supporting geoscience with graphical-user-interface internet tools for the macintosh

Compurrr.s & Geoscienw.~ Vol. 21. No. 6. pp. 737-751. 1995 Copyright $3 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd

Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0098-3004/95 $9.50 + 0.00

SUPPORTING GEOSCIENCE WITH GRAPHICAL-USER-INTERFACE INTERNET TOOLS FOR

THE MACINTOSH

BERNARD ROBIN Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5872, U.S.A.

e-mail: brobin(@?uh.edu

(Received 20 October 1994: accepted 7 November 1994)

Abstract-This paper describes a suite of Macintosh graphical-user-interface (GUI) software programs that can be used in conjunction with the Internet to support geoscience education. These software programs allow science educators to access and retrieve a large body of resources from an increasing number of network sites, taking advantage of the intuitive, simple-to-use Macintosh operating system. With these tools, educators easily can locate, download, and exchange not only text files but also sound resources, video movie clips, and software application files from their desktop computers. Another major advantage of these software tools is that they are available at no cost and may be distributed freely.The following GUI software tools are described including examples of how they can be used in an educational setting:

* Eudora-an e-mail program * NewsWatcher-a newsreader * TurboGopher-a Gopher program * Fetch-a software application for easy File Transfer Protocol (FTP) * NCSA Mosaic-a worldwide hypertext browsing program.

An explosive growth of online archives currently is underway as new electronic sites are being added continuously to the Internet. Many of these resources may be ofinterest to science educators who learn they can share not only ASCII text files, but also graphic image files, sound resources, QuickTime movie clips, and hypermedia projects with colleagues from locations around the world. These powerful, yet simple to learn GUI software tools are providing a revolution in how knowledge can be accessed, retrieved, and shared.

Key Words: Internet, Graphical-user-interface (gui), Macintosh, Eudora, E-mail, Newswatcher, Newgroups, Turbogopher, Gopher, Fetch, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), NCSA Mosaic, World Wide Web (WWW), Hypertext.

INTRODUCTION

A new generation of Internet tools now is available to geoscience educators which allow network users to exchange easily not only text files but also sound resources, video movie clips, and software application files from their desktop computers. These easy-to-use tools offer a graphical-user-interface (GUI) which makes powerful network file transfer simple and intuitive.

The following GUI applications for the Macintosh will be discussed:

* Eudora-a GUI e-mail program * NewsWatcher-a GUI newsreader * TurboGopher-a GUI Gopher program * Fetch-a GUI software application for easy File

Transfer Protocol (FTP) * NCSA Mosaic-a GUI World Wide Web

(WWW) hypertext browsing program.

With these software programs, Internet users are

able to locate and retrieve a wide variety of information files easily, such as electronic journals, scientific images, QuickTime video clips, audio sound files, and hypermedia applications from thousands of computer sites around the world. These programs are powerful, easy-to-learn, take advantage of the Macintosh operating system, and may be distributed freely, at fro cost to the user. They do require a Macintosh Control Panel file termed MacTCP. MacTCP is necessary to make the programs work and is available from Apple Computer for a fee. However, many university computing centers have site licenses for this product and you may not need to purchase it if it is available at your location. MacTCP has been included as part of the latest version of the Mac operation system (System 7.5).

These software tools may be used by anyone who has access to a direct Internet connection or who can connect to the Internet through dial-up SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) or PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) connections.

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Supporting geoscience with GUI Internet tools

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Figure 3. Eudora reply window.

true direct Internet connections because they are limited to the speed of modems, generally 9600 or 14,400 baud rates. Eudora, an e-mail software application, TurboGopher, a Gopher software program, Fetch, a file transfer software application, NewsWatcher, an electronic newsgroup software application, and NCSA Mosaic, a WWW browsing tool, are all easy-to-use Macintosh programs which

employ a GUI and are available to educators at no cost.

SLIP and PPP connectivity allow individuals to use

these software programs to access not only ASCII text files, but also graphic image files, sound resources, QuickTime movie clips, and application files such as Microsoft Word documents, HyperCard stacks, and PageMaker desktop publishing documents. For

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Figure 4. Nicknames dialog box

740 B. Robin

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Figure 5. Attach Document menu option.

example, using the Turbogopher application, users can transfer easily, or “download” a HyperCard stack, that has been stored electronically on a publicly accessible Gopher site. By simply using the mouse to click on the requested file icon, the user selects where on their desktop computer the selected file will be downloaded and the transfer is made. These tools are beginning to change the nature of how educators can locate and retrieve information from sites around the world.

EUDORA: ELECTRONIC MAIL SOFTWARE

Eudora is an Internet-compatible e-mail program written by Steve Dorner. Eudora uses Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and Post Office Protocol (POP) to transfer e-mail messages. The program is named in honor of Pulitzer Prize-winning author

Eudora Welty, who wrote a short story entitled “Why I Live at the P.O.” (post office). The Eudora e-mail program allows users to access e-mail messages using the mouse to click on messages which appear in a graphical windowed mailbox. A typical Eudora “In” mailbox is shown below in Figure I.

One of the most significant features of Eudora is that with this program, e-mail messages can be downloaded from a central mail server to the hard disk of the user’s desktop computer and removed from the centralized computer. At many universities, network administrators are constantly sending out reminders that the amount of disk space allotted to a user has been exceeded and excess e-mail messages may be responsible. With Eudora, individual users decide how much of their personal computer’s disk space they want to allow for e-mail and can “take responsibility”

(This file must be converted with BinHox 4.0)

Figure 6. Example of encoded binary file.

Supporting geoscience with GUI Internet tools 741

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sci .engr sci.engr.advanced-tv sci.engr.biomed sci.engr.chem sci.engr .cfvil scl .engr.control sci.engr.lighting sci.engr.manufacturing sci.engr.mech sci.engr.semiconductors sci.environment sci.fractals sci.geo.eos sci.geo.fluids sci.geo.geology sci.geo.hydrology sci.geo.meteorology sci.geo.oceanography sci.geo.petroleum sci.geo.sotellite-nav sci .image.processing

161 alt.aldus.pctgemaker 3006 colnp.graphics.cmimation 10 houston.sports

440 kl2 .ed.science 222 rec.arts.comics.strips 521 rec.arts.bonsai 301 rec.food.restaurants 876 rec.music.bluenote 324 sci.anthropology 15 uh .coe .comp-l i teracy .elenentary 19 uh.coe.consortiun.technical-heI~ 41 uh.coe.course.tekcomputing

Figure 7. Full newsgroup window and customized newsgroup window in NewsWatcher

for their e-mail messages and save them, print them, “Reply”, as shown in Figure 2. After selecting the or store them as they see fit. reply command, a graphical reply window appears

To reply to a message with Eudora, the Macintosh with the original message highlighted. The new pull-down menu is used and the user simply clicks on message then can be typed into the Eudora editor and

Re: Expansion of earth

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Geo surf Young Ho Cheong Becky Dorsey Kristopher Jason Mylonite Glenn Durden Ken Christensen "Richard Marsden "Richard Marsden krdrew Ferguson Chris Mawer Daniel Russell drblackrock@delp B ACragg Graeme Wheller john butler Bill Thoen "Richard Marsden

REQUEiT : The examples for non-linear Henon map. Re: UU encoded maps Devil's Tower Re: Rockhound tools 1990 quake prediction. Carolina bays Re: gridding of irregularly spaced data Re: greenland Making ternary Plots. Devil's Tower, Carolina Bays and Foster P. Carr Cave Minerals Canado - Seismic Velocity/Depth Profiles Re: Methane Eruptions and the Bermuda Triangle Rabat1 volcano erupts (Papua New Guinea) Teaching Geology Using the Internet Gevil's Tower, Carolina B New Guinea Volcanoes

D 8 Ecole St-Jacques Fluid silver color mineral IV! Irn

Figure 8. “sci.geo.geology” newsgroup window.

742 B. Robin

Dl 4RE: Teaching Geology Using tb Internet - 2 Buthor: KENOWNB.CA Grganization: The University of NHY Brunswick 20 SEP 94 10: lo:52 BST Article 2 of 2 in threat

,I am int4rastrd in sharing exp4riances that instructors have had in >introducing Internet R4sourc4s. I am taaching a graduate ievai coursa in >Geoiogicai Bnaiysis this s4mcstar and am looking for ideas. > > Thanks a.

:ohn ‘What I do with my undorgraduata courses is to put course outlines,

notes and other information in a faci I i ty cai icd a class information system, using the Nusic.softwarr which is accassibie to ail studants upon ragistration. I also cstabiish a conference facility on Music, simi lar to this newsgroup and 4ncourage th4m to ask qusst ions and discuss topics, e.g. Should wa us4 only S.I. units in g4ophysics? I also cross-post items from this ncwsvoup if I bciicva they would be of intar4st. The rtudcnts also have accass to tha intarnet through Music and after wetting thair appetite on our local system, I ancourage them to start to r4ad and post to the n4wsgroups. I al so show them how to finger sites for information and us4 gopher, ftp, etc to obtain information from the Internet.

Ui th graduate students, I find many already know about and us4 the internct. W i th those that don ’ t, I take i terns from the Internet, such as information on ftp sites that is relevant to their thesis topics and suggest they check i t out. I t doesn ’ t usua I I y take too I ong for them to get the message and to start to us4 I nterntt r4sourcos themsei ves .

Figure 9. NewsWatcher reply window.

sent with a click of the send button in the upper right as well as many university computer support corner of the reply window, as shown in Figure 3. departments.

Mail aliases or nicknames in place of full e-mail addresses are easy to create and use with Eudora. Group aliases also may be created. The Nicknames dialog box is shown in Figure 4.

NEWSWATCHER: ELECTRONIC NEWS SOFTWARE

Another useful features of the Eudora program is that it allows users to attach binary files to a text message and the automatic “binhexing” of these files. Thus, the Eudora software can encode automatically such files as graphic images or HyperCard stacks so that they can be mailed over the Internet. With many older e-mail programs, this encoding was done manually with a utility program such as Stuffit or BinHex. The Attach Document menu option is shown in Figure 5. To take full advantage of this feature, both the sender and the recipient of the binary file should be using the Eudora program. Otherwise, the recipient will need to decode the binhexed file manually once it is received. An example of a binary file, such as a graphic image file, which has been converted to a binhexed format is shown in Figure 6.

NewsWatcher is a GUI Internet newsreading software application developed by a team that included Steve Falkenburg of Apple Computer and John Norstad of Northwestern University. NewsWatcher allows users to click on a newsgroup name to access a wide variety of Usenet worldwide newsgroups. NewsWatcher requires an Internet connected Macintosh running System 7.0 or later with 2.5 Mbyte or more of memory and a hard drive. NewsWatcher also works with the SLIP and PPP connections mentioned.

Several versions of Eudora for the Macintosh are available, including a free version which can be obtained from many publicly accessible online services

NewsWatcher creates a list of all newsgroups that are available from your local news server and displays the list in a window titled “Full Group List.” A small portion of the Full Group List available at the University of Houston is seen in Figure 7. Additional customized lists of newsgroups also may be created which contain only the newsgroups you wish to read on a regular basis, such as “Bernard’s Newsgroups”, as shown in Figure 7.


NewsWatcher displays lists of articles in a graphical window, with the number of follow-up articles listed on the left side of the NewsWatcher window. The name of the person who posted the article and the subject also are displayed. Figure 8 shows a number of articles within the newsgroup “sci.geo.geology”.

In Figure 9, a reply to a newsgroup posting by John Butler, is shown. In John’s original posting, he asked if anyone had experience using the Internet in geology courses. At the top of the screen, the original posting is referenced, indicated by the wickets (>) to the left of the text. The reply, from an educator at the University of New Brunswick, appears beneath that and relates how the Internet is used at that campus.

NewsWatcher allows users to access the Macintosh pull-down menus to post new articles, post follow-up messages, or reply to the author via e-mail. In Figure 10, a follow-up article is being selected from the pull-down menu with the original article appearing in the background. Similar to the reply window in the Eudora e-mail program, the NewsWatcher follow-up window allows you to compose your message and post the article by clicking on the send button. A follow-up article is being sent in Figure 1 I.

For the NewsWatcher program to run correctly,

installation and setup should be done in conjunction with your local network system administrator, who can assist you with configuration and preference options. Similar to Eudora, NewsWatcher allows you to save and print news articles using your familiar Macintosh commands.

TURBOGOPHER: GUI GOPHER PROTOCOL SOPIWARE

A “Gopher” is a computer network tool for accessing information across the Internet. The Gopher tool was developed at the University of Minnesota (home of the “Golden Gophers”) to provide a mechanism whereby users could “go for” information, or “tunnel” through many computer networks in search of information and resources. Gophers have become popular among computer network users and a wide variety of materials are stored on computers around the world. These resources cover a variety of subjects from aerospace to zoology. Text files, sounds, graphic images including photographs and drawings, and digitized video clips may be accessed and retrieved. Gophers also include the opportunity for users to use searching tools to locate information on

Mark Unread

instructors have had in introducing Internet Resources. I am teaching a graduate level course in Geological Analysis this semester and am looking for ideas.

D 2 john butler Teaching Geology Using the Internet Bill Thoen Devil's Tower, Carolina B "Richard Harsden New Guinea Volcanoes Ecole St-Jacques Fluid silver color mineral

Figure IO. Follow-up to article menu option

744 9. Robin

I_r’_ Re: Teaching Ueoiogjl Using the Internet

Posting to: sci.geo.geoIogy

In article <jbutI~1909940956lSOOOl)rac-l~S.#r-bui Idlng.uh.edu>, jbutlerBuh.edu Cjohn butler) wrote: I4 I

> I am interested in sharing experiences that instructors have had in > introducing Internet Besources. I QII teaching a graduate level course in > Geological Analysis this semester and am Iooklng for ideas. > ) Thanks

John,

I came across the following I ist of Internet resources and thought you might be interested:

Geosicence-Belated Internet References compiled by D.R. Feinanm - BP Exploration - flay 20, 1994

COGS The Computer Oriented Geological Society <in Denver) has an FTP site. There you will find the “classic* bibliography, Internet Besources for Earth Sciences bu Bill Thoen.

3

Figure 11. Follow-up article window.

specific topics from computer systems around the world.

The TurboGopher software program was developed at the University of Minnesota and provides Gopher users with a GUI. The Center for Coastal Studies at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, is one of thousands of sites connected to the Internet that includes a Gopher site as part of its resources. The

TurboGopher is shown in Figure 12. One of the options on the Scripps Institution Gopher menu is “Oceanographic Gophers”. By double-clicking on this folder icon, a series of other Gopher sites on this same topic appears, as shown in Figure 13.

The various icons that are displayed with TurboGopher indicate the file type of items that are available on a Gopher site. The most widely used file types as displayed by the TurboGopher software

Scripps Institution Gopher menu accessed with application are displayed in Figure 14.

iliz Gopher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography m# - El Internet Gopher 01991-1993 University ofMinnesota.

n Scripps Institution of Oceanography, (UCSD) m What is New (January 5,1994) moceanographic Gophers m S IO-Departmental Gophers ~Depadmenial Support Environment DGopher Source mother Gophers BWWWat SIO

Figure 12. Scripps Institution Gopher site as displayed with TurboGopher.


e]Gopher at Ausbalian Oceanographic Data Cenb-e DGopher at Bedford institute of Oceanography DGopher at Marine Biological Laboratory aGopher at NOAA Environmental Services DGopher a;t National Geophysical Data Center(NGAA) DGopher at National Oceanic &Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) OGopher at National Oceanographic Data Center Gopher (NODC) BGopher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, (UCSD) DGopher at University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Weather Image l?lGopher at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) DMeteorologicaI, Oceanographic, and Geophysical Research Data BOcean Information Center @ Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo

Figure 13. Additional oceanographic-related Gopher sites.

In Figure 15, a connection has been made to the image files, you simply double-click the mouse on the Unidata Gopher site, a national program to help file that you want transferred to your PC or to a floppy universities acquire and use weather data for teaching disk. Once the file transfer has been initiated. a dialog and research. By searching the Gopher site, a series of box appears which prompts you for where you want GIF (graphics interchange format) images related to the file to be saved. As shown in Figure 16, the Hurricane Emily are located, with the file type TurboGopher software application is being down- indicated by the “picture” icon to the left of each file. loaded and saved to an external hard disk in a folder

To begin the download procedure of one of the that has been named “Weather Pictures”. A dialog

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Figure 14. Icons of most widely used Macintosh file types located using TurboGopher

746 B. Robin

Track of Hurricane Emily

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Figure 15. Graphic image files files of Hurricane Emily indicated by picture file icons at left.

Track of Hurricane Emily

Figure 16. TurboGopher save as dialog box.


Figure 17. TurboGopher download dialog box

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Figure 18. Graphic image file of Hurricane Emily displayed with JPEGView.

Open Connection...

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Figure 19. Fetch open connection dialog box.

748 B. Robin

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0 TechTool-. . 88K Sep 9 1993 0 Binary

Figure 20. Fetch download window

box is displayed during the transfer process which shows the number of bytes of information which are being downloaded. When the file has been transferred

to your desktop computer, the dialog box which had been displaying how many bytes were being downloaded now indicates that the file has been transferred and the binhexed decoding has been completed. An “Open” button becomes available, as seen in Figure 17.

When the user clicks on it, the TurboGopher program

display theselectedfile: in theexampleoftheGIFimage “Track of Hurricane Emily”, TurboGopher looks for an application that can display GIF files, such as GlFConverter or JPEGView, both shareware appli-

cations. If a suitable application cannot be located, a dialog box will indicate that the selected file cannot be displayed. However, if an application such as JPEGView has been installed on your computer, the application will be launched automatically and the

will search your computer for an application that can image will be displayed as shown in Figure IX.

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Figure 21. Fetch save as dialog box


Figure 22. NCSA Mosaic Home Page.

Once you have located a Gopher site of interest, rather than having to remember the address of the Gopher site, or the path with which it was located, the TurboGopher program allows you to set a Bookmark so that you can return easily to the site later. Because thousands of Gopher sites populate the Internet, the Bookmark feature allows you to create a customized list of your favorite Gopher sites.

FETCH: GRAPHICAL FTP SOFTWARE

Fetch is a GUI program for transferring files which uses the FTP and allows Macintosh computers connected to the Internet to transfer files from thousands of computers around the world. Fetch was developed by Jim Matthews at Dartmouth College and is free to members of the educational community. When you attempt to open a connection to a remote computer so that you can download files to your desktop computer, you must know the name or IP number of the computer to which you want to log in. Once you have entered the name or IP number, you

should log in with the user ID “anonymous” and use your personal e-mail ID as the password (e.g. I would use my e-mail ID, “brobin(cuuh.edu”as the password). As shown in Figure 19, a connection is being opened to the University of Texas archives, the actual machine name being “rascal.ics.utexas.edu”.

Once you have established a connection to the remote host computer, you browse through the available folders by clicking the mouse on the names which appear in the scroll area of the Fetch window. As seen in Figure 20, the file “CompactPro_SEA”, a shareware utility software application, has been

selected by clicking once with the mouse. You now can download this file, once it has been selected. by clicking on the “Get File” button which appears in the middle of the Fetch window.

Once the tile transfer has been initiated, a dialog box will appear which prompts you for where you want the file to be saved. As shown in Figure 21, this is the same procedure that is used with the TurboGopher program. In the example here, a piece of software. “Compact Pro”, is being saved on the Macintosh’s

750 B. Robin

hard disk, in the Fetch 2.1.1 folder. As with Eudora and other Internet tools, Fetch has the ability to download binhexed files and automatically restore them to their original binary file format.

The Fetch FTP program comes with an extensive series of help screens and is discussed in detail in many of the current commercial Internet user guides.

NCSA MOSAIC: HYPERMEDIA WWW SOFTWARE

NCSA Mosaic is an Internet-based global hypermedia browser that allows users to access information from a variety of locations linked to the Internet. NCSA Mosaic is part of the WWW project, developed by Tim Berners-Lee in Switzerland in 1989 and was envisioned as a way for scientists to share research information across the network. The NCSA Mosaic software was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and is available in Macintosh, IBM, and UNIX versions. Currently, the Web is one of the fastest growing areas of the Internet.

Mosaic uses hypertext links to connect one online document to another. When the Mosaic application is launched, the “Home Page” of an online document appears and users can travel to a variety of other Mosaic pages which populate the Internet. An explosive number of new Mosaic Home Pages now are being developed at government, corporate, and educational institutions throughout the world. Highlighted text, graphics, picture icons, and sound buttons are sprinkled through most Mosaic documents, which provides a variety of multimedia resources over the Internet. The NCSA Mosaic Home Page is shown in Figure 22.

The Solid Earth Home Page, shown in Figure 23, is one of many WWW resources that may be of interest to geoscience educators. This Web site is accessed through an online connection to the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) in Boulder, Colorado and is a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Environmen- tal Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS). The NGDC Web resources combine information from the fields of solid earth geophysics, marine geology and

Figure 23. Solid Earth Home Page as seen with NCSA Mosaic.


geophysics, and solar-terrestrial physics and include in situ and satellite data from the upper atmosphere and space, land, sea, and Earth’s interior, snow and ice cover, and paleoclimate data.

As with the TurboGopher program’s Bookmark feature, which allows users to record the addresses of interesting Gopher sites, Mosaic incorporates a feature termed a “Hotlist”. Mosaic Hotlists provide a way for users to locate easily and quickly Web sites without having to remember the site’s full address. Once an interesting Web site has been reached, it can be added to the Hotlist through a menu option.

Almost all of the software programs discussed in this paper are available from a number of

online locations and can be downloaded to your desktop computer. The Teacher Education Internet Server (TEIS) is one location which houses a software archive of GUI Internet tools for the Macintosh. The TEIS is a collaborative effort among the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, the University of Virginia, and the University of Houston and is available to Internet users at no charge. To access the TEIS, gopher to

teach.virginia.edu

or contact the author via e-mail at [email protected].

supporting geoscience with graphical-user-interface internet tools for the macintosh

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