Florida Anesthesia Computer and Engineering Team
©
University of Florida, 1996
Usenet News is one of the other services offered by the Internet. Simply put, it is a system of discussion groups and bulletin boards whereby users can post a message that can be read by anyone. These bulletin boards (there are currently more than 3,000) provide a forum in which you can discuss or ask questions about just about any topic. To organize the discussion, many special interest newsgroups are formed that deal with one specific topic. They can be useful when you do research, or when you try to set up computer software and have a problem or question. To read the messages from Usenet, you need a newsreader, which keeps track of which Usenet host you are using (there are over 50,000 Usenet hosts located all over the world), what groups you subscribe to, which new messages you haven't read, and helps you to subscribe or unsubscribe from the newgroups.
The newgroups are organized into a number of categories, each covering a particular area of interest. The names of some useful groups you can subscribe to include: alt.med.equipment (a newsgroup dealing with medical equipment), comp.os.ms-windows.apps (discussion group on Windows® applications), sci.engr.biomed (biomedical engineering newsgroup), sci.med.physics (physics and medicine), and sci.med.informatics (medical informatics interest group.) Before you start posting your messages, it is best to read what is already there to get a feel for what type of messages are normally posted in that bulletin board. Usenet and Mailing lists discussed above are somewhat similar. The main difference is that Usenet requires that you actively check the interest groups, while the Mailing lists deposit messages automatically in your mailbox. On the other hand, it is easier to participate in the various different newgroups using Usenet.
| Contents | Prev. Page | Next Page |