Not a dream. It's LDAP lookup in a browser input line, and I believe it's
in the upcoming 4.5 version of Netscape. And a good thing too.

Simon

At 10:10 24/06/98 +1000, Paul Brooks wrote:
>> .blah.aus, .au.com, disney.au all don't make sense to me. I like to be
>> able to guess at a company name and take a plunge at company.com.au. If 
>> I have to start trying company.com.au, company.au.com, company.com.aus,
>> company.au, company.aus. I already find it a little irritating that
>> companies and organizations I want to connect to may be in .com, .net,
>> .com.au, or .org.
>> 
>> 	Lets keep it simple and hierachical like it currently mostly is.
>
>Robert, while your comments are also echoed by most users, the answer 
>long term is not to keep everything hierarchical so names are easy to 
>guess. The DNS is not a directory service - unfortunately, guessing is 
>currently the best we have, or consulting a search engine first, since a 
>real directory service doesn't exist yet. People are working on this 
>problem too though, and when one is available the requirement for names 
>being easy to guess should largely disappear.
>
>*dream on*
>
>future 'browers' will have an extended URL box which allows a person to 
>type in a generic name (say 'Global One' for example) and a drop-down menu 
>to select amongst services ('web server', 'ftp server', 'commerce server', 
>etc). The software in the background first uses the directory 
>protocol to find the DNS name of 'Global One's' (x) service (which could 
>be non-obvious, like 'web13.go.net.net.net' - it doesn't matter, the 
>public never see it) and then uses DNS to resolve the name to an IP 
>address, and connects to that IP address.
>
>In the case of there being more than one 'Global One', the first lookup 
>pops up a selection box listing
>'Global One Touch - security equipment supplier - Zimbabwe'
>'Global One Communications - telecommunications - Australia'
>'Global One Communications - telecommunications - USA'
>'Harry's Global Onega Pump Supplies - pool accessories - UK'
>etc.
>
>and the user clicks on one.
>
>* dream off *
>
>---
>Dr Paul Brooks (PB94)     | pbrooks§gip.net / Paul.Brooks§GlobalOne.net
>Manager, Data Operations  | Ph. +61 2 9290 9000   Fax. +61 2 9290 9092
>Global One Communications | 
>Sydney, Australia         | Founding Member:Internet Society of Australia
>
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---
Simon Hackett, Technical Director, Internode Systems Pty Ltd
31 York St [PO Box 284, Rundle Mall], Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia
Email: simon§internode.com.au  Web: http://www.on.net
Phone: +61-8-8223-2999          Fax: +61-8-8223-1777