Introduction to the Internet Tools: Using Newsgroups

S. Sadi Seferoglu

Getting Connected to the Newgroups Through Cunix (at Columbia University):

Newsgroups are like electronic bulletin boards where anyone can post all kinds of messages, such as announcements, newsgroup-related questions, points of view on a particular topic and more. There are a number of newsgroups formed for some departments and for some courses at Columbia University's cunix system.

Steps to get into the Newsgroups through Cunix:

1. Login into your cunix account.
2. Type "pine" at the cunix dollar ($) prompt (without the quotes).
3. At the "pine" mail program, press "L" to get to the folder list. Once you press "L", you will get a horizontally divided window into two parts. Upper portion of the window is for "local" stuff, and lower portion is for "remote" locations (News-collection <Usenet-Newsgroups>).
4. Use, the "tab" key or down-arrow key to get [Select Here to See Expanded List] in the lower section of the window highlighted. Then press the "Enter" or "Return" key.
5. Press "A" to subscribe to a newsgroup (you can see this information at the bottom of the screen among the list of commands).
6. Type in the name of the newsgroup you want to subscribe to.
   If you don't know the name of the newsgroup you want to subscribe, you can enter partial name (e.g. Columbia) and press enter. The system will give you a list of newsgroups which carries the word you typed in its name. You can use arrow keys to go up or down in that list. You can also press space bar to scroll down, and minus key "-"to scroll up. If you want to subscribe multiple newsgroups at a time you need to press "L" to switch to "ListMode". Once you made your selection(s), (in the ListMode press "X" in the boxes to select, and press "X" again to deselect) then you can press "S" to subscribe.
7. At this step you will see the name of the newsgroup(s) listed in the lower portion of your screen. You can use arrow keys to go from one to another, and then press the "Enter" key to get into it.
8. Once you are in a newsgroup, you can read anything posted there just as you do with your regular e-mail.
9. When you are done with the newsgroups, press "L" to get to the folder list, and then press Up-arrow key to go to the local section of the window and press "Enter". You will see the "INBOX" folder "sent-mail folder, and other folders you might have created.

• If you want to unsubscribe a newsgroup, press "D" (when you are at the lower portion/remote section of the pine mail menu).
• While regular e-mail is usually a "one-to-one" (one-way communication) newsgroups are "many-to-many". Therefore you should keep in mind that your messages will be seen by many people from any part of the world depending how that newsgroup was set. The newsgroups which are created/formed for classes here at Columbia can be accessed only from columbia domain. This means that those newsgroups will only be open to people who have access to Columbia's cunix system.

Accessing/Reading Newsgroups Through Netscape (at Columbia):

Newsgroups can be accessed through Netscape as well. Reading newsgroups with "Netscape" has advantages over cunix system, or any other text based system. In Netscape, when reading messages images can be viewed (without a need to download), and also hypertext links can be accessed by clicking on it.

Another advantage is that messages are grouped according to the topic. Therefore, one can see all the messages posted about a particular topic listed one after the other (topic in the subject line).

Steps to get into the Newsgroups through Netscape:

1. Open Netscape.
2. Go to "Windows" on the menu bar and select "Netscape News". The new window (News window) has three sections. On the left side, the newsgroups are listed, on the right side the messages in a particular newsgroup will be listed when you click on a newsgroup. The lower portion of the window is reserved for the message itself.

   If you haven't done it yet:

3. Go to "Options" on the menu bar and select "Mail and News Preferences.."
   In the "Preferences" window:
4. Type in the info in two sections:
   a- Servers:
   Outgoing Mail(SMTP) Server: smtp.columbia.edu
   Incoming Mail(POP3) Server: pop.columbia.edu
   POP3 User Name: Your username (Ex: jd123)
   News:
   news.cc.columbia.edu -- or -- news.cs.columbia.edu

   b- Identity:

   Your Name: John Doe
   Your Email: jd123@columbia.edu
   Reply-to Address: jd123@columbia.edu
   Your Organization: Teachers College
   Signature File: You can create a file and put the "path" in that section (You can Browse)

   Select the folder (click on the plus (+) sign) called News.cc.columbia.edu

   Then, go to "Options" on the menu bar and select "Show All Newsgroups". You will see all newsgroups (that are available at news.cc.columbia.edu) listed as groups.

   You can select the group you want. For example, if you want to go to the newsgroups at Columbia, find "Columbia" and either "double-click" on Columbia folder or click on the plus (+) sign. This will list all the sub-groups at Columbia. Once you click on a newsgroup, messages posted to that particular newsgroup will be listed on the right-hand side window, and when you click a message, the message text will be displayed on the bottom section of the screen.

• If you click (put a check mark) on the box next to the newsgroup's name, you will be subscribed to that newsgroup and when you go to Netscape news again, you won't have to go through all newsgroups again, and can ask Netscape to show "Subscribed Newsgroups" only.
• Windows' sizes can be changed by dragging it to the left-right-up-down.