Rich's Ramblings
by Rich Schinnell
Phone Calls on the Internet
Again, I am going to write about the "Net." I know that some of you are tired of news about the "Information Highway" or the World Wide Web. I am also; it seems that all the news people have to have some mention of the WWW or the Internet on each of the news shows.
But this month, I would like to talk about some of the neat things that I have found. One that comes to mind real easy is Quarterdeck's Internet communications program, Webtalk. The program allows netnics to talk over the Internet using a sound board with speakers and a microphone. Sorry, but it requires a PPP or SLIP connection; a shell account with TIA doesn't seem to cut the mustard, according to my tests.
Gary Saxer, Vice President of Quarterdeck Software, demonstrated Webtalk at the May 13th general meeting. Hopefully it went well as I am writing this about 2 weeks before the meeting. Gary sent me e-mail at the end of April and asked me to give it a try. I downloaded the 2-megabyte file and installed it. I also have a license for a competing product called Internet Phone, so I was a bit familiar with the voice-on-the-Internet process.
Installation went quite easily, but as usual, I don't tend to be
a big fan of the RTFM club (that's Read The Fine Manual). After
a few fits and starts, I was connected to the Quarterdeck WWW
site. Here is the WWW address for those who would like to give
it a try: http:// arachnid.qdeck.com/qdeck/demosoft/. If
Quarterdeck decides to change the address for the Demo of
Webtalk, then I suggest:
http://www.quarterdeck.com.
I am impressed at how clear the phone calls were. After getting it all set up, I was able to initiate and receive voice calls with people all over the world. The quality of the call was very clear, in fact several people remarked that it was better than the regular phone lines. To get started, you need to log into Quarterdeck's voice server and enter your name, a userid, and a password. With so many Richards, Riches, and Ricks running around, I had to be creative in selecting a "handle" to use. I finally had to settle for "schinnell" -- I was pretty confident that no one else would have that one.
Once you figure out how to use the system, you then can initiate and receive phone calls without going through Quarterdeck's web server. You can save favorite people's net addresses and call them directly. The only problem with this is that you need to know the person's TCP/IP address. For those with a permanently assigned ID, this is easy, but many of the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) assign you an IP address each time you log on, so going through the Quarterdeck WWW server will be required.
Parental Discretion Advised
One of the areas that concern me after having used the Internet Phone for about 4 or so months is the proliferation of XXX rated names on the servers. This is of course childish and just shows how immature some people are. Not that I am a prude -- after 20 years in the USN, I don't get shocked very easily. But I think that there is a place for all things, and on the screen is not one of them, especially for those with younger children. I don't know what Quarterdeck is going to do about this, but their site will be among those banned by the new software watchdogs for children that are on the market.
The Vocaltec people who make the Internet Phone have that problem. With the callers being able to create any name for the "chat" rooms, anything seems to go. I would hope that some of the Internet WWW providers would think about some minimal rules to preclude users from creating obnoxious or racy names for the chat rooms. Or have adult-only rooms and general public rooms. These could be on separate servers with the requirements plainly spelled out. This would allow freedom of choice.
In the end, the WebTalk program is quite good. You can get addicted and might have to have a "get a life" implant after a while but it is fascinating. There are plans (from what I hear) to allow multiple users to chat as on a party line. At present it is only one-on-one. The MSRP for WebTalk is $69 but Quarterdeck's on-line store lists it for $49. Gary at the general meeting is supposed to offer it to members for a better price reduction -- probably too late for those of you reading all this, but competition will drive the price down like all things.
CD-ROM Goodies
Last month, I talked about a CD-ROM disk caching program by PC-KWIK corporation. I forgot to let you know that Quarterdeck has a similar type of program on the market, as will other vendors in a short time. I have used both the
PC-KWIK and The Quarterdeck product and both do a good job of caching your slow CD-ROM.
For those into the clip art game, I received a CD-ROM with about
10,000 clip art images on it. I loaded it up and it really is a
full CD-ROM. You can get a preview of the product and download
up to 200 free images from their WWW site,
http://fox.nstn.ca/~clipart. The price
for the whole caboodle is
$34.95 if you order from their website. I don't know if anyone
has ever looked at all 10,000 images but I do know that I am not
going to try. After all, I do have a life.
This month while you're reading this I should be in Chicago at the Spring COMDEX (Computer Dealers Exposition). It is a bit smaller than the huge COMDEX held in Las Vegas, but after all what does Chicago have to offer like what Las Vegas has? I hope to be able to take a look at some of the new goodies and hopefully line up some interesting vendors to put on the schedule for our general meetings at NIH. COMDEX has always been interesting to me, now that I am an old hand at attending them. Since 1983, I don't think that I have missed one of the Las Vegas ones. There were over 200,000 people
attending the November 1995 COMDEX. Even though I am a small fish in the crowd, most of the vendors seem to be very interested in showing me all the latest gadgets. I am almost in heaven, and this from someone who loves the Sharper Image stores. The APCUG (Association of PC User Groups) normally has plenty of seminars on the weekend before COMDEX and Spring COMDEX is no exception. Yours truly will be hosting a seminar on the USPS and saving money on postal mailings. For those of you who like all the toys and the glitter of Las Vegas, I would recommend you make your hotel and airline reservations pretty soon. Most of the hotels and airlines get short on reservations the closer we get to November.
Rich Schinnell is retired from the USN, then again from Vitro
Corporation, and now does a bit of specialized consulting on the
side. He has been a volunteer for CPCUG since the very early
1980's. He can be reached on the Internet at
schinnel@cpcug.org
and by phone at (301) 949-9292 (evenings from 6-9 p.m.). He
enjoys helping people with their computer problems and most of
all likes it when he helps someone and the payment is that the
helpee then is asked to help someone else. As one of the
netnics, his home page is
http://www.cpcug.org/user/ schinnel.
I would like to wish my Dad, Walter Schinnell, Happy 88th birthday on the 29th of June.
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