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Gnome

Gnome

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I have finally decided I need to see how newsgroups work and what they offer but I am kinda lazy today I wondered if anyone could point me to a basic where to start and what you need guide (basically a guide to newsgroups). Or just give me a little intro.

Also in this thread from this forum lukev and bwana talk about easynews, is it a newsgroup server? (and how does the IS newsserver match against it if it is?).

Also how can you still download local if easynews is overseas?

Maybe some of the ppl from the previously mentioned thread could help me out, seems they knew their way around. ;)

I know google is the source of all info, but some web-sites give their own distorted views and most importantly I would like to know how to download past my Intl. Cap (I'm on IS). The tricks of the trade so to say :p
 
If you're already on IS then defiantly give them a bash first. I'm not so I had to go with the easynews method. IS apparently has good retention too.

There's plenty of sound advice in some of the other threads regarding software and also searching.

newzbin.com is great at showing you what groups to look for the actual files in so if you want to see what sort of content is available have a search there.

IS has the advantage that its local bandwidth - definite bonus.

EDIT - Strange how so many usenet threads are popping up these days.
 
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I'll check out everything, but I think I'll definitely be using the IS server since it's free(free=good,at least from my financially weakend standpoint ;) ) and local.

Thanks ;)
 
Yeah please can some informed individual explain newsgroups to me? Please please. I am a relative newcomer to the internet (aside from previous, limited uni use, I have only been online since mid-2004). Some plain English for dummies on this subject would be much appreciated!
 
Debbie2 said:
Yeah please can some informed individual explain newsgroups to me? Please please. I am a relative newcomer to the internet (aside from previous, limited uni use, I have only been online since mid-2004). Some plain English for dummies on this subject would be much appreciated!
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Wikipedia is always a good place to start - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsgroups

The bit probably most interesting to the forumites is binaries. Large files can be broken up and distributed quite effectively this way.
 
Newsgroups have a large amount of data available for download. There are newsgroups that cater for specific needs, such as dvd movie group or a 60 mp3 music group or a full cd mp3 group. There are over 100,000 groups to cater for anything under the sun. Unlike with P2P there you cannot conbtrol what appear in the postings, but for example at any given time there are over a 100000 mp3s in a group such as the full cd one. These files are kept for a specific amount of time(called the retention period) which differs from server to server, but in most cases is something like 30 days. Thereafter they are deleted.


Newsgroups are notoriously difficult to use, because posting sizes vary and to publish a full dvd it gets broken down into 50 different parts. You need all 50 parts to assemble the full DVD(there are other things such as Par files etc to help you in case a posting gets corrupted. You normally use a utility such as Winrar to reassemble the various parts into one DVD file that you can burn. In the case of MP3's however they are in native format and you can use them directly.

It is far easier to use a newsgroup such as www.easynews.com because they provide you with tools such as searching, par viewers so that you can select all the parts necessary for reassembly etc. I think you can also download a gigabyte of data on a test account and then you pay them per month under 10 dollars allow you to download +-30 gigabutes per month. Of course we South Africans never reach our limits. There are free servers, some in South Africa such as the IS servers but they do not have a web interface, and you need a program such as Newsbin to read the headers to find your data. The saix one sux, but apparently the IS one is very good.
 
Sorry Debbie2, after reading my previous post I just realised why I leave manual writing to other people. I am no good at explaining anything simply. I hoope I did not confuse you more. Newsgroups are really a great source for anything music video games an p0rn are really only some of the content. Other things such as audiobooks,scanned comics and even sheet music are readily available.

It is certainly worth the exploration and effort to master the newsgroup access.
 
ernstn said:
Of course we South Africans never reach our limits.
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Maybe its because I'm not south african but I defiantly reaching my limit every couple of weeks. Nice xmas gift from them this year too. The extra 20 they gave means having to work a bit ;)
 
bwana v.7 said:
Maybe its because I'm not south african but I defiantly reaching my limit every couple of weeks. Nice xmas gift from them this year too. The extra 20 they gave means having to work a bit ;)
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Are you a Telkom Internet subcriber?
 
I'll try.

think of a newsgroup as a subfolder in your email client. The easiest and quickest way to get started is just to use outlook express.

go to OE, go to tools/accounts, and then select the "add" button, specifying "news" as the account type...put in a dummy name (no need for your real name) and specify your newsserver (whatever IS uses, I dont know it..)

Now, within your usual Outlook Express tree you will see inbox, outbox, blah blah and then the news server listed....Click on it once and it should prompt to download the list of newsgroups (think "discussion groups"). Probably close to 80k of them, so be patient. Once the list has downloaded, filter the list and subscibe to the ones you like (alt.rabbits.hungry or whatever), This is a "group", but in our forum speak lets call it a subforum...within each group are posts (emails sent to the group) which should hopefully be ontopic with the groups name.

Each subscribed group would become a subfolder under your newsserver name within Outlook Express. Just select the groups name to download the latest "headers" (the subject line of each post)...from there you will be using it similar to email, double click to read, etc etc.

To actually get binaries (mp3's, rar, par, avi etc) I would suggest using outlook Express to familiarise yourself with how this works, then download newsbin and transfer the concepts across.
 
omf!

Usenet R0x0rS my b0x0rZ! :)

I'm capped atm,and have nothing better to do than browsing IS's news server.
I've found a quite few gems.

I'm somewhat of a Armin van Buuren fan, and seeing as SA ADSL doesn't really cater for streaming audio, I get his Digitally Imported show (A state of Trance) on usenet. Among other things... ;)
 
werner said:
I'll try.

think of a newsgroup as a subfolder in your email client. The easiest and quickest way to get started is just to use outlook express.
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No offence Werner, but Outlook Express is possibly the worst application one could use to browse usenet in search of binaries.

If you *must* browse the newsgroups directly then, as previously mentioned, use an application like newsbin. Personally I try minimise the number of times I bash my head against my keyboard in frustration, so I prefer to stick with the nifty web-based interface that comes with easynews.com

Why? Well,
  • Easynews uncompresses all the rar files and lets me download a full file
  • I can collect a bunch of files together and store them in a zip file on their servers for downloading later
  • There is a search function (and a good one too)
  • I can see thumbnail previews of the files I want to download

For those hardcode users who *do* want to hit the news groups directly with a client, EasyNews does give you an additional 4gigs of transfer. So web users get 20gigs per month, and nntp users get 24gigs. The only problem is that nntp is shaped, giving http a huuug speed advantage.
 
lukev said:
For those hardcode users who *do* want to hit the news groups directly with a client, EasyNews does give you an additional 4gigs of transfer.
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Actually I just did a download via the proxy nntp server and found if I allowed up to 10 concurrent downloads it came down just as fast as the http one. Was defiantly surprised. :eek: :D
 
Hey Gnome,

Welcome to the fruitful world of usenet. As others have posted links to usenet basics, I'll try answer your questions.

Gnome said:
thread from this forum lukev and bwana talk about easynews, is it a newsgroup server? (and how does the IS newsserver match against it if it is?).
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Easynews.com is a news server company. They have buckets of servers who's sole purpose in life is to store the millions of posts and binaries that flow through its fiber every day. Because they make you pay to access their servers, they offer you loads of incentives that make the usenet experience easier for you and me. Things like web-based access, 24-7 online help, a cool search screen etc.

You judge a news service by speed, ease of use, binary completion and retention rate.

Binary Completion
As you know, large files, like linux ISOs, are broken into smaller 15mb chunks when uploaded to the news server. If one of these files were to go missing you would not be able to fully uncompress all the files to make up your ISO. A good news server will try it's best to keep the binary completion percentage high, so that you don't lose any files in a multi-part upload. There are things like PAR files which help to make up for the lost data, but we won't go into that here. Easynews has a 99% binary completion percentage.

Retention Rate
This is the amount of time the news service will store posts on their servers. For dodgy scum like saix/telkom, it's about 2 days for binary-related newsgroups. I'm not sure what IS is like, but most news services have a 30 day retention period. So, once you've found your file, you have a limited time to download it before it's deleted from the news service's machines. Don't panic, good news services will warn you when a binary is about to expire. Easynews does.

Easynews.com is solely focused on newsgroups, unlike IS where they are an ISP, a solution provider etc etc. This is how easynews makes their bread and butter. As a result they have better retention rates and an awesome binary completion percentage. I haven't used IS but I hear lots of good things about it. Maybe someone else could comment on how it performs with movie downloads etc. I use Easynews (as you may have guessed) and it rocks.

Gnome said:
Also how can you still download local if easynews is overseas?
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You can't unfortunately :( Their servers are based in the states. If you had a friend in Hong Kong with some spare DVDs, however...

Gnome said:
I know google is the source of all info, but some web-sites give their own distorted views and most importantly I would like to know how to download past my Intl. Cap (I'm on IS). The tricks of the trade so to say
Click to expand...

Have a chat with the easynews guys and ask away. They are very helpful. Also check out their faq at http://faq.easynews.com/
 
bwana v.7 said:
Actually I just did a download via the proxy nntp server and found if I allowed up to 10 concurrent downloads it came down just as fast as the http one. Was defiantly surprised. :eek: :D
Click to expand...

Nice loophole! heheheh! :D
 
Hmm, THANKS for all the informative posts!!

Anyone know any local sites where I can download newsbin?
Otherwise I'll just wait until the end of the month once I am uncapped again.

I refuse to use Outlook Express, I tried using a news service about 4 years back with Outlook. That's why I gave up, it was just terrible really!

Oh and anyone using IS news server willing to add a comment on how you liked it?

PS.(Bwana do you have uncapped or something? ;) )
 
I am using IS news server. I got my ADSL 11 days ago. I have so far used about 17 Gigs. Probably about 99% newsgroup traffic. soooo much better than my 56K dialup.

I have been using Newsgroups for years. For binaries or for information. It is like an undiscovered gem. When I first started shopping around for an ISP, I wanted someone that was with IS due to their retention period. I would ask:
me:What NNTP server do you use.
Answer: Huh?.
Me: What News server do you use.
Answer: errrmmm, pop3.ispname....
Me: No that is email. etc.

I could not belive how many ISP sales and even some tech staff do not know what news groups are.

I strongly recommend the link in the other thread. http://slyck.com/ng.php

I use agent ( which I paid for...). The free version "Free Agent" is also very good for participating in the newsgroups. Even for binaries.

But if you really want to leach lots, take a look at something like "Grabit"

Which ever method/software you use for downloading, it is DEFINATELY worth looking in to PAR2 files. read the slyck.com link above.

enjoy the newsgroups.
 
Ok, so where now can we get the software, and what is the is newservers address.
 
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