But you're impatient to get going, and you want to read that article now. The command for that in nn is a capital Z. Hit it and you'll see something like this: Gene Spafford: Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on NetiquetteSep 92 04:17 Original-author: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) Archive-name: emily-postnews/part1 Last-change: 30 Nov 91 by brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) NOTE: this is intended to be satirical. If you do not recognize it as such, consult a doctor or professional comedian. The recommendations in this article should recognized for what they are -- admonitions about what NOT to do. "Dear Emily Postnews" Emily Postnews, foremost authority on proper net behaviour, gives her advice on how to act on the net. ============================================================================ Dear Miss Postnews: How long should my signature be? -- verbose@noisy A: Dear Verbose: Please try and make your signature as long as you -- 09:57 --.announce.newusers-- LAST --help:?--Top 4%-- The first few lines are the message's header, similar to the header you get in e-mail messages. Then comes the beginning of the message. The last line tells you the time again, the newsgroup name (or part of it, anyway), the position in your message stack that this message occupies, how to get help, and how much of the message is on screen. If you want to keep reading this message, just hit your space bar (not your enter key!) for the next screen and so on until done. When done, you'll be returned to the newsgroup menu. For now hit Q (upper case this time), which quits you out of nn and returns you to your host system's command line. To get a look at another interesting newsgroup, type nn comp.risks and hit enter. This newsgroup is another moderated group, this time a digest of all the funny and frightening ways computers and the people who run and use them can go wrong. Again, you read articles by selecting their letters. If you're in the middle of an article and decide you want to go onto the next one, hit your n key. Now it's time to look for some newsgroups that might be of particular interest to you. Unix host systems that have nn use a program called nngrep (ever get the feeling Unix was not entirely written in English?) that lets you scan newsgroups. Exit nn and at your host system's command line, type nngrep word where word is the subject you're interested in. If you use a Macintosh computer, you might try nngrep mac You'll get something that looks like this: alt.music.machines.of.loving.grace alt.religion.emacs comp.binaries.mac comp.emacs comp.lang.forth.mac comp.os.mach comp.sources.mac comp.sys.mac.announce comp.sys.mac.apps comp.sys.mac.comm comp.sys.mac.databases comp.sys.mac.digest comp.sys.mac.games comp.sys.mac.hardware comp.sys.mac.hypercard comp.sys.mac.misc comp.sys.mac.programmer comp.sys.mac.system comp.sys.mac.wanted gnu.emacs.announce gnu.emacs.bug gnu.emacs.gnews gnu.emacs.gnus gnu.emacs.help gnu.emacs.lisp.manual gnu.emacs.sources gnu.emacs.vm.bug gnu.emacs.vm.info gnu.emacs.vms Note that some of these obviously have something to do with Macintoshes while some obviously do not; nngrep is not a perfect system. If you want to get a list of ALL the newsgroups available on your host system, type nngrep -a |more or nngrep -a |pg and hit enter (which one to use depends on the Unix used on your host system; if one doesn't do anything, try the other). You don't absolutely need the |more or |pg, but if you don't include it, the list will keep scrolling, rather than pausing every 24 lines. If you are in nn, hitting a capital Y will bring up a similar list. Typing "nn newsgroup" for every newsgroup can get awfully tiring after awhile. When you use nn, your host system looks in a file called .newsrc. This is basically a list of every newsgroup on the host system along with notations on which groups and articles you have read (all maintained by the computer). You can also use this file to create a "reading list" that brings up each newsgroup to which you want to "subscribe." To try it out, type nn without any newsgroup name, and hit enter. Unfortunately, you will start out with a .newsrc file that has you "subscribed" to every single newsgroup on your host system! To delete a newsgroup from your reading list, type a capital U while its menu is on the screen. The computer will ask you if you're sure you want to "unsubscribe." If you then hit a Y, you'll be unsubscribed and put in the next group. With many host systems carrying thousands of newsgroups, this will take you forever. Fortunately, there are a couple of easier ways to do this. Both involve calling up your .newsrc file in a word or text processor. In a .newsrc file, each newsgroup takes up one line, consisting of the group's name, an exclamation point or a colon and a range of numbers. Newsgroups with a colon are ones to which you are subscribed; those followed by an exclamation point are "un-subscribed." To start with a clean slate, then, you have to change all those colons to exclamation points. If you know how to use emacs or vi, call up the .newsrc file (you might want to make a copy of .newsrc first, just in case), and use the search- and-replace function to make the change. If you're not comfortable with these text processor, you can download the .newsrc file, make the changes on your own computer and then upload the revised file. Before you download the file, however, you should do a couple of things. One is to type cp .newsrc temprc and hit enter. You will actually download this temprc file (note the name does not start with a period -- some computers, such as those using MS-DOS, do not allow file names starting with periods). After you download the file, open it in your favorite word processor and use its search-and-replace function to change the exclamation points to colons. Be careful not to change anything else! Save the document in ASCII or text format. Dial back into your host system. At the command line, type cp temprc temprc1 and hit enter. This new file will serve as your backup .newsrc file just in case something goes wrong. Upload the temprc file from your computer. This will overwrite the Unix system's old temprc file. Now type cp temprc .newsrc and hit enter. You now have a clean slate to start creating a reading list. The first time you go into a newsgroup, there could be dozens, even hundreds of articles. If you want to start from scratch, hit a capital J. This will mark all the articles in that newsgroup as "read," so that the next time you enter the conference, you will only see messages posted since the last time you were there. 3.3 nn COMMANDS To mark a specific article for reading, type the letter next to it (in lower case). To mark a specific article and all of its responses, type the letter and an asterisk, for example: a* To un-select an article, type the letter next to it (again, in lower case). C Cancels an article (around the world) that you wrote. Every article posted on Usenet has a unique ID number. Hitting a capital C sends out a new message that tells host systems that receive it to find earlier message and delete it. F To post a public response, or follow-up. If selected while still on a newsgroup "page", asks you which article to follow up. If selected while in a specific article, will follow up that article. In either case, you'll be asked if you want to include the original article in yours. Caution: puts you in whatever text editor is your default. N Goes to the next subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. P Goes to the previous subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. G news.group Goes to a specific newsgroup. Can be used to subscribe to new newsgroups. Hitting G brings up a sub-menu: u Goes to the group and shows only un-read articles. a Goes to the group and shows all articles, even ones you've already read. s Will show you only articles with a specific subject. n Will show you only articles from a specific person. M Mails a copy of the current article to somebody. You'll be asked for the recipient's e-mail address and whether you want to add any comments to the article before sending it off. As with F, puts you in the default editor. :post Post an article. You'll be asked for the name of the group. Q Quit, or exit, nn. U Un-subscribe from the current newsgroup. R Responds to an article via e-mail. space Hitting the space bar brings up the next page of articles. X If you have selected articles, this will show them to you and then take you to the next subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. If you don't have any selected articles, it marks all articles as read and takes you to the next unread subscribed newsgroup. =word Finds and marks all articles in the newsgroup with a specific word in the "subject:" line, for example: =modem Z Shows you selected articles immediately and then returns you to the current newsgroup. ? Brings up a help screen. < Goes to the previous page in the newsgroup. > Goes to the next page in the newsgroup. $ Goes to the last page in an article. ^ Goes to the first page in an article. 3.4 USING rn Some folks prefer this older newsreader. If you type rn news.announce.newusers at your host system's command line, you'll see something like this: ******** 21 unread articles in news.announce.newusers--read now? [ynq] If you hit your Y key, the first article will appear on your screen. If you want to see what articles are available first, though, hit your computer's = key and you'll get something like this: 152 Introduction to news.announce 153 A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community 154 What is Usenet? 155 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions 156 Hints on writing style for Usenet 158 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I 159 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II 160 Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette 161 USENET Software: History and Sources 162 A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists 163 How to Get Information about Networks 164 How to Create a New Newsgroup 165 List of Active Newsgroups 166 List of Moderators 169 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I 170 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II 171 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III 172 How to become a USENET site 173 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part I 174 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part II 175 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part III End of article 158 (of 178)--what next? [npq] Notice how the messages are in numerical order this time, and don't tell you who sent them. Article 154 looks interesting. To read it, type in 154 and hit enter. You'll see something like this: Article 154 (20 more) in news.announce.newusers (moderated): From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.admin,news.answers Subject: What is Usenet? Date: 20 Sep 92 04:17:26 GMT Followup-To: news.newusers.questions Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 353 Supersedes: Archive-name: what-is-usenet/part1 Original from: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) Last-change: 19 July 1992 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) The first thing to understand about Usenet is that it is widely misunderstood. Every day on Usenet, the "blind men and the elephant" phenomenon is evident, in spades. In my opinion, more flame wars arise because of a lack of understanding of the nature of Usenet than from any other source. And consider that such flame wars arise, of necessity, among people who are on Usenet. Imagine, then, how poorly understood Usenet must be by those outside! --MORE--(7%) This time, the header looks much more like the gobbledygook you get in e- mail messages. To keep reading, hit your space bar. If you hit your n key (lower case), you'll go to the next message in the numerical order. To escape rn, just keep hitting your q key (in lower case), until you get back to the command line. Now let's set up your reading list. Because rn uses the same .newsrc file as nn, you can use one of the search-and- replace methods described above. Or you can do this: Type rn and hit enter. When the first newsgroup comes up on your screen, hit your u key (in lower case). Hit it again, and again, and again. Or just keep it pressed down (if your computer starts beeping, let up for a couple of seconds). Eventually, you'll be told you're at the end of the newsgroups, and asked what you want to do next. Here's where you begin entering newsgroups. Type g newsgroup for example, g comp.sys.mac.announce) and hit enter. You'll be asked if you want to "subscribe." Hit your y key. Now you'll be asked where to put the newsgroup. If you want it up high in your reading list, type a number (1, for example, would put the list at the very top of your list); otherwise, hit a $ (yep). Then type g next newsgroup (for example, g comp.announce.newusers) and hit enter. Repeat until done. This process will also set up your reading list for nn, if you prefer that newsreader. But how do you know which newsgroups to subscribe? Typing a lowercase l and then hitting enter will show you a list of all available newsgroups. Again, since there could be more than 2,000 newsgroups on your system, this might not be something you want to do. Fortunately, you can search for groups with particular words in their names, using the l command. Typing l mac followed by enter, will bring up a list of newsgroups with those letters in them (and as in nn, you will also see groups dealing with emacs and the like, in addition to groups related to Macintosh computers). If you find what you want, but the list looks like it will keep going on for awhile, hit your q key until you get back to the normal rn prompts (normally, this will only be one or two q's). because of the vast amount of messages transmitted over Usenet, most systems carry messages for only a few days or weeks. So if there's a message you want to keep, you should either turn on your computer's screen capture or save it to a file which you can later download). To save a message as a file in rn, type s filename where "filename" is what you want to call the file. Hit enter. You'll be asked if you want to save it in "mailbox format." In most cases, you can answer with an n (which will strip off the header). The message will now be saved to a file in your News directory (which you can access by typing cd News and then hitting enter). Also, some newsgroups fill up particularly quickly -- go away for a couple of days and you'll come back to find hundreds of articles! One way to deal with that is to mark them as "read" so that they no longer appear on your screen. Within a newsgroup, type a lower-case c. You'l be asked if you're sure you want to mark the current messages as "read." assuming you are, hit y. 3.5 rn COMMANDS Different commands are available to you in rn depending on whether you are already in a newsgroup or reading a specific article. At any point, typing a lowercase h will bring up a list of available commands and some terse instructions for using them. Here are some of them: After you've just called up rn, or within a newsgroup: c Marks every article in a newsgroup as read (or "caught up") so that you don't have to see them again. The system will ask you if you are sure. Can be done either when asked if you want to read a particular newsgroup or once in the newsgroup. g Goes to a newsgroup, in this form: g news.group Use this both for going to groups to which you're already subscribed and subscribing to new groups. h Provides a list of available commands with terse instructions. l Gives a list of all available newsgroups. p Goes to the first previous subscribed newsgroup with un-read articles. q Quits, or exits, rn if you have not yet gone into a newsgroup. If you are in a newsgroup, it quits that one and brings you to the next subscribed newsgroup. Only within a newsgroup: = Gives a list of all available articles in the newsgroup. m Marks a specific article or series of articles as "un-read" again so that you can come back to them later. Typing 1700m and hitting enter would mark just that article as un-read. Typing 1700-1800m and hitting enter would mark all of those articles as un- read. space Brings up the next page of article listings. If already on the last page, displays the first article in the newsgroup. u Un-subscribe from the newsgroup. /text/ Searches through the newsgroup for articles with a specific word or phrase in the "subject:" line, from the current article to the end of the newsgroup. For example, /EFF/ would bring you to the first article with "EFF" in the "subject:" line. ?text? The same as /text/ except it searches in reverse order from the current article. Only within a specific article: e Some newsgroups consist of articles that are binary files, typically programs or graphics images. Hitting e will convert the ASCII characters within such an article into a file you can then download and use or view (assuming you have the proper computer and software). Many times, such files will be split into several articles; just keep calling up the articles and hitting e until done. You'll find the resulting file in your News subdirectory. C If you post an article and then decide it was a mistake, call it up on your host system and hit this. The message will soon begin disappearing on systems around the world. F Post a public response in the newsgroup to the current article. Includes a copy of her posting, which you can then edit down using your host system's text editor. f The same as above except it does not include a copy of the original message in yours. m Marks the current article as "un-read" so that you can come back to it later. You do not have to type the article number. Control-N Brings up the first response to the article. If there is no follow-up article, this returns you to the first unread article in the newsgroup). Control-P Goes to the message to which the current article is a reply.