s sort of like making a local phone call - you didn't have to dial a 1 or an area code. This also works for mail to anybody else who has an account on the same system as you. Sending mail outside of your system, though, will require the use of the Net equivalent of area codes, called "domains." A basic Net address will look something like this: tomg@world.std.com Tomg is somebody's user ID, and he is at (hence the @ sign) a site or "domain" known as std.com. Large organizations often have more than one computer linked to the Internet; in this case, the name of the particular machine is world (you will quickly notice that, like boat owners, Internet computer owners always name their machines). Domains tell you the name of the organization that runs a given e-mail site and what kind of site it is or, if it's not in the U.S., what country it's located in. Large organizations may have more than one computer or gateway tied to the Internet, so you'll often see a two-part domain name; and sometimes even three- or four-part domain names. In general, American addresses end in an organizational suffix, such as ".edu," which means the site is at a college or university. Other American suffixes include: `.com' for businesses `.org' for non-profit organizations `.gov' `.mil' for government and military agencies `.net' for companies or organizations that run large networks. Sites in the rest of the world tend to use a two-letter code that represents their country. Most make sense, such as `.ca' for Canadian sites, but there are a couple of seemingly odd ones, at least if you don't know the ISO 3166 standard international abbreviations. (*note Country Codes::. for a list of the rest of the world.) E.g., swiss sites end in `.ch' (Confederatio Helvetica), German sites end in `.de' (DEutschland), while South African ones end in `.za' (ZuidAfricaans is the language spoken in this country, derived from Dutch). Some smaller U.S. sites are beginning to follow this international convention (such as `unixland.natick.ma.us'). You'll notice that the above addresses are all in lower-case. Unlike almost everything else having anything at all to do with Unix, Most Net mailing systems don't care about case, so you can capitalize names if you want, but you generally don't have to. Alas, there are a few exceptions - some public-access sites do allow for capital letters in user names. When in doubt, ask the person you want to write to, or let her send you a message first (recall how a person's e-mail address is usually found on the top of her message). The domain name, the part of the address after the @ sign, never has to be capitalized. It's all a fairly simple system that works very well, except, again, it's vital to get the address exactly right - just as you have to dial a phone number exactly right. Send a message to `tomg@unm.edu' (which is the University of New Mexico) when you meant to send it to `tomg@umn.edu' (the University of Minnesota), and your letter will either bounce back to you undelivered, or go to the wrong person. If your message is bounced back to you as undeliverable, you'll get an ominous looking-message from MAILER-DAEMON (actually a rather benign Unix program that exists to handle mail), with an evil-looking header followed by the text of your message. Sometimes, you can tell what went wrong by looking at the first few lines of the bounced message. Besides an incorrect address, it's possible your host system does not have the other site in the "map" it maintains of other host systems. Or you could be trying to send mail to another network, such as Bitnet or CompuServe, that has special addressing requirements. Sometimes, figuring all this out can prove highly frustrating. But remember the prime Net commandment: Ask. Send a message to your system administrator. He or she might be able to help decipher the problem. There is one kind of address that may give your host system particular problems. There are two main ways that Unix systems exchange mail. One is known as UUCP and started out with a different addressing system than the rest of the Net. Most UUCP systems have since switched over to the standard Net addressing system, but a few traditional sites still cling to their original type, which tends to have lots of exclamation points in it, like this: uunet!somesite!othersite!mybuddy The problem for many host sites is that exclamation points (also known as "bangs") now mean something special in the more common systems or "shells" used to operate many Unix computers. This means that addressing mail to such a site (or even responding to a message you received from one) could confuse the poor computer to no end and your message never gets sent out. If that happens, try putting "forward" backslashes in front of each exclamation point, so that you get an address that looks like this: uunet\!somesite\!othersite\!mybuddy Note that this means you may not be able to respond to such a message by typing a lower-case `r' - you may get an error message and you'll have to create a brand-new message. If you want to get a taste of what's possible through e-mail, start an e-mail message to almanac@oes.orst.edu Leave the "subject:" line blank. As a message, write this: send quote Or, if you're feeling a little down, write this instead: send moral-support In either case, you will get back a message within a few seconds to a few hours (depending on the state of your host system's Internet connection). If you simply asked for a quote, you'll get back a fortune-cookie-like saying. If you asked for moral support, you'll also get back a fortune-cookie-like saying, only supposedly more uplifting. This particular "mail server" is run by Oregon State University. Its main purpose is actually to provide a way to distribute agricultural information via e-mail. If you'd like to find out how to use the server's full range of services, send a message to the above address with this line in it: send help You'll quickly get back a lengthy document detailing just what's available and how to get it. The "mail" program is actually a very powerful one and a Netwide standard, at least on Unix computers. But it can be hard to figure out - you can type a question mark to get a list of commands, but these may be of limited use unless you're already familiar with Unix. Fortunately, there are a couple of other mail programs that are easier to use. åLí === Elm is a combination mailbox and letter-writing system that uses menus to help you navigate through mail. Most Unix-based host systems now have it online. To use it, type elm and hit enter. You'll get a menu of your waiting mail, along with a list of commands you can execute, that will look something like this: Mailbox is '/usr/spool/mail/adamg' with 38 messages [ELM 2.3 PL11] 1 Sep 1 Christopher Davis (13) here's another message. 2 Sep 1 Christopher Davis (91) This is a message from Eudora 3 Aug 31 Rita Marie Rouvali (161) First Internet Hunt !!! (fwd) 4 Aug 31 Peter Scott/Manage (69) New File University of Londo 5 Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (64) New File X.500 service at A 6 Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (39) New File DATAPAC Informatio 7 Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (67) Proposed Usenet group for HYTELNET n 8 Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (56) New File JANET Public Acces 9 Aug 26 Helen Trillian Ros (15) Tuesday 10 Aug 26 Peter Scott/Manage (151) Update Oxford University OU You can use any of the following commands by pressing the first character; d)elete or u)ndelete mail, m)ail a message, r)eply or f)orward mail, q)uit To read a message, press . j = move down, k = move up, ? = help Each line shows the date you received the message, who sent it, how many lines long the message is, and the message's subject. If you are using VT100 emulation, you can move up and down the menu with your up and down arrow keys. Otherwise, type the line number of the message you want to read or delete and hit enter. When you read a message, it pauses every 24 lines, instead of scrolling until it's done. Hit the space bar to read the next page. You can type a lower-case "r" to reply or a lower-case "q" or "i" to get back to the menu (the I stands for "index"). At the main menu, hitting a lower-case "m" followed by enter will let you start a message. To delete a message, type a lower-case "d". You can do this while reading the message. Or, if you are in the menu, move the cursor to the message's line and then hit D. When you're done with Elm, type a lower-case "q". The program will ask if you really want to delete the messages you marked. Then, it will ask you if you want to move any messages you've read but haven't marked for deletion to a "received" file. For now, hit your n key. Elm has a major disadvantage for the beginner. The default text editor it generally calls up when you hit your "r" or "m" key is often a program called emacs. Unixoids swear by emacs, but everybody else almost always finds it impossible. Unfortunately, you can't always get away from it (or vi, another text editor often found on Unix systems), so later on we'll talk about some basic commands that will keep you from going totally nuts. òINå ==== Pine is based on elm but includes a number of improvements that make it an ideal mail system for beginners. Like elm, pine starts you with a menu. It also has an "address book" feature that is handy for people with long or complex e-mail addresses. Hitting A at the main menu puts you in the address book, where you can type in the person's first name (or nickname) followed by her address. Then, when you want to send that person a message, you only have to type in her first name or nickname, and pine automatically inserts her actual address. The address book also lets you set up a mailing list. This feature allows you to send the same message to a number of people at once. What really sets pine apart is its built-in text editor, which looks and feels a lot more like word-processing programs available for MS-DOS and Macintosh users. Not only does it have word wrap (a revolutionary concept if ever there was one, it also has a rwspell-checker and a search command. Best of all, all of the commands you need are listed in a two-line mini-menu at the bottom of each screen. The commands look like this: ^W Where is The little caret is a synonym for the key marked "control" on your keyboard. To find where a particular word is in your document, you'd hit your control key and your W key at the same time, which would bring up a prompt asking you for the word to look for. Some of pine's commands are a tad peculiar (control-V for "page down" for example), which comes from being based on a variant of emacs (which is utterly peculiar). But again, all of the commands you need are listed on that two-line mini-menu, so it shouldn't take you more than a couple of seconds to find the right one. To use pine, type pine at the command line and hit enter. It's a relatively new program, so many systems do not yet have it online. But it's so easy to use, you should probably send e-mail to your system administrator urging him to get it! Smileys ======= When you're involved in an online discussion, you can't see the smiles or shrugs that the other person might make in a live conversation to show he's only kidding. But online, there's no body language. So what you might think is funny, somebody else might take as an insult. To try to keep such misunderstandings from erupting into bitter disputes, we have smileys. Tilt your head to the left and look at the following sideways. `:-)'. Or simply `:)'. This is your basic "smiley." Use it to indicate people should not take that comment you just made as seriously as they might otherwise. You make a smiley by typing a colon, a hyphen and a right parenthetical bracket. Some people prefer using the word "grin," usually in this form: Sometimes, though, you'll see it as *grin* or even just for short. Some other smileys include: `;-)' Wink; `:-(' Frown; `:-O' Surprise; `8-)' Wearing glasses; `=|:-)=' Abe Lincoln. OK, so maybe the last two are a little bogus `:-)'. Seven UNIX Commands you can't live without: =========================================== If you connect to the Net through a Unix system, eventually you'll have to come to terms with Unix. For better or worse, most Unix systems do NOT shield you from their inner workings - if you want to copy a Usenet posting to a file, for example, you'll have to use some Unix commands if you ever want to do anything with that file. Like MS-DOS, Unix is an operating system - it tells the computer how to do things. Now while Unix may have a reputation as being even more complex than MS-DOS, in most cases, a few basic, and simple, commands should be all you'll ever need. If your own computer uses MS-DOS or PC-DOS, the basic concepts will seem very familiar - but watch out for the cd command, which works differently enough from the similarly named DOS command that it will drive you crazy. Also, unlike MS-DOS, Unix is case sensitive - if you type commands or directory names in the wrong case, you'll get an error message. If you're used to working on a Mac, you'll have to remember that Unix stores files in "directories" rather than "folders." Unix directories are organized like branches on a tree. At the bottom is the "root" directory, with sub-directories branching off that (and sub-directories in turn can have sub-directories). The Mac equivalent of a Unix sub-directory is a folder within another folder. `cat' Equivalent to the MS-DOS "type" command. To pause a file every screen, type `cat file |more', better: `more file', where "file" is the name of the file you want to see. Hitting control-C will stop the display. You can also use `cat' for writing or uploading text files to your name or home directory (similar to the MS-DOS `copy con:' command). If you type `cat >test' you start a file called "test." You can either write something simple (no editing once you've finished a line and you have to hit return at the end of each line) or upload something into that file using your communications software's ASCII protocol). To close the file, hit control-D. `cd' The "change directory" command. To change from your present directory to another, type `cd directory' and hit enter. Unlike MS-DOS, which uses a \ to denote sub-directories (for example: procomm\text), Unix uses a / (for example: procomm/text). So to change from your present directory to the procomm/text sub-directory, you would type `cd procomm/text' and then hit enter. As in MS-DOS, you do not need the first backslash if the subdirectory comes off the directory you're already in. To move back up a directory tree, you would type `cd ..' followed by enter. Note the space between the `cd' and the two periods - this is where MS-DOS users will really go nuts. `cp' Copies a file. The syntax is `cp file1 file2' which would copy file1 to file2 (or overwrite file2 with file1). `ls' This command, when followed by enter, tells you what's in the directory, similar to the DOS `dir' command, except in alphabetical order. `ls |more' will stop the listing every 24 lines - handy if there are a lot of things in the directory. The basic ls command does not list "hidden" files, such as the `.login' file that controls how your system interacts with Unix. To see these files, type `ls -a' or `ls -a |more' `ls -l' will tell you the size of each file in bytes and tell you when each was created or modified. `mv' Similar to the MS-DOS rename command. In fact, `mv file1 file2' will rename file1 as file2, The command can also be used to move files between directories. `mv file1 News' would move file1 to your News directory. `rm' Deletes a file. Type `rm filename' and hit enter (but beware: when you hit enter, it's gone for good). Wildcards --------- When searching for, copying or deleting files, you can use "wildcards" if you are not sure of the file's exact name. ls man* would find the following files: manual, manual.txt, man-o-man. Use a question mark when you're sure about all but one or two characters. For example, ls man? would find a file called mane, but not one called manual. å-Mail to other Networks ======================== There are a number of computer networks that are not directly tied to the Net, but to which you can still send e-mail messages. Here's a list of some of the larger networks, how to send mail to them and how their users can send mail to you: America Online -------------- Remove any spaces from a user's name and append `@aol.com', to get user@aol.com America Online users who want to send mail to you need only put your Net address in the "to:" field before composing a message. ATTMail ------- Address your message to . From ATTMail, a user would send mail to you in this form: internet!domain!user So if your address were , your correspondent would send a message to you at internet!world.std.com!adamg Bitnet ------ Users of Bitnet (and NetNorth in Canada and EARN in Europe) often have addresses in this form: . If you're lucky, all you'll have to do to mail to that address is add "bitnet" at the end, to get . Sometimes, however, mail to such an address will bounce back to you, because Bitnet addresses do not always translate well into an Internet form. If this happens, you can send mail through one of two Internet/Bitnet gateways. First, change the `@' in the address to a `%', so that you get . Then add either `@vm.marist.edu' or `@cunyvm.cuny.edu', so that, with the above example, you would get or Bitnet users have it a little easier: They can usually send mail directly to your e-mail address without fooling around with it at all. So send them your address and they should be OK. CompuServe ---------- CompuServe users have numerical addresses in this form: `73727,545'. To send mail to a CompuServe user, change the comma to a period and add `@compuserve.com'; for example: <73727.545@compuserve.com>. If you know CompuServe users who want to send you mail, tell them to GO MAIL and create a mail message. In the address area, instead of typing in a CompuServe number, have them type your address in this form: >INTERNET:YourID@YourAddress. For example, `>INTERNET:adamg@world.std.com'. Note that both the `>' and the `:' are required. Delphi ------ To send mail to a Delphi user, the form is . Fidonet ------- To send mail to somebody who uses a Fidonet BBS, you need the name they use to log onto that system and its "node number." Fidonet node numbers or addresses consist of three numbers, in this form: `1:322/190'. The first number tells which of three broad geographic zones the BBS is in (1 represents the U.S. and Canada, 2 Europe and Israel, 3 Pacific Asia, 4 South America). The second number represents the BBS's network, while the final number is the BBS's "FidoNode" number in that network. If your correspondent only gives you two numbers (for example, `322/190'), it means the system is in zone 1. Now comes the tricky part. You have to reverse the numbers and add to them the letters `f', `n' and `z' (which stand for "FidoNode," "network," and "zone'). For example, the address above would become f190.n322. Now add `fidonet.org' at the end, to get `f190.n322. z1.fidonet.org'. Then add `First Name.LastName@', to get FirstName.LastName@f190.n322.z1.fidonet.org. Note the period between the first and last names. Whew! The reverse process is totally different. First, the person has to have access to his or her BBS's "net mail" area and know the Fidonet address of his or her local Fidonet/UUCP gateway (often their system operator will know it). Your Fidonet correspondent should address a net-mail message to UUCP (not your name) in the "to:" field. In the node-number field, they should type in the node number of the Fidonet/UUCP gateway (if the gateway system is in the same regional network as their system, they need only type the last number, for example, `390' instead of `322/390'). Then, the first line of the message has to be your Internet address, followed by a blank line. After that, the person can write the message and send it. Because of the way Fidonet moves mail, it could take a day or two for a message to be delivered in either direction. Also, because many Fidonet systems are run as hobbies, it is considered good form to ask the gateway sysop's permission if you intend to pass large amounts of mail back and forth. Messages of a commercial nature are strictly forbidden (even if it's something the other person asked for). Also, consider it very likely that somebody other than the recipient will read your messages. GEnie ----- To send mail to a GEnie user, add `@genie.geis.com' to the end of their GEnie user name, for example: . Unlike users of other networks, however, GEnie users can receive mail from Internet only if they pay an extra monthly charge. MCIMail ------- To send mail to somebody with an MCIMail account, add `@mcimail.com' to the end of their name or numerical address. For example: 555-1212@mcimail.com or jsmith@mcimail.com Note that if there is more than one MCIMail subscriber with that name, you will get a mail message back from MCI giving you their names and numerical addresses. You'll then have to figure out which one you want and re-send the message. From MCI, a user would type: *Your Name* `(EMS)' at the "To:" prompt. At the EMS prompt, he or she would type `internet' followed by your Net address at the "Mbx:" prompt. Peacenet -------- To send mail to a Peacenet user, use this form: username@igc.org Peacenet subscribers can use your regular address to send you mail. Prodigy ------- . Note that Prodigy users must pay extra for Internet e-mail. When things go wrong: ===================== * You send a message but get back an ominous looking message from MAILER-DAEMON containing up to several dozen lines of computerese followed by your message. Somewhere in those lines you can often find a clue to what went wrong. You might have made a mistake in spelling the e-mail address. The site to which you're sending mail might have been down for maintenance or a problem. You may have used the wrong "translation" for mail to a non-Internet network. * You call up your host system's text editor to write a message or reply to one and can't seem to get out. If it's emacs, try control-X, control-C (in other words, hit your control key and your X key at the same time, followed by control and C). If worse comes to worse, you can hang up. * In Elm, you accidentally hit the D key for a message you want to save. Type the number of the message, hit enter and then U, which will "un-delete" the message. This works only before you exit Elm; once you quit, the message is gone. * You try to upload an ASCII message you've written on your own computer into a message you're preparing in Elm or Pine and you get a lot of left brackets, capital Ms, Ks and Ls and some funny-looking characters. Believe it or not, your message will actually wind up looking fine; all that garbage is temporary and reflects the problems some Unix text processors have with ASCII uploads. But it will take much longer for your upload to finish. One way to deal with this is to call up the simple mail program, which will not produce any weird characters when you upload a text file into a message. Another way (which is better if your prepared message is a response to somebody's mail), is to create a text file on your host system with cat, for example, cat >file and then upload your text into that. Then, in Elm or Pine, you can insert the message with a simple command (control-r in Pine, for example); only this time you won't see all that extraneous stuff. FYI: ==== SCOTT YANOFF posts a very long list of existing cross-connections of almost any sub-nets to "newsgroups" (*note Global Watering Hole::. for an explanation of this term) `comp.mail', `comp.answers', and `news.answers'. Just to mention a few: AppleLink, BIX, GreeNet, MausNet, SprintMail, etc. Get your hands on the `inter-network-guide', that's kept on `rtfm.mit.edu' in directory `pub/usenet/comp.mail'. *Note Advanced E-mail:: or *Note FTP:: to find out how to access this Internet treasure chest. *"...and the first lesson is: Never lose the alternative way out of sight."* -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle *"If all else fails, read the manual."* -- PC Wizard *"If all else fails, read the manual page."* -- Unix Wizard  * Usenet: the Global Watering Hole *  ******************************** Imagine a conversation carried out over a period of hours and days, as if people were leaving messages and responses on a bulletin board. Or imagine the electronic equivalent of a radio talk show where everybody can put their two cents in and no one is ever on hold. Unlike e-mail, which is "one-to-one," Usenet is "many-to-many." Usenet is the international meeting place, where people gather to meet their friends, discuss the day's events, keep up with computer trends or talk about whatever's on their mind. Jumping into a Usenet discussion can be a liberating experience. Nobody knows what you look or sound like, how old you are, what your background is. You're judged solely on your words, your ability to make a point. To many people, Usenet IS the Net. In fact, it is often confused with Internet. But it is a totally separate system. All Internet sites CAN carry Usenet, but so do many non-Internet sites, from sophisticated Unix machines to old XTs and Apple IIs. Technically, Usenet messages are shipped around the world, from host system to host system, using one of several specific Net protocols. Your host system stores all of its Usenet messages in one place, which everybody with an account on the system can access. That way, no matter how many people actually read a given message, each host system has to store only one copy of it. Many host systems "talk" with several others regularly in case one or another of their links goes down for some reason. When two host systems connect, they basically compare notes on which Usenet messages they already have. Any that one is missing the other then transmits, and vice-versa. Because they are computers, they don't mind running through thousands, even millions, of these comparisons every day. Yes, millions. For Usenet is huge. Every day, Usenet users pump upwards of 25 million characters a day into the system - roughly the equivalent of volumes A-E of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Obviously, nobody could possibly keep up with this immense flow of messages. Let's look at how to find messages of interest to you. Newsgroup Hierarchies ===================== The basic building block of Usenet is the newsgroup, which is a collection of messages with a related theme (on other networks, these would be called conferences, forums, bboards or special-interest groups). There are now more than 4,500 of these newsgroups. With so many newsgroups, it can be hard finding ones of interest to you. We'll start off by showing you how to get into some of the more interesting or useful newsgroups so you can get a feel for how it all works. Some public-access systems try to make it easier by dividing Usenet into several broad categories. Choose one of those and you're given a list of newsgroups in that category. Then select the newsgroup you're interested in and start reading. Other systems let you compile your own "reading list" so that you only see messages in conferences you want. In both cases, conferences are arranged in a particular hierarchy devised in the early 1980s. Newsgroup names start with one of a series of broad topic names. For example, newsgroups beginning with "comp." are about particular computer-related topics. These broad topics are followed by a series of more focused topics (so that `comp.unix' groups are limited to discussion about Unix). The main hierarchies are: `bionet' Research biology `bit.listserv' Conferences originating as Bitnet mailing lists `biz' Business `comp' Computers and related subjects `misc' Discussions that don't fit anywhere else `news' News about Usenet itself `rec' Hobbies, games and recreation `sci' Science other than research biology `soc' "Social" groups, often ethnically related `talk' Politics and related topics `alt' Controversial or unusual topics; not carried by all sites In addition, many host systems carry newsgroups for a particular city, state or region. For example, `ne.housing' is a newsgroup where New Englanders look for apartments. A growing number also carry K12 newsgroups, which are aimed at elementary and secondary teachers and students. And a number of sites carry clari newsgroups, which is actually a commercial service consisting of wire-service stories and a unique online computer news service (*note News of the World::.). How do you dive right in? On the Free-Net and some other systems, it's all done through menus - you just keep choosing from a list of choices until you get to the newsgroup you want and then hit the "read" command. On Unix systems, however, you will have to use a "newsreader" program. Two of the more common ones are known as rn (for "read news") and nn (for "no news" - because it's supposed to be simpler to use). For beginners, nn may be the better choice because it works with rudimentary menus - you get a list of articles in a given newsgroup and then you choose which ones you want to see. To try it out, connect to your host system and, at the command line, type nn news.announce.newusers and hit enter. After a few seconds, you should see something like this: Newsgroup: news.announce.newusers Articles: 22 of 22/1 NEW a Gene Spafford 776 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions b Gene Spafford 362 A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community c Gene Spafford 387 Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette d Gene Spafford 101 Hints on writing style for Usenet e Gene Spafford 74 Introduction to news.announce f Gene Spafford 367 USENET Software: History and Sources g Gene Spafford 353 What is Usenet? h taylor 241 A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists i Gene Spafford 585 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I j Gene Spafford 455 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II k David C Lawrenc 151 How to Create a New Newsgroup l Gene Spafford 106 How to Get Information about Networks m Gene Spafford 888 List of Active Newsgroups n Gene Spafford 504 List of Moderators o Gene Spafford 1051 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I p Gene Spafford 1123 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II q Gene Spafford 1193 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III r Jonathan Kamens 644 How to become a USENET site s Jonathan Kamen 1344 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part I -- 15:52 -- SELECT -- help:? -----Top 85%----- Explanatory postings for new users. (Moderated) Obviously, this is a good newsgroup to begin your exploration of Usenet! Here's what all this means: The first letter on each line is the letter you type to read that particular "article" (it makes sense that a "newsgroup" would have "articles"). Next comes the name of the person who wrote that article, followed by its length, in lines, and what the article is about. At the bottom, you see the local time at your access site, what you're doing right now (i.e., SELECTing articles), which key to hit for some help (the ? key) and how many of the articles in the newsgroup you can see on this screen. The "(moderated)" means the newsgroup has a "moderator" who is the only one who can directly post messages to it. This is generally limited to groups such as this, which contain articles of basic information or for digests, which are basically online magazines (more on them in a bit). Say you're particularly interested in what "Emily Postnews" (*note Dear Emily::.) has to say about proper etiquette on Usenet. Hit your c key (lower case!), and the line will light up. If you want to read something else, hit the key that corresponds to it. And if you want to see what's on the next page of articles, hit return or your space bar. But you're impatient to get going, and you want to read that article now. The command for that in nn is a capital Z. Hit it and you'll see something like this: Gene Spafford: Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette Original-author: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) Archive-name: emily-postnews/part1 Last-change: 30 Nov 91 by brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) **NOTE: this is intended to be satirical. If you do not recognize it as such, consult a doctor or professional comedian. The recommendations in this article should recognized for what they are -- admonitions about what NOT to do. ``Dear Emily Postnews'' Emily Postnews, foremost authority on proper net behaviour, gives her advice on how to act on the net. ========================================================================= Dear Miss Postnews: How long should my signature be? -- verbose@noisy A: Dear Verbose: Please try and make your signature as long as you -- 09:57 --.announce.newusers-- LAST --help:?--Top 4%-- The first few lines are the message's header, similar to the header you get in e-mail messages. Then comes the beginning of the message. The last line tells you the time again, the newsgroup name (or part of it, anyway), the position in your message stack that this message occupies, how to get help, and how much of the message is on screen. If you want to keep reading this message, just hit your space bar (not your enter key!) for the next screen and so on until done. When done, you'll be returned to the newsgroup menu. For now hit Q (upper case this time), which quits you out of nn and returns you to your host system's command line. To get a look at another interesting newsgroup, type nn comp.risks and hit enter. This newsgroup is another moderated group, this time a digest of all the funny and frightening ways computers and the people who run and use them can go wrong. Again, you read articles by selecting their letters. If you're in the middle of an article and decide you want to go onto the next one, hit your n key. Now it's time to look for some newsgroups that might be of particular interest to you. Unix host systems that have nn use a program called nngrep (ever get the feeling Unix was not entirely written in English?) that lets you scan newsgroups. Exit nn and at your host system's command line, type nngrep word where word is the subject you're interested in. If you use a Macintosh computer, you might try nngrep mac You'll get something that looks like this: alt.music.machines.of.loving.grace alt.religion.emacs comp.binaries.mac comp.emacs comp.lang.forth.mac comp.os.mach comp.sources.mac comp.sys.mac.announce comp.sys.mac.apps comp.sys.mac.comm comp.sys.mac.databases comp.sys.mac.digest comp.sys.mac.games comp.sys.mac.hardware comp.sys.mac.hypercard comp.sys.mac.misc comp.sys.mac.programmer comp.sys.mac.system comp.sys.mac.wanted gnu.emacs.announce gnu.emacs.bug gnu.emacs.gnews gnu.emacs.gnus gnu.emacs.help gnu.emacs.lisp.manual gnu.emacs.sources gnu.emacs.vm.bug gnu.emacs.vm.info gnu.emacs.vms Note that some of these obviously have something to do with Macintoshes while some obviously do not; nngrep is not a perfect system. If you want to get a list of ALL the newsgroups available on your host system, type nngrep -a |more or nngrep -a |pg and hit enter (which one to use depends on the Unix used on your host system; if one doesn't do anything, try the other). You don't absolutely need the |more or |pg, but if you don't include it, the list will keep scrolling, rather than pausing every 24 lines. If you are in nn, hitting a capital Y will bring up a similar list. Typing `nn newsgroup' for every newsgroup can get awfully tiring after awhile. When you use nn, your host system looks in a file called `.newsrc'. This is basically a list of every newsgroup on the host system along with notations on which groups and articles you have read (all maintained by the computer). You can also use this file to create a "reading list" that brings up each newsgroup to which you want to "subscribe." To try it out, type nn without any newsgroup name, and hit enter. Unfortunately, you will start out with a `.newsrc' file that has you "subscribed" to every single newsgroup on your host system! To delete a newsgroup from your reading list, type a capital U while its menu is on the screen. The computer will ask you if you're sure you want to "unsubscribe." If you then hit a Y, you'll be unsubscribed and put in the next group. With many host systems carrying 4,000 or more newsgroups, this will take you forever. Fortunately, there are a couple of easier ways to do this. Both involve calling up your `.newsrc' file in a word or text processor. In a `.newsrc' file, each newsgroup takes up one line, consisting of the group's name, an exclamation point or a colon and a range of numbers. Newsgroups with a colon are ones to which you are subscribed; those followed by an exclamation point are "un-subscribed." To start with a clean slate, then, you have to change all those colons to exclamation points. If you know some UNIX, it's a one-liner, just type: tr ':' '!' < .newsrc > temprc and you're done. Without the `tr' command you must use a text editor. If you know how to use emacs or vi, call up the `.newsrc' file (you might want to make a copy of `.newsrc' first, just in case), and use the search-and-replace function to make the change. If you're not comfortable with these text processors, you can download the `.newsrc' file, make the changes on your own computer and then upload the revised file. Before you download the file, however, you should do a couple of things. One is to type cp .newsrc temprc and hit enter. You will actually download this temprc file (note the name does not start with a period - some computers, such as those using MS-DOS, do not allow file names starting with periods). After you download the file, open it in your favorite word processor and use its search-and-replace function to change the exclamation points to colons. Be careful not to change anything else! Save the document in ASCII or text format. Dial back into your host system. At the command line, type cp temprc temprc1 and hit enter. This new file will serve as your backup `.newsrc' file just in case something goes wrong. Upload the temprc file from your computer. This will overwrite the Unix system's old temprc file. Now type cp temprc .newsrc and hit enter. You now have a clean slate to start creating a reading list. It's a little easier to do this in rn, so let's try that out, and as long as where there, see how it works. If you type rn news.announce.newusers at your host system's command line, you'll see something like this: ******** 21 unread articles in news.announce.newusers--read now? [ynq] If you hit your Y key, the first article will appear on your screen. If you want to see what articles are available first, though, hit your computer's `=' key and you'll get something like this: 152 Introduction to news.announce 153 A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community 154 What is Usenet? 155 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions 156 Hints on writing style for Usenet 158 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I 159 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II 160 Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette 161 USENET Software: History and Sources 162 A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists 163 How to Get Information about Networks 164 How to Create a New Newsgroup 169 List of Active Newsgroups 170 List of Moderators 171 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I 172 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II 173 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III 174 How to become a USENET site 175 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part I 176 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part II 177 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part III End of article 158 (of 178)--what next? [npq] Notice how the messages are in numerical order this time, and don't tell you who sent them. Article 154 looks interesting. To read it, type in 154 and hit enter. You'll see something like this: Article 154 (20 more) in news.announce.newusers (moderated): From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.admin,news.answers Subject: What is Usenet? Date: 20 Sep 92 04:17:26 GMT Followup-To: news.newusers.questions Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 353 Supersedes: Archive-name: what-is-usenet/part1 Original from: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) Last-change: 19 July 1992 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) The first thing to understand about Usenet is that it is widely misunderstood. Every day on Usenet, the ``blind men and the elephant'' phenomenon is evident, in spades. In my opinion, more flame wars arise because of a lack of understanding of the nature of Usenet than from any other source. And consider that such flame wars arise, of necessity, among people who are on Usenet. Imagine, then, how poorly understood Usenet must be by those outside! --MORE--(7%) This time, the header looks much more like the gobbledygook you get in e-mail messages. To keep reading, hit your space bar. If you hit your N key (in lower case), you'll go to the next message in the numerical order. To escape rn, just keep hitting your q key (in lower case), until you get back to the command line. Now let's set up your reading list. Because rn uses the same `.newsrc' file as nn, you can use one of the search-and-replace methods described above. Or you can do this: Type rn and hit enter. When the first newsgroup comes up on your screen, hit your u key (in lower case). Hit it again, and again, and again. Or just keep it pressed down (if your computer starts beeping, let up for a couple of seconds). Unsubscribing from every single group this way could take five or ten minutes. Eventually, you'll be told you're at the end of the newsgroups, and asked what you want to do next. Here's where you begin entering newsgroups. Type g newsgroup (for example, `g comp.sys.mac.announce') and hit enter. You'll be asked if you want to "subscribe." Hit your y key. Then type g next newsgroup (for example, `g comp.announce.newusers') and hit enter. Repeat until done. This process will also set up your reading list for nn, if you prefer that newsreader. But how do you know which newsgroups to subscribe? Typing a lower-case l and then hitting enter will show you a list of all available newsgroups. Again, since there could be more than 2,000 newsgroups on your system, this might not be something you want to do. Fortunately, you can search for groups with particular words in their names, using the l command. Typing l mac followed by enter, will bring up a list of newsgroups with those letters in them (and as in nn, you will also see groups dealing with emacs and the like, in addition to groups related to Macintosh computers). Because of the vast amount of messages transmitted over Usenet, most systems carry messages for only a few days or weeks. So if there's a message you want to keep, you should either turn on your computer's screen capture or save it to a file which you can later download). To save a message as a file in rn, type s filename where filename is what you want to call the file. Hit enter. You'll be asked if you want to save it in "mailbox format." In most cases, you can answer with an n (which will strip off the header). The message will now be saved to a file in your News directory (which you can access by typing `cd News' and then hitting enter). Also, some newsgroups fill up particularly quickly - go away for a couple of days and you'll come back to find hundreds of articles! One way to deal with that is to mark them as "read" so that they no longer appear on your screen. In nn, hit a capital J; in rn, a small c. Where to get Answers? ===================== There are some newsgroups you might want to include in your reading list. The `news. newusers.questions' newsgroup is where newcomers can ask questions about how Usenet works. The newsgroup `news.announce.newsgroups' carries information about new or proposed newsgroups. The `news.answers' newsgroup is a fascinating one and can help you find interesting newsgroups. Many newsgroups have regularly compiled lists of "frequently asked questions" or FAQs related to the newsgroup's particular discussions. The people who write these lists post them in `news.answers'. You'll learn how to fight jet lag in an FAQ from the `rec.travel.air' newsgroup; read more than you probably wanted to know about bloodhounds in an FAQ from `rec.pet.dogs'; find answers to common questions about Windows in `comp.os.ms-windows'. There's even a newsgroup set up just for these FAQs: `news.answers'. This can be an interesting newsgroup to browse through, because you'll find everything from tips on saving money on airline tickets to facts about U.S. space missions. Now to put your two cents in. "Threads" are an integral part of Usenet. When somebody posts a message, often somebody else will respond. Soon, a thread of conversation begins. Following these threads is relatively easy. In nn, related messages are grouped together. In rn, when you're done with a message, you can hit control-N to read the next related message, or followup. As you explore Usenet, it's probably a good idea to read discussions for a while before you jump in. This way, you can get a feel for the particular newsgroup - each of which has its own rhythms. Eventually, though, you'll want to speak up. There are two main ways to do this. You join an existing conversation, or you can start a whole new thread. If you want to join a discussion, you have to decide if you want to include portions of the message you are responding to in your message. The reason to do this is so people can see what you're responding to, just in case the original message has disappeared from their system (remember that most Usenet messages have a short life span on the average host system) or they can't find it. If you're using a Unix host system, joining an existing conversation is similar in both nn and rn: hit your F key when done with a given article in the thread. In rn, type a small f if you don't want to include portions of the message you're responding to; an upper-case F if you do. In nn, type a capital F. You'll then be asked if you want to include portions of the original message. And here's where you hit another Unix wall. When you hit your F key, your host system calls up its basic Unix text editor. If you're lucky, that'll be Pico, a very easy system. More likely, however, you'll get dumped into emacs (or possibly vi), which you've already met in the chapter on e-mail. The single most important emacs command is control-x control-c This means, depress your control key and hit x. Then depress the control key and hit c. Memorize this. In fact, it's so important, it bears repeating: control-x control-c These keystrokes are how you get out of emacs. If it works well, you'll be asked if you want to send, edit, abort or list the message you were working on. If it doesn't work well (say you accidentally hit some other weird key combination that means something special to emacs) and nothing seems to happen, or you just get more weird-looking emacs prompts on the bottom of your screen, try hitting control-g. This should stop whatever emacs was trying to do (you should see the word "quit" on the bottom of your screen), after which you can hit control-x control-c. But if this still doesn't work, remember that you can always disconnect and dial back in! If you have told your newsreader you do want to include portions of the original message in yours, it will automatically put the entire thing at the top of your message. Use the arrow keys to move down to the lines you want to delete and hit control-K, which will delete one line at a time. You can then write your message. Remember that you have to hit enter before your cursor gets to the end of the line, because emacs does not have word wrapping. When done, hit control-x control-c. You'll be asked the question about sending, editing, aborting, etc. Chose one. If you hit Y, your host system will start the process to sending your message across the Net. The nn and rn programs work differently when it comes to posting entirely new messages. In nn, type :post and hit enter in any newsgroup. You'll be asked which newsgroup to post a message to. Type in its name and hit enter. Then you'll be asked for "keywords." These are words you'd use to attract somebody scanning a newsgroup. Say you're selling your car. You might type the type of car here. Next comes a "summary" line, which is somewhat similar. Finally, you'll be asked for the message's "distribution." This is where you put how widely you want your message disseminated. Think about this one for a second. If you are selling your car, it makes little sense to send a message about it all over the world. But if you want to talk about the environment, it might make a lot of sense. Each host system has its own set of distribution classifications, but there's generally a local one (just for users of that system), one for the city, state or region it's in, another for the country (for example, usa), one for the continent (for Americans and Canadians, na) and finally, one for the entire world (usually: world). Which one to use? Generally, a couple of seconds' thought will help you decide. If you're selling your car, use your city or regional distribution - people in Australia won't much care and may even get annoyed. If you want to discuss presidential politics, using a USA distribution makes more sense. If you want to talk about events in the Middle East, sending your message to the entire world is perfectly acceptable. Then you can type your message. If you've composed your message offline (generally a good idea if you and emacs don't get along), you can upload it now. You may see a lot of weird looking characters as it uploads into emacs, but those will disappear when you hit control-X and then control-C. Alternately: "save" the message (for example, by hitting m in rn), log out, compose your message offline, log back on and upload your message into a file on your host system. Then call up Usenet, find the article you "saved." Start a reply, and you'll be asked if you want to include a prepared message. Type in the name of the file you just created and hit enter. In rn, you have to wait until you get to the end of a newsgroup to hit F, which will bring up a message-composing system. Alternately, at your host system's command line, you can type Pnews and hit enter. You'll be prompted somewhat similarly to the nn system, except that you'll be given a list of possible distributions. If you chose "world," you'll get this message: This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire civilized world. Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars to send everywhere. Please be sure you know what you are doing. *Are you absolutely sure that you want to do this? [ny]* Don't worry - your message won't really cost the Net untold amounts, although, again, it's a good idea to think for a second whether your message really should go everywhere. If you want to respond to a given post through e-mail, instead of publicly, hit R in nn or r or R in rn. In rn, as with follow-up articles, the upper-case key includes the original message in yours. Most newsgroups are unmoderated, which means that every message you post will eventually wind up on every host system within the geographic region you specified that carries that newsgroup. Some newsgroups, however, are moderated, as you saw earlier with `comp.risks'. In these groups, messages are shipped to a single location where a moderator, acting much like a magazine editor, decides what actually gets posted. In some cases, groups are moderated like scholarly journals. In other cases, it's to try to cut down on the massive number of messages that might otherwise be posted. You'll notice that many articles in Usenet end with a fancy "signature" that often contains some witty saying, a clever drawing and, almost incidentally, the poster's name and e-mail address. You too can have your own "signature" automatically appended to everything you post. On your own computer, create a signature file. Try to keep it to four lines or less, lest you annoy others on the Net. Then, while connected to your host system, type cat >.signature and hit enter (note the period before the s). Upload your signature file into this using your communications software's ASCII upload protocol. When done, hit control-D, the Unix command for closing a file. Now, every time you post a message, this will be appended to it. There are a few caveats to posting. Usenet is no different from a Town Meeting or publication: you're not supposed to break the law, whether that's posting copyrighted material or engaging in illegal activities. It is also not a place to try to sell products (except in certain `biz.*' and explicit for-sale newsgroups). -- ___________________ * _-_ \==============_=_/ ____.---'---`---.____ * \_ \ \----._________.----/ * \ \ / / `-_-' * * __,--`.`-'..'-_ /____ || * `--.____,-' ...to boldly go where no man has gone before! -- Disclaimer - These opiini^H^H damn! ^H^H ^Q ^[ .... :w :q :wq :wq! ^d X ^? exit X Q ^C ^? :quitbye CtrlAltDel ~~q :~q logout save/quit :!QUIT ^[zz ^[ZZZZZZ ^H man vi ^ ^L ^[c ^# ^E ^X ^I ^T ? help helpquit ^D ^d man help ^C ^c help exit ?Quit ?q CtrlShftDel"Hey, what does this button d..." -- .signature(s)  * Usenet: from Flame Wars to Killfiles *  ************************************ Flame, Blather and Spew, and the First Amendment ================================================ Something about online communications seems to make some people particularly irritable. Perhaps it's the immediacy and semi-anonymity of it all. Whatever it is, there are whole classes of people you will soon think seem to exist to make you miserable. Rather than pausing and reflecting on a message as one might do with a letter received on paper, it's just so easy to hit your R key and tell somebody you don't really know what you really think of them. Even otherwise calm people sometimes find themselves turning into raving madmen. When this happens, flames erupt. A flame is a particularly nasty, personal attack on somebody for something he or she has written. Periodically, an exchange of flames erupts into a flame war that begin to take up all the space in a given newsgroup (and sometimes several; flamers like cross-posting to let the world know how they feel). These can go on for weeks (sometimes they go on for years, in which case they become "holy wars," usually on such topics as the relative merits of Macintoshes and IBMs). Often, just when they're dying down, somebody new to the flame war reads all the messages, gets upset and issues an urgent plea that the flame war be taken to e-mail so everybody else can get back to whatever the newsgroup's business is. All this usually does, though, is start a brand new flame war, in which this poor person comes under attack for daring to question the First Amendment, prompting others to jump on the attackers for impugning this poor soul... You get the idea. Every so often, a discussion gets so out of hand that somebody predicts that either the government will catch on and shut the whole thing down or somebody will sue to close down the network, or maybe even the wrath of God will smote everybody involved. This brings what has become an inevitable rejoinder from others who realize that the network is, in fact, a resilient creature that will not die easily: *"Imminent death of Usenet predicted. Film at 11."* Flame wars can be tremendously fun to watch at first. They quickly grow boring, though. And wait until the first time you're attacked! *Flamers* are not the only Net.characters to watch out for. *Spewers* assume that whatever they are particularly concerned about either really is of universal interest or should be rammed down the throats of people who don't seem to care - as frequently as possible. You can usually tell a spewer's work by the number of articles he posts in a day on the same subject and the number of newsgroups to which he then sends these articles - both can reach well into double digits. Often, these messages relate to various ethnic conflicts around the world. Frequently, there is no conceivable connection between the issue at hand and most of the newsgroups to which he posts. No matter. If you try to point this out in a response to one of these messages, you will be inundated with angry messages that either accuse you of being an insensitive racist/American/whatever or ignore your point entirely to bring up several hundred more lines of commentary on the perfidy of whoever it is the spewer thinks is out to destroy his people. Closely related to these folks are the Holocaust revisionists, who periodically inundate certain groups (such as `soc.history') with long rants about how the Holocaust never really happened. Some people attempt to refute these people with facts, but others realize this only encourages them. *Blatherers* tend to be more benign. Their problem is that they just can't get to the point - they can wring three or four screenfuls out of a thought that others might sum up in a sentence or two. A related condition is excessive quoting. People afflicted with this will include an entire message in their reply rather than excising the portions not relevant to whatever point they're trying to make. The worst quote a long message and then add a single line: "I agree!" or some such, often followed by a monster .signature. There are a number of other Usenet denizens you'll soon come to recognize. Among them: Net.weenies These are the kind of people who enjoy Insulting others, the kind of people who post nasty messages in a sewing newsgroup just for the hell of it. Net.geeks People to whom the Net is Life, who worry about what happens when they graduate and they lose their free, 24-hour access. Net.gods The old-timers; the true titans of the Net and the keepers of its collective history. They were around when the Net consisted of a couple of computers tied together with baling wire. Lurkers Actually, you can't tell these people are there, but they are. They're the folks who read a newsgroup but never post or respond. Wizards People who know a particular Net-related topic inside and out. Unix wizards can perform amazing tricks with that operating system, for example. Net.saints Always willing to help a newcomer, eager to share their knowledge with those not born with an innate ability to navigate the Net, they are not as rare as you might think. Post a question about something and you'll often be surprised how many responses you get. The last group brings us back to the Net's oral tradition. With few written guides, people have traditionally learned their way around the Net by asking somebody, whether at the terminal next to them or on the Net itself. That tradition continues: if you have a question, ask. Today, one of the places you can look for help is in the `news.newusers.questions' newsgroup, which, as its name suggests, is a place to learn more about Usenet. But be careful what you post. Some of the Usenet wizards there get cranky sometimes when they have to answer the same question over and over again. Oh, they'll eventually answer your question, but not before they tell you should have asked your host system administrator first or looked at the postings in `news.announce.newusers'. ôhe First Amendment as Local OrdinaÐÓÅ ====================================== Usenet's international reach raises interesting legal questions that have yet to be fully resolved. Can a discussion or posting that is legal in one country be transmitted to a country where it is against the law? Does the posting even become illegal when it reaches the border? And what if that country is the only path to a third country where the message is legal as well? Several foreign colleges and other institutions have cut off feeds of certain newsgroups where Americans post what is, in the U.S., perfectly legal discussions of drugs or alternative sexual practices. Even in the U.S., some universities have discontinued certain newsgroups their administrators find offensive, again, usually in the `alt.*' hierarchy. rn Commands =========== Different commands are available to you in rn depending on whether you are already in a newsgroup or reading a specific article. At any point, typing a lower-case `h' will bring up a list of available commands and some terse instructions for using them. Here are some of them: After you've just called up rn, or within a newsgroup: `c' Marks every article in a newsgroup as read (or "caught up") so that you don't have to see them again. The system will ask you if you are sure. Can be done either when asked if you want to read a particular newsgroup or once in the newsgroup. `g' Goes to a newsgroup, in this form: `g news.group' Use this both for going to groups to which you're already subscribed and subscribing to new groups. `h' Provides a list of available commands with terse instructions. `l' Gives a list of all available newsgroups. `p' Goes to the first previous subscribed newsgroup with un-read articles. `q' Quits, or exits, rn if you have not yet gone into a newsgroup. If you are in a newsgroup, it quits that one and brings you to the next subscribed newsgroup. Only within a newsgroup: `=' Gives a list of all available articles in the newsgroup. `m' Marks a specific article or series of articles as "un-read" again so that you can come back to them later. Typing `1700m' and hitting enter would mark just that article as un-read. Typing `1700-1800m' and hitting enter would mark all of those articles as un-read. `s file' Copies the current article to a file in your News directory, where "file" is the name of the file you want to save it to. You'll be asked if you want to use "mailbox" format when saving. If you answer by hitting your `N' key, most of the header will not be saved. `space' Brings up the next page of article listings. If already on the last page, displays the first article in the newsgroup. `u' Un-subscribe from the newsgroup. `/text/' Searches through the newsgroup for articles with a specific word or phrase in the "subject:" line, from the current article to the end of the newsgroup. For example, `/EFF/' would bring you to the first article with "EFF" in the "subject:" line. `?text?' The same as above except it searches in reverse order from the current article. Only within a specific article: `C' If you post an article and then decide it was a mistake, call it up on your host system and hit this. The message will soon begin disappearing on systems around the world. `F' Post a public response in the newsgroup to the current article. Includes a copy of her posting, which you can then edit down using your host system's text editor. `f' The same as above except it does not include a copy of the original message in yours. `m' Marks the current article as "un-read" so that you can come back to it later. You do not have to type the article number. `Control-N' Brings up the first response to the article. If there is no follow-up article, this returns you to the first unread article in the newsgroup). `Control-P' Goes to the message to which the current article is a reply. `n' Goes to the next unread article in the newsgroup. `N' Takes you to the next article in the newsgroup even if you've already read it. `q' Quits, or exits, the current article. Leaves you in the current newsgroup. `R' Reply, via e-mail only, to the author of the current article. Includes a copy of his message in yours. `r' The same as above, except it does not include a copy of his article. `s |mail' user Mails a copy of the article to somebody. For "user" substitute her e-mail address. Does not let you add comments to the message first, however. `space' Hitting the space bar shows the next page of the article, or, if at the end, goes to the next un-read article. Ðn Commands =========== To mark a specific article for reading, type the letter next to it (in lower case). To mark a specific article and all of its responses, type the letter and an asterisk, for example: a* To un-select an article, type the letter next to it (again, in lower case). `C' Cancels an article (around the world) that you wrote. Every article posted on Usenet has a unique ID number. Hitting a capital `C' sends out a new message that tells host systems that receive it to find earlier message and delete it. `F' To post a public response, or follow-up. If selected while still on a newsgroup "page", asks you which article to follow up. If selected while in a specific article, will follow up that article. In either case, you'll be asked if you want to include the original article in yours. Caution: puts you in whatever text editor is your default. `N' Goes to the next subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. `P' Goes to the previous subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. `G news.group' Goes to a specific newsgroup. Can be used to subscribe to new newsgroups. Hitting `G' brings up a sub-menu: `u' Goes to the group and shows only un-read articles. `a' Goes to the group and shows all articles, even ones you've already read. `s' Will show you only articles with a specific subject. `n' Will show you only articles from a specific person. `M' Mails a copy of the current article to somebody. You'll be asked for the recipient's e-mail address and whether you want to add any comments to the article before sending it off. As with `F', puts you in the default editor. `:post' Post an article. You'll be asked for the name of the group. `Q' Quit, or exit, nn. `U' Un-subscribe from the current newsgroup. `R' Responds to an article via e-mail. `space' Hitting the space bar brings up the next page of articles. `X' If you have selected articles, this will show them to you and then take you to the next subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. If you don't have any selected articles, it marks all articles as read and takes you to the next unread subscribed newsgroup. `=word' Finds and marks all articles in the newsgroup with a specific word in the "subject:" line, for example: `=modem' `Z' Shows you selected articles immediately and then returns you to the current newsgroup. `?' Brings up a help screen. `<' Goes to the previous page in the newsgroup. `>' Goes to the next page in the newsgroup. `$' Goes to the last page in an article. `^' Goes to the first page in an article. Some Usenet hints ================= Case counts in Unix - most of the time. Many Unix commands, including many of those used for reading Usenet articles, are case sensitive. Hit a `d' when you meant a `D' and either nothing will happen, or something completely different from what you expected will happen. So watch that case! In nn, you can get help most of the time by typing a question mark (the exception is when you are writing your own message, because then you are inside the text-processing program). In rn, type a lower-case `h' at any prompt to get some online help. When you're searching for a particular newsgroup, whether through the l command in rn or with nngrep for nn, you sometimes may have to try several keywords. For example, there is a newsgroup dedicated to the GRATEFUL DEAD, but you'd never find it if you tried, say, `l grateful dead', because the name is `rec.music.gdead'. In general, try the smallest possible part of the word or discussion you're looking for, for example, use "trek" to find newsgroups about "Star Trek." If one word doesn't produce anything, try another. óross-posting ============= Sometimes, you'll have an issue you think should be discussed in more than one newsgroup. Rather than posting individual messages in each group, you can post the same message in several groups at once, through a process known as cross-posting. Say you want to start a discussion about the political ramifications of importing rare tropical fish from Brazil. People who read `rec.aquaria' might have something to say. So might people who read `alt.politics.animals' and `talk.politics.misc'. Cross-posting is easy. When you get ready to post a message (whether through Pnews for rn or the `:post' command in nn), you'll be asked in which newsgroups. Type the names of the various groups, separated by a comma, but no space, for example: rec.aquaria,alt.politics.animals,talk.politics.misc and hit enter. After answering the other questions (geographic distribution, etc.), the message will be posted in the various groups (unless one of the groups is moderated, in which case the message goes to the moderator, who decides whether to make it public). It's considered bad form to post to an excessive number of newsgroups, or inappropriate newsgroups. Chances are, you don't really have to post something in 20 different places. And while you may think your particular political issue is vitally important to the fate of the world, chances are the readers of `rec.arts.comics' will not, or at least not important enough to impose on them. You'll get a lot of nasty e-mail messages demanding you restrict your messages to the "appropriate" newsgroups. ôhe Brain-tumor Boy and the Modem TaÈ ===================================== Net users sometimes like to think they are smarter or somehow better than everybody else. They're not. If they were, nobody on the Net would ever have heard of Craig Shergold, the Brain-Tumor Boy, or the evil FCC's plan to tax your modem. Alas, both of these online urban legends are here to stay. Just when they seem to have died off, somebody posts a message about one or the other, starting a whole new round of flame wars on the subject. For the record, here are the stories on both of them: Craig Shergold -------------- There once was a seven-year-old boy in England named Craig Shergold who was diagnosed with a seemingly incurable brain tumor. As he lay dying, he wished only to have friends send him postcards. The local newspapers got a hold of the tear-jerking story. Soon, the boy's wish had changed: he now wanted to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest postcard collection. Word spread around the world. People by the millions sent him postcards. Miraculously, the boy lived. An American billionaire even flew him to the U.S. for surgery to remove what remained of the tumor. And his wish succeeded beyond his wildest dreams - he made the Guinness Book of World Records. But with Craig now well into his teens, his dream has turned into a nightmare for the post office in the small town outside London where he lives. Like Craig himself, his request for cards just refuses to die, inundating the post office with millions of cards every year. Just when it seems like the flow is slowing, along comes somebody else who starts up a whole new slew of requests for people to send Craig post cards (or greeting cards or business cards - Craig letters have truly taken on a life of their own and begun to mutate). Even Dear Abby has asked people to stop! What does any of this have to do with the Net? The Craig letter seems to pop up on Usenet as often as it does on cork boards at major corporations. No matter how many times somebody like Gene Spafford posts periodic messages to ignore them or spend your money on something more sensible (a donation to the local Red Cross, say), somebody manages to post a letter asking readers to send cards to poor little Craig. The Modem Tax ------------- In 1987, the Federal Communications Commission considered removing a tax break it had granted CompuServe and other large commercial computer networks for use of the national phone system. The FCC quickly reconsidered after alarmed users of bulletin-board systems bombarded it with complaints about this "modem tax." Now, every couple of months, somebody posts an "urgent" message warning Net users that the FCC is about to impose a modem tax. This is NOT true. The way you can tell if you're dealing with the hoax story is simple: it ALWAYS mentions an incident in which a talk-show host on KGO radio in San Francisco becomes outraged on the air when he reads a story about the tax in the New York Times. Another way to tell it's not true is that it never mentions a specific FCC docket number or closing date for comments. Save that letter to your congressman for something else. Big Sig ======= There are .sigs and there are .sigs. Many people put only bare-bones information in their .sig files - their names and e-mail addresses, perhaps their phone numbers. Others add a quotation they think is funny or profound and a disclaimer that their views are not those of their employer. Still others add some ASCII-art graphics. And then there are those who go totally berserk, posting huge creations with multiple quotes, hideous ASCII "barfics" and more e-mail addresses than anybody could humanly need. College freshmen unleashed on the Net seem to excel at these. You can see the best of the worst in the `alt.fan.warlord' newsgroup, which exists solely to critique .sigs that go too far, such as: ___________________________________________________________________________ |#########################################################################| |#| |#| |#| ***** * * ***** * * ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| * * * * ** ** * * * * |#| |#| * ****** *** * * * *** * ** ***** ***** |#| |#| * * * * * * * * * * * |#| |#| * * * ***** * * ***** ***** * * |#| |#| |#| |#| **** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| * ** * * * * * * * * |#| |#| **** * * ** ***** * * ** * * * |#| |#| * ** * * * ** * * * * * * * |#| |#| **** ***** ***** ** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| |#| |#| T-H-E M-E-G-A B-I-G .S-I-G C-O-M-P-A-N-Y |#| |#| ~-----------------------------~ |#| |#| "Annoying people with huge net.signatures for over 20 years..." |#| |#| |#| |#|---------------------------------------------------------------------|#| |#| "The difference between a net.idiot and a bucket of shit is that at |#| |#| least a bucket can be emptied. Let me further illustrate my point |#| |#| by comparing these charts here. (pulls out charts) Here we have a |#| |#| user who not only flames people who don't agree with his narrow- |#| |#| minded drivel, but he has this huge signature that takes up many |#| |#| pages with useless quotes. This also makes reading his frequented |#| |#| newsgroups a torture akin to having at 300 baud modem on a VAX. I |#| |#| might also add that his contribution to society rivals only toxic |#| |#| dump sites." |#| |#| -- Robert A. Dumpstik, Jr |#| |#| President of The Mega Big Sig Company |#| |#| September 13th, 1990 at 4:15pm |#| |#| During his speech at the "Net.abusers |#| |#| Society Luncheon" during the |#| |#| "1990 Net.idiots Annual Convention" |#| |#|_____________________________________________________________________|#| |#| |#| |#| Thomas Babbit, III: 5th Assistant to the Vice President of Sales |#| |#| __ |#| |#| ========== ______ Digital Widget Manufacturing Co. |#| |#| \\ / 1147 Complex Incorporated Drive |#| |#| )-======= Suite 215 |#| |#| Nostromo, VA 22550-1147 |#| |#| #NC-17 Enterpoop Ship :) Phone # 804-844-2525 |#| |#| ---------------- Fax # 804-411-1115 |#| |#| "Shut up, Wesley!" Online Service # 804-411-1100 |#| |#| -- Me at 300-2400, and now 9600 baud! |#| |#| PUNet: tbabb!digwig!nostromo |#| |#| Home address: InterNet: dvader@imperial.emp.com |#| |#| Thomas Babbit, III Prodigy: Still awaiting author- |#| |#| 104 Luzyer Way ization |#| |#| Sulaco, VA 22545 "Manufacturing educational widget |#| |#| Phone # 804-555-1524 design for over 3 years..." |#| |#|=====================================================================|#| |#| |#| |#| Introducing: |#| |#| ______ |#| |#| The |\ /| / |#| |#| | \/ | / |#| |#| | | / |#| |#| | | / |#| |#| | | ETELHED /_____ ONE |#| |#|'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'|#| |#| 50Megs Online! The k00l BBS for rad teens! Lots of games and many |#| |#| bases for kul topix! Call now and be validated to the Metelhed Zone|#| |#| -- 804-555-8500 -- |#| |#|\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\V/////////////////////////////////////|#| |#| "This is the end, my friend..." -- The Doors |#| |#########################################################################| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hit ``b'' to continue Hahahha... fooled u! ëillfiles ========= As you keep reading Usenet, you are going to run across things or people that really drive you nuts - or that you just get tired of seeing. Killfiles are just the thing for you. When you start your newsreader, it checks to see if you have any lists of words, phrases or names you don't want to see. If you do, then it blanks out any messages containing those words. Such as cascades. As you saw earlier, when you post a reply to a message and include parts of that message, the original lines show up with a > in front of them. Well, what if you reply to a reply? Then you get a >> in front of the line. And if you reply to that reply? You get >>>. Keep this up, and soon you get a triangle of >'s building up in your message. There are people who like building up these triangles, or cascades. They'll "respond" to your message by deleting everything you've said, leaving only the "In message 123435, you said:" part and the last line of your message, to which they add a nonsensical retort. On and on they go until the triangle has reached the right end of the page. Then they try to expand the triangle by deleting one with each new line. Whoever gets to finish this mega-triangle wins. There is even a newsgroup just for such folks: alt.cascade. Unfortunately, cascaders would generally rather cascade in other newsgroups. Because it takes a lot of messages to build up a completed cascade, the targeted newsgroup soon fills up with these messages. Of course, if you complain, you'll be bombarded with messages about the First Amendment and artistic expression - or worse, with another cascade. The only thing you can do is ignore them, by setting up a killfile. There are also certain newsgroups where killfiles will come in handy because of the way they are organized. For example, readers of `rec.arts.tv.soaps' always use an acronym in their subject: line for the show they're writing about (AMC, for example, for "All My Children"). This way, people who only want to read about "One Life to Live" can blank out all the messages about "The Young and the Restless" and all the others (to keep people from accidentally screening out messages that might contain the letters "gh" in them, "General Hospital" viewers always use "gh:" in their subject lines). Both nn and rn let you create killfiles, but in different ways. To create a killfile in nn, go into the newsgroup with the offending messages and type a capital `K'. You'll see this at the bottom of your screen: AUTO (k)ill or (s)elect (CR => Kill subject 30 days) If you hit return, nn will ask you which article's subject you're tired of. Chose one and the article and any follow-ups will disappear, and you won't see them again for 30 days. If you type a lower-case `k' instead, you'll get this: AUTO KILL on (s)ubject or (n)ame (s) If you hit your `S' key or just enter, you'll see this: KILL Subject: (=/) Type in the name of the offending word or phrase and hit enter. You'll then be prompted: KILL in (g)roup 'eff.test' or in (a)ll groups (g) except that the name of the group you see will be the one you're actually in at the moment. Because cascaders and other annoying people often cross-post their messages to a wide range of newsgroups, you might consider hitting `a' instead of `g'. Next comes: Lifetime of entry in days (p)ermanent (30) The P key will screen out the offending articles forever, while hitting enter will do it for 30 days. You can also type in a number of days for the blocking. Creating killfiles in rn works differently - its default killfile generator only works for messages in specific groups, rather than globally for your entire newsgroup list. To create a global killfile, you'll have to write one yourself. To create a killfile in rn, go into the newsgroup where the offending messages are and type in its number so you get it on your screen. Type a capital `K'. From now on, any message with that subject line will disappear before you read the group. You should probably choose a reply, rather than the original message, so that you will get all of the followups (the original message won't have a "Re: " in its subject line). The next time you call up that newsgroup, rn will tell you it's killing messages. When it's done, hit the space bar to go back into reading mode. To create a "global" kill file that will automatically wipe out articles in all groups you read, start rn and type control-K. This will start your whatever text editor you have as your default on your host system and create a file (called `KILL', in your `News' subdirectory). On the first line, you'll type in the word, phrase or name you don't want to see, followed by commands that tell rn whether to search an entire message for the word or name and then what to do when it finds it. Each line must be in this form /pattern/modifier:j "Pattern" is the word or phrase you want rn to look for. It's case-insensitive: both "test" and "Test" will be knocked out. The modifier tells rn whether to limit its search to message headers (which can be useful when the object is to never see messages from a particular person): `a:' Looks through an entire message `h:' Looks just at the header You can leave out the modifier command, in which case rn will only look at the subject line of messages. The `j' at the end tells rn to screen out all articles with the offending word. So if you never want to see the word "foo" in any header, ever again, type this: /foo/h:j This is particularly useful for getting rid of articles from people who post in more than one newsgroup, such as cascaders, since an article's newsgroup name is always in the header. If you just want to block messages with a subject line about cascades, you could try: /foo/:j To kill anything that is a followup to any article, use this pattern: /Subject: *Re:/:j When done writing lines for each phrase to screen, exit the text editor as you normally would, and you'll be put back in rn. One word of caution: go easy on the global killfile. An extensive global killfile, or one that makes frequent use of the `a:' modifier can dramatically slow down rn, since the system will now have to look at every single word in every single message in all the newsgroups you want to read. If there's a particular person whose posts you never want to see again, first find his or address (which will be in the "from:" line of his postings) and then write a line in your killfile like this: /From: *name@address\.all/h:j Usenet HistorÕ ============== In the late 1970s, Unix developers came up with a new feature: a system to allow Unix computers to exchange data over phone lines. In 1979, two graduate students at Duke University in North Carolina, TOM TRUSCOTT and JIM ELLIS, came up with the idea of using this system, known as UUCP (for Unix-to-Unix CoPy), to distribute information of interest to people in the Unix community. Along with STEVE BELLOVIN, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina and STEVE DANIEL, they wrote conferencing software and linked together computers at Duke and UNC. Word quickly spread and by 1981, a graduate student at Berkeley, MARK HORTON and a nearby high school student, MATT GLICKMAN, had released a new version that added more features and was able to handle larger volumes of postings - the original North Carolina program was meant for only a few articles in a newsgroup each day. Today, Usenet connects tens of thousands of sites around the world, from mainframes to Amigas. With more than 3,000 newsgroups and untold thousands of readers, it is perhaps the world's largest computer network. When things go wrong: ===================== * When you start up rn, you get a "warning" that "bogus newsgroups" are present. Within a couple of minutes, you'll be asked whether to keep these or delete them. Delete them. Bogus newsgroups are newsgroups that your system administrator or somebody else has determined are no longer needed. * While in a newsgroup in rn, you get a message: "skipping unavailable article." This is usually an article that somebody posted and then decided to cancel. FYI: ==== Leanne Phillips periodically posts a list of frequently asked questions (and answers) about use of the rn killfile function in the `news.newusers.questions' and `news.answers' newsgroups on Usenet. Bill Wohler posts a guide to using the nn newsreader in the `news.answers' and `news.software' newsgroups. Look in the `news.announce.newusers' and `news.groups' newsgroups on Usenet for "A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists", which gives brief summaries of the various `soc.*' newsgroups. "Managing UUCP and Usenet" by Tim O'Reilly and Grace Todino (O'Reilly & Associates, 1992) is a good guide for setting up your own Usenet system. *"Welcome, to the watering hole, to the death of objectivity, and the killing fields of the wide boys, where are we now..."* -- Marillion, "The Thieving Magpie (La Gazza Ladra)" Used in concerts as spoken intro by Fish to the 2nd part of "Misplaced Childhood"  * Mailing Lists and Bitnet *  ************************ Usenet is not the only forum on the Net. Scores of "mailing lists" represent another way to interact with other Net users. Unlike Usenet messages, which are stored in one central location on your host system's computer, mailing-list messages are delivered right to your e-mail box, unlike Usenet messages. You have to ask for permission to join a mailing list. Unlike Usenet, where your message is distributed to the world, on a mailing list, you send your messages to a central moderator, who either re-mails it to the other people on the list or uses it to compile a periodic "digest" mailed to subscribers. Given the number of newsgroups, why would anybody bother with a mailing list? Even on Usenet, there are some topics that just might not generate enough interest for a newsgroup; for example, the Queen list, which is all about the late FREDDIE MERCURY's band; or the Marillion & Fish list called "Freaks." And because a moderator decides who can participate, a mailing list can offer a degree of freedom to speak one's mind (or not worry about net.weenies) that is not necessarily possible on Usenet. Several groups offer anonymous postings - only the moderator knows the real names of people who contribute. Examples include 12Step, where people enrolled in such programs as Alcoholics Anonymous can discuss their experiences, and sappho, a list limited to gay and bisexual women. You can find mailing addresses and descriptions of these lists in the `news.announce.newusers' newsgroup with the subject of "Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists." Mailing lists now number in the hundreds, so this posting is divided into three parts. If you find a list to which you want to subscribe, send an e-mail message to list-request@address where "list" is the name of the mailing list and "address" is the moderator's e-mail address, asking to be added to the list. Include your full e-mail address just in case something happens to your message's header along the way, and ask, if you're accepted, for the address to mail messages to the list. ÷itnet ====== As if Usenet and mailing lists were not enough, there are Bitnet "discussion groups" or "lists." Bitnet is an international network linking colleges and universities, but it uses a different set of technical protocols for distributing information than the Internet or Usenet. It offers hundreds of discussion groups, comparable in scope to Usenet newsgroups. One of the major differences is the way messages are distributed. Bitnet messages are sent to your mailbox, just as with a mailing list. However, where mailing lists are often maintained by a person, all Bitnet discussion groups are automated - you subscribe to them through messages to a "listserver" computer. This is a kind of robot moderator that controls distribution of messages on the list. In many cases, it also maintains indexes and archives of past postings in a given discussion group, which can be handy if you want to get up to speed with a discussion or just search for some information related to it. Many Bitnet discussion groups are now "translated" into Usenet form and carried through Usenet in the `bit.listserv.*' hierarchy. In general, it's probably better to read messages through Usenet if you can. It saves some storage space on your host system's hard drives. If 50 people subscribe to the same Bitnet list, that means 50 copies of each message get stored on the system; whereas if 50 people read a Usenet message, that's still only one message that needs storage on the system. It can also save your sanity if the discussion group generates large numbers of messages. Think of opening your e-mailbox one day to find 200 messages in it - 199 of them from a discussion group and one of them a "real" e-mail message that's important to you. Subscribing and canceling subscriptions is done through an e-mail message to the listserver computer. For addressing, all listservers are known as "listserv" (yep) at some Bitnet address. This means you will have to add `.bitnet' to the end of the address, if it's in a form like this: `listserv@miamiu'. For example, if you have an interest in environmental issues, you might want to subscribe to the Econet discussion group. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to listserv@miamiu.bitnet Some Bitnet listservers are also connected to the Internet, so if you see a listserver address ending in `.edu', you can e-mail the listserver without adding `.bitnet' to the end. Always leave the "subject:" line blank in a message to a listserver. Inside the message, you tell the listserver what you want, with a series of simple commands: `subscribe group *Your Name*' To subscribe to a list, where group is the list name and *Your Name* is your full name, for example: `subscribe econet Henry Fielding' `unsubscribe group *Your Name*' To discontinue a group, for example: `unsubscribe econet Henry Fielding' `list global' This sends you a list of all available Bitnet discussion groups. But be careful - the list is VERY long! `get refcard' Sends you a list of other commands you can use with a listserver, such as commands for retrieving past postings from a discussion group. Each of these commands goes on a separate line in your message (and you can use one or all of them). If you want to get a list of all Bitnet discussion groups, send e-mail to listserv@bitnic.educom.edu Leave the "subject:" line blank and use the list global command. When you subscribe to a Bitnet group, there are two important differences from Usenet. First, when you want to post a message for others to read in the discussion group, you send a message to the group name at its Bitnet address. Using Econet as an example, you would mail the message to: econet@miamiu.bitnet Note that this is different from the listserv address you used to subscribe to the group to begin with. Use the listserv address ONLY to subscribe to or unsubscribe from a discussion group. If you use the discussion-group address, your message will go out to every other subscriber, many of whom will think unkind thoughts, which they may share with you in an e-mail message). The second difference relates to sending an e-mail message to the author of a particular posting. Usenet newsreaders such as rn and nn let you do this with one key. But if you hit your `R' key to respond to a discussion-group message, your message will go to the listserver, and from there to everybody else on the list! This can prove embarrassing to you and annoying to others. To make sure your message goes just to the person who wrote the posting, take down his e-mail address from the posting and then compose a brand-new message to him. Remember, also, that if you see an e-mail address like , it's a Bitnet address. Two Bitnet lists will prove helpful for delving further into the network. NEW-LIST tells you the names of new discussion groups. To subscribe, send a message to : sub NEW-LIST Your Name INFONETS is the place to go when you have questions about Bitnet. It is also first rate for help on questions about all major computer networks and how to reach them. To subscribe, send e-mail to : sub INFONETS Your Name Both of these lists are also available on Usenet, the former as `bit.listserv.new-list'; the latter as `bit.listserv.infonets' (sometimes `bit.listserv.info-nets'). *"It wasn't long before the invention of the mailing-list, an ARPANET broadcasting technique in which an identical message could be sent automatically to large number of network subscribers. Interestingly, one of the first really big mailing-list was "SF-LOVERS", for Science Fiction fans. Disscussing science fiction on the network was not work-related and was frowned upon by many ARPANET computer administrators, but this didn't stop it from happening."* -- Bruce Sterling, F&SF Science Column #5 "Internet"  * Telnet (Mining the Net, part I) *  ******************************* Like any large community, cyberspace has its libraries, places you can go to look up information or take out a good book. Telnet is one of your keys to these libraries. *Telnet* is a program that lets you use the power of the Internet to connect you to databases, library catalogs, and other information resources around the world. Want to see what the weather's like in Vermont? Check on crop conditions in Azerbaijan? Get more information about somebody whose name you've seen online? Telnet lets you do this, and more. Alas, there's a big "but!" Unlike the phone system, Internet is not yet universal; not everybody can use all of its services. Almost all colleges and universities on the Internet provide telnet access. So do the WELL, Netcom and the World. But the Free-Net systems do not give you access to every telnet system. And if you are using a public-access UUCP or Usenet site, you will not have access to telnet. The main reason for this is cost. Connecting to the Internet can easily cost $1,000 or more for a leased, high-speed phone line. Some databases and file libraries ca