USENET

Use	User's Network. USENET is some what of a virtual email system where the recipient is a news group. One can both read and post messages to the group. Binary files (i.e., programs, pictures, etc.) can also be posted and downloaded if first encoded as text (uuencode).
News Groups	News groups are arranged in a hierarchical maner. The main top level groups are: alt: alternate comp: computer misc: miscellaneous news: news rec: recreational sci: science talk: debate issues soc: social However, there can be many more top level groups that are carried locally, such as mbl: MBL stuff whoi: WHOI stuff There are currently more than 20,000 news groups.
Protocol	NNTP: Network News Transfer Protocol. MBL News server is: `netnews.whoi.edu` The status of this server can be ascertained at CIS: Usenet Information Page This news servers (as most) can only be accessed when within the WHOI domain (128.128), as MBL is.
URL	news:newsgroup Example: `news:sci.bio.ecology`
Groups of Interest	sci.bio.ecology sci.bio.fisheries sci.bio.conservation mbl.announce mbl.general WHOI Groups
News Readers	WinVN Both 16 and 32 bit Free Agent A commercial version is also available. Also, most WWW browsers have built-in news readers.
Other Info	Deja News allows posting via web, as well as the ability to search news groups. Quite powerful.