Why can't I read news (i.e. Usenet newsgroups) ?
When you follow news links, such as news
- comp.databases.oracle you will need access to a local news
server (i.e. NNTP server). If you are getting error messages like
"cannot talk" or "cannot locate host" you most likely do not have your
news server set properly in your WWW browser configuration. Please
see your browser documentation on how to set this option. If you do
not know what news server you should be connecting to, you'll need to
ask your internet provider (e.g. your sys admin) for the machine name.
However, some providers will not give you access to a local news
server. In this case you have at least two options. First you can
look at a
list of
publicly accessible news servers and try to find one near you that
will grant you access. In general these servers are rare due to
loading problems. A second option is available through some gopher sites
that allow you to read news through their gopher servers. However,
using this option will not allow you to click on the news links!
Instead you'll have to find the newsgroups yourself in the
news hierarchies on the gopher servers.
Once you have a server for reading news, you still might encounter
problems with some of the news links. The most common
problem will be "no such group" messages. This will happen when your
local news server does not carry that particular news group. To
solve this you'll have to find some other server that does carry that
group (see above). This problem is very common with the ClariNews
newsgroups since most sites do not carry their news feed.