From hungary-online-owner Thu Nov 9 16:44:48 1995 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id QAA26426 for hungary-online-announce-out31415; Thu, 9 Nov 1995 16:44:48 -0800 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id QAA26417; Thu, 9 Nov 1995 16:44:34 -0800 Received: from steve@isys.hu () via =-=-=-=-=-= for hungary-online-announce@hungary.yak.net (26415) Received: from kingzog.isys.hu (KingZog.iSYS.hu [194.24.160.4]) (fnord) by nando (8.6.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id QAA26407 for ; Thu, 9 Nov 1995 16:43:26 -0800 Received: from [194.24.160.22] (bubba.iSYS.hu [194.24.160.22]) by kingzog.isys.hu (8.7.Beta.11/8.7.Beta.11) with SMTP id BAA21916 for ; Fri, 10 Nov 1995 01:42:33 +0100 (MET) X-Sender: steve@mail.isys.hu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 10 Nov 1995 01:45:17 +0100 To: hungary-online-announce@hungary.yak.net From: steve@isys.hu (Steven Carlson) Subject: (HOL-A) what we do on the net Sender: owner-Hungary-Online-announce@hungary.yak.net Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net what we do on the net hungary-online by Steven Carlson People often ask me what I do on the Internet. My answer is simple: most of the time I study the Internet. I'm not at all trying to be clever. The fact is for me, the most useful information I find on the Internet concerns the Internet itself - how it's growing, who's getting into the business, and how business on the net is evolving and maturing. Not surprisingly, the net itself is the best place to look for information about the Internet. Since I'm in business on the net, this is the kind of info I seek out. People often ask me what the net has to offer _them_. This is always a difficult question. We all have different interests. The Internet is vast and rapidly expanding. There's no way I or anyone else could possible know it all. Systems for structuring, indexing and searching the net are still very rudimentary. And yet this is only half the problem. Communicating and navigating on the Internet requires us to acquire a new set of skills. It's a learning process, and we all have to go through if we want to use the net. It's like going to school again. For example, let's say I have a client who wants to find information about waste water management. This is a topic I have no expertise in, and no interest at all. What can I do? The best I can do is point my client to a few places he can use to find the information himself. One such place is Yahoo , perhaps the most comprehensive index to the Internet. Yahoo also has a good search engine, and pointers to several better ones. Sticking to the example, I just did a Yahoo search on "waste water," which yielded nothing. Not to be deterred, I tried again at Web Crawler and DejaNews . Both services returned me more information that I could ever use on the topic of waste water management. Of course, I'm in no position to judge whether these resources are of any use to a professional in the field. I could probably charge clients hefty consulting fees for this service, and sometimes I do. But I'm more interested in teaching people to teach themselves. Using the Internet is a process of constantly learning, absorbing information. In the networked world, where information is plentiful, the golden rule is "inform thyself." Today I was writing email to to a contact of mine in New York requesting certain information. Halfway through the letter, I realized his organization runs an extensive website. Rather than waste his time, I hopped over to his site to see if I could answer my own questions. I didn't find all that I needed, but I was able to ask much more intelligent questions. And he appreciated the fact that I tried to answer my own questions first. There's a wonderful acronym in the computer world: RTFM. This stands for Read The reFerence Manual. (Or something like that). In other words, don't ask me your question until you've tried to answer it yourself. Another rule of thumb is "give and ye shall receive." The other day somebody wrote me from the net who had obviously looked around our company website and read my personal page. He asked me several questions about why I am in Hungary, and why I'm doing what I do. I took the time and answered all his questions. Then at the end of the note I asked him to tell me a bit about himself. Turnabout is fair play. In his reply, he didn't even bother answering my question. He wanted to know if I could help him get a job in Budapest. I prompted deleted the message. Sorry, guy, I've got _plenty- of other mail to answer. Some people seem to think the net exists simply to answer their questions. In fact, the net consists of people like you and me, learning and sharing information. I'm always willing to answer a question. But I expect the favor to be returned. In my business, of course, my clients ask me a lot of questions. And I want them to ask these questions. I want them to learn how to inform themselves on the net, and in turn to help others. I want them to eventually create their own resources and enrich the net. And I want them to talk about what they're doing and interest others. When I started using the net, I had one or two friends to help me along. I could ask them questions. They would point out interesting resources. As I made my beginner's mistakes they pointed them out to me. That's how I learned the net. Today I try to return the favor, as time permits. At the beginning of this column I told you I use the net to learn about the net. If you'd like to know what resources I'm using drop me a mail. Unfortunately, the list is a bit too long to publish with the column. Besides, I'd like to see how many of you write. I'm always surprised to discover how people are using the net. I'll leave you with this last example. One of the oldest Hungary-oriented resources is a mailing list called Hungary-L. I've watched it on and off for the last few years. I know many of the names on the list, but I hardly read the postings. Most of the members seem to be Hungarians living outside of Hungary - many of the probably '56ers. And like so many Magyars, these people love to talk, to argue, and to debate. Endlessly. Recently a colleague began forwarding me mail from the list titled "Honor the Memory." One of the members had written a 16-part memoir of his experiences as a boy in Budapest in 1956. The stuff was wonderful, electrifying! I suppose I don't need to remind you that Hungary recently celebrated the controversial anniversary of the 1956 events. This year the Hungary-L list exploded in debate, some of it trivial, but much of it very insightful. I'm learning too. Constantly. Steven Carlson is Net Media Manager at iSYS Hungary, an Internet provider in Budapest, Hungary. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright (c) 1995. Permission granted to redistribute this article in electronic form for non-profit purposes only. My byline and this message must remain intact. Contact me for reprint rights. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --- Steven Carlson iSYS Hungary info@isys.hu steve@isys.hu http://www.isys.hu ############# # This message to Hungary-Online-announce@hungary.yak.net # was from steve@isys.hu (Steven Carlson) # # To unsubscribe, # send "unsubscribe" to # For a full subscription (rather than this announcement-only subscription) # mail "subscribe" to # Send mail to for more information, # or to if you need human assistance. #############