Big Dummy's Guide To The Internet Part 11

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. In nn, hit a capital J; in rn, a small c.

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.

s.p.a.ce 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 (a.s.suming 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.

n Goes to the next unread article in the newsgroup.

N Takes you to the next article in the newsgroup even if you've already read it.

q Quits, or exits, the current article. Leaves you in the current newsgroup.

R Reply, via e-mail only, to the author of the current article.

Includes a copy of his message in yours.

r The same as above, except it does not include a copy of his article.

s file Copies the current article to a file in your News directory, where "file" is the name of the file you want to save it to.

You'll be asked if you want to use "mailbox" format when saving. If you answer by hitting your N key, most of the header will not be saved.

s|mail user Mails a copy of the article to somebody. For "user" subst.i.tute an e-mail address. Does not let you add comments to the message first, however.

s.p.a.ce Hitting the s.p.a.ce bar shows the next page of the article, or, if at the end, goes to the next un-read article.

3.6 ESSENTIAL NEWSGROUPS

With so much to choose from, everybody will likely have their own unique Usenet reading list. But there are a few newsgroups that are particularly of interest to newcomers. Among them:

news.announce.newusers This group consists of a series of articles that explain various facets of Usenet.

news.newusers.questions This is where you can ask questions (we'll see how in a bit) about how Usenet works.