HOME ON THE WEB

A MCGUFFIN, according to Alfred Hitchcock, is what everybody is chasing after. It's the primum mobile, prime mover, hottest game in town.

A McGuffin can be real or imaginary: the Maltese Falcon or the Fountain of Youth. It's a motivator and everybody wants one.

No one will argue that the Internet is the McGuffin of the moment, growing 20% per month, and that the World Wide Web (WWW) is its fastest growing feature. From it's inception in 1990, Web traffic has grown exponentially. Everybody's saying "dot" and the Web-word is heard ad nauseum.

But is it real or is it imaginary? Another "vast wasteland" like television, "mesmerizing with the trivial," - or the biggest evolutionary leap since frontal lobes? Is the Web an out-sourced central nervous system, coalescing with others into a group mind, as envisioned 50 years ago by anthropologist Jesuit Missionary Teilhard de Chardin, and, more recently, Bill Gates with Bill Gates as brainstem?

I have no idea. There are an estimated 30 million Web users and I can only speak for myself.

For me the Web is the latest satellite weather map when I want it; tomorrow's New York Times tonight if I'm so inclined; stock quotes if I had any; a library of unlimited depth with a card catalogue on my desk so powerful it comes back with answers as fast as I can think up questions and hit the return key. The Web is a place to find and buy things and chat with the seller by E-mail; a place to locate old friends and colleagues; and pick brains. Soon it will be a place to see movies, talk around the world for free, wander in three dimensions.

Creating my own website is a hobby and a presence; a place besides the attic to hang a lifetime of photographs or exercise my First Amendment rights without fear of flying tomatoes.

I can publish a book if the agent is taking too long and the experience of writing the simple HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) tags and seeing the whole thing turn into a colorful TV show on a screen in the Alta Bates Lounge or the local Egghead is even better than watching a black and white photograph "come up" from "nothing" in the developper bath in the darkroom.

One colleague, Dr. Frank Lucido(http://www.idiom.com/~barnardc/drfrank), is using his website to recruit a simpatico associate; another, Dr. Robert Fink (http://www.dovecom.com/rafink/), gives his background, his credentials, his philosophy his services and his fees; still another, Dr. Bernie Sklar (http://www.netcantina.com/travelmed/homepage.htm), gives recommendations regarding travel vaccinations.

Following each name in parentheses is the URL (Uniform Resource Locator, pronounced "Earl") or address for the doctor's website. In a brief search, these are the hometwon Earls to date. (Perhaps On Line Newsletter could have an inset for the coming babyboom of newborn Earls, now in gestation.)

Here's how you can visit any website: from an Alta Bates terminal, the Internet is accessed by clicking "tools and accessories" and then the blue "N" which stands for Netscape, maker of the best "browser." The browser is the software that transforms electronic signals into words and pictures. Microsoft makes the explorer, Netcom has its own but Netscape's is heads and shoulders the best at the time of this writing, allowing one to see animations etc. Browser software is free to individual users.

Anyway, after clicking the blue N you'll be at the Alta Bates Medical Center homepage. Type an URL into the box on the banner, or click a bookmarked destination and from there it's click click click - you're surfing.

Clicking on any highlighted text (called "hypertext," the essence of the Web), you jump from one webpage to another, from one computer to another, one mind to another, one spot on the planet to another - a free ride on an avalanche of free associations.

Well, not entirely free of course. The bare minimum for websurfing from home - the basic ante - is the computer, of course, a 486 or better ($1500 and up); a 28.8 modem - (don't cut corners here, faster is way better, and more expensive e.g. ~$200); a local phone number to an internet connection such as Netcom ($20/month) and a browser such as Netscape. An E-mail address comes with the internet connection as well as the Browser.

To go the next step and have your own website you need a Web servor which may or may not be provided by the same company as the Internet Connection itself although the cost is in the same monthly range. One book is all it takes to learn to write HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) but even if you write your own it is advisable to employ a Web consultant (webmaster - $75 and up) to get it all up and running.

And that's it. There are more expensive and dangerous addictions.

I won't deny startup frustration. The learning curve sometimes feels more like a series of detours and "never minds."

It's kind of like jiggling the antenna and working the tuner of an eccentric TV. But once you get the picture.....

And when you get the picture, you too will want a Home On The Web, and guess what? You'll be more than welcome. So far, it's a friendly place with no cloudy skies and lots and lots of space. Infinite cyberspace. So far.