NYU AND THE WORLD-WIDE WEB

NYU Web and NYU CWIS: Which Is Which?

by David Frederickson

[Ed: Links to web pages and/or e-mail addresses which have become inactive since the publication of this article have been enclosed in curly brackets { }. Replacement links have been provided where possible.]

NYU CWIS, the Gopher-based Campus-Wide Information System launched two years ago, is still alive and still dispensing volumes of information to NYU and the world. It can be accessed either through a Gopher browser (such as the one included in the IS menus of the NYU-Internet account) or seamlessly through NYU Web, which is a component of the World-Wide Web.

The programs that run the Web have certain advantages -- particularly the ability to use older network tools such as Telnet and Gopher, as well as various "helper programs" for enhanced display of its information, and the ability to use hyperlinks to take the user from one data source to another. Furthermore, you can select the best browser for your computer and connections -- anything from the simple character-based Lynx (part of the NYU-Internet account) to fancy graphical programs.

Thus at this point it seems sensible for NYU to move to on to the World-Wide Web protocols, which now offer the most flexible and attractive means of distributing and collecting information over NYU Net. How long will that remain true? In the evolving world of computers and networks, nothing is guaranteed except further change. But NYU CWIS lives, and everything on it is visible through NYU Web. [ C ]

David Frederickson edited Connect at the time of this article's publication.
{frederickson@nyu.edu}

Posted 21 February 1996. Revised 24 May 2004.