Hi everyone.  I recently created an account for myself on Gmail and
that is what I will now be regularly instead of Microsoft Hotmail.  As
such I have modified my Email Address setting in Forté Free Agent,
replacing govende30@hotmail.invalid with the more neutral
invalid@invalid.invalid.  I've also decided that the clever moniker
that I coined, "Daniel al-Autistiqui", isn't really doing any good[1]
and I've therefore changed the Full Name setting as well; it now just
reads "Dan McGrath".  ("Dan", rather than "Daniel", is actually what I
get called most of the time in real life.)

I use the popular News.Individual.NET (NIN) news server.  What I am
concerned about is whether I am safe in having made these changes to
my From: header ("Daniel al-Autistiqui <govende30@hotmail.invalid>" ->
"Dan McGrath <invalid@invalid.invalid>" -- incidentally, before I
settled on the triple-"invalid" address I also posted a couple of
messages under me@privacy.net).  I know that the NIN FAQ
(http://news.individual.net/faq.php) mentions the pseudo-TLD
".invalid" in connection with question 5.3, but that suffix is not
what I'm asking about.  I am worried simply because I now post using a
*different* From: header than I used to, and I sort of remember
hearing that modifying one's From: header while using NIN can
sometimes be dangerous.

I know this post is hardly on-topic for these groups, but I already
tried posting this on alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent and did
not get very far.  (Some of those responses had also appeared on AUE.
The people there seemed to think that my concern was about the
".invalid" suffix.)  The reason I sometimes try groups like AUE/AEU is
that the people on those groups know lots of things about me and they
might be able to understand better that I really need answers.  So,
someone, please tell me if I am safe in having changed my From:
header, having gone from "Daniel al-Autistiqui
<govende30@hotmail.invalid>" to "Dan McGrath ", to
"Dan McGrath <invalid@invalid.invalid>".  (I need an obvious "yes" or
"no" answer.)  One more thing: someone on the Agent group suggested
that I remove the "McGrath".  I'm not convinced of this.  There are
plenty of Usenet posters -- quite a lot of people on AUE, in
particular -- who use their full first and last name.  Personally, I
don't have any desire to keep my last name private, any more than I do
with my real e-mail address.  My e-mail address does appear (slightly
mangled) in my signature, and I have avoided placing it in the headers
only because I'm afraid that this could cause problems if I was to
change my address again.

[1] However, I am hoping to put some information about my disabilities
and such into my signature sometime soon.  I haven't gotten around to
it yet; maybe my mother can help me with it the next time she comes
up.

- Dan
-- 
Daniel G. McGrath
Binghamton, New York
e-mail: dmcg6174[AT]gmail[DOT]com