MRA-Announce
Google groups provide a managed form of email address lists. There are lots of Google groups, used for all sorts of purposes, including this one, the mra-announce group.
To use Google groups, you need to open an account. Google offers other services, including the well-know gmail service, so you may already have an account with them. These accounts are different. If you already have a Google account, you have to open another one to use Google groups. Google uses your email address as the account name, so just to add to the confusion, your new account will have the same name as the existing one.
The account you create is protected by a password that you choose. You may already have several password-protected accounts on different computer systems, including your internet bank account. Rather than using the same password for all of them, you should use choose two passwords that you can remember. Use one for things involving money, such as bank accounts, and the other for less serious things like this Google group. This means that if somebody is watching you when you log into Google and guesses your password, this doesn't give them a head start on breaking into your bank account. The financial one should be difficult for somebody else to guess, even if they know the first one.
It makes things easier if you create your Google Groups account before you join the group. Using your web browser:
• visit http://groups.google.co.uk
• click on "groups" at the top of the page
• In the next page, click "sign in" (on the top right of the page)
• click "create an account now"
The signup page wants your email address. Also choose a password and a nickname (just your name is fine). There are two tickboxes remember me on this computer and enable web history.
If you leave remember me on this computer ticked, you don't need to remember your user name and password when you log in, but this is not very secure, as anybody who has access to your computer (including somebody who steals it) can then pretend to be you on the Google system.
The enable web history option looks fairly harmless to me, but you should read the notes against that option and decide for yourself. You might also care to read the terms and conditions at the bottom of the page.
The signup page also displays a picture showing a jumble of scrunched-up letters. This is called a "captcha" and it purpose is to stop somebody writing a computer program to open up millions of accounts, and then misusing them. You have to decipher the letters and type them in. If you get it wrong, another set will appear, and so on until you get it right or give up. If you are blind or partially-sighted, you can get it to play the letters as a sound clip.
You can choose to receive the group messages by email, which is the simplest way. If you don't tick that box, you will have to connect to Google and log in every time you want to read them.
Once you have set up your account, the google system will send you an email containing a link to a web page page. When the mail arrives, click on the link. Doing this verifies that it really was you who asked for the account to be set up. Google will now open the account. (I encountered a glitch when I was connected to the Google website - my browser complained about their digital certificate. This is an oversight on their part, it's not a problem for you and you can ignore it.)
Once you have done all that, you can join the Assocation's group: visit http://groups.google.co.uk/group/mra-announce with your web browser and follow the Apply for group membership link on the right.
You can also use this page to read all the messages that have been sent to the group. You can do this from any computer anywhere in the world that can access Google (which is pretty much all of them). As I said earlier, it's easier to have the messages delivered by email.
If you receive the group's messages by email, the subject line will always start [mra-announce]. You can use this to sort and manage the messages.
If you have anti-spam software on your computer, you may find that the incoming messages get dropped into a special holding folder. In that case you need to persuade your minder to deliver them properly. Details vary depending upon the software.
|
