Internet Technology

Pauline Wallin, Ph.D.

Independent Practice
Camp Hill, PA 17011

Now you can choose among regular modem, cable or DSL connections. (ISDN is a fourth option, but it never caught on with the public.) Most regular modems cost around $100 or less. For this you connect at up to 56K (kilobytes) per second. In reality, because of load limitations on phone lines and at some Web sites, your speed is less than that. Expect to pay $10 - $25 per month for Internet service.

For a comprehensive listing of Internet service providers, go to Thelist.com . There you will find links to national companies such as America Online (AOL), Earthlink, Sprint, and Alltel, as well as small local providers in your area code. Free Internet connection is available if you are willing to put up with flashing advertising on your screen, which slows things down considerably. If you must go this route, one of the least advertising-intensive sites is Worldspy.net.

For lightning- speed connections, consider a cable or DSL (digital subscriber line) modem. These modems are up to twenty times as fast as regular telephone service, but are not yet available in all areas of the country. They cost about $40 - $50 per month. Unlike the earlier dial-up services, cable and DSL are always "on." That is, you don't dial in and wait for that familiar screech; you are always connected to the Internet. While this can be a time-saving advantage, your computer is also vulnerable to hackers and intruders. To protect you from such intrusion, you would be wise to invest in a "firewall" program on your computer. Cable modem uses the same cable that provides signals to your TV. DSL uses the copper wiring in your existing phone line.

With cable modem, the speed of transmission is dependent upon the number of people in the cable system who are connected. Therefore, as more people sign up for cable modems, the arteries will become increasingly congested. Nevertheless, you will always get faster service than from a traditional dial-up modem.

In order to use DSL you must be within a certain distance (usually within 2.5 miles) from the relay station. Because relay stations are located primarily in metropolitan areas, you will not be able to take advantage of this technology if you live out in the country.

In the future there will be wireless and satellite Internet services available at affordable prices. Therefore, if you decide on cable or DSL modem service, consider leasing rather than buying the startup equipment. You may be using it only for a year or two.

ISP or Web-based e-mail?

You now have a choice between having your e-mail stored at the site of your Internet service provider (ISP), or at one of the many web-based sites. These include Juno.com, Hotmail.com, and Bigfoot.com. Also, most of the major search engines such as Yahoo, Excite, Lycos and others provide e-mail. A large listing of free e-mail services is available at Emailaddresses.com. There are advantages to web-based e-mail. First, you can retrieve your mail from anywhere in the world from any computer that has access to the Internet. The computer need not be set up to dial up your own ISP. Second, if you work for an organization that blocks regular e-mail programs but allows web access, you can retrieve mail from a web-based email site. Third, if you want to assume an anonymous identity you can use one of the web based e-mail services to log onto news groups or chat rooms without revealing who you are. It is possible to have more than one e-mail address. Many people use their regular ISP mailbox for one group of messages (e.g., from family and friends,) and a web-based mailbox for another group of messages (e.g., e-mail lists, described later in this paper.) Some web-based services (e.g. Mail2Web.com and Umailme.com) will also retrieve messages from your ISP mailbox . Thus, you need not connect through your own ISP to get your mail if you happen to be out of town or out of the country. Bigfoot.com not only retrieves messages from your ISP mailbox, but will also forward mail to your ISP mailbox. They boast offering you a "permanent" email address. This is useful if you change Internet service providers. Your mailbox at Bigfoot.com serves as a "gateway" for all incoming mail. When you change ISPs, just notify Bigfoot and your mail will follow you. The disadvantage of web-based e-mail services is that they tend to be cluttered with advertising, and lack some formatting features, including sending images and attachments. However, most of the free services have premium upgrades where, for a monthly fee, they will eliminate ads and provide more features.

E-MAIL PROGRAMS

E-mail programs vary, but they all provide the tools to compose, send, receive and store mail. Check settings under "Preferences" or "Options" within the "Edit" or "Tools" menu bar at the top of your e-mail page. Many e-mail programs have filters that you can set to automatically reject "junk" or "spam" e mail, and to sort messages into prespecified folders. If you get a lot of mail, this is a helpful feature. Other options for settings include: quoting the sender's original message in your reply, using different fonts and "html" features such as colored background or text, bold or italicized text and other formats, as well as images. While these are useful, not all e-mail programs are equipped to handle such features. Therefore, unless you're sure the receiver has capabilities for stylized pages, stick to plain ASCII text. This will be one of the options in your e-mail program.

Attachments are files that you attach to an e-mail message. These files can come from any program on your computer. You can send photographs, large pieces of text (like a chapter), sounds, music, or other programs. Many computer viruses are transmitted in attachments to e-mail. Despite rumors that you can get a virus from opening e-mail, you cannot get a virus from an e-mail message itself. E-mail messages are only text. Viruses are embedded in programs and attachments. Therefore, if the message comes with an attached file, don't open the attachment, especially if you don't know the sender. Even if you do know the sender, be careful before opening attachments, because some of the newer viruses are unwittingly transmitted through people's address lists. Avoid opening any attachment that has a ".vbs" suffix, because this may well contain a virus.

NEWS GROUPS AND WEB COMMUNITIES

News Groups: News groups are forums but unlike e-mail lists, you don't have to sign up. You do need a news reader to access the news groups. Netscape and Internet Explorer both have built in news readers. At liszt.com you can explore the thousands of groups on thousands of topics. The utility of these groups depends on the maturity level of the participants. Some groups maintain informative discussions, while others contain message after message of vulgar insults. If the news group you're on contains such messages, you can instruct your Netscape or Internet Explorer program to filter them out. If you just want to search across several news groups for messages with specific content, try deja.com. You'll get a list of messages pertaining to the keyword topic that you enter in the search box.

Web-based Forums and Communities: These are relatively new centers for people with common interests to share information. Rather than accessing them through e-mail programs or news group readers, you access them on the web. In addition to text messages, you can post graphics and images, as well as conduct real-time chats. Anyone can set up a forum, and can designate it as private (e.g. for a group of professionals or family members to share information) or public (general discussion group, no password required.) This is a particularly useful substitute for a conference call. Everyone in the group signs on to the Internet, visits the forum site simultaneously and communicates via the keyboard. Most forums have capabilities for using aliases for identification , for searching through messages for specific keywords, and e-mail notification when new messages are posted.. If a forum is moderated, the moderator can determine rules of membership, topics to be discussed, etc. This is an improvement over the unmoderated Usenet news groups, which do not filter out insulting, vulgar or irrelevant messages. There are dozens of websites that host such forums. Some of these are: eGroups, Delphi, and Visto.com. Also, many of the major search engine sites (e.g Yahoo, Lycos, Excite) host forums and "communities." At CNet's Search.com: Reviews and Opinions you can search for forums, message boards and Usenet all at once.

E-MAIL DELIVERED SERVICES AND MESSAGES

E-mail is a handy way to communicate with other people, but it's also a valuable tool for receiving specialized information. You can sign up to be on mailing lists for dozens of professional mental health organizations at Mental Health Net. These are private (i.e. by subscription only) forums where members post messages, which are sent to each subscriber of the group. One valuable e-mail list (open only to doctoral level psychologists) is PsyUSA. Colleagues post valuable news and research information every day. To join this list send the following command in the body of e-mail: "SUB PSYUSA" (without the quotation marks) to: LISTSERV@maelstrom.StJohns.edu Besides mental health related lists, there are thousands of other e-mail lists. A comprehensive, searchable database of these is at Liszt.com . At Topica you can search for and subscribe to several e-mail lists at once. Topica keeps track of which lists you're subscribed to, so that you can also unsubscribe to them later if you wish. E-mail lists are handled by robots that collect and distribute messages to subscribed members. Listserv is one of many such robots, probably the biggest and most popular. Because Listserv was the first, it has been adopted as a generic term, much in the same way as "kleenex" is used synonymously with "facial tissue." Many people refer to the delivered e-mail list itself as a listserv. This is not technically correct, but it is gradually becoming part of the internet vocabulary. Be cautious about subscribing to too many mailing lists, or you will end up with 100 or more messages each day in your mailbox. A user-friendly explanation of how to subscribe to and customize your e-mail lists is available at Inter-Links. You can create your own e-mail list at Listbot, Topica or eScribe

NEWSLETTERS BY E-MAIL

Mailing lists are not the only way to fill your e-mail box. You can also sign up for various services that deliver newsletters on topics that you designate.

News: From Excite you can order specific news stories and web pages to be sent to your e-mailbox. Whenever there is a new web page or story that matches your search term, you will be notified. Another website, Individual.com sends customized news, but only in their pre-designated categories.

Mental health news:

Psychwatch sends weekly summaries of mental health stories in the news. Click on each headline to get connected to the full story.

Medscape offers weekly newsletters in psychiatry and several other medical disciplines. You must register to enter the site, but it's free.

Mentalhelp.net sends a semi-monthly newsletter with information on news, controversial topics, and websites of interest. Click on links to get full stories.

CE-credit.com distributes a "Practice Tips and Resource Tools" newsletter.

Athealth.com "Friday's Progress Notes" is a weekly newsletter on a variety of mental health topics, many with several articles on a single theme. The U.S. Government's Knowledge Exchange Network sends out a newsletter on various mental health issues and treatment areas.

Health News:

Healthscout offers personalized health news on a variety of topics that you select from a checklist.

Scheduled Web Searches: A service called The Informant, invites you to designate search engines to conduct regular queries and send you email whenever they find new web pages matching your query terms. They also inform you when a favorite web site is updated. At Northern Light you can set up a "search alert," where you specify your search terms. Then, several times per week Northern Light will send you an e-mail message with links to a "search results" list. This is a handy way to track subjects pertaining to your area of interest. Jokes: Dozens of humor sites (searchable via search engines) send daily jokes to your mailbox.

Product News, Shopping: Many merchants on the Web offer to notify you of their latest offers and sales. You can sign up to receive notices at their websites.