HR-Net Personal NewsPaper

Welcome to the Hellenic Resources Network (HR-Net) Personal NewsPaper (PNP). This document contains a brief description and user's manual for using the PNP via your web browser.

Description

The HR-Net Personal NewsPaper aims to cover a gap in Hellenic electronic communications, by providing access to an integrated system for receiving the news and information you want, when you want it, without being forced to "filter" through personal messages, critique and comments which on most lists outnumber the actual information articles. By setting up a PNP Specification, every user can create a "custom" list, where only those news which he or she is interested in are distributed. We invite all comments on the HR-Net PNP by email, letter or telephone, at the locations noted at the end of this page.

The HR-Net PNP works by providing an easy-to-use interface to dozens of topic-specific lists. What this means is that HR-Net supports a separate list for each topic (for example, the Macedonian Press Agency News in English is a list of its own, with roughly one message per day). The PNP allows you to subscribe to exactly those lists which you find interesting, using simple checkboxes on an HTML form, while avoiding the hassle of sending many subscribe and unsubscribe requests via email, one for each topic. Furthermore, it allows you to set all your lists to nomail status, or to change your email address at the click of a button, without requiring individual messages for each list. And by introducing an aggregate digest system (which should be complete within October 1995) the HR-Net PNP will allow you to receive a single digest of your preferred topics, at the time of day that you select for yourself. Finally, you can also set an option so that when new lists are added to the HR-Net you can be automatically subscribed to them (you may later chose to unsubscribe if the list does not interest you) or you may simply chose to receive an email notice announcing the addition and describing the new list.

Usage

There are three operations which may be performed using the PNP: Create, Retrieve, Update.

When you first enter the PNP form, using the http://www.hri.org/cgi-bin/pnp/pnp URL, the only operation which concerns you is Create. This operation creates a first specification for you on the system. At this point, you only need to enter your full name, your email address, a user ID by which you will be known on the system and a password by which you will be able to subsequently modify your specification. Please remember your user ID and password -- if you forget them it will be necessary for you to mail us at pnp@hri.org in order to have someone change these parameters for you. If you wish, you may fill in more of the form before you create your specification -- the more you do, the less work you will have to do later using the Update function.

Note: We would appreciate it if you filled out the entire form. We would like to know who is using the PNP. Also, if we have your address we can send you printed material on projects and events of the Hellenic Resources Institute which may be of interest to you. However, you are not obliged to fill out the personal information part of the form, we only need your full name and email address.

Once you have created your specification, you may change most fields of your record, excluding your user ID. To do this, you must first use the Retrieve function as follows: Having downloaded the PNP form using http://www.hri.org/cgi-bin/pnp/pnp, you should enter your user ID and password, and press the Retrieve button. This will return the form completed with all the information we have on file in your PNP specification. Caution: At this stage, you should not change anything below the Retrieve button, especially the Operation you wish to perform (the last entry on the form). Any other changes will be ignored.

Once your specification has been retrieved, there is only one operation you can perform: Update. Change any fields you want, add and delete lists by using the checkboxes on the form, update your personal information, change your password, even change your email address. The only thing you cannot change is your user ID, and your "old password". When you are satisfied with your changes, press the Submit button at the bottom of the page. If your input is valid, your changes will take effect immediately.

If at any point you make a mistake, need help, or are uncertain of how things work, you can email us (at pnp@hri.org). Don't worry too much about making mistakes, most errors are caught by the consistency checks incorporated in the PNP program. These consistency checks will inform you of most common errors, and try to give hints as to what you should do next. If you do manage to trip the program up, by all means email us, we'd like to hear from you!

A couple of rules

We've made the program very easy to use, in hopes of creating a valuable service for Greeks around the world. Therefore, the rules are few and simple. In fact, they probably don't really concern you at all, but we would like to make them clear at this point:

• If your email address bounces mail to us for more than 48 hours, we will automatically and without notification put you into nomail mode. We will not delete your specification, and as soon as your system is feeling better you will be able to put yourself back into mail mode.
• If you tamper with the system enough, we will have to start making it more difficult to use. It will need to be moderated, meaning that your changes will not take effect until one of the HR-Net system operators has approved your submissions. Furthermore, we would probably have to force you to access PNP from the same system as the one you would like to receive your news, something which for many people would be a real nuicance. Please be considerate of others.

The HR-Net Group welcomes you to the HR-Net Personal NewsPaper.
Cambridge, 6 September 1995

Contact Information

We can be reached at the following for questions, problems, requests and comments: