lauryc wrote:
[...]
Showing my total ignorance now......... what is Usenet???

It's one of the three things making up the real public Internet (the
one I spell with a capital I): websites, email, Usenet. It's used for
newsgroups such as this one, and you can get an idea of its
staggering scope by looking at:
http://www.google.co.uk/grphp?hl=en&tab=wg&ie=UTF-8 and clicking some
of the blue words.

Anybody here will be delighted to let you know anything you don't
find out from there. We cherish it because it's virtually
uncontrolled person-to-people communication on any topic you like. I
think the name means "users' network", the idea being that it can't
belong to any individual or organisation. and any user can "talk"
direct to everybody.

--
Mike.