////////////////////// INTERNET ON IB-BBS FAQ. (Frequently Asked Questions) ////////////////////// ----------------------------- - 1. What is the Internet ? - ----------------------------- The Internet is technically the successor to the Defense Advance Research Projects Administration Network (DARPANET). This was an early network of research labs, defense contractors, and government agencies that experimented in linking local area networks together. DARPANET was succeeded by the National Science Foundation Network - NSFNet. In the mid 1980s, NSFnet grew to connect most university campuses in the United States. Aside from the history, the Internet has since grown phenomenally. Today some estimate as many as 3.200.000 host systems on nearly 7000 networks in 50 countries are connected to the Internet either directly, or via some form of e-mail gateway. As a result, it has become the common e-mail bus for the online world. What does this mean to you? It means you can send electronic mail from this BBS to virtually any network or e-mail system in the world - including overseas locations, at no additional charge. All you need is the correct Internet mail address. And the recipient can respond - and you will receive your mail right here. Internet is a collection of networks throughout the world. All these networks are connected to each other and they all use the same communication protocol, i.e. TCP/IP. This permits all machines connected to one of these networks to communicate with each other. The total number of computers connected in the world is now about 3.200.000 and the number of hosts connected to the Internet is doubling each year. The Internet has become popular for its ease of use of electronic mail (E-mail). Knowing the e-mail address of someone, you can mail messages all over the world. But next to this communication mechanism, Internet is known for its sources of free information. Fileservers all over the world can be reached to ask for the latest updates on programs, sources (free- or shareware), but also on agriculture, the Dow Jones or movies. Most of this information is for free. Internet is also a very democratic society : you can discuss via News on almost any subject you can think of in an interactive way. News contains more than 6000 different subjects. ----------------------------- - 2. Info about E-mail? - ----------------------------- Electronic Mail (E-Mail) ---------------------------- The primary interest in Internet connections revolves around the use of e-mail. Internet allows individuals with e-mail access to send messages of course. But more than that, over the past few years most other networks have developed gateways to the Internet. IB-BBS offers Internet-style (RFC-822) electronic mail services to its IVP users. IB-BBS is gated into Internet by using UUCP (Unix to Unix CoPy) connections with INTERPAC. The bottom line is that you can send messages to anyone with an Internet e-mail box, or a connecting network. CompuServe, MCI Mail, AT&T Mail, America Online, GEnie, Dialog, Sprintmail, and networks in Europe, the Soviet Union, and Japan and over forty other countries all have Internet connections. The cost of sending or receiving Internet E-mail to/from anywhere on the globe is the same. If you have a friend in Japan with an Internet mailing address - go for it. No extra charge. The cost for this service consists of a base subscription and a volume-based cost. The base subscription costs 700 Belgian Francs for 1 year for IB-BBS VIP members. Non VIP members pay 1500 BEF. The volume-based cost is 0.2 BEF / KiloByte (sent or received!!!!) But you can send/receive 500 KB E-mail for free EVERY MONTH!!! This ought to be enough for normal use. Read and Send Mail ------------------ HOW DO I ADDRESS AN INTERNET E-MAIL MESSAGE? Item E on the main internet menu puts you in a private e-mail board setup specifically to handle Internet mail messages. This works like a normal TBBS message area. Enter the desired address at the regular TO prompt. And likewise the subject at the SUBJECT: prompt. No special addressing requirements other than the usual problem of having the correct Internet mail address. No particular requirements for formatting the text either. This gives you the possibility to send mail to all Internet users in the world (there are more than 30.000.000 users in the world). But, you have to know the mail address of your partner. This is basically a private e-mail area. That means that other callers cannot read the e-mail you send or receive. But note that the system operators do have the ability to read all electronic mail on this system, and while not a particulary curious lot, they will from time to time look over electronic mail messages in the course of routine maintenance. As a result, these messages cannot be considered to be truly private. The area features an IN BOX and an OUT BOX. This is pretty much self explanatory. Incoming mail to you from the Internet goes in the IN box and a copy of those messages you send is kept in the OUT box. You can of course copy messages freely into your CUBBYHOLE function as well. You can REPLY to a received Internet e-mail message by simply pressing R as in any other message area. CAN I RECEIVE INTERNET MAIL ON THIS BBS? IF SO, WHAT'S MY INTERNET ADDRESS ON THIS SYSTEM? What does this mean to you? It means you can send electronic mail from this BBS to virtually any network or e-mail system in the world - including overseas locations, at no additional charge. All you need is the correct Internet mail address. And the recipient can respond - and you will receive your mail right here. So what is YOUR address? Your user name on this system @ibbbs.be Example: Logon name on IB-BBS - FirstName LastName Internet Address - FirstName.LastName@ibbbs.be Notice the space between FistName and LastName has been replaced by a period. This is a common Internet convention. Spaces are discouraged and you should probably replace them with a period. It does NOT matter whether it is addressed in upper case letters (capitals) or lower case. The software we are using to implement this Internet mail feature, was designed specifically for this purpose. When replying, you can now use the normal REPLY function and the Internet address will be captured from the incoming message so you can reply just as you would on any other message area. ----------------------------- - 3. Info about USENET News - ----------------------------- USENET (User's Network) News is named after the USENET-network of Duke University and the university of South California. Since its start in 1979 Network News has become the largest "bulletin board" system in the world; it allows the exchange of texts, notes, programs, Q&As (called "articles") ... between millions of users. These news articles are largely written by persons who participate in a group discussion on a specific subject (a newsgroup). At the moment there exist more that 6000 newsgroups. Some newsgroups have a moderator that filters before distributions, in other newsgroups the participants decide what appears in the newsgroup. News is a kind of bulletin board system in which you can ask or answer questions, or find software. News is divided in groups. Each group discusses a certain subject - this can be about the latest HP Deskjet printer, a political subject like the foreign affairs policy of Bill Clinton or a discussion about your favourite music. Please follow the rules of News when posting (= sending something to news). It will be read by some thousands of people. Be concise, to the point and polite ! Normally you read the messages of a newsgroup during a few weeks (months) before you begin to ask a question. Otherwise you could get some answers like 'RTFM' (Read The Fucking Manual). The level of most technical newsgroups is quite high. Some of the readers/writers are real specialists in the domain of the subject of the newsgroup. Mostly you can find also FAQ's (Frequently Asked questions) published weekly or monthly in the Newsgroup. These FAQ's give already the answer to almost all your questions. -------------------------------------------------- - How can I have access and what does it cost? - -------------------------------------------------- The cost for the IB-BBS IVP service service consists of a base subscription and a volume-based cost. The base subscription is 700 Belgian Francs for VIP members for 1 year. If you are not yet VIP on our BBS you will have to subscribe the VIP membership first. The volume-based cost is 0.2 BEF / KiloByte (sent or received E-mail!). However, the base subcription fee of 700 BEF/y includes 5000 KB free E-mail per month (send or receive). This ought to be enough for normal use. Also: these limits ONLY concern your personal E-mail. Reading or writing in the Internet NEWSgroups is always included. IVP users will also be granted 200 minutes logon-time per day! As an IVP you will gain write acces to the newsgroup too! Conclusion: Normal User: Free VIP User: 800 BEF / Year IVP User if you are already VIP: 700 BEF / Year VIP + IVP 1.500 BEF / Year To subscribe IVP as a VIP (700 BEF), your actual VIP membership must have still ** more than 6 month ** of validity. (Use option in the til menu to check this). If it is not than you have to resubscribe your VIP to get the IVP status (1.500 BEF total). Thus if you are VIP: - Your VIP still lasts for 4 month or more: Pay 700 BEF. You will get VIP + IVP for a year counted from your upgrade. (Yes you win between 0 and 8 moth of VIP) - Your VIP had less than 4 month to go: Pay 1.500 and you will have the same. You are not VIP yet? - Send 1.500 BEF and you will have 1 full Year VIP + IVP If you have questions about this, leave a messge to SYSOP. Inscriptions are OPEN from TODAY!! If you want to be sure to have your personal internet adress working on the 21 of Februari 1995, send the money today! On the 21/2 you will be able to use it directly! Payments can be made on account number 001-2579235-81 of IB-BBS, and please mention your ** exact logon name ** in the comments. Thank you! ------------------------------------------------- - Rules on IB-BBS for Usenet News and Email - ------------------------------------------------- ============================================== !!!! PLEASE READ THIS TEXT VERY CAREFULLY !!!! It contains important information for you on what is allowed and what's not on Internet and on IB-BBS. You can easily loose your access by not following these simple rules! Please read! ============================================== About posting articles in Internet newsgroups. ============================================== The topic of most newsgroups is quite specialized. Please be sure that you only write messages in newsgroups that directly concern the given subject. This is generally known as "staying on-topic". Flames, rudeness, and other similar aberrations will not be tolerated. Private messages are not allowed. All messages posted in a newsgroup are public and should contain information interesting for more than just you and your friend. So by default you should try to answer most articles by replying personally to the author through E-mail. This can easily be done by using the reply function on the BBS (At first the BBS software will create a message to NEWS, wich means all readers of the newsgroup), but then you add, as THE FIRST CHARACTERS of the mes- sagetext (body): To: internet.address.author@his.site This HAS to be a capital T as the VERY FIRST character of the mes- sagetext, followed by an undercase o followed by a colon followed by ONE space and followed by a the complete Internet address of the person you want to send the message to, and followed by an empty line. You can even address to several people by putting more than one address on the line, separated by a comma and a space (", ")! You can find the address of the author of the message easily by quoting the original message and pasting it from the From: field. The "To: " will be recognized by our BBS software and your message will be send as E-mail to the address specified, and will not be entered in the newsgroup. This technique works equally well from your favourite off-line messagereader as when entering messages on-line. As a sidenote, please remark that this technique will work in your private E-mail box too: If "To: " is found in the very beginning of an E-mail message, it will OVERRIDE the address in the TO: field of the message-header. This can be handy in case you send messages to people with very long addresses, (This especially concerns QWK users; the TO: field in QWK being limited to 25 positions....) or f.e. to address a message to more than one person at once, even in E-mail. In E-mail, however, note that the real TO: field should at least contain the @ character somewhere in the field for our BBS software to recognise it as an Internet message. This is not the case for messages in NEWS areas. Note that a message posted this way will still be readeble for users of this BBS that subscribe to that particular newsgroup. It will not be send into the newsgroup distribution though. Thus for matters that you really do not want it to be read by others, use the E-mail section. ====================================================================== PLEASE THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU POST A MESSAGE IN AN INTERNET NEWSGROUP. ====================================================================== You should be sure your writing is NOT a personal answer to someone, that your writing is polite and concerns the subject of the group. The risk you take is called "being flamed". What actually happens is that Internet (Usenet) Users judge themseves. I explain: Any offending messages in newsgroups generally generate lots of E-mail messages privately addressed to you, and containing their complaints. Since most newsgroups are read by millions of people all over the world this quickly can mean that you will receive a lot of E-mail messages. Since E-mail is paid by the byte and since you are generally limited to a fixed quantity of bytes per month, your IVP status may become locked-up very fast! These streams of unhappy answers are called "flames" Receiving them is called "being flamed". The official language of most newsgroups is English. It is expected that all posts will be written in English or the language of the newsgroup. This is because most of the newsgroup members are from the United States, with large numbers of additional native English speakers in Australia, Great Britian, New Zealand, and the Republic of South Africa. As a result, even if posting in a language other than English were not against usenet rules, posting a message in a language other than English reduces the number of people who can respond to it. Exceptions are the nlnet. and fr. newsgroups, using Dutch and French respectively. Be nice. Read the newsgroups you're interested in, before asking stupid questions. Several thousands (even +100.000) people follow these newsgroups. They want to read interesting questions/reactions/solutions like you do. In most Newsgroups a FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions - and their answers!) are published at regulary intervals (every 14 days in most cases). Please wait to see if the FAQ does not already contain the answer to you question before asking it publically in a Newsgroup. This is done to limit the repeated posting of basic questions by newcomers, which wasts bandwith and sometimes can make the group unreadeble. First try to follow a newsgroup for some time before trying to post messages in it. Don't be excessively annoying. It can cost you money if they send you flame mail (by e-mail!!). There are a number of newsgroups that are moderated. This means you can and may NOT place a message directly in the newsgroup. Even reactions on other messages aren't allowed. If you have an interesting question/recation, you can write an E-mail message to the moderator. If he judges your posting is of interest to the group he will forward your message into the group. Attention: Posting in a moderated group without passing by the moderator can generate serious flames. Most newsgroups periodically publish the rules of the group. Herein you will find the procedures to follow on how to post messages in the group Messages concerning goods or services for sale are off-topic in all newsgroups. (Exeption: nlnet.markt) About posting messages in private internet E-mail: ================================================== Requesting files through E-mail (FTPMail), subscribing to mailing lists or all other messages that cause heavy E-mail flow are not allowed on IB-BBS without consulting the sysop first. If several users are interested in a particular Mailing list, it can eventually be considered to import it to the BBS and make it readable as if it were a newsgroup. Please talk about this to your Sysop if you are interested in a particular mailing list. Attention: Be aware that Internet E-mail travels in a non-coded format and thus theoretically can be read by a lot of people on it's way. I said theoretically because: 1. There is so much trafic that it is not practically possible for a person or system operator to read much of it, 2. It is common practice on Internet not to read or publish private mail unless neccessary for technical reasons. (And if publishing is needed, then to ask for the authors permission. This all means that E-mail privacy is pretty safe (unless someone in the net is really looking after you). BUT: there is NO guarantee! Neither on the arrival of your message, neither on its privacy! If you are a normal user though, you should not worry to much about anyone other than you and your addressee reading your mail, nobody will have the time to do that anyway..... On the other hand though there is ONE BIG EXCEPTION to this: NEVER send the number of your creditcard through Internet without taking special precautions. Rumours go round about bandits using custom software to recognise the specific format of creditcardnumbers in the E-mail flow. This can easily be done in E-mail, much easier than it would be to decode fax-signals or even listen to voice channels. This already caused problems in the past. So if you use E-mail to order something please confirm your order by phone or fax to your suplier and DON'T include the number of your card in an E-mail unless you use a known as safe encryption utility. If you do, you are on your own. Neither our provider, neither IB-BBS will take any liabilities in case of problems whatsoever. Enforcement =========== Violations of these rules will be dealt with on IB-BBS as fast as possible. (A big part of it happening actually automatically because of the flames). We can and will take away your access on IB-BBS and we will not be able to pay you back your money in any case of offending the rules. This may sound hard but please understand that we do not really have a choice. If one of our users would offend the Internet community, AND we would fail to react on that, we will might as well be kicked-out alltogether..... Thank you for understanding and acting accordingly! Your SyOps. MORE INFORMATION ABOUT INTERNET ON IB-BBS: ----------------------------- - 1. Who provides IB-BBS? - ----------------------------- IB-BBS is connected with INTERPAC Belgium. Interpac Belgium Louizalaan 350 bus 11 B-1050 Brussel tel. 02/6466000 e-Mail: info@interpac.be --------------------------------------------------- - 2. Which Newsgroups are available at IB-BBS? - --------------------------------------------------- alt.bbs.internet BBSs that are hooked up to the Internet. alt.bbs.lists Postings of regional BBS listings. alt.best.of.internet It was a time of sorrow, it was a time of joy. alt.books.reviews "If you want to know how it turns out, read it!". alt.books.tom-clancy The group for discusson of Mr. Techno-Thriller. alt.brain alt.cardgame.magic Like rec.games.trading-cards.magic.misc, only different. alt.cd-rom.reviews Reviews of various published things available on CD-ROM. alt.cult-movies Movies with a cult following. alt.fan.jay-leno Fans of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. alt.fan.tom-clancy Like alt.books.tom-clancy, only different. alt.freaks Rick James, we love you! alt.games.doom.ii Ladies and Gentlemen, We are in Hell. On Earth! alt.movies.visual-effects Discussion of visual f/x for movies and tv alt.music.alternative For groups having 2 or less Platinum-selling albums. alt.music.jewish Music from the Jewish heritage. alt.music.nirvana Generation X's Seattle leaders, leaderless. alt.music.techno Bring on the bass! alt.psychology.personality Personality taxonomy, such as Myers-Briggs. alt.religion.kibology He's Fred, Jim. alt.security.pgp The Pretty Good Privacy package. alt.sex.fetish.orientals The mysteries of Asia are a potent lure. alt.sex.first-time What was your first time like? alt.sex.safe For the discussion and encouragement of safe sex alt.sex.stories For those who need it *NOW*. alt.soft-sys.corel.draw The Corel Draw graphics package. alt.sport.squash With the proper technique, vegetables can go very fast. alt.tasteless Truly disgusting. alt.tv.beavis-n-butthead Uh huh huh huh uh uh huh uh huh. belnet.announce belnet.misc comp.databases.ms-access MS Windows' relational database system, Access. comp.dcom.cabling Cabling selection, installation and use. comp.dcom.fax Fax hardware, software, and protocols. comp.dcom.isdn The Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN). comp.dcom.lans.ethernet Discussions of the Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 protocols. comp.dcom.lans.fddi Discussions of the FDDI protocol suite. comp.dcom.lans.novell comp.dcom.modems Data communications hardware and software. comp.doc.techreports Lists of technical reports. (Moderated) comp.lang.basic.visual Microsoft Visual Basic & App Basic; Windows & DOS. comp.os.linux.admin Installing and administering Linux systems. comp.os.linux.announce Announcements important to the Linux community.(Moderated) comp.os.linux.development Ongoing work on the Linux operating system. comp.os.linux.help Questions and advice about Linux. comp.os.ms-windows.apps.misc MS-Windows applications. comp.os.ms-windows.programmer comp.os.ms-windows.nt.misc General discussion about Windows NT. comp.os.ms-windows.nt.setup Configuring Windows NT systems. comp.os.ms-windows.setup Installing and configuring Microsoft Windows. comp.os.msdos.mail-news Administering mail & network news systems under MS-DOS. comp.os.msdos.misc Miscellaneous topics about MS-DOS machines. comp.os.msdos.programmer Programming MS-DOS machines. comp.os.os2.announce Notable news and announcements related to OS/2. comp.os.os2.apps Discussions of applications under OS/2. comp.os.os2.bugs OS/2 system bug reports, fixes and work-arounds. comp.os.os2.programmer comp.os.os2.setup Installing and configuring OS/2 systems. comp.protocols.snmp The Simple Network Management Protocol. comp.protocols.tcp-ip TCP and IP network protocols. comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc TCP/IP for IBM(-like) personal computers. comp.std.unix Discussion for the P1003 committee on UNIX. (Moderated) comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.comm Modems & communication cards for the PC. comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc Miscellaneous PC hardware topics. comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc Discussion about IBM personal computers. comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard comp.sys.intel Discussions about Intel systems and parts. comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit UNIX on 386 and 486 architectures. comp.unix.programmer Q&A for people programming under Unix. comp.unix.questions UNIX neophytes group. comp.windows.x.announce X Window System announcements. (Moderated) comp.windows.x.apps Getting and using, not programming, applications for X. comp.windows.x.i386unix The XFree86 window system and others. comp.windows.x.motif fr.comp.os.msdos __ fr.comp.sys.pc \ fr.comp.windows.ms \ fr.doc.divers > French newsgroups fr.network.modems / fr.rec.humour / fr.rec.musiques __/ news.admin.policy Policy issues of USENET. news.announce.important General announcements of interest to all.(Moderated) news.announce.newsgroups Calls for newgroups & announcements of same.(Moderated) news.announce.newusers Explanatory postings for new users. (Moderated) news.answers Repository for periodic USENET articles.(Moderated) news.future The future technology of network news systems. news.groups.questions Where can I find talk about topic X? news.groups.reviews What is going on in group or mailing list named X?(Moderated) news.newusers.questions Q & A for users new to the Usenet. nlnet.announce \ nlnet.comp \ nlnet.culinair \ nlnet.markt > Dutch newsgroups nlnet.muziek / nlnet.sport / nlnet.taal / nlnet.tv / rec.arts.movies Discussions of movies and movie making. rec.arts.movies.reviews Reviews of movies. (Moderated) rec.audio.pro Professional audio recording and studio engineering. rec.audio.tech Theoretical, factual, and DIY topics in home audio. rec.games.video.nintendo All Nintendo video game systems and software. rec.games.video.sega All Sega video game systems and software. sci.geo.oceanography Oceanography, oceanology and marine science. sci.psychology Topics related to psychology. soc.culture.belgium Belgian society, culture(s) and people. soc.culture.french French culture, history, and related discussions. soc.culture.israel Israel and Israelis. soc.culture.netherlands People from the Netherlands. ------------------------------------------------- - 3. How can I find someone's E-mail address? - ------------------------------------------------- Archive-name: finding-addresses Introduction A question which appears frequently on the Internet is, "I know someone's name, and I think they might have an electronic mail address somewhere. How can I find it?" There are many different techniques for doing this. Several of them are discussed below. Your best bet is to try the pertinent methods in this posting in the order in which they are listed. I've listed "Direct contact" near the end of this list because, for some reason, people seem to be reluctant to call people on the telephone or write them a paper-mail letter asking what their E-mail address is, as long as there is even a remote chance that it might be found without asking. This attitude is somewhat counterproductive, since in most cases, it is much easier to get someone's E-mail address by asking them than it is by following the other methods outlined below. Furthermore, even if you do manage to find an E-mail address using one of the on-line methods described below, it is not guaranteed that the person at the other end of the line checks that address regularly or even that it is the correct address. Therefore, if you do have a telephone number that isn't too expensive to call, or if you have a paper-mail address and aren't in too much of a hurry, you can probably save yourself a lot of trouble by skipping all of the on-line methods listed below and going directly to "Direct contact." Techniques *. Inter-Network Mail Guide If you know which network/service your target has an account on (e.g. CompuServe, Fidonet), then the "Inter-Network Mail Guide" posting in comp.mail.misc *may* be able to provide you with some help, although it probably will not be particularly helpful unless you have some sort of address to start with (a small number of networks use full names as addresses, and the posting mentions when this is the case, but it doesn't apply in very many cases). No updated version of this posting has been posted recently, but you can get a copy of it using the instructions below. *. Usenet-addresses server If you think that your target may be on the USENET and may have posted a message to the USENET at some point in the past, you might be able to find his/her address in the USENET address database on the machine pit-manager.mit.edu. To query the database, send an E-mail message to "mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu" with "send usenet-addresses/name" in the body or subject of the message, where "name" is either the first or last name of the person whose address you are seeking. Non-alphanumeric characters in names (such as apostrophes in Irish names) should be replaced with a period. For example, "send usenet-addresses/o.brien". The search will be done in a case-insensitive manner. Note that multiple requests can appear (on separate lines) in mail to the mail server, but each request will be answered in a separate message. In many cases, you will get a list of quite a few matching addresses, and you will have to go through it looking for ones that may be the one you're looking for. Note that the usenet-addresses database is accessible via WAIS on two different hosts: pit-manager.mit.edu and cedar.cic.net. In both cases, the database is called "usenet-addresses" and is on port 210. Note that the version on pit-manager is slightly more up-to-date with respect to the master address list than the version on cedar. If you don't know what WAIS is, then don't worry about this paragraph; if you're curious, see the "alt.wais" newsgroup. EUnet runs a "whois" database on "whois.ripe.net"; its contents are focused on the people who are active in the computer networking administration and research in Europe. *. Other directory services There are several other directory services you may be able to use to search for your target. - Many Bitnet sites have name servers that can be queried in one way or another. To get a list of them with documentation, send a mail message to listserv@bitnic.bitnet (a.k.a listserv@bitnic.educom.edu) with the command "send bitnet servers" in the body of the message. - PTT Research in the Netherlands runs a server that you can use to look up addresses for its employees. If you know someone who may work there, you can find out how to use the server by sending a mail message to whois@research.ptt.nl with "help" in the body of the message. Note that this is not a "complete" whois site; it just supports limited mail server queries. *. Finding a host name and asking someone there for help If you know the organization, company, or whatever at which your target's account is likely to be located, then you might be able to get your hands on the host name of a machine at that location. Once you've done that, you can usually write to someone responsible for E-mail support at the site and ask for help finding the address you are seeking. There are three main sources from which you can get host names. The first is the NIC "whois" database, which contains site and organization information as well as information about individuals. For more information about using it, see above. Organization entries in the NIC database will usually list an administrative, technical and/or zone contact person, with his/her address, to whom you can write. You can also write to "postmaster" at almost any Internet host to get in touch with someone responsible for E-mail. The second is a network directory published by the University of Texas. Although it hasn't been updated in a few years, it still provides a useful list of many site names. It is available for anonymous ftp from several different locations, including /net.directory/1988.netbook on emx.utexas.edu. It is BIG, so you might not have room to store it locally, unless you ask someone in charge to set up some space for it. You should NOT transfer it to /tmp every time you need it, or something like that; that's a horrible waste of network bandwidth. Contact people are usually listed in the site entries in the net directory, but you might want to try "postmaster" first. The third is the UUCP maps in the comp.mail.maps newsgroup. See the posting "UUCP map for README" in that directory for more information. You can grep in the news spool or use your news reader's search facilities to search for a particular string (e.g. an organization name) in the comp.mail.maps postings. Each UUCP map entry lists the contact person for the entry. Once you've got a host name and the person to contact, you need to figure out how to get the mail there, if it's on a network you don't know how to reach. See the "Inter-Network Mail Guide" posting referenced above if you need help with that. If you do go this route, make sure you provide as much information as you can about the person whose address you are seeking; remember that the more detailed (and polite!) you are, the more likely it is that the person you are contacting will be able to help you. Remember, too, that the person you are contacting is probably very busy, and responding to requests like yours is probably not one of his/her highest priorities, so be patient. ================== *. Direct contact ================== If you have a paper mail address or telephone number for your target, call them or write to them and ask for an E-mail address. In that case, you might encounter the somewhat common situation where your target knows he has an E-mail address, but he doesn't know what it is. If this happens to you, then give him your E-mail address and ask him to send you mail (and if he can't figure out how, tell him to get someone at his site to help). The odds are that when you get his message, it'll contain a valid return address in it. *. Get more help locally Often, the postmaster(sysop) at your site (or whomever is responsible at your site for answering mail-related questions) has a large amount of knowledge that will help him to help you find the answer to your question. If you have been unable to find the answer for yourself, check with people locally and see if one of them can help you out. ---------------------------------- - 4. What is my E-mail address? - ---------------------------------- What does this mean to you? It means you can send electronic mail from this BBS to virtually any network or e-mail system in the world - including overseas locations, at no additional charge. All you need is the correct Internet mail address. And the recipient can respond - and you will receive your mail right here. So what is YOUR address? Your user name on this system @ibbbs.be Example: Logon name on IB-BBS - FirstName LastName Internet Address - FirstName.LastName@ibbbs.be Notice the space between FistName and LastName has been replaced by a period. This is a common Internet convention. Spaces are discouraged and you should probably replace them with a period. It does NOT matter whether it is addressed in upper case letters (capitals) or lower case. The software we are using to implement this Internet mail feature, was designed specifically for this purpose. When replying, you can now use the normal REPLY function and the Internet address will be captured from the incoming message so you can reply just as you would on any other message area. The translation of the FROM: field when you write a message (Your Name) to the correct form of Your.Name@ibbbs.be is taken care of automatically, as is the back translation for the TO: field from messages from Internet to You. Adresses specified in the messagebody itself are left as-is though. ----------------------------------------------------------- - 5. What are the size limits of an internet message? - ----------------------------------------------------------- This varies from system to system and gateway to gateway across the Internet. By convention, you are generally assumed safe with a message size of 50 KB or less. TBBS (the basic BBS software this system uses) limits the size of incoming and outgoing messages to a maximum of 9999 characters. So the easy answer to this question is 9999 characters using the IB-BBS message editor. You can send longer messages by including your message as an enclosed file, or by sending several messages in a row. Attention however. You are limited to sending or receiving a maximum of 50 Kb per month, So be carefull! (Received and Sent bytes are added, and the total should not exeed 50 kb!) In any case: NEVER send more than 50Kb in a message: Your IVP will be locked out for the rest of the month and the messge will be truncated anyway.... -------------------------------------------------------------- - 6. Can I attach binary files such as .zip or .exe files? - -------------------------------------------------------------- This is possible but strongly discouraged! You can use the normal file enclosure function. However, most of the Internet consists of 7-bit ASCII text only gateways that would rather seriously damage a.EXE or .ZIP file normally. Our system software automatically detects and processes such data files using a process termed UUENCODING that converts the 8-bit data into 7-bit ASCII characters for transport. When you send someone a message with an enclosed .ZIP or .EXE file, they will normally receive it in this UUENCODED format. This is not as bad as it seems. Transporting data files on the Internet is quite normally done this way, and numerous utilities are available for them to UUEDECODE it. Some of these utilities are available for download on this system. Further, if someone sends YOU a data file in UUENCODED format, this system will try to automatically run UUDECODE on it and present it to you as a normal IB-BBS enclosed file - attached to the incoming message. As many different UUENCODE schemes exist, this service is not guaranteed in any way. In any case DO NOT SEND or REQUEST FILES OVER 50 Kb in length. This would lock out your IVP account for the rest of the month and the file will be truncated to 50 Kb anyhow. (And probably unusable!) If you regularly need to transport bigger files, arrangments could be made. Please contact the SYSOP in that case. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - 7. What happens if I receive a message larger than 9999 characters? - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ No problem. The system will DISPLAY the FIRST 500 or so characters of the message quite normally. The ENTIRE message, if over 9999 characters, will be found in a text file ATTACHED to the message. Press E for ENCLOSURE and DOWNLOAD the full message text. If it is a TEXT message from a UNIX system, there may be an anomaly. Most UNIX systems treat text differently than DOS, and of course Macintosh systems have yet another format. Since many different systems are attached to the Internet, the message may not appear to be formatted correctly. This is resolved for display in the TBBS editor, but large messages are attached precisely as they are received. As a result, inbound text messages larger than 9999 characters may look all run-on without carriage returns. There are a number of utilities to convert UNIX text to DOS text, MAC text to DOS text, etc. We can recommend a program titled MUD (Mac/Unix/Dos converter) or the more simple U2D which both simply reformats the file to DOS format for easy reading. (The latter from your sysops hands!) NEWS articles longer than 9999 bytes are treated differently as E-mail. They are simply split in several parts and tossed into consecutive separate message following each other. We do NOT (yet) carry binary newsgroups. -------------------------------------------- - 8. How soon does my message get there? - -------------------------------------------- This varies tremendously depending on the gateways the message must go through to reach its destination. Internet traffic between major systems has constantly improved to the point that most messages arrive within just a few minutes. This BBS is setup to scan out your message, send the message on its way less than ten minutes after you save your message. Our systems checks every hour at the local Internet host if there is mail waiting for one of our users. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - 9. How do I send mail to COMPUSERVE, AMERICA ONLINE or a FIDONET SYSTEM? - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW DO I SEND MAIL TO COMPUSERVE? ================================= TO: 71177.2310@compuserve.com Note that most compuserve ids are separated with a COMMA conventionally as in 71177,2310. You MUST convert the comma to a PERIOD as 71177.2310 to successfully address mail to CompuServe subscribers through Internet. HOW DO I SEND MAIL TO AMERICA ONLINE? ===================================== TO: user@aol.com This is simply the user ID on America Online with the @AOL.COM domain. HOW DO I SEND MAIL TO A FIDONET SYSTEM? ===================================== Actually this BBS is connected to Fidonet and you can use the Fidonet netmail area to address mail without using Internet. However, it is possible to address mail to someone on a Fidonet system via Internet addressing. A FidoNet address normally looks like this: Joe User 2:292/515.103 Internet addressing would translate this to: joe.user@p103.f515.n292.z2.fidonet.org Where joe.user is the user name, 103 is the point number (may be omitted if not aplicable), 515 is the node number, 291 is the local net number, and 2 is the FidoNet zone (2 = Europe). Without apoitnumber this would be: joe.user@f515.n292.z2.fidonet.org