Usenet is literally the last (and to the best of my knowledge the only) world-accessible discussion system that is completely unfiltered and non-moderated.

It is unfortunate however that some ISPs have decided to drop newsgroup access altogether. My local Florida ISP, Brighthouse, does have complimentary service by Newshosting. This happened because Roadrunner (as in Time Warner) dropped access to it. But other ISPs don’t offer this, so you’re left with no access whatsoever. However there are alternatives. More on that in a moment.

One of the best uses of Usenet is for Linux discussion. To this day Usenet is very active on this topic, and is a great resource for help when you need it. Usually you can get a Linux question answered within minutes via Usenet.

Such example newsgroups are alt.comp.linux, alt.comp.os.linux, alt.linux and many more.

If you do not have newsgroup access via your ISP, Google Groups is an alternative. Here’s a link list from the newsgroups listed above:

• alt.comp.linux
• alt.comp.os.linux
• alt.linux

Of course, using Google Groups is not the same as having direct access. Usenet is always best used with a mail client that supports it, such as Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird and so on. The reason it’s better with a client is because you have more control over how the discussion looks. Google Groups is done "The Google Way," which definitely isn’t the best way. This is not to say Google Groups is unusable, but once you’ve used Usenet in a true client, you’ll understand the advantages.

There are others ways of getting to Usenet if your ISP doesn’t support it and you don’t want to use Google Groups, such as NewsDemon, ThunderNews and Giganews. All of them charge, with Giga being the cheapest of the lot. Are they worth paying for? That’s up for you to decide.

Before you check out the alternatives, see if your ISP supports Usenet access first. Many still do but the documentation for it is absolutely buried. If you’re not able to locate the documentation instructing you what the newsgroup server is (which is what you need to access it,) try a Google search for "[your ISP] newsgroup server." This will usually return the information you’re looking for, or at least give an answer on whether your ISP has a newsgroup server or not.

For those that use an @aol.com email address, you might have noticed an email that appeared to be spam, but it wasn’t. It came from the sender "FooterSettlement" with subject line "OFFICIAL NOTICE OF PENDENCY OF CLASS ACTION AND PROPSED SETTLEMENT", and looked like this:

This is not spam. In short, what it means is that you now have the ability to opt out of footer advertisements in the emails you send. All you have to do it login to your AOL Mail first, then go to the web address http://footer.aol.com and simply uncheck the box, like this:

..then click the Save button.

From that point, no footer ads will be sent in the mail you send from your AOL email account.

It’s about time.

If you use AIM for instant messaging, any AIM account has the ability to send email. Your email address would be your-AIM-screen-name@aim.com. This has the same ability to opt out of footer ads just like @aol.com addresses do. To access and start using mail for an AIM account, the address to go to is http://webmail.aol.com. Login using your AIM credentials.

Are footer ads in outgoing emails good revenue generators anymore?

No. In order for free email providers to keep existing users and moreover attract new ones, the content of the communication sent to and from people must be absolutely ad-free. The biggest reason for this is SMS (Short Message Service) compatibility. Many of us use our email to send in the form of a short text message to cell phones. An email system that forces footer ads on all outgoing mail literally prevents you from sending any SMS at all, due to the fact you trip the 180-character-or-less limit every time you attempt to send a message.

Yahoo! Mail hasn’t had any footer ads on outgoing mail for some time and Gmail never has. Hotmail/Windows Live Mail does but only if you use the free web-based version. However I’m certain Hotmail will eventually drop the footer ads as well; it’s only a matter of time.

Any free email provider today that uses footer ads on outgoing messages is, pun intended, shooting themselves in the foot. Ad-supported free email should show ads in the web interface only and nowhere in the body of any message. This allows the user to send mail to anybody on any device, including mobile devices, without restriction.

At present, the most SMS-friendly free email providers are Google, Yahoo! and now AOL. Hotmail isn’t SMS-friendly only for the reason their free web-based version forces footer ads on outgoing messages. You can get around this by using the Windows Live Mail email client (mail sent from the client does not include footer ads at all) or by having a Hotmail Plus account, but it would be nice if Microsoft followed the lead of Yahoo! and AOL and dropped the footer crapola altogether.

The time for footer ads in email is over. The companies who choose to remain with it will have their users abandon the service in favor of footer-free email.

When it come to any OS that’s *nix-based, there’s a lot I don’t complain about compatibility-wise due to the proprietary nature of a lot of computer hardware.

For example, if I had a Microsoft wireless keyboard that had Windows-only features on it and it just would not work under Linux, would I get upset about this? Not at all. It’s a proprietary keyboard (custom “Windows only” keys) meant for a proprietary operating system (Windows) using proprietary software (Windows drivers and control software) – and I personally feel that keyboards so unbelievably proprietary like that completely suck anyway because they’re just too “tied” to a particular OS. Continued

A cat. This will save the company millions as his only compensation requirement is Tender Vittles.

Note: The last cat tech got the sack for eating too much paper.

Google’s Gmail service is a truly powerful web-based email solution. And it is easy to assume that it is suitable primarily for, well, email. And, yes it is. But, when you think outside the box a little bit, you can learn to put Gmail to use for things you might not have thought of.

Can Gmail be used as a free solution for your company’s help desk needs?

Continued

As anyone who has ever tried to plug in a webcam to Linux knows (including yours truly), it’s a pain in the butt.

However I came across an article written about an app called Cheese.

In short: Cheese is cool. It’s easy to get (especially for Ubuntu users), easy to run, has Flickr support and F-Spot support (the photo manager you may have seen in Ubuntu) in it. You can read up on a quick tutorial about Cheese here. And if you’d like to give it a try, download it from their web site.

I have yet to try this but will be doing so on my Ubuntu 8 installation shortly. Hopefully this app will take the pain out of using a webcam in Linux (fingers crossed).

If you are the type of person who sends text messages a lot on your smartphone device using Windows Mobile, this is good news for you.

Windows Mobile 6.1 has been reported to (after a long wait) have native SMS threading. What this essentially means is that text messages can be sent/received in an instant-messenger style way, making it much easier to follow of text conversations. Before this point it was a bit difficult to keep track of what was going on without this threading, but now the native support exists and that’s genuinely a step in the right direction.

[Source: Mobile Computer]