With this revelation in mind, I attended my first in a series of seminars organized by a local Internet Service Provider (ISP). This introduction to "the Net" in general, and to its most recent wunderkind, the World Wide Web, was intended to unravel some of the mystery surrounding these interactive, information miracles. The smallish room, borrowed for the evening from a storefront computer software school, was packed to the walls with a standing-room-only crowd of expectant computer aficionados of all ages, genders and levels of technical expertise. They all had one thing in common, however; they sensed an "Inforevolution" beginning, and they wanted to be part of it.
At exactly the scheduled time, a young-looking, very businesslike speaker named Steven arrived, and after the briefest of preliminaries, turned to a white display board at the front of the room. With a large, Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and a felt marker in the other, he rapidly sketched an overly simplified diagram of the overly complex Internet system, liberally laced with the jargon that makes "nubies" shudder and "techies" yawn. Email, newsgroups, FTP and Gopher sites, WWW, SLIP/PPP providers, online services and on and on. Finally, the mandatory introduction concluded, he flipped open a tiny laptop computer on his podium and quickly connected to his company's online system. The home page of Netscape, his Web navigation software, rolled simultaneously down the mini-screen of his laptop and a large, presentation monitor in front of the class.
"I promise we won't get too technical tonight," he said and smiled, sensing a number of blank stares among the otherwise eager faces. He downed his now-cold coffee in a gulp and continued. "I'd really like to show you what can be accomplished on the latest addition to the Net. I'm sure you've all heard of the World Wide Web?" A few tentative nods. "Right, how about starting with some area of general interest?" He paused. "Anyone?"
I couldn't resist the chance to set the theme for the evening's discussion. "How about travel?" I suggested.
"Any special place?" asked Steven. The room was quiet. "OK, here's a good place to look for travel ideas," he continued, as he mouse-clicked to Netscape's search tool, "Infoseek." The multicolored page scrolled slowly down the large display screen. "I'm sorry about the speed," he apologized. "This machine only has a 14.400 baud modem. It's fine for a start, but if you're upgrading, get a 28.8."
"How about an ISDN line?" questioned a rather intense teenager sitting cross-legged on a counter at the side of the room.
"That's a bit advanced for now," Steven replied, determined not to be diverted from the planned orientation, but promising to deal with the question at a future session.
Our attention back on the search page, we saw two active boxes inviting the entry of either a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), which, Steven explained, is the direct Internet address for specific sites and documents, or the more general key words, like the names of countries or cities. "Washington, D.C., okay?" asked Steven, refilling his huge coffee container. No one objected as he typed the city's name into a highlighted box. The heading, Access to Washington D.C. appeared, followed by a well-composed, color photo of the Washington Monument, and a number of hypertext menu categories from which to choose.
A click on the highlighted words, "Tourism & Conventions," revealed the expected information about hotels, restaurants, shopping sites, etc., but under the ambiguous heading, "Attractions," a virtual bonanza of information for potential D.C. tourists was found, including useful data on theater, performing arts and an endless list of museums from the smallest collection of regional crafts to the prestigious National Portrait Gallery.
"Anything special you'd like to see?" questioned Steven, scanning the audience for raised hands.
"S-Sm-Smithsonian Museum?" stammered a shy preteen at the rear of the room.
"He said, the Smithsonian Museum," yelled a somewhat garrulous businessman standing nearby.
"Here's an especially good Web site for the Smithsonian," Steven continued between sips of coffee and bites of complimentary cookies that remained relatively untouched. "I've been here before."
An interesting choice of verb, I thought. "Been here." Maybe there really is a cyberspace.
This time using the direct dialing feature of the URL box, he entered a string of characters familiar to all browsers of the World Wide Web, but still a bit mysterious to novices, "http://www" followed by the specific location and classification of the Web site. The brightly designed home page of the Smithsonian Museums came into view. Entering by way of the "What's New" button, we all had to laugh at the juxtaposition of two current displays: the controversial Enola Gay exhibit, and a collection of Barbie Dolls, intended to be "of interest to children," featuring dozens of Ken and Barbie clones in air force-related garb.
"Is there anything on the Senate? Or better yet, the House?" asked a gregarious young man by the coffee urn. "Would anyone like some more coffee?" he added. Only Steven accepted.
Switching to a popular search engine called Yahoo, Steven scrolled and clicked his way to the House of Representatives where we saw a very comprehensive summary of tour services, maps, session schedules and even a downloadable diagram of the Washington subway system, to facilitate getting there. It seemed to me that this page was more helpful, from a traveler's point of view, than Speaker Gingrich's glitzier Congressional Web page, Thomas.
"Let's try one more," said Steven, loosening a tie which was obviously one of the little-used garments in his wardrobe.
A short, attractive woman stood to be seen over one of the room's unused PCs. "I'd like to see something on the White House."
Returning to the resident Infoseek program and keying in the obvious search words, Steven "jumped" to a page titled Welcome to the White House, an Administration Web page which, I learned later, has been accessed more that a million times in the last eight months. Although its menu includes everything from White House art to downloadable government documents, its principal value to potential tourists is the information needed to arrange a White House tour when visiting the Capitol. "Well, that's about all the time we have for tonight," said Steven a bit too urgently, obviously trying to bring the nonstop, two-hour session to an end.
"It's probably all that java!" joked a good-natured senior in an easily overheard whisper.
"But I wouldn't be doing my job," Steven concluded, "if I didn't mention few things about our service."
As it turned out, the soft sell that followed could have been skipped. About half of the seminar participants were ready and willing to sign up for the basic service on the spot at what seemed to be a very nominal charge compared to my last online bill, and those who didn't enroll eagerly collected brochures and rate sheets that outlined a laundry list of additional provider services.
As the crowd filed out of the stuffy room, I noticed the businessman had cornered the company rep at the podium as he put away the large display monitor.
"In a town with all those politicians and lobbyists, there must be someplace to play golf," he suggested hopefully.
Steven hurriedly touched a few more keys on the laptop. "I wouldn't be a bit surprised," he said as a conservatively crafted home page called GolfWeb started to materialize on the tiny screen.
"Jeez! How'd you find that so fast?" asked the man, more that a little
impressed.
Visibly suffering now from the pain and discomfort that afflicts many caffeine-addicted Webbies, Steven shifted his weight anxiously from one foot to the other. "Uh, why don't we get into that next time, OK?"