*** ANSWERMAN INTERNET EXTRA *** The week of September 2, 1996 This is a weekly newsletter for the community of Internet users on America Online. It is brought to you by AnswerMan, AOL's area for those learning to use the Internet. Come see what's new at keyword ANSWERMAN. Got comments about this newsletter? We want to hear them! Send 'em to the AnswerMan. The e-mail address is "AnswerMan@aol.com". =*=*= IN THIS ISSUE =*=*= AnswerMan's Update -- It's here! It's here! Purple's Picks -- Starting Point Upcoming Weekly Focus & Chats-- What's on Tap in AnswerMan? The End -- How to contact us or unsubscribe =*=*= ANSWERMAN'S UPDATE =*=*= At long last, net.help and the AnswerMan Community Center arrive! Pass out the cigars, send the color glossies to all the relatives! I feel like a proud parent gloating over the arrival of a new child. No, there's no AnswerBaby; instead I'm happy to announce the arrival of two powerful resources for Internet users -- net.help and the new AnswerMan Community Center! You can find them at keywords NET HELP and ANSWERMAN. -.-.- NET HELP -.-.- Let's start with a look at net.help. At keyword NET HELP you'll find the net.help main screen, with several choices: QuickSearch, QuickFixes, General Internet Help and AnswerMan. These tools make it very easy to find whatever information you want about the Internet. the General Internet Help button, then select the tool you want to know more about: electronic mail, mailing lists, the Web, Newsgroups, Gopher, or FTP. Then click the type of help you need, such as How To (to get good at all the basic and not-so-basic tasks, such accessing files by e-mail and searching FTP sites for a specific file,) Tips (to make it even easier to get around the Internet) and Message Boards (if you want to share your experiences - good or bad - with other members.) Now try the QuickFixes area. If you're in a jam, QuickFixes is the first place you should go for solutions to Internet problems such as "E-mail reported Not a Known User. Why?" and "What does '501 - Not Implemented' mean?" QuickFixes is also arranged by tool so it's easy to find the information you need. QuickSearch is another powerful way to find solutions to your Internet questions. With it, you can enter a keyword, and QuickSearch will troll the whole net.help area for articles with that word or phrase. -.-.- ANSWERMAN COMMUNITY CENTER -.-.- Press the AnswerMan button from net.help, or go to keyword ANSWERMAN, for your next treat. You'll see the new AnswerMan Community Center, the central point for your Internet questions and answers. The screen offers seven buttons o' features. The big button with the AnswerMan guy is the link to the new Weekly Focus feature. Each and every week, the AnswerMan area will take a close look at one facet of using the Internet. In the Weekly Focus, you'll find descriptions of and links to sites on that topic, chat transcripts and articles on that topic. The AnswerMan Newsletter will feature an article on that topic, and the Sunday chat session will tie in with it too. (Of course, you're always welcome to discuss and Internet-related topic in the AnswerMan message boards.) This week's focus is Doing Research on the Internet. Check is out. Make it a Favorite Place. In the Weekly Focus, you'll also notice a special message board for each week's topic. This is you chance to ask questions on the Focus topic, share any relevant Internet sites that you've found, and generally glean lots of extra information about the Focus topic. Moving right along on the AnswerMan Community Center screen, you'll see the AnswerMan Message Boards. Here you can post messages and questions about the Net -- one of the Computer Jockeys or myself will answer your question posthaste. Two new features are AnswerMan Answers and the Tip of the Day. In AnswerMan Answers we feature frequently asked questions about the Internet, so that you can find the most sought-after answers quickly. Several questions and answers are added each week. And with the Tip of the Day button, you can get a daily dose of ideas for using the Internet. Check out the Web pages that your fellow AOL users have created, and let them know about yours with the "Member Web Sites" button. You'll see a list of sites other AnswerMan users have made, and you'll have the chance to add a link to yours so others will visit it. AnswerMan Chat button is your doorway to the once-a-week chat extravaganza. On Sunday afternoon, you can use it to join the chat; any other time you'll get a list of upcoming chat topics. Last but not least, you'll see a button for the Internet Extra Newsletter. You can unsubscribe, subscribe or read back issues of this newsletter. If you feel the need to RTFM, the AnswerMan Glossary is still available -- there's a button at the bottom of the screen when you're in net.help and the AnswerMan Community Center. That's the quick tour -- we're all very interested in what you think of the new AnswerMan and net.help areas, so feel free to send your comments to AnswerMan@aol.com. -.-.- IN OTHER NEWS -.-.- Windows users--Personal Publisher 2: The long-awaited Personal Publisher 2 is available for preview now. It creates Web pages without you having to learn HTML and adds pictures, colors, and text with the click of a button. And when you are all finished, you can publish it to a Web server. We call it the 60-second Web page. Take a test drive today. Keyword: PP2. -.-.- ANSWERMAN IS "ON THE MOVE" -.-.- Finally, I'll be heading down to San Jose on September 9th for AOL's "On The Move" tour (go to keyword ON THE MOVE for all the lurid details.) If you're going to be nearby, drop in and say "hi." I won't be wearing a fez, but you should be able to find me. =*=*= PURPLE'S PICKS -- Starting Point =*=*= by Sarah Nehrer (CJ Purple) I'm back from a much-needed short vacation to tell you about Starting Point (http://www.stpt.com), the site which claims to be "Everything You Need to Work the Web Every Day." I must admit, this claim is not far from wrong! :-) Starting Point is a site that provides *hundreds* of links to thousands of pages of information about twelve topics. It has links to just about every data resource and useful site out there. I highly recommend at least going there once to browse through all the links available. It will give you a chance to see a large part of what you can find on the Web when you need some particular information, and you can decide if those are the kinds of links you would find helpful at any point. My guess is most of you will say "yes!" Let me briefly describe the topics and what you can find under each one. Please bear in mind, this is just a cursory description, given time and space limitations. :-) - News - relatively self-explanatory. Here you will find links to CNN, NBC News, Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, ABC Radio, NPR, etc. U.S. Regional news via links to city newspapers is here, as well as an International section with links to international newspapers and news sources. - Reference. Here you will find several all inclusive search tools (ones that query more than one search engine), individual search engines, links to finding area and zip codes, maps, dictionaries and libraries. - Weather. Maps, forecasts, radar and satellite images. - Sports. Links to everything athletic. Individual sports include the more usual baseball and football, as well as the less-popular ones such as auto/motorcycle and fishing/hunting/outdoors. - Business. Commercial directories; resources for commerce, career and marketing; international business links, and a variety of links to legal information for business owners. - Magazines. Links to nearly any magazine available on the Web in the following categories: computing & technology, Internet & communications, news and politics, business & finance, arts & entertainments, travel, and adventure & recreation. - Investing. If you want to know what you can do and learn on the Web in this category, this is the place to be. Quotes, charts, online trading, financial news, stock brokers, and the exchanges are just some of the areas in this section. - Travel. Directories, agencies, airlines, hotels. The Resources area even has a link to a site where you can get foreign language lessons on the Web! :-) - Education. Resources, as well as sites that help you find colleges and universities on the Internet. - Computing. Hardware companies, software companies, online services and much more. - Entertainment. TV, movies, music, humor, books, crime (including the Internet version of the FBI's most wanted list), live camshots, restaurant guides, recipes, beverages, and more (bingo, chess, web personals and a link to the people page which is a search tool specifically for personal web sites). - Shopping. Yellow pages, malls, catalogs, food & beverages, health & fitness, real estate, etc. If you don't want to browse through all these lists, there is an option to search by a specific term that you type in. Also, every day there is a new Hot Site - the day I checked it was PoliticsNow (which we discussed a few weeks ago) because of the Democratic Convention this week. In fact, several of the sites we have already discussed have links from this well-stocked site. Don't forget, you can always reach me at cjpurple@aol.com if you need me. =*=*= THE WEEKLY FOCUS & CHAT =*=*= Every week, AnswerMan focuses on a particular facet of using the Internet. Here's what's going on this week and what's coming up. Sept 2 - Sept 8: Weekly Focus is Research/Library Live chat on Sunday, September 8, 6PM ET: The Internet is Your Library. If you know where to look, a trip the Internet can be more useful than a trip to the library. You can research what cars are safest, download a copy of Alice in Wonderland, find out how to fix a leaky toilet and more. But for certain kinds of information, you're better off heading to the library. This hour, AnswerMan will show you how to make the Internet your personal research center. Go to keyword AM CHAT to be there. Sept 9 - Sept 15: Weekly Focus is Finding People in the Net Sept 16 - Sept 22: Weekly Focus is Kids Sept 23 - Sept 29: Weekly Focus is Employment =*=*= THE END =*=*= That's all for this week. Please send any comments or suggestions about the AnswerMan Internet Extra to "AnswerMan" (from AOL,) or AnswerMan@aol.com" (from the Internet.) To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send an e-mail message -- To: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: UNSUBSCRIBE Body: UNSUBSCRIBE ANSWERMAN Copyright 1996 by America Online. All rights reserved. Made from 100% recycled electrons.