AMERICA ONLINE AnswerMan Conference, Sunday, August 25, 1996, 6pm ET. Host: Kevin Savetz (Netanswers) Topic: 20 Things You Can Do With E-mail ____________________________________________ OnlineHost: Copyright 1996 America Online, Inc. CJ Ellen: Good afternoon and welcome to AnswerMan! Your host today is Kevin Savetz (Netanswers). I'm CJ Ellen of the Internet Connection. Today we have an intriguing topic: 20 Things You Can Do With E-mail. I'm as anxious as you are to find out what else you can do besides send love letters. :) So, Kevin, with that, take it away! Netanswers: Hi Ellen, hi everyone. Welcome to AnswerMan. #1: One trick that can be done is to send a fax via e-mail. You can send a message to a special address, which sends a fax to someone (more than likely someone who doesn't have an e-mail address) There are several e-mail-it-fax services. Some are free and only cover a limited area. Others are pay-for-use, and cover the nation or the world. There is a FAQ on the topic. You can get a copy by sending an e-mail message to fax-faq-request@northcoast.com, with a subject of ARCHIVE and a message body of SEND FAX-FAQ. Netanswers: #2 Did you know that you can play games via email? PBM stands for "play by mail" and it is fairly popular on the Net. Although PBM games lack sophisticated graphics, they are often very detailed, intriguing (and sometimes very long) games. How do PBM games work? Generally you mail in orders to a moderator, human or computer, once a week, and they mail the results back to you. A PBM game can be as simple as a human running an ordinary Dungeons & Dragons game, or a 45,000 line program moderating a fantasy strategic - role-playing game with 50 pages of rules. Chess, Go and other games are also available. PBM games, those conducted via e-mail, are generally played by mailing human-readable files back and forth. A lot of great info on PBM games is available in the PBM FAQ at http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/games/play-by-mail/faq.html. More on games a little later. Netanswers: #3 Another thing you can do via e-mail is get free tech support for your computer software and hardware. A lot of companies have a tech support e-mail address, and that is easy to overlook, but it is a lot less frustrating to send your question in via e-mail and find an answer the next day, than to wait on the phone on hold for hours. Netanswers: #4: You can retrieve files (shareware, documents, etc.) from anonymous FTP sites via e-mail. Now, AOL users have dandy FTP access, but sometimes you'll find yourself trying to get a file from a very popular (and overloaded) FTP site. So, if it has become painfully clear that you are wasting your life trying to download a copy of Quake (or whatever...) send your request to an e-mail FTP client, which will try to get the file for you and e-mail it to you! For more info, send e-mail to: ftpmail@src.doc.ic.ac.uk with the word HELP in the message body. Netanswers : #5: You can use e-mail to tap into gopher sites in much the same way. Send e-mail to: gopher@ncc.go.jp with the word HELP in the SUBJECT line. Netanswers: #6 Curious about USENET ? Through the e-mail address below you can request ANY FAQ list that is posted to Usenet, via e-mail. Very handy. For info, e-mail mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with a message body of HELP -- any subject line will do. Netanswers : #7 Mailing Lists!! Briefly, mailing lists are tools for having a discussion on just about ANY topic you can imagine, via e-mail. It's a big topic in itself. For more information on some of the Mailing Lists available, check out keyword MAILING LISTS. Netanswers: #8: "Finger" is a utility that returns information about a particular user on a certain machine on the Internet. Sometimes, the info provides is fairly boring like the user's last logon, etc., but sometimes people put fun or useful info in their finger replies. To try out Finger, send e-mail to infobot@infomania.com with a subject line of FINGER . For example, to finger my address, your subject line would look like FINGER savetz@northcoast.com. Here are a couple of interesting addresses that you should try if you are interested in using FINGER: nasanews@space.mit.edu -- news from NASA solar@xi.uleth.ca -- Solar Activity coke@cs.cmu.edu --- pretty strange, just try it..... :) Netanswers: #9: Directory Assistance: "WHOIS" is a service that will query a database of Internet names and addresses. If you are looking for someone or a particular Internet site, send e-mail to mailserv@internic.net with the subject line WHOIS . Try using the last name of someone you know and see what comes back. Netanswers: #10: Interested in Pizza. To order an electronic pizza by e-mail, send e-mail to pizza@ecst.csuchico.edu with the subject line PIZZA HELP for more information. I always get a kick out of that one. It's a great place to use for those "online" parties. Netanswers: #11: How about A.Word.A.Day, Dictionary-by-mail, Thesaurus-by-mail, Acronym-by-mail. Send e-mail to wsmith@wordsmith.org. Netanswers: #12: Looking for something that is humorous and anonymous too? Try the Usenet Oracle, a great ongoing experiment in humor. Send e-mail to "oracle@cs.indiana.edu" with a subject line of TELL ME and put a deep and meaningful question in the message body. Someone will answer the question, and you'll receive a reply (usually within a day or two.) As "payment," you may be required to answer someone else's question. YOU get to be the all-knowing Oracle :) Netanswers: #13: The Electronic Newsstand collects articles, editorials, and tables of content from over 165 magazines and provides them to the Internet. For information, send a message to gophermail@enews.com. Netanswers: #14: Wanna know about a congressional e-mail address? Send mail to congress@hr.house.gov and you'll get a listing of addresses available. That is a good way to keep in touch and up to date with your congressional representatives. Netanswers: #15: To learn how to get tons of info on movies, actors & directors, send e-mail to movie@ibmpcug.co.uk with HELP as the subject line. Netanswers: #16: Here's one more for those of you that like to keep in touch with your family but don't want to pay long distance fees. This is a fee-based service called Family Internet MailCall that helps you keep in touch via private mailing list. For information, send an e-mail to family-info@mailcall.com. Netanswers: #17: If you like to read mysteries, try http://www.thecase.com/. Sign up and a mini-mystery will be sent to you via e-mail every Wednesday. Current cases, clues, solutions and free sign-up are available. Netanswers: #18 ready for more Play-by e-mail games? Try http://www.yahoo.com/Recreation/Games/Internet_Games/Play_By_E_Mail/. This is Yahoo's huge index of play-by-e-mail games. PBMs are a great way to play while limiting your online time. You can read and compose e-mail offline with FlashSessions, saving money. Netanswers: #17: Mercury Mail. I recently talked about this in the AnswerMan newsletter. It's very cool. Goto http://www.merc.com and tell Mercury Mail what info you want sent to you: news stories, sports, horoscopes, weather, stock information, snow advisories and so on, and it will e-mail you every day with the news of your choice. I've been using this for weeks and am very impressed. It's also free! CJ Ellen: Wheeee! :) Netanswers : Ellen, I thought you were supposed to keep track of my counting! :) CJ Ellen: Huh? Ready for some audience questions, Kev? We have a ton! Netanswers: I had 2 17's. Hold on, one more site. #20. Keyword: News Profiles. This is still in beta test, but it's very cool. This is AOL's NEWS PROFILES tool. News Profiles searches AOL's many news sources for articles that match your interests, and sends them to you as mail. Instead of making you search for the news yourself, News Profiles puts it all in one place for you as soon as you sign on. Netanswers: With News Profiles, you create profiles. Each profile is a separate automated search of America Online's news sources for a set of search words. For example, if you wanted to find out the latest news about aerospace activities, you could set up a profile to search news and business wires for all articles containing "NASA," "satellite," or "shuttle." Once you create a profile, it searches the news for you throughout the day and sends you the articles as mail. You can have up to 5 profiles per screen name. Netanswers: #21 (bonus!): The AnswerMan newsletter, where you can get weekly information about using the Internet via AOL, and cool site reviews. You can sign up at Keyword: ANSWERMAN. OK, Ellen, question time. CJ Ellen: Our first question is from Cpl1TP: Question: How do I send a picture in e-mail? Netanswers: You can use the "Attach" command to send a graphic file along with your e-mail message. If the recipient is an AOL member, he'll be able to download it and view it on his computer. If he's on the Internet, his mail program will have to be able to decode "MIME attachments" so he can view the file. CJ Ellen: Our next question is a concern about privacy from Mdillonle: Question: I've heard that e-mail is not entirely safe, you know, that other people can read your e-mail. Is this true? Netanswers: It is possible, although not likely, that others can read your e-mail. As your message goes from "here" to "there" it may pass through several computers along the way... your message travels unencrypted -- so an unscrupulous system administrator or hacker could potentially read it. This is very rare, but keep it in mind before sending that message with your credit card number or some tawdry secrets. :) CJ Ellen: CoralColor has questions about AOL's mail capabilities: Question: Can a Mac AOL user use mail filtering, create mirror files, or send "blind carbon copies"? Netanswers: No; I'm not sure what you mean; and not now, but you'll be able to with AOL 3.0, which will be ready soon (I'm using a beta version of AOL 3 now and it's GREAT!) CJ Ellen: Kevin, we have another question about AOL's mail system from Alamo150: Question: I would like to know how I can get my messages under my different screen names without signing on and off and back on like I have to do now? Any advice? Thank you. Netanswers: You can't. Your only choice is to sign off and back on. FlashSessions can make this process easier for you however. CJ Ellen: Here's a question which is often asked about mailing across the Internet. From Burchetta: Question: How do you e-mail a friend with a different server? Netanswers: Every America Online account can send and receive e-mail to and from the Internet. Pick "compose mail" from your MAIL menu. A blank message form will appear. Enter the destination e-mail address in the TO: field. (An Internet e-mail address looks like "someone@somewhere.somewhere" -- for instance, "waffle@rahul.net" or "test@redwood.northcoast.com"). Next, type a subject in the SUBJECT field, and compose a literary masterpiece in the message body field. Finally, press SEND NOW to send your message on its way. That's it! CJ Ellen: We're running out of time, but here's one more question on a topic dear to your heart, Kev. Junk e-mail. From Beepfwtx: Question: I'm getting LOTS of junk e-mail via AOL. How do I keep them from cluttering up my mail box? Netanswers: Chain letters (or the Net term "Spamming") is a very, very annoying for all parties involved, and by AOL's Terms of Service, : they are not allowed. This goes for mass mailing and pyramid schemes. I agree, the amount of junk mail has gotten totally out of hand lately. You can forward the offending message to TOSEMAIL1 *or* TOSEMAIL2. They will attempt to make the spammer stop. Also, check out the Web site http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Communications_and_Networking/Electronic_Mail/Junk_Email/ -- Yahoo has a list of sites that give ideas on how to deal with and stop junk e-mail. CJ Ellen: Kevin, our time's up for today and there are tons of unanswered questions. Can you tell our audience where they might find more help? (quickly) :) Netanswers: Thanks for coming! Go to keyword ANSWERMAN for more Q&A about the Internet and e-mail --- and read the AnswerMan newsletter, too :). : Goodnight! CJ Ellen: Well, that's it! Thanks, everyone for being such a good audience. Goodnight from me, too. Copyright 1996 America Online, Inc. All Rights Reserved. OnlineHost: Copyright 1996 America Online, Inc. All Rights Reserved. CJ Grizzly: Welcome everyone to AnswerMan Live! :D CJ Grizzly: Tonight our host Kevin Savetz (AnswerMan) will be talking about Safety for our kids on the Internet. CJ Grizzly: Hiya Kevin! :D AnswerMan: Hi Griz. Happy Sunday. CJ Grizzly: Happy Sunday to you :D AnswerMan: Today we'll be talking about kids and the Internet -- as you know, there is a wealth of great information on the Internet for kids... but there's also plenty of stuff out there that parents don't want their kids to see. Is it worth the risk? Should your kids have unrestricted access to the Net? We'll look at those questions... If you have any questions on this topic, press your INTERACT WITH HOST button and ask away! AnswerMan: One of the questions that I get most often from parents is: is there porn on the net and how easy is it for my kids to find? The answers are: yes, and not very difficult. Heck, anyone who knows how to use a search engine and some creative keywords can probably find something naughty online. ... But the same material can be found corner drug store in magazines --and frankly, the magazines are a whole lot easier to get. AnswerMan: The good stuff that's on the Internet is great for your kids-- reference sources, science experiments, info about the government, tons of great stuff, So it does not make sense to me to just unplug thecomputer totally. The best solution is to work with your kids when they are online, surf the Web with them and explore with them. Some parents monitor the TV that their children watch, and I think that's a great solution for the online world, too. AnswerMan: If you can't be there to look over your child's shoulder, you can get one of several programs that do the monitoring for you. These "censorware" programs either have a list of "naughty" URLs or scan the Web pages for keywords before they are displayed. If a Web page is deemed to be unsuitable for kids, it won't be displayed. AnswerMan: A recent issue of Internet World magazine had comparative reviews of many of these programs. You can go to http://www.internetworld.com for the information. None of those programs can replace mom or dad watching over, and some way go overboard and censor sites that you might consider perfectly OK, like political sites. But I guess it might be better to err on the side of restrictiveness. CJ Grizzly: Kevin, here's our first question of the evening... Question: Is there any way to control or inhibit access to these sites via AOL? AnswerMan: Well, you should go to keyword PARENTAL CONTROLS to see what's there. ... you'll see that you can restrict access from certain screen names to the Web as a whole but there is no way to turn off only X- or R- or PG-13 rated sites. That's not really possible right now. AOL just added tools to restrict e-mail -- if you don't want your kids' screen name to receive any e-mail, or you want them only to get mail from certain addresses that you approve, you can do that. CJ Grizzly: Our next question comes from B314159: Question: How can parents determine if the online controls line up with our standards ? AnswerMan: Well, the AOL controls are all or nothing. So there's net much to judge. For the various "censorware" programs, different tools have different features to disallow various subjects. You might allow slight sex-related information, but nothing that mentions drugs, for instance. Again, check that article in Internet World for specifics about the limitations of the various software. CJ Grizzly: Here's another question for you Kevin: Question: The above answer covers the Web and E-mail, but what about USENET newsgroups? AnswerMan: America Online does not censor adult-topic newsgroups. Instead AOL provides parents and master account holders with Parental Controls, the tools needed to choose what members of their families can view. Parental Controls provide the master account holder the ability to exercise judgment about the level and type of access to newsgroups. To edit or activate Parental Controls for any given subaccount screen name: 1. Go to the Newsgroups window. 2. Click the Parental Controls button and then select the button next to the newsgroups name and click Edit. The Blocking Criteria window appears. This window allows you to control access for the subaccount you selected. AnswerMan: Block Expert Add Prevents adding any newsgroups for which you or the subaccounts know the explicit name Block all Prevents access to all newsgroups. Block binary downloads prevents someone from downloading Usenet files, which may contain graphics, sounds, animations, photographs, and programs. Because of the explicit nature of a small number of the these files, parents may want to block download activity completely. AnswerMan: So, the Usenet parental controls are pretty robust -- by default, your kids won't see the names of questionable newsgroups in their newsgroup list, and you can set things so that they can't add newsgroups that aren't on the approved list. CJ Grizzly: Our next question comes from WutevrL7: Question: Dear AnswerMan, How do you feel about organizations ( say, the CyberAngels? ) with self-appointed Online censors as their leaders? AnswerMan: The Internet has always, been a self-policing community. Since its start, the Internet -- and Usenet, especially, has always been a self-policing anarchy. It actually works pretty well that way. So, self-appointed censors are a fact of life on the Internet -- they have always been there, although their methods may change over time. A favorite way for censors to deal with Usenet messages that they don't like it to "forge a cancel message" -- that is, to make it look like the person who posted the message wants to erase it. CJ Grizzly: Kevin, here's one from KNAPP1234: Question: Any comments on kids setting up a HOME PAGE via school or home access to the internet? I guess my concern is pictures, information and names....understanding that parents need to be a part of the process, is this personal information about kids on the net safe for them? AnswerMan: I think setting up a home page is great for kids -- remember 10 years ago when all the kids in school were learning BASIC? Well, making a home page teaches a lot of the same skill, but it allows kids to be much more creative. Now, lots of random strangers may look to that kid's home page, so you should be careful to explain to you child that s/he shouldn't put anything on the page that she would not tell a stranger. First name is OK, but stay away from specifics like city, etc. Keep the information about what the kid likes to do, not lots of specifics about the kid him- or herself. AnswerMan: There is a great example of a home page set up by a kid at keyword AM FOCUS. A 6-year-old girl has an award-winning page that's better than a lot of the adult-made pages I've seen out there. :) CJ Grizzly: :) CJ Grizzly: Well folks, that's about all the time we have for this evening... AnswerMan: Thank you all for coming, I hope you found this useful. You can go to keyword ANSWERMAN for more information about the Internet, and to keyword AM FOCUS for a list of great sites for kids. CJ Grizzly: Thanks for the great info Kevin... have a good evening everyone! :D Copyright 1996 America Online, Inc. All Rights Reserved.