Chapter 8: Honors 101 Computer Skills, v. 2.0

By Lewis Baumstark and Elijah Wright

Version 1.0 and all previous beta versions by Mike Renfro, Regenia Liles, and James Rushing.

New features in v. 2.0 include:

-Full Novell Network compatibility!

-Runs under Windows 95!

-Netscape plug-ins!

-And our Award-Winning user interface (a.k.a., paper and ink)!

Playing Fair

(How not to incur the wrath of the vengeful LABMGR)

All users of the TTU campus computers are responsible for upholding the campus Code of Computing Practice. Simply put, using the campus computers is a privilege, not a right, and keeping that privilege is not hard. Doing things to annoy other users, breaking the code, or breaking laws is a very fast way to lose your account and most of your computer access here at the university. E-mail is a precious commodity, and not having to it will hamper the ability of a student to complete assignments and keep up with classwork as well as talk to other students. Each semester, students pay a certain amount of money per credit-hour as a "Technology Access Fee." Paying this money as part of your tuition does not necessarily entitle you to access to the campus computer services, however. Break the rules and you lose. 'Nuff said.

Rule Number 1: Your VAX account is sacred. Do not give anyone your password. Even if a professor asks for it, don't give it to him or her. If you give someone your password and they, for example, use your account to send nasty e-mails to the FBI making death threats on the current President of the United States, you have a problem. Expect to hear the Secret Service knocking on your door. This is serious stuff. E-mail from your account is your responsibility, and you should protect yourself. Your account can also be taken away if you allow another person to have access to it.

Rule number 2: Stay off of the MUDs. What's a MUD? It's short for Multi-Useless-(oops, I mean "User")-Dungeon; it's like Dungeons and Dragons for the electronic age. There's also something called IRC (Internet Relay Chat) that lets you talk to people from all over the world (and Murphy Hall). The Computer Center has some pretty strict policies for using these programs. Read the Code of Computing Practice very carefully before you log on to any MUD. MUDs and IRC tend to be very addictive (even more so than Ramen noodles) and can cut into your study time. Be responsible.

Rule number 3: There is no rule number 3. But I would suggest not sending mail bombs or chain letters to people. A mail bomb is a funky little VAX program that sends a lot of mail to a person in a very short amount of time, much like all the mailers you got from colleges when you were a senior in high school. They are flatly illegal, as are e-mail chain letters, which are just like postal mail (also known as snail mail) chain letters except much easier to forward. You will receive a chain letter (or two, or forty-two) before you graduate. Please don't send it on to sixty of your closest friends; I guarantee that someone else will do so anyway.

Logging In for the First Time

(The rites of passage)

For the examples used in this chapter, the commands that you actually type will be bold-faced type, while the computer messages and things you will see but not type will be in regular-weight type. If you are confused or have questions, ask a Peer Mentor or a Big Sibling to help you.

There are several ways to connect to the VAX, including stand-alone terminals, computers in the labs, and modem connection. For now, we recommend using one of the personal computers (PCs for short) in the Computer Center labs. You can find these labs in Henderson Hall 111, Brown Hall 207, Clement Hall 215, and Clement Hall 313. Pick any computer (that's not being used, of course) and sit down. Press the Ctrl-Alt-Delete buttons on the keyboard, and you'll see a little box that will include the following:

Username:

Password:

Don't worry about anything else in the box. Your very own username will be your three initials followed by the last four digits of your social security number. Your initial password is your social security number, no spaces, no hyphens. So I would type

Username: LBB9348

Password: 123456789

You thought I was going to tell you my password, didn't you? Fortunately, your password won't show on the screen. All you will see will be a bunch of little asterisks after "Password:". Type all that in and click on OK. You'll then be asked to change your password. You'll see:

Old password: Type your old password here.

New password: Think up a new password. This has to be longer than 6 characters, and can't be a real word, either.

Verification: Type your password again, just to

make sure you got it right the first time.

This will log you on to the cutting-edge of technology. Now you'll see a screen with a bunch of funny pictures (called icons) on it. Click the left button on your mouse two times really fast (called double-clicking) on the icon that says INTERNET. Then double-click on the icon that says GEMINI (Gemini is our pet name for the VAX. Gemini in Greek mythology is the constellation of the Twins. Gemini is a VAX system with two CPUs. Makes sense, huh?). Now we're cooking!

Once again, you're going to see the familiar

Username:

Password:

Do this the same way you did to log into the network (this initial password is also your social security number). After you log in, you'll have to change your password again; you don't have to use the same password as for the PC systems, but you can if you want. When you have finished logging in, the Code of Computing Practice will appear before your very eyes! READ IT NOW. It won't ever pop up again like this. If you need to re-read it later, type info code at the $ prompt. Follow the instructions on the screen, and finally you'll see this:

$

What!? No flashy "Start button"? No cute animations? That's right, just a spartan dollar sign. From here you can do it all, though. And for starters, let's hot-rod your account to make life a bit easier. Type:

$ copy user:[honors.public]login.hon login.com

You only need to do this once. Now type:

$ @login

You'll see some stuff scroll across the screen; this is normal. After this first time, the commands in login.com run each time you log into the VAX (if you want, or need, to log into the VAX without running the contents of your login.com file, log in as username/NOCOM). Congratulations! You are no longer a VAX-Virgin!

Playing with Files

(Just don't burn yourself)

There are several commands that will make your computing life easier. Here's a list of some of the most common. All of them should be typed at the $ prompt. For the purposes of this list, filename.ext is the name of the file, and newfile.ext is the name of the new file you're copying or renaming. Likewise, disk is the name of the disk you're copying the file from (usually, USER) and can often be left out. As you probably can guess, username is the username of the person who owns the file.

dir Shows a listing of files in the current directory.

public filename.ext Makes a file public, so anyone can copy it.

copy disk:[username]filename.ext newfile.ext Copies a file from one place to another. Newfile.ext could also have a disk:[username] in front of it. By default, the copy command copies files to the current directory with the specified name.

rename filename.ext newfile.ext Renames a file.

delete filename.ext; Deletes a file, but first asks you if you really want to do so. The semicolon instructs the VAX to delete any version of a file that has this name. You'll notice that files, when you type dir, have a version number appended to their names. Using this version number is optional when specifying a file.

down disk:[username.directory] Replace username.directory with a directory you want to nose around in.

Text Editor

(Baby word processors)

At one time, we had two text editors on the VAX: EVE and EMACS. Most people don't use EMACS because it is a little more cryptic than EVE to the uninitiated. Most of us use EVE, which also goes by the names of EDIT and TPU. EVE is the default text editor for sending e-mail, posting to newsgroups, and posting to BBSs. When using EVE or EDIT, just remember to press Ctrl-Z when you're done. That will get you out of EVE and send your e-mail, or post, or whatever, onward to the intended recipient. If you need to exit without saving press Ctrl-B and type quit. If you're interested in what EMACS can really do, start with a handout from the Computer Center. EMACS is available on many types of computers, so you may see this material again later on in your academic career.

E-mail

(Printed on 100% recycled electrons)

E-mail is to Honors what your jugular vein is to your body. If either one were cut, things would be pretty messy. It is an invaluable means of keeping people in the Honors Program in touch with each other. E-mail is easy and fun, and you don't even have to lick a stamp!

Sending

(Two pounds, two days, two dollars)

To send an e-mail, type Mail at the $ prompt. Then you'll see something that looks like this:

MAIL>

From this prompt, type:

MAIL> send

You'll get a prompt that says "To:". Suppose that you want to send a message to yourself. Type in your username at the To: prompt and press the ENTER key. You'll then get a prompt that says "Subj:". Type the subject of this letter to yourself, and hit ENTER.

The screen will clear, and you will have a cursor that will allow you to type your message. This is what EVE looks like. The arrow keys will allow you to move around in your letter and the backspace key will delete. When you've finished typing your letter, press Ctrl-Z to send your letter. That's all there is to it! Again, if you decide not to send the message, Ctrl-B, and then quit will do the job.

Sending e-mail to off-campus sites is a little different, but it's not really that much more difficult. You'll use an address like this:

To: IN%"username@host.domain"

The "IN%" tells the VAX that it's an Internet address; username is the person's username (surprise!); host.domain is their address. Thus, my complete Internet address is lbb9348@tntech.edu. When you're typing the address, be sure to put the username@host.domain in quotation marks, or it won't work.

If you've sent a message but forgot to keep a copy for yourself, simply type:

MAIL>send/last

This will give you the "To:" prompt again. Type in your own username here and repeat the instructions for send as before. When you press ENTER, your message will be sent to you.

Mail Folders

(For when you're too lazy to fold it yourself)

Your e-mail can be sorted into little bins called folders which is a good way to keep your mail organized. Two very important folders are MAIL and NEWMAIL. To be able to read the messages in a folder.

MAIL> sel foldername

If you have new mail messages when you run the MAIL program, you will automatically enter the NEWMAIL folder. To start reading your messages, simply hit ENTER and the first message will appear. Repeatedly hitting ENTER will take you through all the messages in that folder.

Once a message is read and you've exited from MAIL, that message mysteriously moves to the MAIL folder. If you don't have any new messages when you log on, you will automatically go to the MAIL folder when you start the MAIL program. You can simply hit ENTER until you've read all the messages your heart desires. Or you can use some of the following commands (all typed from the MAIL> prompt):

dir Brings up a listing of all the messages in the current. You can read a specific message by typing the number of the message at the MAIL> prompt. Dir/folder will give you a listing of all your mail folders. Dir/foldername gives you all the messages in the folder foldername.

reply Allows you to send a response to the e-mail you're reading back to the original sender.

forward Allows you to send a message your reading to other people. Both reply and forward will give you the familiar To: and Subj: prompts. Forward/noedit will forward the message without making any changes to it.

extract filename.ext Allows you to save the mail message you're reading as a file.

Keeping a Clean Account

(Featuring the Majestik Moose)

All those cool quotes and messages your friends have been sending you will soon pile up, and you only have a limited supply of disk space. So eventually it'll be time to decide what stays and what goes; you might as well face it, you're going to have to delete some mail. One way to do this is to be reading the message and type MAIL> delete. You can also do a dir to see the listing of your mail messages, and can type something like

MAIL> delete 14

which would only delete message number 14, or

MAIL> delete 13-42

which would delete all messages starting at number 13 and ending at number 42.

Now, it would logically seem that your mail would be gone. Some things, however, defy logic, like rice cakes and elevator music. MAIL is no exception, in this case. There are a few more steps to getting rid of that mail. Do a

MAIL> sel wastebasket

WASTEBASKET is a folder that holds on to deleted mail, (at least until you exit MAIL). Now do a dir. Surprise! There is all the mail you just deleted. This can be handy if you accidentally deleted something you wanted to keep, like that nifty Rumi poem your friend sent you. If you find yourself in that predicament, select the message you want to save, and type move mail. Your message is now safely back in your regular mail folder.

Anyway, back to the topic of deleting mail. There are a couple more things to do to get rid of that junk mail. After you've used delete on all the messages you no longer wanted, go through the following steps:

MAIL> purge/reclaim

MAIL> compress

MAIL> exit

$ delete [.mail]mail.old;

The exit command, by the way, can always be used to go from the MAIL> prompt back to the $ prompt. Those other commands basically take all your junk mail, pack it up in a nice pretty package, and send it to Abu Dabi, never to be seen again. Try to keep your mail as clean as possible, as your disk space can fill up pretty quickly. Be careful not to compress at the $ prompt! It's like putting your account in the blender and hitting "frappé."

Defined Names

(A Moose bit my sister once)

Remember when all those names scrolled past your face? In very precise, scientific terms, those are what are known as "defined names." If you're like me and can't remember your own name from time to time, defined names make it a lot easier to send people e-mail. Can you imagine having to remember that my username is LBB9348 or that Dr. Connie Hood's is MCH9050? Well, with defined names, all you would need remember is LEWIS and HOOD for myself and the good Doctor, respectively. So, if you were sending me mail, just type

$ mail

MAIL> send

To: lewis

Subj: Cheeseballs in Cowtown

And then type your message. With defined names, you're no longer a number, you're a real person. To set up your own personal names:

$ eve names.dat

This will put you in the editor. The format for on campus addresses is:

Lewis

lbb9348 ! Lewis Baumstark

To define off-campus addresses type:

Lewis

"IN%""llb9348@tntech..edu"" ! Lewis Baumstark

Defined names are case insensitive so it doesn't matter if you use capital letters. You may have as many defined names as you can use, but remember that you can only define one person for each name. If you know two people who have the name Lewis, you might define one as "Lewis" and one as "Lewisgrandmasteroffunk." Several names have been defined in the Honors login.com that you copied. These are the members of the ASG Steering Committee and the professors who teach Honors 101. Be careful not to define other people with this name, or the mail you send to this name may go to the wrong person.

Ara -- Ara Nazarian

Danyel -- Danyel Bruggink

Heather -- Heather Bailey

James -- James Rushing

Lewis -- Lewis Baumstark

Marym -- Mary Margaret Webb

Timw -- Tim Whiteaker

Barnes -- Dr. Rita Barnes

Eisen -- Dr. Kurt Eisen

Field -- Dr. Peter Field

Hood -- Dr. Connie Hood

Lisic -- Dr. Edward Lisic

Pashley -- Dr. Mary Pashley

Stephens -- Dr. Mark Stephens

Stewart -- Dr. James Stewart

Personal Names

(She was carving her name on it with an electric toothbrush)

When someone receives an e-mail, it has a line telling who the message is from. Unfortunately, it happens to be only their username, which can be hard to remember. Luckily, there is yet a way out of this variation on the number-vs.-name trap. It's called the personal name. If you have a personal name set up, your e-mail messages have a line at the top with your full name (or whatever you want) on it. Try this:

MAIL> set personal "Your name here -- HON1010x"

Don't forget the quotes around your name. And it'd be nice if you replaced that last X with the number of your HON 101 section. Please keep this personal name until the end of your first semester, since you'll be sending lots of mail in your HON 101 class. After that, it's perfectly legal to change your personal name to something like "Chuck the Cosmic Hippo" or "San Salvador Dalai Llama Beans" or something cute like that. Just be considerate and make sure your real name is in there somewhere.

Signature Files

(Mind you, Moose bytes kan be veri nasti)

To add a little spice and personal touch to your e-mail messages, you can create what's called a signature file. A sig file is a short piece of text that automatically gets put at the bottom of messages you send. If you want to make one, try this:

$ eve signature.txt

Then type a few lines about yourself. Favorite quotes from songs and/or poems, jokes, club memberships, whatever. Try to keep it at or under four lines, as big sig files tend to take up a lot of space in other people's accounts which isn't very nice. Don't forget to Ctrl-Z when you're finished. Voila (or is that viola?)! You've created a sig file; from now on it'll appear at the end of your mail messages, and you can change it any time you wish. Send yourself a message to test it out. You'll be glad you did.

Finger

(Not just for picking your nose anymore)

We've already discussed the hassle of trying to remember people's usernames. It feels about as good as getting a tetanus shot or biting down on tin foil. Fortunately, the VAX provides a way to find out those usernames. If you know someone's real name but not their username, you can do something like the following:

$ finger baumstark

A listing will come up of all the people with the letters 'baumstark' somewhere in their name (I guarantee there will only be one in this case). It'll also show the much-sought after username. Use the finger command to find out the usernames of several of your friends. The VAX is so smart that you don't need to know full names to find usernames. Asterisks act as unknowns and links between first and last names.

$ finger lew*baum*

But that's not all finger does. Many people have what is called a plan file, which is essentially a little file full of nifty factoids about that person. It's kind of like a sig file, just bigger, often a lot bigger. Some plan files take years to scroll across the screen. To see someone's plan file, type finger followed by their username. Try mine, for example:

$ finger LBB9348

You'll see lots of useless, utterly pointless information about me. You'll probably want to read more plan files. Feel free, that's why they were written. If the plan file scrolls by too fast, use the Ctrl-S and Ctrl-Q keys, respectively, to start and stop. One last tidbit about finger: simply typing

$ finger

will give you a listing of everyone logged onto the VAX at that particular instance, which can be handy if you want to find out if your friends are on.

Here are some other plan files to look at, just to get started:

HONORS: The Honors Program. Look here for upcoming events, etc.

MCH9050: Our beloved Director of the Honors Program, Dr. Connie Hood. Find out

if the rumors are true!

MMP3906: Our beloved Associate Director of the Honors Program, Dr. Mary Pashley, who teaches us to do the Time Warp and the Funky Chicken.

JMR4097: James Rushing, a very good friend of mine. Most of this chapter is based

on what he wrote for the handbook last year (applause!)

AJB5383: Aaron Bibb, all-around cool guy. Be ready to use Ctrl-S and Ctrl-Q a lot! His plan file is full of nifty quotes, poems, and lyrics.

Process Names

(Remember, we're all in process)

When you fingered someone, you probably saw a weird/cute/baffling little name beside their real name. What you saw is a process name; at one time they actually had a legit purpose and people called their processes bland stuff like THESIS1. But this is the 90s, and we tend to use our right brains at least once or twice a month now. That's why we have process names like UFO TOFU or VADERTOY. To set yours, simply type

$ eve login.com

This will put you in a nifty little file that sets up your account every time you log on. Use the arrow keys to go down to the last line and type all the following, including the $ sign:

$ set process/name = "HolyHandGrenade"

or

$ set process/name = "Freak Show #12"

Just use whatever comes to mind as your process name. Be creative; that's why we hired you. Now when someone fingers you (ouch!), they'll have something to remember you by. One little rule: it must be 15 characters or less, or the VAX will not accept it.

Printing

(We apologize for the faulty subtitles)

Every now and then you're going to want a hard copy of something on the VAX (incidentally, the term "hard copy" refers to the pre-historic days, i.e. before VCR's, when people wrote messages on large rocks). Simply type

$ print filename.ext

and your file will be printed on the big printer (named "Bertha II") in Clement Hall 313. Go down there and ask a Helpdesker how to get your printout (just be careful; we have to sacrifice a freshman to Bertha every year to appease her). By default, things that you print go to the line printer. You can also print to other printers across campus. Here's an example:

$ print/queue=laser_ch313 filename.ext

That will send a file to the laser printer in Clement 313. To get a printout from the laser printer, you must present your ID to the Helpdesk worker on duty near the printer. After you do so, they will release your printout from the queue, and it will begin printing.

If there's a printer attached to the computer at which you are logged in, you can type

$ rprint filename.ext

and your printout will come out of that printer and you won't have to approach the mean, scary-looking Helpdesk worker.

(Actually, Helpdeskers aren't mean and scary at all. They're there to help. Please don't hesitate to ask them questions -- it's their main duty. They only want to be loved. Just remember, don't expose Helpdeskers to sunlight. Don't get them wet. And whatever you do, don't feed them before midnight. Food isn't allowed in the labs.)

Scratch Disk

(Disk space for sale or rent)

Sooner or later you're going to have to deal with really big files, even bigger than Grape Ape. These files might be so big you won't have enough space in your regular account to work with them. Allow me to introduce the scratch disk. It's a really big place where you have (almost) all the disk space you could ever use. The catch is it's all deleted at 4:00 a.m. every day. To use it, you have to first type

$ setup scratch

You only need to do this once for every time you log on. You can copy a file to the scratch disk by typing

$ copy filename.ext sys$scratch

Or you could copy something from the scratch disk by typing

$ copy sys$scratch:filename.ext sys$login

It's also a good idea to delete all your files off the scratch disk when you're through with it.

By the way, you can find out how much disk space you have left by typing

$ quota

in your root directory. This shows a few numbers that tell you how much space you're using and how much you have left. Try to keep as much space free as possible by deleting mail and unused files. One thing to remember is that the less quota space you have free, the harder it is to delete mail. Even if you are completely out of quota space, a knowledgeable VAX user can help you to clean up your account and return it to working order.

News

(It's not the cute, cuddly animals from Africa. Think about it. You'll get it.)

News is a nifty little program that lets you read and post to Internet-wide discussion groups on everything from macrame to macaroni to the Macarena and points in between. Let me warn you: there are a lot of newsgroups out there (about 1,400 or so). Typing news at the $ prompt will get you in and show a listing of all the groups. Type exit to quit. You can find out more about News from the Helpdeskers who have some handouts they can give you, absolutely free (they might appreciate a friendly scratch behind the ears, though).

Send, Phone, and Talk

(Quick and dirty VAX, done dirt cheap)

Suppose you've done a finger and happen to know a friend of yours is logged in across campus. You could send her mail. But you'd rather have a real 90s kind of conversation, one with more of a pulse but without eye contact. Such is the nature of send, phone, and talk. Try this:

$ send username

If you were sending to me, you'd see something like

LBB9348:

and the cursor will be blinking, waiting for you to feed it a happy little message. Type the message and hit ENTER; the message would appear on my screen and the cursor would be waiting for you to type another message to send to me. Hit ENTER on a blank line to finish using send.

Or you could use the phone utility. No, I'm not talking about the thing on your wall with the little buttons that magically make pizza appear in 30 minutes or less. Type, for example,

$ phone LBB9348

I would see a message on my screen telling me someone was phoning me. If I wanted to answer I would type

$ phone answer

This would allow you and I to hold a conversation in real-time. Each one of us will see the other's messages as they are being typed. Lousy speling, poore gram'r and all. When you're done, you can use the magical Ctrl-Z to get back to the $ prompt.

Finally for the adventuresome there is talk. It's like phone, but it works over the Internet. If someone you know is logged in at another school, business, etc., type

$ talk username@somewhere-else.domain

using, of course, their real internet address instead of the username@somewhere-else.domain in the example. Use Ctrl-Y to get out of this one.

Logging Off

(If terminal starts to smoke, stop, drop, and roll)

Sooner or later, you're going to have to pull yourself away from the VAX terminal to do something productive, such as going to Waffle House. If you don't log off, someone else can do nasty things with your account, like dress it up in doll's clothing and hug it and squeeze it and call it George (or worse, delete all your precious mail). But protecting yourself is easy. At the $ prompt, simply type

$ LO

Short for "Log Out". This will lock your account up tight so no one else can mess with it, and will disconnect you from the VAX. Remember to do this EVERY TIME!!!

Help!

(I need somebody!)

Finally, if all else fails, type help. There's a lot of info on VAX commands to give you a jump-start.

This concludes your guided tour of the VAX. Please exit the tram to your left, following the yellow line out the building. Thank you and have a nice day!

But wait! There's more!

Netscape and the World-Wide-Web

(Bright, shiny objects to catch your attention)

Now that you've logged off the VAX, notice the little icon on the screen that says Netscape. Double-click on it. This lets you look at the World-Wide-Web that you've heard so much about. People, organizations, and businesses all over the world are now publishing Web pages you can look at over the Internet. What's a Web page, you say? Well, it's pretty much just a plan file with pictures and (sometimes) sounds. If you look hard enough, you can find Web pages with information on just about any subject. I'll prove it to you. When Netscape first loads up, you'll see Tennessee Tech's Home Page, which is a gateway to information about our university. If you use you mouse to click on the little down arrow on the right of your screen, the page will scroll down. Double click on the words Search the Web (they'll be in blue; most anything that's blue and/or underlined on the web will take you somewhere else. It's called a "link"). A page will come up with a list of several services for finding information on the web. They're your own personal servants, so to speak. Double click on the one that says WebCrawler. On the page that loads, there will be a white blank. Click once on the white blank to get a cursor, then type a word or two that deals with your favorite hobby. After a minute or two, you'll get a page listing links to information on that hobby. I (almost) guarantee it.

Play around with Netscape for a while. Get familiar with it. The World-Wide-Web has a lot of research potential and is legal reference material in most of your classes. Just be careful to check the validity of your sources and make sure that you aren't using a tabloid-style Web page as reference material. For an example, look at http://www.putnampit.com. When you're done, click on FILE at the top of the Netscape window, and select EXIT. To log out of Windows NT completely, double-click on the desktop icon that says "LOG OFF."

The Web can also be accessed from your VAX account by typing:

$ lynx

You will start at the Tennessee Tech Home Page. From there you can go anywhere on the Web that supports text only access. If you want graphics, you'll have to use Netscape in one of the labs.

Proper Netiquette

(Emily Post goes online)

These aren't rules exactly, but they are good principles to live by, (and they keep the Computer Center happy, too).

Remember, all caps is equivalent to YELLING AT SOMEONE! Try to remember this in both e-mail and on the Net.

When you're posting on Usenet, don't "troll." Trolling consists of misinforming people in the hopes of getting uninformed "newbies" (which is what you will be for a month or so) to believe the information.

Don't flame people. A flame is a personal attack on someone. If you think someone is spouting hot air, give them the benefit of the doubt. Flame wars (where people degenerate into tearing each other apart as incompetent and uninformed) can be very nasty.

On Usenet, read the groups that you are interested in for at least two weeks before posting. Get a feel for the identity of the group before posting. Read that group's FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) to make sure that your post will be of interest to those reading and that it isn't something already covered there. If the FAQ doesn't show up in that group around the first or fifteenth of the month, check the group news.answers to see if it is stored there.

Before attempting a post in News, try using tntech.test (or misc.test, if you want it to be net-wide) for a test post. Note that if you type reply at the NEWS> prompt while reading a message, you response will only go to the author of the message. However, if you type followup, whatever you put in that message will go to the entire net audience of that group.

Don't send mail bombs. As mentioned before, they are frowned upon heavily by those three-letter people on the VAX that regulate your computer life, as well as everyone else involved in administering other machines on the Internet. These, along with chain letters, can get TTU into serious trouble.

Don't send "chain letters" of any sort, not even "look-a-likes". They are flatly illegal, even if they don't ask for money. Also, please refrain from sending useless email.

Be considerate about the stuff you download. Just because the scratch disk is there for use that doesn't mean that you can monopolize it.

Don't play on the modem lines. Other people need to use them for more important things than telneting to some remote site for the 10,000-Question Purity Test. The same thing goes for dorm terminals, Honors Lounge terminals, and the lab terminals. If someone needs to use them for legitimate schoolwork, be considerate and let them do their work.

***

Whew! That's a mouthful, even for me. If you still have questions, feel free to send me e-mail at LBB9348. Don't be afraid to ask the Big Sibs or the Peer Mentors, either. There are a whole lot of really cool things that I couldn't even begin to talk about here that they can help you out with. I promise we won't bite. But you could take us to Waffle House...

Be kind and please rewind!

(Those responsible for the subtitles have been sacked!)