@internet -- Equal Time for NT

A year ago this issue, I began this column by describing the resources Novell had made available via the Internet. A lot has changed since then. Novell's Internet hosts have undergone radical changes in architecture, for instance. Its principal World Wide Web site, (www.novell.com) which was still under construction then has undergone two major metamorphoses and has become a slick, colorful source of both technical support and comporate marketing. Microsoft's Web site, (www.microsoft.com) which didn't even exist a year ago is now an equally professional presence. Banyan, too, has brought up its own Web site, (www.banyan.com) although, with 13 separate graphic images on its home page, it's obvious that no one from Banyan's executive suite has ever actually dialed into it at the 14.4 kbaud that's still the standard access speed for most Web surfers. Last column, I listed sources for Internet server NLMs for those Novell shops looking to put themselves on the Net using the NetWare NOS as a services platform. This time, it seems only fair to tell NT users where to find equivalent tools. Before I do so, however, I want to belatedly thank Michael J. Loux, Jr., (mloux@poseidon.ucc.udonn.edu) who was kind enough to point me at novell.felk.cvut.cz, where many of the NetWare tools are located. There are a lot of Internet servers included in the Windows NT Resource Kit (from which Microsoft insists it makes no profit at a list price of "only" $199.95.) With the exception of the native NT finger and ftp daemons, which come in the NT Server box, every flinkin' one of them is freely available on the Internet at no cost beyond connection time. The place to look for most of the NT tools is at the European Microsoft Windows NT Academic Centre (EMWAC) at Edinburgh University Computing Service. EMWAC maintains Web, Gopher, and ftp servers, each at emwac.ed.ac.uk (or, for ftp, 129.215.128.128), and you can get the freeware servers via any of the three. Via ftp, look for the following files: /pub/fingers/fsi386.zip (a finger daemon for the Intel platform only,) GSALPHA.ZIP, GSI386.ZIP and GSMIPS.ZIP (Gopher servers for, respectively, the DEC, Intel and MIPS architectures,) hsPPC.zip, hsalpha.zip, hsi386.zip and hsmips.zip (Web servers for PowerPC, Alpha, x86 and MIPS platforms,) wsalpha.zip, wsi386.zip and wsmips.zip (Wide Area Information Service daemons for DEC, Intel and MIPS machines,) and wtALPHA.zip, wtPPC.zip, wti386.zip, wtmips.zip and wtsource.zip (toolkits for building WAIS databases and front ends for Alpha, PowerPC, x86 and MIPS microprocessors, plus a Zip file of source code for hackers.) Once you have the freeware Web server software, you'll want to check out the online user manual for the NT Web server at http://emwac.ed.ac.uk/html/internet_toolchest/https/contents.html (you'll need a Web browser to use it, of course.) There's also a newly-released professional version of the EMWAC Web server. It's offered in the U.S. by Process Software Corporation under the name "Purveyor". Purveyor lists at $1995, and offers several advantages over the freeware version: security enhancements like authorization databases, flexible access control and proxy capability for operation through firewall bastion hosts, as well as redirection, (so, if a file has been moved, you can automatically point clients to the new location.) Process Software Corporation is located in Framingham, Massachussetts, and you can reach them by phone at (800) 722-7770 or (508) 879-6994, by email at info@process.com or over the Web at http://www.process.com. They maintain a list of international distributors at http://www.process.com/intdist/INTDIST.HTM on the Web.

One other issue that not everyone is aware of is that most Web browsers can be used as a front end for other types of service. Many Uniform Resource Locator (URL) hyperlinks in Web pages point to such services as ftp, Gopher, Usenet and so on, but it's important to realize that you can explicitly point your Web browser at these other services. Thus, if you want to get files from ftp.microsoft.com, you need only point your browser at the URL: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/ and start looking for the files you want. Still better, unlike most standalone ftp clients, graphical Web browsers allow you to click on text files and have them display on your screen. To download a file to disk, shift-click it and chose a destination directory.