UK-HOME-ED E-mail ListHow do I ...? Frequently Asked Questionspage last updated 5th October, 2004 |
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How do I .....
.....subscribe to the list?send: First making sure that HTML is turned OFF in your email client if you have this feature enabled. You will receive a command confirmation message to which you need to reply to within 48 hours. The purpose of this message is to confirm that the e-mail address you used to subscribe to the list is valid. You will then be added to the list and will receive a Welcome message. Questions .....Send a message to the list?(See also question 16. How do I send mail to the list? on the General FAQ page for more detailed information). Make sure that you have written a concise (no more than half a line) descriptive reference to the contents in the SUBJECT line and have turned HTML off. Send your message to: The message needs to be sent from the e-mail account used when subscribing to the list. IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not send your message to: This is the administrative address used only for sending commands to alter settings. Questions.....leave the list?send: SIGNOFF UK-HOME-ED in the message area of an email to: The message needs to be sent from the e-mail account used when subscribing to the list. Questions......turn mail off while I'm on holiday? (Use NOMAIL)If you are going on holiday, or just want to stop posts temporarily, send: SET UK-HOME-ED NOMAIL in the message area of an email to: To restart the post just send: SET UK-HOME-ED MAIL to the same address. Questions.....change my e-mail address?send: CHANGE UK-HOME-ED name@newaddress.com in the message area of an email to: The message needs to be sent from the e-mail account used when subscribing to the list - the old address. An automatic confirmation message will then be sent to your new address. It is necessary to reply to this message within 48 hours. Just follow the instructions in the confirmation e-mail. All of your subscription settings will automatically be transferred to your new e-mail address. This all assumes of course that you still have access to your old e-mail address. If you do not it is possible for the listowners to make the change for you. The current listowners can always be reached by e-mailing UK-HOME-ED-REQUEST@LISTSERV.AOL.COM. Questions.....check my subscription settings?You may want to review your subscriber settings. Use the Query command to do this. send: QUERY UK-HOME-ED in the message area of an email to: You should receive a reply similar to this:- Subscription options for Joe User , list UK-HOME-ED:Questions .....receive daily digests instead of individual postings?(A digest is a single file containing everyone's messages for that day.) send: SET UK-HOME-ED DIGEST in the message area of an email to: To restart individual posts just send: SET UK-HOME-ED NODIGEST to the same address. Questions......receive only a daily index of postings?(An index is a single e-mail containing only the subject lines from that days messages. A second email is required to retrieve and read messages of interest to you.) send: SET UK-HOME-ED INDEX in the message area of an email to: Then to retrieve indexed articles subscribers send: GETPOST UK-HOME-ED index item numbers to: To revert back to receiving all posts just send: SET UK-HOME-ED NOINDEX to the same address. Questions.....filter out off topic posts?When sending off topic messages to the list OT: should be used at the beginning of the subject line (the colon after OT is essential). This enables the use of the TOPIC command. If a subscriber does not wish to receive off topic posts they can use the following command. send: SET UK-HOME-ED TOPICS -OT in the message area of an email to: To receive all posts again send: SET UK-HOME-ED TOPICS ALL to the same address. This option is only available to subscribers receiving individual messages as the same digest and index version of the list is sent to all subscribers with these settings. Questions.....display the senders e-mail address in the message area of e-mails?Sometimes it is helpful to have the senders e-mail address included in the body of an e-mail. It makes it easier for some subsribers, whose e-mail reading software may not provide this information, to reply to the individual rather than the whole list. send: SET UK-HOME-ED DUAL in the message area of an email to: To cancel the additional information send: SET UK-HOME-ED FULL to the same address. Questions.....automatically include [UK-HOME-ED] as part of the subject of list messages?It can be helpful, when setting up e-mail software to sort incoming messages into seperate folders, for list messages to include the text [UK-HOME-ED] as part of the subject line. To achieve this send: SET UK-HOME-ED SUBJ in the message area of an email to: To cancel the additional text send: SET UK-HOME-ED FULL
(default setting)
to the same address. Questions......access the archives? (Download LOG files)It is always possible to catch up on post you have missed by sending for the appropriate LOG file of each months posts collected into single archives for easy viewing with a word processor or text viewer. For example, sending: GET UK-HOME-ED LOG9910 in the message area of an email to: will retrieve all the posts for October 99. Some of these files can be quite large, ie. 1 to 3 Mb. A list of available LOG files can be obtained by using the INDEX command (see question below) Questions......use the INDEX command?The index command allows you to find out what archive files are available for the UK-HOME-ED list. Send: INDEX UK-HOME-ED in the message area of an email to: You will then receive a list of the files available for download and instructions on how to retrieve them. For example: * As you can see from the size of these files (between 1Mb and 3.5Mb) some of the LOG files will take a while to download. If you are interested in a particular subject it may be quicker to use a search (see below). Questions.....search the archives?It is also possible to search the archives using keywords and/or dates. I will use capitals for the command terms and lowercase for the variables that you choose in the examples below to aid clarity but either works in practice. It is necessary to send two e-mails, the first to produce a list of relevant messages and the second to request copies of the messages. For example, to search the UK-HOME-ED list archives for flexischool send: SEARCH flexischool IN UK-HOME-ED in the message area of an email to: This will produce a list of all messages containing the word flexischool still available in the list archives (multiple search terms can be used, just leave a space between each word). When I ran this search it produced 35 matches (the maximum number of matches is 100). The reply you receive lists basic details of the posts. For example the reply to this query began like this: > SEARCH flexischool IN UK-HOME-ED Then further instructions on how to retrieve the posts are given: To order a copy of these postings, send the following command: After this, part of each message is quoted to enable you to check it's relevance. For example: >>> Item #71 (4 Jan 1999 14:19) - Re: Flexi Schooling Well, they are already over the first hurdle, having an agreement to flexischooling in place, as it is only a discretionary right. As the child will legally be considered to be being 'educated off site' When sending instructions to LISTSERV each line needs to begin with a command. Therefore, when requesting a large number of posts, each line will need to start with GETPOST UK-HOME-ED. Each group of posts requested after a command will be contained in a single e-mail. Thus if you send: GETPOST UK-HOME-ED 71 108 677 you will receive one e-mail containing the messages numbered 71, 108 and 677 and a second e-mail containing message 682. It is important that quote characters like > are not included so it is probably easiest to cut and past the GETPOST line into a new e-mail. If you are looking for an exact string the text will need to be quoted. For example: SEARCH 'having an agreement to flexischooling' IN UK-HOME-ED Date ranges can also be used when searching. For example: SEARCH flexischool IN UK-HOME-ED FROM 99/01/01 TO 99/06/01 will return a list of messages containing the word 'flexischool' sent to the list between the 1st January 1999 and the 1st June 1999. Note the date format YY/MM/DD. SEARCH flexischool IN UK-HOME-ED FROM January TO February will return a list of messages containing the word 'flexischool' sent to the list between the 1st January and the last day in February of the current year. SEARCH flexischool IN UK-HOME-ED SINCE February produces a list of messages containing 'flexischool' sent to the list from 1st February (of the current year) up to and including today. SEARCH * IN UK-HOME-ED FROM 99/11/01 TO 99/11/02 Wildcard symbols can also be used. This search will produce a list of all messages sent to the list between the stated dates (the maximum number of matches is 100). Other valid searches include: SEARCH reading writing IN UK-HOME-ED SINCE 01/01/25 SEARCH 'reading scheme' book IN UK-HOME-ED SINCE oct 00 SEARCH math IN UK-HOME-ED WHERE SENDER CONTAINS 'Thomas' SEARCH * IN UK-HOME-ED WHERE SENDER IS name@isp.co.uk SINCE February SEARCH * IN UK-HOME-ED SINCE 01/01/01 WHERE SUBJECT CONTAINS 'Books' SEARCH * IN UK-HOME-ED SINCE 23 March 10:00 SEARCH * IN UK-HOME-ED FROM 01/03/22 15:41:37 TO 01/03/23 Even more detailed search information and further search options can be found in the Listserv Database Functions document at ftp://ftp.lsoft.com/documents/listdb.memo. Questions.....turn HTML off in Outlook Express?The problem with HTML coding is that it makes messages larger for list members to download, it doubles the room needed in the limited log file space, not everyone will be able to read it easily as it may have strange characters mixed in with the text of the message and it also causes problems for the digest version of the list. If you are using Outlook Express we ask you to check the following settings when you send posts to the list. Two settings are involved:
The above settings will mean that all posts you send will be in plain text. Alternatively you can set the format for individual messages by selecting 'Format' from the menu at the top of your message and then selecting 'Plain text' from the drop down list. Questions.....turn HTML off in Pegasus Mail?The problem with HTML coding is that it makes messages larger for list members to download, it doubles the room needed in the limited log file space, not everyone will be able to read it easily as it may have strange characters mixed in with the text of the message and it also causes problems for the digest version of the list. If you are using Pegasus Mail we ask you to check the following setting when you send posts to the list. Select the 'Tools' menu and then 'Options'. Click on the 'Sending Mail' tab and select the 'Always remove formatting' radio button. Questions......find more information on using LISTSERV?There is a document called the LISTSERV REFCARD which lists all of the commands that can be sent to Listserv. Request this by sending the message:- LISTDB MEMO in the message area of an email to: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.NET (not AOL) A list users guide can also be found at http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8d/userindex.html. It is available for viewing online or in various file formats for download. Top
The http://www.home-education.org.uk/ Webmaster is Mike Fortune-Wood |