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From: Nancy Ammerman <emoryu1!phoenix.Princeton.EDU!nancyamm>
To: Jackie Ammerman <emory!emoryu1!awwe!root@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
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Chapter 2: E-MAIL
2.1 THE BASICS
Electronic mail, or e-mail, is your personal connection to the
world of the Net.
All of the millions of people around the world who use the
Net have their own e-mail addresses. A growing number of "gateways" tie
more and more people to the Net every day. When you logged onto the host
system you are now using, it automatically generated an address for you,
as well.
The basic concepts behind e-mail parallel those of regular mail.
You send mail to people at their particular addresses. In turn, they
write to you at your e-mail address. You can subscribe to the
electronic equivalent of magazines and newspapers. You might even get
electronic junk mail.
E-mail has two distinct advantages over regular mail. The
most obvious is speed. Instead of several days, your message can reach
the other side of the world in hours, minutes or even seconds (depending
on where you drop off your mail and the state of the connections between
there and your recipient). The other advantage is that once you master
the basics, you'll be able to use e-mail to access databases and file
libraries. You'll see how to do this later, along with learning how to
transfer program and data files through e-mail.
E-mail also has advantages over the telephone. You send your
message when it's convenient for you. Your recipient responds at his
convenience. No more telephone tag. And while a phone call across
the country or around the world can quickly result in huge phone
bills, e-mail lets you exchange vast amounts of mail for only a few
pennies -- even if the other person is in New Zealand.
E-mail is your connection to help -- your Net lifeline. The
Net can sometimes seem a frustrating place! No matter how hard you
try, no matter where you look, you just might not be able to find the
answer to whatever is causing you problems. But when you know how to
use e-mail, help is often just a few keystrokes away: ask your system
administrator or a friend for help in an e-mail message.
The quickest way to start learning e-mail is to send yourself a
message. Most public-access sites actually have several different types
of mail systems, all of which let you both send and receive mail. We'll
start with the simplest one, known, appropriately enough, as "mail," and
then look at a couple of other interfaces. At your host system's command
prompt, type this:
mail username
where username is the name you gave yourself when you first logged on.
Hit enter. The computer might respond with
subject:
Type
test
or, actually, anything at all (but you'll have to hit enter before
you get to the end of the screen). Hit enter.
The cursor will drop down a line. You can now begin writing the
actual message. Type a sentence, again, anything at all. And here's
where you hit your first Unix frustration, one that will bug you
repeatedly: you have to hit enter before you get to the very end of the
line. Just like typewriters, many Unix programs have no word-wrapping
(although there are ways to get some Unix text processors, such as emacs,
to word-wrap).
When done with your message, hit return. Now hit control-D (the
control and the D keys at the same time). This is a Unix command that
tells the computer you're done writing and that it should close your
"envelope" and mail it off (you could also hit enter once and then, on
a blank line, type a period at the beginning of the line and hit enter
again).
You've just sent your first e-mail message. And because you're
sending mail to yourself, rather than to someone somewhere else on the
Net, your message has already arrived, as we'll see in a moment.
If you had wanted, you could have even written your message on
your own computer and then uploaded it into this electronic
"envelope." There are a couple of good reasons to do this with long
or involved messages. One is that once you hit enter at the end of a
line in "mail" you can't readily fix any mistakes on that line (unless
you use some special commands to call up a Unix text processor). Also,
if you are paying for access by the hour, uploading a prepared
message can save you money. Remember to save the document in ASCII or
text format. Uploading a document you've created in a word processor
that uses special formatting commands (which these days means many
programs) will cause strange effects.
When you get that blank line after the subject line, upload the
message using the ASCII protocol. Or you can copy and paste the text,
if your software allows that. When done, hit control-D as above.
Now you have mail waiting for you. Normally, when you log on,
your public-access site will tell you whether you have new mail
waiting. To open your mailbox and see your waiting mail, type
mail
and hit enter.
When the host system sees "mail" without a name after it, it
knows you want to look in your mailbox rather than send a message.
Your screen, on a plain-vanilla Unix system will display:
Mail version SMI 4.0 Mon Apr 24 18:34:15 PDT 1989 Type ? for help.
"/usr/spool/mail/adamg": 1 message 1 new 1 unread
>N 1 adamg Sat Jan 15 20:04 12/290 test
Ignore the first line; it's just computerese of value only to the
people who run your system. You can type a question mark and hit
return, but unless you're familiar with Unix, most of what you'll see
won't make much sense at this point.
The second line tells you the directory on the host system where
your mail messages are put, which again, is not something you'll likely
need to know. The second line also tells you how many messages are in your
mailbox, how many have come in since the last time you looked and how
many messages you haven't read yet.
It's the third line that is of real interest -- it tells you who
the message is from, when it arrived, how many lines and characters
it takes up, and what the subject is. The "N" means it is a new
message -- it arrived after the last time you looked in your mailbox.
Hit enter. And there's your message -- only now it's a lot
longer than what you wrote!
Message 1:
From adamg Jan 15 20:04:55 1994
Received: by eff.org id AA28949
(5.65c/IDA-1.4.4/pen-ident for adamg); Sat, 15 Jan 1994 20:04:55 -0400
(ident-sender: adamg@eff.org)
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 1994 21:34:55 -0400
From: Adam Gaffin <adamg>
Message-Id: <199204270134.AA28949@eff.org>
To: adamg
Subject: test
Status: R
This is only a test!
Whoa! What is all that stuff? It's your message with a postmark
gone mad. Just as the postal service puts its marks on every piece of
mail it handles, so do Net postal systems. Only it's called a
"header" instead of a postmark. Each system that handles or routes
your mail puts its stamp on it. Since many messages go through a
number of systems on their way to you, you will often get messages
with headers that seem to go on forever. Among other things, a header
will tell you exactly when a message was sent and received (even the
difference between your local time and GMT -- as at the end of line 4
above).
If this had been a long message, it would just keep scrolling
across and down your screen -- unless the people who run your public-
access site have set it up to pause every 24 lines. One way to deal
with a message that doesn't stop is to use your telecommunication
software's logging or text-buffer function. Start it before you hit
the number of the message you want to see. Your computer will ask you
what you want to call the file you're about to create. After you name
the file and hit enter, type the number of the message you want to see
and hit enter. When the message finishes scrolling, turn off the
text-buffer function, and the message is now saved in your computer.
This way, you can read the message while not connected to the Net
(which can save you money if you're paying by the hour) and write a
reply offline.
But in the meantime, now what? You can respond to the message,
delete it or save it. To respond, type a lower-case "r" and hit
enter. You'll get something like this:
To: adamg
Subject: Re: test
Note that this time, you don't have to enter a username. The
computer takes it from the message you're replying to and
automatically addresses your message to its sender. The computer also
automatically inserts a subject line, by adding "Re:" to the original
subject. From here, it's just like writing a new message. But say you
change your mind and decide not to reply after all. How do you get out
of the message? Hit control-C once. You'll get this:
(Interrupt -- one more to kill letter)
If you hit control-C once more, the message will disappear and you'll
get back to your mail's command line.
Now, if you type a lower-case d and then hit enter, you'll
delete the original message. Type a lower-case q to exit your
mailbox.
If you type a "q" without first hitting "d", your message is
transferred to a file called mbox. This file is where all read, but
un-deleted messages go. If you want to leave it in your mailbox for
now, type a lower-case x and hit enter. This gets you out of mail
without making any changes.
The mbox file works a lot like your mailbox. To access it,
type
mail -f mbox
at your host system's command line and hit enter.
You'll get a menu identical to the one in your mailbox from which
you can read these old messages, delete them or respond to them. It's
probably a good idea to clear out your mailbox and mbox file from
time to time, if only to keep them uncluttered.
Are there any drawbacks to e-mail? There are a few. One is that
people seem more willing to fly off the handle electronically than in
person, or over the phone. Maybe it's because it's so easy to hit R
and reply to a message without pausing and reflecting a moment.
That's why we have smileys (see section 2.4)! There's no online
equivalent yet of a return receipt: chances are your message got to where
it's going, but there's no absolute way for you to know for sure unless
you get a reply from the other person. Also, because computers are quite
literal, you have to be very careful when addressing a message. Misplace
a period or a single letter in the address, and your message could come
back to you, undelivered.
So now you're ready to send e-mail to other people on the Net.
Of course, you need somebody's address to send them mail. How do you
get it?
Alas, the simplest answer is not what you'd call the most
elegant: you call them up on the phone or write them a letter on paper
and ask them. Residents of the electronic frontier are only beginning
to develop the equivalent of phone books, and the ones that exist
today are far from complete (still, later on, in Chapter 6, we'll show
you how to use some of these directories).
Eventually, you'll start corresponding with people, which means
you'll want to know how to address mail to them. It's vital to know
how to do this, because the smallest mistake -- using a comma when you
should have used a period, for instance, can bounce the message back
to you, undelivered. In this sense, Net addresses are like phone
numbers: one wrong digit and you get the wrong person. Fortunately,
most net addresses now adhere to a relatively easy-to-understand
system.
Earlier, you sent yourself a mail message using just your user-
name. This was sort of like making a local phone call -- you didn't
have to dial a 1 or an area code. This also works for mail to anybody
else who has an account on the same system as you.
Sending mail outside of your system, though, will require the use
of the Net equivalent of area codes, called "domains." A basic Net
address will look something like this:
tomg@world.std.com
Tomg is somebody's user ID, and he is at (hence the @ sign) a site
(or in Internetese, a "domain") known as std.com. Large organizations
often have more than one computer linked to the Internet; in this case,
the name of the particular machine is world (you will quickly notice
that, like boat owners, Internet computer owners always name their
machines).
Domains tell you the name of the organization that runs a given
e-mail site and what kind of site it is or, if it's not in the U.S.,
what country it's located in. Large organizations may have more than
one computer or gateway tied to the Internet, so you'll often see a
two-part domain name; and sometimes even three- or four-part domain
names.
In general, American addresses end in an organizational suffix,
such as ".edu," which means the site is at a college or university.
Other American suffixes include:
.com for businesses
.org for non-profit organizations
.gov and .mil for government and military agencies
.net for companies or organizations that run large networks.
Sites in the rest of the world tend to use a two-letter code that
represents their country. Most make sense, such as .ca for Canadian
sites, but there are a couple of seemingly odd ones. Swiss sites end
in .ch, while South African ones end in .za. Some U.S. sites have
followed this international convention (such as well.sf.ca.us).
You'll notice that the above addresses are all in lower-case.
Unlike almost everything else having anything at all to do with Unix,
most Net mailing systems don't care about case, so you generally don't
have to worry about capitalizing e-mail addresses. Alas, there are a few
exceptions -- some public-access sites do allow for capital letters in
user names. When in doubt, ask the person you want to write to, or let
her send you a message first (recall how a person's e-mail address is
usually found on the top of her message).
The domain name, the part of the address after the @ sign, never
has to be capitalized.
It's all a fairly simple system that works very well, except,
again, it's vital to get the address exactly right -- just as you have
to dial a phone number exactly right. Send a message to tomg@unm.edu
(which is the University of New Mexico) when you meant to send it to
tomg@umn.edu (the University of Minnesota), and your letter will either
bounce back to you undelivered, or go to the wrong person.
If your message is bounced back to you as undeliverable, you'll
get an ominous looking-message from MAILER-DAEMON (actually a rather
benign Unix program that exists to handle mail), with an evil-looking
header followed by the text of your message. Sometimes, you can tell
what went wrong by looking at the first few lines of the bounced
message. Besides an incorrect address, it's possible your host system
does not have the other site in the "map" it maintains of other host
systems. Or you could be trying to send mail to another network, such
as Bitnet or CompuServe, that has special addressing requirements.
Sometimes, figuring all this out can prove highly frustrating.
But remember the prime Net commandment: Ask. Send a message to your
system administrator. He or she might be able to help decipher the
problem.
There is one kind of address that may give your host system
particular problems. There are two main ways that Unix systems
exchange mail. One is known as UUCP and started out with a different
addressing system than the rest of the Net. Most UUCP systems have
since switched over to the standard Net addressing system, but a few
traditional sites still cling to their original type, which tends to
have lots of exclamation points in it, like this:
uunet!somesite!othersite!mybuddy
The problem for many host sites is that exclamation points (also
known as "bangs") now mean something special in the more common systems
or "shells" used to operate many Unix computers. This means that
addressing mail to such a site (or even responding to a message you
received from one) could confuse the poor computer to no end and your
message never gets sent out. If that happens, try putting backslashes in
front of each exclamation point, so that you get an address that looks
like this:
uunet\!somesite\!othersite\!mybuddy
Note that this means you may not be able to respond to such a message
by typing a lower-case "r" -- you may get an error message and you'll
have to create a brand-new message.
If you want to get a taste of what's possible through e-mail,
start an e-mail message to
almanac@oes.orst.edu
Leave the "subject:" line blank. As a message, write this:
send quote
Or, if you're feeling a little down, write this instead:
send moral-support
In either case, you will get back a message within a few seconds to
a few hours (depending on the state of your host system's Internet
connection). If you simply asked for a quote, you'll get back a
fortune-cookie-like saying. If you asked for moral support, you'll also
get back a fortune-cookie-like saying, only supposedly more uplifting.
This particular "mail server" is run by Oregon State University.
Its main purpose is actually to provide a way to distribute agricultural
information via e-mail. If you'd like to find out how to use the
server's full range of services, send a message to the above address
with this line in it:
send help
You'll quickly get back a lengthy document detailing just what's
available and how to get it.
Feeling opinionated? Want to give the President of the United
States a piece of your mind? Send a message to president@whitehouse.gov.
Or if the vice president will do, write vice-president@whitehouse.gov.
The "mail" program is actually a very powerful one and a Netwide
standard, at least on Unix computers. But it can be hard to figure
out -- you can type a question mark to get a list of commands, but
these may be of limited use unless you're already familiar with Unix.
Fortunately, there are a couple of other mail programs that are easier
to use.
2.2 ELM -- A BETTER WAY
Elm is a combination mailbox and letter-writing system that uses
menus to help you navigate through mail. Most Unix-based host systems
now have it online. To use it, type
elm
and hit enter. You'll get a menu of your waiting mail, along with a
list of commands you can execute, that will look something like this:
Mailbox is '/usr/spool/mail/adamg' with 38 messages [ELM 2.3 PL11]
1 Sep 1 Christopher Davis (13) here's another message.
2 Sep 1 Christopher Davis (91) This is a message from Eudora
3 Aug 31 Rita Marie Rouvali (161) First Internet Hunt !!! (fwd)
4 Aug 31 Peter Scott/Manage (69) New File <UK077> University of Londo
5 Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (64) New File <DIR020> X.500 service at A
6 Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (39) New File <NET016> DATAPAC Informatio
7 Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (67) Proposed Usenet group for HYTELNET n
8 Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (56) New File <DIR019> JANET Public Acces
9 Aug 26 Helen Trillian Ros (15) Tuesday
10 Aug 26 Peter Scott/Manage (151) Update <CWK004> Oxford University OU
You can use any of the following commands by pressing the first character;
d)elete or u)ndelete mail, m)ail a message, r)eply or f)orward mail, q)uit
To read a message, press <return>. j = move down, k = move up, ? = help
Each line shows the date you received the message, who sent it,
how many lines long the message is, and the message's subject.
If you are using VT100 emulation, you can move up and down the
menu with your up and down arrow keys. Otherwise, type the line number
of the message you want to read or delete and hit enter.
When you read a message, it pauses every 24 lines, instead of
scrolling until it's done. Hit the space bar to read the next page.
You can type a lower-case "r" to reply or a lower-case "q" or "i"
to get back to the menu (the I stands for "index").
At the main menu, hitting a lower-case "m" followed by enter
will let you start a message. To delete a message, type a lower-case
"d". You can do this while reading the message. Or, if you are in
the menu, move the cursor to the message's line and then hit D.
When you're done with Elm, type a lower-case "q". The program
will ask if you really want to delete the messages you marked. Then,
it will ask you if you want to move any messages you've read but
haven't marked for deletion to a "received" file. For now, hit your n
key.
Elm has a major disadvantage for the beginner. The default text
editor it generally calls up when you hit your "r" or "m" key is
often a program called emacs. Unixoids swear by emacs, but everybody
else almost always finds it impossible. Unfortunately, you can't
always get away from it (or vi, another text editor often found on
Unix systems), so later on we'll talk about some basic commands that
will keep you from going totally nuts.
2.3 PINE -- AN EVEN BETTER WAY
Pine is based on elm but includes a number of improvements that
make it an ideal mail system for beginners. Like elm, pine starts
you with a menu. It also has an "address book" feature that is handy
for people with long or complex e-mail addresses. Hitting A at the
main menu puts you in the address book, where you can type in the
person's first name (or nickname) followed by her address. Then, when
you want to send that person a message, you only have to type in her
first name or nickname, and pine automatically inserts her actual
address. The address book also lets you set up a mailing list. This
feature allows you to send the same message to a number of people at
once.
What really sets pine apart is its built-in text editor,
which looks and feels a lot more like word-processing programs
available for MS-DOS and Macintosh users. Not only does it have
word wrap (a revolutionary concept if ever there was one), it also has a
spell-checker and a search command. Best of all, all of the commands
you need are listed in a two-line mini-menu at the bottom of each
screen. The commands look like this:
^W Where is
The little caret is a synonym for the key marked "control" on your
keyboard. To find where a particular word is in your document, you'd
hit your control key and your W key at the same time, which would bring
up a prompt asking you for the word to look for.
Some of pine's commands are a tad peculiar (control-V for "page
down" for example), which comes from being based on a variant of
emacs (which is utterly peculiar). But again, all of the commands you
need are listed on that two-line mini-menu, so it shouldn't take you
more than a couple of seconds to find the right one.
To use pine, type
pine
at the command line and hit enter. It's a relatively new program, so
some systems may not yet have it online. But it's so easy to use, you
should probably send e-mail to your system administrator urging him to
get it!
2.4 SMILEYS
When you're involved in an online discussion, you can't see the
smiles or shrugs that the other person might make in a live
conversation to show he's only kidding. But online, there's no body
language. So what you might think is funny, somebody else might take as
an insult. To try to keep such misunderstandings from erupting into
bitter disputes, we have smileys. Tilt your head to the left and look at
the following sideways. :-). Or simply :). This is your basic "smiley."
Use it to indicate people should not take that comment you just made as
seriously as they might otherwise. You make a smiley by typing a colon,
a hyphen and a right parenthetical bracket. Some people prefer using the
word "grin," usually in this form:
<grin>
Sometimes, though, you'll see it as *grin* or even just <g> for short.
Some other smileys include:
;-) Wink;
:-( Frown;
:-O Surprise;
8-) Wearing glasses;
=|:-)= Abe Lincoln.
OK, so maybe the last two are a little bogus :-).
2.5 SENDING E-MAIL TO OTHER NETWORKS
There are a number of computer networks that are not directly
part of the Net, but which are now connected through "gateways" that
allow the passing of e-mail. Here's a list of some of the larger
networks, how to send mail to them and how their users can send mail to
you:
America Online
Remove any spaces from a user's name and append "aol.com," to get
user@aol.com
America Online users who want to send mail to you need only put
your Net address in the "to:" field before composing a message.
ATTMail
Address your message to user@attmail.com.
From ATTMail, a user would send mail to you in this form:
internet!domain!user
So if your address were nancy@world.std.com, your correspondent
would send a message to you at
internet!world.std.com!nancy
Bitnet
Users of Bitnet (and NetNorth in Canada and EARN in Europe) often
have addresses in this form: IZZY@INDVMS. If you're lucky, all you'll
have to do to mail to that address is add "bitnet" at the end, to get
izzy@indvms.bitnet. Sometimes, however, mail to such an address will
bounce back to you, because Bitnet addresses do not always translate
well into an Internet form. If this happens, you can send mail
through one of two Internet/Bitnet gateways. First, change the @ in
the address to a %, so that you get username%site.bitnet. Then add
either @vm.marist.edu or @cunyvm.cuny.edu, so that, with the above
example, you would get izzy%indyvms.bitnet@vm.marist.edu or
izzy%indvyvms.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Bitnet users have it a little easier: They can usually send mail
directly to your e-mail address without fooling around with it at all.
So send them your address and they should be OK.
CompuServe
CompuServe users have numerical addresses in this form:
73727,545. To send mail to a CompuServe user, change the comma to a
period and add "@compuserve.com"; for example:
73727.545@compuserve.com.
If you know CompuServe users who want to send you mail, tell them
to GO MAIL and create a mail message. In the address area, instead of
typing in a CompuServe number, have them type your address in this
form:
>INTERNET:YourID@YourAddress.
For example, >INTERNET:adamg@world.std.com. Note that both the
">" and the ":" are required.
Delphi
To send mail to a Delphi user, the form is username@delphi.com.
Fidonet
To send mail to somebody who uses a Fidonet BBS, you need the name
they use to log onto that system and its "node number.'' Fidonet node
numbers or addresses consist of three numbers, in this form:
1:322/190. The first number tells which of several broad geographic
zones the BBS is in (1 represents the U.S. and Canada, 2 Europe and
Israel, 3 Pacific Asia, 4 South America). The second number
represents the BBS's network, while the final number is the BBS's
"FidoNode'' number in that network. If your correspondent only gives
you two numbers (for example, 322/190), it means the system is in zone
1.
Now comes the tricky part. You have to reverse the numbers and
add to them the letters f, n and z (which stand for
"FidoNode,''"network,'' and "zone'). For example, the address above
would become
f190.n322.z1.
Now add "fidonet.org'' at the end, to get
f190.n322.z1.fidonet.org. Then add "FirstName.LastName@', to get
FirstName.LastName@f190.n322.z1.fidonet.org.
Note the period between the first and last names. Also, some countries
now have their own Fidonet "backbone" systems, which might affect
addressing. For example, were the above address in Germany, you would
end it with "fido.de" instead of "fidonet.org."
Whew!
The reverse process is totally different. First, the person has
to have access to his or her BBS's "net mail" area and know the
Fidonet address of his or her local Fidonet/UUCP gateway (often their
system operator will know it). Your Fidonet correspondent should
address a net-mail message to UUCP (not your name) in the "to:" field.
In the node-number field, they should type in the node number of the
Fidonet/UUCP gateway (if the gateway system is in the same regional
network as their system, they need only type the last number, for
example, 390 instead of 322/390). Then, the first line of the message
has to be your Internet address, followed by a blank line. After
that, the person can write the message and send it.
Because of the way Fidonet moves mail, it could take a day or two
for a message to be delivered in either direction. Also, because many
Fidonet systems are run as hobbies, it is considered good form to ask
the gateway sysop's permission if you intend to pass large amounts of
mail back and forth. Messages of a commercial nature are strictly
forbidden (even if it's something the other person asked for). Also,
consider it very likely that somebody other than the recipient will
read your messages.
GEnie
To send mail to a GEnie user, add "@genie.com" to the end
of their GEnie user name, for example: walt@genie.com.
MCIMail
To send mail to somebody with an MCIMail account, add
"@mcimail.com to the end of their name or numerical address. For
example:
555-1212@mcimail.com
or
jsmith@mcimail.com
Note that if there is more than one MCIMail subscriber with that
name, you will get a mail message back from MCI giving you their names
and numerical addresses. You'll then have to figure out which one you
want and re-send the message.
From MCI, a user would type
Your Name (EMS)
at the "To:" prompt. At the EMS prompt, he or she would type
internet
followed by your Net address at the "Mbx:" prompt.
Peacenet
To send mail to a Peacenet user, use this form:
username@igc.org
Peacenet subscribers can use your regular address to send you
mail.
Prodigy
UserID@prodigy.com. Note that Prodigy users must pay extra for
Internet e-mail.
2.6 SEVEN UNIX COMMANDS YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT:
If you connect to the Net through a Unix system, eventually you'll
have to come to terms with Unix. For better or worse, most Unix systems do
NOT shield you from their inner workings -- if you want to copy a Usenet
posting to a file, for example, you'll have to use some Unix commands if
you ever want to do anything with that file.
Like MS-DOS, Unix is an operating system - it tells the computer how
to do things. Now while Unix may have a reputation as being even more
complex than MS-DOS, in most cases, a few basic, and simple, commands
should be all you'll ever need.
If your own computer uses MS-DOS or PC-DOS, the basic concepts will
seem very familiar -- but watch out for the cd command, which works
differently enough from the similarly named DOS command that it will drive
you crazy. Also, unlike MS-DOS, Unix is case sensitive -- if you type
commands or directory names in the wrong case, you'll get an error message.
If you're used to working on a Mac, you'll have to remember that Unix
stores files in "directories" rather than "folders." Unix directories are
organized like branches on a tree. At the bottom is the "root" directory,
with sub-directories branching off that (and sub-directories in turn can
have sub-directories). The Mac equivalent of a Unix sub-directory is a
folder within another folder.
cat Equivalent to the MS-DOS "type" command. To pause a file
every screen, type
cat file |more
where "file" is the name of the file you want to see.
Hitting control-C will stop the display. Alternately,
you could type
more file
to achieve the same result. You can also use cat for
writing or uploading text files to your name or home
directory (similar to the MS-DOS "copy con" command). If
you type
cat>test
you start a file called "test." You can either write
something simple (no editing once you've finished a line and
you have to hit return at the end of each line) or upload
something into that file using your communications software's
ASCII protocol). To close the file, hit control-D.
cd The "change directory" command. To change from your present
directory to another, type
cd directory
and hit enter. Unlike MS-DOS, which uses a \ to denote sub-
directories (for example: \stuff\text), Unix uses a / (for
example: /stuff/text). So to change from your present
directory to the stuff/text sub-directory, you would type
cd stuff/text
and then hit enter. As in MS-DOS, you do not need the first
backslash if the subdirectory comes off the directory you're
already in. To move back up a directory tree, you would type
cd ..
followed by enter. Note the space between the cd and the two
periods -- this is where MS-DOS users will really go nuts.
cp Copies a file. The syntax is
cp file1 file2
which would copy file1 to file2 (or overwrite file2 with
file1).
ls This command, when followed by enter, tells you what's in the
directory, similar to the DOS dir command, except in
alphabetical order.
ls | more
will stop the listing every 24 lines -- handy if there are a
lot of things in the directory. The basic ls command does not
list "hidden" files, such as the .login file that controls
how your system interacts with Unix. To see these files, type
ls -a or ls -a | more
ls -l will tell you the size of each file in bytes and tell
you when each was created or modified.
mv Similar to the MS-DOS rename command.
mv file1 file2
will rename file1 as file2, The command can
also be used to move files between directories.
mv file1 News
would move file1 to your News directory.
rm Deletes a file. Type
rm filename
and hit enter (but beware: when you hit enter, it's gone for
good).
WILDCARDS: When searching for, copying or deleting files, you can
use "wildcards" if you are not sure of the file's exact name.
ls man*
would find the following files:
manual, manual.txt, man-o-man.
Use a question mark when you're sure about all but one or two characters.
For example,
ls man?
would find a file called mane, but not one called manual.
2.7 WHEN THINGS GO WRONG
* You send a message but get back an ominous looking message from
MAILER-DAEMON containing up to several dozen lines of computerese
followed by your message. Somewhere in those lines you can often find a
clue to what went wrong. You might have made a mistake in spelling the
e-mail address. The site to which you're sending mail might have been
down for maintenance or a problem. You may have used the wrong
"translation" for mail to a non-Internet network.
* You call up your host system's text editor to write a message or
reply to one and can't seem to get out. If it's emacs, try control-X,
control-C (in other words, hit your control key and your X key at the
same time, followed by control and C). If worse comes to worse, you can
hang up.
* In Elm, you accidentally hit the D key for a message you want to
save. Type the number of the message, hit enter and then U, which will
"un-delete" the message. This works only before you exit Elm; once you
quit, the message is gone.
* You try to upload an ASCII message you've written on your own
computer into a message you're preparing in Elm or Pine and you get a
lot of left brackets, capital Ms, Ks and Ls and some funny-looking
characters. Believe it or not, your message will actually wind up looking
fine; all that garbage is temporary and reflects the problems some Unix
text processors have with ASCII uploads. But it will take much longer
for your upload to finish. One way to deal with this is to call up the
simple mail program, which will not produce any weird characters when you
upload a text file into a message. Another way (which is better if your
prepared message is a response to somebody's mail), is to create a text
file on your host system with cat, for example,
cat>file
and then upload your text into that. Then, in Elm or Pine, you can insert
the message with a simple command (control-r in Pine, for example); only
this time you won't see all that extraneous stuff.
* You haven't cleared out your Elm mailbox in awhile, and you
accidentally hit "y" when you meant to hit "n" (or vice-versa) when
exiting and now all your messages have disappeared. Look in your News
directory (at the command line, type: cd News) for a file called
recieved. Those are all your messages. Unfortunately, there's no way to
get them back into your Elm mailbox -- you'll have to download the file
or read it online.
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