How to add newsgroup in Outlook Express ?

Stryder

10-12-02, 06:43 AM

There are thousands of newsgroup servers available, the problem is that some you have to pay for, and some are READ-ONLY.

If you want to connect to a news group then your best checking your ISP's (Internet Service Provider's) homepage for Newsgroups.

For instance if your with x.com then they might have set up a newsgroup server as news.x.com on port 119.

Most of the time though they might have it secured to only work with your Dial-up/login information.

When you do get round to adding it to your Outlook Express, you make the account similar to adding a mail account.

Tools->Accounts->Add->News then fill in the details:
A name, an email address (You might want to put a [NOSPAM] in it, like yourname@[NOSPAM]emailserver.com) then the news server (which as I mentioned you should find out from your ISP)

It will then appear in a seperate folder structure under your inbox.
You can then use a simple left click on it, and then select "newsgroups" in the other panel, this will then cause Outlook Express to start downloading a list of newsgroups that your ISP provides, it could take a couple of minutes.

You then have the options of searching the groups for keywords, and subscribing/unsubscribing to or from newsgroups your interested in.

You can use the settings to decide how much information you want downloaded, wether it's just the headers, new messages or all messages. (If you choose all messages, your harddrive will be filled, if its just headers and you want to read a message, the system will have to download the message body.)

Most newsgroups do delete messages 7 days after they appear, but your computer can keep a message indefinitely, you'd have to sort out the option for when your downloaded messages get deleted to keep intune with whats being discussed.

When you post to a newsgroup they have a similar header to an e-mail, so you can be noted for your ISP's newsserver, although you can change your name and e-mail address to what ever you want.

There is a newsgroup etiquette, you can search that out in google to find out what is and isn't allowed in newsgroups.

simply put, don't post messages that don't belong in the newsgroup.
Namely if your talking about cold cures, don't post it in alt.hobbies.knitting.

Don't cross post irrelavent material, posting your newest conspiracy theory to alt.conspiracy,alt.freebsd.help,alt.2600.hackers is bound to get you molestered as well as shot.

NEVER TOP POST, this means when you reply to something QUOTE the original post, and write your reply at the bottom.
This is due to the servers deleting messages after 7 days, so what you reply to might disappear leaving people guessing what your talking about. As for top posting, people actually get annoyed for hearing your reply, before they see what your replying too. (By all means if it get's too long quoting 5 people before you, then delete the first 3).

Don't swear, write hate mails or think your 4 133t h4x0r, otherwise people just won't want to speak to you, because they can't understand a word your 5471nG.