---------------------------- ua.upd -----------------------------------
######################################
### Updates to Usenet_Access.txt ###
######################################
keys: MT == minor typos ; TI == textual improvements ; MTI == minor TI;
Version Changes
======= =======
1. 25/04/96 - original document
2. 02/05/96 - adding info about Liszt; MT;
3. 05/05/96 - adding about EXPIRES field; MT and TI.
4. 07/05/96 - adding a section on lists of free/commercial
ISP's/IAP's/BBS's; Adding more info about UUNET.
Also MT and TI.
5. 08/05/96 - MT, and adding a section `comments on answers'.
6. 13/05/96 - MT, MTI. Adding info about the popular Web-browsers.
Adding a section on offline news-reading. Adding
explanation on setting NNTPSERVER on IBM-PC.
7. 21/05/96 - MT, adding about UltraIndex. Removing ISP lists which
appeared on UltraIndex.
8. 13/06/96 - Adding info about the InReference and Vigilant filtering
services. Modifying the info about Stanford filtering
service. Adding the reference to DejaNews by e-mail.
9. 25/06/96 - adding info on AltaVista, on Excite, on MaasInfo, on
Foldoc by e-mail.
10. 27/06/96 - a caution remark on my info on UUNET.
11. 01/07/96 - adding another location for newsgroups archives, and the
files of Infinite Ink
12. 08/07/96 - updating info about Stanford --> InReference.
13. 15/07/96 - make the correction on UUNET, adding timeline source,
adding comment to distribution rights, and adding the "No
Acknowledgments" paragraph.
14. 22/07/96 - typo correction tile.net -> www.tile.net . Removing info
on Yanoff's, as the info there is obsolete.
15. 24/07/96 - quoting from Rankin's doc about mail to news gateways.
16. 27/07/96 - adding a reference to a new UseNet Filter (UNNF at Bonn)
17. 01/08/96 - references to the sources of NewsHunter were replaced.
added a reference to a list of commercial news-providers.
Also many MTIs. Added a remark about the new ROADMAP96
course. Removed the reference to freenews at A.17 .
18. 05/08/96 - references to search engines by e-mail were replaced.
One more list of ISP lists was added (iap_meta_list).
Few more comments on DejaNews, and on the UNNF at Bonn.
19. 06/08/96 - e-mail address of the author, and of this autoresponder
were changed.
20. 17/08/96 - another source for open NNTP-servers, with a simple
search engine, was added to A.24; small modifications on
A.17
21. 10/10/96 - UA.txt, UA.upd, UA.sup, UA.not were renamed to be all in
lower cases. uzipaz.ar autoresponder will no longer
support "get UA.txt" or "get ua.txt". For alternative,
see below. Two sources for open NNTP server were added.
List of email2newsgroups gateways, was updated (quoted
from accmail.6 by Bob Rankin). Boyd's documents are now
on Infomart. Added a ref for description of the different
hierarchies (C.2 for A.4). A.6 was entirely rewritten.
22. 18/10/96 - Another source for email to news gateways is added. This
includes a new type of gateways. also a correction for
"who is updating the list of the newsgroups on the
news.groups etc." also few MTI.
23. 23/12/96 The Usenet filter at Bonn now has a name: NewsSIEVE.
Added other info on NewsSIEVE. Added a Q&A on
crossposting and redirecting. Added info on using Agora
servers in order to access news (A.23). The ISP
information service by email on aimnet was moved to
penny-a-pic: updated info is given. Also mention another
ISP-list by e-mail. InReference, DejaNews, and NewsSIEVE
are now allowing postings, and replying to messages. A
new Usenet by WWW service (FeedME) is added. A new list
of free NNTP servers was added. My document is now
available also on WWW and also by anonymous ftp (see
below) also updated this list of FAQ sources, and a
ref. to a search engine for FAQ. news.lists was renamed
to news.lists.misc
24. 24/03/97 Infomart autoresponder is defunct. Binky autoresponder
replaces Infomart. Few other resources for ua.txt are
added. Few more lists of Free NNTP servers are added.
Few lines on periodic automatic offline news-downloaders/
filters were added to the answer on offline news-readers.
I removed the list of mail to news gateways, as it
becomes obsolete rapidly; the references to updates of
these lists are still there. Few statistical numbers are
changed, and few TIs as well.
25. 18/04/97 FeedME service moved to a new address, and supports over
30,000 newsgroups. It also allows postings. JWA's list
of open NNTP servers has moved to a permanent place, got
a name (NewzBot) and provides new services. Few words
about Billy News - a new Usenet by WWW service, which
provides many features usually found only in regular
newsreaders. Few words about *.test newsgroups in a
section that I added between A.23 and A.24 (Hence numbers
of all sections after A.23 were shifted by one). In the
section for E-Mail only users, I added a reference to
getit4u and email4u documents.
26. 16/06/97 The address of Virtual University is updated.
Wizardchives site is no longer a recommended source for
ua.txt. Few words about the Secure News (snews) protocol.
The Binky autoresponder is closed. GetWeb allows posting
Forms of the method POST to WWW. This allows e-mail-only
users to post messages to Usenet, using various www2news
services - more info, and a small list of such services,
is added. FeedME no longer supports posting due to abuse.
Info on the "Distribution:" field is now more detailed.
More on the path of messages to moderated newsgroups.
link to "How to receive banned newsgroups FAQ" has been
removed as it is no longer relevant.
27. 18/08/97 Vigilant service is shut down. The status of "the son
of rfc1036" draft was erroneous and is corrected.
List of lists of open/free news-servers, has been
updated. A new Getweb service is added. A change in the
URL of the advance search in DejaNews. The info on the
Distribution field has been corrected. Another list of
archived newsgroup was added. A.15 now includes a list
and reference to works aiming to extend/revise the Usenet
standards.
28. 04/11/97 "news:" type of URL accepts in many cases also
news-server directives, (nonstandard but becomes common).
Number of supported newsgroups is removed for NewsSieve.
Address of the list of mail to news gateways is changed.
Reference to Newbie-U as an introductory source for
Usenet.
NewsHunter is back - last year, the author of NewsHunter
decided not to support and not to provide his software.
Now, he started to support and provide his program again
(and the version is also updated).
29. 13/02/98 Adding about news:message-id type of URL, and about the
Option to get a message via Dejanews if you know the
Message-Id. Giving a more detailed info on the reference
on "estimation of Usenet growth", and mentioning the
Usenet growth table at Timeline. Adding about
"MyDejanews" - A great free service that allows
customization of Dejanews. Adding a new format for
ua.txt - ua.htm . (See at the bottom of this message the
location of the HTML file). My preferred permanent
address has chanced, see below).
Secured NNTP is corrected to NNTPS
(was erroneously written as SNNTP)
Number of newsgroups in the big-eight hierarchies, is no
longer periodically posted to Usenet, and there is no
longer formal list of those newsgroups. An alternative
way to extract the full list is mentioned. Number of
newsgroups in the big-eight hierarchies, is updated, and
also the number of hierarchies. Many other small
corrections were made. Adding about www.faqs.org and
ftp.faqs.org, estimated number of newsgroups was updated.
30. 12/04/99 Major changes due to the fact that over a year have been
passed. Due to the amount of changes they will not be
listed here.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* To receive the ua document (recent version) you may use any of the
following URLs:
ftp://ftp.crl.com/users/iv/iverham/ua.txt
ftp://ftp.crl.com/users/iv/iverham/ua.zip (compressed)
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/1131/ua.txt
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/1131/ua.zip (compressed)
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/1131/ua.htm (HTML)
http://members.aol.com/bombagirl/freeware/ua.txt
http://www.wireworm.com/ua/ua.txt
http://www.wireworm.com/ua/ua.zip (compressed)
or via autoresponder, by sending an empty message to ua.txt@wireworm.com
* To receive information on the last version date and a short
historical information on the changes, use the URL:
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/1131/ua_upd.txt
* To be added to a list of notification whenever a new version is
published, send a message to ua-list-request@wireworm.com with the word
"subscribe" (without the quotes) as the SUBJECT of the message.
* To remove yourself from that list send a similar message, but with
"unsubscribe" instead.
For e-mail contact with the author: the address is uzi_poboxes.com (where
you should replace the underscore with the "at" sign).
Uzi
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(
geocities.com/researchtriangle/lab) (
geocities.com/researchtriangle)