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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 setting up personel website
distributing information from the Internet video production company in the uk 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 setting up company
person, all Bitnet discussion setting up company 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 setting up web hosting 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 colocation company
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, setting up company you might want to
subscribe to the Econet discussion group.
To subscribe, send video production company in the uk 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:
setting up company
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 setting up company Fielding
unsubscribe group Your Name To discontinue a group, for example:
setting up company 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
setting up company 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 ... |
