Letters to the editor (or the world) A newsgroup is an online discussion group and one of the oldest parts of the Web, but many newcomers are unaware of its existence. People with similar interests post messages to a newsgroup, others respond, and a conversation develops. One of the largest collections of newsgroups was called Usenet, which is still in existence today, but in a transformed state. As the Web gained popularity, most newsgroups migrated to a Web-based format, easily accessible from any browser.
Today there are tens of thousands of newsgroups, devoted to almost every conceivable topic, from Asian cookery, to breast implants, to superstring theory.
The easiest way to discover the world of newsgroups is to point your browser to groups.google.com There you'll find Google's collection of Usenet discussion forums. Google took on the job of storing the archives of Usenet, and you can search these archives just as you would search the Web. To find a local letters to the editor-type discussion, search for one called nz.general
Google's Groups include both active and inactive (archived) newsgroups. If you want nothing but the latest groups, try Yahoo! and MSN. Each is host to tens of thousands of newsgroups, Yahoo! at groups.yahoo.com and MSN at groups.msn.com Many companies also provide their own forums, especially useful when you're searching for an answer to a technical problem. For example, you'll find Microsoft technical newsgroups at communities2.microsoft.com
Google and other Web sites make it easy to access newsgroups, but they're not necessarily the most efficient way to get involved in such groups. You're better off using a dedicated newsreader, which not only makes the process faster and smoother, but also lets you download newsgroup posts so you can read and reply while you're not connected to the Internet. However the newsgroups come through your ISP, so you may not have access to all of them or indeed any, depending on the ISP.
Outlook Express comes with just such a newsgroup reader built in.
To use it, open Outlook Express and go through the following steps:
From the Tools Menu, select Accounts.
Click Add and select News, to create a new newsgroup account.
Follow the prompts in the dialog boxes to set up your new account.
The one tricky step is filling in the address of a NNTP server. That 'NNTP' stands for Network News Transfer Protocol - the set of rules used to communicate newsgroup information across the Internet. A NNTP server is a computer whose job it is to 'serve' newsgroups to other computers, and there are thousands of such dedicated news servers on the Internet. Most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have their own news servers, so check whether your own ISP has provided you with the address of its news server (and a logon ID to give you access). If not, there are plenty of public news servers you can connect to. Microsoft has a bunch of technical support newsgroups at news.microsoft.com For more general newsgroups, one of the largest public news servers is freetext.usenetserver.com - type that address when prompted for the NNTP server name, then click Next, Finish and then Close, to close the Internet Accounts dialog box.
Outlook Express will prompt you to download newsgroups from the news server. If you're connected to the Internet, click Yes and wait while the newsgroup list is downloaded.
To participate in a newsgroup, you must subscribe to it. To do so, scroll through the list of newsgroups and double-click a group to add it to your subscription list, or type a search phrase in the 'Display Newsgroups Which Contain' box to narrow the list. For example, if you're interested in acting, type ‘act' or ‘acting' in the box. When you've finished selecting newsgroups, click OK.
You'll now see the newsgroups you've subscribed to displayed in Outlook Express's folders list; click any newsgroup to download the latest list of messages. Click a message to read it, click the + sign beside a message to see all the responses to that message, click 'Reply Group' on the toolbar to reply to a message publicly, or 'Reply' to reply only to the 'poster' of the message. Click New Post to create your own message.
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RSS While newsgroups have been part of the Internet landscape for many years, a far more recent phenomenon is the proliferation of what are called RSS feeds, which some people suggest stands for 'Really Simple Syndication' or syndicated news content (the way magazines and news agencies share or syndicate their content with other publications).
RSS is a way for one site to allow publication of some of its content on other sites or on users' desktops - news feeds, event listings, headlines, discussion summaries and so on.
RSS has ridden to popularity on the coat-tails of another fairly recent Internet trend: blogging. RSS lets bloggers, amongst others, get their words out to a wider audience and lets you pick and choose the information that is delivered to your desktop. It's an excellent way to winnow the multitude of information available on the Internet and focus on only those areas that really matter to you.
RSS is delivered in the form of 'feeds'. A feed contains 'headlines' organised into content categories or channels. Whenever you see an intriguing headline, you click it to view the full story in your browser.
To get in on the act with RSS, you need a RSS reader, also known as a news aggregator or feed reader. Check out Avant Browser and Blog Navigator on this month's free CD. Another good one is FeedDemon (www.feeddemon.com), a shareware program that is easy to use, with advanced features to help you focus on just those news feeds that interest you. Then there's also NewsDesk (www.wildgrape.net), AmphetaDesk (www.disobey.com/amphetadesk) and the Web-based Bloglines (www.bloglines.com).
With your RSS reader installed, all you need is a source of news feeds. You'll come across news feeds dotted all around the Web - just keep your eyes peeled for little orange buttons labelled RSS or XML. For a more organised approach, try some of the big feed sites such as: BlogStreet (www.blogstreet.com), myRSS (www.myrss.com),
News is Free (www.newsisfree.com) and Syndic8 (www.syndic8.com).
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FTP The Internet contains a remarkable stockpile of files. You can download everything from games, photos, movies and music clips, to updates for your computer and complete software applications.
These downloads are scattered across hundreds of thousands of sites. Download libraries, such as www.downloads.com and www.tucows.com, exist purely to provide access to downloadable files. Other downloads are available only through specific sites.
To download a file, all you need is a Web browser - simply clicking on a downloadable file link will initiate the process. It works, but it's not very efficient.
For more serious downloading, you need a FTP program. FTP stands for 'File Transfer Protocol', a method of sharing files between computers. Many computer companies dedicate entire computers, known as FTP servers, to hosting these files.
Although it's possible to access FTP servers via a browser, it's far more efficient to use a FTP program such as CuteFTP (www.cuteftp.com) or SmartFTP (www.smartftp.com). The advantages of using a FTP program include the ability to download multiple files concurrently and the ability to pause, resume or halt transfers midstream. And because FTP is designed from the ground up to perform file transfers, it's faster and more reliable than the HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) method used by Web browsers.
To access a FTP server you need its address, just as you do with a Web site. But whereas Web site addresses usually start with www, FTP addresses begin with ftp (or, rather , ftp://ftp ). Even without a FTP program installed, you can give this a try from Internet Explorer. For example, to access Adobe's FTP site, open your browser and type ‘ftp.adobe.com' in the address box (Internet Explorer will automatically add the ftp:// prefix for you). You'll see a collection of folders, just as if you'd opened a folder on your own computer. One of the folders is called PUB, the name traditionally given to folders containing files available for public download. Double-click it and take a look at its contents.
The plethora of files on FTP sites, and their cryptic names, can be quite bewildering. If you're not searching for a specific filename, keep an eye out for files named ‘index.txt' or ‘readme.txt'; these often contain descriptions of the files listed in the FTP folder.
To track down FTP sites, visit FileSearching.com (www.filesearching.com). This site lets you search for files stored on FTP servers around the world. You can then access the files using your Web browser, or copy the FTP addresses to use with an FTP client.
P2P
This stands for ‘Peer-to-Peer' and has had bad press because it's mentioned when companies complain about people downloading copyright material like music. In theory, though, it's a way of the future to be able to share all sorts of files with other computer users.
Say, for instance, you're after a copy of a particular song in mp3 audio format and I happen to have a copy on my PC. Using P2P software, you could download the file directly from me.
Chances are, though, that I don't have the file you're after. But if you asked enough people, you're likely to find someone who has it. Enter the P2P network, a far-flung group of millions of people, using the same P2P software and sharing files with one another.
It's true, P2Pers often exchange copyrighted music, software, photos, games and so on. But there are also many legitimate uses for P2P software and in fact, many authors, composers and performers are only too happy to have their music distributed by these informal networks.
The real difficulty with P2P is that sharing files in this manner makes you an easy target for computer viruses. Also, many of the P2P programs come packaged with adware or spyware that monitors your computer activities. If you plan to give P2P a try, make sure you have up-to-date anti-virus software installed and use a spyware detector such as Spybot Search & Destroy (www.safer-networking.org/en/download) or Ad-Aware (www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware).
One popular peer-to-peer program is Emule (www.emule-project.net).
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Useful Site
Looking for a public news server? Visit Newzbot (www.newzbot.com). There you can perform a search for a newsgroup on a particular topic. You can access the newsgroups directly via your browser or copy the news server address and use it to subscribe to the newsgroup in your newsgroup reader.
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Tips
Newsgroup 'spam'
Your Inbox is not the only place you'll find unwanted junk. Many newsgroups suffer from their own version of spam - unrelated, offensive and commercial posts. That's one good reason to try out the groups on sites such as Yahoo! and MSN, where many are controlled by a moderator who helps eliminate such garbage.
What's a protocol?
Protocol is one of those terms that pops up regularly when talking about the Internet. HTTP and FTP are two such protocols. A protocol is a set of rules for passing data from one device to another. Protocols determine such things as the type of error checking and compression used, and establish methods for the receiving device to acknowledge it has received a packet of data, and for the sending device to indicate when it has finished sending data.
Anonymous FTP
If you're prompted for an ID and password when accessing an FTP site, try ‘anonymous' for the ID and give your email address as your password - this combination will frequently give you access to what are called 'anonymous FTP servers'. However, some sites have restricted access; for those you'll need an ID and password provided by the site's administrator.
Looking for a good non-Microsoft newsgroup reader?
Try Free Agent or the more impressive Agent 2.0 (www.forteinc.com/agent). Both are excellent newsreaders; the latter provides advanced features such as a newsgroup spam filter.
RSS via Opera
An alternative to getting a dedicated feed reader is to use the Opera browser (www.opera.com). As soon as you hit a site containing a RSS feed, click the RSS button and Opera will display the feed in a separate two-paned window, with the news items listed at the top and item content displayed at the bottom.
Feeds
One way to add feeds to FeedDemon and many other feed readers is to capture the address of any news feed you find online. Whenever you come across a feed identified by an orange button labelled RSS or XML, right-click the button and choose 'Copy Shortcut' to grab the address. In FeedDemon, you can then paste that address into the New Channel wizard.