Chapter 6: Telnet (4 of 6) -- FINGER

     This is a handy little program which lets you tell others more
about you -- and which you can sometimes use to find out more about
people whose names you see on the Net.
     It uses the same concept as telnet or  ftp . But it works with only
one file, called .plan (yes, with a period in front).  This is a text
file you create with a text editor in your home directory.  You can put
your phone number in there, or your address, or anything at all.
     To finger somebody else's .plan file, type this at the command
line:

     finger email-address

where email-address is the person's e-mail address.  You'll get back a
display that shows the last time the person was online, whether
they've gotten any new mail since that time and what, if anything, is
in their .plan file.
     Some people and institutions have come up with creative uses for
these .plan files, letting you do everything from checking the weather
in Massachusetts to getting the latest baseball standings.  Try
fingering these e-mail addresses:

weather@cirrus.mit.edu            Latest National Weather Service weather
                                  forecasts for regions in Massachusetts.

quake@geophys.washington.edu      Locations and magnitudes of recent
                                  earthquakes around the world.

jtchern@ocf.berkeley.edu          Current major-league baseball standings and
                                  results of the previous day's games.

nasanews@space.mit.edu            The day's events at NASA.