Big Dummy's Guide To The Internet by Electronic Frontier Foundation (early reader chapter books .txt) 📕

class="calibre1">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 /text/ except it searches in reverse order from

the current article.

Only within a specific article:

e Some newsgroups consist of articles that are binary files,

typically programs or graphics images. Hitting e will convert

the ASCII characters within such an article into a file you

can then download and use or view (assuming you have the proper

computer and software). Many times, such files will be split

into several articles; just keep calling up the articles and

hitting e until done. You’ll find the resulting file in your

News subdirectory.

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 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.

s|mail user Mails a copy of the article to somebody. For “user” substitute

an 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.

3.6 ESSENTIAL NEWSGROUPS

With so much to choose from, everybody will likely have their own

unique Usenet reading list. But there are a few newsgroups that are

particularly of interest to newcomers. Among them:

news.announce.newusers This group consists of a series of

articles that explain various facets of

Usenet.

news.newusers.questions This is where you can ask questions

(we’ll see how in a bit) about how

Usenet works.

news.announce.newsgroups Look here for information about new or

proposed newsgroups.

news.answers Contains lists of “Frequently Asked

Questions” (FAQs) and their answers from

many different newsgroups. Learn how to

fight jet lag in the FAQ from

rec.travel.air; look up answers to common

questions about Microsoft Windows in

an FAQ from comp.os.ms-windows; etc.

alt.internet.services Looking for something in particular on

the Internet? Ask here.

alt.infosystems.announce People adding new information services to

the Internet will post details here.

3.7 SPEAKING UP

“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 awhile before you jump in. This way, you

can get a feel for the particular newsgroup — each 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

uppercase 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 they work well,

you’ll be asked if you want to send, edit, abort or list the message you

were working on. If they don’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. Choose 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