The public comp.software.testing archives and the mailing list 
gateway are no longer available.  As an alternative, try Google groups at 
<comp.software.testing">http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&group=comp.software.testing>
Comp.software.testing articles are archived back to March, 1995.

If you're interested in quality measures (metrics), than 
<news:comp.software.measurement>will interest you. However, I didn't
find any FAQ for this newsgroup.

If eXtreme testing is of interest, than
<http://www.xprogramming.com/software.htm> will interest you.
See also Ronald E. Jeffries's article at 
<http://www.xprogramming.com/publications/SP99%20Extreme%20for%20Web.pdf>
http://www.cigital.com/hotlist/publications-ml.html>.

BetaSoft hosts Web forums on most popular testing tools and techniques
at <http://www.qaforums.com/>.

A hot topic is network security.  Here are two pretty good references for testing.
<http://www.ideahamster.org/> <http://www.itprc.com/security.htm>

A quick reference explaining what is a "smoke test" can be found at
<http://www.construx.com/stevemcc/bp04.htm>.