JMSNews

[Michael Malloy]

I am a bit technologically handicapped.

How do you get involved with

rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated ?

I see JMS's answers to questions people ask, but nothing more.

How might I learn to see more of this and possible even address "the Great Maker" himself?

[vacantlook]

The posts of others in rastB5mod can be read through the Google Groups page.

[Michael Malloy]

Well...I might know more now, I'm not sure.

Technobabble is confusing to my old fart brain.

[Joseph DeMartino]

Call the tech support people at your internet service provider and ask them how to set up your e-mail program to access usenet. They'll take you through it step-by-step and you can subscribe to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated (copy and paste that from this message, if you like.) You'll then be able to download new messages from the news group along with your e-mail, and reply to messages or create new ones. (Because the group is moderated the first time you post a message you'll receive an e-mail with the rules of the group, to which you must agree, and your messages will take a little time to appear on the group as they will be hand-moderated at first.)

Regards,

Joe

[Radhil]

Unfortunately technobabble is what you'll have to slog through.

The rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated board is part of an old (ancient really) internet bulletin board system called usenet (also referred to interchangably as news boards or newsgroups).

To access it, you have to set up Outlook Express or some similar mail reader to access it. You will need to get the address of a local news server from your internet provider, plug that into Outlook/whichever, and then pull up the rec.arts.blahblahblah group and subscribe. At which point, you'll have all the action (after the moderators verify you, or something - I get fuzzy past that).

There are other ways - I think Google will let you in as vacantlook said above - but that's the direct method.

[ARK1701]

Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino
Call the tech support people at your internet service provider and ask them how to set up your e-mail program to access usenet. They'll take you through it step-by-step and you can subscribe to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated (copy and paste that from this message, if you like.)

Well hope other people have had better luck then I have with "tech support". I've called defferent techs over the years and found (in my case at least) that "tech support" many times works it self out as an oxymoron. There's nothing worse then talking to someone who's reading the same troubleshooting guide that you already went through earlier before you called, only to be told "I'm sorry but we cannot resolve your issue at this time." I swear, there have been times when I KNEW that I had more computer experience then the person on the other end of my phone! Which says a lot!

So just an FYI. But as I said, I hope you all have better luck then I have had with "tech support"!

[Darth_librarian]

Originally posted by ARK1701
Well hope other people have had better luck then I have with "tech support". I've called defferent techs over the years and found (in my case at least) that "tech support" many times works it self out as an oxymoron. There's nothing worse then talking to someone who's reading the same troubleshooting guide that you already went through earlier before you called, only to be told "I'm sorry but we cannot resolve your issue at this time." I swear, there have been times when I KNEW that I had more computer experience then the person on the other end of my phone! Which says a lot!

So just an FYI. But as I said, I hope you all have better luck then I have had with "tech support"!

I actually work in tech support (in a library), and since doing so have become a little more sympathetic to other techies... If you had to listen to 20+ peoples I.T. problems all day, your head would be go a little funny. It's very difficult to find a nice way to say 'i can't help you, lave me alone!!'.

But yeah, it is great when they are clearly using the same reference material as you... Training in big companies has gone downhill.

Once, long ago, they used to do it all in house, and the guys building/ maintaining the equipment would be on the end of the phone.

Now it's all outsourced, (often to India, or a country with much lower average wages) and you get folks with limited technical knowledge and a generic database of documents (also available on the web) as a replacement.

Costs are cut, but so are service.