COMPUTER CONFERENCE ON APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHING CHEMISTRY JUNE 14 TO AUGUST 20, 1993 Sponsored by: The American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education's Committee on Computers in Chemical Education Conference Organizer: Dr. Thomas C. O'Haver Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 to2@umail.umd.edu (301) 405-1831 (301) 384-0183 INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS (Updated 3/19/93) Instructions for authors of conference papers are contained in this memorandum. A. BEFORE THE CONFERENCE 1. Assuming that you plan to prepare your paper off-line on your personal computer, learn and practice the steps needed to convert your paper into plain ASCII text and send it as an e-mail message. Instructions for preparing your text are in Appendix 1: "Preparing text for e-mail transmission". The method for sending a text file on your PC as an e-mail message depends on your local mail system and on your terminal program; ask your local computer people for help. 2. (Optional) If you wish to submit graphics (figures) with your paper, refer to Appendix 2: "Submitting figures". 3. (Optional) If you wish to submit binary computer files with your paper (such as spreadsheets, executable programs, HyperCard stacks, etc), refer to Appendix 3: "Submitting Binary Files". 4. Send your full paper, properly formatted according to the instructions in Appendix 1, to to2@umail.umd.edu on or before May 1, 1993, followed immediately by separate messages for each graphic and binary file, encoded into text according to the instructions in Appendix 2 and Appendix 3. If you prefer to use FTP, put the files to info.umd.edu in the directory /uploads, and inform me by e-mail that you have done so. 5. If you have not already done so, register for the conference any time between Oct. 1, 1992, and Feb 1, 1993, by sending e-mail to LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU containing the following message on the first line: SUBSCRIBE CHEMCONF substituting your full name for . 6. If for any reason you need to remove yourself from the conference, send e-mail to LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU containing the message SIGNOFF CHEMCONF Make sure that you send this message from the SAME MAIL ADDRESS that you subscribed from. You can sign off and re-subscribe at any time. 7. If you need help, send e-mail to the conference organizer, Tom O'Haver, to2@umail.umd.edu. 8. In order to reduce the chaos caused by the overlapping discussion of many conference papers, the conference will be structured into a specific discussion period for each paper. In order to reduce excess e-mail traffic, participants obtain only those materials they are interested in, either by e-mail request of by FTP: a. To obtain by e-mail copies of the schedule of discussion, the abstracts of all the papers, or the text of other papers, send an e-mail message to listserv@umdd.umd.edu or to listserv@umdd.bitnet, any time after JUNE 10, 1993, in which the message body contains one or more of the following lines: GET SUMR93 SCHEDULE GET SUMR93 ABSTRACT GET PAPER1 TEXT GET PAPER2 TEXT GET PAPER3 TEXT and so on, with each item listed on a separate line. Depending on the network load, the material will be mailed to you within a few minutes or hours. Each paper may include a list figures that you may obtain in a similar way (e.g. GET PAPER1 FIGURE1). A complete list of all figures will be broadcast at the start of the conference. b. If you are on the Internet and have FTP capabilities, you may prefer to download the papers and related material by anonymous FTP from info.umd.edu in the directory info/Teaching/ChemConference/Papers. B. DURING THE CONFERENCE The Conference is divided into three three-week sessions. There are five papers in each session. 1. SHORT QUESTIONS The first week of each session is reserved for the reading of the papers in that session and for sending SHORT QUESTIONS to the authors or other participants. A specific day is designated for SHORT QUESTIONS on each paper. DISCUSSION of the paper WILL NOT START until at least a week after the designated time for SHORT QUESTIONS. This gives you at least a week to prepare answers to these SHORT QUESTIONS. 2. DISCUSSION A specific two days during the second and third weeks of each session is devoted to the discussion of each paper. Please read and respond to your e-mail on the days your paper is for short questions and for discussion. Ideally, you should respond to questions soon after they are asked. It is suggested you access your mail at least twice each day of discussion and respond during the day the question is asked. Your answers to the SHORT QUESTIONS received from readers during the first week should be posted at the beginning of this session. To respond to comments or questions about your paper, or to send comments or questions about another author's paper, so that everyone can see your response, send your message to CHEMCONF@UMDD.UMD.EDU or CHEMCONF@UMDD.bitnet Please put the PAPER NUMBER IN THE SUBJECT LINE of the message, so that participants can more easily sort out conference discussions from other e-mail. In responding to questions or comments, it is very helpful to quote a portion of the question in your answer. For example: > Next, I put the framis in the dohickey....? Could you explain that a little more fully .... The ">" character in this example is an e-mail convention indicating that that line is quoted from another message. Remember that everyone can see these messages. 2. Participants may also send comments or questions privately to your e-mail address, as given in your paper. Only you can see those messages. You can distinguish public from private messages by inspecting the mail header: messages originating from CHEMCONF are public; those from individual email address are private. 3. To send comments or questions about the operation of the conference to the conference organizer, send your message to to2@umail.umd.edu. Only the conference organizer can see these messages. You can send these messages at any time. 4. To send commands to the LISTSERV host computer (e.g. to SUBSCRIBE, SIGNOFF, get HELP, turn mail off and on, etc), send the commands to listserv@umdd.umd.edu. Refer to Appendix 4 for a list of commands accepted by LISTSERV. Don't make the mistake of sending commands to CHEMCONF, as that will send the commands to the conference participants instead. You can send these commands at any time. 5. To turn OFF mail from the conference during discussion periods you are not interested in, send the command SET CHEMCONF NOMAIL to LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU; to turn the mail back ON, send the command SET CHEMCONF MAIL to LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU. C. DURING THE GENERAL DISCUSSION PERIOD (August 16 through 20) The general discussion period from August 16 through 20 is an open period for the public discussion of any points brought up by the papers or by earlier discussion and for general observations concerning the topics of the conference. During this period, anyone may begin a new "thread" by contributing a message with a new subject line. Participants responding to such messages should use the SAME subject line, so as to help everyone sort out the overlapping threads of conversation. THE CAREFUL USE OF SUBJECT LINES IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT DURING THE GENERAL DISCUSSION PERIOD. We hope that all authors will be able to participate in the general discussion period. D. AFTER THE CONFERENCE At the start of the conference, an evaluation form will be e-mailed to all participants. We ask that you answer the questions on that form and return your answers to to2@umail.umd.edu by Aug. 20. This will help us to evaluate the conference and make improvements the next time such a conference is conducted. THE EVALUATION OF THE CONFERENCE AND PERFECTION OF THE CONFERENCING PROCESS IS A VERY IMPORTANT GOAL OF THE CHEMCONF EXPERIMENT. After that, you may sign off at any time by sending SIGNOFF CHEMCONF to listserv@umdd.umd.edu ------------ APPENDIX 1: PREPARING TEXT FOR E-MAIL TRANSMISSION A. Content 1. General style. In writing your paper, keep in mind that the main benefit of the presentation of your work in the computer conference format is the opportunity for extended discussion. You should try to write your paper in such a way as to encourage discussion and questioning. An informal, conversational style will probably encourage participation more that the typical formal style of a scholarly journal. 2. Questions for readers. We are asking all authors to add to the end of their papers a short list of QUESTIONS FOR READERS intended to stimulate discussion. Experience has shown that explicit questions will prompt discussion that would otherwise not have occurred. 3. Figure captions and file descriptions. If you intend to submit figures with your paper, add a section describing each figure to the main text of your paper. Describe not only the content of the figure but also its pixel dimensions (e.g. 200 X 300) and the number of bits/pixel (e.g. 8 bits), so readers will have some idea of what to expect and what hardware settings to use. If you intend to submit binary computer files with your paper, add a section describing each file, specifying its purpose, use, and hardware and software requirements. 4. Structure. The manuscript should contain the title, your name, affiliation, mailing address and e-mail address at the beginning, followed by an abstract (150 words or less). For ease in discussing parts of your paper, divide it into sections numbered I,II,III,IV and sub-sections A,B,C and further divided 1,2,3 and a,b,c. 5. Length. Be aware that files larger than 50K may not be deliverable through some mail systems, so keep the total size of your paper below this limit (below 7000 words). B. Formatting We assume that you will be writing your paper using your favorite word processor. Before it can be submitted to the conference, however, you must format the text to meet the restrictions of e-mail text. Many of the following instructions are contrary to the usual way of preparing papers in a modern word processor but are required because of the plain-ASCII text basis of conventional e-mail and because we can not predict the characteristics of the participants' terminal hardware and printers. 1. Replace all "special" characters with plain text (ASCII) equivalents. For example: a. Replace all Greek characters and special math characters with the closest ASCII equivalent, or spell them out (e.g., "alpha", micro- or u for Greek "mu"). b. Replace "curley quotes" with double-primes (") and ('). c. Replace bullets with *, em-dash with -, spell out "degrees", use -> for arrows, etc. d. Remove non-ASCII European characters (accents, tilde, umlaut, etc.) e. Strip any control characters from the text (e.g. form-feeds, tabs, escape sequences, etc.) f. Remove imbedded graphics or submit as separate graphics files (see Appendix 2, below). g. If you used boldface, underlining or italics for emphasis, consider replacing with UPPER CASE. 2. Change the font of the entire text to a mono-spaced font and adjust the margins so that the line length never exceeds 70 characters. 3. Replace tab formatting with spaces. Remember that the effect of TAB CHARACTERS in a document depends on the position of the TAB STOPS in the reader's editor or terminal program, which you can not predict. So you have to format indented lines and tables using spaces, assuming a mono-spaced font. 4. Save the document in "text only" format with a carriage return at the end of each line. Print it out in character (draft) mode on your printer and proof it one more time to check for problems. 5. Upload your text to your mail system and mail it to to2@umail.umd.edu with the name of the principal author in the subject line. ---------------------------- APPENDIX 2: SUBMITTING FIGURES The conference organizers have designed a procedure that will allow figures to be distributed to and viewed by participants, no matter what hardware was used to generate the figures and no matter what graphics hardware participants are using. This procedure is based on a platform-independent file format called the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) and a standard method of encoding binary files into ASCII text for distribution as e-mail messages. The GIF format can handle any type of graphic that you can display on your screen, including 256-color graphics. There are well-established methods for accomplishing these operations, and software to do so is widely available for the IBM-PC and Macintosh platforms in the form of freeware and shareware. Complete instructions are given below. Make sure that you have included in the main text of your paper a caption for each figure, a brief description including the resolution (pixel dimensions) and type of figure (i.e. black-and-white line drawing, 256-color digitized photograph, etc.). A. The first step is to get your graphics into computer-readable form, either by 1. generating the figures on the computer in the first place, 2. scanning hardcopy graphics with a scanner, or 3. photographing them with a video digitizer and a video camera (best for continuous-tone color photographs). If you have hardcopy graphics but no way to digitize them, send them by postal mail to the conference organizer (address at the top of this document) and we will digitize them for you. Label each piece with your name and the title of your paper. Hardcopy materials can not be returned. You should try to make your graphics as small as practical while still showing clearly on the screen because some participants may have only low-speed (2400 baud) modem connections, so downloading large files would be time- consuming, and because some participants may have only low-resolution graphic screens, so a large graphic could not be viewed all at once. Do not make your graphic larger than 640 X 480 pixels, the highest resolution screen in common use on IBM-PC and Macintosh. The GIF file format we are using here includes an efficient built-in file compression algorithm that greatly reduces the file size of many graphics. The amount of reduction depends on the complexity as well as the pixel dimensions of the figure. The compression is most effective for simple line drawings and least effective for 256-color digitized photographs, which therefore should be kept small (200 x 300 pixels maximum). B. The next step is to convert the graphics into uuencoded GIF format. The details depend on your computer platform. 1. ON AN IBM-PC COMPATIBLE a. If the program that you used to create you graphics can save in .PCX, .BMP or .PIC format, do so and proceed with step 2. If your graphics are generated in a program that can not save in one of these formats, then you can use a screen capture program to "grab" an image of the screen or of a portion of the screen. This is also useful when you want to prepare a "screen shot" to illustrate the appearance or operation of a computer program. 1. WITH MS-DOS: Put PCXDUMP.EXE in the directory. Type PCXDUMP /ON which installs PCXDUMP as a TSR and displays a temporary help screen. You only need to install once at the beginning of the session. Any time you want to capture what's on your graphics screen, press left shift-ALT-C. Use the mouse or arrow keys to select the desired screen region and press return. The screen image is saved in .PCX format in the current directory as a file called DUMP_000.PCX the first time you do it, DUMP_001.PCX the second time, etc. Note: Type PCXDUMP by itself to get a help screen. More detailed instructions are in PCXDUMP.DOC. 2. WITH MICROSOFT WINDOWS: (Using Shoot!) From within Windows, launch Shoot!, click on the Shoot! menu. This changes the cursor to a cross-hairs (+). Drag a selection rectangle across the screen region you want to capture and release the mouse button. The selected screen image is placed in the clipboard. Now open WinGif or Paint Shop Pro, select Paste from the menus, then proceed with the Save as.. step in b2, below. b. Now you convert your graphics into GIF format: 1. WITH MS-DOS: Put PICEM.EXE in the same directory as your graphic files. From the DOS command line, "CD" to that directory, then type PICEM, use the arrow keys to select a file, press RETURN to view it, then press W, use the arrow keys to select .GIF from the popup menu, and press RETURN. Repeat for each graphic file. 2. WITH MICROSOFT WINDOWS: From within Windows, launch WinGif or Paint Shop Pro, select Open from the File menu, select the file type (e.g. .PCX or.BMP or .PIC) from the file format menu, select the desired graphic, click Open to display. Then select Save as... from the File menu, select .GIF from the file format menu, and click Save. Repeat for each graphic file. c. The next step is to encode the GIF files into text. From the DOS command line, "CD" to the directory containing the graphic files, then type UUDECODE XXX.GIF XXX.UUE where XXX.GIF is the file name of your GIF file and the .UUE extension means "UU encoded". Repeat for each .GIF file. Be aware that files that end up larger that 50K after uuencoding may not be deliverable through some mail systems, so make every effort to keep files sizes down by limiting the size of your figures. 2. ON A MACINTOSH: a. If the program that you used to create you graphics can save in PICT or PAINT format, do so and proceed with step 2. Even better, if the program allows you to Copy graphics to the Clipboard, you can Paste them into the system Scrapbook - under the Apple menu - without saving a separate file for each graphic. The Scrapbook is accessible from any program, so is a handy way to collect graphics from various programs for later conversion to GIF format. If your graphics are generated in a program that can not save in one of these formats, then you can use a screen capture program to "grab" an image of the screen or of a portion of the screen. This is also useful when you want to prepare a "screen shot" to illustrate the appearance or operation of a computer program. The Mac has a built-in screen dump command (CMD-SHIFT-3), but this works only in 1-bit monochrome mode and won't work with menus pulled down. I recommend Flash-It, which has none of these limitations and saves in PICT, Scrapbook, and Clipboard format. The first time you use Flash-It, drag the Flash-It icon to your system folder and re-boot. Thereafter, any time you want to capture what's on your screen, press Command-Shift-5. This changes the cursor to a cross-hairs (+). Drag a selection rectangle across the screen region you want to capture and release the mouse button. A pop-up dialog will give you several choices; click on "Save as a disk file". The standard Save dialog box will be displayed. Type in a file name with a .PICT extension and press return. As a short cut, you can click on "Save in Scrapbook file" instead of saving .PICT files. Any number of images can be saved this way, without worrying about file names. b. Now you must convert your graphics into GIF format. Launch GIFConverter, select Open from the File menu, select the desired graphic, click Open to display. Then select Save as... from the File menu, select .GIF from the file type menu, and click Save. Repeat for each graphic file. If you have saved your graphics in the system Scrapbook rather than as separate files, select New from the File menu to get a blank window, then select Scrapbook from the Apple menu to pull up the system Scrapbook. Now you can Copy from the Scrapbook, click on the blank GIFConverter window, Paste, then Save as... in GIF format. Scroll the Scrapbook to the next graphic and repeat. Note: As a concession to participants who view your graphics on an MS-DOS system, give the files 8-character names with a ".gif" extension (e.g. XXXXXXXX.gif). c. The next step is to encode the GIF files into text. Launch UUTool. The first time you run UUTool, select Preferences... > UUcoding... from the File menu, make sure the "Use original coding" check-box is checked, then click on OK. Now select Preferences... > Save Prefs. You won't have to do this again. For each figure, press COMMAND-E, then select the desired file and press RETURN. The encoded files are saved with a .mu extension. Be aware that files that end up larger that 50K after uuencoding may not be deliverable through some mail systems, so make every effort to keep files sizes down by limiting the size of your figures. Note: The operations described above are somewhat simplified if you use a multitasking system such as DeskView for DOS, Microsoft Windows or Macintosh System 7. That way you can keep all the various programs open and quickly switch between them. C. Finally, you are ready to submit your material to the conference organizers. You do this in one of three ways: by FTP, by e-mail, or by diskette: 1. If you are an Internet user and can use FTP (File Transfer Protocol), upload the full text of your paper and the UU- encoded figures (in TEXT mode), plus the GIF binary files (in BINARY mode) to info.umd.edu, into the directory path info/ftp/uploads. Send an e-mail message to Tom O'Haver (to2@umail.umd.edu) alerting him of the uploads and clearly indicating the name of each file and its contents. Please embed your name or initials in each file name, so they can be distinguished form the other authors submissions. 2. If you do not have FTP capabilities, then you can submit your material yy e-mail. First, upload the resulting text files to your mail system. Mail the main text of your paper and each of its figures as separate messages to to2@umail.umd.edu. Please make sure the SUBJECT LINE is descriptive, e.g.:, if your name is J. Smith and your paper has three figures, the subject lines might read: J. Smith paper J. Smith figure 1 of 3 J. Smith figure 2 of 3 J. Smith figure 3 of 3 and so forth. 3. You can mail your materials on a floppy diskette to Prof. T. C. O'Haver, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, in either PC or Macintosh format. Include the full text of your paper and the UU- encoded figures in plain ASCII TEXT format, plus the original GIF binary files of the figures. Please name the files as clearly as possible and label the diskette. NOTE: If you need help with any of these steps, contact Tom O'Haver (to2@umail.umd.edu). -------------------------- APPENDIX 3: SUBMITTING BINARY FILES It is possible to transfer digital data of any type over a computer network, including formatted word-processor documents, chemical structures, spreadsheets, executable binaries, HyperCard or ToolBook stacks, etc. Access to these sorts of data is potentially a benefit of network conferencing, compared to traditional print publication. If you have any such material that you would like to share with conference participants, submit such material along with your paper, following the instructions in step C of Appendix 2. Make sure that you include in the main text of your paper a section describing each file, specifying its purpose, use, and hardware and software requirements. It would be understood that such material is platform specific and will be of interest only to those with the required hardware and software. -------------------------- APPENDIX 4: SOFTWARE SOURCES This appendix describes how to obtain the software needed to convert figures and binary files into text files that can be distributed to participants. (No special software is required to send the TEXT of your papers, other than the program you use to read your e-mail). For submitting figures you will need a text encoding program (UUENCODE for MS-DOS or UUTool for Macintosh), a GIF file converter (e.g PICEM for MS-DOS, WINGIF or Paint Shop Pro for Windows, GIFConverter or QuickGIF for Macintosh), and possibly a screen capture utility (PCXDUMP for MS-DOS or Flash-It for Macintosh). Many other programs are available that might be used as well. All of these programs are either freeware or shareware and are widely available from various sources: a. See if your local computer expert has copies of these programs. b. Ask your Computer Center. Many college computer centers keep large collections of freeware and shareware that you can copy. c. If you are on the Internet and have FTP capabilities; you (or your local computer expert) can download all of these programs from info.umd.edu in the path Teaching/ChemConference/Software/PC or Teaching/ChemConference/Software/Macintosh. Contact you local computer people for help in using FTP. d. If you have an account of any of the public on-line information services such as Compuserve, GEnie, America Online, or Delphi, you can download these programs from their file libraries. e. If all else fails, you may send a formatted disk in a stamped, self-addressed disk mailer, to Prof. T. C. O'Haver, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, stating clearly whether you want the MS-DOS or Macintosh versions of the software. --------- OTHER FTP SITES FOR DOWNLOADING FROM THE INTERNET (Updated 3/20/93 by T. C. O'H.) SCREEN CAPTURE For MS-DOS PCXDUMP (shareware, $25) info.umd.edu Teaching/ChemConference/Software/PC/pcxdmp71.zip wuarchive.wustl.edu mirrors/msdos/graphics/pcxdmp71.zip f.ms.uky.edu pub4/msdos/Screen/pcxdmp71.zip For Windows: ftp.cica.indiana.edu pub/pc/win3/desktop scap.zip (shareware, $10) shoot12.zip (freeware) grabit21.zip (shareware, $30) snagit16.zip For Macintosh: Flash-It (shareware, $10) info.umd.edu Teaching/ChemConference/Software/Macintosh/flash-it-23b1.hqx wuarchive.wustl.edu mirrors/info-mac/cp/flash-it-23b1.hqx sumex-aim.stanford.edu info-mac/cp/flash-it-23b1.hqx ftp.uu.net systems/mac/info-mac/cp/flash-it-23b1.hqx GIF CONVERSION For MS-DOS: PICEM (freeware) info.umd.edu Teaching/ChemConference/Software/PC/PICEM27.ZIP wuarchive.wustl.edu mirrors/msdos/graphics/PICEM27.ZIP ftp.uu.net systems/ibmpc/msdos/simtel20/graphics/picem27.zip plains.nodak.edu pub/pc/graphics.viewers/picem27.zip For Windows: Paint Shop Pro 1.0 (shareware, $53) info.umd.edu Teaching/ChemConference/Software/PC/pspro102.zip ftp.cica.indiana.edu pub/pc/win3/desktop/pspro102.zip WinGIF (shareware, $15) info.umd.edu Teaching/ChemConference/Software/PC/wingif14.zip ftp.cica.indiana.edu pub/pc/win3/desktop/wingif14.zip For Macintosh: GIFConverter (shareware, $40) info.umd.edu Teaching/ChemConference/Software/Macintosh/gifconverter2.info/3b2.cpt.hqx archive.umich.edu pub/mac/graphics/graphicsutil/gifconverter2.3b2.cpt.hqx sumex-aim.stanford.edu info-mac/art/gif/gif-converter-232.hqx UUENCODE TEXT CODING for MS-DOS: UUENCODE/UUDECODE (freeware) info.umd.edu Teaching/ChemConference/Software/PC/uuexe520.zip pc.usl.edu pub/msdos/usenet/uuexe520.zip server.uga.edu pub/msdos/uuexe520.zip wuarchive.wustl.edu mirrors/msdos/filutl/uuexe520.zip for Macintosh: UUTool (freeware) info.umd.edu Teaching/ChemConference/Software/Macintosh/uutool-232.hqx sumex-aim.stanford.edu info-mac/util/uutool-232.hqx wuarchive.wustl.edu mirrors/info-mac/util/uutool-232.hqx ftp.uu.net systems/mac/info-mac/util/uutool-232.hqx DECOMPRESSION/UNSTUFFING/UNZIPPING/DECODING for downloaded files info.umd.edu Computers/Macintosh/Utilities/stuffitexpander-3.01.sea Computers/PC/unzip.exe Computers/PC/unzip.doc ------------------ APPENDIX 5: LISTSERV COMMANDS The following is a list of commands that are accepted by the LISTSERV host computer. You may send these commands as e-mail messages to listserv@umdd.umd. Don't make the mistake of sending commands to CHEMCONF, as that will send the commands to the conference participants instead. Make sure that you send commands from the SAME MAIL ADDRESS that you subscribed from. You can send these commands at any time. SUBSCRIBE CHEMCONF Register for the conference SIGNOFF CHEMCONF Cancel your registration You can the following commands to turn off and on the flow of messages during the conference in order to selectively view only the discussion of the papers that interest you: SET CHEMCONF NOMAIL Temporarily turn off mail deliveries SET CHEMCONF MAIL Turn mail deliveries back on The following commands cause the LISTSERV to return the indicated information to you by e-mail: INDEX CHEMCONF List of files in the CHEMCONF database GET CHEMCONF WELCOME Welcome message & Instructions for Participants GET AUTHOR INSTRUCT Instructions for Authors REVIEW CHEMCONF COUNTRIES List of all participants on CHEMCONF, by country GET PAPER1 TEXT Text of Paper 1 GET PAPER2 TEXT Text of Paper 2 HELP List of commonly used commands INFO PRESENT Introduction to LISTSERV for new users INFO GENINTRO General information about LISTSERV INFO ? List of available documentation files ----------------------- APPENDIX 5: HELPFUL HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS a. One of the problems of an e-mail based conference is sorting out all the overlapping threads of conversation. When you are responding to or asking about a specific passage in a paper or message, a very helpful technique is to quote a small passage from that paper or message in your response and to place a ">" character at the beginning of each quoted line, e.g.: > We used the....so-and-so...in order to.... We tried that too, but we found that.... The ">" character in this example is an e-mail convention indicating that that line is quoted from another message. There is no need to re-type the quoted passage if it is still in your terminal's scroll- back buffer or if you have saved it on the file system of your computer; just Copy and Paste the desired passage into your message, then type ">" characters in front of each line. Another helpful technique to refer to a previous message is to specify the time and date, e.g. 2-11-93 8:53 EST. Depending on the way that participants store messages, this may make it easier to find a particular message. b. Many mail systems have a "Reply" command that saves you the trouble of typing the return address. Be careful when using the reply command to reply to messages received from mail lists such as CHEMCONF: your reply goes to the ENTIRE LIST, so everyone sees it. This is usually what you want in a public discussion. If, on the other hand you intend to reply ONLY to one individual and not to the whole list, you have to use the Send or Mail command and type the individual's address. You can tell that a message is sent via CHEMCONF because its header will have a Sender line like this: Sender: Conferences on Chemistry Research and Education in addition to the From: line that tells you who originated the message. Remember: the Reply command replies to the SENDER, NOT to the originator. Messages from individuals have no Sender line. c. If your desktop computer uses a graphical user interface with windows, a mouse, etc., you may find it convenient to run your favorite word processor or text editor along with your terminal program. That way you can use the Copy and Paste commands (under the Edit menu) to work between the terminal window and text editor windows. (McSink for the Mac and Notepad for Windows work well). You can then scroll through the terminal session text, select any text of interest, copy it, and paste it directly into a text editor window. Conversely, you can open previously-saved text files, copy all or a portion, and paste directly into a terminal session, e.g., into a mail message or into the command line of the remote host. (Remember that pasting text is equivalent to typing it). This is a convenient way to send e-mail messages that you previously composed off-line, to paraphrase passages from previous mail messages, to insert a signature address, to copy email address from your personal "email address book" text file into the TO: line when sending mail or from the From: line to your address book, to enter favorite ftp site address, etc. This can save a lot of typing. d. During the first two weeks of February, 1993, a "Trial Session" of the CHEMCONF On-line Conference was conducted for the purpose of testing and debugging the conference format. That trial involved three papers, 25 GIF figures, and over 200 participants from 24 countries. Those of you who SUBscribed to CHEMCONF after Feb. 1, 1993, will have missed the trial session but still can retrieve all the material related to that trial. The complete set of papers, figures, and other material is available on Internet by anonymous FTP at info.umd.edu in the path info/Teaching/ChemConference, and by modem dialup at (301) 403-4333 (300 - 2400 bps) or (301) 403-4444 (9600 - 14400 bps). You can transfer (download) any of this material to your local computer by FTP (if you are accessing this system over the Internet) or by Kermit (if you are accessing this system by modem dial-up). With the exception of the files in GIFbinary, these are text files that may be viewed on-line or transferred by setting FTP or Kermit in TEXT mode. The files in GIFbinaries (with a ".GIF" extension) are binary graphics files that must be transferred by setting FTP or Kermit in BINARY mode. MAKE SURE YOU SET THE MODE before you begin the transfer. (Binary GIF files downloaded in text mode will not be viewable). The files in UUold are the UU-encoded (text) versions of the graphics files, for those of you who can not FTP binary files. For those who do not have FTP, you can have the CHEMCONF materials e-mailed to you upon demand. Send an e-mail message to listserv@umdd.umd.edu or listserv@umdd.bitnet, in which the message body contains one or more of the following lines: GET CHEMCONF WELCOME GET AUTHOR INSTRUCT GET TRIAL PAPER1 GET TRIAL PAPER2 GET TRIAL PAPER3 GET TRIAL FIGURE1 GET TRIAL FIGURE2 and so on, up to TRIAL FIGURE24. To get a more complete listing of available files in the CHEMCONF LISTSERV database, send the command INDEX CHEMCONF. Be aware that the DELIVERY OF FIGURES BY E-MAIL IS NOT 100% RELIABLE; some mail programs and gateways modify the contents of the message body (removing spaces and switching certain characters), resulting in corrupted files that can not be decoded properly. File transfer by FTP is more reliable. Sometime during May, 1993, the contents the CHEMCONF LISTSERV database and FTP site will be updated for the Summer conference.