Previous
Next
|
Index Previous Next |
|
This is the Homechoice Meta-FAQ.
This is an automated weekly posting intended to provide pointers
to useful resources which may make your life easier and perhaps
even improve the general quality of postings to the groups.
*** Recent changes:
* 7/2/2002 Added link to self-service FAQ.
*
* 17/1/2002 Added comment about anonymous posting.
*
* 30/12/2001 Added link to SetiChoice team page
*
* 6/12/2001 Updated newsgroup section from Gary's recent posts.
*
* 4/12/2001 Removed link to petition about service quality.
* Added reference to "twigger" webmail service.
*
Official Homechoice links
=========================
Support site: http://www.homechoice.co.uk/fi/support/support.html
Service status page: http://www.homechoice.co.uk/fi/ts/open_ns.html
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):
1) http://www.homechoice.co.uk/fi/faq.html
2) http://www.homechoice.co.uk/revolution/faq.html
Terms, Conditions and Acceptable Use Policy:
1) http://www.homechoice.co.uk/revolution/terms.html
2) http://www.randall.homechoice.co.uk/hctc.txt
[The first may be out-of-date, we'll have to wait and see whether
HC update it. The second is an email reply to my request for a
copy of the current T&Cs, since I cannot seem to create a working
link to a message in the newsgroup.]
News
----
The supported usenet news server is "news.homechoice.co.uk".
Homechoice provide the following groups. Please think carefully before
you post and be sure to use the correct one. They have been set up with
specific subject headings so that people don't have to trawl through the
general posts in order to get to the relevant bits.
If you decide to respond to a post with a reply that is not "on-topic" with
the original post then set the "Followup-To" header to point to the appropriate
group; It is good netiquette to mention that fact in the body of your message.
Please DO NOT repeat NOT post in HTML in any of these groups except
homechoice.binaries. Plain text only please.
news://news2.homechoice.co.uk/homechoice.binaries
For posting legal binary files.
[This group is available on the news2 server only]
news:homechoice.games
Post only games specific information or discuss games support issues
in here.
news:homechoice.Linux
Post only Linux specific information or discuss Linux support issues
in here.
news:homechoice.localchat
Post what you want in here as long as it follows the basic guidelines
of Usenet, is not html etc. You should know what is accepted by now
and if not or you are in any doubt please "ask" before posting.
news:homechoice.mac
Post only Apple Macintosh specific information or discuss Mac support
issues in here.
news:homechoice.network.status
Homechoice will post service-related items only in here.
news:homechoice.support
For all Support issues that do not fit in the other categories.
Example might be problems with your hardware, video card, software
like your firewalls, anti-virus conflicts and which are stopping you
from using Homechoice services.
news:homechoice.test
Post test messages in here to see if your news reader software is
working correctly, the headers are set correctly as you want them,
or to see what your signature file looks like etc.
news:homechoice.unix
Post only Unix specific information or discuss Unix support issues
in here.
news:homechoice.VOD
This is to post Video related issues queries etc. specific to the
Homechoice Video on Demand service.
news:homechoice.windows
Post only Microsoft Windows specific information or discuss MS Windows
support issues in here. Gary sometimes thinks this group is the one
that has the most problem with customers as most windows issues go in
other groups and non-windows issues appear in here. Maybe it's the
title "windows" and people assume it's a shop window for all posts
relevant or not ;-)
Alternative news server:
news2.homechoice.co.uk
[As well as "homechoice.binaries" this server also carries the public
"alt.binaries.*" groups, none of which are present on "news.homechoice.co.uk".
It's also a useful backup when things go wrong ;-)]
Web interface to email: http://pop.homechoice.co.uk:8080/cgi-bin/webmail
[22/10/2001 Homechoice have withdrawn this service for the time being,
a recommended alternative is http://www.twigger.co.uk/ ]
ANONYMOUS POSTING
=================
Posting anonymously by not putting a genuine email address is considered VERY
poor netiquette (mangling is OK, see later). Some people in the groups
will ignore you if you do this, I for one. If you have something to say in
public, come out and say it; If you don't dare reveal who you are, chances
are it's probably best left unsaid.
Nothing you post in the Homechoice groups will be visible to anyone other
than Homechoice subscribers, so your email address should remain fairly safe
from "spam". Should you post to any other groups, it is worth protecting
your it in some manner though, as spammers regularly trawl news messages
searching for valid addresses. This protection is called "mangling".
The objective of mangling is to reveal your identity to other humans,
but defeat any robot tools searching for email addresses. It does not
make you anonymous.
Read the headers and signatures of other people's postings in the public groups
to see how mangling is generally done. Often a comment in the signature gives
instructions as to how to de-mangle the address.
eg/ some possibilities for "homechoice@ingenotech.com" might be:
"homechoice(at)ingenotech(dot)com";
"homechoice@NOSPAM.ingenotech.com";
"homechoice@UCEFREEingenotech.com" - comment in sig "Remove stuff in CAPITALS to email me".
Unofficial (user-contributed) resources
=======================================
Self-Service Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): http://www.randall.homechoice.co.uk/homechoicefaq.html
Original (no longer maintained) FAQ: http://www.maxuk.net/hc/faq.html
Homechoice Users Group (HUG): http://www.ukmeetingpoint.co.uk/hc
Newsgroup usage guidelines: http://www.ukmeetingpoint.co.uk/hc/nggl.html
Homechoice-only IRC server / channel: irc.ingenotech.com #hc
Connection speed tests: http://www.randall.homechoice.co.uk/speedtest.html
Index of Homechoice web homepages: http://www.randall.homechoice.co.uk/homechoiceindex.html
Register your own homepage here!
Homechoice SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) team:
SetiChoice: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_122963.html
Non-Homechoice-specific resources
=================================
news.newusers.questions Home Page: http://www.geocities.com/nnqweb/
Usenet newsgroups information: http://kb.indiana.edu/menu/usenet.html
General newsgroup usage guidelines: http://extra.newsguy.com/intro.htm
Top-vs-Bottom posting: http://fmf.fwn.rug.nl/~anton/topposting.html
The Net Abuse FAQ: http://www.cybernothing.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq.html
The Subtle Art of Trolling: http://www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html
How to create a new newsgroup: http://people.ne.mediaone.net/babay/ncreate.html
FAQs for all newsgroups: news:news.answers
Internet Acronyms Dictionary: http://home3.inet.tele.dk/hgaarde/Acronyms.html
UK telecomms broadband newsgroup: news:uk.telecom.broadband
How an ADSL Internet connection works: http://www.daemonnews.org/200101/pppoe.html
Path MTU discovery and Filtering ICMP: http://www.worldgate.com/~marcs/mtu/
[These explain why some sites might not work so well unless you set MTU=1492]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Index | |
| Previous : My Internet connection doesn't work, what should I do? | |
| Next : How can I test my connection speed? |