Muse's Clues articles (appearing in "The Muse's News" newsletter)
Issue 2.2 May, 1999
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M u s e ' s C l u e s : Web Site Reviews by Jeff Mallett
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My topic today is the songwriting newsgroup and how to start
using it armed with nothing more than your trusty web browser.
I'm sure many of you are capable at surfing the web, but aren't
familiar with newsgroups at all.
Here is the scoop:
Years before I'd ever heard of a web, I used to read Usenet
newsgroups. Usenet had its grassroots beginnings in 1979 with the
linking of a few Unix machines at Duke. Now there are probably
millions of machines on Usenet and its simple system for reading
and posting news is ubiquitous. The news server I use carries
over 30,000 different newsgroups on its news-feed!
Newsgroups are like virtual bulletin boards, much like the
message boards on some web pages. You can read messages and, if
your news server permits it, post new messages or replies to
existing messages. Newsgroups are organized in a hierarchy and
are named according to their place in the hierarchy. For
example, alt.music.lyrics, a newsgroup for discussing song
lyrics and where to find them, is inside the music group, which
is inside the alt group:
alt
/ | \
music
/ | \
lyrics
Messages posted to a newsgroup are organized in threads. Good
"newsreader" software should allow you to explore threads,
browsing messages rather than pouring through every single one.
Unlike email discussion lists, news messages aren't sent to your
email address; in fact, they remain on a server machine until you
decide you actually want to read a given message. This is a very
efficient system, if you value your downloading time.
Now that you know what newsgroups are, why would you care? One
very good reason is rec.music.makers.songwriting. The newsgroup
FAQ tells us this newsgroup "...exists for the purpose of
discussing all aspects of songwriting. Anyone who has an
interest in songwriting or songwriters is encouraged to
participate." Isn't that you?
It used to be that unless you were on a Unix machine, you had to
search for and download good newsreader software. Now all you
really need is a browser: newsreader software is a component of
both Netscape Communicator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. You
can try typing "news:rec.music.makers.songwriting" in the address
field of your favorite browser to see what happens. Be
forewarned though -- to get it all to work you may need to enter
some more information from your Internet service provider, such
as the address of a news (NNTP) server you have access to.
But rather than go further down that path, I'm going to tell you
about a website -- yes, this article is still supposed to be
about a website -- where you can read and even search archives of
rec.music.makers.songwriting. That website is:
http://www.dejanews.com
You can surf over there right now and set up a free profile.
Here's a recipe for how you can add the songwriting newsgroup to
your list of "forums":
1) Click on "my deja news" from the dejanews menu bar at the top
of the main page
2) If the topic isn't "My Forums" already, click on "forums" from
"My Private Stuff" on the menu of links on the left
3) Select the "Select a group" radio button and click "Add/Remove
forum subscriptions"
4) Type in "rec.music.makers.songwriting" in the field and click
the "Find Forums" button
5) Check the box for rec.music.makers.songwriting and then click
the "Add" button
Now whenever you're in the "My Forums" page you can select the
rec.music.makers.songwriting radio button and click "Read". Have
fun with your new online song pals and tell them I sent you. :-)
Please notify me about mistakes or bad links. You can reach me
at: jeffm@lyricist.com
This page has been accessed 10069 times since May 29, 1999. It was last modified June 8, 1999
Copyright 1999 Jeff Mallett (including the Sheet Music background and Back graphics!)
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