CompuServe Thread

Hi, Todd– Are you finding many rockhounds on the Internet other than the rocks-and-fossils list? If you are spending an extra $15/month on this forum, you may not be using CIS efficiently (I assume you are not calling international long distance or some such thing). I am fuzzy on why you mention the "executive option"; I do not use it either. Are you doing all your reading and writing of forum messages off-line? With CIM you can use a cycle: (1) read forum messages in your filing cabinet, replying and writing new ones, which you place in your out basket, (2) enter the forum and send all out basket messages, (3) browse this section's message list, "mark" any topics of interest, and (4) "Retrieve marked messages" with a "Disconnect on Completion" option, and after going off-line, returning to (1). That is semi-automated; a fully-automated CIS access program like OzCIS (which I use), TAPCIS, Navigator, or others can do the whole on-line visit at machine speed, eliminating all operator delays from the visit. I do not recommend them for newcomers, but once you are familiar with CIS and forums, they bear looking at. Either way, I most often spend less than one minute on each visit to the forum at 2400 bps, making two visits in a given day (the "first pass" is mostly reading in all the messages in this section, and getting a topic list for the other sections, the "second pass" is mostly dropping off my responses and picking up selected topics in other sections). That is less than an hour a month, under $5 at 2400 on the standard pricing plan. On the alternate plan, that would go up to $13, but would save $8.95-2.50 on the monthly fee, which might make sense for a very-heavy CISmail user with no interest in basic services, but not most people. Note that at a higher modem speeds, that would still be under a minute; since the price is charged in 1-minute increments, with a higher minute price for higher-than-2400 speeds, that would actually cost more, unless you visit less often, or are taking in several extended services in a pass, so there is more to read. Even then, a higher modem speed may not pay, as CIS's own reaction speeds are not increased as you shift from forum to forum or whatever. Thus for short passes, higher modem speeds than 2400 bps often are not economically efficient, but if you are downloading some large files, higher speeds generally do save money and time. Some experimenting may be in order! The recent PC magazine article on CIS and competitors (CIS was "Editor's choice") mentioned CIS will soon be supplying wider access to the Internet (later this year was mentioned, though it was not clear how official that was). –Doug

Hi, Michael– Your bibliography is certainly welcome. As my recent upload of my Scientific American index (SCIAM.ARC) in this library's forum shows, I firmly believe in cheap magazine references. If I had to pay Iquest every time I went hunting for Sci Am articles, I surely would be broke, and I like having it in my laptop when connecting is impractical. If we can get more people to index assorted magazines (perhaps the magazine staffers themselves), this could become a powerful resource. Who out there favors which of Michael's subject suggestions? –Doug