Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours |
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Hour 23: Using StarOffice Email and Newsgroup Features |
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Newsgroups are subject-oriented group discussions across the Internet. They're sort of like email, except everyone's messages are posted in a common place for everyone to read and respond to. You can also compare them to a chat session on the Internet, except that they don't occur in real time. Newsgroup messages can be delayed several hours from the time that they are posted or sent, to the time that you see them listed on your newsgroup reader.
Newsgroups cover every subject imaginable, from the scholarly to the mundane to the obscene (there are lots of those). Newsgroups are organized in a tree, with a broad category listed first, followed by a more specific subject.
For example, the sci.physics group discusses physics; the soc.religion.muslim discusses issues for Muslims, and comp.os.linux.announce contains announcements relevant to Linux users (it stands for computers/operating systems/linux/announcements). There are thousands of different newsgroups. The newsserver that you connect to for reading newsgroup postings probably receives more than 100MB of data each day from new postings.
Although other word processors might have email capability, none that we've seen include the capability to browse Internet newsgroups. Normally you must use your Web browser to read newsgroups. StarOffice integrates these features.
The first step in reading newsgroups is to create and configure a news server item in the Explorer window. With the news server item in place, you can select it to read and post messages to newsgroups.
To create a news server icon in the Explorer, follow these steps:
1. With the Explorer window open, right-click on the word Explorer on the top line of the Explorer window. A pop-up menu appears.
2. From the New submenu, choose News. A Properties of News dialog box appears, where you can define the properties of the news server that you want to access (see Figure 23.15).
3. Make sure that the Receive tab is selected.
4. Enter the name of the news server in the Server field. You'll need to get the name of this server from your ISP or system administrator.
5. Enter a username and password for this server if these are needed to access it (usually you won't need to fill in these fields).
6. Change to the General tab and enter a name for this news server icon. The name that you enter is listed in the Explorer window next to the new icon.
7. You can use the other tabs in the Properties of News dialog box to define other information about this news server:
Figure
23.15
Newsgroups are accessed by first defining a news server account in the Properties
of News dialog box.
The Rules and View tabs --Define which newsgroups and which messages in those newsgroups are shown onscreen. For example, you can list all newsgroups (a long list) or only those to which you have subscribed, or you can automatically delete postings from a person who always makes offensive remarks.
The Subscribe tab --Enables you to predefine the names of the newsgroups for which you want to view message postings. (See the next section.)
The Contents section --Defines how messages are updated and stored, locally and on the POP server from which they were retrieved.
When you finish setting up these properties, choose OK to close this dialog box. Another message asks if you want to create an Outbox.
As you read newsgroup postings, you can reply publicly, posting your message back to the newsgroup for everyone to read; or you can reply privately, using email to send a note to the author of a news message. Creating a separate Outbox for this news server enables you to separate email that you send while reading mail from other messages that you send. If you decide to create another Outbox, follow the steps given earlier in this hour for defining an email outbox.
After creating an Outbox (or immediately if you answered No to the Outbox question), a news server icon with the name you entered appears in the Explorer window.
Of all the newsgroups on the Internet, you probably only want to review a few at a time. Newsreaders enable you to subscribe to a newsgroup. Subscribing to a newsgroup doesn't affect anything on the Internet (for example, it doesn't send your name to the news server). Subscribing to a newsgroup just adds that newsgroup to a list kept within the newsreader to keep track of which newsgroups are to be displayed for you.
A list of subscribed newsgroups defines those newsgroups from which you want to regularly read messages. In the Subscribe tab of the Properties of News dialog box, you can view all the newsgroups that are available on your selected news server, and then mark, or subscribe to, those that interest you. Depending on the settings in the View tab, only those newsgroups that you subscribe to are listed in the news browsing window described in the next section.
To read news messages, double-click on the news server icon that you created in the Explorer. A news reader window appears; you can select a message to read from the message subject lines shown (see Figure 23.16).
Figure
23.16
Newsgroup messages are read within a StarOffice newsgroup browsing window.
Reading newsgroup messages is a little like reading email. But instead of viewing multiple email subject folders, the message titles in the current folder, and the text of one message, with news you view the list of newsgroups (like folders), the titles of news messages (like email messages), and the text of the selected news message.
As you read newsgroup postings, you'll probably want to reply to some of them. Posting a message to a newsgroup is similar to sending an email message, with these important differences:
Newsgroup postings are read by thousands of strangers around the world.
Newsgroup postings can take longer to appear in the newsgroup than email takes to reach a recipient (though they usually don't).
Newsgroup postings in some newsgroups can be rejected if the moderator who controls the group feels the posting is off-topic or inappropriate.
In some newsgroups, strangers who don't like what you say might respond with various levels of verbal abuse. Ignore it.
With these differences in mind, a few rules of Internet etiquette ( netiquette) might be helpful. These are generally accepted rules of behavior within newsgroups and the Internet generally:
Read postings in a newsgroup for a few days before posting anything yourself. Try to sense the tone of the messages (social, friendly, scholarly, antagonistic) so you can match it.
Look for a message in the newsgroup that contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions (a FAQ) and read it before posting to the newsgroup. The FAQ answers a few dozen questions that everyone with an interest in the subject of the newsgroup asks. They all want you to read the answer in the FAQ instead of asking it again.
When people say something offensive in retaliation to a comment with which they didn't agree (this is affectionately called a flame war ), don't add fuel to the fire. Take the high ground and change the subject.
With these ideas in mind, you can reply to any message in a newsgroup, either by replying privately via email, or by replying publicly back to the newsgroup (see Figure 23.17).
Figure
23.17
Responses to newsgroup messages can be private (via email) or public (back to
the newsgroup).
You've seen how to create several types of Internet-related icons in your Explorer window. These icons are the only way that you can access these features in StarOffice.
If you need to fix or update the information in any of the Internet icons on your Desktop, right-click on the icon and choose the Properties item in the pop-up menu that appears.
The other menu items shown can be used to set options for that Internet account. For example, you can change which messages are shown in an email or news account. Not all items shown, however, apply to all the Internet-related icons.
Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours |
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Hour 23: Using StarOffice Email and Newsgroup Features |
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