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Internet Communication

Benjamin Franklin was a pioneer in communication. After all he did own a printing Press so he might deliver information to Pennsylvanians in the form of a newspaper. He often wrote in his diary about getting information to the masses quickly. In one memoir he dreamed of a day where a common person could easily communicate ideas to a large audience cheaply and efficiently. Maybe he dreamed of newsletters or magazines. Maybe he dreamed of the internet.

In this section, we have compiled a handful of email listserves that designers could join which might prove interesting. industrial design forum, to Pro/DESIGNER (CDRS) and Alias tools

Internet Forums: Listservers

A list server is an automated mail server dispensing postings to a list of subscribed readers. Members mail a message to the list server which, in turn, sends the message to all the subscribers. Think of it as a bulletin board connected by mail; you do not have to check-in to read postings, because they will be sent to you.

Below you will find a resource of Forums or Listservers that exist to facilitate design. Often these forums exist for specific software; in every case, they exist to facilitate communication. The internet community invites you to join in. A word of advice first: After joining a listserve, be patient and read the postings for a couple of weeks. You would hate to pose a question that was recently in heated debate last month or ask an inappropriate question. Also, like email etiquette, be careful of all capital letters, which usually irritates a kind few.

If you know of design related listserves, please email us so we might promptly add it to this list.

IDFORUM list (Industrial Design Forum)

The IDFORUM listserve should pose interesting conversation and prevoke thought about the product design profession. Recent discussions on "How much engineering should an industrial designer understand" to really quite interesting definitions of industrial design, to occasional job postings have bounced through.

To join the IDFORUM Communications, simply send an email to LISTSERV@YORKU.CA with 'subscribe idforum' in the body of the message. You will immediately receive an email back with simple directions for you to confirm your request to join the forum. To send a message to all the people currently subscribed to the list, just send mail to IDFORUM@YORKU.CA. This is called "sending mail to the list", because you send mail to a single address and LISTSERV makes copies for all the people who have subscribed. This address (IDFORUM@YORKU.CA) is also called the "list address". You must never try to send any command to that address, as it would be distributed to all the people who have subscribed. All commands must be sent to the "LISTSERV address", LISTSERV@YORKU.CA.
It is very important to understand the difference between the two, but fortunately it is not complicated. The LISTSERV address is like a FAX number, and the list address is like a normal phone line. If you make your FAX call someone's regular phone number by mistake, it will be an unpleasant experience for him but you will probably be excused the first time. If you do it regularly, however, he will probably get upset and send you a nasty complaint. It is the same with mailing lists, with the difference that you are calling hundreds or thousands of people at the same time, so a lot more people get annoyed if you use the wrong number.
You may leave the list at any time by sending a "SIGNOFF IDFORUM" command to LISTSERV@YORKU.CA. You can also tell LISTSERV how you want it to confirm the receipt of messages you send to the list. If you do not trust the system, send a "SET IDFORUM REPRO" command and LISTSERV will send you a copy of your own messages, so that you can see that the message was distributed and did not get damaged on the way. After a while you may find that this is getting annoying, especially if your mail program does not tell you that the message is from you when it informs you that new mail has arrived from IDFORUM. If you send a "SET IDFORUM ACK NOREPRO" command, LISTSERV will mail you a short acknowledgement instead, which will look different in your mailbox directory. With most mail programs you will know immediately that this is an acknowledgement you can read later. Finally, you can turn off acknowledgements completely with "SET IDFORUM NOACK NOREPRO".
Following instructions from the list owner, your subscription options have been set to "REPRO" rather than the usual LISTSERV defaults. For more information about subscription options, send a "QUERY IDFORUM" command to LISTSERV@YORKU.CA.
Contributions sent to this list are automatically archived. You can get a list of the available archive files by sending an "INDEX IDFORUM" command to LISTSERV@YORKU.CA. You can then order these files with a "GET IDFORUM LOGxxxx" command, or using LISTSERV's database search facilities. Send an "INFO DATABASE" command for more information on the latter.
Please note that it is presently possible for anybody to determine that you are signed up to the list through the use of the "REVIEW" command, which returns the e-mail address and name of all the subscribers. If you do not want your name to be visible, just issue a "SET IDFORUM CONCEAL" command.

More information on LISTSERV commands can be found in the LISTSERV reference card, which you can retrieve by sending an "INFO REFCARD" command to LISTSERV@YORKU.CA.

Alias Listserv

There are currently two list servers serving the Alias|Wavefront family of products. One list server has discussion centered on products from (formerly) Alias; the other has discussions centered on products from (formerly) Wavefront.
To connect and view on-going discussions users are having throughout the world. Follow these instructions: To subscribe, e-mail a message to:listserv@uga.cc.uga.edu
The body of the message must only contain the line
SUBSCRIBE ALIAS-L

Wavefront Listserv

To subscribe, e-mail a message to:
listserv@psuvm.psu.edu
The body of the message must only contain the line
SUBSCRIBE WAVEFR-L


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