Macintosh User Guide

Version 1.0

About this Guide

This guide is being provided for the use of CRISNY¨ Subscribers only. We have compiled this information to assist subscribers in accessing the Internet graphically using Apple Macintosh computers.

The recommended software:

FreePPP 1.01

FreePPP is the software component necessary to enable a Macintosh¨ to dial into an Internet Provider such as CRISNY¨ and establish a "PPP" connnection.

Eudora Lite

Eudora Lite is a program to send and receive e-mail from your CRISNY "POP" (Post Office Protocol) account. We suggest that you download Eudora Lite from ftp.qualcomm.com or purchase the commercial product Eudora Pro by Qualcomm.

Netscape Navigator

Netscape is a World Wide Web Browser. Many WWW sites, including CRISNY, use Netscape specific extensions. Because of this, it is HIGHLY recommended that you obtain and use Netscape Navigator.

Using Your Macintosh to Access the Internet via CRISNY

There are two general ways to access the Internet via CRISNY with your Macintosh. One way is called character based mode and the other is called PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol). Most users would probably agree that the latter method is much superior, but (as the required equipment list later will show) this may not be feasible for some users. A brief description of some of the features of the two methods is given below.

Using Character Based Mode to Access the Internet

In character based mode, the user dials into the CRISNY system and ends up seeing the screen below. Inside the window you see a title bar indicating this is the Capital Region Information Service of New York. Below that is the Main Menu of choices and help info at the bottom. When you make a choice on the Main Menu, you are taken to a new screen. For example, if you select option 1), you will end up in a program called Lynx, which is a character based program for viewing World Wide Web sites. In character based mode, this is how you will view the Internet. You will only see the text, no graphics, no photographs, no video clips, etc. Character based mode = you see only text. Below is an example of how the CRISNY Home Page looks using Lynx. Compare it to the example later in this document seen when you access our Home Page using PPP.

Using PPP to access the Internet

To view the Internet in a graphical mode using a Macintosh with the CRISNY system, you will use a method called "PPP" or Point-to-Point Protocol. The process works something like this: The user dials out from their computer system (using a modem) via FreePPP. Given the correct information (explained below) on where to call, what modem configuration you are using, what your userid and password are and how the computer on the other end (the CRISNY system is this case) will expect to see this information to be sent, FreePPP in conjunction with MacTCP (see below) will establish a conversation with our system, using the language of the Internet, TCP/IP. The end result of this process is a direct connection of your Macintosh to the Internet ,ie, you are "on the Internet". It is then up to you to open the appropriate program to connect to the Internet Service you are interested in. As the Internet developed, a set of standardized services has been established. These services include Telnet (remote login to a host computer), FTP (File Transfer Protocol), Usenet (Newsfeeds), Email, Gopher, WWW, etc. It is not necessary for you to understand what all of these services are in order to use CRISNY to connect to and browse the Internet. The most important ones initially are Email and the WWW (World Wide Web). Email is the electronic equivalent of mailing letters via the Post Office. The World Wide Web is quickly taking over the Internet as the dominant service. The WWW comprises thousands of servers around the world running (World Wide) Web Servers. The WWW uses a page based metaphor for displaying information and can easily include, in addition to text, graphical images, sounds, video clips and links to other Web pages. Using a Web Browser (or client), a user connects to a site running a Web Server by identifying the address (called the URL or Univeral Resource Locator) to the Browser. These addresses follow a standard format. For example, to get to the CRISNY Web Pages, you would use an address of http://crisny.org . The "http" tells the browser to use the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the identifier for web pages at server name crisny.org. Another example using a different service would be gopher://gopher.health.state.ny.us, which translates to the gopher service running at the server gopher.health.state.ny.us, which is run by the New York State Dept. of Health. Upon intially going to a Web Site, you will see its Home Page. That page can contain links to other pages, which may be on the same server or may reside on any of the thousands of other servers around the world. The name Web is derived from the fact that these links end up linking Web Servers around the world into an interconnected array of sites resembling a Web. As noted above, the tool used to access these pages ("browse the Internet") is called a "web browser.

Installing and Configuring MacTCP & FreePPP

Here is a step by step guide to configuring your computer to dial into the CRISNY¨ system using PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol). This guide assumes that you have a Macintosh computer, a modem capable of 9600 baud or higher (14.4 or higher highly recommended), are using MacOS version 7.0 or later (but see an additional requirement in 1. below if your version is earlier than 7.5) and have at least 3 megabytes of space left on your hard drive . If your equipment meets these requirements, proceed as follows using the diskette we have provided.