LISTSERVE || NEWSGROUPS || TELNET || GOPHER || VERONICA || WAIS

LISTSERVE

First electronic mailing list software application, consisting of a set of email addresses for a group in which the sender can send one email and it will reach a variety of people.
Also called “distribution lists” or “discussion forums”
Lists of users hold a discussion about a particular subject.
Distribution lists are free and very satisfactory
This system is one of those with easiest access via the Internet, since it only requires the ability to send e-mail.
There are two types of distribution lists:

Moderated-The lists maintained by a single person, whose active participation is necessary for maintaining the list. This type is sometimes called a mailing list. The owner may edit the message in this type.
Unmoderated- The lists that do not require the intervention of anybody, to be maintained, since all the messages are managed by software, which does all the work. This type is called Listserve.

There are major four listservers which provides distribution lists:

Worldwide system for the electronic exchange of news and views on a particular topic.
Also referred to as Usenet News.
Usenet is a discussion forum similar to distribution lists.
On the Usenet the messages are stored on notice board rather than distribution.
You do not need to subscribe to a newsgroup.
To participate in global distributed discussion system you must have the following facilities:
Your Internet provider must offer a “news feed” service
You must have a client on your computer that can interpret data sent from an NNTP server. This will take the form of a dedicated newsreader, or your web browser if it has been “news enabled

Telnet is a protocol that is most commonly used to log into a remote computer.
Telnet act as a terminal emulator.
Telnet is the protocol that enables one computer to connect to other computer. This process is also referred to as remote login.
The user’s computer which initiates the connection is referred to as the local computer.
The machine being connected to which accepts the connection is referred to as remote or host computer.
Once connected, the user’s computer emulates the remote computer. When the user types in commands, they are executed on the remote computer.
Telnet environment is based on text, as it does not support the graphical interface.
To get access via Telnet, you need an access code

#Using Telnet, you can

Send email
Download source code from websites
Send unexpected input to web servers that can give you amazing and illegal results.
Give arbitrary(random) input to many other services on Internet host computers
Probe the services offered by servers, routers and even people’s home computers.

#There are two ways of using the Telnet tool:

It is a hierarchical menu-based system for exploring the Internet.
Gopher is a protocol designed to search, retrieve and display documents from remote sites on the Internet.
Originally Gopher had text based interface then it has evolved greatly, becoming a tool for obtaining multimedia data.
You can access Gopher by means of Telnet, although the menu options cannot be selected with the mouse.
Information accessible via gopher is stored on many coputers all over the Internet. These computers are called gopher servers.
Servers do not just contain a files, directories and searchable databases, they can also contain references to other servers.
To retrieve and search this information, you need to run a gopher client application on your computer.
Information stored on many kinds of non-gopher servers is also available via special gopher servers that act as gateways.
Gopher was created as a piece of software to utilize some of the services that were becoming available on the Internet.
It was designed to work with a variety of different Internet stand alone services.

Characteristics

Ease of use with user interface based on menus
It offers the possibility of discovering sources of information on the Internet without needing to know their location.
Gopher server automatically directs the search to the address, where what you want to see is stored.

Veronica is a tool which simplifies the search for resources in Gopher.
Veronica comes from “Very Easy Rodent Oriented Networked Index of Computerized Archives”
Veronica starts the search on the Gopher menus, from which you select “GOPHER-space search” or the name veronica, by keying in a keyword.
It gives you Gopher addresses with the keyword on their menus.
You can choose which of these sources in order to enter them.
While searching following things must be in consideration:
Search is not case sensitive
Veronica does not carry out searches in the complete text of the resources available on the Internet.

Types of Search Using VERONICA

Searching GOPHER space by keywords in titles- This type locates all types of resources that have title containing the keyword.
Searching GOPHER directories only for keywords in titles- It searches only for directories in which the keyword is contained in the title.
Simplified Veronica- When you select the option, veronica asks you for the keyword or words you want, together with additional information to control the search:

It is a tool designed to search for information on the Internet by means of the keyword and provide as a result a list of the resources related to the keyword, ordering them according to the number of times the keyword appears in the document.
WAIS searches for the keyword , selected by the user in the text of the files stored on the network.
It is a system of searching in the complete text, not just on the menus or in the names of files.
WAIS uses Natural Query Language
The query is put into the system in natural language and WAIS discounts the irrelevant words and starts to search for the keywords

Searching For Documents With WAIS