Reprinted with permission, Cat Fanciers' Almanac, December 1995
you are sitting at your computer at home, and you can literally communicate instantly with cat lovers around the world. Surely, an ailurophile's dream! and welcome to the possibilities of the Cat Fancy on the Internet.
There are ways to communicate via computer through services such as CompuServe and America Online that charge a monthly usage fee, but accessing the Internet through a Freenet is something else again. A Freenet allows you relatively cheap (mine is only $20.00 a year) access to email, and usually text only access to the World Wide Web, whereas a full service provider would allow you access to a graphical browser for the World Wide Web but may cost you $20.00 or more a month. Just means you can't see the pretty pictures on the WWW if you are using a Freenet, but you still get all the advantages of being able to read the text and have access to email.
The Internet is a network of worldwide computer links, all threaded together to allow access from one computer to the information on another. From your home computer, you can access the available information on a computer in England, or Finland, or Russia, or South Africa, or Japan and on and on. Information on every available subject is accessible through your computer, but information on the Cat Fancy is what we are after.
Let's start with a few definitions of terms that we will be using.
INTERNET: A world-wide network of computer links providing information to those accessing it
FREENET: A local service provider, usually in major metropolitan areas, that you can access for a modest yearly fee, and then link to their software and to other computers and information world-wide.
LOGIN: Your signature to gain access to a freenet. If you are just visiting a freenet and browsing it, usually this login will be "guest" or "visitor".
SIG: Special Interest Group. These are usually areas on each Freenet that have discussion areas and are centered around one particular interest, e.g. Cats SIG, Dogs SIG, Gardening SIG, etc.
FAQ: Frequently Asked Question
USENET: A newsreader service accessed through your local freenet.
WWW: World Wide Web. An Internet access tool to be used to view specially formatted information.
URL: An Internet specific "address" used to access information, e.g. http://www.ai.mit.edu
E-MAIL: Electronic mail, using a specific mailing address for each person. Letters sent to individuals are personal and private, and are delivered to the recipient almost instantaneously. Letters sent to mailing lists are public, as they are distributed to everyone on that particular list. A WORD OF CAUTION: Think before you type, and type carefully. Whatever you send privately, could be answered publicly, with a copy of your "private" letter attached! Never put in an email letter what you would not want the whole world to hear.
LISTSERV: A subscription tool to join a mailing list via e-mail. You can get regular information via e-mail from everything such as recipes to Dave Letterman's nightly TopTen List.
So....... your computer is up and running, your modem is installed according to the manufacturer's instructions, the phone is plugged into your computer, and you have loaded the communications software onto your hard drive. Now comes the most difficult part of all...obtaining a local phone number to access a freenet. There are several ways you can do this. You can usually find out this phone number from computer friends or by calling your local University or Chamber of Commerce. Or you can do it the way I did....ask your teenager to talk to the computer "nerd" at school and get the number from him. (Note: this takes a LOT of persuasion on the part of the parent! and then the teenager will be sorry they got it for you, because you'll be tying up the phone lines for hours on end instead of them doing it!)
If all else fails, I do have a list of Freenets across the country, and you can contact me and I will see if I can find a modem hook-up number for you. There are Freenets spread across North America, from Halifax to Victoria in Canada and from Boston to Los Angeles in the U.S., and more organizing each day.
Once you find the number, use your commications program to have your modem dial it for you. Chances are you may have to re-dial time and time again to gain access during peak hours, as this whole surf the 'net idea is gaining in popularity and there are many people online and the number of modem lines that a Freenet has may be limited to 15 or 20. You will know that you are connected when you hear a loud screeching noise. From there, you usually hit any key on the keyboard to continue.
The first thing you will see is login where you will type either "guest" or "visitor". This will normally allow you a 30 minute access to look around. Explore the menus.... one of the first things you want to do is look for information on how to register and follow the instructions to do so. Registering will allow you access for one hour (or more) at a time, and also allow you to use e-mail and the other services provided by the freenet.
Allow a week for processing time, and then keep checking back to see if your registration has been accepted, and find out what your e-mail address will be. Once you have an e-mail address, you are on your way to communicating with cat lovers world-wide. You will find this all very addictive, and will hardly be able to wait until your computer boots each day to read your e-mail, and will find yourself checking back several times during the day for messages as well.
Now you can begin to enjoy exploring the world, but as we are particularly interested in the cat areas in cyberspace, one of the first things you want to look for on a menu is a USENET News Groups. If your freenet doesn't have access to the newsgroup you want, you can ask your system administrator if it is possible to get it, or you can try hooking up with other freenets that might have it. SEFLIN Freenet in Southern Florida has wonderful USENET groups. Following this USENET link (use your cursor keys to highlight the item you want, and press ENTER or the right arrow to follow the link) should allow you access to a list of filenames, such as alt.aldus.pagemaker (newsgroup about using the program Aldus pageMaker), alt.sports.hockey (that's easy to figure out!), etc. What you are looking for is rec.pets.cats, so use the space bar to scroll through the pages, or look on the bottom of your computer screen for the "search" command and use it. Once you find rec.pets.cats, highlight it (or type the number beside it) to access it. You will now see a screen with a listing of postings regarding cats. These are e-mail letters from people on everything to do with cats, from questions to cute stories. These are very interesting to read, but are mainly from the average pet owner. Typing the letter q will get you out of a newsgroup at any time.
Other places to explore are the endless (and growing) number of freenets. Under your main menu look for Communications or Other Freenets, and you will come to a listing of other freenets that are available from your service. Choose any one, and try to connect to it. Remember the login is usually "guest" or "visitor". What you will be looking for here is a Special Interest Group (SIG) on the menu. This will give you access to the SIG's and there may, or may not, be a Cats SIG. Try the Victoria Freenet (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) or the National Capital Freenet (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), both of which have cats SIG's, and are interesting to browse through.
All of the above has to do with any ol' cat information, but if you are looking for purebred information, there is a perfect place for you. On your main menu, look for something that will connect you via LYNX with World Wide Web or WWW (my connection is well-hidden under Library, so you may have to explore your menu structure thoroughly!). Once connected, you may find that you are at the general listing for the entire WWW. If so, use the search option to go to Recreation, then Pets, and finally Cat Fanciers Home Page. If you have the option of typing the letter G to open a search tool, it is faster to do it this way. After typng G, you should see an input box at the bottom of the screen that says "Go to URL:", and you will then type http://www.ai.mit.edu/fanciers/fanciers.html which will get you directly to the Cat Fanciers Home Page. Be prepared to spend a lot of time here. This home page is maintained by Orca Starbuck, a Chartreux breeder and computer whiz from California, and is a delight to the purebred cat fancier. Everything is here from FAQ's about purebreds, to breed descriptions, to a listing of breed publications. Most important is the Fanciers List. Subscribing to this list will bring you an abundance of e-mail on every topic under the sun regarding purebred cats, genetics, health related questions/answers, show brags, litter announcements, show stories, and discussion on the merits of the various registering bodies, etc. This is an unmoderated, on- going discussion daily and will normally lead to as many as 50-80 messages in your INBOX each day. To subscribe to this list, send an email message to majordomo@fanciers.com and in the body of the message ask to be added to the Fanciers List. New subscribers are encouragaed to post a brief introduction of yourself and your cattery history once you start receiving mail from the list.
There are other places to visit and things to do via the World Wide Web, such as the Electronic Zoo, or Pet Pages in England, or Ohio State University, or subscribing to the FELINE-L mailing list. You can even download a cat screensaver for MACs. I'll leave you here to explore on your own... the possibilities are endless. ENJOY!!!! and if you find anything really interesting, be sure and let me know.