Re: Usenet via e-mail

[e@prc.org]

rhidaja@umanitoba.ca writes:

> How to receive news in this group directly into my e-mail?

Usent via email is possible--that's how I read this newsgroup and how I
am posting this message.  However, no method is completely reliable and
there is a learning curve involved.

So, if you have regular Usenet access, or if you can access the WWW via
Lynx, you probably will find email Usenet access cumbersome.  But if
you only have email access, or if your Lynx access is really slow and
unreliable, Internet-by-email for usenet is worth trying.  The first
step is to obtain a document called "Dr. Bob's Guide to Offline
Internet Access."  There are several ways to obtain this document, but
the most reliable is to send an email request to
BITFTP@pucc.princeton.edu.  This email can have whatever subject you
wish.  The content of the email should be exactly as follows:

FTP rtfm.mit.edu UUENCODE
CHUNKSIZE 0
USER anonymous
cd pub/usenet/news.answers/internet-services
get access-via-email
QUIT

This will return a a file which must be de-uuencoded using any of the
Apple II utilities which accomplish this function.  Alternately, you
can try to send email directly to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the
subject of your email being the word:

none

and the content of the email being:

send usenet/news.answers/internet-services/access-via-email

This "direct" method is obviously easier than sending the email to the
Princeton BITFTP site.  However, the MIT mail-server address seems to
be down more often than not.

If you have problems with the techniques mentioned in Dr. Bob's Guide,
feel free to post your questions here.

By the way, there is a new advertising-supported service at
reference.com which is supposed to support Usenet via email.  If this
turns out to be worthwhile, I would expect to see if described in
future editions of Dr. Bob's Guide.

Steve Eisenberg     Pennsylvania, U.S.A.     e@prc.org

P.S. (My posts always seem to have a P.S.:) )  Internet by email is
easier and more reliable for posting than reading.  So I'll send you a
cc email of this and any follow-up I post.