EVERYBODY'S INTERNET UPDATE ==================== Number 7 - October, 1994 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ An online publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation Edited by Adam Gaffin, adamg@world.std.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ By the time you read this, it's probably November. Your faithful scribe humbly apologizes... This month: 1. Net worth: Managing your money and career the Internet way 1.1 Money 1.2 Jobs 1.3 FYI 1.4 When things go wrong 2. Watch out for TIA 3. HotWired debuts 4. Services of the month 4.1 Area Codes 4.2 Disney 4.3 Education 4.4 Government 4.5 Korea 4.6 Oklahoma 4.7 Sex 4.8 Television 5. Public-access Internet providers 6. Contact Info ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. NET WORTH: MANAGING YOUR MONEY AND CAREER THE INTERNET WAY A couple of years ago, the Internet was an interesting and fascinating resource. Just like today. But where the Internet severely trailed the commercial services, such as CompuServe, was access to databases of relevance to the general population (as opposed to, say, databases on fruit-fly genetics). That's all changing. Today, the number of more general resources on the Internet grows faster than anybody can really keep track of. Take managing your money, for example. It's now possible to check stock quotes, look up the performance of mutual funds, see how much those spare lire you brought back from Italy are worth. And you can do it all for free, or at least, for no more than whatever you pay your public-access Internet provider for connecting to the Net in the first place. As with so much else on the Internet these days, much of the information is available on the World-Wide Web (if you're new to the Web, see the Contact Info section at the end of this file for information on obtaining back copies of the Update; you'll want netupdate.001). The one caveat for this financial information is that most of it is focused on U.S. companies (so what else is new?). So let's take a look at managing your money the Internet way. 1.1 MONEY Several services now provide stock-market information -- prices and the like -- over the Internet. QuoteCom actually charges for access to its stock-market data, which is pretty close to real-time (no more than a 15-minute delay). But in the true Internet spirit of giving something to the community, QuoteCom lets anybody get quotes, up to five per day (paid subscribers get unlimited quotes, the ability to have the system automatically track their portfolio and other options). QuoteCom is available on the Web at http://www.quote.com/. If you don't need prices right this second, the experimental stock-market Web server at MIT is for you. In addition to providing closing prices (after 10 p.m. or so, Eastern time), the service provides charts showing how selected stocks have performed in recent weeks. If you use Mosaic or some other graphical Web browser, you can see the charts online; if you use Lynx, you can download them. It's available at http://www.ai.mit.edu/stocks.html. Security APL provides another free set of listings of closing stock prices. What makes their Web server unique is that when you enter a company's ticker name, you get back not only the most recent closing quotes, but links to other Internet documents that mention the company (if you know the company name, but not its ticker abbreviation, you can look that up as well). Point your Web browser at http://www.secapl.com/secapl/Welcome.html. One of the resources used by Security APL is the Internet Multicasting Service's EDGAR database. EDGAR's the name of the electronic-filing system used by a growing number of companies to file mandated reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. If you want to go straight to the source, point your Web browser at http://town.hall.org/edgar/edgar.html. One of your options is to search the archives. Type in the name of the company and you'll get back a list of available documents. Also available is a listing of the various forms companies have to file and what they're for. The database goes back to the beginning of 1994. George Holt provides a daily listing of financial information that include closing indexes from stock markets around the world, currency prices and more. It's available via Gopher at wuecon.wustl.edu. From the main menu, select WU Economic Gopher (it's currently number 45 -- all the way back on the third page), then Holt's Stock Market Reports. Via the Web, it's gopher://wuecon.wustl.edu:671/11/holt. Galt Technologies' Networth provides information on a number of no-load mutual funds. This includes fund profiles, prospectuses and performance reports. You have to register, but it's free. It's on the Web, natch, at http://networth.galt.com/. Get some general information about brokers and how they work via the Web at http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/jdg/www/invest_brokers.html. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange provides a glossary of terms related to futures trading, available on the Web at http://www.interaccess.com:80/users/wilbirk/glossary.html. FINWeb, at the University of Texas, provides links to large numbers of financial resources. They tend toward economics, as in the stuff professors might be more interested in than the average professor, but if you're a serious student of the field, it's worth a look, at http://finweb.bus.utexas.edu/finweb.html. Hugh Chou has created a Web server that lets you calculate your monthly mortgage payments. You type in the amount of your mortgage, your interest rate and the length of the loan, hit the "submit" button, and voila: monthly payment info. It's available at http://ibc.wustl.edu/mort.html. The Global Network Navigator's Personal Finances "meta-center" has weekly articles and a newsletter on managing your money. Look for it on the Web at http://nearnet.gnn.com/gnn/meta/finance/index.html. 1.2 JOBS Of course, to have any money to invest, it helps to have a job first. There are now several places on the Net to look for a job. Not surprisingly, most tend to be in the computer field, but there are specialized "classifieds" for federal jobs and those in health care as well. One of the oldest, and largest, job centers on the Net is the Online Career Center run by Msen, a Michigan public-access Internet provider. It's available via Gopher at garnet.msen.com. From the main menu, select Online Career Center. You can search listings in several ways, including by job type and geographic location. Dartmouth College maintains a database of available jobs in the federal government. It's available via Gopher at dartcms1.dartmouth.edu. At the main menu, select "Federal jobs." A similar database for health-care positions is available via World-Wide Web at http://www.medsearch.com:9001/. Some academic job postings can be found, also on the Web, at http://galaxy.einet.net/GJ/employment.html. The On-Line Job Services Web server at Stanford University provides links to a number of Internet job databases at http://rescomp.stanford.edu/jobs.html. But what if you need help applying for a job in the first place? E-SPAN's Interactive Employment Network (IEN) provides a variety of resources aimed at increasing your chances of getting a job, from career- fair calendars to tips on looking for a job. Resume guidelines discuss the best way to write resumes, how to analyze yours and more. It's at http://www.espan.com/. Finally, we have a service that proves the Net has entered the mainstream -- the Ultravend WWW homepage. Ultravend makes vending machines, the kind you can franchise to become independently wealthy while running your own business, or something. It's available at http://www.srv.net:8001/UltraVend.html. You'll find plenty of promotional material about the wonders of Ultravend, along with newsletters on the vending-machine business and other news for the soda- in-a-machine set (just remember: if a soda machine doesn't give you your soda, DON'T try to shake the thing -- it might tip over and squash you). 1.3 FYI There are a number of Usenet conferences related to finances, generally in the misc.invest hierarchy, such as: misc.invest.canada, misc.invest.funds, misc.invest.futures, misc.invest.real-estate, misc.invest.stocks, misc.invest.technical, misc.invest.funds, misc.invest.futures, misc.invest.real-estate, misc.invest.stocks and misc.invest.technical. The misc.entrepreneur newsgroup is talking about starting your own business (expect plenty of "make a million dollars with no work whatsoever" messages, however). The Financial Economics Network is a series of e-mail conferences on all sorts of aspects of, well, finances and economics. For more information, contact Wayne Marr at marrm@clemson.clemson.edu or John Trimble at trimble@vancourve.wsu.edu. You can look up FAQs and other documents from misc.invest via anonymous FTP or ncFTP at dg-rtp.dg.com in the /pub/misc.invest directory. 1.4 WHEN THINGS GO WRONG * You could lose your shirt. Be careful out there. 2. WATCH OUT FOR TIA In the September Update (netupdate.006), we looked at The Internet Adapter, a nifty piece of software that lets you run graphical applications, such as Mosaic, over a standard dial-up connection to your average public-access Internet provider. Users of the World, a public-access provider in Massachusetts, however, recently uncovered a potential gotcha. One of the things TIA lets you do is run multiple online applications at once -- for example, while waiting for a Web page to download, you could read your mail, get an FTP file, etc. So? The problem is that some providers with hourly charges charge you per hour for each online session. To the World's computer, when you start up Mosaic, say, that's one session. Launch an FTP request, that's another session, etc., etc. So before you start using TIA heavily, better check with your provider to see what its policy is. 3. HOTWIRED DEBUTS HotWired, the online partner to Wired magazine, launched itself this month. Naturally, it's a Web server. And as you might expect if you've ever read Wired, the graphics are quite something to see (if painfully slow at 14.4K bps). One of the things that makes HotWired unique is that its designers have built online conferences right into the server, so that you can comment immediately on the articles by HotWired staffers (like the Global Network Navigator, HotWired has some paid writers) -- and read what others think of the articles. One caveat is that this and other advanced features on the server do not work with all Web broswer programs -- you can, however, grab a list of browsers that do work with HotWired. HotWired, which, like GNN, carries ads, makes very effective use of the Web's hyperlink abilities -- an article by Josh Quittner on the potential of the Internet for a new form of journalism has links to a number of resources related to the topic. Another thing that makes HotWired unique is that before you can get into the service, you have to register first. It's kind of a startling break with the ethos of the Web that public Web servers be accessible to anybody who wants to take a look -- Mosaic and similar programs are not called "browsers" for nothing. HotWired argues this helps preserve the integrity of the conferences -- anonymity brings some obvious potential problems -- and says that your registration information will NOT be turned over to any of HotWired's advertisers. Still, one wonders why, if the conferencing is so vulnerable, let everybody in to take a look services and only require registration to actually post messages. HotWired says there are Unix-type reasons to put the password challenge up front, but still... You'll find HotWired at http://www.hotwired.com. 4. SERVICES OF THE MONTH 4.1 AREA CODES Ever wondered what the area code is in, oh, Watertown, NY., or the country code for Andorra? Help is now as near as your keyboard. AmeriCom, a long-distance company, has created a World-Wide Web server to find such information, at http://www.xmission.com/~americom/. Their database includes some 80,000 cities around the world. 4.2 DISNEY The Buena Vista Pictures Web server has information and photos of current Disney movies -- even some QuickTime loops for Macintosh owners (caveat: those are large files). Point your ears, uh, Web browser, at http://bvp.wdp.com/BVPM/ 4.3 EDUCATION Mitchell Sprague has collected more than 500 links to Internet resources of potential value in the classroom, as part of NASA's K-12 Internet Project in Mendocino, Calif. The links are available by gopher at quest.arc.nasa.gov. From the main menu, select Internet Resources and then Mitch's Internet Resources by Topic. 4.4 GOVERNMENT The White House has expanded its online presence to the World-Wide Web. Besides the now common presidential press releases, look for links to other federal agencies as well as a collection of Al Gore's favorite politcal cartoons. It's at http://www.whitehouse.gov. 4.5 KOREA Look up information on Korea via the Web at http://firefox.postech.ac.kr/. 4.6 OKLAHOMA Oklahoma is OK. Find out how OK on the State of Oklahoma Home Page on the Web at http://www.oklaosf.state.ok.us/. 4.7 SEX Now you know you can get anything over the Internet: Condom Country is a store specializing in, well, one guess. Also sells other, related products and provides information on safe sex and the like. It's available on the Web at http://www.ag.com/condom/country. 4.8 TELEVISION The tv2nite-l mailing list provides nightly listings for U.S. networks and cable channels, including those not always covered in newspapers (such as Comedy Central and the SciFi Channel). To subscribe, write to listserv@netcom.com. Leave the "subject:" line blank, and as your message, write: subscribe tv2nite-l 5. PUBLIC-ACCESS INTERNET PROVIDERS MASSACHUSETTS Mashpee. CCS World, (508) 477-8211. Log on as: new. $30 for 60 hours per month. Voice: (508) 477-6181. NORWAY Oslo. Oslonett. For modem line, call voice number. NOK550 per year, plus hourly rates of NOK50 between 0800-1600; NOK25 between 1600 and 0100 and no extra charge between 0100 and 0800. Or NOK2400 for unlimited use for six months. Voice: +47 22 46 10 99 ONTARIO Oakville/Kitchener. HookUp Communications, call voice number for modem number. $14.95 for five hours a month; $35 for 15 hours a month. Plus $35 set-up fee. Voice: (905) 847-8000 (Oakville); (519) 747-4110 (Kitchener). TEXAS Houston. Hudson-Trinity, Inc. Call voice number for modem line. $15 a month; $40 set-up fee (plus tax). Voice: (713) 333-9558. CONTACT INFO Everybody's Internet Update is published monthly by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Current and back copies are available by anonymous FTP or ncFTP at ftp.eff.org in the pub/Net_info/Guidebooks/Everybodys_Guide/Updates directory; by gopher at gopher.eff.org (select Net Info, then EFF's Guide to the Internet, then Updates); and by WWW at http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_info/Guidebooks/Everybodys_Guide/Updates/ To receive the updates via e-mail, write to listserv@eff.org. Leave the subject line blank, and as your message, write: add net-guide To obtain a copy of the entire EFF Guide to the Internet, use anonymous FTP or ncFTP to connect to ftp.eff.org and look in the /pub/Net_info/Everybodys_Guide directory, or use gopher to connect to gopher.eff.org and then select Net Info and then EFF Net Guide. You'll find several versions for different types of computers. The file netguide.eff is the generic ASCII version. To reach Update Editor Adam Gaffin, write adamg@world.std.com. For general information on the Electronic Frontier Foundation, send an e- mail message to info@eff.org. To ask a specific question, write ask@eff.org. Everybody's Internet Update is copyright 1994 by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Washington, D.C.