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M V C o m m u n i c a t e s
December 1993
Note: text copies of all issues of the monthly newsletter can be found
on mv in the public archive; look in /pub/mv/inews. They're also in
the online menu!
More News about More News
MV gives you access to USENET News, a world-wide conferencing
system divided into several thousand rough categorical areas called
newsgroups. In USENET news you can find and participate in discus-
sions of computer technicalities, recreational interests, jokes, his-
tory, politics, feature columns, real world news reports, and on and
on, holding public discussions with people around the world.
The volume of USENET news grows constantly, along with the growth
of worldwide computer networking itself. A recent report estimates
that over 75 megabytes of data are delivered daily to any site that
takes a full news feed. The volume of news has historically doubled
every 10 months or so, and the trend is on the upswing. Increasing
news volume has several implications for sites that participate in
USENET news, among which are the need to store all that data, and the
need to process it as it comes in and goes out.
In order to keep up with expanding resource requirements, MV has
moved much of the USENET news processing to a separate computer system
that is dedicated to news. This helps to take much of the processing
load from the main MV system, putting it instead on the new news sys-
tem. (As time goes on, MV will be looking into distributing other
kinds of system loads to separate systems in similar ways.) We hope
that this transition has gone fairly smoothly; in most cases, you
probably haven't noticed the change.
In this process we have also expanded our news disk capacity so
that we now have something over 700MB for USENET news alone. This
will allow us to keep news around longer and help to stave off disk
exhaustion until the next doubling of USENET volume - another 10
months or so!
News About ClariNet News
Speaking of news, there are some changes in the wings for
ClariNet. ClariNet news is a commercial news service that is
delivered over USENET news newsgroups, providing real world news,
feature columns, business reports, and technical information. All
online users of MV have access to ClariNet news at no extra charge;
UUCP and IP users can arrange for ClariNet directly (sometimes using
MV Communications, Inc. (603) 429-2223
MV Communicates - 2 - December, 1993
special pricing plans arranged by MV).
The significant change to ClariNet is its source of information.
ClariNet has, til now, received much of their news from the UPI
newswire services. Changes in quality have prompted ClariNet to seek
alternate sources; they are now receiving news from Knight-Ridder and
intend to add other sources over the next month or two. Greater
variety of services and detail is expected, particularly in the areas
of financial and business reports. When this all settles down, there
will be a restructuring of the ClariNet newsgroup structure.
More news about ClariNet News - Dilbert!
One exciting new development in ClariNet is the delivery of a
professional comic strip over USENET. This strip, Dilbert, can be
found in the newsgroup clari.feature.dilbert, and is delivered in an
encoded GIF format. (What this means is that you must decode it and
download it to your computer for viewing with a GIF viewer. The 'trn'
newsreader can extract the GIF file directly when you use the 'e' com-
mand while reading the article, or the ':e' command at the article
selection screen.) Dilbert is an appropriate choice to send over the
network, since it deals with the life of a computer engineer, and
since its creator Scott Adams has been incorporating the Internet into
this strip, as well as giving his own Internet mail address in the
strip for quite some time.
Companion and group accounts
We'd like to remind you that MV makes it easy for you to set up
multiple accounts billed to the same location. Remember that online
accounts are charged according to a decreasing rate schedule as you
use more time each month. We have two general kinds of group plans
that offer additional savings:
* Companion accounts: If yours is a UUCP or dialup IP account, you
can add one or more online accounts, with which you can log into
MV and use the Internet facilities here. The pricing for the
companion accounts enters at the $1.50/hour rate tier (instead of
$2/hr as is normal) and has a minimum charge of $2/mo instead of
the normal $5/mo. Similarly, if you currently have an online
account, you can add a UUCP or dialup IP account and get the same
savings on your online account.
* Group accounts: If you have an online account, and would like to
add others for other individuals (for instance, your husband or
wife, or other employees of your company), then a group account
makes sense. The total time of all your online accounts is used
to calculate the charge - meaning that each account does not have
to go through the rate tiers, but that the total of all accounts
counts once. This way you reach the lower cost tiers much
quicker. Also, while the first account has a $5/mo minimum, each
additional online account has a $2/mo minimum.
MV Communications, Inc. (603) 429-2223
MV Communicates - 3 - December, 1993
Things to remember about MV
* Have a special requirement? Let us know. For instance, if your
system is shutting down for a vacation, we can install special
handling of mail for your system (for instance, returning a
recorded message to the sender, forwarding the mail to another
place, or simply keeping your mail from being returned while you
are down).
* Do you know someone else who should be on the Internet? There
several different ways they can get information about connecting
through MV. They can send email to info@mv.mv.com for an
automatic reply or contact us in one of the usual ways or try our
info login (no password) at (603) 424-7428.
For new referrals we will credit a small finder's fee to your
account. This fee is a token of our appreciation and the amount
depends on the type of new access. Please be sure to have your
referral let us know you sent them to MV.
MV Communications, Inc. (603) 429-2223