Section 12.6. Newsgroups: All Versions

12.6. Newsgroups: All Versions

Newsgroups have nothing to do with news; in fact, they're Internet bulletin boards . There are hundreds of thousands of them, on every conceivable topic: pop culture, computers, politics, and every other special (and very special) interest; in fact, there are thousands just about Windows . You can use Mail to read and reply to these messages almost exactly as though they were email messages.

12.6.1. Subscribing to a Microsoft Newsgroup

Subscribing to your first newsgroup can be quite an experience, simply because there are just so many newsgroups to choose from. Mail has a link to the Microsoft Communities newsgroups built right ina good way, though nerdy, to get started with newsgroups.

To join a Microsoft Community newsgroup:

1. Click Microsoft Communities in the folder list .

   A "Subscribe to newsgroups" dialog box appears.

2. Click "Show available newsgroups and turn on communities."

   Mail downloads a list of the available newsgroups, which may take a while.

3. Click a newsgroup's name .

   Consider Microsoft.public.windows.vista.general, for example; here, you can post questions and get answers for Vista- related questions.

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   Tip: You can select more than one newsgroup by Control-clicking their names .

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4. Click Subscribe .

   Click OK. The newsgroup(s) you subscribed to are now available in Mail, under Microsoft Communities.

UP TO SPEED
Newsgroups Explained

Newsgroups (often called Usenet ) started out as a way for people to conduct discussions via a bulletin-board-like system, in which a message is posted for all to see and reply to. These public discussions are divided into categories called newsgroups, which cover the gamut from miscellaneous photographic techniques to naval aviation.

These days, Usenet has a certain seedy reputation as a place to exchange pornography, pirated software, and MP3 files with doubtful copyright pedigrees. Even so, there are tens of thousands of interesting, informative discussions going on, and newsgroups are great places to get help with troubleshooting, exchange recipes, or just to see what's on the minds of your fellow Usenet fans.

12.6.2. Reading Messages

Once you've subscribed to a newsgroup, the next time you connect to the Internet and select the newsgroup from the newsgroup list, Mail downloads all of the message summaries in the discussions to which you've subscribed. (There may be just a few messages, or several hundred; they may go back only a few days or a couple of weeks, depending on the amount of "traffic" in each discussion and the storage space on the news server.)

To read the messages in a newsgroup, either click an entry in the list of messages to download the contents of the message and display it in the preview window (Figure 12-17), or double-click an entry to open the list of messages in a new window.

Figure 12-17. If you've been using Mail for email, the newsgroup interface should look familiar. The Folders pane lists news servers to which you've subscribed, the top-right pane lists the names of messages in a selected newsgroup, and the bottom-right pane displays the actual text of the message you've highlighted in the message list .

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Tip: You can set up message rules for newsgroups to screen out messages from certain people, messages with certain phrases in their Subject lines, and so on. It works exactly like the message rules for email, as described earlier in this chapter. Just go to Tools Message Rules News.

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12.6.3. Replying, Composing, and Forwarding Messages

Working with newsgroup messages is very similar to working with email messages, except that you must be conscious of whether you're replying to the individual sender of a message or to the entire group . Otherwise, you can reply to messages, forward them, or compose them exactly as described earlier in this chapter. As with email, you can use plain text or (if you don't mind annoying the other Internet citizens ) HTML formatting. You can include file attachments, too, by, for example, using the Attach toolbar button.

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Tip: Aside from posting ads and HTML-formatted messages, the best way to irritate everyone on a newsgroup is to ask a question that has already been answered recently on the newsgroup. Before asking a question, spend five minutes reading the recent newsgroup messages to see whether someone has already answered your question. Also consider visiting the Groups tab at www.google.com, a Web site that lets you search all newsgroups for particular topics.

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12.6.4. Subscribing to Other Newsgroups

What if you don't want to subscribe to a Microsoft computer-geek-filled newsgroup, but would rather subscribe to a newsgroup about cats?

To find a newsgroup on a specific topic, choose Tools Accounts; click Microsoft Communities (default), and then click the Add button. On the next screen, click Newsgroup Account. Now a wizard steps you through the process of creating a news account in Mail. Youre asked for your name, your email address, andthis may be the hard partthe address of your news server. You have to get that tidbit from whatever company provides your Internet connection.

12.6.5. Download the List of Newsgroups

When you're finished with the wizard, Mail invites you to download a list of newsgroups available on your server. Click the Yes button, and then wait patiently for a few minutes. Windows Mail goes to work downloading the list, which can be quite longtens of thousands of entriesand take a long time. Fortunately, it's a one-time deal.

Now you're ready to find yourself some good online discussions; see Figure 12-18.

Figure 12-18. In the box at the top, type the term you're hoping to find in a newsgroup's title (such as kittensandcats in cyberspace , nobody can hear you use the Space bar). If you turn up a good-sounding topic in the gigantic list beneath , click its name and click Subscribe to subscribe to it. Now, each time you connect, Mail will download the latest messages on that topic .