Re: NASA video catalog

[William Beaty <billb@eskimo.com>]

On Wed, 31 Jul 1996 Raacc@AOL.COM wrote:

> I'm trying to find an address for the on-line NASA video catalog.  I was
> given the address:
>
> http://www.sti.nasa.gov/videocat/_cover.htm
>
> However, this address isn't working.  Does anyone know the correct address?


 http://www.sti.nasa.gov/videocat/_COVER.htm.  The last word in your
 URL should have been capitalized.


Quick internet navagation lesson:

 First I tried www.sti.nasa.gov/videocat/
 I got "access denied" message, so NASA doesn't have index pages for
 this subdirectory.

 Next I tried www.sti.nasa.gov
 This is the home page for the domain, but it is too high in the
 architecture and doesn't mention the video catalog.  It does mention a
 "helpdesk" one could email.

 Next I searched Altavista for "nasa video catalog" and got pages and
 pages of hits on catalog subpages. (Altavista web search is at
 http://www.altavista.digital.com)  I went to one of these subpages,
 found a link at the bottom which led to "table of contents," found
 a link on the TOC for "Nasa Video Home Page", and arrived at
 http://www.sti.nasa.gov/videocat/_COVER.htm.  The last word in your
 URL should have been capitalized.

All this took about 30 seconds using the Lynx text-only browser running on
a Unix shell. It would have taken several minutes using Netscape, what
with all the overhead from the 14.4k PPP protocol.

I'm a rabid fan of Lynx, it's blazingly fast because your PC is just a
computer terminal, not a real connection to internet, and the software
actually runs on some distant mainframe with a REAL internet connection.
When browsing WWW I find that I cover vast territory with Lynx because I
see the text contents of pages within 5 seconds at most, and this makes a
big difference when exploring or doing manual searches.  Also, with Lynx
there's no hype factor since there's no graphics, applets, etc.  If a
website is all hype and no content, when viewed by a Lynx user that page
will be seen as the embarassment it actually is.

If you hate TV and read your way through libraries, try getting hold of a
shell account and Lynx.  You'll be rewarded, it's immensely faster than
Netscape in text mode. 

I hear that an icon is available saying "Enhanced for Lynx."
   ;)


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William Beaty  voice:206-781-3320   bbs:206-789-0775    cserv:71241,3623
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