ISPs now can be found in most places in the US. The most recent entrants are the "BabyBells", which began offering Internet service including WorldWideWeb/W3 at very low consumer prices this Spring.

3.00 From Anywhere Else

As of January 1996 there were 9,472,000 Internet hosts in the world, any one of which might support very many individual human users [ref. http://www.nw.com]. These hosts may be found in or reached from nearly any country possessing some form of telecommunications system. This is not to say that the many political and economic and social problems of access have been solved in all places, or even the technical problems. But radio modem access is in use now in Cambodia, and there is Internet access now to Mozambique. There are few places on the globe now which digital multimedia cannot reach: whether it will or should are other questions.

4.00 How to stay up to date -- continuing education

One has to stay in touch daily: the technology changes this fast, and radically. It is too much to ask most users to remember to "dial in" to a Webpage or other online sources on a regular basis. The easiest device for staying up to date is a good, firmly - disciplined, electronic conference: they will send you regular and hopefully relevant and self - controlled and limited email announcements and discussions, which you can browse through with your morning email work. Several examples of such electronic conferences which are concerned specifically with "multimedia" are suggested above. There are thousands of others available, concerned with thousands of other subjects.

5.00 A General Note:

  1. how to get online: you need only --
    1. a "computer". Nearly any computer, "mac" or "dos" or "W95" or other: "desktops" will work, but so will "laptops" and some "palmtops", and later this year there even will be the "NC", which stands for "Network Computer" but already is being called the "Non - Computer" -- "desktops" and "laptops" cost $1000 to $2000 in the US, "palmtops" come in various capacities and prices, the "NC" is predicted to cost $500 in the US and may be provided free to consumers (a` la Minitel);
    2. a "modem". 28,800bps speed is the current norm. External modems are available, into which you plug your "computer", but increasingly modems are internal standard equipment. The most convenient is a little "PCMCIA card", the size of a thick "carte aux puces" which simply slips into a slot in the side of your "computer". Speeds are increasing, prices are dropping ($150 in the US now): one day modems may not be needed, thanks to ISDN / Nume'ris etc., but for now they are necessary;
    3. "telecom software". Most "computers" have basic dialing software as standard equipment now, included in the price. You will need in addition, though, WorldWideWeb / W3 interface software: some variety of the "Mosaic" interface developed originally at the University of Illinois. Many varieties of "Mosaic" are available now, some free of charge and some for sale: the best / biggest for now is "Netscape", which may be purchased ($50 in the US), or downloaded for free from many places on the Internet, including http://www.netscape.com ;
    4. an "Internet account". You should get a "PPP" ("Point - to - Point Protocol") or "SLIP" ("Serial Line Interface Protocol") Internet account, from your institution or from a commercial ISP / Internet Service Provider. (There are very many "ISP's" now in France and everywhere else. They all are basically the same although they charge very differently. In the US current charges run $19 per month with no extra charges for access, time, or taxes. Most French universities, government ministries, and large institutions of any type offer their own internal "PPP" accounts now, though.) You will "connect to the Internet" (including W3) most often simply by making a telephone call to it, using your "computer" and its modem, a` la Minitel;
    5. your time. There is really very little which must be learned by you in order to make very effective personal and professional use of the Internet / W3 -- taking very little of your time -- although there is a great deal (too much) which may be learned if you wish to. The best suggestion is for you to keep your own short list of the few "commands" which you really need -- from among the great variety available which you will read about or hear about from friends -- and then use your list when you are "online". This will avoid much of the "information overload" which you hear so much about.
  2. how to stay online:

    The greatest problem in learning to use online information is the necessity of practice: much of the skill is not intellectual but manipulative and manual -- you are training your hands rather than your brain, the repetition of typing or the pianoforte rather than the process of thinking, and so you must practice. Several online tools will enable you to retain the skills which you acquire initially:

    1. e - mail. Effective, regular use of email currently is the most personally - productive, and easiest, means of staying online and practicing. Increasingly anyone anywhere in the professions, business or government has an email address: the best initial practice is to gather such addresses -- increasingly these are on business cards -- and use them rather than written letters or fax, and certainly rather than voice telephone (which reaches only answering machines now). Unix email is easy to learn if you wish to store your materials online. Many software packages are available now as well for operating email from your own "computer";
    2. e - conferences. The electronic conference, in your profession or discipline or area of interest, will send you regular information of interest to you via email, guaranteeing that you practice your online techniques, and even allowing you to get and stay up to date in your own subject. A good e - conference has a moderator who will edit and discipline postings so that you receive only short and relevant messages, and a very useful archive will be maintained which may be searched easily by you;
    3. freedom from location. For those of you who travel -- either locally or internationally -- one of the greatest advantages of online communication is your ability to leave files online and then dial in and reach them from anywhere, anytime, using any computer. This is easiest in France, where the Minitel plant enables you to reach at least your own online text files from any of the millions of Minitels which are scattered throughout the country. Increasingly this is true elsewhere as well, however, as more and more users in all countries sign up their local "computers" for Internet and Minitel use. As the computer freed us from the paper file, so let the networks free us from the computer: such is the dream, anyway, of anyone who has had to carry a too - heavy laptop around the world.

Bonne route.

Pour avoir des informations sur le Symposium -- en Français ou en Anglais --, envoyez un courrier électronique à / For inquiries about the Symposium -- in English or French -- send email to: Jack Kessler at kessler@well.sf.ca.us or Jean - Pierre Tubach at tubach@ds.enst.fr or M. Bernard Sutter at sutter@paris.ensmp.fr.

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Last update 23-4-96