From: LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.BITNET (Public-Access Computer Systems Forum)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.pacs-l
Subject: December Hunt Results, Pt. 1 of 3
Date: 16 Dec 92 13:21:21 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU

From: lb05gate@UCSBUXA.BITNET (Rick Gates)
Subject: December Hunt Results, Pt. 1 of 3

*              December Internet Hunt                    *
*                                                        *
*                     RESULTS                            *
*                                                        *
*        (Watch out! 617 lines in this message)          *

The results are in.  The winner is:

              Calvin Boyer
              Library
              University of California, Irvine

Calvin scored a total of 41 points out of a maximum of 42 in an
entry dated Tue, 01 Dec 92 19:52:40 -0800.

One of the distinguishing features of Calvin's effort was his
almost total reliance on a single gopher server.  Here is his
own words:

>As an experiment to see how far I could go using only one of
>the more robust gopher servers (University of California -
>Santa Cruz InfoSlug), I limited my first round assistance to
>INFOSLUG.  The number of answers with the InfoSlug tag is most
>illustrative.
>
>and it takes longer to type the answers than to find!

Congratulations Calvin, on a job well done!

STATISTICS
----------

The number of players was down this month, partly (I suspect),
due to the usually frantic end-of-the-term activities occurring
in academic centers around the world.

Number of players: 11

Number of comments: 32

COMMENTS ABOUT THIS HUNT
------------------------

As our winner has already pointed out, the InfoSlug Gopher at
UC Santa Cruz provides a good starting point for network
searches.

As expected Veronica is already becoming a vital tool.  Roughly
half of all gopher solutions sent by this month's players used
Veronica.

THE USUAL
---------

If any player would like a copy of their individual results,
please feel free to send me a message.

ASIDE
-----
In response to the proliferation of Network tools named after cartoon
characters (Archie, Veronica), I propose that we come up with a new
maxim for Cybernauts:

     "Just Use Gopher Heavily, Especially After Dark"

Well, now for something completely different:

GOPHER/ALIAS HINT  (3 or 4 screens of info)
-----------------

I thought that maybe people would be interested in a how I've
been using aliases with the gopher command.  I'm on a Unix
system here, and I can can use the alias command to cut down on
keystrokes.  For instance when I type the letter 'm' and hit
return, I get put into my emacs mailer.  That's because I have
the following line in my .login file:

alias m emacs -f rmail

In other words, 'm' becomes an alias (substitute, synonym) for
the command 'emacs -f rmail'.

This sort of facility is availble on other, non-Unix platforms
as well.

The way I use this feature with Gopher revolves around the fact
that you can always find out what address and directory you are
connected to with Gopher.  For instance from the following menu
on my local Gopher server:

                      Other Gopher and Information Servers

      1.  Univ of Minnesota Gopher Server/
      2.  Other Gopher and Information Servers/
      3.  Apple Computer Higher Education Gopher Server/
      4.  UCB Berkeley Gopher Server/
      5.  University of California - Irvine/
 -->  6.  Veronica (search menu items in most of GopherSpace)/

...if I press '=', I will get a screen that looks like this:

Name=Veronica (search menu items in most of GopherSpace)
Type=1
Port=70
Path=1/Veronica
Host=futique.scs.unr.edu

This gives us the name of the menu choice, the type (1 is a
directory), the port, the directory path, and the address of
the remote host.  Here's how I can use this info.

My Gopher client, and I suspect many others, allows for the
specification of path, address and port on the command line.
So if I type the following command:

        gopher -p 1/Veronica futique.scs.unr.edu 70

...then after a short pause I will see the following screen

                    Root gopher server: futique.scs.unr.edu

 -->  1.  About Veronica.
      2.  Search many (300) Internet gopher menus by _SINGLE_ keyword  <?>
      3.  About the reduced-redundancy search.
      4.  Proposals for Veronica Development.

As I frequently do Veronica searches, it's useful for me to
create an alias for this command.  Thus a line in my .login
file reads:

alias ver "gopher -p 1/Veronica futique.scs.unr.edu 70"

Now, rather than having to traverse a number of Gopher menus to
get to the Veronica search screen, I simply type 'ver' and I am
there!

This can be a real time saver for any set of Gopher resources
that you need to visit regularly.  For instance, rather than
having to choose:

Other gophers
   North America
      U.S.A
        page down several times
           Choose UC Santa Cruz InfoSlug system

I simply type 'slug' from my system prompt, and I am there
because of the following line in my .login file:

alias slug "gopher scilibx.ucsc.edu 70"

How did I get the information for my gopher command?  I simply
pressed '=' from the following menu:

                                      USA

      109. Texas A&M/
      110. UCCSN System Computing Services Gopher (Las Vegas, Nevada)/
      111. University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)/
      112. University System of Georgia Information Service/
      113. University of California -  Berkeley, Open Computing Facility/
      114. University of California - Berkeley, Workstation Support Services/
      115. University of California - Irvine/
      116. University of California - Irvine, Information & Computer Science/
      117. University of California - San Francisco, UCSFYI Experimental Gop/
      118. University of California - Santa Barbara/
 -->  119. University of California - Santa Cruz, InfoSlug System/
      120. University of Chicago (under construction)/
      121. University of Colorado, Boulder/
      122. University of Delaware gopher server/
      123. University of Florida (experimental)/
      124. University of Georgia (test gopher)/
      125. University of Houston Protein Information Resource gopher/
      126. University of Houston, Texas/

Press ? for Help, q to Quit, u to go up a menu                     Page: 7/10


...and got this information:

Name=University of California - Santa Cruz, InfoSlug System
Type=1
Port=70
Path=
Host=scilibx.ucsc.edu

(Note that there is no path needed here, or in my .login alias.)

I hope that this information proves useful.  I'm fairly certain
that much of it is available on other platforms as well.

To those anxious for the Hunt answers, I will now release you
from captivity.  Hopefully before long, I will find a
Gopher/FTP site for the Hunt, and I'll be able to place
information of this sort in a hints or tips file there.

End of Part 1 of 3
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU