E-Mail, Newsgroups, etc.
Chat Rooms
Chat rooms are abundant on the Internet. At these sites you can "chat"
(type and receive messages "live") about virtually any subject. Usually
you choose a screen name (other than your real name) to use in the chat
room which provides some anonymity.
Many chat rooms are real-time, live chat rooms, which also have the ability
to send private messages which open up in a separate screen! So you can
watch the chat in the "main room", and have a separate screen to chat
with your friends!
Chat rooms only know as much information as you give them, so it is a
good idea to not give out personal information such as your full name,
home address and telephone number while chatting.
Observe common courtesy and politeness while in the chat room. Please
be polite to other users, and do not flood the screen or talk in excessive
capital letters.
Some chat rooms are moderated, except for private messages, but sometimes
things do slip by the moderators. Some chat rooms allow you to block messages
from a specific user by using the ignore command,. You just type /ignore
then followed by the persons nickname (i.e., "/ignore joeuser").
Here are some good chat rooms or lists to check out:
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USENET & Newsgroups
USENET is a worldwide network of computers that is used to discuss information
divided into topics or newsgroups. There are thousands of newsgroups on
a full range of topics, such as cooking (rec.food.cooking), humor (rec.humor.funny),
and many more. You may access USENET newsgroups from a variety of News
readers, such as:
To view the full set of available newsgroups categories, choose Show
All Newsgroups from the Options menu in your news reader. Click on a category
folder to display its newsgroups. If you click on a newsgroup, its message
headings appear in the right hand pane. When you select a message heading,
its contents appear in the bottom pane.
After showing all newsgroups you can subscribe to particular newsgroups
by clicking on their Subscribe icons. You can change the Options menu
setting so that you view only subscribed newsgroups or only subscribed
newsgroups with unread messages.
Newsgroups are organized into hierarchies. Here is a sampling of some
of these:
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alt
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Alternative. The creation of these groups is not moderated.
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biz
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Commercially oriented (business)
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comp
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Computers: many groups, all subjects
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gnu
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The GNU project of the Free Software Foundation
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info
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Informational groups (moderated)
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k12
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Kindergarten through 12th grade education
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misc
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Miscellaneous groups (small ads, etc.)
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news
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About the news system itself
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rec
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Recreation groups
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sci
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Science groups
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soc
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Society groups
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talk
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Talk - gossip and discussion about current affairs
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Newsgroup names contain the hierarchy the are in. So the newsgroup for
announcements for new users is called news.announce.newusers. This naming
convention will become very apparent once you start poking around in your
newsreader.
A good source for tracking down newsgroups is a web site called Tile.net.
Tile.net is designed to make USENET newsgroups easy to find. Tile.net
also provides statistics and other information about newsgroups and provides
a link directly to each newsgroup. Newsgroups in Tile.net are organized
by index, description, and newsgroup hierarchy.
Moderated vs. Unmoderated
In unmoderated newsgroups, the local news server software normally makes
messages posted to the newsgroup available for reading soon after they
are posted, and the messages then spread to other news servers over the
next few days.
In a moderated newsgroup, the local news server software will automatically
e-mail the message to a moderation address, where a moderator acts as
a gatekeeper, posting to the newsgroup only those messages which the moderator
allows to be posted.
Before you post a message to a newsgroup, please refer to such guides
as Netscape's
Net Etiquette.
Here are some good newsgroup resources:
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Instant Messaging
AOL
and CompuServe
offer a service called instant messaging. Instant messages are an online
conversation between two or more people who have CompuServe 2000, AOL
Instant Messenger or America Online software. Instant messages are private
and free. It's a whole new way of communicating that's fast, simple and
totally addictive.
There are four other instant messaging services. One is called PAL and
is offered by Excite.
Another is called ICQ
(I SEEK YOU) which claims to be the world's largest instant messaging
system. A third is offered by InfoSeek
and a fourth called Yahoo!
Messenger. Apparently AOL or CompuServe members can't talk to either
Yahoo, InfoSeek, ICQ or PAL members. All five systems are separate.
Two other entries, one from Microsoft called MSN
Messenger Service and the other from Netscape
are both compatible with AOL (and presumably CompuServe).
Reports are that Lotus
will have instant messaging available in Notes and Domino soon.
The basic idea is that you download a program that runs on the background
on your machine. Then when someone wants to contact you, a window pops
up on your machine with the message. If you're not online or the program
is not running, you'll get the message, next time you sign on.
There is also instant messaging solutions for networks. One is called
e/pop
Realtime Communications available from WiredRed Software Inc. Another
is Express
Communicator from ACD Systems.
FaceTime
takes the concept one step further by offering businesses a way to instantly
communicate with their customers over the Internet. Apparently it is compatible
with AOL and Yahoo but comes with its own software as well.
Here's a related news release:
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 28, 1999-- Mobile
Insights (MI), the leading information source for the mobile computing
and data communications markets, today announced that the worldwide market
for instant messaging will grow to 175 million users by 2002. Instant
messaging, sometimes referred to as online "buddy lists", is used by over
50 million PC-based users and is now becoming available to users of handheld
computers and mobile phones.
This technology allows users to view a listing of people with whom
they frequently communicate, determine if these people are currently
available, and send/receive messages instantly. Instant messaging created
somewhat of a cult following of savvy Internet users when it was launched
two and a half years ago. It is now a mainstream Internet application
with a variety of PC-based versions such as America Online's (AOL) Instant
Messenger; Mirabilis' ICQ (I Seek You), recently acquired by AOL; and
a host of others from the likes of Yahoo!, Microsoft and Excite. Instant
messaging is growing at a phenomenal rate. Mirabilis, pioneer in this
field, grew its user base to 12 million users in less than two years
and now has over 38 million users. This user community has grown primarily
by word-of-mouth, and according to America Online, its Instant Messenger
application and Mirabilis' ICQ have a combined user base of 63 million
users sending over 750 million messages a day.
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E-Mail Lists
The following sites have lots of e-mail lists that you can sign up for.
You can find a list on virtually any subject. Some lists are sent out
every day, others once a week or even less frequently.
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