Web based School

The Internet for Home: Entertainment, Travel, and More

Chapter 21 The Internet for Home: Entertainment, Travel, and More

Whew! Take a deep breath, because you deserve it. You've learned a lot of information in the last 20 lessons, and now it is time to take a lot of what you have learned and apply it in some fun and useful ways. In particular, this lesson will show you some ways in which you might use the Internet in your home.

In this lesson, you'll learn the answers to the following questions:

Can I find information on the movies and other entertainment?
Are there services that can help me when I travel?
Are there Internet sites outside the United States?
Is the Web the only place I can go to get this type of information?

Time Saver: Most of the sites you see in this and the next three lessons were found with experience and a lot of search engines. Always remember to go to a Web search engine or search the newsgroups when you venture into uncharted territory.

Instead of boring you with the same old list after list of supposedly "hot" sites, this chapter takes you through a series of hypothetical situations and shows you how to complete certain tasks. Part of the reason for this is to give you some more practice at what you've already learned. The other reason is that, quite frankly, "What's Hot" lists tend to become outdated really fast.

At the Movies

By the time you read this lesson, the movie Ransom is sure to be a huge success (it might even be out on video). As of this writing, however, it's still a week from being released. Do you suppose there is anything out there on the Net about it? You can easily find out.

Just A Minute: It might be interesting for you to follow along with some of this, but with a different movie in mind. Perhaps there's a blockbuster just coming out that you want to find out about. Most of what you'll see here is only available for a limited time!

Thumbs Up?

One of the first things you might want to do is to look up a review of the movie. This is one case in which Yahoo! categories come in very handy. If you point your browser to http://www.yahoo.com/Entertainment/
Movies_and_Films/Reviews/, you will see a list of dozens of movie reviews and other movie-related Web sites. One of the better sites for movie reviews is The Washington Post at http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp-srv/searches/movies.asp (see Figure 21.1).

Figure 21.1.

The Washington Post movie review page--search away!

To Do: Look for a Movie Review

1. In the search area that asks you if you are Looking for a Particular Movie?, type Ransom (or a movie of your choice).

2. On the results page, you will see a link for every movie that matched your search term. Find your movie.

3. Click the link that takes you to the movie. In this case, there is a full review of the movie Ransom at The Washington Post (see Figure 21.2).

Don't be limited just by what you've looked at in this section. There are several movie categories at Yahoo!, and surely you will find several sites that you like. By the way, if you are interested in a "What's Hot" type list, check out Table 21.1, which lists the Web sites for all of the major movie studios. These sites often have video clips of their movies and more.

Movies in the News

Don't forget that there's more to the Internet than just what's on the Web. Usenet newsgroups are always a great place to go for any type of information. In fact, there is an entire hierarchy of newsgroups for movies. All twelve of these groups are under rec.arts.movies. If your news server carries this hierarchy, you might want to check them out. In addition, there is an alt.movies hierarchy. Figure 21.3 shows a movie review by someone like you and me.

Figure 21.3.

rec.arts.movies.reviews is sure to contain lots of reviews on the movies you want to see.

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

Well, if you don't know the way to San Jose, the Internet certainly does. Among the more innovative Web sites out there is one called MapQuest. If you know your departure point and where you want to go, MapQuest can show you the way. Suppose you live in Lansing, Michigan and you want to go to San Jose, California...

To Do: Create a Map to San Jose

1. Point your browser at http://www.mapquest.com.

2. Click the TripQuest link from the menu at the bottom of the page.

3. At the TripQuest page, type the city and state of your destination and starting point.

4. Click the Calculate Directions button.

5. You now can read, print, or mail the directions, as well as click map blow-ups of your point of origin and destination (see Figure 21.4).

Figure 21.4.

There is no faster way to find out how to get there.

Just A Minute: I personally have used TripQuest for several trips and found the directions to be very accurate. However, you'll probably want to have an atlas handy when you hit the road just to be safe.

OK, Now What?

After you know how to get there, it might be nice if you could find something to do while you visit. For this, you can use Excite's city.net service:

To Do: Find Something to Do

1. Point your browser to http://www.city.net.

2. Scroll down to the Map A Location section and type San Jose in the city field.

3. Click the pop-up State menu and select California.

4. Click the Map It button.

5. You now can look at an interactive map of San Jose or choose from several activity categories.

Suppose you want to take in a San Jose Sharks hockey game while you are there. If you click the Sports & Rec link, you will go to a page that points you directly to the San Jose Sharks home page at http://www.nando.net/SportServer/
hockey/nhl/sjs.asp. Simply scroll down the page to find the 1996-97 Schedule and click it. Actually, I couldn't have gotten luckier--my hometown Detroit Red Wings are playing at San Jose the Thursday I'm going to be there!

Coffee Break: I'd like you to sit back for a moment and think about what you have just finished doing. Do you realize how amazing the Internet really is? Let me bring the point home.

Just to see what would be involved in planning such a trip without the Internet, I tried it myself. I got out my handy atlas to try and map my proposed trip to San Jose. Elapsed time: 40 minutes. Proposed Route: It'll get me there, but it's hardly concise.

I then spent another half hour on the phone trying to find San Jose's travel bureau. When I finally found it, I waited another 10 days for a small packet of information to arrive, which I then spent another hour sifting through to find something in which I was interested.

My total time spent on this project without the Internet? Over two hours of real time plus 10 days of waiting. It's easy to see that even an Internet beginner could do better than that! Remember, the Internet can be very valuable in terms of both time and money.

The Cosmopolitan Internet

There is no doubt that the United States dominates the Internet. Americans by far produce the most traffic and the most information on the Internet. However, other countries are on the Net and are getting more and more prevalent with every passing month.

Instead of picking a specific spot, it might be more helpful to show you some international resources that are of a general nature, because you are sure to be interested in different parts of the world yourself.

Let the World Come to You

One of the best places to start to find ongoing general information about various locations is the listserv, as you learned in Lesson 8, "Communicating with the World: Using Mailing Lists." There are several listservs to which you might be interested in subscribing in order to learn about the world.

One of the best listservs for the globetrotters (or those just interested on global happenings) is the Travel-L listserv. Subscribing is easy.

To Do: Subscribe to the Travel-L listserv

1. Compose a new e-mail message to LISTSERV@VM3090.EGE.EDU.TR.

2. Leave the Subject: field blank and type SUBSCRIBE TRAVEL-L in the body of your message.

3. Remember to turn off your signature if you are using one.

4. Send the message. You should begin receiving mail soon.

CAUTION: Be warned that Travel-L is a very high-traffic listserv. If you are the kind of person who will check your mail only every week or so, you probably should not subscribe to this list.

Basically, this is a list on which people relate their travel experiences about various places they've been. You can find out where the good food is, where to find good jazz, or any of a hundred different pieces of information on places all over the world.

Time Saver: If you don't feel like subscribing to this listserv, you can read the posts from the listserv as a newsgroup. All of the Travel-L posts are sent to the bit.listserv.travel-l newsgroup for anyone to read.

The following are other travel-related listservs of note:

TRAVABLE@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU--TravAble Travel for the Disabled
TRAVELUK-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM--UK Travel e-mail List Server

Worldwide News

If you prefer to find out about the world in other ways, then perhaps you'd like to access some of the many great travel and culture newsgroups that are available via Usenet. There probably are well over 100 newsgroups that deal with these topics.

Many people are interested in various cultures throughout the world. If you use your newsgroup client and employ the methods you learned in Lesson 16, "Searching the Web for Virtually Anything," to search for newsgroups on culture, you will find that there are dozens of newsgroups on countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe (see Figure 21.5).

Figure 21.5.

Who says that there is no culture on the Internet?

In addition, there are many newsgroups geared specifically toward the traveler. In particular, you might want to check out the rec.travel.* hierarchy of newsgroups. You are sure to find information supplied by those who have seen the world first-hand.

Time Saver: There is a newsgroup-related FTP site that also has a wealth of information for the globally curious. Point your browser to ftp://ftp.solutions.net/rec-travel, where you will find archived travel information by region, country, and topic. In the rec-travel directory, click the cruise link to find out about cruises.

The Best the World Has to Offer

Of course, the Web won't be left out of the travel game. After all, it is the World Wide Web! You can find Web sites written in different languages, about other countries and cultures, or any other far-reaching topic you can think of.

To Do: Find a Place to Visit

1. Point your browser to your favorite search engine.

2. Think of a country you'd like to find out more about and conduct a search for that country. For a better search, type your country plus the word travel.

3. Spend a few moments looking at the results. The first hit under an Excite search for Australia +travel was "The Down Under Traveller" Web site (see Fig- ure 21.6).

Figure 21.6.

http://www.south-pacific.com/travel-zine/ has a lot to offer for those going Down Under.

For many Web and world surfers, the Virtual Tourist II is one of the favorite Web sites out there. When you point your browser to http://www.vtourist.com/vt/, you are presented with a map of the world. You need only click the part of the map in which you are interested until you find what you want.

For example, if you were to use the Virtual Tourist II to come up with information about Australia, you would click your way to the map shown in Figure 21.7.

Figure 21.7.

Clicking any area of this map would take you to city.net menus of information to help you find out more.

Again, for the traveler looking to see the world through the eyes of the Web, the importance of using search engines is almost inestimable. They generally are always a good place to start. However, keep in mind the many other resources available on the Internet for finding your special "corner of the world."

Summary

This lesson showed you some practical ways to use the Web at home for entertainment, travel, and more. You learned how to find out about hit movies before they ever appear onscreen. You also discovered new and exciting ways to plan your trips.

Finally, you learned that there is a reason for the term "world" in World Wide Web, as you discovered an Internet tour guide in the Virtual Tourist II. You were also able to realize the potential of listservs, newsgroups, and FTP in helping you trot the globe.

Workshop

The following workshop helps solidify the skills that you learned in this lesson.

Q&A

Q Something that I've wondered about while reading this guide and wonder even more about now is how current the information really is. Can the information I find be relied on?

A As a rule, yes. If you run into small Web sites that have names you don't recognize, the resources might not be totally accurate or up-to-date. If you stick with major sites, such as city.net and The Washington Post, you are likely to get very accurate information. However, if ever you aren't sure, by all means, check out several resources to make sure the information you're getting is accurate.

Q I speak fluent German and was wondering if I can actually search for German-speaking sites on the Web.

A You sure can. My German isn't great, and about the only German word I know is bier (German for beer). However, I searched Excite for bier and found many German-speaking sites. In fact, the first hit was Bier aus Deutschland at http://www.bier.de/. Yes, you can find just about anything on the Internet.

Quiz

Take the following quiz to see how much you've learned.

Questions

1. Which of these options would be best if you wanted information on travel without having to go get it? (a) The bit.listserv.travel-l newsgroup

(b) Searching the Web for travel

Subscribing to the Travel-L listserv
2. Using TripQuest eliminates the need for atlases or other resources when traveling. (a) True

(b) False
3. Where is the best place to go for entertainment or travel information if you're not exactly sure where to start? (a) Usenet newsgroups

(b) Any Web search engine

Listservs

Answers

1. (a)

2. (b) False. The smart traveler always uses several sources of information to be sure.

3. (b) You will rarely go wrong by starting out with an Internet search engine.

Activity

Plan out a trip of your own. It can either be imagined or real, domestic or foreign. See if you can plan a trip, including the route, mode of transportation, and at least three activities while you're there, using only the Internet. Make a list of all the information you discover, along with the time it took you to get it. Compare this to a reasonable estimate of how long it would take you to accomplish the same task without using the Internet.