News Groups As I started to write this lesson I decided to check how many news groups my ISP connects with. (News groups are not a favorite of mine as you will quickly discover.) Would you believe 30,000? Keeping track of this much information can be a chore to say the least. One of the problems with news groups is that information scrolls off quickly since the volume is so high. While I was at it I did check a few for content. If you want it, it is here, everything including Art in the 14th century, bestiality, C++ programming through zoology. Now, there is a lot of good information here, the challenge is how to find it. You can of course use the news group reading capability of browsers or download a news reader such as Free Agent by Forte. Now this works if you have immediate interest and can access particular news groups on a continuing basis. There is another choice, search tools that archive news group data. Two of the better ones are Deja.Com and Infoseek's news group search. An exercise for students: While we are here let's check for chocolate chili recipes. That's correct, chocolate. Send your research results to the class mailing list. In reality, some good information is exchanged via the usenet news groups. However it is not easy to keep up with.

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