Note 56: freebie, sir!

Rubric: Our networks

Free, sir!

Anton Nosik

Speaking about the Internet, one cannot help but turn from time to time to the cherished topic of freebies, because it is one of the most remarkable and joyful economic phenomena of the World Wide Web. Take at least the same Geocities, which were described in our previous issue. They are based on a principle widespread throughout the network economy. A certain phenomenon (service, product) is distributed for free, due to which it receives incredible popularity, glory and fame. Thus, there is a specific economic meaning to use this product or service as a carrier of commercial advertising, due to which its further free distribution is financed.

By this principle, GEOCITIS, and Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Netscape up to the second output inclusive, and Netsurfer Digest, which we recently overwhelmed, and many other free services. All of them are free for the mass user, and for the advertiser there are considerable money (advertising on sites such as Dilbert or Netskayip costs tens of thousands of dollars a month).

We will start our story about the halave with the addresses well -known and already mentioned here - in case one of the readers missed or forgot them.

Libraries of Internet programs, in the vast majority of free or conditionally paid (sharedWare) are located at the addresses:

http://www.tucows.com/

http://www.stroud.net/cwsa.html

A free home page and mailbox can be obtained on geocities at http://www.geocites.com/

Free trial (for a period of one week) subscription to the electronic version of the British encyclopedia can be obtained at a not too harmonious address:

http://www.eb.com/

Free access to the in -led leged sections The Wall Street Journal (electronic version) is included in the package crushed by Microsoft along with the third official reinforcement of the explorer (manufactured on the market on August 13).

You can subscribe to the Netsurfer Digest newsletter by visiting the publication site at: http://www.netsurf.com/

You can use the services of a free Netmind warning service either by going directly on their site (http://www.netmind.com/), or on the page where the code of this robot is used - as, for example, on the home page of our networks or the company Sharat.

Here, the NetMind website contains a detailed list of free Internet services, including a free fax service, as well as PixelSite and other interactive pages, with which you can make graphic files directly on the line without resorting to local graphic programs such as Photoshop or Corel PhotoPain.

And now the time has come to say about the fundamentally new free postal aliasing service. This service has not yet been two months, but the rumor about it is already crawling along the most remote corners of the Internet.

First of all, we will deal with the central concept of this service. Alias is a pseudonym; On the Internet, this word often refers to a different name for the same address (e-mail or URL). Take for example my address Anton@beseder.com, carried out at the beginning of each note. With the same success, you can write to me an e -mail at addresses such as anton@koan.com, anton@nosik.nystadt.org, anton@sharat.co.il, nosik@inter.net.il, nosik@usa.net and twenty -others - ultimately all this is collected in one mailboy box, where am I and the same mailbox. I take my mail. Or take my home page at:

http://www.sharat.co.il/nosik/

With the same success, it can be requested at the addresses:

http://sharat.co.il/nosik/

http://nosik.neystadt.org/nosik/

http://192.104.41.12/nosik/

We are talking about the same address, which is assigned several different names. In a particular case, with my home page it turned out so. However, in many other cases, aliasing pursues a completely conscious practical goal.

Imagine that we are working in a certain company - say, "Nepi". And we have the address in this company - vasya@nezeq.co.il. And our home page, respectively, http://www.nezeq.co.il/~vasya/. After that, we are leaving the Non -Eki with a scandal, and our account is closed there. The letters addressed to our previous address are returned to the senders, and the guests of our home page receive a message about the 404th error: Not Found from the www server. We open an account with Netvision or NetMedia, and now our postal address is vasya@netmedia.net.il, and the home page lies at http://www.netmedia.net.il/~vasya/. Then we get a new job, where we are again given access to e -mail and www server at the expense of the employer, so we politely refuse the NETMedia services. And again the mail is in the basket, but we can’t see our home page.

This situation is far from hypothetical. Every year around the world, hundreds of thousands of people change their place of work or study, move from one provider to another, and their address is changing. Naturally, over time, this has a desire to make such an address for himself so that it does not change with all the vicissitudes of our professional and academic career. Such an address (Alias), which would always remain constant and would translate the mail and http requests to our current address, whatever it is at the moment.

The first commercial service, which engaged in the trade in such alias, was Pobox (http://www.pobox.com/). She gave three months of a free test period, and in these three months she provided the client with one Alias for the address of the home page and three Alias for the mailing address. Then Pobox began to charge from the client a dollar per month for his service ($ 15 a year, after three months for free).

The POBOX service reached the peak of its popularity this spring, when its accounting has broken, and three -month test terms stretched for six months. After the accounting department has been repaired, many Pobox users soap their neck today, without the technical ability to send $ 15 to America, and getting ready to part with such convenient alias because of this.

To help the wanderers from POBOX and those who have been puzzled by Aliasing’s questions for the first time today, a large provider company from Baltimore, Meriland, who registered the USA.net domain in due time without false modesty. This company volunteered to give anyone who wants a free postal alias for a lifetime. And really gives. I registered the address nosik@usa.net is a living certificate of this.

To open Alias for yourself on USA.net, just go to their home page at http://netaddress.usa.net/ and fill out the questionnaire. The creation of new alias is fully automated. The address sounds like user@usa.net, where user is any name we have chosen.

In the next issue, there will be a return to the current topics, an overview of the battle of the titans between the third rizes of Netskaip and the Explorer, as well as the promised Operation of the USENET groups.