the state of the connections between there and your recipient). The other
advantage is that once you master the basics, you'll be able to use e-mail to
access databases and file libraries. You'll see how to do this later, along
with learning how to transfer program and data files through e-mail.
E-mail also has advantages over the telephone. You send your message when
it's convenient for you. Your recipient responds at his convenience. No
more telephone tag. And while a phone call across the country or around the
world can quickly result in huge phone bills, e-mail lets you exchange vast
amounts of mail for only a few pennies - even if the other person is in New
Zealand.
E-mail is your connection to help - your Net lifeline. The Net can
sometimes seem a frustrating place! No matter how hard you try, no matter
where you look, you just might not be able to find the answer to whatever is
causing you problems. But when you know how to use e-mail, help is often just
a few keystrokes away: ask your system administrator or a friend for help in
an e-mail message.
The quickest way to start learning e-mail is to send yourself a message.
Most public-access sites actually have several different types of mail
systems, all of which let you both send and receive mail. We'll start with
the simplest one, known, appropriately enough, as "mail," and then look at a
couple of other interfaces. At your host system's command prompt, type this:
mail username
where username is the name you gave yourself when you first logged on.
Hit enter. The computer might respond with
subject:
Type
test
or, actually, anything at all (but you'll have to hit enter before you get
to the end of the screen). Hit enter.
The cursor will drop down a line. You can now begin writing the actual
message. Type a sentence, again, anything at all. And here's where you hit
your first Unix frustration, one that will bug you repeatedly: you have to
hit enter before you get to the very end of the line. Just like typewriters,
many Unix programs have no word-wrapping.
When done with your message, hit return. Now hit control-D (the control
and the D keys at the same time). This is a Unix command that tells the
computer you're done writing and that it should close your "envelope" and
mail it off (you could also hit enter once and then, on a blank line, type a
period at the beginning of the line and hit enter again).
You've just sent your first e-mail message. And because you're sending
mail to yourself, rather than to someone somewhere else on the Net, your
message has already arrived, as we'll see in a moment.
If you had wanted, you could have even written your message on your own
computer and then uploaded it into this electronic "envelope." There are a
couple of good reasons to do this with long or involved messages. One is
that once you hit enter at the end of a line in "mail" you can't readily fix
any mistakes on that line (unless you use some special commands to call up a
Unix text processor. Also, if you are paying for access by the hour,
uploading a prepared message can save you money. Remember to save the
document in ASCII or text format. Uploading a document you've created in a
word processor that uses special formatting commands (which these days means
many programs) will cause strange effects.
When you get that blank line after the subject line, upload the message
using the ASCII protocol. Or you can copy and paste the text, if your
software allows that. When done, hit control-D as above.
Now you have mail waiting for you. Normally, when you log on, your
public-access site will tell you whether you have new mail waiting. To open
your mailbox and see your waiting mail, type
mail
and hit enter.
When the host system sees "mail" without a name after it, it knows you
want to look in your mailbox rather than send a message. Your screen, on a
plain-vanilla Unix system will display:
Mail version SMI 4.0 Mon Apr 24 18:34:15 PDT 1989 Type ? for help.
``/usr/spool/mail/adamg'': 1 message 1 new 1 unread
>N 1 adamg Sun Mar 22 20:04 12/290 test
Ignore the first line; it's just computerese of value only to the people
who run your system. You can type a question mark and hit return, but unless
you're familiar with Unix, most of what you'll see won't make much sense at
this point.
The second line tells you the directory on the host system where your mail
messages are put. This is your "home directory." It's a good name to
remember. Later, when you start transferring files across the Net, this is
where they will usually wind up, or from where you'll send them. The second
line also tells you how many messages are in your mailbox, how many have come
in since the last time you looked and how many messages you haven't read yet.
It's the third line that is of real interest - it tells you who the
message is from, when it arrived, how many lines and characters it takes up,
and what the subject is. The "N" means it is a new message - it arrived
after the last time you looked in your mailbox. Hit enter. And there's your
message - only now it's a lot longer than what you wrote!
Message 1:
From adamg Mar 22 20:04:55 1992
Received: by eff.org id AA28949
(5.65c/IDA-1.4.4/pen-ident for adamg); Sun, 22 Mar 1992 20:04:55 -0400
(ident-sender: adamg@eff.org)
Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1992 21:34:55 -0400
From: Adam Gaffin
Message-Id: <199204270134.AA28949@eff.org>
To: adamg
Subject: test
Status: R
This is only a test!
Whoa! What is all that stuff? It's your message with a postmark gone mad.
Just as the postal service puts its marks on every piece of mail it handles,
so do Net postal systems. Only it's called a "header" instead of a postmark.
Each system that handles or routes your mail puts its stamp on it. Since
many messages go through a number of systems on their way to you, you will
often get messages with headers that seem to go on forever. Among other
things, a header will tell you exactly when a message was sent and received
(even the difference between your local time and GMT - as at the end of line 4
above).
If this had been a long message, it would just keep scrolling across and
down your screen - unless the people who run your public-access site have set
it up to pause every 24 lines. One way to deal with a message that doesn't
stop is to use your telecommunication software's logging or text-buffer
function. Start it before you hit the number of the message you want to see.
Your computer will ask you what you want to call the file you're about to
create. After you name the file and hit enter, type the number of the message
you want to see and hit enter. When the message finishes scrolling, turn off
the text-buffer function, and the message is now saved in your computer.
This way, you can read the message while not connected to the Net (which can
save you money if you're paying by the hour) and write a reply offline.
But in the meantime, now what? You can respond to the message, delete it
or save it. To respond, type a lower-case "r" and hit enter. You'll get
something like this:
To: adamg
Subject: Re: test
Note that this time, you don't have to enter a username. The computer
takes it from the message you're replying to and automatically addresses your
message to its sender. The computer also automatically inserts a subject
line, by adding "Re:" to the original subject. From here, it's just like
writing a new message. But say you change your mind and decide not to reply
after all. How do you get out of the message? Hit control-C once. You'll get
this:
(Interrupt -- one more to kill letter)
If you hit control-C once more, the message will disappear and you'll get
back to your mail's command line.
Now, if you type a lower-case "d" and then hit enter, you'll delete the
original message. Type a lower-case "q" to exit your mailbox.
If you type a "q" without first hitting "d", your message is transferred
to a file called mbox. This file is where all read, but un-deleted messages
go. If you want to leave it in your mailbox for now, type a lower-case "x"
and hit enter. This gets you out of mail without making any changes.
The mbox file works a lot like your mailbox. To access it, type
mail -f mbox
at your host system's command line and hit enter.
You'll get a menu identical to the one in your mailbox from which you can
read these old messages, delete them or respond to them. It's probably a
good idea to clear out your mailbox and mbox file from time to time, if only
to keep them uncluttered.
Are there any drawbacks to e-mail? There are a few. One is that people
seem more willing to fly off the handle electronically than in person, or
over the phone. Maybe it's because it's so easy to hit R and reply to a
message without pausing and reflecting a moment. That's why we have smileys!
There's no online equivalent yet of a return receipt: chances are your
message got to where it's going, but there's no absolute way for you to know
for sure unless you get a reply from the other person. Also, because
computers are quite literal, you have to be very careful when addressing a
message. Misplace a period or a single letter in the address, and your
message could come back to you, undelivered.
So now you're ready to send e-mail to other people on the Net. Of course,
you need somebody's address to send them mail. How do you get it?
Alas, the simplest answer is not what you'd call the most elegant: you
call them up on the phone or write them a letter on paper and ask them.
Residents of the electronic frontier are only beginning to develop the
equivalent of phone books, and the ones that exist today are far from
complete (still, later on, we'll show you how to use some of these
directories).
Eventually, you'll start corresponding with people, which means you'll
want to know how to address mail to them. It's vital to know how to do this,
because the smallest mistake - using a comma when you should have used a
period, for instance, can bounce the message back to you, undelivered. In
this sense, Net addresses are like phone numbers: one wrong digit and you get
the wrong person. Fortunately, most net addresses now adhere to a relatively
easy-to-understand system.
Earlier, you sent yourself a mail message using just your user-name. This
was sort of like making a local phone call - you didn't have to dial a 1 or
an area code. This also works for mail to anybody else who has an account on
the same system as you.
Sending mail outside of your system, though, will require the use of the
Net equivalent of area codes, called "domains." A basic Net address will look
something like this:
tomg@world.std.com
Tomg is somebody's user ID, and he is at (hence the @ sign) a site or
"domain" known as std.com. Large organizations often have more than one
computer linked to the Internet; in this case, the name of the particular
machine is world (you will quickly notice that, like boat owners, Internet
computer owners always name their machines).
Domains tell you the name of the organization that runs a given e-mail
site and what kind of site it is or, if it's not in the U.S., what country
it's located in. Large organizations may have more than one computer or
gateway tied to the Internet, so you'll often see a two-part domain name; and
sometimes even three- or four-part domain names.
In general, American addresses end in an organizational suffix, such as
".edu," which means the site is at a college or university. Other American
suffixes include:
`.com'
for businesses
`.org'
for non-profit organizations
`.gov'
`.mil'
for government and military agencies
`.net'
for companies or organizations that run large networks.
Sites in the rest of the world tend to use a two-letter code that
represents their country. Most make sense, such as `.ca' for Canadian sites,
but there are a couple of seemingly odd ones, at least if you don't know the
ISO 3166 standard international abbreviations. (*note Country Codes::. for a
list of the rest of the world.) E.g., swiss sites end in `.ch' (Confederatio
Helvetica), German sites end in `.de' (DEutschland), while South African ones
end in `.za' (ZuidAfricaans is the language spoken in this country, derived
from Dutch). Some smaller U.S. sites are beginning to follow this
international convention (such as `unixland.natick.ma.us').
You'll notice that the above addresses are all in lower-case. Unlike
almost everything else having anything at all to do with Unix, Most Net
mailing systems don't care about case, so you can capitalize names if you
want, but you generally don't have to. Alas, there are a few exceptions -
some public-access sites do allow for capital letters in user names. When in
doubt, ask the person you want to write to, or let her send you a message
first (recall how a person's e-mail address is usually found on the top of
her message).
The domain name, the part of the address after the @ sign, never has to be
capitalized.
It's all a fairly simple system that works very well, except, again, it's
vital to get the address exactly right - just as you have to dial a phone
number exactly right. Send a message to `tomg@unm.edu' (which is the
University of New Mexico) when you meant to send it to `tomg@umn.edu' (the
University of Minnesota), and your letter will either bounce back to you
undelivered, or go to the wrong person.
If your message is bounced back to you as undeliverable, you'll get an
ominous looking-message from MAILER-DAEMON (actually a rather benign Unix
program that exists to handle mail), with an evil-looking header followed by
the text of your message. Sometimes, you can tell what went wrong by looking
at the first few lines of the bounced message. Besides an incorrect address,
it's possible your host system does not have the other site in the "map" it
maintains of other host systems. Or you could be trying to send mail to
another network, such as Bitnet or CompuServe, that has special addressing
requirements.
Sometimes, figuring all this out can prove highly frustrating. But
remember the prime Net commandment: Ask. Send a message to your system
administrator. He or she might be able to help decipher the problem.
There is one kind of address that may give your host system particular
problems. There are two main ways that Unix systems exchange mail. One is
known as UUCP and started out with a different addressing system than the
rest of the Net. Most UUCP systems have since switched over to the standard
Net addressing system, but a few traditional sites still cling to their
original type, which tends to have lots of exclamation points in it, like
this:
uunet!somesite!othersite!mybuddy
The problem for many host sites is that exclamation points (also known as
"bangs") now mean something special in the more common systems or "shells"
used to operate many Unix computers. This means that addressing mail to such
a site (or even responding to a message you received from one) could confuse
the poor computer to no end and your message never gets sent out. If that
happens, try putting "forward" backslashes in front of each exclamation
point, so that you get an address that looks like this:
uunet\!somesite\!othersite\!mybuddy
Note that this means you may not be able to respond to such a message by
typing a lower-case `r' - you may get an error message and you'll have to
create a brand-new message.
If you want to get a taste of what's possible through e-mail, start an
e-mail message to
almanac@oes.orst.edu
Leave the "subject:" line blank. As a message, write this:
send quote
Or, if you're feeling a little down, write this instead:
send moral-support
In either case, you will get back a message within a few seconds to a few
hours (depending on the state of your host system's Internet connection). If
you simply asked for a quote, you'll get back a fortune-cookie-like saying.
If you asked for moral support, you'll also get back a fortune-cookie-like
saying, only supposedly more uplifting.
This particular "mail server" is run by Oregon State University. Its main
purpose is actually to provide a way to distribute agricultural information
via e-mail. If you'd like to find out how to use the server's full range of
services, send a message to the above address with this line in it:
send help
You'll quickly get back a lengthy document detailing just what's available
and how to get it.
The "mail" program is actually a very powerful one and a Netwide standard,
at least on Unix computers. But it can be hard to figure out - you can type
a question mark to get a list of commands, but these may be of limited use
unless you're already familiar with Unix. Fortunately, there are a couple of
other mail programs that are easier to use.
===
Elm is a combination mailbox and letter-writing system that uses menus to
help you navigate through mail. Most Unix-based host systems now have it
online. To use it, type
elm
and hit enter. You'll get a menu of your waiting mail, along with a list
of commands you can execute, that will look something like this:
Mailbox is '/usr/spool/mail/adamg' with 38 messages [ELM 2.3 PL11]
1 Sep 1 Christopher Davis (13) here's another message.
2 Sep 1 Christopher Davis (91) This is a message from Eudora
3 Aug 31 Rita Marie Rouvali (161) First Internet Hunt !!! (fwd)
4 Aug 31 Peter Scott/Manage (69) New File University of Londo
5 Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (64) New File X.500 service at A
6 Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (39) New File DATAPAC Informatio
7 Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (67) Proposed Usenet group for HYTELNET n
8 Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (56) New File JANET Public Acces
9 Aug 26 Helen Trillian Ros (15) Tuesday
10 Aug 26 Peter Scott/Manage (151) Update Oxford University OU
You can use any of the following commands by pressing the first character;
d)elete or u)ndelete mail, m)ail a message, r)eply or f)orward mail, q)uit
To read a message, press. j = move down, k = move up, ? = help
Each line shows the date you received the message, who sent it, how many
lines long the message is, and the message's subject.
If you are using VT100 emulation, you can move up and down the menu with
your up and down arrow keys. Otherwise, type the line number of the message
you want to read or delete and hit enter.
When you read a message, it pauses every 24 lines, instead of scrolling
until it's done. Hit the space bar to read the next page. You can type a
lower-case "r" to reply or a lower-case "q" or "i" to get back to the menu
(the I stands for "index").
At the main menu, hitting a lower-case "m" followed by enter will let you
start a message. To delete a message, type a lower-case "d". You can do
this while reading the message. Or, if you are in the menu, move the cursor
to the message's line and then hit D.
When you're done with Elm, type a lower-case "q". The program will ask if
you really want to delete the messages you marked. Then, it will ask you if
you want to move any messages you've read but haven't marked for deletion to
a "received" file. For now, hit your n key.
Elm has a major disadvantage for the beginner. The default text editor it
generally calls up when you hit your "r" or "m" key is often a program called
emacs. Unixoids swear by emacs, but everybody else almost always finds it
impossible. Unfortunately, you can't always get away from it (or vi, another
text editor often found on Unix systems), so later on we'll talk about some
basic commands that will keep you from going totally nuts.
====
Pine is based on elm but includes a number of improvements that make it an
ideal mail system for beginners. Like elm, pine starts you with a menu. It
also has an "address book" feature that is handy for people with long or
complex e-mail addresses. Hitting A at the main menu puts you in the address
book, where you can type in the person's first name (or nickname) followed by
her address. Then, when you want to send that person a message, you only have
to type in her first name or nickname, and pine automatically inserts her
actual address. The address book also lets you set up a mailing list. This
feature allows you to send the same message to a number of people at once.
What really sets pine apart is its built-in text editor, which looks and
feels a lot more like word-processing programs available for MS-DOS and
Macintosh users. Not only does it have word wrap (a revolutionary concept if
ever there was one, it also has a rwspell-checker and a search command. Best
of all, all of the commands you need are listed in a two-line mini-menu at
the bottom of each screen. The commands look like this:
^W Where is
The little caret is a synonym for the key marked "control" on your
keyboard. To find where a particular word is in your document, you'd hit
your control key and your W key at the same time, which would bring up a
prompt asking you for the word to look for.
Some of pine's commands are a tad peculiar (control-V for "page down" for
example), which comes from being based on a variant of emacs (which is
utterly peculiar). But again, all of the commands you need are listed on
that two-line mini-menu, so it shouldn't take you more than a couple of
seconds to find the right one.
To use pine, type
pine
at the command line and hit enter. It's a relatively new program, so many
systems do not yet have it online. But it's so easy to use, you should
probably send e-mail to your system administrator urging him to get it!
=======
When you're involved in an online discussion, you can't see the smiles or
shrugs that the other person might make in a live conversation to show he's
only kidding. But online, there's no body language. So what you might think
is funny, somebody else might take as an insult. To try to keep such
misunderstandings from erupting into bitter disputes, we have smileys. Tilt
your head to the left and look at the following sideways. `:-)'. Or simply
`:)'. This is your basic "smiley." Use it to indicate people should not take
that comment you just made as seriously as they might otherwise. You make a
smiley by typing a colon, a hyphen and a right parenthetical bracket. Some
people prefer using the word "grin," usually in this form:
Sometimes, though, you'll see it as *grin* or even just for short.
Some other smileys include:
`;-)'
Wink;
`:-('
Frown;
`:-O'
Surprise;
`8-)'
Wearing glasses;
`=|:-)='
Abe Lincoln.
OK, so maybe the last two are a little bogus `:-)'.
===========================================
If you connect to the Net through a Unix system, eventually you'll have to
come to terms with Unix. For better or worse, most Unix systems do NOT
shield you from their inner workings - if you want to copy a Usenet posting
to a file, for example, you'll have to use some Unix commands if you ever
want to do anything with that file.
Like MS-DOS, Unix is an operating system - it tells the computer how to do
things. Now while Unix may have a reputation as being even more complex than
MS-DOS, in most cases, a few basic, and simple, commands should be all you'll
ever need.
If your own computer uses MS-DOS or PC-DOS, the basic concepts will seem
very familiar - but watch out for the cd command, which works differently
enough from the similarly named DOS command that it will drive you crazy.
Also, unlike MS-DOS, Unix is case sensitive - if you type commands or
directory names in the wrong case, you'll get an error message.
If you're used to working on a Mac, you'll have to remember that Unix
stores files in "directories" rather than "folders." Unix directories are
organized like branches on a tree. At the bottom is the "root" directory,
with sub-directories branching off that (and sub-directories in turn can have
sub-directories). The Mac equivalent of a Unix sub-directory is a folder
within another folder.
`cat'
Equivalent to the MS-DOS "type" command. To pause a file every screen,
type `cat file |more', better: `more file', where "file" is the name of
the file you want to see. Hitting control-C will stop the display. You
can also use `cat' for writing or uploading text files to your name or
home directory (similar to the MS-DOS `copy con:' command). If you type
`cat >test' you start a file called "test." You can either write
something simple (no editing once you've finished a line and you have to
hit return at the end of each line) or upload something into that file
using your communications software's ASCII protocol). To close the
file, hit control-D.
`cd'
The "change directory" command. To change from your present directory
to another, type `cd directory' and hit enter. Unlike MS-DOS, which uses
a \ to denote sub-directories (for example: procomm\text), Unix uses a /
(for example: procomm/text). So to change from your present directory
to the procomm/text sub-directory, you would type `cd procomm/text' and
then hit enter. As in MS-DOS, you do not need the first backslash if the
subdirectory comes off the directory you're already in. To move back up
a directory tree, you would type `cd ..' followed by enter. Note the
space between the `cd' and the two periods - this is where MS-DOS users
will really go nuts.
`cp'
Copies a file. The syntax is `cp file1 file2' which would copy file1 to
file2 (or overwrite file2 with file1).
`ls'
This command, when followed by enter, tells you what's in the directory,
similar to the DOS `dir' command, except in alphabetical order.
`ls |more'
will stop the listing every 24 lines - handy if there are a lot of
things in the directory. The basic ls command does not list "hidden"
files, such as the `.login' file that controls how your system interacts
with Unix. To see these files, type `ls -a' or `ls -a |more'
`ls -l' will tell you the size of each file in bytes and tell you when
each was created or modified.
`mv'
Similar to the MS-DOS rename command. In fact, `mv file1 file2' will
rename file1 as file2, The command can also be used to move files
between directories.
`mv file1 News' would move file1 to your News directory.
`rm'
Deletes a file. Type `rm filename' and hit enter (but beware: when you
hit enter, it's gone for good).
Wildcards
---------
When searching for, copying or deleting files, you can use "wildcards" if
you are not sure of the file's exact name.
ls man*
would find the following files:
manual, manual.txt, man-o-man.
Use a question mark when you're sure about all but one or two characters.
For example,
ls man?
would find a file called mane, but not one called manual.
========================
There are a number of computer networks that are not directly tied to the
Net, but to which you can still send e-mail messages. Here's a list of some
of the larger networks, how to send mail to them and how their users can send
mail to you:
America Online
--------------
Remove any spaces from a user's name and append `@aol.com', to get
user@aol.com
America Online users who want to send mail to you need only put your Net
address in the "to:" field before composing a message.
ATTMail
-------
Address your message to. From ATTMail, a user would
send mail to you in this form:
internet!domain!user
So if your address were, your correspondent would
send a message to you at
internet!world.std.com!adamg
Bitnet
------
Users of Bitnet (and NetNorth in Canada and EARN in Europe) often have
addresses in this form:. If you're lucky, all you'll have to
do to mail to that address is add "bitnet" at the end, to get
. Sometimes, however, mail to such an address will
bounce back to you, because Bitnet addresses do not always translate well
into an Internet form. If this happens, you can send mail through one of two
Internet/Bitnet gateways. First, change the `@' in the address to a `%', so
that you get. Then add either `@vm.marist.edu' or
`@cunyvm.cuny.edu', so that, with the above example, you would get
or
Bitnet users have it a little easier: They can usually send mail directly
to your e-mail address without fooling around with it at all. So send them
your address and they should be OK.
CompuServe
----------
CompuServe users have numerical addresses in this form: `73727,545'. To
send mail to a CompuServe user, change the comma to a period and add
`@compuserve.com'; for example: <73727.545@compuserve.com>.
If you know CompuServe users who want to send you mail, tell them to GO
MAIL and create a mail message. In the address area, instead of typing in a
CompuServe number, have them type your address in this form:
>INTERNET:YourID@YourAddress.
For example, `>INTERNET:adamg@world.std.com'. Note that both the `>' and
the `:' are required.
Delphi
------
To send mail to a Delphi user, the form is.
Fidonet
-------
To send mail to somebody who uses a Fidonet BBS, you need the name they
use to log onto that system and its "node number." Fidonet node numbers or
addresses consist of three numbers, in this form: `1:322/190'. The first
number tells which of three broad geographic zones the BBS is in (1
represents the U.S. and Canada, 2 Europe and Israel, 3 Pacific Asia, 4 South
America). The second number represents the BBS's network, while the final
number is the BBS's "FidoNode" number in that network. If your correspondent
only gives you two numbers (for example, `322/190'), it means the system is
in zone 1.
Now comes the tricky part. You have to reverse the numbers and add to them
the letters `f', `n' and `z' (which stand for "FidoNode," "network," and
"zone'). For example, the address above would become
f190.n322.
Now add `fidonet.org' at the end, to get `f190.n322. z1.fidonet.org'. Then
add `First Name.LastName@', to get
FirstName.LastName@f190.n322.z1.fidonet.org.
Note the period between the first and last names. Whew!
The reverse process is totally different. First, the person has to have
access to his or her BBS's "net mail" area and know the Fidonet address of
his or her local Fidonet/UUCP gateway (often their system operator will know
it). Your Fidonet correspondent should address a net-mail message to UUCP
(not your name) in the "to:" field. In the node-number field, they should
type in the node number of the Fidonet/UUCP gateway (if the gateway system is
in the same regional network as their system, they need only type the last
number, for example, `390' instead of `322/390'). Then, the first line of
the message has to be your Internet address, followed by a blank line. After
that, the person can write the message and send it.
Because of the way Fidonet moves mail, it could take a day or two for a
message to be delivered in either direction. Also, because many Fidonet
systems are run as hobbies, it is considered good form to ask the gateway
sysop's permission if you intend to pass large amounts of mail back and
forth. Messages of a commercial nature are strictly forbidden (even if it's
something the other person asked for). Also, consider it very likely that
somebody other than the recipient will read your messages.
GEnie
-----
To send mail to a GEnie user, add `@genie.geis.com' to the end of their
GEnie user name, for example:. Unlike users of other
networks, however, GEnie users can receive mail from Internet only if they
pay an extra monthly charge.
MCIMail
-------
To send mail to somebody with an MCIMail account, add `@mcimail.com' to
the end of their name or numerical address. For example:
555-1212@mcimail.com
or
jsmith@mcimail.com
Note that if there is more than one MCIMail subscriber with that name, you
will get a mail message back from MCI giving you their names and numerical
addresses. You'll then have to figure out which one you want and re-send the
message.
From MCI, a user would type: *Your Name* `(EMS)' at the "To:" prompt. At
the EMS prompt, he or she would type `internet' followed by your Net address
at the "Mbx:" prompt.
Peacenet
--------
To send mail to a Peacenet user, use this form:
username@igc.org
Peacenet subscribers can use your regular address to send you mail.
Prodigy
-------
. Note that Prodigy users must pay extra for Internet
e-mail.
=====================
* You send a message but get back an ominous looking message from
MAILER-DAEMON containing up to several dozen lines of computerese
followed by your message. Somewhere in those lines you can often find a
clue to what went wrong. You might have made a mistake in spelling the
e-mail address. The site to which you're sending mail might have been
down for maintenance or a problem. You may have used the wrong
"translation" for mail to a non-Internet network.
* You call up your host system's text editor to write a message or reply
to one and can't seem to get out. If it's emacs, try control-X,
control-C (in other words, hit your control key and your X key at the
same time, followed by control and C). If worse comes to worse, you can
hang up.
* In Elm, you accidentally hit the D key for a message you want to save.
Type the number of the message, hit enter and then U, which will
"un-delete" the message. This works only before you exit Elm; once you
quit, the message is gone.
* You try to upload an ASCII message you've written on your own computer
into a message you're preparing in Elm or Pine and you get a lot of left
brackets, capital Ms, Ks and Ls and some funny-looking characters.
Believe it or not, your message will actually wind up looking fine; all
that garbage is temporary and reflects the problems some Unix text
processors have with ASCII uploads. But it will take much longer for
your upload to finish. One way to deal with this is to call up the
simple mail program, which will not produce any weird characters when you
upload a text file into a message. Another way (which is better if your
prepared message is a response to somebody's mail), is to create a text
file on your host system with cat, for example,
cat >file
and then upload your text into that. Then, in Elm or Pine, you can
insert the message with a simple command (control-r in Pine, for
example); only this time you won't see all that extraneous stuff.
====
SCOTT YANOFF posts a very long list of existing cross-connections of
almost any sub-nets to "newsgroups" (*note Global Watering Hole::. for an
explanation of this term) `comp.mail', `comp.answers', and `news.answers'.
Just to mention a few: AppleLink, BIX, GreeNet, MausNet, SprintMail, etc.
Get your hands on the `inter-network-guide', that's kept on `rtfm.mit.edu' in
directory `pub/usenet/comp.mail'. *Note Advanced E-mail:: or *Note FTP:: to
find out how to access this Internet treasure chest.
*"...and the first lesson is:
Never lose the alternative way out of sight."*
-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
*"If all else fails, read the manual."*
-- PC Wizard
*"If all else fails, read the manual page."*
-- Unix Wizard
********************************
Imagine a conversation carried out over a period of hours and days, as if
people were leaving messages and responses on a bulletin board. Or imagine
the electronic equivalent of a radio talk show where everybody can put their
two cents in and no one is ever on hold.
Unlike e-mail, which is "one-to-one," Usenet is "many-to-many."
Usenet is the international meeting place, where people gather to meet
their friends, discuss the day's events, keep up with computer trends or talk
about whatever's on their mind. Jumping into a Usenet discussion can be a
liberating experience. Nobody knows what you look or sound like, how old you
are, what your background is. You're judged solely on your words, your
ability to make a point.
To many people, Usenet IS the Net. In fact, it is often confused with
Internet. But it is a totally separate system. All Internet sites CAN carry
Usenet, but so do many non-Internet sites, from sophisticated Unix machines
to old XTs and Apple IIs.
Technically, Usenet messages are shipped around the world, from host
system to host system, using one of several specific Net protocols. Your
host system stores all of its Usenet messages in one place, which everybody
with an account on the system can access. That way, no matter how many people
actually read a given message, each host system has to store only one copy of
it. Many host systems "talk" with several others regularly in case one or
another of their links goes down for some reason. When two host systems
connect, they basically compare notes on which Usenet messages they already
have. Any that one is missing the other then transmits, and vice-versa.
Because they are computers, they don't mind running through thousands, even
millions, of these comparisons every day.
Yes, millions. For Usenet is huge. Every day, Usenet users pump upwards
of 25 million characters a day into the system - roughly the equivalent of
volumes A-E of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Obviously, nobody could possibly keep up with this immense flow of
messages. Let's look at how to find messages of interest to you.
Newsgroup Hierarchies
=====================
The basic building block of Usenet is the newsgroup, which is a collection
of messages with a related theme (on other networks, these would be called
conferences, forums, bboards or special-interest groups).
There are now more than 4,500 of these newsgroups. With so many
newsgroups, it can be hard finding ones of interest to you. We'll start off
by showing you how to get into some of the more interesting or useful
newsgroups so you can get a feel for how it all works.
Some public-access systems try to make it easier by dividing Usenet into
several broad categories. Choose one of those and you're given a list of
newsgroups in that category. Then select the newsgroup you're interested in
and start reading.
Other systems let you compile your own "reading list" so that you only see
messages in conferences you want. In both cases, conferences are arranged in
a particular hierarchy devised in the early 1980s. Newsgroup names start
with one of a series of broad topic names. For example, newsgroups beginning
with "comp." are about particular computer-related topics. These broad
topics are followed by a series of more focused topics (so that `comp.unix'
groups are limited to discussion about Unix). The main hierarchies are:
`bionet'
Research biology
`bit.listserv'
Conferences originating as Bitnet mailing lists
`biz'
Business
`comp'
Computers and related subjects
`misc'
Discussions that don't fit anywhere else
`news'
News about Usenet itself
`rec'
Hobbies, games and recreation
`sci'
Science other than research biology
`soc'
"Social" groups, often ethnically related
`talk'
Politics and related topics
`alt'
Controversial or unusual topics; not carried by all sites
In addition, many host systems carry newsgroups for a particular city,
state or region. For example, `ne.housing' is a newsgroup where New
Englanders look for apartments. A growing number also carry K12 newsgroups,
which are aimed at elementary and secondary teachers and students. And a
number of sites carry clari newsgroups, which is actually a commercial
service consisting of wire-service stories and a unique online computer news
service (*note News of the World::.).
How do you dive right in? On the Free-Net and some other systems, it's
all done through menus - you just keep choosing from a list of choices until
you get to the newsgroup you want and then hit the "read" command. On Unix
systems, however, you will have to use a "newsreader" program. Two of the
more common ones are known as rn (for "read news") and nn (for "no news" -
because it's supposed to be simpler to use).
For beginners, nn may be the better choice because it works with
rudimentary menus - you get a list of articles in a given newsgroup and then
you choose which ones you want to see. To try it out, connect to your host
system and, at the command line, type
nn news.announce.newusers
and hit enter. After a few seconds, you should see something like this:
Newsgroup: news.announce.newusers Articles: 22 of 22/1 NEW
a Gene Spafford 776 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
b Gene Spafford 362 A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community
c Gene Spafford 387 Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
d Gene Spafford 101 Hints on writing style for Usenet
e Gene Spafford 74 Introduction to news.announce
f Gene Spafford 367 USENET Software: History and Sources
g Gene Spafford 353 What is Usenet?
h taylor 241 A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists
i Gene Spafford 585 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I
j Gene Spafford 455 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II
k David C Lawrenc 151 How to Create a New Newsgroup
l Gene Spafford 106 How to Get Information about Networks
m Gene Spafford 888 List of Active Newsgroups
n Gene Spafford 504 List of Moderators
o Gene Spafford 1051 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I
p Gene Spafford 1123 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II
q Gene Spafford 1193 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III
r Jonathan Kamens 644 How to become a USENET site
s Jonathan Kamen 1344 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part I
-- 15:52 -- SELECT -- help:? -----Top 85%-----
Explanatory postings for new users. (Moderated)
Obviously, this is a good newsgroup to begin your exploration of Usenet!
Here's what all this means: The first letter on each line is the letter you
type to read that particular "article" (it makes sense that a "newsgroup"
would have "articles"). Next comes the name of the person who wrote that
article, followed by its length, in lines, and what the article is about. At
the bottom, you see the local time at your access site, what you're doing
right now (i.e., SELECTing articles), which key to hit for some help (the ?
key) and how many of the articles in the newsgroup you can see on this
screen. The "(moderated)" means the newsgroup has a "moderator" who is the
only one who can directly post messages to it. This is generally limited to
groups such as this, which contain articles of basic information or for
digests, which are basically online magazines (more on them in a bit).
Say you're particularly interested in what "Emily Postnews" (*note Dear
Emily::.) 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 Netiquette
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
advantage is that once you master the basics, you'll be able to use e-mail to
access databases and file libraries. You'll see how to do this later, along
with learning how to transfer program and data files through e-mail.
E-mail also has advantages over the telephone. You send your message when
it's convenient for you. Your recipient responds at his convenience. No
more telephone tag. And while a phone call across the country or around the
world can quickly result in huge phone bills, e-mail lets you exchange vast
amounts of mail for only a few pennies - even if the other person is in New
Zealand.
E-mail is your connection to help - your Net lifeline. The Net can
sometimes seem a frustrating place! No matter how hard you try, no matter
where you look, you just might not be able to find the answer to whatever is
causing you problems. But when you know how to use e-mail, help is often just
a few keystrokes away: ask your system administrator or a friend for help in
an e-mail message.
The quickest way to start learning e-mail is to send yourself a message.
Most public-access sites actually have several different types of mail
systems, all of which let you both send and receive mail. We'll start with
the simplest one, known, appropriately enough, as "mail," and then look at a
couple of other interfaces. At your host system's command prompt, type this:
mail username
where username is the name you gave yourself when you first logged on.
Hit enter. The computer might respond with
subject:
Type
test
or, actually, anything at all (but you'll have to hit enter before you get
to the end of the screen). Hit enter.
The cursor will drop down a line. You can now begin writing the actual
message. Type a sentence, again, anything at all. And here's where you hit
your first Unix frustration, one that will bug you repeatedly: you have to
hit enter before you get to the very end of the line. Just like typewriters,
many Unix programs have no word-wrapping.
When done with your message, hit return. Now hit control-D (the control
and the D keys at the same time). This is a Unix command that tells the
computer you're done writing and that it should close your "envelope" and
mail it off (you could also hit enter once and then, on a blank line, type a
period at the beginning of the line and hit enter again).
You've just sent your first e-mail message. And because you're sending
mail to yourself, rather than to someone somewhere else on the Net, your
message has already arrived, as we'll see in a moment.
If you had wanted, you could have even written your message on your own
computer and then uploaded it into this electronic "envelope." There are a
couple of good reasons to do this with long or involved messages. One is
that once you hit enter at the end of a line in "mail" you can't readily fix
any mistakes on that line (unless you use some special commands to call up a
Unix text processor. Also, if you are paying for access by the hour,
uploading a prepared message can save you money. Remember to save the
document in ASCII or text format. Uploading a document you've created in a
word processor that uses special formatting commands (which these days means
many programs) will cause strange effects.
When you get that blank line after the subject line, upload the message
using the ASCII protocol. Or you can copy and paste the text, if your
software allows that. When done, hit control-D as above.
Now you have mail waiting for you. Normally, when you log on, your
public-access site will tell you whether you have new mail waiting. To open
your mailbox and see your waiting mail, type
and hit enter.
When the host system sees "mail" without a name after it, it knows you
want to look in your mailbox rather than send a message. Your screen, on a
plain-vanilla Unix system will display:
Mail version SMI 4.0 Mon Apr 24 18:34:15 PDT 1989 Type ? for help.
``/usr/spool/mail/adamg'': 1 message 1 new 1 unread
>N 1 adamg Sun Mar 22 20:04 12/290 test
Ignore the first line; it's just computerese of value only to the people
who run your system. You can type a question mark and hit return, but unless
you're familiar with Unix, most of what you'll see won't make much sense at
this point.
The second line tells you the directory on the host system where your mail
messages are put. This is your "home directory." It's a good name to
remember. Later, when you start transferring files across the Net, this is
where they will usually wind up, or from where you'll send them. The second
line also tells you how many messages are in your mailbox, how many have come
in since the last time you looked and how many messages you haven't read yet.
It's the third line that is of real interest - it tells you who the
message is from, when it arrived, how many lines and characters it takes up,
and what the subject is. The "N" means it is a new message - it arrived
after the last time you looked in your mailbox. Hit enter. And there's your
message - only now it's a lot longer than what you wrote!
Message 1:
From adamg Mar 22 20:04:55 1992
Received: by eff.org id AA28949
(5.65c/IDA-1.4.4/pen-ident for adamg); Sun, 22 Mar 1992 20:04:55 -0400
(ident-sender: adamg@eff.org)
Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1992 21:34:55 -0400
From: Adam Gaffin
Message-Id: <199204270134.AA28949@eff.org>
To: adamg
Subject: test
Status: R
This is only a test!
Whoa! What is all that stuff? It's your message with a postmark gone mad.
Just as the postal service puts its marks on every piece of mail it handles,
so do Net postal systems. Only it's called a "header" instead of a postmark.
Each system that handles or routes your mail puts its stamp on it. Since
many messages go through a number of systems on their way to you, you will
often get messages with headers that seem to go on forever. Among other
things, a header will tell you exactly when a message was sent and received
(even the difference between your local time and GMT - as at the end of line 4
above).
If this had been a long message, it would just keep scrolling across and
down your screen - unless the people who run your public-access site have set
it up to pause every 24 lines. One way to deal with a message that doesn't
stop is to use your telecommunication software's logging or text-buffer
function. Start it before you hit the number of the message you want to see.
Your computer will ask you what you want to call the file you're about to
create. After you name the file and hit enter, type the number of the message
you want to see and hit enter. When the message finishes scrolling, turn off
the text-buffer function, and the message is now saved in your computer.
This way, you can read the message while not connected to the Net (which can
save you money if you're paying by the hour) and write a reply offline.
But in the meantime, now what? You can respond to the message, delete it
or save it. To respond, type a lower-case "r" and hit enter. You'll get
something like this:
To: adamg
Subject: Re: test
Note that this time, you don't have to enter a username. The computer
takes it from the message you're replying to and automatically addresses your
message to its sender. The computer also automatically inserts a subject
line, by adding "Re:" to the original subject. From here, it's just like
writing a new message. But say you change your mind and decide not to reply
after all. How do you get out of the message? Hit control-C once. You'll get
this:
(Interrupt -- one more to kill letter)
If you hit control-C once more, the message will disappear and you'll get
back to your mail's command line.
Now, if you type a lower-case "d" and then hit enter, you'll delete the
original message. Type a lower-case "q" to exit your mailbox.
If you type a "q" without first hitting "d", your message is transferred
to a file called mbox. This file is where all read, but un-deleted messages
go. If you want to leave it in your mailbox for now, type a lower-case "x"
and hit enter. This gets you out of mail without making any changes.
The mbox file works a lot like your mailbox. To access it, type
mail -f mbox
at your host system's command line and hit enter.
You'll get a menu identical to the one in your mailbox from which you can
read these old messages, delete them or respond to them. It's probably a
good idea to clear out your mailbox and mbox file from time to time, if only
to keep them uncluttered.
Are there any drawbacks to e-mail? There are a few. One is that people
seem more willing to fly off the handle electronically than in person, or
over the phone. Maybe it's because it's so easy to hit R and reply to a
message without pausing and reflecting a moment. That's why we have smileys!
There's no online equivalent yet of a return receipt: chances are your
message got to where it's going, but there's no absolute way for you to know
for sure unless you get a reply from the other person. Also, because
computers are quite literal, you have to be very careful when addressing a
message. Misplace a period or a single letter in the address, and your
message could come back to you, undelivered.
So now you're ready to send e-mail to other people on the Net. Of course,
you need somebody's address to send them mail. How do you get it?
Alas, the simplest answer is not what you'd call the most elegant: you
call them up on the phone or write them a letter on paper and ask them.
Residents of the electronic frontier are only beginning to develop the
equivalent of phone books, and the ones that exist today are far from
complete (still, later on, we'll show you how to use some of these
directories).
Eventually, you'll start corresponding with people, which means you'll
want to know how to address mail to them. It's vital to know how to do this,
because the smallest mistake - using a comma when you should have used a
period, for instance, can bounce the message back to you, undelivered. In
this sense, Net addresses are like phone numbers: one wrong digit and you get
the wrong person. Fortunately, most net addresses now adhere to a relatively
easy-to-understand system.
Earlier, you sent yourself a mail message using just your user-name. This
was sort of like making a local phone call - you didn't have to dial a 1 or
an area code. This also works for mail to anybody else who has an account on
the same system as you.
Sending mail outside of your system, though, will require the use of the
Net equivalent of area codes, called "domains." A basic Net address will look
something like this:
tomg@world.std.com
Tomg is somebody's user ID, and he is at (hence the @ sign) a site or
"domain" known as std.com. Large organizations often have more than one
computer linked to the Internet; in this case, the name of the particular
machine is world (you will quickly notice that, like boat owners, Internet
computer owners always name their machines).
Domains tell you the name of the organization that runs a given e-mail
site and what kind of site it is or, if it's not in the U.S., what country
it's located in. Large organizations may have more than one computer or
gateway tied to the Internet, so you'll often see a two-part domain name; and
sometimes even three- or four-part domain names.
In general, American addresses end in an organizational suffix, such as
".edu," which means the site is at a college or university. Other American
suffixes include:
`.com'
for businesses
`.org'
for non-profit organizations
`.gov'
`.mil'
for government and military agencies
`.net'
for companies or organizations that run large networks.
Sites in the rest of the world tend to use a two-letter code that
represents their country. Most make sense, such as `.ca' for Canadian sites,
but there are a couple of seemingly odd ones, at least if you don't know the
ISO 3166 standard international abbreviations. (*note Country Codes::. for a
list of the rest of the world.) E.g., swiss sites end in `.ch' (Confederatio
Helvetica), German sites end in `.de' (DEutschland), while South African ones
end in `.za' (ZuidAfricaans is the language spoken in this country, derived
from Dutch). Some smaller U.S. sites are beginning to follow this
international convention (such as `unixland.natick.ma.us').
You'll notice that the above addresses are all in lower-case. Unlike
almost everything else having anything at all to do with Unix, Most Net
mailing systems don't care about case, so you can capitalize names if you
want, but you generally don't have to. Alas, there are a few exceptions -
some public-access sites do allow for capital letters in user names. When in
doubt, ask the person you want to write to, or let her send you a message
first (recall how a person's e-mail address is usually found on the top of
her message).
The domain name, the part of the address after the @ sign, never has to be
capitalized.
It's all a fairly simple system that works very well, except, again, it's
vital to get the address exactly right - just as you have to dial a phone
number exactly right. Send a message to `tomg@unm.edu' (which is the
University of New Mexico) when you meant to send it to `tomg@umn.edu' (the
University of Minnesota), and your letter will either bounce back to you
undelivered, or go to the wrong person.
If your message is bounced back to you as undeliverable, you'll get an
ominous looking-message from MAILER-DAEMON (actually a rather benign Unix
program that exists to handle mail), with an evil-looking header followed by
the text of your message. Sometimes, you can tell what went wrong by looking
at the first few lines of the bounced message. Besides an incorrect address,
it's possible your host system does not have the other site in the "map" it
maintains of other host systems. Or you could be trying to send mail to
another network, such as Bitnet or CompuServe, that has special addressing
requirements.
Sometimes, figuring all this out can prove highly frustrating. But
remember the prime Net commandment: Ask. Send a message to your system
administrator. He or she might be able to help decipher the problem.
There is one kind of address that may give your host system particular
problems. There are two main ways that Unix systems exchange mail. One is
known as UUCP and started out with a different addressing system than the
rest of the Net. Most UUCP systems have since switched over to the standard
Net addressing system, but a few traditional sites still cling to their
original type, which tends to have lots of exclamation points in it, like
this:
uunet!somesite!othersite!mybuddy
The problem for many host sites is that exclamation points (also known as
"bangs") now mean something special in the more common systems or "shells"
used to operate many Unix computers. This means that addressing mail to such
a site (or even responding to a message you received from one) could confuse
the poor computer to no end and your message never gets sent out. If that
happens, try putting "forward" backslashes in front of each exclamation
point, so that you get an address that looks like this:
uunet\!somesite\!othersite\!mybuddy
Note that this means you may not be able to respond to such a message by
typing a lower-case `r' - you may get an error message and you'll have to
create a brand-new message.
If you want to get a taste of what's possible through e-mail, start an
e-mail message to
almanac@oes.orst.edu
Leave the "subject:" line blank. As a message, write this:
send quote
Or, if you're feeling a little down, write this instead:
send moral-support
In either case, you will get back a message within a few seconds to a few
hours (depending on the state of your host system's Internet connection). If
you simply asked for a quote, you'll get back a fortune-cookie-like saying.
If you asked for moral support, you'll also get back a fortune-cookie-like
saying, only supposedly more uplifting.
This particular "mail server" is run by Oregon State University. Its main
purpose is actually to provide a way to distribute agricultural information
via e-mail. If you'd like to find out how to use the server's full range of
services, send a message to the above address with this line in it:
send help
You'll quickly get back a lengthy document detailing just what's available
and how to get it.
The "mail" program is actually a very powerful one and a Netwide standard,
at least on Unix computers. But it can be hard to figure out - you can type
a question mark to get a list of commands, but these may be of limited use
unless you're already familiar with Unix. Fortunately, there are a couple of
other mail programs that are easier to use.
===
Elm is a combination mailbox and letter-writing system that uses menus to
help you navigate through mail. Most Unix-based host systems now have it
online. To use it, type
elm
and hit enter. You'll get a menu of your waiting mail, along with a list
of commands you can execute, that will look something like this:
Mailbox is '/usr/spool/mail/adamg' with 38 messages [ELM 2.3 PL11]
1 Sep 1 Christopher Davis (13) here's another message.
2 Sep 1 Christopher Davis (91) This is a message from Eudora
3 Aug 31 Rita Marie Rouvali (161) First Internet Hunt !!! (fwd)
4 Aug 31 Peter Scott/Manage (69) New File
5 Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (64) New File
6 Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (39) New File
7 Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (67) Proposed Usenet group for HYTELNET n
8 Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (56) New File
9 Aug 26 Helen Trillian Ros (15) Tuesday
10 Aug 26 Peter Scott/Manage (151) Update
You can use any of the following commands by pressing the first character;
d)elete or u)ndelete mail, m)ail a message, r)eply or f)orward mail, q)uit
To read a message, press
Each line shows the date you received the message, who sent it, how many
lines long the message is, and the message's subject.
If you are using VT100 emulation, you can move up and down the menu with
your up and down arrow keys. Otherwise, type the line number of the message
you want to read or delete and hit enter.
When you read a message, it pauses every 24 lines, instead of scrolling
until it's done. Hit the space bar to read the next page. You can type a
lower-case "r" to reply or a lower-case "q" or "i" to get back to the menu
(the I stands for "index").
At the main menu, hitting a lower-case "m" followed by enter will let you
start a message. To delete a message, type a lower-case "d". You can do
this while reading the message. Or, if you are in the menu, move the cursor
to the message's line and then hit D.
When you're done with Elm, type a lower-case "q". The program will ask if
you really want to delete the messages you marked. Then, it will ask you if
you want to move any messages you've read but haven't marked for deletion to
a "received" file. For now, hit your n key.
Elm has a major disadvantage for the beginner. The default text editor it
generally calls up when you hit your "r" or "m" key is often a program called
emacs. Unixoids swear by emacs, but everybody else almost always finds it
impossible. Unfortunately, you can't always get away from it (or vi, another
text editor often found on Unix systems), so later on we'll talk about some
basic commands that will keep you from going totally nuts.
====
Pine is based on elm but includes a number of improvements that make it an
ideal mail system for beginners. Like elm, pine starts you with a menu. It
also has an "address book" feature that is handy for people with long or
complex e-mail addresses. Hitting A at the main menu puts you in the address
book, where you can type in the person's first name (or nickname) followed by
her address. Then, when you want to send that person a message, you only have
to type in her first name or nickname, and pine automatically inserts her
actual address. The address book also lets you set up a mailing list. This
feature allows you to send the same message to a number of people at once.
What really sets pine apart is its built-in text editor, which looks and
feels a lot more like word-processing programs available for MS-DOS and
Macintosh users. Not only does it have word wrap (a revolutionary concept if
ever there was one, it also has a rwspell-checker and a search command. Best
of all, all of the commands you need are listed in a two-line mini-menu at
the bottom of each screen. The commands look like this:
^W Where is
The little caret is a synonym for the key marked "control" on your
keyboard. To find where a particular word is in your document, you'd hit
your control key and your W key at the same time, which would bring up a
prompt asking you for the word to look for.
Some of pine's commands are a tad peculiar (control-V for "page down" for
example), which comes from being based on a variant of emacs (which is
utterly peculiar). But again, all of the commands you need are listed on
that two-line mini-menu, so it shouldn't take you more than a couple of
seconds to find the right one.
To use pine, type
pine
at the command line and hit enter. It's a relatively new program, so many
systems do not yet have it online. But it's so easy to use, you should
probably send e-mail to your system administrator urging him to get it!
=======
When you're involved in an online discussion, you can't see the smiles or
shrugs that the other person might make in a live conversation to show he's
only kidding. But online, there's no body language. So what you might think
is funny, somebody else might take as an insult. To try to keep such
misunderstandings from erupting into bitter disputes, we have smileys. Tilt
your head to the left and look at the following sideways. `:-)'. Or simply
`:)'. This is your basic "smiley." Use it to indicate people should not take
that comment you just made as seriously as they might otherwise. You make a
smiley by typing a colon, a hyphen and a right parenthetical bracket. Some
people prefer using the word "grin," usually in this form:
Sometimes, though, you'll see it as *grin* or even just
Some other smileys include:
`;-)'
Wink;
`:-('
Frown;
`:-O'
Surprise;
`8-)'
Wearing glasses;
`=|:-)='
Abe Lincoln.
OK, so maybe the last two are a little bogus `:-)'.
===========================================
If you connect to the Net through a Unix system, eventually you'll have to
come to terms with Unix. For better or worse, most Unix systems do NOT
shield you from their inner workings - if you want to copy a Usenet posting
to a file, for example, you'll have to use some Unix commands if you ever
want to do anything with that file.
Like MS-DOS, Unix is an operating system - it tells the computer how to do
things. Now while Unix may have a reputation as being even more complex than
MS-DOS, in most cases, a few basic, and simple, commands should be all you'll
ever need.
If your own computer uses MS-DOS or PC-DOS, the basic concepts will seem
very familiar - but watch out for the cd command, which works differently
enough from the similarly named DOS command that it will drive you crazy.
Also, unlike MS-DOS, Unix is case sensitive - if you type commands or
directory names in the wrong case, you'll get an error message.
If you're used to working on a Mac, you'll have to remember that Unix
stores files in "directories" rather than "folders." Unix directories are
organized like branches on a tree. At the bottom is the "root" directory,
with sub-directories branching off that (and sub-directories in turn can have
sub-directories). The Mac equivalent of a Unix sub-directory is a folder
within another folder.
`cat'
Equivalent to the MS-DOS "type" command. To pause a file every screen,
type `cat file |more', better: `more file', where "file" is the name of
the file you want to see. Hitting control-C will stop the display. You
can also use `cat' for writing or uploading text files to your name or
home directory (similar to the MS-DOS `copy con:' command). If you type
`cat >test' you start a file called "test." You can either write
something simple (no editing once you've finished a line and you have to
hit return at the end of each line) or upload something into that file
using your communications software's ASCII protocol). To close the
file, hit control-D.
`cd'
The "change directory" command. To change from your present directory
to another, type `cd directory' and hit enter. Unlike MS-DOS, which uses
a \ to denote sub-directories (for example: procomm\text), Unix uses a /
(for example: procomm/text). So to change from your present directory
to the procomm/text sub-directory, you would type `cd procomm/text' and
then hit enter. As in MS-DOS, you do not need the first backslash if the
subdirectory comes off the directory you're already in. To move back up
a directory tree, you would type `cd ..' followed by enter. Note the
space between the `cd' and the two periods - this is where MS-DOS users
will really go nuts.
`cp'
Copies a file. The syntax is `cp file1 file2' which would copy file1 to
file2 (or overwrite file2 with file1).
`ls'
This command, when followed by enter, tells you what's in the directory,
similar to the DOS `dir' command, except in alphabetical order.
`ls |more'
will stop the listing every 24 lines - handy if there are a lot of
things in the directory. The basic ls command does not list "hidden"
files, such as the `.login' file that controls how your system interacts
with Unix. To see these files, type `ls -a' or `ls -a |more'
`ls -l' will tell you the size of each file in bytes and tell you when
each was created or modified.
`mv'
Similar to the MS-DOS rename command. In fact, `mv file1 file2' will
rename file1 as file2, The command can also be used to move files
between directories.
`mv file1 News' would move file1 to your News directory.
`rm'
Deletes a file. Type `rm filename' and hit enter (but beware: when you
hit enter, it's gone for good).
Wildcards
---------
When searching for, copying or deleting files, you can use "wildcards" if
you are not sure of the file's exact name.
ls man*
would find the following files:
manual, manual.txt, man-o-man.
Use a question mark when you're sure about all but one or two characters.
For example,
ls man?
would find a file called mane, but not one called manual.
========================
There are a number of computer networks that are not directly tied to the
Net, but to which you can still send e-mail messages. Here's a list of some
of the larger networks, how to send mail to them and how their users can send
mail to you:
America Online
--------------
Remove any spaces from a user's name and append `@aol.com', to get
user@aol.com
America Online users who want to send mail to you need only put your Net
address in the "to:" field before composing a message.
ATTMail
-------
Address your message to
send mail to you in this form:
internet!domain!user
So if your address were
send a message to you at
internet!world.std.com!adamg
Bitnet
------
Users of Bitnet (and NetNorth in Canada and EARN in Europe) often have
addresses in this form:
do to mail to that address is add "bitnet" at the end, to get
bounce back to you, because Bitnet addresses do not always translate well
into an Internet form. If this happens, you can send mail through one of two
Internet/Bitnet gateways. First, change the `@' in the address to a `%', so
that you get
`@cunyvm.cuny.edu', so that, with the above example, you would get
Bitnet users have it a little easier: They can usually send mail directly
to your e-mail address without fooling around with it at all. So send them
your address and they should be OK.
CompuServe
----------
CompuServe users have numerical addresses in this form: `73727,545'. To
send mail to a CompuServe user, change the comma to a period and add
`@compuserve.com'; for example: <73727.545@compuserve.com>.
If you know CompuServe users who want to send you mail, tell them to GO
MAIL and create a mail message. In the address area, instead of typing in a
CompuServe number, have them type your address in this form:
>INTERNET:YourID@YourAddress.
For example, `>INTERNET:adamg@world.std.com'. Note that both the `>' and
the `:' are required.
Delphi
------
To send mail to a Delphi user, the form is
Fidonet
-------
To send mail to somebody who uses a Fidonet BBS, you need the name they
use to log onto that system and its "node number." Fidonet node numbers or
addresses consist of three numbers, in this form: `1:322/190'. The first
number tells which of three broad geographic zones the BBS is in (1
represents the U.S. and Canada, 2 Europe and Israel, 3 Pacific Asia, 4 South
America). The second number represents the BBS's network, while the final
number is the BBS's "FidoNode" number in that network. If your correspondent
only gives you two numbers (for example, `322/190'), it means the system is
in zone 1.
Now comes the tricky part. You have to reverse the numbers and add to them
the letters `f', `n' and `z' (which stand for "FidoNode," "network," and
"zone'). For example, the address above would become
f190.n322.
Now add `fidonet.org' at the end, to get `f190.n322. z1.fidonet.org'. Then
add `First Name.LastName@', to get
FirstName.LastName@f190.n322.z1.fidonet.org.
Note the period between the first and last names. Whew!
The reverse process is totally different. First, the person has to have
access to his or her BBS's "net mail" area and know the Fidonet address of
his or her local Fidonet/UUCP gateway (often their system operator will know
it). Your Fidonet correspondent should address a net-mail message to UUCP
(not your name) in the "to:" field. In the node-number field, they should
type in the node number of the Fidonet/UUCP gateway (if the gateway system is
in the same regional network as their system, they need only type the last
number, for example, `390' instead of `322/390'). Then, the first line of
the message has to be your Internet address, followed by a blank line. After
that, the person can write the message and send it.
Because of the way Fidonet moves mail, it could take a day or two for a
message to be delivered in either direction. Also, because many Fidonet
systems are run as hobbies, it is considered good form to ask the gateway
sysop's permission if you intend to pass large amounts of mail back and
forth. Messages of a commercial nature are strictly forbidden (even if it's
something the other person asked for). Also, consider it very likely that
somebody other than the recipient will read your messages.
GEnie
-----
To send mail to a GEnie user, add `@genie.geis.com' to the end of their
GEnie user name, for example:
networks, however, GEnie users can receive mail from Internet only if they
pay an extra monthly charge.
MCIMail
-------
To send mail to somebody with an MCIMail account, add `@mcimail.com' to
the end of their name or numerical address. For example:
555-1212@mcimail.com
or
jsmith@mcimail.com
Note that if there is more than one MCIMail subscriber with that name, you
will get a mail message back from MCI giving you their names and numerical
addresses. You'll then have to figure out which one you want and re-send the
message.
From MCI, a user would type: *Your Name* `(EMS)' at the "To:" prompt. At
the EMS prompt, he or she would type `internet' followed by your Net address
at the "Mbx:" prompt.
Peacenet
--------
To send mail to a Peacenet user, use this form:
username@igc.org
Peacenet subscribers can use your regular address to send you mail.
Prodigy
-------
e-mail.
=====================
* You send a message but get back an ominous looking message from
MAILER-DAEMON containing up to several dozen lines of computerese
followed by your message. Somewhere in those lines you can often find a
clue to what went wrong. You might have made a mistake in spelling the
e-mail address. The site to which you're sending mail might have been
down for maintenance or a problem. You may have used the wrong
"translation" for mail to a non-Internet network.
* You call up your host system's text editor to write a message or reply
to one and can't seem to get out. If it's emacs, try control-X,
control-C (in other words, hit your control key and your X key at the
same time, followed by control and C). If worse comes to worse, you can
hang up.
* In Elm, you accidentally hit the D key for a message you want to save.
Type the number of the message, hit enter and then U, which will
"un-delete" the message. This works only before you exit Elm; once you
quit, the message is gone.
* You try to upload an ASCII message you've written on your own computer
into a message you're preparing in Elm or Pine and you get a lot of left
brackets, capital Ms, Ks and Ls and some funny-looking characters.
Believe it or not, your message will actually wind up looking fine; all
that garbage is temporary and reflects the problems some Unix text
processors have with ASCII uploads. But it will take much longer for
your upload to finish. One way to deal with this is to call up the
simple mail program, which will not produce any weird characters when you
upload a text file into a message. Another way (which is better if your
prepared message is a response to somebody's mail), is to create a text
file on your host system with cat, for example,
cat >file
and then upload your text into that. Then, in Elm or Pine, you can
insert the message with a simple command (control-r in Pine, for
example); only this time you won't see all that extraneous stuff.
====
SCOTT YANOFF posts a very long list of existing cross-connections of
almost any sub-nets to "newsgroups" (*note Global Watering Hole::. for an
explanation of this term) `comp.mail', `comp.answers', and `news.answers'.
Just to mention a few: AppleLink, BIX, GreeNet, MausNet, SprintMail, etc.
Get your hands on the `inter-network-guide', that's kept on `rtfm.mit.edu' in
directory `pub/usenet/comp.mail'. *Note Advanced E-mail:: or *Note FTP:: to
find out how to access this Internet treasure chest.
*"...and the first lesson is:
Never lose the alternative way out of sight."*
-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
*"If all else fails, read the manual."*
-- PC Wizard
*"If all else fails, read the manual page."*
-- Unix Wizard
********************************
Imagine a conversation carried out over a period of hours and days, as if
people were leaving messages and responses on a bulletin board. Or imagine
the electronic equivalent of a radio talk show where everybody can put their
two cents in and no one is ever on hold.
Unlike e-mail, which is "one-to-one," Usenet is "many-to-many."
Usenet is the international meeting place, where people gather to meet
their friends, discuss the day's events, keep up with computer trends or talk
about whatever's on their mind. Jumping into a Usenet discussion can be a
liberating experience. Nobody knows what you look or sound like, how old you
are, what your background is. You're judged solely on your words, your
ability to make a point.
To many people, Usenet IS the Net. In fact, it is often confused with
Internet. But it is a totally separate system. All Internet sites CAN carry
Usenet, but so do many non-Internet sites, from sophisticated Unix machines
to old XTs and Apple IIs.
Technically, Usenet messages are shipped around the world, from host
system to host system, using one of several specific Net protocols. Your
host system stores all of its Usenet messages in one place, which everybody
with an account on the system can access. That way, no matter how many people
actually read a given message, each host system has to store only one copy of
it. Many host systems "talk" with several others regularly in case one or
another of their links goes down for some reason. When two host systems
connect, they basically compare notes on which Usenet messages they already
have. Any that one is missing the other then transmits, and vice-versa.
Because they are computers, they don't mind running through thousands, even
millions, of these comparisons every day.
Yes, millions. For Usenet is huge. Every day, Usenet users pump upwards
of 25 million characters a day into the system - roughly the equivalent of
volumes A-E of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Obviously, nobody could possibly keep up with this immense flow of
messages. Let's look at how to find messages of interest to you.
Newsgroup Hierarchies
=====================
The basic building block of Usenet is the newsgroup, which is a collection
of messages with a related theme (on other networks, these would be called
conferences, forums, bboards or special-interest groups).
There are now more than 4,500 of these newsgroups. With so many
newsgroups, it can be hard finding ones of interest to you. We'll start off
by showing you how to get into some of the more interesting or useful
newsgroups so you can get a feel for how it all works.
Some public-access systems try to make it easier by dividing Usenet into
several broad categories. Choose one of those and you're given a list of
newsgroups in that category. Then select the newsgroup you're interested in
and start reading.
Other systems let you compile your own "reading list" so that you only see
messages in conferences you want. In both cases, conferences are arranged in
a particular hierarchy devised in the early 1980s. Newsgroup names start
with one of a series of broad topic names. For example, newsgroups beginning
with "comp." are about particular computer-related topics. These broad
topics are followed by a series of more focused topics (so that `comp.unix'
groups are limited to discussion about Unix). The main hierarchies are:
`bionet'
Research biology
`bit.listserv'
Conferences originating as Bitnet mailing lists
`biz'
Business
`comp'
Computers and related subjects
`misc'
Discussions that don't fit anywhere else
`news'
News about Usenet itself
`rec'
Hobbies, games and recreation
`sci'
Science other than research biology
`soc'
"Social" groups, often ethnically related
`talk'
Politics and related topics
`alt'
Controversial or unusual topics; not carried by all sites
In addition, many host systems carry newsgroups for a particular city,
state or region. For example, `ne.housing' is a newsgroup where New
Englanders look for apartments. A growing number also carry K12 newsgroups,
which are aimed at elementary and secondary teachers and students. And a
number of sites carry clari newsgroups, which is actually a commercial
service consisting of wire-service stories and a unique online computer news
service (*note News of the World::.).
How do you dive right in? On the Free-Net and some other systems, it's
all done through menus - you just keep choosing from a list of choices until
you get to the newsgroup you want and then hit the "read" command. On Unix
systems, however, you will have to use a "newsreader" program. Two of the
more common ones are known as rn (for "read news") and nn (for "no news" -
because it's supposed to be simpler to use).
For beginners, nn may be the better choice because it works with
rudimentary menus - you get a list of articles in a given newsgroup and then
you choose which ones you want to see. To try it out, connect to your host
system and, at the command line, type
nn news.announce.newusers
and hit enter. After a few seconds, you should see something like this:
Newsgroup: news.announce.newusers Articles: 22 of 22/1 NEW
a Gene Spafford 776 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
b Gene Spafford 362 A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community
c Gene Spafford 387 Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
d Gene Spafford 101 Hints on writing style for Usenet
e Gene Spafford 74 Introduction to news.announce
f Gene Spafford 367 USENET Software: History and Sources
g Gene Spafford 353 What is Usenet?
h taylor 241 A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists
i Gene Spafford 585 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I
j Gene Spafford 455 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II
k David C Lawrenc 151 How to Create a New Newsgroup
l Gene Spafford 106 How to Get Information about Networks
m Gene Spafford 888 List of Active Newsgroups
n Gene Spafford 504 List of Moderators
o Gene Spafford 1051 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I
p Gene Spafford 1123 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II
q Gene Spafford 1193 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III
r Jonathan Kamens 644 How to become a USENET site
s Jonathan Kamen 1344 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part I
-- 15:52 -- SELECT -- help:? -----Top 85%-----
Explanatory postings for new users. (Moderated)
Obviously, this is a good newsgroup to begin your exploration of Usenet!
Here's what all this means: The first letter on each line is the letter you
type to read that particular "article" (it makes sense that a "newsgroup"
would have "articles"). Next comes the name of the person who wrote that
article, followed by its length, in lines, and what the article is about. At
the bottom, you see the local time at your access site, what you're doing
right now (i.e., SELECTing articles), which key to hit for some help (the ?
key) and how many of the articles in the newsgroup you can see on this
screen. The "(moderated)" means the newsgroup has a "moderator" who is the
only one who can directly post messages to it. This is generally limited to
groups such as this, which contain articles of basic information or for
digests, which are basically online magazines (more on them in a bit).
Say you're particularly interested in what "Emily Postnews" (*note Dear
Emily::.) 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 Netiquette
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