INASP Links & Resources
USING THE INTERNET: 
Using Email/ Online forums and electronic mailing lists

At Ease with E-Mail: A Handbook on Using Electronic Mail for NGOs in Developing Countries
The on-line version of a most helpful handbook (in English/French/Spanish) published by the UN-NGLS and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Step-by-step, and in question-and-answer form, it introduces the newcomer to the rapidly-developing field of the new communications technology by explaining basic terms and concepts, as well as listing existing computer communications networks and local e-mail service providers. (A new second edition is now also available in print form). http://www.fes.de/organisation/america/handbook/cover.html

Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC)
An intriguing and amusing site provided as a public service by the US Department of Energy, which will alert you to the latest Email hoaxes and other scams currently doing the rounds on the Internet. All the latest hoaxes are here: including offers of free beer, warnings about deadly viruses, Internet cleanup day (“...each year the Internet must be shut down for 24 hours in order to allow us to clean it...”), or NaughtyRobot “an Internet spider that crawls into your server through a tiny hole in the World Wide Web”! The site also provides helpful tips how to identify a hoax. http://www.ciac.org/ciac/  

Directory of Scholarly and Professional E-Conferences
Maintained by Diane Kovacs; subject/category, alphabetical, and searchable. http://www.kovacs.com/directory/  

Free Email Address Directory
This is a guide to over a thousand free email services, together with articles and reviews about for-free email services, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses, and suggestions how to deal with junk mail and stem the ever growing tide of spam that nowadays arrives daily in most people's email inbox.
http://www.emailaddresses.com/ 

From Workplace to Workspace Using Email Lists to Work Together (by Maureen James and Liz Rykert) 
Full-text access to an excellent practical guide from IDRC, containing a great deal of useful advice on how to plan and set up an email mailing list, and how to keep it active and lively. There are also posting guidelines, and a step-by-step guide to specific activities, such as holding meetings online, planning a face-to-face conference, and disseminating research material. http://www.idrc.ca/books/848/index_e.html 

Also available in a French version, Du bureau à l'espace: Comment utiliser efficacement les listes électroniques, at
http://www.idrc.ca/acb/showdetl.cfm?&DID=6&Product_ID=177&CATID=15 

F-Secure Security Information Center-Hoax Warnings
If you get an Email warning you about a deadly new virus, check it out here first before you panic or before you pass it on to others. Although the threat of new viruses is real, most such scare alerts are hoaxes. Provides an extensive list of known hoaxes, as well as a separate list of the latest hoaxes; or search the virus and hoax description database by entering key words in the search facility. http://www.f-secure.com/virus-info/hoax/ 

Findmemail.com
A useful service if you change your Email address. If you register with this free service people will be able to track you down at your new address by means of your old one. http://www.findmemail.com/

ForumOne
Speciality search engine; helps you locate messages posted on over 270,000 Web discussion forums. http://www.forumone.com

Google Groups
The award-winning search engine Google http://www.google.com  has acquired Deja.com's Usenet Discussion Service, including Deja's entire archive dating back to 1995. Once the full Deja Usenet archive is added, users will be able to search and browse more than 500 million archived messages.
http://groups.google.com/ 

JISCmail. National Academic Mailing List Service
Aims to facilitate discussion, collaboration, and communication within the UK academic community and beyond, and provides access to a very large number of electronic discussions lists for the UK higher education and research community. Select by broad subject fields in the sciences, health studies, arts and humanities, or social sciences, and find out how to join any of these lists, or start your own (fee paying) list. The service now incorporates the Mailbase listserv previously provided by the Computing Service Department at the University ofcastle.
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/

Liszt
This is probably the largest index of mailing lists available on the Internet. Liszt provides access to a searchable database of over 80,000 mailing lists/discussion forums, 30,000 Usenet groups, and 25,00 IRC chat channels, covering every conceivable interest. You can can start your own mailing list using Liszt. http://www.liszt.com

Majordomo
Majordomo is a community-supported free software programme (a list server) which automates the management of Internet mailing lists. Commands are sent to Majordomo via email to handle all aspects of mailing list maintenance, requiring no intervention by the postmaster of the mailing list. These pages provide details of some of the features of Majordomo, how to set up a list, frequently asked questions, together with some related links.
http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/ 

SmartGroups.com
Offers a free online groups service for clubs, societies, associations, communities, or any groups of individuals who wants to start a discussion group. In addition to communicating with the group through Email postings, you can store documents for the group, share files and links, coordinate and organize group events using the calendar, and create simple databases. The site also provides access to existing groups; browse groups by subject, or search for groups by subjects/topics. http://www.smartgroups.com/