3. Access Services The major services discussed here are electronic mail, news, Gopher, World Wide Web, phone directories, and dialup access. 3.1 Electronic Mail Electronic mail (email) is information that is sent electronically from one computer user to another. Email is a fast, convenient way to handle correspondence. Once you learn the basics, you'll find it an easy and fun way to communicate with friends and colleagues at Penn State and around the world. The CAC provides a POP (Post Office Protocol) server that holds your email until you ask for it. When you connect with a POP client your mail files are moved to your own computer where you can read them, send replies, or store them. The CAC also provides a mail forwarding service in conjunction with an electronic phone directory. A single email address can be given to your correspondents (e.g. userid@psu.edu) and you can have mail forwarded from there to whatever system you are currently using. 3.2 News Usenet, also called Netnews, is a world-wide electronic bulletin board and conferencing system that is accessible through the Internet. This system contains thousands of newsgroups from which you can select topics of interest and read articles that have been posted by others. You can save, print, and reply to articles, or post your own news. The interactive nature of Usenet has made it extremely popular with students and faculty, who use it as a forum to discuss topics of interest. The CAC provides a news server that is used with "news reader" client software that understands NNTP (NetNews Transfer Protocol). Articles from chosen newsgroups are copied to your personal computer where you can read them, send replies by email, or post follow-up articles. 3.3 Gopher Gpopher software prives menu-based access to Internet resources. Combining features of electronic bulletin board services and searchable databases, Gopher can help you locate resources such as library catalogs, research databases, journals, weather maps, and much more. There are several Gopher servers at Penn State that can be found through the "main" one maintained by the CAC. Again, a client program connects to the servers and displays choices to you. Files are either viewed on or copied to your personal computer. 3.4 World Wide Web (WWW) Similar to Gopher, WWW servers provide a network of information delivered with "hypertext" and "hypermedia." Instead of picking items from a menu, you click on highlighted phrases or icons that are linked to other objects which can be text, graphics, sound or video. WWW is developing rapidly because of the advent of a client program called Mosaic that supports WWW, Gopher, FTP, and Netnews. As of this writing, versions of Mosaic for the Macintosh, MS Windows, and X-Windows are available and working, but we haven't repackaged them in a complete easy-to-install form. Find the Macintosh and Windows versions on the FTP server ftp.cac.psu.edu in pub/access/test. 3.5 OASIS (Open Access to Student Information Systems) OASIS is intended to provide a convenient, yet controlled, method for Penn State students to directyly view, and in some cases update, their own administrative data. This access ranges from viewing your unofficial transcript and course schedules to updating your local address. 3.6 Phone Directories The CAC maintains an on-line telephone directory system called PH (short for phone). This directory contains information for Penn State students, faculty and staff. The PH server is updated weekly to provide more current and complete information than the printed directories. PH can display a person's email address, home and work address, phone numbers, campus, department, title, and other information. The directory is accessible by everyone on the Internet, and people may use it to find your email address. 3.7 Dialup Access Dialup service allows an individual with a computer, modem, and phone to connect to the Penn State network and the global Internet. This connection has all the capabilities of a "hardwire" connection such as Ethernet, but is not as fast. The dialup access phone number (814) 863-7777 connects you to the CAC information access server. Recently the Office of Telecommunications (OTC) and the Center for Academic Computer (CAC) announced additional locations and numbers for dialup access to the Penn State network and the Internet. These numbers, each with 8 modems, are functionally equivalent to the University Park service at 814-863-7777, providing an authenticated connection for a wide variety of network applications. This project is supported by OTC, CAC, and the administration of each campus. 3.8 Clients and Servers It is important to understand that network services are provided by several different computers, and that you no longer "log into" a single machine to do different things. Now, for a particular task you connect to a server (a program) with the right kind of client (another program). The client and server converse in a well- defined language or protocol. One server may be running on a different computer than another. For example, the access server (access.psu.edu) providdes dialup connections and a menu for changing your password. The mail server (email.psu.edu) holds and delivers your email. The news server (news.psu.edu) stores news articles, and delivers to you the ones you want to read. These all run on different computers today, but might be on the same or another computer tomorrow, and you'll never need to know the hardware was changed.