The Internet can be divided into four major areas- The Internet (where you are now), E-Mail, Internet Relay Chat (see FRCN University for IRC information), and the Newsgroups (Usenet).

The Newsgroups are sort of like E-Mail with the exception that all the messages are available for anyone to view- that's good! Let me explain. In the newsgroups there are well over twenty thousand different areas of interest. That sounds intimidating but remember that this is a world wide service and that overwhelming number of areas includes thousands that are not in English. That sounds overwhelming, and well it could be, but the program we are going to be using also has a good search function so you can find all the groups with the word 'computer' or 'XP' for example. What else is in there?: opera music, photo equipment-35mm, pets, autos-dodge trucks, books cs-lewis, harmonicas, beer, civil war, sierra club, parenting, pizza delivery drivers... there were over 60 groups under alt.politics alone! Depending on the current activity there may be hundreds of messages in each of these areas... or there may be none.

What is Usenet good for? Let's say you have a question about a car problem. You might want to go to the 'alt.autos' or possibly the 'rec.autos.tech' newsgroup and post a message. It works just like E-Mail, but instead of going to a particular person the message is posted for anyone in the world to read. If someone has an answer they will post it in the "thread"- the group of messages relating to the topic (first) message posted. If you find an area where you have some special knowledge, you can join in by opening that particular group and offer help or comments for others. For example, In 2003 I was the number one poster on alt.coffee.

You may have noticed that the group examples I gave above began with a three letter prefix such as 'alt' or 'rec.' These are explained at the Forte website on the What Are Newsgroups webpage. You can check that out later.

Before I go any further let me state that, just like many other areas of the Internet, the Newsgroups practice free speech and so there are areas that are decidedly for adults only. That is not a real problem because once you choose which groups you wish to participate in you can 'subscribe' to them. Subscribing places your chosen groups on a list of their own for you to view without the intrusion of anything you may find offensive. Still, Usenet is not an area in which I would feel comfortable letting a child participate unsupervised.

LET'S GET STARTED!
The first thing you are going to need is a program that will allow you to access the Newsgroups. Although many of the new web browsers come with a Newsgroup reader as part of the package, I have found Agent by Forte to be an excellent application for access to the Newsgroups. The download for Agent will be full-featured for thirty days. After that it reverts to "Free Agent" which will work, but woith fewer features (see the feature comparison page for details). Even the free version is a superior product, but for just under $30, the full version is worth having. Installation is quite straightforward so I won't bore you with all the details here, but if you need help first try going to the Agent Installation page.

After installation go online and start Agent. In some cases Agent will automatically extract the information it needs to connect to your ISP's newsgroup server. If not you will have to enter this information yourself. It will differ from ISP to ISP, but for those connected to ChoiceNet, here is what you will need to do:

1) Click on OPTIONS and choose GENERAL PREFERENCES.

2) Click on the 'User' tab. The 'Email Address:' window should contain your normal E-Mail address such as flubb@slubby.com and the 'Full Name:' window should contain your first name or nickname (do not use your actual full name!). I would leave the "E-Mail Address" window blank. Usenet is frequented by Bots which steal E-mail addreses for Spam use. Place a "Munged" E-mail address in the "Reply to" window, or leave it blank if you don't want anyone to ever reply to you by E-Mail.

3) Now click on the 'System' tab. For Choicenet users the "News Server:" should be news.quiknet.com and the "Email Server:" should be mail2.quiknet.com

These should be the only settings that you need to change to get started. If you are not a ChoiceNet subscriber contact your ISP for further information on these settings.

When Free Agent starts you will notice that the program is divided into three windows. We will deal with these individually:

"SUBSCRIBED GROUPS-ALL GROUPS-NEW GROUPS" The window in the upper left side has three functions as the title of this section implies. By clicking on the title bar of this window it will switch between these three titles. When you first start Free Agent the windows will all be empty because you have not yet retrieved any groups- that's our first step. On the top bar in Agent click on "ONLINE" and choose "REFRESH GROUPS LIST." (And if you need to, choose 'delete extinct groups.') At the bottom of the Free Agent program in the bar it will show the current activity. It should say, "Total groups retrieved so far:" folowed by a number. On the day I re-loaded my groups it totaled over 25,000 groups!

When it is done retrieving the group names, click that title bar above the top-left window until it cycles to "All Groups." This is the list that you just downloaded. We are going to subscribe to a group together so you can learn how to use the program. The group we are looking for is alt.newbie (NOTE- Is is possible that your ISP does not support all areas of the Newsgroups and, although it is unlikely, this group may not be available to you. Not to worry- just choose any group that looks interesting to you for now if you can't find that one).

There are two ways to find a group. You can scan through this list until you come to it (fortunately they are arranged alphabetically!), but that can be a hassle. The second is to use the built-in search function.

Search Click on the flashlight icon on the toolbar and type or paste in 'newbie' and hit the "Find First" button. A newsgroup will be highlighted in the window.

Continue Search If that is not the correct one, hit the flashlight icon with the '...' on it. This is the 'find next' icon. You can continue to hit that until you find what you are looking for.

Here we have found the alt.newbie group and are ready to subscribe to it
When you have found the alt.newbie group and it is highlighted, RIGHT click on the group. From the drop down list choose 'Subscribe.' Now click on the top bar of this window once again until it shows 'Subscribed Groups.' There! You have just subscribed to your first Newsgroup! So what?! Follow along...

This example shows some of the groups in my 'Subscribed' list. Yours might only show alt.newbie

In the 'Subscribed Groups' window, click on our 'alt.newbie' group so it is highlighted as in the above example...

Get Headers ...and then hit the second icon up on the tool bar. This will get the new headers in whatever groups you have selected (the headers are the titles of each letter posted by users). To be sure that you have the correct icon, hold your cursor over the icon for a second- a pop-up help dialog will appear that says, 'Get new headers in selected groups.' Left-click on it. On the bottom bar in Free Agent it will say, 'Connecting to server' and then 'Retrieving new headers..."

STATUS/SUBJECT WINDOW List of Headers

The Subject Window showing some of the headers in alt.newbie
When Free Agent is done retrieveing the headers for the chosen group you will see what looks like a list appear in the top right-hand window. This is a list of all the currently posted 'letters' that have been posted by people interested in this particular subject (the one highlighted in the 'Groups' window. Pick any one of them and double left click on it. In a few seconds the message that this person posted appears in the lower window.

Here one of the 'threads' has been expanded to show all the replies to the original message
The symbols under the 'Status' bar in the right hand window are important to understand. After you retrieved the message in the last paragraph a little symbol that looks like a sheet of paper with writing on it appears next to the header. This shows that it is a message that you have retrieved. Notice also that some messages have an icon that is a little triangle with a '+' in it. This shows that there is an ongoing 'thread' happening. That means that other people have replied to the original post, and that there are more messages 'hidden' concerning the original post. Click on one of the '+' symbols and the thread expands to show all the messages as in the above example (notice also that the '+' icon turns downward and appears as a '-'). Notice also that the messages in the thread do not have a subject attached to them- only the name of the person posting.

POSTING A NEW MESSAGE OF YOUR OWN
Before I talk about posting messages to Usenet, let's talk about a bit of "Netiquette." Don't just jump into a group. Read it for a day or two- a week would be better. Get a "fell" for what is going on ther. Become accustomed to the group. Just like being at a party, hang around the group before just jumping into the discussion. For your first post, introduce yourself, and let folks know why you are there. For specific information try going to the Google Group Search, find the group you are interested in, and search to see if the topic has been covered recently.

Post a new message Let's post a message of our own now. The place to do that is alt.test- yesa, thee is even a group to test posting to groups! Be sure that alt.test is still highlighted and hit the fifth icon from the left on the toolbar which is 'Post new usenet message.'

As soon as you hit the icon a new blank message pops up that looks somewhat like an E-Mail message. You will notice that the 'Newsgroups' window is already filled in with the alt.test group name. Next, fill in the 'Subject' with something like 'newbie test' so that others do not read your test post unnecessarily. Now click in the body area (the large window in the bottom) and type in a simple message like, 'I am new here and this is the first time I have posted a message, so this is just a test.' When done, click the 'Send Now' button. After a few minutes (to a day or so depending on your IPS's news server) your message will be available for you (and everyone else) to view. To see it you will need to click on the 'Get new headers...' icon again.

REPLYING TO MESSAGES Reply to a Newsgroup header

There will come a time when you wish to reply to a message posted by another user. There are two ways to do this. You can post your message directly to the Newsgroup. To do this, in the 'Subject' window, highlight the message's header to which you wish to reply and hit the sixth icon which is the 'post follow up message' icon. This works just like posting a new message but two things differ: 1) You will notice that the text area of the new message contains the text of the original message (in a different color). If the original message was a long one you may wish to edit it so only the pertinent information is shown. 'Netiquette' (Internet etiquette) dictates that if you do edit the message you indicate it by doing something like adding '[snip]' to the area where the message was clipped. 2) The message will be posted with your personal name under the original message as part of the thread. (That is, it will not be posted under a header of its own.)

Reply with E-Mail You may also reply to a message with an E-Mail directly to the person who posted the original message. Simply click on the eighth icon and a new E-Mail message pops up just as in the last example. Generally this is frowned upon becasue it defeats the purpose of Usenet.

WINDOW ARRANGEMENT
Arrangement of windows option

The default window arrangement works quite well, but can be changed. The various layouts are available under OPTIONS/WINDOW LAYOUT. There are two rows of sample windows. First, from the top row choose a window layout. Then, from the bottom row choose what information you wish to appear in each window- red is the message headers, black is the group names list, and blue is the message text. I suggest using the default arrangement until you become accustomed to Agent.

Once you have a window arrangement you like, the size of the individual windows can be changed. In the above example you can see the double black line (pointed out by the arrow). These lines separate the three windows. By placing your cursor on any of these pairs of lines and left click-and-hold on it, the size of the windows can be adjusted to suit your desires.

THAT'S IT! This should be enough to get you started. Your next step is to go back to the 'All Groups' list and start building your 'Subscribed Groups' list. Begin by using the search function to find groups you are interested in. Concentrate in the 'alt' and the 'rec' areas. Later, when you have time, you can skim through the listings to get an idea of what is out there. To stay current, you should update the 'All Groups' list about once a month. Do that by choosing ONLINE/GET NEW GROUPS. About every two or three months you should choose the 'Refresh Groups List' to keep the list up to date. This will not change your subscribed list.

This should give you an excellent start. If you need more help, ree Agent contains an excellent help file. Click on 'Help' in the top bar and choose 'How To.' There you will find a lot of good information. The HELP/CONTENTS is also an excellent place to go as well. You can also E-Mail me... OR.. why not post a message to the 'alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent newsgroup'? There is also help available at the Forte homepage. Be aware that Free Agent is free, and thus the company supplies no technical support for this product.

A WORD ABOUT SPAM
Spam is unwanted and/or unsolicited E-Mail messages or Newsgroup postings- usually commercial in nature and sent in 'bulk' to thousands of addresses. The messages often contain information that has to do with 'get rich quick' schemes.

Spammers often get their lists of E-Mail messages from the Newsgroups. To avoid ending up on one of these lists you may want to modify your E-Mail address in Free Agent. Try something simple like instead of entering "john@cncnet.com" use "john at cncnet dot com". This way, anyone who wants to send you an E-Mail can easily spot this and change your address.

You may also want to create a 'signature file' with the instructions in it. A signature file is an ASCII file that contains text that is placed at the bottom of all E-Mail messages. You can create a sig file for Free Agent by clicking on OPTIONS and choosing SIGNATURES. In the Signature window click on the 'Add' button and choose a name for the file. In the large window in the bottom labeled 'Text' type in the message to appear at the bottom of each posting. For this it would be something like: 'To E-Mail me change the 'dot' to '.' and the 'at' to '@' in my address'.

Another way would be to add some nonsensical words to your E-Mail address so it appears like this: 'john@THEDOGcncnet.com' and your sig would say, "Take 'THE DOG out' to E-mail me."

If you use one of these methods, the Spammers will receive a worthless, non-functioning E-Mail address when they scan through the newsgroups.


Updated Tuesday, April 6, 2004
Newsgroups Tutorial Downloading and Installing Free Agent and Accessing the Newsgroups