Posted by Jose on 12/30/05 20:47

> My question is how do I access this group with a PC.

To do it "right" you will need Email/newsgroup software, and a news
account. If you are on a Windows PC, it comes with Outlook (or Outlook
Express) which will do, but there is much better free software out
there. Netscape (up to 7.2), Mozilla, and Thunderbird are a few of
them, others will be suggested here. They work pretty much the same
way. In the setup or preferences for these programs you create a new
account for your newsgroups. An "account" simply tells your computer
how to access the newsgroups (or Email) through your ISP, which almost
certainly provides newsgroup access (Though not all ISPs provide access
to all newsgroups, most cover most). Your news program will ask for the
server settings (where to connect, for example, news.snet.sbcglobal.net;
this info is available from your ISP) and a few other things. Once the
account is created (you have an ISP that will supply newsgroups, and
your Email/news software knows how to connect to it), then you
"subscribe" to the groups you are interested in. Subscribing means that
when you tell your software to "get messages", it gets the new messages
from those newsgroups to which you have subscribed, and keeps track of
what you have read and what you have not yet read. You post by
"replying" to a given message, or by "Composing" a new message. It
works just like Email from that software.

The method is similar on a Mac or on Linux, but I am not familiar with
their software.

Although there are some websites that let you post (for example, google
groups), it is far clumsier, both for you and for the ultimate readers.
There are also web sites that provide a feed to specific newsgroups,
and pretent that they are blogs or message boards that "belong" to that
web site. Don't be fooled.

Jose
--
You can choose whom to befriend, but you cannot choose whom to love.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

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