Quick-Guide to the BBS

Mail Addressing

Welcome in advance to the NOMUG BBS! You will automatically get an internet mailbox on the BBS. Please note, however, that the FirstClass software makes your e-mail address out of your real name, NOT your login name, i.e., "firstname_lastname@nomug.org" is your Internet e-mail address on the BBS. To send mail to another BBS user from within the BBS, you can drop the "@nomug.org" part. To send mail from within the BBS to an external Internet address, append the Internet address with ",xmail" (without the quotes). For example, "macfriend@isp.com,xmail".

A Brief Tour

Besides the basic functions of messaging, upload/download, and chat, the system supports menu commands like file-search, edit-check spelling, message-unsend, and message-history. Members can post messages with or without file attachments to any of the "conferences", although you may not add files to many of the folder archives. The only difference between mail and posts is the addressee will either be an individual name or a conference name, respectively. There is "smart addressing"-the system usually completes partial names or gives a list of choices. There are page limits and expiration periods for the posts on each conference, but you can modify the expiration of messages you post/send, or for mail in your mailbox. The busiest conference is NOMUG Central, and posts to more-specialized conferences are sometimes cross-posted here. The client software also comes with .bmp, .gif, and .jpg viewer plugins: if you option+dbl. click an attachment (or use file-view file) for one of these types or a plain-text type attachment, you can view it without creating a file on your hard drive and subsequently invoking another application to display it. There is also access to some mostly-MacOriented Internet Usenet newsgroups (c.f. the Internet Conference) and to Onenet, a network of globally-shared FirstClass BBS conferences, which are updated on a daily or more frequent basis.

Custom Features

There are also abundant opportunities to customize your FirstClass interface. Your personal FirstClass desktop has some default icons, including your Mailbox and the Help text folder, but you will want to use the "conference-make alias" menu command to put icons for the conferences you want to follow on your desktop, if you want to see the "unread" red flags right away when you login. There are, however, some features described in the Help folder that are disabled in the software we use, such as functions that involve working off-line. However, you can customize your "toolbar" off-line. The customizable toolbar is a really neat feature, as an alternative to the small tool "palette". The "3-D Look" feature, when checked under the Edit menu, produces a more attractive interface. You can edit your FC preferences, e.g., to have mail forwarded; you can edit the Resume document about yourself that's displayed when someone double-clicks on your name; you can create a private address book; and you can organize your mail into folders.

Limitations

The main limitations of the version 3.5.1 FirstClass Client are that you can't download groups of files or entire folders all at once, (e.g. for mail archiving), and the software is not HTML-aware, i.e., it does not properly format incoming HTML-containing messages or recognize hypertext links to web pages to invoke web browsers. You cannot download your mail into an e-mail program as you would from your ISP (POP server) mailbox, although you can have it automatically forwarded to a non-BBS address.

The daily time limit for NOMUG member access is 3 hours, but if you are logged-on at midnight, the clock does not reset unless you logoff or reach the 3 hr limit, after which you then get another 3 hr after logging in again for the new day. The idle timeout is 15 min, with a 60 sec warning dialog, but you must do something besides close the warning dialog box or scroll down an open window to avoid "idling out". To limit your time logged-in, you can compose long messages in SimpleText and paste into the BBS message, or upload the text as an attachment. To see how much time you have left, use the "view-session status" menu command.

Connection Speeds

For direct modem-dialup access, your connection speed will be a maximum of 34 Kbps, even on a 56 Kbps modem, but there will be no Internet or ISP-related slowups. For dialup Internet service, your connection speed is limited by the speed of your modem. For DSL or cable-modem access, the maximum download speed over the Internet will be 512 Kbps, which corresponds, on the other end, to the maximum upload speed of the ADSL service connecting the BBS to the Internet Your upload speed may be limited by your DSL or cable service, although the BBS can download from the net to itself at 1.5 Mbps.

Your Personal Computing Resource

The BBS is an excellent forum for learning and sharing information on a variety of topics, and a useful self-help vehicle to those with specific questions about the Mac platform. We are no longer allowed to post Apple software updates, but there is much older material, non-Apple updates, demoware, shareware, and freeware. There is also educational material, public-domain artwork, and zillions of icons. Original artwork may be posted by its author, but we cannot post copyrighted material authored by third parties without permission. Other than that, Tom Adam, the primary administrator, and the secondary administrators (Phyllis Payne, and Richard Vallon) may remove any material they consider "extremely offensive" at their discretion. The secondary administrators also help Tom with directory organization and folder archive maintenance. Since the BBS is largely unmoderated, discussions are highly diverse, but often entertaining and informative. Enjoy your BBS!

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