Everyone has heard of the Web and Email and Chatting and all the dangerous situations people get themselves into in these cyber rooms of anonymity, but a lot of Internet users, however, have not heard of Usenet newsgroups.

Usenet newsgroups form a huge collection of bulletin boards that are connected through the Internet where anyone can read or post messages. Imagine a conversation carried out over a period of hours and days, as if people were leaving messages and responses on a bulletin board. Or imagine the electronic equivalent of a radio talk show where everybody can put their two cents in and no one is ever on hold. Usenet will give you the scoop on your concern, from computer conundrums to Beanie Baby hunts.

Through Usenet the world tracked the revolt and siege of the Russian Parliament, the rapid descent of Mikhail Gorbachev, and the rise of Boris Yeltsin. Usenet is where individuals within the People's Republic of China meet the residents of Hong Kong for exchanges of ideas. Usenet was a lifeline for Bosnians, Serbs, and San Franciscans during the 1989 earthquake.

While the Internet began in the 1960s and the Web in the early 1990s, Usenet began in 1979 when two universities developed software to exchange information and files, and made them available to a group of people by topics. Many universities, corporations and other institutions participated in this way of communication gradually, and Usenet now has thousands of topics or newsgroups with millions of readers all over the world, sending or posting millions of newsgroup messages per day.

The basic building block of Usenet is a newsgroup, which is a collection of messages about the same topic. There are over twenty thousand newsgroups, so one of them is bound to be about something you are interested in. newsgroup messages are distributed via News servers -- computers that contain databases of Usenet messages.

Internet Service Providers, universities, and companies operate News servers.

A Usenet message is sent from one News server to another automatically. Like the World Wide Web, Usenet consists of thousands of new servers linked together all using the same protocol or language to communicate with each other. The protocol web servers use is the familiar "http'' thing that we see in our web browser. News servers use the protocol NNTP. Usenet groups are different from Listserv discussion groups because Usenet messages are not distributed to individual members' Email addresses.

You read Usenet messages by logging onto one of the thousands of News servers around the world that are constantly talking to each other via the Internet and updating their lists of thousands of Usenet messages.

Both ISPs in Bermuda offer News servers. If you connect to the Internet through Logic, you can log in to news.ibl.bm. If you connect to the Internet through Northrock, you can log in to news.northrock.bm.

Both of these computers are on the Internet all the time, constantly comparing their lists of News messages with all the other News servers' lists, so that people who log in to News server roughly the same messages.

Just like you need software to surf the Web or read Email or Chat, you need software to read and post messages to newsgroups. In addition to stand alone NewsReader applications, NewsReader software is bundled into both Internet Explore and Netscape Communicator, just like Email is.

In Internet Explorer 5 for Windows, go to the Tools menu, and from the Mail and News option, select Read News. This will launch the Microsoft's NewsReader software called Internet news.

In Netscape Communicator 4.7 for Windows, go to the File menu and from the New option, select Messenger. This will launch Netscape's NewsReader application, Messenger. Note: If you just have Netscape Navigator, you will not be able to read Usenet News. You need the full Netscape package, Netscape Communicator, to do so.

After you connect to a News server, your NewsReader downloads the server's list of available Newsgroups. There are over twenty thousand newsgroups, so the first time you download the list, it may take 5 to ten minutes. You do not have to download this list of newsgroups every time you want to read and post messages to newsgroups. The next time you open your NewsReader, it will still be there.

Do not worry about finding newsgroups that you're interested in, in the list of twenty thousand or so that appear on your computer screen. Usenet newsgroups are organised and named in hierarchical order, from broad topics to specific ones so they are easy to find; for example, rec.music.makers.violin.

Some of the top-level names are: alt -- newsgroups of mixed unusual topics.

biz -- business related newsgroups.

comp -- computer related newsgroups.

fj -- topics in Japanese language.

k12 -- newsgroups of topics related to K through 12 education.

misc -- miscellaneous topics that do not fit into other categories.

news -- newsgroups of topics related to the use and discussion of Usenet.

rec -- recreation related newsgroups.

sci -- science related newsgroups.

soc -- newsgroups of topics related to social issues.

talk -- discussions on various topics.

After the list of newsgroups appears, simply select any newsgroup you like and subscribe to it (your reader has a Subscribe button).

Usenet Newsgroups Subscribing to a newsgroup is like subscribing to a magazine. The next time you launch your NewsReader, it will automatically go and look for new messages in the newsgroup. The subscription acts as the newsgroup equivalent of a bookmark in your Web browser and it isn't permanent. You can unsubscribe with one click of mouse.

Just as you can attach a file to an Email message, you can also attach a file to a Usenet message. There are special newsgroups where people "post'' or send Usenet messages with files attached. These newsgroups usually have ".binaries'' somewhere in their names. People post pictures, music files, and free applications in newsgroups. For example, alt.binaries.clip-art has free clip art in it that you can download to your computer. A binary file is any file that is not a text file.

Binary files must be compressed when they are sent over the Internet via Email or posted to a Usenet newsgroup. Luckily your Web browser has software bundled in to it so that it can automatically uncompress files for you, and display them if you have the right application. There is a lot more information about newsgroups; this is just a brief overview to get you started in the right direction. For more information about Usenet newsgroups, the techy stuff plus the culture, check out the web site http:/www.usenet.org Enjoy exploring another aspect of the Internet next time you log on.