Binary Newsgroups

     UseNet is a network service for discussion between groups of people concerning a related topic. These topics include everything you could possible think of... except maybe... jumping from trees for no reason. Topics from health, sports, recreation, music, to computers are all available from newsgroup servers.

     Newsgroups work similar to email. You generally read and post from your email software such as Microsoft Outlook Express. The main difference is that your message is sent to a server where everyone can read it instead of just one person. People read your comments and then follow-up with a post stating their opinion. This is a great resource for getting help for complicated computer problems, you have the entire interested online world helping you, and someone, somewhere, usually knows the answer.

     Most common English (en) newsgroups begin with 'alt' such as alt.recreation.camping, alt.cooking.recipes, alt.hobbies.basketweaving. Within your news client (email program), you find which groups you want to join and then 'subscribe', subscribing is just a term for choosing to participate in the group, it doesn't cost money and unless you post a message, noone in the newsgroup knows you are even reading their messages (lurking).