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The Usenet system hosts thousands of on-line newsgroups where you can find discussion and information about everything from AA to Zappa; from K-12 math education to the Intel Pentium chip. One of the best ways to find out something about computers (and other topics) is to ask someone who knows; newsgroups facilitate this interchange.
Most World-Wide Web browsers have an interface to the newsgroups. For example, Netscape's Communicator has a Newsgroups feature. When you find some interesting newsgroups, you can mark them "subscribed", and the World-Wide Web browser will remember your selections for the future. If you use Emacs, you can access newsgroups by selecting Read Net News from the Tools menu, or by pressing Meta-x gnus.
It is generally advisable not to post messages to a newsgroup until you have been reading it for a month or so. Read the FAQ before posting a question! You can learn about "netiquette"--net etiquette--in news.announce.newusers. Also see local Usenet News Information and Pointers at Texas A&M University.
At http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ there are searchable archives of newsgroup Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Full text searching of newsgroup postings is available at Google Groups (formerly Deja News). The Usenet Info Center Launch Pad has a listing of available newsgroups, links to FAQ lists, and general information about how to use Usenet. For more links concerning newsgroups and Usenet, see Yahoo.
There are also many newsgroups that are independent of Usenet. For example, Yahoo Groups allows individuals to create their own free newsgroups.
Exercise
Find a newsgroup related to one of your hobbies.
Find a recent newsgroup posting about large prime numbers.
The Math 696 course
pages were last modified April 5, 2005. | | | Usenet news |