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Getting Online Documentation *
Electronic Mail *
USENET News *
Novia Internetworking *
ISDN *
The World Wide Web at Novia *
Check Your Online Time
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- How do I set-up Netscape Navigator Personal Edition for 3.11/95?
Full Setup: Getting Online Using Netscape Navigator Personal Edition for Win95/3.1
Quick Setup: Getting Online Using Netscape Navigator Personal Edition for Win95/3.1
- How do I set-up Dial-up Networking for Windows 95?
Full Setup: Getting Online Using Windows95 Dial-Up Networking
Quick Setup: Getting Online Using Windows95 Dial-Up Networking
- How do I set-up my Macintosh to connect to Novia?
Full Setup: Getting Online Using Macintosh
Quick Setup: Getting Online Using Macintosh
- Generic Instructions for other packages
Full Setup: Getting Online With Novia
- How do I change my password?
See below.
- Can I change my login? If so, how?
See below.
- What do I need to know about modems?
If you have questions about the speed or stability of your dial-up
connections to Novia, consult our
Modem Troubleshooting Guide which
covers the most common problems associated with maintaining a high-speed
data connection.
Other excellent resources on modem connectivity:
Navas 28800 Modem FAQ
Neutron Information -- Modems

- What is my e-mail address?
Your e-mail address consists of your username or login (i.e.,
"fsmith") followed by "@novia.net." For example:
fsmith@novia.net
- How do I find an e-mail address?
To search for an e-mail address on the Internet, you can try
pointing your WWW browser to the Internet
Address Finder. If
you can't find the address here, your best bet is to call the individual or
organization and ask for their address.
- I am reading my e-mail from within the UNIX shell using Pine or Elm; where
can I go for more information on how to use these programs?
Inter-Links E-Mail Help
- How do I send e-mail to people on America Online, Compuserve, etc.?
Inter-Network Mail Guide
- How do I use Eudora e-mail?
Eudora Technical Support Center
- How do I use Netscape 2.0 e-mail?
Netscape Handbook: Mail, News, and Bookmarks

- What is news?
When you hear the words "news" and "Internet news" tossed about, what is
actually being addressed (often unbeknownst to the speaker) is Usenet
news. Usenet news is not, strictly speaking, a "feature" of Internet
connectivity in the same sense that telnet or FTP is. Nor is Usenet news
a bundled piece of software. It is at bottom a confederation of
networked computers that exchange public messages at varying intervals.
These messages in turn are sorted according to a predefined pattern known as
the newsgroup hierarchy.
The confederation metaphor is extremely important to remember.
There is no central hub of the news web where all posts go to be
disseminated out to the larger community. This is a fact further
sharpened by the history of Usenet itself: for a large chunk of its
early history, Usenet was not the sprawling information source it is
today. Usenet news was, in 1980, a phenomenon kept entirely within the
boundaries of North Carolina.
The only elements held in common between one point on the Usenet and any
other are the categorizations used to make the "news" meaningful. For example:
talk.politics.drugs
talk.politics.guns
talk.politics.mideast
talk.politics.misc
talk.politics.space
talk.politics.theory
Not all sites where newsreading is possible carry all the newsgroups,
and the decision to censor a group is the arbitrary power of the news
manager or system administrator of the site in question.
A post made to a newsgroup like talk.politics.mideast, whose distribution
is world-wide, will usually make it around the world in a few days. The
message, of course, is not charted geographically. It is subject to the
geography of the network, meaning that it can head east, north, wherever
all at once.
Usenet news is a bewilderingly public and global venture. It has aroused
more theoretical discussion about the impact of computer networks on
society than any other aspect of "human electronic interconnectivity."
- How do I read news using Netscape?
Netscape Handbook: Mail, News, and Bookmarks

- What is FTP?
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is part of the set of protocols
called TCP-IP. As the name implies, FTP is used for transferring files over
the Internet. Using FTP, it is possible to log onto a remote computer and
transfer files to and from that computer at very high speeds.
The most common variant of FTP is known as anonymous FTP.
- What is anonymous FTP?
Anonymous FTP is not another program. It refers to the ability to log
onto remote computers with a username of anonymous. In other words, you
do not need an account on the remote computer to log on. However, your
access will be restricted to certain directories on the remote computer.
The main use of anonymous FTP is to gain access to public archives. These
archives contain just about anything that you can think of including files
for just about every make of computer, graphics images, and text files on many
subjects.
- How do I find software on the Internet?
To find software on the Internet, visit
shareware.com, which is a searchable
database of over 190,000 program files archived around the Internet.
- What does it mean when a software package is said to be "shareware?"
shareware.com's definition
- What does it mean when a software package is said to be "freeware?"
shareware.com's definition

- How do I check how much time I've used on my account?
To check your time used during the current billing period (which
runs from the 15th of the month through the 14th of the next month), simply
enter your userid in the space provided and press ENTER:
Currently, a report of your time usage will be mailed to your
e-mail box here at Novia.
- How do I report a problem to the Novia Support Team?
To report a problem to the Novia Support Team on-line, please
fill out the On-Line Trouble Ticket. To report a
problem off-line, please call our office at (402) 895-2633.
- How do I change my password?
Changing your password is a two-step process; the server-side of your
connection (Novia) needs to know the new password and the client-side of
your connection (your PPP software), must know it as well.
For security reason changing the password on the server requires
you to call our office at (402) 895-2633 during business hours for account
verification and confirmation.
The software you use to establish a PPP connection with Novia will now
need to be updated to contain the new password information.
If you are using a Macintosh, open the "Config PPP" control panel and click on
the "Config..." button. Now click the "Authentication..." button. Do not
change the "Auth. ID:" text field, but do type your new password in the
"Password:" text field. Click "OK" to confirm the password change and then
"Done" to exit the Configuration dialog. Close the Config PPP control panel.
If you are using Netscape Navigator Personal Edition, you will need
to double-click on the "Novia Dialer" icon that was created when you first
installed Netscape Navigator Personal Edition. You will see a dialog box that
contains your userid and a password field. Simply type your new password into
the password field and click on the button to "Dial". This will save your new
password.
If you are using Windows95 Dial-up Networking,
For Windows95 users, when you first login after having changed your password
on the server, Windows95 Dial-Up Networking will prompt you to enter the
new password.
If you have forgotten your password or feel that the system is not recognizing
it for some reason, please give us a call at 895-2633.
- Can I change my login? If so, how?
Yes, you can change your login. In order to coordinate the change,
please call our office at (402) 895-2633. We can make the necessary change
in a matter of minutes. After the change, you will need to reconfigure your
mail reading software (such as Netscape or Eudora) to reflect this change.
You may also need to reconfigure your news reading software. Once the change
is made, we will retain an "alias" for your old login name for a period of
ninety (90) days in order to catch any stray e-mail that may arrive addressed
to the old address.
- What is Telnet?
The term "telnet" refers to the remote login that's possible on
the Internet because of the telnet protocol. The use of this
term as a verb, as in "telnet to a host," means to establish a
connection across the Internet from one host to another. Usually,
you must have an account on the remote host to be able to login to
it once you've made a connection. However, some hosts, such as
those offering white pages directories, provide public services
that do not require a personal account.
The use of telnet as a means to browse information has declined
with the advent of the World Wide Web, but it is still an essential
feature of Internet connectivity for administering host systems,
manually editing complex web pages, and often for performing simple
tasks such as changing one's password.
Where can I get a telnet client for my computer?
For Windows 3.11 Users:
Download EWAN
For Macintosh Users:
Download NCSA Telnet
For Windows95 Users:
A telnet client is provided with Windows95. You can run it by going to the
Start menu, selecting the Run option and typing in telnet.
If you require assistance with installing your telnet client software,
please give us a call at 895-2633.

- What is ISDN?
ISDN is an acronym for Integrated Services Digital Network. ISDN was
initially marketed by local exchange carriers (LECs or "Baby Bells") as
a means of integrating voice and data communications for businesses, a
cost-effective means of bringing together a telephone system and a
local area network of PCs on the same installed wiring.
Unfortunately for the LECs, they were beaten to the punch when it came
to business data communications by low-cost LAN technologies such as
Ethernet. Recently, however, ISDN has made a comeback as an affordable
high-speed means of accessing the Internet.
- The Three Advantages of ISDN
- Your connection is purely digital eliminating problems associated with
line noise and poor telephone wiring.
- The throughput of your connection to the Internet is much higher. A
single channel ISDN connection has a throughput of 64K/sec, over two
times the speed of a 28.8kbps modem. Two-channel ISDN access at 128K/sec
is over four times the speed of a 28.8kbps modem. Graphically intensive
web pages that take several seconds, or even minutes to load via an
analog modem can appear in just a few seconds over ISDN.
- Call set-up and tear-down time is shorter for ISDN. Unlike high-speed
analog modems which can take up to thirty seconds to dial, establish
carrier, and handshake for data compression and error correction,
ISDN connections can be established and disconnected in only a few
seconds.
At Novia, we are commited to providing affordable and reliable ISDN
connectivity for both individuals whose bandwidth needs are not served
by high-speed modems as well as businesses who see ISDN as an excellent
solution for multi-user LAN access to the Internet.
- How do I determine if ISDN is available at my location?
If you would like to determine whether or not ISDN is available
in your dialing prefix and the cost of that service, visit the
ISDN Single Line
Service Availability WWW page.
- What kinds of ISDN equipment do you recommend?
At Novia we utilize Ascend Pipeline and Ascend Max ISDN products for
multi-user small business LAN access:
Ascend
A number of ISDN modems for single-user access are available as well
from US Robotics, 3Com International, Boca, Farallon, and Motorola:
THE WORLD WIDE WEB AT NOVIA
July 19th, 1996: Please note that this section still needs some major work, including CGI scripts (just make sure your script has eXecute
permission and has the .cgi or .pl extension), more about uploading your pre-made pages to the server, and other important things. Thanks for bearing with the development process of this page.
- What is HTML?
A Beginner's Guide to HTML
The Hypertext Madness of Laurence Simon
- How do I create a home page on the web with Novia?
The first thing you will have to do will be to create the actual
HTML documents for your web page. If you are familiar with Unix, you can
telnet to oasis.novia.net and run the
webgen command to get you started.
If you're not familiar with Unix, you can use an editor for your
specific platform to create your web pages. For Macintosh, we currently
suggest that you use Adobe PageMill. For Windows 3.11/95, we suggest using a package called
Hot Dog Pro.
- What is Microsoft FrontPage?
Microsoft Frontpage is a world wide web publishing system available
from Microsoft that makes publishing web pages an integral part of using
Microsoft Windows 95.
August 21, 1996 : At this time, Novia does not support the Microsoft
Frontpage publishing system for personal accounts. We do support Frontpage
for our commercial clients, however.
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