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General Internet Resources |
Below is a compilation of general internet resources. There are two major topics.
A FAQ has been written for nearly every usenet newsgroup, and will
be posted to that group periodically. The FAQs for a large number
of newsgroups are available for retrieval by FTP from several sites.
The most prominent site is rtfm.mit.edu but it is quite busy.
You can retrieve FAQs from RTFM or one of its mirrors.
There are hypertext versions of faqs also available.
A few of the RFCs are written in layman's terms and, in addition to being called RFCs with RFC numbers, are also called FYIs with FYI numbers that are different (sigh) from their RFC numbers. The FYIs explain aspects of the net, such as net resources available.
Although most of the RFCs are written in a more technical manner, they are still largely understandable by people with a little technical background. These RFCs contain the protocols and policies upon which the internet is based. If you want to find out about TCP/IP or MIME find the appropriate RFC. You could also buy a book, but the RFCs do not cost you any money, at least not directly.
Carnegie Mellon is the most convenient place to find the RFCs. The more recent RFCs are on line, (you can view them with your web browser) but you will have to download the older ones, to view or print with your favorite text editor.
NEXOR is supposed to have a search form, but I could not get an answer from them.
The Internic has a repository of the RFCs including the index. Note that the index is quite large, 300 - 500K depending on the format.
Ohio State University has the RFCs including a keyword search of the text. There are also special links to some of the more popular RFCs, including the Hitchhiker's Guide, an Internet Glossary, the list of Assigned numbers (what are they?), etc.
Here is what you need to know:
These lists are managed by software that runs on a host computer. To sign up for a list, you send a message to the software on the host computer. There are several varieties of software that handle lists. The two most popular are LISTSERV and MAJORDOMO.
If my subscription attempt is successful, I will receive a
confirmation message from the listserv software.
Here is an example:
to send a message to anthro-l, send the message to
NOTE:
To find out what listserv-managed lists are available, send a message
to listserv. The subject line is optional and the body should contain
the one word GLOBAL. There are variants of this, but this will get you
the whole list. Here is an example:
NOTE: The list is quite large, so send the message to a node
near you to minimize network traffic. To find a node near you ask
the postmaster at your installation or service provider.
The most interesting, new-list.wouters, tells, in great detail, how
to find lists.
From MIT one can get:
(a set of 14 files with lists of mailing lists)
(a list of the regular active newsgroups)
(a list of other (alt, bionet, etc) newsgroups)
When your computer becomes attached to the net, almost certainly,
usenet news will be available to you and you will be given software
for reading news messages and posting messages of your own. Such
software is referred to as a newsreader.
You will also be presented with a list of newsgroups to which you
can subscribe. The list of newsgroups will likely be put into the
root directory of your account. If the newsreader does not let you
search the list for interesting topics, you can use word processing
software to search for newsgroups that might interest you because
the list of newsgroups will be an ASCII text file.
A similarity is that a message sent to a usenet newsgroup can be
seen by everyone subscribed to that newsgroup.
A difference is that mail sent from a mail distribution list will
stay in your mailbox until you read is or blow it away, whereas
news messages will be deleted from your host computer periodically
and you may miss them if you do not read news for a while.
There are thousands of newsgroups available, each handling messages
pertaining to a specific topic.