SBP User Manual

4. INTERNET

[PREPARATION][DIALOGS][EXERCISES][RESOURCES][INTERNET][INDEX]

To start up SBP's internet Chat or Mail protocols, your computer needs some basic information about you and your computer as well as information about the people you are communicating with.

Let's start with a review of the essentials. As you recall from the discussion in the HTML document titled Preparation, in order to access the internet using SBP, you need an active TCP/IP connection. You will also need a copy of Marionet(tm) installed in your system folder. Marionet(tm) is installed automatically during your initial hard disk installation. In order to use your e-mail capabilities, you also have to establish an account through your service provider. If you already have e-mail access via a server at your institution, then chances are you're already set to use SBP's services. To use your e-mail capabilities, contact your lab attendant and your systems manager to get the following information:

Host server name. This is the name of the server on which your e-mail account is located. This is normally a series of abbreviations set off by dots, as in "usa.span.com," or whatever.

Your account name. Account names vary from one institution to another, but quite often an account name includes your own name in some form.

Note: Your account name is not necessarily the same as the name which appears in your e-mail address.

Your account password. This is the password to your mail account.

Note: Your account password is not necessarily the same password you normally use to check your e-mail address, and it is not necessarily the same as the password you will use to access SBP internet records.

Your e-mail address. This normally includes your real life name in some form, followed by the at symbol (@) and your server name.

Once you have this information, you will be ready to set up an SBP mail record.

Click Notas from your main dialog window to open your note pad.
Click on the Mail icon in the upper right part of your window to go to your mail card.
Click the Set up button on the left side of the button bar which appears on the bottom of your mail card.

Now you have opened your Conexión window, which you will use to establish an SBP internet record. You will notice that when you open this window, the user name you used when you started your session will appear in the box labeled SBP User name. You can use that name, or you can choose another if you like.

Enter an SBP user name in the appropriate field.
Enter a password. Note that this password is for SBP access only. It does not have to be the same as your account password. However, it does have to be between 8 and twenty characters, and you can use only letters and numerals.

Note:

The password to your SBP internet record is case-sensitive. You will have to remember whether you used upper or lower case letters.

If you have already established an SBP mail record, then click Open record. If this is your first time setting up a record, click New record. The next card you will see will be for entering the information you have gotten from your systems manager or lab attendant. This is your SBP internet record.
Note: You will notice that there is a field on your record card for your IP Address. You do not need IP address information to use your mail service.

When you have filled out this information, click Use settings, and your mail service will be ready.

Important:

Don't forget that if you are working in a lab setting, others may come by and use the same machine you are using. If you want to take extra precautions against others hacking into your mail account, reopen your Conexión window and click Clear settings. This will delete all of your personal information, except your user name, from your mail record.

Once you have set up your internet record, you will probably want to make a directory of names and e-mail addresses of the people you contact frequently.

From your mail card or your chat card, click the Addresses icon, which is the open book appearing on the upper right of your chat and Notas windows. This will open a Direcciones card. At the bottom of that card you will find a field for a correspondent's name, one for an e-mail address, and one for an IP address. These three fields together are called the current record.

Add name adds the current name, e-mail address, and IP address to the group record.
Select exports the current name, e-mail address, and IP address to your chat card and your e-mail card.
Select all exports the entire group of addresses to your e-mail card.
Cut deletes the current name, e-mail address, and IP address from the group record.
Cut all deletes the current record from your Direcciones record.

Notice that if you click directly on a line already in your address list, the corresponding name, e-mail address, and IP address will automatically pop up in the current record.

Note:

If you plan on establishing a chat session with a particular person, you should enter an IP address in this record.

Once you have selected your correspondents, you should click the orange feet to close the address window if you are planning to use your e-mail card, or click the telephone icon if you are planning to use the chat protocol.

CHARLA

The button labeled Charla, which appears on the bottom of the dialog window, opens SBP's chat window. The chat window allows you to communicate in real time via the internet with students or instructors who are using another copy of SBP. You can use this feature for one-on-one tutoring with an instructor who is using another computer, for pair work or group work on SBP among students in your lab, or to communicate with pen pals who are using SBP on other computers. In order to set up a chat session, you have to be sure that the following conditions are met:

1) Your copy of the SBP application must be installed on your hard drive. You may use the chat protocol with either the hard drive only method or the hard drive/CD-ROM method, but not using the CD-ROM only method.

2) Your computer needs a TCP/IP internet connection and an IP address. If you are working in a lab setting which is connected to the internet, then chances are your machine already has a TCP/IP connection. Ask your lab attendant or systems administrator for more information. You can also find out if your computer has a TCP/IP connection by 1) opening the Apple menu on your Macintosh, 2) selecting Control Panels from the menu, and 3) scrolling down the menu to find TCP/IP.

3) Marionet(tm) must be installed inside your Systems folder. Your SBP MediaManager will install Marionet(tm) inside the systems folder automatically when you choose the hard drive only or the hard drive/CD-ROM method of deployment. If you experience problems in establishing a chat connection with a remote station, you should open your system folder and check to be sure that Marionet(tm) is inside. If Marionet(tm) has been removed from your systems folder, then:

insert your CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive,
double-click the SBP CD ROM 1 icon,
double-click the SBP Folder(1) icon,
open the Utilities folder and find Marionet(tm), and
drag and drop Marionet(tm) inside your system folder.

SBP supports two types of chat:

Peer-to-peer, which allows you to communicate with one other copy of SBP,
Group, which allows as many as 20 copies to communicate simultaneously.

You may open a chat session using one method or the other, but not both. Thus you must terminate a peer chat session before you start a group session, and vice versa. To open a peer-to-peer session, you will need to have an IP address of a remote copy of SBP. Once you have that information:

Click on the book icon on the top of you chat window to open Direcciones, which is your address book.
Enter a correspondent's name, e-mail address, and IP address in the corresponding fields near the bottom of the address display.
Click Add name to keep this correspondent's data in the address record.
Click Select to choose this person as a correspondent.

SBP will now return you to the Charla window and enter the IP address for the correspondent you have selected. Once you have entered the name and address of your correspondent, make sure that you have entered information about yourself as well.

Enter a screen name for yourself. It doesn't have to be the same name you entered when you first booted up on SBP.
Click the white button above the label Your voice to select a synthetic voice. If your correspondent has installed Apple's Spanish Text-to-Speech, then he or she will be able to hear your messages spoken out loud once you have transmitted them. By the same token, you will be able to hear your correspondent's messages spoken out loud if your station has Apple's Text-To-Speech installed.
Peer-to-Peer Chat Sessions

Now you're ready to start a chat session. In order to establish communications with a remote copy of SBP, it is important to keep in mind that your copy of SBP must be in stand by mode before you can receive messages from a remote station and, at the same time, your correspondent's station must be in stand by mode before it can receive messages from you.

Click the Peer button, and SBP will place your station in stand by mode and try to connect with the remote copy.
Watch the small message field just below the scrolling field. It will keep you apprised of the status of your chat connection. If you fail to connect to a remote station, leave your own computer in stand by mode and try again in a few minutes.

Once you have successfully contacted your correspondent, the Peer button will become disabled. It's time to send and receive messages from your chat correspondent.

Type in a message in the Message field and press return. Your message will be sent directly to your chat correspondent.
Check the scrolling field (called the Chat log field) for any messages you may have received.

Here are some other features you can take advantage of while using your chat window:

The Chat log field is hot. Click on any word inside that field and SBP will do an automatic search in its dictionary. Try using this feature if you don't recognize some of the words in the message your partner has sent.

The green eyecon button on the upper part of your chat window can be used to shrink your window. Use this feature while your station is in stand by mode, waiting to receive messages. That way, you can continue working on your Spanish lessons, and your view of the dialogs will be less cluttered. Click the eyecon again to expand the chat window back to its normal size.

Click the Save button to save a copy of your chat log as a text file. You can open it up later using your Notas note pad, or virtually any other Macintosh word processing application.

Click the Clear button to empty the chat log.

Click End to terminate a chat session.

Click the Orange feet in the upper left corner to close your chat window.

Important:

When you close you chat window, any currently active chat session will be terminated. If you want to hide your chat window so that it's easier to see what's on screen, use the green eyecon on the top part of the window to shrink the window.
Group Chat Sessions

SBP's Charla feature supports group chat session with as many as 20 participants. There are some important differences between peer chat sessions and group chat sessions which you should become familiar with. First, to establish a group session you have to designate one machine at your site as a server. This station doesn't have to be a file server per se. Any Macintosh computer that is on your network will do, as long as it has a TCP/IP connection.

To establish a group chat network at your site, you must install MultiVox on the hard drive of the computer which will serve as your chat server. To install Multivox on a hard drive:

1. Insert the SBP CD ROM into your CD-ROM drive.
2. Double-click the CD-ROM icon to open.
3. Double-click the SBP Folder icon to open.
4. Double-click Utilities to open.
5. Drag the Multivox icon on top of your computer's hard drive icon and drop.

A copy of Marionet(tm) must be installed in the system folder of the designated "server" as well. The copy of Marionet(tm) on your chat server must be allocated at least 16 MB of RAM. To allocate extra RAM:

1. open your system folder from the Finder.
2. click Marionet(tm)once to select.
3. select Get Info from the file menu.
4. change the memory requirements as shown below:

Once your setup is complete, remove the CD-ROM from its drive, and you will be ready to launch Multivox. Double-click the Multivox icon on your hard drive, read the Notice to the user document. If you agree with the terms specified, click I agree. The next window you will see is a brief "Info" window with essential information on Multivox. Click Go to setup to go to the chat log window. Use the arrows at the bottom of the window to select the maximum number of chat participants. Once the maximum number of participants have logged on, MultiVox will not accept any new parties into the chat session. If one of the participants closes a chat session, however, then a new chat "pipeline" will be opened.

NOTE:

Chat sessions are memory intensive! Multivox will support as many as 20 participants during a single session. However, you will get better results with fewer participants. Avoid setting up more sessions than you will actually need.

How it works:

When you are ready to create a chat session for your SBP students, click the Setup sessions button on the bottom of your screen. You will see a list of chat pipelines which Marionet(tm) has established. Remote copies of SBP will now be able to contact your chat server:

The chat server, in turn, will send to each computer, any messages it has received from other stations that are connected to chat session:

Thus each student can read what every other student has written during an SBP chat session.

IMPORTANT:

Remote student users need to know the IP address of the SBP chat server in order to connect. To find the IP address for your server:

1. open the Apple menu on your chat server.
2. select Control Panels.
3. select TCP/IP.
4. write down the IP address and give it to your students.

The chat window in the SBP software will explain how to use a chat server's IP address to enter a chat session. To terminate a chat session, simply click Reset sessions inside your chat log window.

The chat protocol is only one of the internet services built in to Spanish for Business Professionals. In the next section we discuss how to use your e-mail services.

MAIL

To begin an e-mail session, open your Notas note pad from your main dialog window. There you will notice a mail icon in the upper right corner of your window. Click there to open your Correo electrónico card. If you have not already done so, then you will have to Set up a session and select a correspondent or correspondents from your address list. Read the sections in this web page for information on how to do this.

The scrolling field on the upper portion of your card is for outgoing mail, i.e. mail you are planning to send. The scrolling field just below it is for incoming mail, i.e. mail you have received from others. To send mail:

Type in the message you wish to send into your outgoing mail field.
Enter a subject in the field labeled Re: on the bottom half of your display.
Click Send group if you want to send one message to every correspondent listed in the outgoing address list.
Click Send peer if you want to send mail to one person only.

If you choose to send mail to one person only, be sure to enter an address in the small field just below your address field. You can select a single correspondent from your address list, or you can type in an address manually.

Note:

Since you have likely used e-mail services before, you probably know that special characters like accent marks and inverted question marks frequently disappear during transmission. That's because not all servers are set up to recognize non-English alphabets. When you send a message via SBP, you will be asked if you want your message sent as Normal or SBP Encoded. If you select Normal, your message will be sent as is. If you select Encoded, SBP will replace letters with accent marks with special iso8859 encoding. If an encoded message is read by another copy of SBP, your accent marks and special characters will be preserved.

To check mail currently in your account, click Check and wait for a message from Marionet(tm). If you have successfully connected to a server, you should get the following information:

a list of messages currently in your mail box in the field labeled incoming,
a message just below the incoming field stating "You have...", and
two numbers separated by a slash (/) in the lower right corner indicating which message is currently displayed. For example, "2/3" indicates that message number two out of a total of three is currently open.

When you select Check, your mail protocol will examine your mail box to see what's there. It doesn't open any message immediately. Thus the first message you will probably see after checking your mail box will be something like "0/5" i.e. you have five messages, but none is displayed right now.

To read mail currently displayed:

Click directly on a message listed in your incoming field.
Click Read prev to read a previous message on your list (for instance, if message 3 is currently open and you want to read message 2).
Click Read next to read the next message in your list.

Your other mail choices include:

Clear send to start writing a new message,
Clear received to clear your incoming mail window. Note that this will not delete a message you have received from your server: it just deletes it from the field on your mail card.
Save send allows you to save the contents of your outgoing mail field.
Save received allows you to save the contents of your incoming mail field.
Delete send deletes the current outgoing message.
Delete received deletes the incoming current message from your server account.

NEWS

Your SBP news card allows you to download daily news and financial updates from the newspaper El Universal in Mexico City. In order to take advantage of this feature, you must deploy SBP using the hard drive or the hard drive / CD-ROM deployment method. Downloads are not available if you are running directly from the CD-ROM. You will also need an open TCP/IP connection on your Macintosh. If you are working in a lab setting with internet connections, or if the Macintosh in your office is connected to the network via ethernet, then your machine is probably ready to download. To access your news card:

Open your Notas note pad from your main dialog window.
Click the eyeglass icon in the upper right portion of your Notas window.
Select News, Finance, or Currency from the Download menu.

Marionet(tm) will attempt to establish a connection with a remote server. Watch the field at the bottom of your news card for the results.

Note:

If Marionet(tm) is unable to establish a connection in twenty seconds it will "timeout", and notify you that there was No response from the remote site. If that happens, try again later.

Once your download is successful:

Click the green, right-pointing read arrow to read the next news story or financial update.
Click the blue, left-pointing arrow to read the previous story.
Select Save from your Download to save the contents of the current story.

If you want to search your download, enter a word or phrase in the field in the bottom left of your card and click Find.

Note:

The download field in your card is hot. Click on any word inside that field, and SBP will automatically open its dictionary and search for occurrences of that word.