Because using commercial online services-Prodigy, America Online, CompuServe, GEnie and Delphi-can be costly, it pays to get online and off in a hurry.
The object is to spend as little time online as possible, poking around in the array of goodies these ever-expanding services have to offer.
One way to do that is to buy a book about your service and study it. If you’re new to Prodigy, you may be out of luck. I visited four downtown book stores before finding “How to Use Prodigy,” by Douglas Herbert (Ziff-Davis Press 1994, $17.95), in a stack of books on the floor at Crown Books on Wabash Avenue in Chicago’s Loop. There were only three copies.
Without it, I might have discovered Prodigy’s “Tools” menu eventually, but not in a hurry. I tried “Custom” as a jump word, but nowhere. Instead, use the jump word “Tools,” which takes you to a menu of options. The first thing to do click on “ChangePath.” That takes you to a list of broad categories in the order Prodigy takes you from one to the next whenever you click the “P” (for path) button on the tool bar.
The categories include weather map, headlines, market update, easy Sabre (for airline reservations), games to play, shopping, etc. You can move any category to the first position, or the second or wherever you want it. You can also delete categories and add categories, so the path will take you to specific interests within the categories; all you need to know is the jump word. You can print a list of jump words but not quickly. It runs 200 pages. It’s probably better to click on the “A-Z” button on the tool bar and scroll through the list. If you find something that looks interesting, open it and try it. Then, to add it to your path, jump back to “tools.”
The tools menu also invites you to change screen colors, elect whether to print a document to your printer or to a file on your disk drive (faster), change your personal information box, check on your billing, etc. You can add buttons to the toolbar at the bottom of each Prodigy screen, although I’ve not done that yet. I like all that and, new to Prodigy, I like the service generally. If I feel an irresistible urge to curse online, I’ll just go another service where the censors aren’t so vigilant.
Although America Online can’t be customized, its friendly graphical user interface, or GUI (pronounced gooey), makes it easy for you to get around. From logon, a box comes up with several icons on which you can click. What comes up first varies from city to city. In any case, further clicking leads to new menus and several more icons to indicate interest areas. It’s very quick, although not always, as demand for AOL is outrunning its capacity at peak usage hours.
Both Prodigy and America Online are friendlier and easier to use immediately than the DOS text-based lists of menus and sub menus. To make those more friendly, you need a GUI that’s called a “front end.”
CompuServe has two GUIs, called CompuServe Information Managers, one for Windows called WINCIM, one for MacIntosh called MACCIM. You can download them from CompuServe for $10 each, and each gives you $10 of free connect time. It takes 15 to 25 minutes to download the programs, but connect time is free while you do it. Type `GO WINCIM’ or `GO MACCIM, for more information.
Each uses icons to log on and off. If you just want your e-mail, for instance, turn on your modem, start your CIM and click on the mailbox icon. It automatically logs on and checks to see if you have mail. If you do, you can look at the sender and the subject and decide whether you want to read it now or download it to your In Box to read later (even when you’re offline).
When you’re finished, click on the Disconnect icon to log off or choose the Exit icon to log off and close CIM.
The steps are similar for getting local weather, stock quotes, etc. You also can create mail offline and tell CIM to log on and send it, and the CIMs contain a number of “shortcut keys” to further speed you to your destination.
GEnie’s new graphical user interface, called GUIFE, puts a friendly face at the front door to that online service. Again there are versions for Mac and for Windows; both are free from GEnie. Call 800-638-9636.
We tested the Mac menu and mouse system, which produced some jazzy new icons: for instance, a file cabinet to store items and a traffic light to indicate the stage the service is in after a selection is made. The red light indicates the system is looking; it turns green when the information is ready. It can be as frustrating as waiting in traffic. Just imagine: You get to sit in front of your computer at a red light.
Users can set preferred starting points, which get you to your favorite area of the text menu after logging on-that is, if you don’t get stalled in traffic. Users are still experiencing delays and nonworking functions with this interface, but it’s the beta version, meaning it is still being tested by users for bugs, which should be reported to Genie so they can be exterminated.
Meanwhile, expect to pay more, not less, for using it, and, whatever you do, don’t leave the computer and expect GEnie to disconnect for you. It won’t.
For comparison, phone GEnie the old-fashioned way, and you’ll get around without delay in the same areas in which you’ll encounter delays through the GUIFE.
Delphi is sticking with its command line interface, though it offers a rudimentary GUI for Delphi users accessing the Internet. A lot of computer fans, weary of overhyped GUI’s, think that’s just fine.
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Clarence Petersen can be reached via Prodigy or America Online as CGPETE, or write him at the Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., 4th Floor, Chicago, Ill. 60611. Although he cannot respond individually, he will answer questions of general interest in this column. VIDCYBER JP CAPTION
