About OFN...

A non-profit information service. OFN provides newsgroups - the origional UseNet internet newsgroup service now commonly known as Google Groups as Google's UseNet is very popular. Since 1980, UseNet is a woldwide distributed internet discussion system. Before the creation of the world wide web in 1993, Usenet newsgroups were the way of electronic commerce on the internet - one could post description of items for sale, and one would respond to the post. Usenet is still used: job postings, hobby discussion, advertisements (a lot of SPAM unfortunatly), and any other subject is discussed in Usenet.

Besides UseNet, there exist other discussion networks, called echo networks, that provide the same thing although most of them are targeted towards a single area such as science, gaming, computers, or religion. OFN hosts a few of these also: FamilyNet, DoveNet, and others are soon to be integrated into OFN.

Fidonet is another origional newgroup service that was begun in the early 1980's via Computer Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) that were the means of internet access at the time. It was founded by Tom Jennings in San Francisco, California and grew to consist of thousands of networked BBS' today. OFN has joined this network as node #1:226/410 and our Fido feed is getting bigger by the day.

Besides newsgroups, OFN is actually a large BBS (the origin of most Internet Service Providers); and also provides telnet access to message groups as well as weather, other BBS', public university systems, and legacy text-based games. OFN's telnet service is available at telnet://tek1systems.com - use a command prompt or telnet client to access.

This is yet another site authored by Steve Johns MSIT: an enterprise data storage professional who administers an EMC CLARiiON CX4 SAN (Storage Area Network). Steve obtained his Masters degree in information systems engineering from Regis University. He currently is employed by EMH Regional Medical Systems in Elyria, Ohio USA.

Other projects include:
StorageSeek.org - an enterprise data storage blog
Tek1systems.com - the home site
astroblog - Steve's amateur astronomy site