THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 19, 1995 TAG: 9506170251
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Doubleclick
SOURCE: Richard Grimes and Roger Grimes
LENGTH: Long : 125 lines
Doubleclick authors Richard and Roger Grimes of Virginia Beach happen to be twin brothers and computer authorities. Their discourse on life in the computer lane appears every other week in Hampton Roads Business Weekly.
Richard: If I had a time machine, there are two things I would do. First, I'd travel back to the 1960s and prevent Crosby, Stills and Nash from ever forming a musical group. With just the right amount of temporal tampering, those three guys would become accountants and I'd never have to hear Our House again.
The second thing I'd do is slip back to the early part of this decade and gag the bonehead the coined the term ``Information Superhighway.'' As an analogy, it bites.
Roger: Richard's right. If the Internet is an information superhighway, it's a highway without signs, rest stops or maps. It's hard to find things on the Internet, and that makes it difficult, time consuming and expensive to use.
Some of that is changing. Prices for Internet access are getting lower and the software is getting better. But as more and more average users connect to the Internet, more and more people are going to be overwhelmed by the complex tools and software that Internet packages typically include. That's where the Grimes brothers can help you.
Richard: First of all, we're assuming that, unlike me, you have a real job have something to show for it.
Roger: Richard's bosses have given up on trying to get him to produce tangible results. I think they write him off on taxes as an entertainment expense.
Richard: If you want to maximize your time on the Internet, don't attempt to learn everything at once. In fact, avoid the more complex tools like FTP, WAIS, Finger and Veronica. For the casual surfer, the results will not be worth the learning time involved.
Roger: Instead you can concentrate on two products and get more bang for your buck. I refer, of course, to E-mail and the World Wide Web.
Richard: Electronic mail alone is worth the price of an Internet connection. It's faster than regular mail, it's cheaper than regular mail, and none of it smells like Calvin Klein perfume.
Roger: Richard sends e-mail to a friend of his in Columbia, and she gets that mail within 10 minutes of it being sent.
Richard: The post office can't guarantee that regular mail will even make it to most parts of Columbia.
Roger: The mail service in South America is that bad?
Richard: I meant South Carolina.
Hands down, the best feature in e-mail is the delete function. I can't wait for the day when I can delete Ed McMahon's sweepstakes letters without ever having to touch them. Even better, some e-mail packages let you filter out mail from people who offend you. E-mail pros call this kind of feature a Bozo Filter.
Roger: Richard knows that Bozo Filters work because he's been permanently locked out by someone he irritated.
Richard: Mom will come around sooner or later.
Roger: Another advantage to E-mail is that the original is never sent, leaving you with an instant record of your correspondence. Likewise, you can carbon copy to any number of people.
Richard: All of these advantages may seem obvious to people who already use e-mail, but a few innovations are in the works that will make e-mail even more versatile.
Roger: Imagine sending mail to a client that not only includes a picture of your product, but motion pictures and sound as well. All of the technology will be in place within the next year or so.
Richard: This new technology will naturally make writing grandma a little harder. Not only will she want you to write about how much you'll like the underwear she crocheted for you, she'll want you to include footage as well.
Roger: Richard is probably the only person in the world prepared for that eventuality.
WORLD WIDE Web
Roger: For those who don't know, the World Wide Web is the part of the Internet that already sports sound and graphics - if you have the right kind of Internet access. Basically, you click on a button and your software moves you from site to site on the Internet. These sites are called Web pages.
Richard: Web pages are usually a combination of words and graphics of some kind. Some Web pages are catalogs, complete with pictures of sportswear, their descriptions and ordering information. Still others are sites devoted to a particular subject. Both the U.S. Army and Walt Disney have their own Web pages for instance.
Roger: The World Wide Web is exploding with innovation. A few years ago, Web pages basically displayed information and didn't do much else. Now, the really well crafted pages will download files to your computer at a click of a button or even allow you to access a database in the form of a spreadsheet.
Richard: The Web is busily co-opting all the functions of those esoteric programs like FTP, gopher and Veronica. Even e-mail is accessible from the Web. That's the reason we recommend that you concentrate on it. In a year or two, the World Wide Web and software programs like Netscape will handle the lion's share of information on the Internet. Only power users should bother learning the others.
Roger: To give you an idea of how powerful the World Wide Web is becoming, we need only point to something called VRML, or Virtual Reality Mark-up Language.
Richard: VRML allows people to represent 3-dimensional objects on their Web pages. Even better, the language lets you ``move'' around the 3-dimensional object. I checked out a demo of this language and it really blew me away.
At first, it seemed like any other picture of an automobile on a Web page. A flick of the mouse, though, allowed me to ``move'' closer to the car. I flipped the car and looked under it. Another mouse move allowed me to fly to the top of the car and peer down into it.
Roger: In his excitement, Richard neglected to mention that he watched the demonstration on a high-end Silicon Graphics machine connected to a high-speed phone line.
Richard: Did I forget to mention that?
Roger: You did. Don't worry, everyone has $20,000 of mad money lying around.
Richard: Well, people interested in the concept will be happy to know that VRML browsers for Window and Macintosh machines are expected to be out by the end of this month. You'll be able to explore other people's 3-dimensional Web pages and move around in 3D, albeit at a much slower pace. If you've ever gotten drunk, you're already used to the feeling. MEMO: The filtered bozo can be reached at rgrimes(AT)infi.net
Mom's favorite son can be reached at groger(AT)infi.net
by CNB