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Search Discussion Groups For: Click the "Search Now" button to see what others are saying on newsgroups. Click here to read an article on this very subject.

 

What are newsgroups? - Remember how amazed you were when you first discovered how vast the World Wide Web was?  Well, you will be just as amazed when you discover what newsgroups are all about.

Imagine a bulletin board that anyone in the world with access to the internet can read or write to.  This bulletin board is only for a specific topic, so everything is (supposed to be!) relevant to the subject that you want to know about. Postings to this bulletin board may number from just a few, to tens of thousands. Now multiply that one bulletin board by tens of thousands of  times for all the different subjects, and add searching tools so you can zero in on just about any topic or widget you can think of.  I get shivers down my spine just thinking about it! Just remember to take everything you learn with a grain of salt. Apply lots common sense! Oh, and of course, watch out for spam!!! Don't post unless you want some. Read prior sentence again - outloud.

If you decide to leave messages on newsgroups I highly recommend that you don't give any personal information out!!!

A good example of the benefits of being able to find something in newsgroups happened to me recently. A circuit board for an important piece of equipment failed so I had to have a new board. I was relieved to find a new board right away, but it was by a different manufacturer. The dealer insisted it would work fine. They installed it. It did not work fine! They claimed it was my equipment that caused the problem in the first place, but grudgingly reinstalled the part from the original manufacturer. It behaved the same way, and still didn't work as good as my original part. By now I was totally puzzled, and worried. I had to get it working and I knew it wasn't my equipment that was causing a problem. After weeding through the results of a group search on my topic, I discovered a number of people across the country who had the same problem. They had discovered the problem. The manufacturer had changed the specs to either increase the safety factor, or limit their liability... who knows? Nobody could tell me that. I had to accept the fact that my equipment was now less useful. Without knowing what was really going on, I would have wasted who knows how many hours trying to solve the problem. Searching web pages will sometimes be helpful, but many times it is not. I was happy to find the answers I needed in newsgroups, quickly and efficiently.

The search string above is obviously targeted towards an interesting subject of my own choosing, but you can change the search criteria to anything you want. Have at it!

Anyone can read these postings, but to post you have to have an account with Google (used to be DejaNews.com), but they're free.

If you really get into it -
you can subscribe to one of the gazillion newsgroup service providers who generally charge about $10 per month.  Then you can use the groups reader in Outlook Express, or buy software like Forte Agent to up and download files, pictures, text and such (still no escape from spam!). They will usually want to charge your credit card so make sure that they are a reputable company. Oftentimes your dialup or internet provider will offer a limited service that is free.
 
 

More News Links for the Unafraid...

Tired of the same ol' story? Wondering if you're really hearing all of the story? Did you even know there was a story? Do you question authority? Then you've come to the right place. Here you will find all of MY favorite sources of news. It is important to note that I don't consider any one of these links below to be the mother of all news sources. They are valuable to me only as a whole. That's how I read them. All of them, every day. By now you're probably figured out I'm a news junkie. It's true, I am. No apologies either. I like to know what is going on and I think I've always been that way. I'll describe what I like of each one of them.
Here they are:
 

MichaelMoore.com
This site has been wonderful in revealing, well, a lot of things!!! Lately it seem like this is where I go first. So I listed them first.

The Free Press
The original Columbus Free Press grew out of the anti-war movement on the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio in October 1970. Inspired by the activism against the Vietnam War and the senseless killings at Kent State, the underground paper has been speaking up since 1970 and is now on the frontlines of the Election Fraud 2004 battle scene.

truthout
News and Editorials, very up to date and informative.

BBC
I like this one because it isn't controlled by the American national news media and is the only major non-profit news organization in the world, independent of any government or corporate influence.  Enough said.

Aljazeera
It must be kind of obvious why I like this one. If you want to know what is going on where the bombs and bullets are flying, who are you going to ask? The people running for cover who speak the language and have a well established indigenous infrastructure, or some bigwig corporate whimps who are afraid to report on what is really happening in their own country?
I've been reading them since earlier in 2004 and I am impressed. They are very CNN-like in their format and content but they do report much that never makes it to the general US population. They have been criticized by other Arabic language news sources for being too moderate and even-handed.

Associated Press (AP)
This is a new one for me. Still checking it out.

Information Clearinghouse
New one for me. I really like what I see but unfortunetly with my weanie 56K modem I don't see much. Lots of large video files screaming to be played. Must see.
 
 
 

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