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... or more for your
requested files to arrive.
9.5 THE ALL KNOWING ORACLE
One other thing you can do through e-mail is consult with the
Usenet Oracle.
You can ask the Oracle anything at all and get back an
answer (whether you like the answer is another question).
First, you'll want to get instructions on how to address the Oracle
(he, or she, or it, is very particular about such things and likes being
addressed in august, solemn and particularly sycophantic tones). Start
an e-mail message to
oracle@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
In the "subject:" line, type
help
and hit enter. You don't actually have to say anything in the message
itself -- at least not yet. Hit control-D to send off your request
for help. Within a few hours, the Oracle will mail you back detailed
instructions. It's a fairly long file, so before you start reading
it, turn on your communications software's logging function, to save
it to your computer (or save the message to a file on your host system's
home directory and then download the file). After you've digested it,
you can compose your question to the Oracle. Mail it to the pay per click affiliate above
address, only this time with a subject line that describes your
question. Expect an answer within a couple of days.
And don't be
surprised if you affiliate tracking software also find a question in your mailbox -- the Oracle
extracts payment by making seekers of knowledge answer questions as
well!
Chapter 10: NEWS OF THE WORLD
10.1 Clarinet: UPI, Dave Barry and Dilbert.
Usenet "newsgroups" can be something of a misnomer.
They may be
interesting, informative and educational, but they are often not news,
at least, not the way most people would think of them. But there are several
sources of news and sports on the Net.
One of the largest is Clarinet, a company in Cupertino, Calf., that
distributes wire-service news and columns, along with a news service
devoted to computers and even the Dilbert comic strip, in Usenet form.
Distributed in Usenet form, Clarinet stories and columns are
organized into more than 100 newsgroups (in this case, a truly
appropriate name), some of them with an extremely narrow focus, for
example, clari.news.gov.taxes. The general news and sports come from
United Press International; the computer news from the NewsBytes
service; the features from several syndicates.
Because Clarinet charges for its service, not all host systems
carry its articles. Those that do carry them as Usenet groups starting
with "clari." As with other Usenet hierarchies, these are named starting
with broad area and ending with more specific categories. Some of these
include business news (clari.biz); general national and foreign news,
politics and the like (clari.news), sports (clari.sports); columns by
Mike Royko, Miss Manners, Dave Barry and others (clari.feature); and
NewsBytes computer and telecommunications reports (clari.nb). Because
Clarinet started in Canada, there is a separate set pay per click affiliate of clari.canada
newsgroups. The clari.nb newsgroups are divided into specific computer
types (clari.nb.apple, for example).
Clari news groups feature stories updated around the clock. There
are even a couple of "bulletin" newsgroups for breaking pay per click affiliate stories:
clari.news.bulletin and clari.news.urgent. Clarinet also sets up new
newsgroups for breaking stories that become ongoing ones (such as major
natural disasters, coups in large countries and the like).
Occasionally, you will see stories in clari newsgroups that just
don't seem to belong there. Stories about former Washington, D.C. mayor
Marion Barry, for example, often wind interspersed among columns by Dave
Barry.
This happens because of the way wire services work. UPI uses
three-letter codes to route its stories to the newspapers and radio
stations that make up most of its clientele, and harried editors on
deadline sometimes punch in the wrong code.
10.2 REUTERS
This is roughly the British equivalent of UPI or Associated Press.
Msen, a public-access site in Michigan, currently feeds Reuters
dispatches into a series of Usenet-style conferences.
If your site
subscribes to this pay per click optimization service, look for newsgroups with names that begin in
msen.reuters.
10.3 USA TODAY
If your host system doesn't carry the clari or msen.reuters
newsgroups, you might be able to keep up with the news a different way
over the Net. USA Today has been something of an online newspaper
pioneer, selling its stories to bulletin-board and online systems across
the country for several years.
Cleveland Free-Net provides the online
version of USA Today (along with all its other services) for free.
Currently, the paper only publishes five days a week, so you'll have to
get your weekend news fix elsewhere.
Telnet: freenet-in-a.cwru.edu or
freenet-in-b.cwru.edu
After you connect and log in, look for this menu entry: NPTN/USA
TODAY HEADLINE NEWS. Type the number next to it and hit enter. You'll
then get a menu listing a series of broad categories, such as sports and
telecommunications. Choose one, and you'll get a yet another menu,
listing the ten most recent dates of publication. Each of these
contains one-paragraph summaries of the day's news in that particular
subject.
10.4 THE WORLD TODAY, FROM BELARUS TO BRAZIL
Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty are American radio stations
that broadcast to the former Communist countries of eastern Europe.
Every day, their news departments prepare a summary of news in those
countries, which is then disseminated via the Net, through a Bitnet
mailing list and a Usenet newsgroup.
To have the daily digests sent directly to your e-mailbox, send a
message to
listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
Leave the subject line blank, and as a message, write:
subscribe rferl-l Your Name
Alternately, look for the bulletins in the Usenet newsgroup misc.news-
east-europe.rferl.
Daily Brazilian news updates are available (in Portuguese) from the
University of Sao Paulo. Use anonymous ftp to connect to
uspif.if.usp.br
Use cd to switch to the whois directory. The news summaries are stored
in files with this form: NEWS.23OCT92;1. But to get them, leave off the
semicolon and the 1, and don't capitalize anything, for example:
get news.23oct92
Daily summaries of news reports from France (in French) are availble
on the National Capital FreeNet in Ottawa, Ont. Telnet to
freenet.carleton.ca
and log on as: guest. At the main menu, select the number for "The
Newsstand" and then "La presse de France."
10.5 E-MAILING NEWS ORGANIZATIONS
A number of newspapers, pay per click optimization television stations and networks and other
news organizations now encourage readers and viewers to communicate with
them electronically, via Internet e-mail addresses. They include:
The Middlesex News, Framingham, Mass. sysop@news.ci.net
The Boston Globe voxbox@globe.com
WCVB-TV, Boston, Mass. wcvb@aol.com
NBC News, New York, N.Y. nightly@nbc.com
The Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa, Ont. ottawa-citizen@freenet.carleton.ca
CJOH-TV, Ottawa, Ont. ab363@freenet.carleton.ca
St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times 73174.3344@compuserve.com
Illinois Issues, pay per click affiliate Springfield, Ill. gherardi@sangamon.edu
WTVF-TV, Nashville, Tenn. pay per click affiliate craig.ownsby@nashville.com
10.6 FYI
The clari.net.newusers newsgroup on Usenet provides a number of
articles about Clarinet and ways of finding news stories of interest
to you.
To discuss the future of newspapers and newsrooms in the new
electronic medium, subscribe to the Computer Assisted Reporting and
Research mailing list on Bitnet. Send a mail message of
Subscribe carr-l Your Name
to listserv@ulkyvm.bitnet.
Chapter 9: ADVANCED E-MAIL
9.1 THE FILE'S IN THE MAIL
E-mail by itself is a powerful tool, and by now you may be
sending e-mail messages all over the place. You might even be on a
mailing list or two. But there is a lot more to e-mail than just
sending messages.
If your host system does not have access to ftp,
or it doesn't have access to every ftp site on the Net, you can have
programs and files sent right to your mailbox. And using some simple
techniques, you can use e-mail to send data files such as spreadsheets,
or even whole programs, to friends and colleagues around the world.
A key to both is a set of programs known as encoders and
decoders. For all its basic power, Net e-mail has a big problem: it
can't handle graphics characters or the control codes found in even
the simplest of computer programs. Encoders however, can translate
these into forms usable in e-mail, while decoders turn them back into
a form that you can actually use. If you are using a Unix-based host
system, chances are it already has an encoder and decoder online that
you can use. These programs will also let you use programs posted in
several Usenet newsgroups, such as comp.binaries.ibm.pc.
If both you and the person with whom you want to exchange files use
Unix host systems, you're in luck because virtually all Unix
host systems have encoder/decoder programs online. For now, let's
assume that's the case. First, upload the file you want to send to your
friend to your host site (ask your system administrator how t ... |
