Newsgroups are Internet bulletin boards. There are over 30,000 of them, on every conceivable topic: pop culture, computers, politics, and every other special (and very special) interest. You can use Outlook Express to read and reply to these messages almost exactly as though they're email messages.
To set up Outlook Express for reading newsgroups, choose Tools→Accounts, then click the News tab. When you click Add→News, you'll be launched into a newsgroup-specific version of the Internet Connection Wizard. You'll be asked for the name you want to use when posting messages (usually your real name), the email address you want stamped on your newsgroup postings (see Section 12.5.4 for some antispam techniques), and your news server information—an address (provided by your ISP or network administrator) that tells Outlook Express how to connect to the Internet's newsgroups.
When you click Close, Outlook Express offers to download the entire list of newsgroups (Figure 12-13, top). If you click Yes, your PC connects to the Internet and downloads the complete list of newsgroup names—all 30,000 of them. (If you connect by modem, this process takes a minute or two, as you can imagine.) As shown in Figure 12-13 (bottom), you wind up in the Newsgroup Subscriptions dialog box, where the complete list awaits your perusal.
Figure 12-13. Top: After you create a newsgroup account, Outlook Express offers to fetch the list of every newsgroup on the Internet. Bottom: In the box, enter the text you want to look for in the newsgroup's title (such as windows 2000, as shown here). If you turn up an appealing-sounding topic in the gigantic list beneath, double-click its name to subscribe to it, so that Outlook Express will download the latest messages on that topic each time you connect.
If you know the name of a particular newsgroup, you can use the "Display newsgroups" search box at the top of the Newsgroup Subscriptions dialog box to located it by name, as shown in Figure 12-13.
Tip
A better way to locate newsgroups and messages is to use the http://deja.com newsgroup search engine. Use Internet Explorer to visit http://www.deja.com/usenet, where the searching tools are far superior to those in Outlook Express.
When you click OK, you return to the main Outlook Express screen. At the left side of the window, under the heading bearing the name of your newsgroup server, you'll see the names of the newsgroups you double-clicked in the previous step.
The next time you connect to the Internet, Outlook Express downloads all of the messages in the discussions to which you've subscribed. (There may be just a few messages, or several hundred; they may go back only a few days or a couple of weeks, depending on how much "traffic" there is in each discussion.)
To read the messages on one of these topics, click its name, as shown in Figure 12-14. At this point, you can read them exactly as though they're email messages.
Figure 12-14. Select the news-group you want to view from your list of subscribed news-groups in the Folders list (you may need to click on the + sign next to your news server first). Reading newsgroup messages is just like reading email in Outlook Express: Select a message to display it in the Preview pane, or double-click a message to open it in a separate window.
Tip
If there's a thread (series of messages on the same subject) that you want to monitor, click in the eyeglasses column (Figure 12-14). An eyeglasses icon appears next to the name of the thread. When Internet citizens post new messages in the thread, its name (and the newsgroup name in the Folders list) turns red. To ignore a thread, on the other hand, click in the eyeglasses column twice to display a red circle next to the topic. Now Outlook Express won't waste time downloading messages on that topic each time you connect.
If you connect to the Internet using a standard modem, you can download all of the latest newsgroup messages in one fell swoop, disconnect, and then read the messages at your leisure without tying up the phone line.
To do this, click a newsgroup's name in your Folder list. Once Outlook Express is finished downloading the headers (subject lines) for all the messages, choose File→Work Offline to disconnect from the Internet. Then take your time reviewing the message headers. Whenever you find one that looks interesting, click in the column labeled with an arrow; a downward-facing arrow appears next to the message's name (see Figure 12-14). You've just marked it for downloading later. Mark all the messages you want to read in this way.
When you're ready to download them, choose Tools→Synchronize Newsgroup, select "Get messages marked for download," click OK, and then click Yes when asked if you'd like to go online. Outlook Express connects to the Internet and downloads the messages you selected.
Working with newsgroup messages is very similar to working with email messages. For example:
To reply to a message, select or open it. Then click either the Reply Group toolbar button (to post a reply on the newsgroup for all the Internet to see), or the Reply toolbar button (to send a private email message to the author of the post). Compose the message and click Send when you're finished.
To forward a message, select or open it. Then click the Forward toolbar button. Compose the message; click Send.
To compose a new message, click the New Post toolbar button. You can include file attachments, too (use the Attach toolbar button). Compose the message; click Send.
Tip
The best way to irritate everyone on a newsgroup (other than spamming the newsgroup with advertisements) is to ask a question that has already been answered recently on the newsgroup. Before asking a question, spend five minutes reading the recent newsgroup messages to see if someone has already answered the question. Also consider visiting http://www.deja.com, a Web site that lets you search all newsgroups for particular topics.