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are

basically online magazines (more on them in a bit).

Say you’re particularly interested in what “Emily Postnews” has to

say about proper etiquette on Usenet. Hit your c key (lower case!), and

the line will light up. If you want to read something else, hit the key

that corresponds to it. And if you want to see what’s on the next page

of articles, hit return or your space bar.

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.

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