The Online World, Odd de Presno [simple ebook reader txt] 📗

reminded of important events since the last meeting. An unfamiliar person is also going to be present. Maybe there is some background information, for example about a recent promotion. Then, a quick check on major competitors. Maybe they are up to something that he needs to know about. With efficient tools for searching your hard disk, finding information takes only a few seconds. If you are still left with open questions, go online to complement. On MS-DOS computers, you can search the files with WordPerfect, LIST, the DOS utility FIND, and a long list of other programs. I prefer programs that let me search for more than one word at the time, like in HYDRO AND PETROCHEMICAL AND CONTRACT, or EXXON OR MOBIL.

| MY FAVORITE: My favorite search utility is LOOKFOR. It can |

| be downloaded from many bulletin boards. The MS-DOS program |

| is small, fast, and is superior for searches in DOS text files.|

| Store your finds in work files, or print them out on paper. |

| LOOKFOR is not an indexing program. It is ready to search |

| anywhere, anytime. |

Discipline and organization is required to get the most out of your file archives. You must decide what to do with each piece of information: Should it be printed out and be read in front of the fireplace this evening, or should it be circulated? Should it be stored on your hard disk, or be refined before storage?

Use standard file names that are easy to remember. If you don't, risk having to view files to find out what they contain. It may take longer to find a piece of information in a casual file on a large disk, than look up a piece of information on paper in your inbox. Therefore, finish handling your capture file while you read it on your screen: Send the pieces to their final destination. Make immediate transfers to your TO-DO files. Give the original file a name that makes it easier to move later. Have a procedure that prevents duplication of effort.

Desinformation, deception and errors

Always use several sources of information. Some people write to lead you astray. The online world exposed some interesting incidents that came out of the former Soviet Union before the attempted coup in 1991.

Desinformation hurts everybody and comes from all sides. Even professional news agencies, like Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse, regularly stumble. Most news is written by journalists reporting what they have seen, read or heard. Their interpretation of the situation may be wrong. Supplement online news with what knowledgeable people say (by email or in conferences), when knowing the facts is important. Another point: Errors will occasionally be discovered and reported by the news sources, but always after the fact. Always store these reports in your archives, and make it a rule to search to the end when looking for something. Otherwise, you may never discover these corrections.

Chapter 15: You pay little for a lot!

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Calculating costs

Those living in Norway may read up to twenty-six pages of news from Associated Press in the United States and Financial Times (England) for US$ 0.64, or less.

The trick is to dial long distance to a 9600 bps node in Sweden when the telephone company and CompuServe's non-prime time rates are in effect. At 9600 bps, you may transfer text at up to 960 characters per second. One page of text (size A-4) holds around 2200 characters. A typical news story is one to two pages of text.

| Users watching the 'taximeter' can use online services at a |

| very low cost. For many, global communication is almost free.|

Reading exactly the same news through another network or service, may cost you 300 percent more. Through yet another online service, the cost may double again.

A full issue of the NewsBytes newsletter is around 150,000 characters, or 68 pages of text. Retrieving it from a local BBS typically costs me around 29 cents. Retrieving the full text from CompuServe would cost me over 500 percent more. Using NewsNet for the job, at 2400 bps through Datapak, would increase my current cost by more than US$30.00. The time of day may be important. Some services have different rates for access during the day, the evening, and the weekend. Use your calculator often.

When you pay by the minute

When using bulletin boards, phone charges are often the only cost items. Some boards require a subscription fee for full access to the system. Still, it is easy to calculate the costs of your calls. Divide the subscription fee by an estimated number of calls, and add to the cost of using the phone.

The same applies to users of CompuServe. Their total cost is simply the sum of all connect charges, any network charges (to CompuServe and others), part of the basic subscription fee, and local phone rates (for direct dialing to the service, or to reach the network's node). Where a service uses a monthly subscription rate, add part of this to the time charges. Distribute the rate using an estimated number of online hours per month. Example: You pay US$30/hour to access a service during prime time. Your modem speed is 240 cps. Theoretically, if the data flows without pauses at system prompts, you can transfer 392 pages of text in one hour. Even when you deduct some characters due to stops in the transfer, the resulting transferred volume remains respectable. To transfer one page of text takes around nine seconds (2200 characters divided by the speed, which is 2400 bps, or about 240 characters per second). The cost is nine cents. A given binary file (a program) is 23552 bytes large. Using the XMODEM protocol, you can transfer it in about four minutes and thirteen seconds. The cost is US$2.10. To find the cost when paying by the minute is simple. Just calculate the cost per minute or second, and multiply by the estimated connect time. On many services, it will take a minute or two before you can start to receive text or files. Disconnecting also takes a few seconds. Add this to the connect time when calculating costs.

Pauses and delays in the transfer can be caused by you or others, and may have a dramatic impact. It is particularly important to take this into account when comparing alternatives using different networks.

Example: Transfers to TWICS via Datapak at 9600 bps rarely gave me higher effective speeds than 100 cps. The reason was that the connection between the Japanese telcom network and TWICS went through a 1200 bps gateway. A high speed connection to your data transporter's network does not guarantee a high speed connection to the remote computer. I used to go through Datapak at 9600 bps to a computer center in Oslo. There, I was connected through a local area network to the host computer. The effective speed was rarely higher than 4800 bps. Calling direct gave twice the speed.

Try to measure the effective transfer speed before selecting a routing for your data. Transfer the same amount of text through various networks.

If future transfers are likely to take place at a given time of day, test at that time. If your planned application is retrieval of programs, retrieve programs. If you want to read news, then read news from the services that you want to compare. When a network service charging for volume (like Datapak) will also be part of a comparison, measuring volume is particularly important. Do not assume that you know the answer in advance.

| NOTE: Always calculate the cost based on a fixed volume, like |

| for the transfer of 1000 characters. This is particularly |

| important when you need to use different transfer speeds to |

| access competing services. |

Network load varies considerably throughout the day depending on the number of simultaneous users, and their applications. This also applies to online services. The load is normally lowest, when the bulk of the users are asleep, and during weekends. When the load is low, you get more done per minute.

Planning and self-discipline pays off

The actual cost of using a given set of services depends a lot on your self-discipline, the tools you use, and on how well prepared you are:

* If accessing manually, use "quick" commands rather than menus to move at maximum speed to desired sources of information. * Do not set your services to be used with colors, sound, or special methods for displaying graphics, unless you have no choice, or are willing to pay the extra cost. They increase the volume of transferred text, and lower effective speed. * Get the information and disconnect. It is expensive - and usually unnecessary - to read captured text while online. Log off to read. Call back for more to read, disconnect, and then call back again. * Learn how to write your mail offline, and send the letters "in a batch" to your mailbox. Your messages will often have fewer typing errors, be better thought out, and the cost will be considerably lower. * Consider automating your communication (see Chapter 16). I use Bergen By Byte this way. A while ago, it gave me the following progress report: "Time on: 17 hrs 43 min, today 0 hrs 0 min, total 827 times." In average, I spend around 1.3 minutes per call. Yesterday, I was connected for 2:48 minutes. The result was 106 kilobytes' worth of conference mail.

Modem speed and cost

2400 bps is a sensible modem speed for some applications, and used to be a good starting point for new onliners. The benefits of using a faster modem may be marginal under the following conditions:

* When navigating the online service considerably reduces the effective speed, and you access the service manually. * When you pay considerably more for access at higher speed. (CompuServe charges extra for 9600 bps access, but not much.) * When your networks do not offer higher speeds. * When the relative price of a faster modem in your country is prohibitive.

On the other hand, a modem doing 9600 bps or more, does give you considerably faster communication. If doing things faster is more important than keeping costs down, then it is a wise investment. This is the case for me. Besides, often it is definitely cheaper.

Your applications have a considerable impact on your costs. If you mainly use your modem for retrieval of programs and large data files from bulletin boards - and don't have to pay extra for volume - then higher modem speeds will immediately give reduced costs. A slower speed modem may also stop you from getting what you want. For example, there are several shareware programs on my board that users of 2400 bps modems are unable to download within their