Newsreaders, specifically Free Agent from Forte, Inc. You can find it on the ‘net at http://www.forteinc.com

Other readers, such as Outlook, etc. are NOT recommended because they do not support the features desribed below.

First things first. The Internet is changing our lives in many ways and will be looked back upon as having as a profound effect on our everyday lives as the automobile, which brought us roads, which be-gat suburban living, which moved us from farms in an agricultural age to city life (and suburbia!) in an industrial age (a bit simplistic but you get the idea. Now it’s been said many times and for many years that we are now in an information age or as Alvin Toffler says the "Third Wave".

The Internet has really been in mainstream use only a couple years but it has already brought a lot of changes and we haven’t seen anything yet! We certainly haven’t hit the "critical mass" stage yet where everyone will be "logged on" and communicating, buying, working and what have you over the ‘net.

What does this have to do with us cross dressers, or Significant Others (SO's), you may ask? Plenty! Lots of us might have thought of ourselves as being alone or that there weren’t others out there who feels as we do. Well thanks to the ‘net we know we are not alone. Web pages, email, and yes, newsgroups’ help to hammer this home.

You will see in newsgroups how many other’s have the same feelings as you do; That there are parallel lives they lead to yours. You can log onto a newsgroup and find help when you feel you are alone or just to find out what lipstick, nail polish, etc. works best, ear ring options, the whole gamut of information in one big collective!

Of coarse on the ‘net there are other things to do as well such as various forms of chat and ICQ. I’ll cover those in greater detail in future columns. If you want to learn how to get started with chat and such, stay tuned!

For those already on line, type forteinc in the white space (URL) at the top of your Netscape or Microsoft Explorer (IE) browser and press "Enter" or "Return". Scroll to where you see Free Agent and click download. Download the 16 bit version if you have Windows 3.x and the 32 bit version for Win 95/98 or NT. Save this file to disk making a directory "on the fly," if you wish. Then when completely downloaded, copy this file by right clicking on it, if you have Win 95/98 or NT 4.0. If you have any other version of Windows, go to File Manager and copy it. Paste this file into a temporary directory (Temp, Tmp, Bin, Downloads, etc.). For those with a MAC-Sorry there is no Agent/Free Agent available for your platform.

When you double click this file it will do an automatic install. You will just tell it what directory, drive and so on as it asks for it. Get some information from your ISP such as news server, it’s syntax, etc.

Here is a list of other things you might try to complete the setup:

1. Click "Options"- General Preferences"-"User" and fill in your alternative e-mail address, and the rest as you see fit.
2. Select "System"-news server. This varies with your ISP. In fact until this is correct nothing will happen but error codes. Some examples however follow: If you have Mindspring, it’s news.mindspring.com; ISOC (Internet Solutions Of Cincinnati): news.isoc.net and AT&T WorldNet: netnews.worldnet.att.net. I think you get the idea!
3. E-mail-same as above with suggestions also noted below. Bear in mind that incoming and outgoing mail are entirely separate beasts. Incoming mail is whatever you normally use and it’s usual setup (it’s usually SMTP). Outgoing mail is what you must be careful with and the reply tag. Don’t forget the reply tag for anonymity’s sake!
4. "Online" tab stays the same.
5. Under "Dial Up", follow these suggestions: check "Open Dial Up Before Going On Line", "Connection" is whatever ISP your using to connect to these newsgroups.
6. "Navigation"-only leave selected "Double Clicking a Message…" "Single Key Read…" and especially important –under "Automatically Mark Messages Read" select "Only When The Message Pad Is Selected"
7. All of the other tabs can stay as they are.

Now the fun part! Follow these steps for an optimized setup:

1. While connected to the Internet, click on the third menu item-"Online" and go down to "Get new Groups" and select this. This can take a long time because there are so many newsgroups, so go grab a cup of coffee.
2. Next look for anything that interests you but particularly select two-"alt.fashion.crossdressing" and "alt.support.crossdressing" and right click on each and select subscribe for each. There are no charges or anything like that. Warning: SRS groups can be "rough". Stick with the two I'm recommending here for now.
3. Just to make things a bit easier, click the bar atop this listing that says "All Groups" till it reads "Subscribed Groups."
4. At this point, to begin enjoying these new-found resources you only have to have them each selected (the regular Windows commands like using the control and or shift keys to select more than one will work here), then go to "On Line" again and select either "Get New Headers in New (or Selected) Groups"
5. On the right pane labeled "Subject", select them all or just the ones you are interested in by the using the same Windows commands as described before. For example, select the main heading and all replies that are under it and keeping a finger on the control key, select others the same way. Note that dragging works here to select more than one AS LONG AS YOU DON’T TRY to SELECT the FIRST MESSAGE HEADER BY THE "SUBJECT" header. It might be a bug. Excuse my shouting.
6. RightRight-click on one (whether you indeed only have one message header or many selected/highlighted) and select "Mark For Retrieval." Do this for both/all subscribed groups.
7. Finally, go back to "On Line," and select "Get Marked Message Bodies." As you click the message under the "Subject" header, you will be able to read that message on the bottom (third) pane (As long as you marked and selected for download in a previous step). All of this is much simpler than it sounds and will more sense to you as you are doing it.