This HTML document is from Brendan Kehoe's Latex document. In a first step we found an ASCII version to put it in the Gopher. Based on this here is a "hypertexted" version.
w3master@fmi.uni-passau.de
If you tell your Browser to "Load to Local Disk", you even can get
the Source!
This is the first edition of a booklet entitled ``Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide to the Internet''. It's roughly 100 pages in length, and is divided into the following sections:
Why do you want this? Well, for one thing it's free. It's also unique--there presently exists no single comprehensive collection of the information directly related to being connected to the Internet. Most users learn by word of mouth and stumbling upon things. This guide should give you a reference to consult if you're curious about what can be done with the Internet. It also presents the fundamental topics that are all too often assumed and considered trivial by many network users. This is your first "virtual quickie."
Being that this is the first edition, a good amount of information was been omitted, in trade for being able to release it for general critique this Spring. (Otherwise it probably wouldn't be presentable again until the summer.) In particular WAIS, IRC, and a few other things stand out. They will be added in a more complete version; suggestions on what to include are more than welcome. Hopefully the thinner chapters (e.g. commercial uses) will grow soon too. (For example, I want to include an appendix on what it takes to become connected to the Internet, and perhaps one on how to register a domain name--both vital issues to people who are contemplating joining the Internet but aren't quite sure what's involved or what's "inside the black box.")
If you have any comments or questions, please send them to the address guide-bugs@cs.widener.edu. I hope this guide is of use to you!
Brendan Kehoe Department of Computer Science Widener University