How to get to your news groups and messages faster

You already know how to get to WWW sites and FTP sites using CTRL+L (CTRL+O in some browsers) or the "Location" (or "Address") input boxes -- simply type http:// or ftp:// followed by the address of the site. Did you know that you can use the same technique to get to your news groups and even news messages?

1. Press CTRL+L (CTRL+O in some browsers)
    
2. If you have only one news server setup or if you don't know the name of your news server (and still you can access news)...
    
   • Type "news:" (without quotes) followed by the name of the news group you'd like to visit. For example, if you want to read the "comp.internet.net-happenings" news group, type:     news:comp.internet.net-happenings
   OR, if you have multiple news servers...
    
   
   • Type "news://" followed by the name of the news server followed by "/" and then finally the name of the news group. For example, if you want to visit the "comp.unix.admin" news group from a news server named "news.dummy-server.com" type:     news://news.dummy-server.com/comp.unix.admin
 
3. Press ENTER
 

You could also go to a particular message in a selected news group located on a given news server. Unfortunately, the message IDs that you have to remember in order to do this aren't that easy to remember.

 

Posted in: Internet Tips