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... 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 disable pop ups 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 disable pop ups 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.
5.2 BITNET
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 from 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 disable pop ups 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 disable pop ups 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 to try to subscribe or unsubscribe, 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.
Remember, disable pop ups also, that if you see an e-mail address like IZZY@INDYVMS, 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 listserv@ndsuvm1.bitnet:
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 info-nets-
request@think.com:
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).
Chapter 6: TELNET
6.1 MINING THE NET
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
all of the for-fee public-access systems listed in Chapter 1. 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 can be queried by e-mail,
however; we'll show you how to do that later on. In the meantime, the
rest of this chapte ... |
