The Online World Part 21

Searching by email ------------------ MCI Mail and MCI Fax have a program called Information Advantage, under which online services and newsletters can deliver search results and other information over the online services. Dialog, Dun & Bradstreet, NewsNet, and Individual Inc. have signed up for the program.

You can request a search by direct email to say Dialog. The search results will be returned to you via MCI Mail or MCI Fax.

With Dun and Bradstreet, you call them for a credit report and they send it to you. With History a.s.sociates, you send them a message via MCI Mail, and they report to you.

Using BITNET discussion lists through Internet ---------------------------------------------- To get a directory of Internet/BITNET mailing lists, send the following email message:

To: [email protected] Subject: (keep this blank) Text: LIST GLOBAL

You will receive a LONG list of available sources of information. A recent copy had over two thousand lines of text. Each mailing list is described with one line. All these mailing lists can be used by email through the Internet. Here is a random selection:

Network-wide ID Full address List t.i.tle --------------- ------------ ---------- AESRG-L [email protected] Applied Expert Systems Research Group List AGRIC-L [email protected] Agriculture Discussion AIDSNEWS [email protected] AIDS/HIV News ANIME-L [email protected] j.a.panese animedia and other animation news.

BANYAN [email protected] Banyan Networks Discussion List BRIDGE [email protected] Bridge Communication products CHEM-L [email protected] Chemistry discussion EJCREC [email protected] Electronic Journal of Communication FAMCOMM [email protected] Marital/family & relational communication SOVNET-L [email protected] USSR electronic communication list

The column "Network-wide ID" contains the names of the mailing lists. "Full address" contains their BITNET email addresses. "List t.i.tle" is a short textual description of each conference.

Keep the list on your hard disk. This makes it easier to find sources of information, when you need them.

Subscribing to mailing lists ---------------------------- Each line in the list above refers to a mailing list, also often called 'discussion list'. They work like online conferences or message sections on bulletin boards, but technically they are different. (Read about KIDLINK in Chapter 2 for background information.) All BITNET mailing lists are controlled by a program called LISTSERV on the host computer given in column two above (for example @UMCVMB). They offer "conferencing" with the following important functions:

* All "discussion items" (i.e., electronic messages sent to the lists' email address) are distributed to all subscribers.

* All messages are automatically stored in notebook archives.

You can search these log files, and you can have them sent to you as electronic mail.

* Files can be stored in the lists' a.s.sociated file libraries for distribution to subscribers on demand.

Where to send a subscription request, depends on where you are communicating from relative to the host running the LISTSERV. If this host is your nearest BITNET LISTSERV, then send the request to the address in column two by replacing the list name by LISTSERV.

Example: [email protected] is administered by [email protected] Subscribe (or signoff) by email to [email protected] .

If there is a LISTSERV closer to where you live, then you should subscribe to the nearby system rather than to the remote. This helps keep the total costs of the international network down.

Example: You live in Norway. The nearest LISTSERV is at FINHUTC. To subscribe to [email protected], send to [email protected] .

Use the addresses in column two when sending messages to the other members of the discussion lists, but do NOT send your subscription requests to this address!! If you do, it will be forwarded to all members of the mailing list. Chances are that nothing will happen, and everybody will see how sloppy you are.

So, you subscribe by sending a command to a LISTSERV. The method is similar to what we did when subscribing to Infonets in Chapter 7. If your name is Jens Jensen, and you want to subscribe to SOVNET-L, send this message through the Internet (a.s.suming that NDSUM1 is your nearest LISTSERV host):

To: [email protected] Subject: (You can write anything here. Will be ignored.) Text: SUB SOVNET-L Jens Jensen

When your subscription has been registered, you will receive a confirmation. From this date, all messages sent to the list will be forwarded to your mailbox. (Send "SIGNOFF SOVNET-L" to this address, when you have had enough.) Some lists will forward each message to you upon receipt. Others will send a periodic digest (weekly, monthly, etc.).

To send a message to SOVNET-L, send to the BITNET address in column two above. Send to

[email protected]

Review the following example. Most BITNET lists will accept these commands.

Example: Subscription to the China list --------------------------------------- CHINA-NN is listed like this in the List of Lists:

CHINA-NN [email protected] China News Digest (Global News)

Scandinavians may subscribe to CHINA-NN by Internet mail to [email protected] . North American users may send their mail to [email protected] .

If your name is Winston Hansen, write the following command in the TEXT of the message

SUB CHINA-NN Winston Hansen

When you want to leave CHINA-NN, send a cancellation message like this:

To: [email protected] Subject: (nothing here) SIGNOFF CHINA-NN

NOTE: Send the cancellation command to the address you used, when subscribing! If you subscribed through [email protected], sending the SIGNOFF command to [email protected] will get you nowhere. Send to [email protected]

Never send the SIGNOFF command to the discussion list itself!

Always send to the LISTSERV.

Monitoring the action --------------------- THINKNET is an online magazine forum dedicated to "thoughtfulness in the cybertime environment." It brings reviews of significant and thought-provoking exchanges within our new electronic nation.

This electronic publication is free. If you're interested in philosophy, subscribe by sending a message through Internet to [email protected] . Write the following in the TEXT of the message:

SEND THINKNET TO Your-Full-Name AT [email protected]

Example: If your email address is [email protected] and your name Odd de Presno, use the following command:

SEND THINKNET TO Odd de Presno AT [email protected]

THINKNET is also available through the Philosophy conference on The Well, and on GEnie in the Philosophy category under the Religion and Ethics Bulletin Board. (Hard copy versions can be bought through THINKNET, PO BOX 8383, Orange CA 92664-8383, U.S.A.).

If you're on The Well, read the topic "News from Around Well Conferences" to learn about new developments.

These are some mailing lists that may help you locate sources of interest:

NETSCOUT ([email protected]) The BITnet/Internet scouts.

Subscribe by email to [email protected] with the following in the TEXT of your message SUB NETSCOUT yourfirstname yourlastname

This is where you can discuss and exchange information about servers, FTP sites, Filelists, lists, tools, and any related aspects.

HELP-NET ([email protected]) BITNET/CREN/INTERNET Help Resource.

Send email to [email protected] with the text SUB HELP-NET yourfirstname yourlastname

The list's main purpose is to help solve user problems with utilities and software related to the Internet and BITNET networks. The library contains several good help files for novice networkers. A great place for new Internet users!

Other sources available through the Internet -------------------------------------------- The Interest Groups List of Lists is available by electronic mail from [email protected] . Send a message with the following text in the message body:

Send netinfo/interest-groups

Note that as of April 1993, the file was over 1,100,000 bytes in size. It will be returned to you in moderately sized pieces.

You can search the List of Lists by email. Say you're looking for a mailing list related to Robotics. To find out, send a message to [email protected] containing the following commands:

//ListSrch JOB Echo=No Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD *

search robotics in lists index search robotics in intgroup index search robotics in new-list index

Replace the search word 'robotics' with whatever else you may be looking for.

The Usenet list of news groups and mailing lists is available on hosts that run Usenet News or NetNews servers and/or clients in the newsgroups news.announce.newusers and news.lists.

The members of news.newusers.questions, alt.internet.help, alt.internet.access.wanted, and alt.internet.new-users readily accept your help requests.

Alt.internet.services focuses on information about services available on the Internet. It is for people with Internet accounts who want to explore beyond their local computers, to take advantage of the wealth of information and services on the net.

Services for discussion include: * things you can telnet to (weather, library catalogs, databases, and more), * things you can FTP (like pictures, sounds, programs, data) * clients/servers (like MUDs, IRC, Archie) Every second week, a list of Internet services called the "Special Internet Connections list" is posted to this newsgroup. It includes everything from where to FTP pictures from s.p.a.ce, how to find agricultural information, public UNIX, online directories and books, you name it.

Dartmouth maintains a merged list of the LISTSERV lists on BITNET and the Interest Group lists on the Internet. Each mailing list is represented by one line. To obtain this list, send a message to [email protected] . Enter the following command in the text of the message: