Newsgroups Give Users Fresh Look

Sourcebooks at 50 percent off. Heated debates about the best way to avoid an FBI raid and impassioned calls for the destruction of the Earth.

All this and more are regular occurences on Usenet newsgroups, and most of you are probably missing out. In fact, most of you don't know what on Earth I'm talking about.

Allow me to backtrack. Like e-mail or the World Wide Web, newsgroups are just one of the uses of the Internet. The simplest way to think of newsgroups is as forum (usually) for public discussion-a bulletin board of sorts.

Each group's name reflects its discussion topic. For example, alt.rap is a group devoted to the discussion of rap music. Other group names include rec.drugs.psychedelic, alt.sports.football.pro.ne-patriots and harvard.announce.

There are literally thousands of groups, each organized hierarchically. The most popular groups begin with "alt" for alternative, "rec" for recreation and "comp" for computers.

Harvard has its own set of newsgroups that are only accessible from on-campus locations.

So, how do you become a part of this world of intrigue?

Well, there are a number of ways depending on your preferences and knowledge. I will discuss two: one from a personal computer and the other from your fas (a.k.a. e-mail) account.

First, for IBM-compatible and Macintosh users, you can use the popular software suites Netscape Communicator or Microsoft Internet Explorer for easy point-and-click access to newsgroups.

Communicator uses a program called Collabra and the latest version of Communicator can be downloaded from www.netscape.com.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer suite comes with a program called Outlook Express, and version 4.0 of Internet Explorer is due out today. It can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com/ie.

For both of these programs, you will need to tell them where they can access the group articles. When setting them up, in the area that asks for "nntp" or "news" server, type in "news.fas.harvard.edu"

If you don't need the thrill of a graphical environment, you can use a UNIX program called "tin" to access newsgroups. After logging in to your fas account, type "tin" at the prompt.

Once you are configured, there are a few taboos of which you should be aware. "Spamming," the mass posting to many often unrelated groups, is seriously frowned upon and can result in a restriction on all postings from your site (i.e.harvard.edu) if considered troublesome

enough.

Also, when replying to an article posting, it is not always necessary to include the original posting in your response.

Some recommended starting groups are harvard.general, a forum for discussion of primarily Harvard issues, harvard.marketplace, for buying and selling things and mit.bboard, a similar group.

Now run off and pollute the Net with your ideas. Tell 'em Baratunde sent you.