When the VCR was first invented, pundits predicted wholesale time shifting of TV programs. That hasn't happened, and many VCRs still blink 12:00, their timed recording features unknown by the majority of their owners. A similar thing is happening on the web with a whole new category of products called off-line browsers. The notion is why surf in real-time when you can set the recording features of these products and come in the next morning to see all your collected pages residing on your hard disk? You remove waiting for graphics-intensive pages, and add the functionality of being able to do demonstrations or surf the web when you are traveling in a plane.
Well, like the blinking VCR, I think that off-line browsers are a category destined for underuse, and largely for the same reasons. First off, navigating the web is hard enough when you are just trying to figure out hyperlinks, let alone combining the user interface of your browser and these add-on products. Second, most people enjoy the feeling of coming across a new page without any forethought or planning -- offline browsing won't help here. And finally these products are limited in terms of the operating system platforms and browser versions supported. Each product supports a different subversion and series of browsers -- you'll need to examine the mix of which versions you have in your corporation. If your users are still stuck on version 1 of Navigator, for example, they will have to upgrade to a more recent copy.
Part of the problem is that you almost have to understand how a particular webmaster has set up his or her site, down to how the files are organized and how the links relate to other files and graphical elements. Few web sites have available a table of contents, a road map as it were, making it hard to understand what portion of the site you want to download to your local disk. (Infoworld's web site is a notable exception -- their map is quite nice.) Part of the problem is that these products make use of HTML interfaces which can be frustratingly terse. And part of the problem is that we don't really want to learn how to do this at all -- you'll need to understand not only the site, but timing the various downloads as well as being able to make the products work on both LAN and dial-up Internet connections if you want to move your laptop accordingly. I am reminded of how often I have set my own VCR to record the right program but on the wrong day.
I tested three products that do off-line browsing: WebEx (formerly MilkTruck) from Traveling Software, WebWhacker from ForeFront Group, Inc. and OM-Express from OpenMarket. WebEx is only for Windows 95. WebWhacker works on both Windows 95 and NT, while OM-Express works on all Windows platforms. I tried all three on Windows 95, and tested both WebWhacker and OM-Express on NT 3.5.1 as well. All work with Microsoft and Netscape browsers, but I only tried them using Netscape's.
Both WebEx and OM-Express come with a set of websites already analyzed and setup ready to surf: included are references to websites from PC Week, the New York Times, Dilbert, ESPNet SportsZone, and HotWired among others. For WebEx, the sites are called "recommended" and are listed on a single page of HTML. For OM-Express, these sites are arranged in a separate "explorer"-like window with hierarchical folders and levels: while a bit easier to display, you have to switch back and forth between this window and your browser. WebWhacker doesn't come with any pre-configured sites: you have to "whack" (their term for collecting the pages to your disk) on your own.
I ran into trouble with both WebWhacker and WebEx, which both kept crashing my otherwise stable version of Netscape on my Windows 95 machine. Both also would give me messages such as "site busy" or "connection refused" -- messages that were wrong when I tried connecting to these same sites at the same time without any off-line browser on another machine on my network. OM-Express didn't have either problem.
When it comes to keeping track of what information you have downloaded to your disk, the products provide varying levels of feedback as to their progress: WebEx has a small window that tells you only the briefest of information, such as the number of files that are still being downloaded to your disk, and WebWhacker doesn't do much better. OM-Express has more detailed status displays, providing the duration of the download from the sites you specified, and the date and time of the download.
All three products have ways to schedule which pages you want when, and this gets back to my VCR analogy. WebEx's scheduler is limited to every weekday at specific times (you have your choice of 2 am, 5 am or pm, or 9 am), daily at 8 am or midnight, and every hour on the hour. OM-Express has lots more scheduling flexibility, although it can get complicated setting this all up. WebWhacker can schedule things for one specific time daily or weekly.
Do all three products work? Yes: once you figure out what you need, you can take the web with you (or at least the portion of it you have specified). Of the three, the user interface I had the least trouble with was OM-Express, although I still didn't take to it completely. I found myself turning away from all three off-line browsers more than using any of them -- and this is after I've already learned how to time shift my favorite TV programs.
WebWhacker v 2.0 (preview edition tested) ForeFront Group, Inc. Houston, TX 77056 713 961 1101 713 961 1149 fax http://www.ffg.com Price: $49.95 Platform: Available now for Windows 95 and NT. Coming soon for Windows 3.1 and Macintosh. Browsers include Explorer v 2 or better, Navigator v 2 or better, and Mosaic v 1.1b3 or better.
WebEx v. 1.0 (shipping version tested) Travelling Software, Inc. Bothell Wash. 206 483 8088 fax 206 487 1284 http://www.travsoft.com price: $29.95 Platform: Windows 95, Netscape Navigator 1.2 or better, Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0 or better
OM-Express v. 1.0 (beta 5 was tested) Open Market, Inc. Cambridge, MA 617 621 9500 fax 617 621 1703 http://www.openmarket.com/express price: $29.95 Platforms: Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 3.1x with Netscape Navigator v 2.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer v 2.0 or better