America Online Users - According to
our logs, over 80% our 65,000 visitors each month are using
America Online. If you are an AOLer, you have a newsreader
program built in. Just go to keyword
"Newsgroups". If it's your first time there,
you'll receive a popup telling you to set your
"Preferences". You can do this later, when you get
familiar with it.
- After clicking "Ok" on
the popup, you will be presented with a window full of
options.
- Click
"Expert Add"
- In the "Internet Name"
box, type alt.baldspot and click the
"Subscribe" button.
- You will get a popup confirming
that you've been subscribed. Click "OK"
- Now you will see a window with a
set of preferences for the specific Newsgroup. Run
through this quick checklist to ensure your preferences are
set optimally:
Not Checked - Hide Binary Files
Not Checked - Enable Offline Reading (not necessary unless you
pay per hour for AOL access)
Not Checked - Don't show messages longer than 500 characters
Show messages no more than ___ days old. (You can set
this to your liking)
Select Filter Type - Leave these untouched. You can come
back here if you want to modify them later.
- Click "Save"
- The window will disappear, and
you'll see the Expert Add window. Click the X in the
upper right corner to close it
- The window will disappear, and
you'll see the main Newsgroups window you started at.
- Click "Read My
Newsgroups"
- alt.baldspot will be listed at
the top. To the right you can see how many current
messages are listed in the newsgroup.
- Double click the alt.baldspot
item in the list.
- You're done! You can now
read the alt.baldspot newsgroup.
- First order of business.
Click once on the heart in the upper right corner of the
window. This will save the item to your
"Favorites". Your "Favorites" are
listed as a menu item at the top of your AOL program. In
the future, all you will need to do is go up there and select
it from the dropdown. Very easy!
AOL User? Hah! No way!
Okay okay, settle down. We
know you think you're better than they are. You will now get to
make use of your superiority by paying dearly with a much less
intuitive process for accessing newsgroups. :) But
let's get to work. We'll make it as painless as possible.
What you Need to Know
- Your ISP - If you're reading
this right now, you have an ISP (Internet Service
Provider). Your ISP is what enables you to get online,
read Email, and browse web sites. Some examples of well
known ISP's are Earthlink, Cox, Roadrunner, and BTInternet.
Your ISP can also be through your work or school or any of
thousands of other companies out there.
- Your News Server - Before you
can proceed, you will need to find out what your ISP's news
server is. If you don't already know, you'll need to
contact your ISP and ask them. You will need this
information to proceed. News server names typically
start with "nntp". An example of a news server
name is "nntp.home.com" or "nntp.earthlink.net".
Your ISP will give you the appropriate name.
FREE NEWS SERVERS - If you're a cheapskate, or your ISP
doesn't have a news server (this is a sign that you need
a better ISP by the way), there are
free news servers out there. They're typically not very
reliable, and many times do not have all the newsgroups you
want, but here are a couple links to a list of free news
servers:
http://w1.213.telia.com/~u21304873/usenet.htm
http://ecalame.tripod.com/free.html
http://www.alteasy.com
http://www.newsservers.net/
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Dell/1376/nntp.html
http://www.jammed.com/~newzbot/sorted-speed-table.html
http://www.kuth.de/pns/Liste/liste.html
http://frameister.virtualave.net/nlist/index.html
http://dir.lycos.com/Computers/Usenet/Public_News_Servers/
http://freenews.maxbaud.net/
http://frameister.virtualave.net/cgi-bin/nlist/ns_view.pl
http://www.muenz.com/sdienst/html/sgroup_e.html
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Byte/7126/
http://www.snafu.de/~hweede/pulin.htm
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/9594/public.htm
http://www.serverseekers.com/
http://www.wnabb.freeserve.co.uk/
- Authentication
- some news servers require authentication to retrieve and
post to newsgroups. This means that even though you're
already online using your logon and password, to access the
news server you must have your newsreader send that info
through again. Ask your ISP if your news server requires
authentication and make a mental note.
- Your
Mail Server - Before you can proceed, you will need
to find out what your ISP's mail server is. If you don't
already know, ask them. Mail server names typically have
the following format: smtp.yourisp.com or
mail.yourisp.com Your ISP will give you the appropriate
name.
- Your News Reader - In order to
access the newsgroups, you will need a program which
connects you to newsgroups, just like you use a web browser to
access web sites. HairlossSucks.com has done a lot of research, and
feel that "MicroPlanet Gravity" is the most user
friendly, easiest to set up, and most feature-filled
newsreader available. We will be using this program as
our example, but have included installation and setup
instructions for XNews, and Outlook Express as well, for your
convenience.
Gravity - The Most
Functionality, Best features, Easiest Interface - $39 registration Fee
with a fully functional 30 day evaluation period.
- Downloading the Newsreader -
Please click the following link to download the Gravity
newsreader:
http://www.microplanet.com/download.htm
(2.4MB, will take about 20 minutes at 56k)
- When it's done downloading, a
window may pop up with an "Install" button on
it. If so, go ahead and click that button. If not,
simply find the file on your hard drive and double click
it. A window will pop up asking you to accept.
Click "I Accept". Then click "Proceed
with Install".
- Select the location you'd like
to install the software to, then click "OK".
It will ask if you want to launch Gravity
when you click a link your web browser. This is up to
you. " Add to Start Menu?" - this is
up to you. ReadMe file will appear, click
"OK". "Do you want to start Gravity
now?" Click "Yes".
- The Gravity intro screen will
appear, click "Ok".
- News
Server Nickname: "Newsgroups"
News Server Address:
Example - nntp.yourisp.com You must
get this information from your Internet Service Provider to
proceed.
Mail Server: Example -
mail.home.com You must get this information from your
Internet Service Provider to proceed.
Organization: Anything you
want
Email Address: Whatever
email address you want displayed when posting
Reply address for posts:
Where you want people's replies to be emailed to *IF* they
decide to post to the newsgroup and email you as well.
Advanced: If your news
server requires you to send your logon and password through
again, enter that information here. Please see step 3
above, under "What you Need to Know"
When you're done, click "OK".
- Gravity will now retrieve
all the newsgroups available in the usenet kingdom, and then a
window will pop up. In the "Search" box at the
top right, type in "alt.baldspot" (without the
quotes). Click once to highlight it when it appears, and then click the
"Add" button.
- Click "Done".
The program will load up the latest messages, and you're ready
to go! Double click "alt.baldspot" and you
will see all the most recent messages in the middle window
pane. You wont need the top window pane again unless you
plan to add new newsgroups, so you can drag the window frame
below it to the top of the screen to hide it.
- Simply double click a message in
the top window, and the body of the message will appear in the
bottom.
- To post to the newsgroup, click
the icon that looks like a Megaphone at the top. You're
set!
- To learn about all the features
this program has (it has hundreds of incredibly cool ways to
mix and match your messages, killfile annoying posters, mark
important threads, etc) use the Help feature at the top of the
program, and click "Getting the Most out of
Gravity".
XNews - Basic Program, Not as
Many Features - No Registration Fee
- Downloading the Newsreader - Please click the following link to download the
XNews newsreader:
http://xnews.3dnews.net/#download (500k, will take about 5 minutes
at 56k)
- When it's done downloading,
extract the files to a location on your hard drive and double
click the EXE file to run the program. There is no
install for this one.
- First you will be asked for your
News Server name (example: nntp.yourisp.com). You must
get this information from your Internet Service Provider to
proceed. Enter this information and click
"OK".
- Next you'll be asked for your
"Alias". This is just what you want to call
your connection to the newsgroups. (example: My
Newsgroups). Click "OK".
- A rather complicated looking
window will appear. You only need to enter your User
Name & Password if your ISP requires it. This
information should have been obtained when you got the news
server name. At the bottom of this window you can see a
series of fields encased within a heading "Custom
Identity Data". This is the information people see
when you post. Enter your name in the appropriate field (what you're known by on the
newsgroup), email address, etc. When you're done, click "Okay".
- You will be asked "Retrieve
List of newsgroups from the server?". Click
"Yes". If you are on a modem, this could take
up to 15 minutes, so be patient. If you receive an error
here, it's because either 1) you have the wrong news server
name or 2) your server authentication settings were
wrong. Start the process over and this time enter
the username and password you use to log on to your ISP in the
"User Name" and "Password" fields.
This should fix the problem.
- Now you will see a list of
newsgroups in a box. If you're lucky like us, the first
newsgroup you see is 24hour.frogbuttdesk. Believe it or
not, this is a newgroup. What it's about, we wont bother
finding out.
- You will see a toolbar
underneath this list, and about 3/4 of the way to the right
you'll see a yellow shaded section with an empty white box in
it. Here is where you type alt.baldspot. As you
type, you will see the list begin to reshuffle until it finds
the newsgroup for you.
- To the left of the box you're
typing in, you will see a button with a GREEN " + "
sign in it. Click this to subscribe to the alt.baldspot
newsgroup.
- You may wish to maximize the
window size at this time and make the program full screen if
it already isn't. Now simply double click alt.baldspot
in the window, and you will see all the posts available.
You will want to Maximize this window to be full screen by
clicking once on the middle button in the upper right corner
of the window.
- You're in! Simply click
once on one of the messages listed in the top frame, and you
will see it appear in the bottom frame.
- To Post, go up to
"Article" at the top menu, and click "Post to
Newsgroup". For information on all the features
this program has to offer, please review their docs at: http://xnews.3dnews.net/manual.html
Outlook Express - Basic
Program - Very Few Features - No Registration Fee
- If you have Internet Explorer
4.0 or higher installed on your system, you probably already
have Outlook Express. To use this method for reading
newsgroups, simply go to your Start button at the bottom of
the screen and click
"Run".
In the box that pops up, type the
following exactly as you see it here: C:\Program Files\Outlook
Express\msimn.exe If this doesn't work, change the
"C" to whatever your main hard drive letter is.
- Once the program has loaded, it
may ask you if you want to make Outlook Express your default
mail client. If you are not already using this program
to read your email, make sure you click "NO".
Uncheck the checkbox as well.
- Go up to "Tools" on
the top menu, then click "Accounts". Once this
is up, click the "News" tab.
- Click "Add" then
select "News".
- Enter your Display Name, click
Next. Enter your Email, click Next.
- Enter your News Server name (example: nntp.yourisp.com). You must
get this information from your Internet Service Provider to
proceed. If your ISP requires you to log on, check the
checkbox here. See Step 2 and 3 above under "What
you Need to Know". If you check the checkbox, you
will be asked to enter your Username and Password on the next
screen. If not you'll see the "You are
finished" screen. Click "Finish".
- You will now see that you've
added newsgroup reading to Outlook Express. You should
be back at the first popup window. You may also notice
that your news server name has popped in on the left side of
the screen in the list of items. For now, just click
"Close" on the popup in front of you.
- You will now be asked if you
want Outlook to download newsgroups. Click
"Yes". Outlook is VERY slow, so give it time.
- You will see a window with a box
at the top titled "Display newsgroups which
contain" In this box type alt.baldspot and then
click the Subscribe button. Now click the "Go
To" button at the bottom. If you plan to use
Outlook express from here forward, click "Yes" on
the question regarding whether you want to make it your
default news client. If not, click "No".
- You're in! It should load
the available messages in the top window pane, and when you
click one, you will see the body of the message appear in the
bottom window pane.
- To post a message, click the
"New Post" icon at the top. To reply to
someone, make sure the message is showing in the bottom window
pane, and click "Reply Group".