Life on the Net

Get It Try It

A good browser is essential to a life on the net. We at radsoft.net use Netscape 4.51. You might find another to your liking. We've also used Netscape 3.03Gold. Our general take on Internet Explorer is 'not good' - we don't like the way it installs, does not install, and does funny things to our Registry and our disks. You might have to be a rather advanced user to understand some of this, but our take on Internet Explorer is a definite 'no'.

When we started surfing back in 1997 (nope, not before that) we had Internet Explorer on the desktop like almost everyone else. The version on our systems was 3.01. This was always installed because we used Microsoft Developer Studio for our software projects and Microsoft Developer Studio used Internet Explorer for its documentation.

But our net connection back then was a terror: run by UU in Cambridge UK, this was a high speed line to LINX in London and from there deep under the Atlantic Ocean. With such preferential routing we expected our 'Internet experience' to be more enjoyable, but it was not. Our browser - Internet Explorer 3.01 - was always lagging.

When we heard about Netscape 3.03Gold we downloaded it immediately. This is still a good browser. Some people swear by 3.04Gold; we've heard that 3.04 has a couple of bugs missing in 3.03, so we stuck with the latter.

Immediately upon installing and running Netscape we noticed a difference: Netscape was dramatically faster. It was also easier and more intuitive to use. And it offered a number of self-evident functions which had been conspicuous in their absence on Internet Explorer.

The Internet Explorer email client irritated us to no end too: every time you started a new message, the message window would pop up anywhere on the screen. It's a bit like playing 'chasing the window': we want our windows to come up at a fixed position so we know where to go to get them.

And there was something about the Microsoft logic there that we didn't get: hard to put a finger on, but we just didn't understand it. With Netscape we felt immediately at home.

The one feature lacking in Netscape 3.03 is hierarchical folders in the email client. The first time we saw this was with Calypso, a not-so-free email client that will still run with limited functionality after the 30 day date. But Calypso kept flinging its email message windows all over the place like Microsoft's client, so this wasn't the answer either. And about that time along came Netscape 4.

The real substantial reason we stay with Netscape is the email client: this is just too good. It's easy, it's stable, it never loses any letters or screws up in any way for us, and it's almost sort of pretty with those little lilac colored folder icons. Netscape is getting way too big today, but until something else comes along which is industrial strength and has the same features, we're going to stick with Netscape.

The reason we stick with Netscape 4.51 and don't upgrade is we don't see the need. We get what we want today from the product we already have installed. We've gotten out of the habit of running for upgrades all the time. It takes time and work and is not always successful either. As they say, 'if it works, don't fix it', which might be paraphrased here to 'if it works, don't upgrade'.

Some people still prefer 'text browsers': Lynx is perhaps the most famous of these. Others gravitate towards Opera; but here you have a price tag to contend with, and most other browsers of today are free. In fact, that's the way you want to go: don't pay for anything you can get for free.

Email Clients

One of the most important parts of your browser is your 'email client': Opera doesn't have one for example; Internet Explorer's Outlook is hooked to Microsoft Office and uses a format which is not easy to work with. Netscape does win out here, as it's still the 'BSD' format which is in use. This is similar to, but not quite compatible with Sun's format; the important thing is that email is stored in a pure text format and can easily be read by any text editor. This is essential when processing complaints, such as against spam. Your goal should be to get a good combination package with both a browser, an email client, and an address book - and all for free.

About the only standalone email client we've ever seen that we liked was Calypso; this is a very powerful system, but there were features there that we didn't like, such as always contacting our POP server on startup. Maybe we didn't see how that could be turned off, but we didn't. This could be very aggravating, especially when trying to work with several email clients at the same time and trying to not lose mail.

One of the truly great things about Calypso - and for some strange reason this was always missing in the more mainstream products - was the ability to set up multiple POP accounts. Why this feature should not be available with the other mainstream clients is a mystery. Mozilla today seems to be on the way to recognizing this finally. Many individuals and organizations have several POP accounts; having to keep entering new POP server URLs, user account names, and passwords is a bother.

Email Netiquette

One of the things you should watch out for if you're new to the web is sending HTML email. People hate it. It's a sign among the people who've been on the net awhile that you're completely clueless. It's also bulky: for the dubious benefit of having nicely formatted text, the size of an email increases by several 100%. People who use the net regularly know this puts an unnecessary burden on the SMTP servers out there. So if you want to be respected, turn your HTML off. Microsoft email clients have a peculiar propensity for somehow getting this option turned back on (or getting unwitting users to turn it back on), so watch out.

Web Accelerators

There's not much you need here; let's face it, most of the software out there that claims it will compensate for shortcomings on the net or in your PC is not really the kind of software you want to use and/or purchase: it doesn't get at the root of the problem. But one thing you do need is an Internet phone book, and we have it, and it's for free.

The program is called CIP, and it was written on request by Chris Pirillo of The Lockergnome, and Chris designed it too. This is no exaggeration: the principal author of CIP (Rick) admitted not having a clue what this program was all about for several months. Ok, he used to teach UNIX and had messed around with hosts files all the time, but he didn't 'connect the dots'. And because he didn't, he couldn't quite make design decisions on his own, because he didn't have a clue what the program was all about. In fact, he was known to mutter intermittently that he wondered if that Pirillo had a clue. But when the dimes finally started falling down the slot, the design was all in place. All that was needed was to make it work sensibly on Windows platforms.