What's Up

   What's all the hubbub about the Internet? You would have to lead a pretty
sheltered life not to have, at least, heard the word before. But what is it? To
be technical, it's short for interconnected network. It is, in fact, a huge number
of individual computers and local area networks connected; not one to an other,
in line, but each to many others; such that if one node of the network is disabled,
it will not affect the communications of any other nodes. Most of the computers
that handle the work of "being" the Internet are on all the time. When you want
to connect to the Internet from your home computer, you usually use an ordinary
telephone line and a device called a modem to log-in to a server. The server is an
established landmark on the Internet, that can be located by everyone else via a
name or an address. When you log in, you use a name (not your real name) and a
password. You're not really as much a part of the Internet as your server is.
It gathers Internet resources for you and sends them to your computer through
the phone line. From a more practical, fun point of view, the Internet is the whole
freakin' planet Earth in a box!

   There are many features to the Internet. Email, electronic mail, is a method of
written communication that might also have pictures, sounds, or other data
attached. Everyone who has Email has their own address, and it is every bit as
private as ordinary postal mail. It takes about 4 minutes to send a letter to
someone clear across the world. When you're not using the service, your server
will collect and save any Email you get, for the next time you log in.

   The USENET Newsgroups are tons of fun and there are simply too many to
count. They are public bulletin boards where people post messages, either words,
pictures, sounds, or other things. Anyone may respond to these messages under
the same message title, and so on, forming long chains of letters for everyone
else to read. Every different newsgroup is supposed to be about a unique subject,
and there are tens of thousands of them. Any topic you can dream up probably has
a newsgroup dedicated to it. alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.male is one example.
Beware! Some of the stuff you'll find on the USENET can be pretty raunchy!

   The World Wide Web, or WWW, is the most popular feature of the Internet;
probably because it's such a no-brainer to use. Here again, it's a way to present
text, graphics, sound, and even motion pictures to anyone who wants to see them.
But, it's structured in what's called a hyper-text format. This means, that nearly
every page on the Web has words or pictures on it called links that, when clicked
on with your mouse, will take you to other things to see. Imagine a full color
magazine with sounds and movie clips, and a near infinite number of pages on
every subject you can think of. There are special places to go on the WWW that
are search engines. There, you type in key words of things you're looking for and,
in a matter of seconds, a new Web page, written just for you, will appear on your
screen that has a list of links to sites that are related to what you want to find.
If you are reading this article from a computer monitor, then you have probably
figured out that this issue of What's Up is on the Web, as well as a couple of
back issues at:
http://www.rainbow-akron.com/whatsup

   There are other features on the Internet as well, such as IRC, Internet Relay
Chat. This allows you to have a conversation with a group of other people.
When you type something on your computer, it instantly appears on the screens
of everyone else using that chat group and vise-versa. You can even have an
ordinary two way phone conversation with someone anywhere in the world, with
no long distance charges to pay.

   Right now, about 15% or more of the US population is on line. These numbers
are growing every day. You have the choice of signing up with either an
international or a local service provider. Usually, local service providers charge
a flat rate for unlimited use, rather than charging by the hour, and you are free to
use your preference of software for Email, USENET, WWW, etc... It is nearly
impossible for anyone to know who you really are or where you live based on your
Internet identity. So, since there is such a sense of anonymity, people are
commonly open in presenting material for everyone else to see. The Internet is,
and has been since the beginning, very gay friendly.