CYBER GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED

CYBER GUIDE TO THE PERPLEXED
How to Navigate in CyberSpace

1.) Before you start try to write down what you want to find, with as many alternative descriptions as possible. It is very easy to get distracted, lost, and in a fog as to how to retrace your steps. It is a very good idea to have an ordinary yellow pad next to the computer to take notes. Get used to book-marking sites with your Browser.

2.) Anyone who wants to learn how to write HTML should download this FREE PROGRAM: AOLpress 2.0 beta, at http://staff.navisoft.com/AOLpress2.0
(username: ap20, password: ap20).

To perform specific functions using AOLpress regarding frames, I recommend that you visit http://www.aolpress.com/press/2.0/help/refer/frame1.htm.

I paste everything interesting into an HTML writer to produce pages like this. Forget about relying on your memory.

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3.) Next: You should know that addresses are very specific: This is an address:

http://shamash.org/computers/rtls-software/hebrew/jewsave.html

If you highlight the rear portion with your mouse, and then delete it you have this:

http://shamash.org/computers/rtls-software/hebrew/

The next deletion would give you:

http://shamash.org/computers/rtls-software/

And:

http://shamash.org/computers/

And Finally:

http://shamash.org/

This is likely to be the "Index" Page, connecting everything else. To make things easy I made all the above links "live."

You will find it VERY worthwhile to trace certain very specific addresses back to their root, in this manner, and then OPEN THAT ADDRESS.

A VERY GOOD reason to be clear about the above is that what are called SPIDERS (Automatic Search Robots) list pages OUT OF SEQUENCE. So if the shlemiel who wrote the Site DID NOT think to put in automatic returns to the home page, (like few do) you will NEVER be able to check out the entirety of an interesting Site.

What follows are automatic returns with anchors.
If you get tired of my shtick you can click on
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or
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4.) Search Engines themselves vary greatly in what they search FOR. You need to become familiar with a large variety of them.You should know where to find them. Most compendiums of them are not comprehensive. You can find an excellent list of them on my Mortgage Site. Nu? If you're not interested in mortgages the direct route there is:

BINAH: An Internal Index

You will notice that a string, such as "www.uscj.org/metny/rambam.htm" refers to a specific page on a Website. The portion of the address preceding that is called the URL --- Uniform Resource Locater. HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol

There are a lot of other business related resources there. Anyone planning a Web Site, doing Internet marketing, or looking to research anything will find an inexhaustible supply of media tools.

FYI, (computer jargon for "for your information"), the individual pieces of the address are called "strings." --- "Rab" could be a search string for: RABBI, RABBENU, or RABBIT. This is why when you look for the Baal Shem Tov you can get a recipe for Welsh Rabbit, (melted cheese on toast)

5.) When you do a search , or analyze posted listings bear in mind what Information Pollution has grown to be. A search for "Kosher Pickles," is likely to yield:

a.) A non-kosher preservatives Company
b.) Diverse listings for Kosher, and Pickles, that don't put the two words together
c.) A gay Rock Group
d.) Enormous quantities of Recipes, mostly not Kosher
e.) Jews for Jesus, and even less mentionable Choleriya.

It is important to use other words. In this case you could try Kasher, Kosher Food Products, Jewish Food, Israeli imports, Jewish Restaurant Supplies and so on. Sometimes you don't find what you want. More often, you'll find it on a Search of a related subject "by accident."

By and large the best searches come from Yiddish words. Yeshua and his born again buddies mostly speak English. I would be interested in knowing if any of my Sephardic brethren have had good luck searching in Ladino, (especially where it differentiates itself from Spanish), or other inter-Jewish jargons.

I was unable to get useful information, in an acceptable form, concerning The Seal of Solomon, The Star of David, or Mogan/Magan David. The only interesting information was on a Christian esoteric Site which flunked the objective and impartial basis of the Narishkeit Index of Sites viewable by a Jewish Family.

NOTE! I finally had to settle for a second goyische Site which was less offensive than the first. I did post an apology next to the link.

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6.) Don't get too easily offended. My previously mentioned search for the Seal of Solomon began with a meditation on becoming "sealed" to vile influences in life. Religion, offering a type of solution and refuge to life's problems, also has the tendency to attract all sorts of "Choleriya." You will find the various classes and orders of psychological dysfunction well represented in any "Search."

Be willing to sift through a little bit of shmutz for Yiddishkeit. About 1/2 of the Sites on Kabbalah are loaded with material best described as having no relationship with their source of inspiration.

And as much as I dislike agreeing with a Haredi Rabbi let it be stated that ALL of the "Crack Sites" associated with getting "Warez" peddle shmutz and Shtupperware.

The Digital Genizah attempts to avoid all sites which:

1. Show anything containing material of an explicit sexual nature, except as noted with Jewish BLT Groups.

2. Promote or promulgate violence, excepting Jewish Defense Groups, and as where noted under Antisemitism.

3. Promote "Jews for Jesus," or any other external Group actively prosyletizing within the Jewish Community, except as noted in the Interfaith section .

Kind of difficult. Each rule has an exception. Already it has become Rabbinic in nature.

It is my personal belief that all Jewish Law is based on the separation of life from death, and the Sacred from the Profane. This type of thinking will guide what gets included, eliminated, or excluded, or specially summarized in The Digital Genizah.

6.) HOW TO DO A SEARCH LIKE A SHTARKER: A computer is like a lever. To paraphrase Archimedes : He said that if he had a long enough lever, and a way to position it he could move the Earth. Here 'Tis!

A.) In Netscape go to a Meta Search Engine like METACRAWLER and open it, and do a search.

B.) In Netscape, GO TO OPEN SECOND BROWSER

C.) Download MS Explorer, and open up 2 windows also, using a wonderful tool called COPERNIC

D.) In a very methodical fashion, when you find an interesting term, shuttle back and forth doing searches, on the first Browser. Stopping to write anything interesting into an HTML Writer, such as AOLPress which is free.

Of course, it was never this simple! Being an ordinary shlemiel it took me a while to work this out. Furthermore I ran searches in every search engine I have listed , which is  previously mentioned above, and quite extensive. Nevertheless, skipping my learning curve, this now adequately defines the situation.

If you use this method you will find that I left out an awful lot of material.

There are many Sites on the link page that call themselves "Ultimate." Without wishing to be too critical, (just a little) since some of them are  very STRONG Sites, I would like to point out that with the best of intentions I do not intend to create a definitive Jewish Search Engine. It would require too many specialty tools.

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6.) A FEW LITTLE SHORT CUTS! You can bookmark interesting Sites through your Browser. AND you can also save page contents through it also. This will give you a lot of superfluous material.

If you just want isolated bits --- Here is a better way!

A Shlemiel's Guide to WebSite Creation & Maintenance

So get used to it. Since I have volunteered to write a column, the fall-out is that this section gets to be enlarged every once in awhile. It may not be regular. But anything too regular gets boring. It could be funny, useful, or even technical, but it should not be boring.

All beginnings are difficult, (Thank You, Chaim!). But I discovered that beginning to be a writer can appear to be simple. You write down all your thoughts at first, let them marinate a little, correct all the misspellings, add a little bit, delete a little bit, superimpose one section on top of another, and suddenly you look like a professional. Nobody should ever guess.

This section is devoted to an ongoing discussion of surfing the Internet, various tools used to develop Web Pages, and other related hardware and software issues. I'm into my fourth Site now, and people unfamiliar with Computers and Site Development might think I know something. If she's pretty enough I'll probably let the illusion linger, but the truth is that all of this is rather simple. So simple that it becomes embarrassing when people praise you.

But I do take an unreasonable amount of pride in the graphics I created for Temple Sinai. This pride has nothing to do with reality, or thinking I am an Artist. It has to do with learning a new skill. When it came to drawing I was a public disgrace by the time I hit the Second Grade. I had a Psychologist once tell me that the quality of a doodle reflected the way the doodler sensed and conceptualized the World. Oy vey!

When I started the project I asked a commercial artist who is a member of the Temple to generate graphics for me. After waiting a while I got restless and started to patchke around with a game program I got for my daughter two Channukahs ago. If you've ever used the expression, "if I can do it, anyone can," you and I have a lot in common. I never drew a straight line in my life. It took me a week to figure out how to geometrically generate a Star of David, and then I progressed to drawing a Beard and a Yomulka on one of those obnoxious "Smiley Faces" that pop up everywhere, to create a "Smiling Hasid." My credentials for such an inspirational feat do include drawing moustaches on Mona Lisa and it is thus that I aspire to immortality, (or maybe you can leave out the "t" between the "r" & the "a").

But I know that what I did as a volunteer is far better that what a lot of people get paid too much money for. I took this indirect way to tell you I think my graphics are great. It was how Hashem paid me for volunteering to do a free Site for Temple Sinai. I used these new skills to really spiff up my business site, which brought in a lot of new business, (far beyond what could ever have been charged for writing a Web Site),
and also a little fantasy I call "Nosh-Net." To check these out, on the bottom of the page click on "Pay me a visit!"

So I feel very proud that I successfully learned how to use a drawing tool appropriate for children 12 and under. Here are the specifics of this $39 program, Flying Colors: Available from FLYING COLORS: http://www.magicmouse.com/ If any of you feel that this example is worthy of emulation please write to me so I may have the pleasure of viewing your output. If you can't deal with it have your children explain it to you. Mine did!

Just remember to tell her how difficult it all was, and how long it took you to master the highly involved and intellectually complex techniques necessary for the successful exposition. All others should feel free to substitute the whatever gender specific pronoun suits your fancy.

Still, there are a few tools I used which did require a small amount of thought. In order to translate graphics generated in the above referenced "technical drawing tool" from one format to another I needed to download another "drawing program." Downloading is a jargonized term which refers to a way of getting software on-line by clicking on an area that usually does not say something clear like "send it to me." I believe that software development companies hire one group of intellectually elitist engineers to translate German into Japanese, and another group, not in communication with the first, to translate the Japanese into English. I used to get an error message in an OCR, (Optical Character Recognition) Program that said: "Continued effort returns success." That meant, try it again shmoygah, you did it wrong.

I downloaded Paint Shop Pro from http://www.jasc.com/ FOR FREE. This program converted the *.bmp graphics I created in Flying Colors into *.gif files which you can see on line.

The format *.bmp or *.gif uses the computerese slang of letting the * represent any grouping of letters or string; click for definition, which is used as the name, such as shlemiel.bmp; and the three letter extension following the period, which tells you what format the file was saved in. Having a program that can change a shlemiel from one format to another is one of those semi-mystical concepts you need to internalize to become a real computer maven. Definitely we need a new Rebbe to teach this in a more pragmatic fashion.

Incidentally, IT IS MUCH EASIER to actually learn how do these things by playing with the various subcomponents than to write about them, or to understand them from someone else's writing. Those of you who read steamy romantic novels before hitting puberty will have an excellent idea of the value of "hands on" experience, as opposed to theoretical knowledge. There is no substitute! Reb Yankel Am Ha'Aretz , from Chelm, said: "Trying to understand G-d with Mind is like trying to scratch itchy tuchus with gatkas on!"

So as far as Art & Graphics goes, I have maybe said enough. If you want to become competent in these things, remember that action will speak louder than words, and not to read a lot of articles. The Mind is the enemy of the Heart. In addition to Flying Colors and Paint Shop Pro, places you can download free shareware are
C-NET DOWNLOAD COM: http://www.download.com/PC/FrontDoor/0,1,,00.html?download.navbar
JUMBO: http://www.jumbo.com/
You can find a multitude of free sites and business tools in the internal index hot link section

But graphics are the equivalent of "Virtual Tchatchkes." (The term "virtual" refers to any kind of ordinary chazzerai put into a format where you can see it on a Web Site). If you put shmutz on line they call it "Virtual Sex;" if you create a game show with pretty pictures they call it "Virtual Reality," and so on. But if you put a picture of yourself in the middle of a "Virtual Reality Set" you become an "Avatar." Be sure to discuss this with your Rabbi before you become a "Virtual Goy."

You will notice a very interesting scenario developing as this article continues. If you go to the previous section of the "The Cyber Guide for The Perplexed." . You will see a very clear explanation of "multi-tasking." or shuttling between programs. Here's a link to it if you're too lazy to look. You will need to use the "return" arrow in your Browser to get back to where you were in this article, or you will forever f'blunja in CyberSpace.

The additional tool necessary to make it "a real business," is an HTML writer. To repeat from above: Anyone who wants to learn how to write HTML should download this FREE PROGRAM!

With these three programs you can do anything. Later you could become even more adept by paying for Award winning programs that do the same things a little fancier.

There is one more VERY important area we need to highlight: Choosing an ISP, (An Internet Service Provider). This is a fancy name that describes the local kailehkim providing Internet Access. I very strongly recommend using a local company to open an account to access the Internet for three reasons: A.) If you get really f 'tutst you can pay them a visit, and it is likely they can straighten you out. B.) It solves the problem of adding long distance calls to your phone bill by not using a long distance number C.) You usually get a free copy of Netscape, which is the best "Browser," or software tool used to see the Internet with. I do not recommend using an ISP using any Browser other than Netscape.

If you deal with AOL, Netcom, or their related momserim you will have tsuris. To set up a Web Site you need to regularly FTP files to the ISP, also called the Host, but which is not a Catholic cracker. FTP means File Transfer Protocol and is another jargonized phrase invented by an adolescent fonfer. This describes the method by which you copy a file on your Computer to the Computer the ISP uses as a Server, or possibly the reverse.  A Server is usually more obnoxious than a Jewish Waiter. It is another confusing way of naming the Computer the ISP uses to transmit files to your Computer. The Server's of a local ISP, however, are not waiting on 10,000,000 tables simultaneously. In addition to getting a nice glass tea in a timely fashion, your e-mail will not get timed-out, and you will not find yourself watching a small bar on your computer screen slowly format quite so often because the system is overloaded.

But since you seem like a really nice person, let me tell you a secret. The copy of AOLPress which you have successfully downloaded has its own built in Browser, which is quite different from Netscape. And since this Browser will automatically work once your system is successfully hooked into your ISP you can use BOTH Browsers to visualize your site while you fool around with your files in AOLPress. It works like this!

You will have an icon of the programs, (a small graphic representing where to click) which will show up in the Program Group where you keep the communications software. Among these icons is likely to be one for the Netscape Browser, and a separate icon used to connect you to the Service Provider. If you open the Browser icon without connecting to the Internet, you can view your own HTML file in the directory where
you keep them as if you were on line. You can also use both Browsers to look at your own files while YOU ARE on line, either on theWeb Site where you have FTP'd them,
or in your own Computer.

To configure the Netscape Browser so all this can happen do this:

Options > Network Preferences > file:///C:/aolpress/mysite.htm

You click on Options in the Netscape Program, and then click on Network preferences, and insert the entire address of where your work files are. Since I link all my work files together, this means that when I change something in AOLPress all I need to do is to save it, and then shuttle over to Netscape, click on reload, and see how it looks.

You will find that there is a lot of variation of how pages look when you change from one Browser to another. Since what looks delicious under one Browser is a Chalushes under another one, having two of them can help you avoid having your Site look like a Chazzershtafl. And in addition, you now have taught your Browser to open up to a page you composed yourself so you no longer have to look at the Narishkeit that your ISP sells as advertisements to local zhlubs who think that annoying their neighbors with shlocky solicitations will make them wealthy. Imagine if you could train your Television to do that!

Using an authentic Rabbinically Correct teaching method we now end this particular ongoing Chapter of The Cyber Guide for The Perplexed by focusing on the beginning, or what most people do first.

Bereshit ...

Zei gesundt,

Mark C. Bassell

YIDDISH GLOSSARY

It is a source of wonder to me how Yiddish has faded in the non Orthodox Jewish Community.
I am 50 years old, grew up assimilated with assimilated parents, but heard Yiddish spoken everywhere.
For those of you who don't know these words I recommend links on Site, and Leo Rosten's,
"The Joys of Yiddish." I have added this modest glossary of definitions for words used in the above articles.

Copyright © 1996 through 2002 by Mark C. Bassell, For The Temple Sinai Home Page
Unauthorized reproduction of this page will be PROSECUTED!