Module 1 - Telnet Task A

This task required me to utilise Telnet to access the Deakin University library and complete a search.

Before jumping in head first, the first thing I did was to Google a little more information on Telnet and Telnet applications on the Mac. I came across a couple of good sites in particular I found this excellent and simple guide on wikiHow.com. The site also contained some further How To's on checking email with Telnet and the like, but I digress.

After my research, I decided in the end to go down the route of using Mac OS X's built in Telnet client; the Terminal application. Terminal is an application which I am familiar and comfortable with so using it for this task was rather simple.

Logging in to the Deakin library and completing the search was very straight forward. I found that the information presented through Telnet was sparse yet effective, giving me all the details to find the books in the actual library. On further exploration I found that there were a number of features which further helped enhance the search.

While this particular search method was effective and extremely quick, it was frustrating to not have a visual reference or even advanced search options that we take for granted with graphical interfaces. Telnet also lacked any feature for me to check out or borrow a book as many modern web based library interfaces now do. It is from this perspective I found the experience seriously lacking, as I was unable to self serve as I have grown used to on the internet.

This task has given me further understanding of some of the underlying technologies of the internet and their evolution. It was interesting to find that the Telnet protocol was developed in 1969 and while in limited use today, it still has some practical uses as a troubleshooting tool for remote servers and as another resource to search for information.