Usenet newsgroups / NNTP

What do I say, a powerful but forgotten resource !

To all my friends who read this page, try the usenet newsgroups.

To try..
1. Download and Install mozilla thunderbird.
2. Click cancel when it initially asks you to set up an account (just to do it the "usual" way)
3. go to Tools > Account Settings, for windoze (maybe so named because it puts the brain to sleep)
or to Edit > Account Settings, for Linux (ah even she's not the best courtesan, waiting for hurd)
4. There, click on the Add account button.
5. choose newsgroup account, and next.
6. Enter the name you want displayed, and a syntactically valid email address; next.
7. NNTP server "aioe.cjb.net"; next
Thank god, there's someone hosting a free server allowing posting..
If you know more, please add as a comment..
8. Give a name if you want to, or use the default; finish.
9. Now you have an aioe.cjb.net entry on your left pane. Right click on it and choose subscribe.
10. Subscribe to "alt.test"
11. now, you have an alt.test entry under aioe.cjb.net on the left pane. Click on it. It will ask you to download headers. Choose to download some 10 or so max.
12. Now, while having the alt.test folder selected, click on the write button on the top left. compose a test post and send it to alt.test.
13. After sometime / once you open and close thunderbird, your post should show up in alt.test.

Configure thunderbird further to check the news group for new messages on startup and every 10 minutes etc. I'm not detailing these.. Also download a larger number of headers if you want to browse archives

alt.test is a newsgroup for sending test posts etc.. it's not worth browsing the alt.test archive.. people use it to send test posts to verify connectivity. now that you have the newsgroups set up, you can unsubscribe from this group..

Check out the many wonderful groups ranging from comp.os.minix to comp.lang.c++ to alt.os.development to alt.hobbies.* to sci.math.* to misc.kids.pregnancy to whatever you want !

You will be overwhelmed by the expanse of the resource which you never until now knew existed !

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On further thoughts, the server "textnews.news.cambrium.nl" might be a better choice for digging archives, but you can't post - it's read only.. or you can use the google groups thingy to dig deepest.. But posting the usenet way far surpasses the google groups experience.

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A page on usenet http://www.openusenet.org/

some paid news-servers (keeping a track, just in case i need later in life.)

http://www.newsfeeds.com/ Uses a seemingly secure payment gateway.

http://www.octanews.com/ have to give credit card info directly - is this safe ?
http://www.teranews.com/ have to give credit card info directly - is this safe ?
http://www.bubbanews.com/ have to give credit card info directly - is this safe ?

This one's free but seems to be down often http://www.readfreenews.net/

A further list of servers http://news.aioe.org/spip.php?article26

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