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SF Supes Reach for Cyberspace
Starting with Carole Migden, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors are
finally getting on-line with a simple e-mail address: cmigden@aol.com,
but it's going to take another $400,000 or so of tax money to get the
whole San Francisco city government on-line, according to City Hall
sources.
Supervisor Migden recently sponsored a resolution aimed at getting city Government on-line. The resolution asked the Mayor to investigate the feasibility on getting San Francisco linked to the cyberspace in terms of e-mail addresses, legislative access, feedback and other "state-of-the-art" network access systems. Other Bay Area municipal governments have already established presences in cyberspace for many months, include Berkeley, Oakland, Palo Alto and Sunnyvale.
"We want it to make it easier for people to complain about government, but seriously we want to make government as efficient and accessible as possible," said Supervisor Migden at the March 27 meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
"The ultimate goal is to get city services delivered to constituents via simple computer-mediated services," said Michael Colbruno, legislative aide for Supervisor Migden. Using interfaces such as Netscape's World Wide Web browser citizens should eventually be able to utilize governmental services, such as applying for licenses and reserving business names, through Internet-based services.
San Francisco currently does not have a way to connect computers used in different departments in the city government. According to a story published in the March 22 edition of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, staffers are lucky if they can at least use a floppy disk to transfer data between departments. Before a centralized Internet service can be used to direct e-mail messages to San Francisco city workers, the city's internal computer network must be upgraded to the point that workers can send e-mail among themselves.
The resolution calls for the Mayor to report back to the Board of
Supervisors by June 20 concerning the feasibility of getting
San Francisco city government on-line. No federal or state funding
source has been identified to meet the costs of Internet access for San
Francisco. Currently health and transportation services have diminished
over the last few years and San Francisco is facing a deficit in it's
general fund. - V.K.
Netscape Secures Internet
As the title wave of Netscape Communications washes over Silicon Valley
and the worldwide Internet community, the Mountain View company capped
an eventful month by releasing a beta-test version 1.1b2 of their
Netscape World Wide Web browser. The new version of Netscape's browser,
which is estimated to control over 70% of the market, supports new
visual effects and promises faster performance.
Earlier last month Netscape announced broad computer and financial industry support for a way to make selected transmissions over the Internet secure. Using public-key data encryption technology, licensed from Menlo Park-based RSA Data Security, Netscape's system is called the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.
SSL allows people to send their credit card numbers through the Internet, assured that electronic thieves will find it much more difficult to intercept the transmission. Lack of secured transmissions is thought to be the primary reason why Internet "shopping malls" haven't taken off. Companies that licensed SSL technology include Apple, Bank of America, IBM, MasterCard, MCI, Microsoft, Novell, Visa, and Wells Fargo.
SSL competes with Secure HyperText Transfer Protocol (SHTTP) developed
by rival Enterprise Integration technology of Menlo Park. Only a few
organizations have endorsed SHTTP, including Digital and Spyglass Inc.
and NCSA. Spyglass' version of Mosaic will support both SHTTP and SSL.
Netscape also announced last week several new products. Version 1.1 of
their Netscape Communications Server and Netscape Commerce Server now
runs on Windows NT and support the new features of the Netscape
browser. Other announced products include a USENET server and special
software for large networks that use a firewall. The company is also
bundling together software components into suites designed to support
publishing and electronic store fronts. - V.K.
New Web Servers
O'Reilly & Associates and Spyglass Inc. announced last month they will
compete with Netscape and offer commercial World Wide Web server
software for under $500. Netscape's software sells for between $1,500
and $5,000, depending on the configuration.
Spyglass Inc. announced the Spyglass Server, a commercial software package that is designed to help companies that aren't doing business on the Internet's World Wide Web join the 25,000 organizations worldwide that are. The server is a UNIX or Windows NT-based server that supports the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that is used by all Web servers. Spyglass will also use the Secure HTTP (SHTTP) protocol to encrypt transmissions of private information across the Internet.
The company says the package will cost software firms about $100, though it anticipates a retail price of $125 or more once the product enters stores late this year, said Douglas Colbeth, chief executive of the Naperville, Ill.-based company.
Web servers are used to create graphical "home pages." These pages are displayed by Web browsers such as Netscape's or Spyglass' own Mosaic. Separately, O'Reilly & Associates announced WebSite, its Web server for Windows NT and Windows 95 users. It will have a list price of $499 US. WebSite will be available through software stores, bookstores in North America, and other resellers.
Better known for it's line of UNIX books and the Global Network
Navigator, O'Reilly hopes its server will be the easiest to use on the
market. "Many Web users get excited by what they see out there on the
Net, and then frustrated because they don't want to deal with an
expensive, complicated server to put up their own information. We've
designed and priced WebSite to enable anyone to start publishing
information on the Web within minutes," said Gina Blaber, O'Reilly's
WebSite product manager. - V.K.
Adobe boosts Acrobat
Adobe Systems, based in Mountain View, made strides building Acrobat,
the company's platform-independent document viewing product. The
company announced a partnership with Mountain View-based Netscape
Communications and said the use of Acrobat on the Internet will allow
users to interact with fully-formatted documents in conjunction with
the World Wide Web.
Currently people interact with the Web using an interface that is described by the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML-based documents work well with broswers such as Mosaic or Netscape, but are limited in the way information may be displayed and formatted. Using Acrobat, Adobe says users will click on fully-formatted displays that will appear like printed documents.
Adobe and Netscape disclosed a four step road map for delivering a complete suite of Internet publishing tools. First, the Macintosh and Windows versions of Netscape Navigator 1.1 will support the Acrobat Weblink software plug-in, a free add-on application from Adobe that allows Acrobat documents to link to other documents on the Internet. The companies will also collaborate on a future version of Netscape Navigator that will integrate the viewing of documents in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF).
Next, the Netscape server software will provide quick access to PDF documents across the Internet, allowing users to download portions of PDF files at a time for faster on screen viewing. Finally, Adobe will extend its authoring applications to more fully support the ability to import and export PDF files and will provide the ability to output to Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) in a future version of Adobe PageMaker, according to company officials.
Acrobat already works well with Netscape or Mosaic. PDF files
downloaded by any Web browser may be opened and viewed with Adobe's
Acrobat Reader, which is available for free at
Acrobat produces true-to-life reproductions of printouts on the screen using it's expert knowledge of PostScript, the commands used to control laser printers. "We chose Acrobat because TimesFax is a branded product, and it was essential to provide context in addition to content, preserving the look and feel complete with the typefaces used in the New York Times. Producing it in HTML just didn't give us that capability," said Patricia Ecke, publisher of TimesFax.
IBM last month also agreed to ship Acrobat in its personal computers.
Microsoft Corp. is expected to begin selling a document conversion
program later this year that will work on its upcoming online serive
with its Windows 95 operating system, due out in August. But for the
time being, Adobe has a head start in selling software that can encode
and decode documents. - V.K.
Annual NSFNET Growth
The National Science Foundation formerly ran the infamous NFSNET Backbone.
This high-speed data link carried the majorityof the Internet traffic in the
United states until November 1994 when it was
discontinued. The annual growth of the Internet may be infered from the NFSNET
data, which shows the traffic of the Internet growing at a steady 50% per year.
(Cyberspace Today graphic)
Hello? Phone calls on the net.
Your trusty telephone may by slowly heading down the long road to
obsolescence, thanks to a new breed of tools that allow you, equipped
with the right computer hardware and an Internet connection, to do
real-time voice communications over the Internet.
That's right - you can use the Internet like a telephone, to chat with your cyberspatial cronies across town or around the world. Unlike IRC or talk, which simply put your typewritten words onscreen, or even voice synthesis, these programs transmit your voice to a faraway computer. You'll need a pretty speedy computer (such as a 486 or a 68040 Macintosh), a SLIP or PPP connection (sorry, shell accounts won't do), a microphone and sound output. The modem? Most programs work pretty well with 14.4 Kbps modems - some even work at 9600 bps. The person you want to talk to will need a similar setup and a 'net connection.
Audioconferencing programs work by digitizing your speech as you talk and sending the digital data over the Internet. Modem connections have limited bandwidth (14.4 Kbps) but telephone-quality sound requires 8,000 bytes each second. Most software makes up the difference by compressing your voice on the fly. The result is understandable, although not necessarily high-quality, audio.
Some of the programs available to do voice on the 'net are free, others are commercial. Many of these products are ready for prime time and others are experimental.
There are two phone programs for the Mac. The free, but bandwidth-hungry Maven http://pipkin.lut.ac.uk/WWWdocs/LUTCHI/misc/maven.html and the commercial but modem-friendly NetPhone http://www.emagic.com/.
Windows users have more choices, including Internet Phone
http://www.vocaltec.com/,
Internet Voice Chat
http://futures.wharton.upenn.edu:80/~ahrens26/ivc.html
and the experimental infant tool, Internet Global Phone
ftp://ftp.cica.indiana.edu/win3/demos/IGP*.
- K.S.
PSI links offices to Internet
Performance Systems International (PSINet) announced last month a
hardware and software combination designed to give an out of the box
experience for LAN administrators who need to get their small company
up on the Internet.
PSINet's Instant LAN-Dial connects a LAN to the Internet using a simple start-up software application that electronically registers and configures the Internet connection. Windows-based software is designed to relieve network administrators of the hassles normally associated with domain name registration and setting up a TCP/IP wide area network. The entire process is designed to require no human intervention, and take no longer than 20 minutes, claimed PSInet officials.
The hardware side of Instant LAN-Dial is being offered by Rockwell International, Morning Star Technologies, Compatible Systems Inc. and Imatek Inc. PSInet officials added they have established a distribution channel with Access Graphics, a computer wholesaler who caters to value added resellers.
PSINet is a leading Internet service provider. Riding the wave of the
Internet explosion and the success of rival Netcom in the stock market
PSINet announced last month the intention to sell $25 million worth of
stock in an initial public offering. - V.K.
Modem Blaster includes games
Better known for their Sound Blaster expansion card for PCs, Creative
Labs is making an aggressive bid for the telecommunications market with
the bundling of on-line games in a low cost modem package.
Designed for Windows-based computers with a CD-ROM the Modem Blaster 28.8 and Modem Blaster 14.4 includes modem-to-modem games, access to the Internet, fax capabilities and starter kits for on-line services. Modem Blaster 28.8 and Modem Blaster 14.4 will be available at retail outlets for approximately $220 and $100 respectively, and will begin shipping in this month, said company officials.
A CD-ROM is included with games and NetManage's Chameleon Internet Tools for access to the World Wide Web, e-mail, USENET and FTP. Internet service is provided by PSInet.