Tony said:
Hi Harry,
Thanks for your comment. It appears to find out more about how I should post
I need to open an account with Google? This is what I get after visiting the
link you sent me. Why is it so unclear as to where to write what on a simple
page? I have sent three comments now and I am still none the wiser.
I will not multi-post again. It was never my intention and I apologise if
this has caused inconvenience to anyone. But why cannot someone tell me in
plain English how or where do you enter two or more group addresses if
needed? The page/s I see do not have a fill-in box to do this.
Tony
USENET has other servers you can use besides Google. For example
nntp.aioe.org (You don't have to register to use this one.
There is a limit to the number of text messages you
can post per day - I haven't hit the limit in a long time.
This server has a number of filter rules in place, to
prevent spamming, and even has some groups which are
closed to making new posts. The admin on this server,
is still in the process of getting his website up and
running again, which is why I cannot just point you to
his web site to get help. The server had to be moved to
another colocation provider, which upset everything.)
news.motzarella.org (This one requires registration. You use a username and
password, in the news reader you use, and tick the
"authenticate when I log in" or equivalent box. Since
authentication is used, spammers can simply have their
accounts deleted.)
I use Thunderbird, downloadable for free from mozilla.org (version 2.0.0.19)
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/
When you do a File:New:Account in there (or are prompted for the same info
when starting the program for the first time), the info needed is -
*******
New Account Setup
(Tick "Newsgroup account")
Your Name
(Enter your real name or a pseudonym - "Tony" would do)
Email Address
(Enter a valid value, if you really want everybody to be
able to reach you, spammers and all. Otherwise, enter
something unique, which you can later search for in the
groups.google.com archive. "(e-mail address removed)". The invalid
domain is reserved for fake email addresses. If you look at
my fake email address, notice it is not formatted properly,
according to that rule. I didn't know about the .invalid thing
at the time.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.invalid
Server Information
Newsgroup Server = nntp.aioe.org
Account Name
Account Name = nntp.aioe.org (easier to recognize this way)
*******
When you see the new entry in the left hand column, you can click on
it. You can use "View Settings For This Account" to correct any
mistakes. For "Server Settings", you can leave the port number at 119,
or if the server admin offers other options, use the recommended port
number. The "Always Request Authentication..." box, would be ticked by
the user, if using a USENET server requiring username and password,
such as Motzarella. For AIOE, no authentication is needed, so no
need to tick that box.
Now, the fun part. Instead of "View Settings For This Account",
click the "Manage Newsgroup Subscriptions". This will be the first
time Thunderbird will access the Internet and connect to your
free news server. There will be a short delay, while Thunderbird
downloads the names of 30,000+ newsgroups. That is so you can be
offered a menu of newsgroups to access.
If you type into the "Show items that contain:" box, you could
type in there.
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
If that name matches an entry in the list, there will be a tick box
next to the name, so you can add that newsgroup to your list of
groups to post to. You can subscribe to multiple groups. If
you want, you can add "alt.test" as a group, and your first
test posting can go there. Click OK to exit the "Manage Newsgroup
Subscriptions".
Looking back at the left column again, there is a (+) next to
nntp.aioe.org on the left. If you click the (+), it will expose
the list of subscribed newsgroups. Each time the list is "exposed",
Thunderbird will connect to the server and scan for new articles.
The number in brackets after the group name, shows how many
new articles are there. Now, click on the group name.
If there are a lot of article headers in the group, a dialog will
ask if you want to download only 500 of them. To reduce the load
on the server, accept the limit of 500 to download.
After that step, you should be looking at a list of articles on
the right. If you do "File:New:Message", while in that newsgroup,
a new message box will appear, and the newsgroup name should be
in the header area at the top. Enter a descriptive Subject
(not "Help!", as that is too dopey). You can enter some nice,
formatted text in paragraphs, making it easy for people to read.
By default, I would expect Thunderbird to limit the line length
to 72 characters.
Later, if you're reading an article, like this post, and
you click on my post and then click the "Reply" button,
that will cause your new posting to reference the
article number of my post. That is called "threading", and
makes your "Reply" fall underneath the thread. In a Reply,
you don't need to change the Subject field, as it makes
it easier to understand, if all the articles in a thread
have the same Subject for consistency. Your reply text
goes at the bottom of the page, below the quoted text.
If the quoted text is excessively long, you can snip parts
of it, but leave enough quoted text so later readers know
what you're referring to.
Welcome to USENET
You can use groups.google.com later, once your article
propagates (could take an hour). If you search on
"(e-mail address removed)" or whatever you used for an email
address, it will make it easier to find copies of your
postings later on. Say, for example, you had a problem
a year ago, and want to copy the text from that posting,
into a new article. Google has longer "retention", than
any regular news server, which is why we still use
Google in a "read-only" way.
HTH,
Paul
