Confessions of an Internet virgin - includes related article on accessing the Internet - Tutorial

Home Office Computing, Feb, 1995 by Steve Morgenstern

I like to think of myself as a technologically hip kind of guy. I know my Macs from my Compaqs, my cache from my trash, and I installed a multimedia upgrade kit without calling technical support even once.

So, obviously, I must be pretty darn savvy when it comes to this Internet thing. Anyone who reads newspapers or magazines knows the Internet is hot. It's cool. It's the future. It's now. Granted, after reading a dozen stories in a dozen publications, you still might have no idea of what the Internet is, but you know it's important.

Well friends, truth be told, until just recently, I had never ventured so much as a digital pinky toe onto the Internet. That's not to say that I haven't been a credit card-carrying member of the online community. I first subscribed to CompuServe about 12 years ago, accessing it with an Atari 800 computer and a modem that required you to wedge the phone receiver into two rubber cups. Since then I've acquired additional accounts on America Online, Prodigy, and MCI Mail.

But I still hadn't made that Internet connection, not even in the limited ways offered by the major online services. Why not? Because the online services provided me with e-mail and technical support for computer products, in addition to clip art, games, and other resources for downloading. Every article I read agreed that the Internet is chaotic and relatively complex. And my standard operating procedure says that when the hype runs high, my bottom-line interest level is likely to be low.

But the longer I delayed, the more I put my status as computer guru in jeopardy. That's why, with my curiosity piqued and my reputation at stake, I volunteered my services as a representative of the uninitiated. I did what most people do when they're just starting out: read some articles and books, spoke with some knowledgeable friends, then spent hours cruising the Net.

What I found was an intriguing mixture of exhilarating opportunity and annoying complexity. Even the best software/service provider combination can't entirely remove intricacy from the equation. In the anarchic spirit of the Internet itself, then, let's be unconventional and ask the concluding questions up front. As a small-business owner, do you need the Internet? Nope. Unless your business deals specifically with computer technology, there's nothing on the Net that you can't do without.

Do you want to access the Internet? Will it help you run your small business better? I think it will, less because of the information available on general small-business issues (taxes, health insurance, and so on), and more for the resources relating to your very specific business and its target markets. Small businesses thrive by finding comfortable niches for themselves, and thanks to the Net's sheer size, just about any niche you can think of has a home on the Internet.

The real appeal of the Internet for me, though, transcends my role as a small-business owner. I also love jazz music and Beakman's World on TV. I care about political issues, and I'm a fervent computer game player. Each of these facets of my personal profile are nurtured by resources on the Internet.

The internet is a multifaceted mess, but with a little patience and not too much of a cash outlay, you can find useful information and, equally important, a group of individuals who may be scattered across the globe but meet online to share a common interest. As you may have gathered, I'm hooked.

First Things First Technologically speaking, the Internet is an interconnected network of computers located all over the world. At last count, there were nearly four million computers connected to the Internet through government agencies, educational institutions, and companies. On a practical level, you can connect at any point on the network and access files stored elsewhere.

The problem is that different kinds of information are spread out all over the place. There are a variety of ways to search through this unholy mishmash, some more effective than others. There are also books devoted to listing the locations of Internet goodies. The bottom line: Commercial online services are still far easier to use.

Communicating over the Internet is also complicated by your need for different programs, with different sets of commands, to access different types of information. The program that lets you read your e-mail, for instance, won't let you download files or read messages posted in certain discussion groups. Happily, Internet access programs are becoming easier to manage.

As for the good-taste police--well, if you're going to have Internet access, you'll have to decide how to keep Little Johnny from cruising the areas where nude pictures and curse-filled stories are posted.

What's Available? There is a daunting variety of ways to get at goodies on the Internet--many easily available through the commercial online services, such as America Online, Delphi, Compuserve, and Prodigy, or via slightly more complicated connections to an Internet access provider (see "Nothing Succeeds Like Access"). However, I had a revelation during my initial forays onto the Net: You don't have to understand all, or even most, of the available tools to start making good use of the Net's resources. With that in mind, let's agree not to be comprehensive here. Instead, we'll look at a few tools I've found useful in exploring the Internet. In "Entrepreneur's Roadmap," we'll point out many valuable business resources you can access using these tools. After that, you can expand on your Internet smarts in many ways by reading explanatory material online or picking up an Internet tome at your local bookstore or library.