Your ISP (Internet service provider) should have a news server. In Outlook Express you can just press Ctrl+W, and in Outlook you go Tools-Go to - Newsgroups (which opens Outlook Express). My news server for example is news.ntlworld.com.
You can see the newsgroups at
groups.google.com/. This service is still in beta stage, but it is sooooooo brilliant. It has cached a gazillion messages about just about everything.
Newsgroups used to be Usenet, a UNIX thing. They didn't have any pictures, just text. Now you can see it through a nice friendly browser interface, thanks to Google. This is what people did before 1994!
The newsgroups are amazing for technical questions. Microsoft have a whole range of them. There are also groups about anything you can think of. There are some popular sets, such as alt. comp. and misc. but they can be called anything. The one I like is cam.misc, which is for people in my local area. I also subscribe to uk.computers.advert.mac which is adverts for macintosh computers in the UK (surprise!).
I swear that people sit by their computers and follow the newsgroups all day. I have done this, but now I limit myself, although I have had strong arguements when I was going back every half hour or so to see if I had a reply!
