ReStart or Continue? Agent & Interupted Downloads
Mycroft
2 reasons I don't use Agent
One is NZB suport the other is when an interupted download restarts it
will not
pickup where it was interupted but rather start from the beginning
As I like to download rather large files this is important
Has the "New" Agent got the ability to resume a large file download?
Pre-Empting an obvious answer...
No I do not wish to expand and combine every large post, I use
NewsBin and I would like to use Agent the same way
I used to use Agent when it was in v.193 and Usenet files just got too
big. The rest of the program was great, just the resume problem.
I got registered with Newsbin for a B/Day prezzie from someone that
was using it and knew my problem. A one click download
It would be nice to return to Agent
Mycroft
Alan Baxter
>G'day All
>2 reasons I don't use Agent
>One is NZB suport the other is when an interupted download restarts it
>will not
>pickup where it was interupted but rather start from the beginning
I'm not a big binary downloader, so I'm afraid I can't answer your
question, but I am intrigued. If Newsbin already has the behavior you
want, then...
>It would be nice to return to Agent
why would it be nice to return to Agent? Really, I am not trolling, I'm
genuinely curious what Agent would do for you that Newsbin doesn't do
already. TIA for satisfying my curiosity only if you care to -- no big
deal.
--
usenet at baxtersys dot com
I've never received a spam sent to this address.
Even very simple obfuscation is effective!
Paul Hantom
2 Oct 2005 23:22:22 -0700, Mycroft wrote:
> G'day All
> 2 reasons I don't use Agent
> One is NZB suport the other is when an interupted download restarts it
> will not pickup where it was interupted but rather start from the beginning
And of course it wouldn't pickup at all without 3rd party software.
> As I like to download rather large files this is important
>
> Has the "New" Agent got the ability to resume a large file download?
Yes. It automatically retries at user selectable intervals.
> Pre-Empting an obvious answer...
> No I do not wish to expand and combine every large post, I use
> NewsBin and I would like to use Agent the same way
Not necessary. The exceptions are if you Stop a task or your computer crashes,
it will not have saved the sections in the multipart is was working on. Pausing
is as good as Stopping if you want to stop comms activity. It is just you
cannot shutdown Agent without loosing some downloaded sections.
NaVIP
newsgroups
I use Newsbin for D/Ling NZBs found here....http://www.binsearch.info
and here....http://www.nzbsrus.com/browse.php
But is is klunky for reading posts and does not do Email at all
I do have a small NNTP php script on my Linux box but then it
is not so good at binaries and does not do NZB and Email
Round & round..........
I remember Agent having a good Email setup and D\Ling was fine
in the days when a big D\L was something with a password of
"I AM AN ADULT"
Along comes the Humongious Crowd with DVDs & entire collections
wrapped up inna rar and now you've got a problem of dropping SOMETHING,
connection, marbles or whatever.
I remember loosing a 50meg D\L, bitched about it and got signed up
to a program that picks up where it left off.....
>why would it be nice to return to Agent?
Safe downloads and Email but still no NZB
A nice interface too
Ciao
NaVIP
>will not pickup where it was interupted but rather start from the beginning
I might have said: Newsbin collects the parts and combines them where
as
Agent accumulates a temp file that is discarded if Agent is stopped by
choice or computer failure
But then you answer the question by saying...
>The exceptions are if you Stop a task or your computer crashes,
>it will not have saved the sections in the multipart is was working on
I see. Agent will not read the temp file and continue.
An interupted download is a lost download.
The only way to continue a partial download is to have expanded the
post
into it's individual parts before downloading it, download it, then
hope the parts are in order and re-assemble
Question Answered.....
Thank you
Paul Hantom
3 Oct 2005 05:34:13 -0700, NaVIP wrote:
> Thanks for your reply but you misunderstood my question
>
> >will not pickup where it was interupted but rather start from the beginning
> I might have said: Newsbin collects the parts and combines them where
> as Agent accumulates a temp file that is discarded if Agent is stopped by
> choice or computer failure
>
> But then you answer the question by saying...
> >The exceptions are if you Stop a task or your computer crashes,
> >it will not have saved the sections in the multipart is was working on
>
> I see. Agent will not read the temp file and continue.
I believe that to be true, but the cases where this is a problem should be rare.
> An interupted download is a lost download.
Not true. It depends on the type of interruption. If you hang up the phone it
isn't a problem. If your newsserver dumps you, it isn't a problem. It is only
when you abort the Task yourself that there is a slight problem. But if you
actually want the multipart, why would you cancel the task?
In fact, for normal use Agent probably has an advantage here over Newsbin The
assumption is you want the DVD, so you won't shut down your newsreader and your
computer doesn't usually crash. Does Newsbin have an intelligent pause? Agent
does. Meaning when you pause a multipart download Agent finishes all the
connections in flight before stopping a download. You could then pick up this
download a day later, as long as you haven't shut down Agent without loosing a
single downloaded byte. With Newsbin, I think you would find that the
connections would time out and you would then loose the portions of the sections
that were in-flight.
> The only way to continue a partial download is to have expanded the
> post into it's individual parts before downloading it, download it, then
> hope the parts are in order and re-assemble
That only applies when you have cancelled the download task, as opposed to
pausing it, or you computer had crashed.
RC777
No Really, trusting a 700meg download to complete just doesn't cutt it
Not to say any program is perfect, I just use Newsbin 'cause it handles
NZBs and picks up a download at the last complete post, the interface
sucks and reading a post could be done I suppose.
Perfect would be Agent interface, NZB support and download individual
parts
THEN combine. That pretty much covers my needs
Oh, and keep the email of course......
Thanks & ByeBye
Paul Hantom
4 Oct 2005 03:06:02 -0700, RC777 wrote:
> >I believe that to be true, but the cases where this is a problem should be rare
> Murphy LOVES "Rare"
Well, do we know what happens to a download in Newsbin when your computer
crashes? Is nothing kept in cache such that no sections of a multipart are
lost?
> No Really, trusting a 700meg download to complete just doesn't cutt it
I have trusted Agent to well over a hundred 3-4.5 Gig and a few 9 Gig downloads
without any problems.
> Not to say any program is perfect, I just use Newsbin 'cause it handles
> NZBs and picks up a download at the last complete post, the interface
> sucks and reading a post could be done I suppose.
Why the last complete post? If your computer doesn't crash and you leave the
program running, Agent will pick up a download at the last section of a
multipart in progress. If you manually pause a task, it will remained paused as
long as you wish and you won't loose a single downloaded byte. I don't think
Newsbin 4.x can make that claim.
No Body
<Tango...@CheckpointZero.invalid> wrote:
>Not true. It depends on the type of interruption. If you hang up the phone it
It depends on the type of interruption??? They had a year to work on Agent
3 and there are still some conditions where Agent will dump previously
downloaded data. I consider that inexcusable.
>isn't a problem. If your newsserver dumps you, it isn't a problem. It is only
>when you abort the Task yourself that there is a slight problem. But if you
>actually want the multipart, why would you cancel the task?
Maybe you want to install a new piece of software which requires you to
reboot your system to complete the install. Maybe you want to close all
programs so that you can successfully defrag your HD overnight. Maybe
someone else wants to use the system for a while and you need to log off so
that they can log on (I don't use a multi-user system, but I'm assuming
that you can't have two simultaneous logons on the same Windows system).
>In fact, for normal use Agent probably has an advantage here over Newsbin The
>assumption is you want the DVD, so you won't shut down your newsreader and your
>computer doesn't usually crash. Does Newsbin have an intelligent pause? Agent
>does. Meaning when you pause a multipart download Agent finishes all the
>connections in flight before stopping a download. You could then pick up this
>download a day later, as long as you haven't shut down Agent without loosing a
>single downloaded byte. With Newsbin, I think you would find that the
What does Agent do, keep all the downloaded sections in memory until it
has them all rather than write them to disk? If it DOES write them to disk,
why aren't they preserved in case of the task being stopped or the system
crashing?
>That only applies when you have cancelled the download task, as opposed to
>pausing it, or you computer had crashed.
If you split the multipart, Agent will download each part and write it to
disk. If your system crashes, the most you will lose is the part(s) being
downloaded at the moment. The status of the messages isn't always written
(after a crash, some downloaded messages will still show as marked. When
you unmark them, the body icons appear), but the data is all there. This
fact alone should tell you that there is something seriously wrong with
Agent *NOT* saving any of the downloaded data in the event that a task is
stopped or the system crashes.
I mean, how hard is it to write the lists of tasks to a file so that they
will be preserved in the event of a crash or closing the program? And the
fact that it doesn't write each section to disk as it downloads them (or
that it does it in such a way that they can't be used after a
shutdown/crash) is just plain bad design. Look at Binary News Reaper 2;
Each section is written to disk so there's no lost data (except for the
sections "in flight") and even if you close the program, the task list is
still there.
After years of complaints about Agent not resuming joined downloads and a
year to write Agent 3, this was the best they could some up??? I've said it
before and I'll say it again; The authors of Agent don't have a clue about
using Agent under real world situations.
jo
wrote:
> I mean, how hard is it to write the lists of tasks to a file so that they
>will be preserved in the event of a crash or closing the program? And the
>fact that it doesn't write each section to disk as it downloads them (or
>that it does it in such a way that they can't be used after a
>shutdown/crash) is just plain bad design. Look at Binary News Reaper 2;
>Each section is written to disk so there's no lost data (except for the
>sections "in flight") and even if you close the program, the task list is
>still there.
>
> After years of complaints about Agent not resuming joined downloads and a
>year to write Agent 3, this was the best they could some up??? I've said it
>before and I'll say it again; The authors of Agent don't have a clue about
>using Agent under real world situations.
This is a good point.
I regularly want to close my bin download program in the middle of a
task. And I want it to be fairly sensible in the event of a crash.
A3 can cope with neither.
PowerGrab survives crashes well. As long as I do a scandisk on
reboot... :-)
A snag with 'The authors of Agent', is that they clearly do not have a
clue about big binaries, and cba to listen to those who have that
clue.
RC777
>downloads and a year to write Agent 3, this was the best they
>could some up???
Ahhh, I see
I just waltz in here and ask a quick question in a moment of interest
that just happens to be an ongoing debate
Sorry 'bout that
But you are correct, "Agent not resuming joined downloads" as
you put it, is a major oversight considering time frames
With P2P under attack th'Newsgroups are "the next big thing".....
......Again......
so Agent should be in a position to dominate the NG reader/download
market but has concentrated on the "reader" side of the program
The future market will go to programs that reliably download huge
files sourced from NZBs AND present a useable interface for
flamewars
(and do email.....)
Although it will remain the premier News READER for chitchat NGs
I'm sure
RC777
Where I live.........
Paul Hantom
2005 18:34:50 -0400, No Body wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 19:11:35 -0700, Paul Hantom
> <Tango...@CheckpointZero.invalid> wrote:
>
> >Not true. It depends on the type of interruption. If you hang up the phone it
>
> It depends on the type of interruption??? They had a year to work on Agent
> 3 and there are still some conditions where Agent will dump previously
> downloaded data. I consider that inexcusable.
I think you have made an incorrect assumption. You are assuming they addressed
the multipart issue. They didn't. What they addressed, in regard to this topic
was not killing a task when a connection drops and auto retry. The bonus was
the intelligent pause. It just happens that the combination of these
improvements covers most of the problems people had with interruption problems.
So there is hope that the multipart issue will be addressed. Then it should do
what you want as well as allowing a multipart to complete even if you have
downloaded available sections before it completed.
> >isn't a problem. If your newsserver dumps you, it isn't a problem. It is only
> >when you abort the Task yourself that there is a slight problem. But if you
> >actually want the multipart, why would you cancel the task?
>
> Maybe you want to install a new piece of software which requires you to
> reboot your system to complete the install. Maybe you want to close all
> programs so that you can successfully defrag your HD overnight. Maybe
> someone else wants to use the system for a while and you need to log off so
> that they can log on (I don't use a multi-user system, but I'm assuming
> that you can't have two simultaneous logons on the same Windows system).
Maybe you have hitched your wagon to the wrong horse? What reasons do you have
to believe that Forté want Agent to be the best binary downloader? You think
that Agent should cater to dial-up users too impatient to wait for a multipart
to finish before rebooting their computer or broadband users worried about
occasionally loosing a few downloaded megabytes. I too wish they would but it
is quite likely they don't believe this is much of a priority. I think they
believe that the typical Agent users don't care much about that and those that
do are capable of mitigating the problem.
> >In fact, for normal use Agent probably has an advantage here over Newsbin The
> >assumption is you want the DVD, so you won't shut down your newsreader and your
> >computer doesn't usually crash. Does Newsbin have an intelligent pause? Agent
> >does. Meaning when you pause a multipart download Agent finishes all the
> >connections in flight before stopping a download. You could then pick up this
> >download a day later, as long as you haven't shut down Agent without loosing a
> >single downloaded byte. With Newsbin, I think you would find that the
>
> What does Agent do, keep all the downloaded sections in memory until it
> has them all rather than write them to disk? If it DOES write them to disk,
> why aren't they preserved in case of the task being stopped or the system
> crashing?
While Agent does use the term stop, it is more accurately described as Cancel.
You can stop a task without loosing anything, but in Agent that is called Pause.
> >That only applies when you have cancelled the download task, as opposed to
> >pausing it, or you computer had crashed.
>
> If you split the multipart, Agent will download each part and write it to
> disk. If your system crashes, the most you will lose is the part(s) being
> downloaded at the moment. The status of the messages isn't always written
> (after a crash, some downloaded messages will still show as marked. When
> you unmark them, the body icons appear), but the data is all there. This
> fact alone should tell you that there is something seriously wrong with
> Agent *NOT* saving any of the downloaded data in the event that a task is
> stopped or the system crashes.
No, what you describe is really not relevant to much of anything. It is simply
an indication that the IDX is cached. If there was something wrong with Agent
not saving, then the body wouldn't be there when you unmarked it.
> I mean, how hard is it to write the lists of tasks to a file so that they
> will be preserved in the event of a crash or closing the program? And the
> fact that it doesn't write each section to disk as it downloads them (or
> that it does it in such a way that they can't be used after a
> shutdown/crash) is just plain bad design.
Obviously. It is been that way ever since Agent first joined messages, and at
the time was the only reader that did so.
> Look at Binary News Reaper 2;
> Each section is written to disk so there's no lost data (except for the
> sections "in flight") and even if you close the program, the task list is
> still there.
>
> After years of complaints about Agent not resuming joined downloads and a
> year to write Agent 3, this was the best they could some up??? I've said it
> before and I'll say it again; The authors of Agent don't have a clue about
> using Agent under real world situations.
Which begs the question, how did they make a program good enough to be used by
so many? Why isn't everyone using BNR2 or another competitor instead?
Paul Hantom
Are you implying that people in Africa need to reboot their computer more often?
Bad servers or bad phone lines won't cause Agent any trouble. That just leaves
bad power, and if that is the case and you are using a PC shouldn't you have
some sort of UPS?
No Body
<Tango...@CheckpointZero.invalid> wrote:
>I think you have made an incorrect assumption. You are assuming they addressed
>the multipart issue. They didn't. What they addressed, in regard to this topic
Another indication of how far out of touch Agent's authors are.
>was not killing a task when a connection drops and auto retry. The bonus was
>the intelligent pause. It just happens that the combination of these
This "bonus" should have been a standard feature from the first day that
Agent supported joining multipart binaries.
Answer me honestly; If you had written Agent (or a comparable newsreader)
would you have designed it to operate the way Agent does in regard to
joined multiparts, or would you have written something closer to the way
BNR2 does it?
>So there is hope that the multipart issue will be addressed. Then it should do
It should have been addressed the first time someone discovered that an
error in a joined multipart would cause Agent to dump previously downloaded
data.
>Maybe you have hitched your wagon to the wrong horse? What reasons do you have
>to believe that Forté want Agent to be the best binary downloader? You think
Best? How about just intelligently designed?
>that Agent should cater to dial-up users too impatient to wait for a multipart
>to finish before rebooting their computer or broadband users worried about
You asked what reasons a person might have for waiting to stop a task, so
I listed some possible reasons. There's also the possibility of system
crashes, power failures, etc.
>occasionally loosing a few downloaded megabytes. I too wish they would but it
>is quite likely they don't believe this is much of a priority. I think they
>believe that the typical Agent users don't care much about that and those that
>do are capable of mitigating the problem.
If the car makers thought like the authors of Agent, cars today wouldn't
have seatbelts or airbags, because you can mitigate the problem of
accidents by just driving more carefully.
>No, what you describe is really not relevant to much of anything. It is simply
>an indication that the IDX is cached. If there was something wrong with Agent
>not saving, then the body wouldn't be there when you unmarked it.
You missed the point. You have a multipart in 100 parts.
Situation 1: You split the file, mark all 100 parts and start them
downloading. While downloading the 100th part, your system crashes. When
you reload Agent, 99 parts have been written to disk and you lost was
whatever had been downloaded of the 100th part.
Situation 2: You mark the joined multipart and start it downloading. Your
system crashes at 99%. When you reload Agent 0% of the data has been saved
to disk, or it has been saved in such a way that Agent can't recover it.
What's wrong with this picture?
>Obviously. It is been that way ever since Agent first joined messages, and at
>the time was the only reader that did so.
The authors took the idea of making multiparts appear as a single post way
too literally. Besides the convenience of having them appear as a single
post, they imposed all the same limitations (SOME of which have now been
fixed, but not all). This shows the lack of foresight on the part of the
authors. The intelligent way to do it would have been to make the joining
and display of multiparts be purely a display issue, while treating them
internally as a series of parts (like it does when you split them). That
this simple fact has eluded the authors even after all this time makes me
seriously doubt their common sense.
>Which begs the question, how did they make a program good enough to be used by
>so many? Why isn't everyone using BNR2 or another competitor instead?
Because Agent is the best all-around newsreader. BNR2 is good (mostly) for
binaries, but is no good for text posts. That doesn't mean that it doesn't
have some serious shortcomings that the authors refuse to acknowledge.
Paul Hantom
2005 21:03:46 -0400, No Body wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 01:40:48 -0700, Paul Hantom
> <Tango...@CheckpointZero.invalid> wrote:
>
> >I think you have made an incorrect assumption. You are assuming they addressed
> >the multipart issue. They didn't. What they addressed, in regard to this topic
>
> Another indication of how far out of touch Agent's authors are.
>
> >was not killing a task when a connection drops and auto retry. The bonus was
> >the intelligent pause. It just happens that the combination of these
>
> This "bonus" should have been a standard feature from the first day that
> Agent supported joining multipart binaries.
As if everyone who designs something gets it perfect the first time out?
> Answer me honestly; If you had written Agent (or a comparable newsreader)
> would you have designed it to operate the way Agent does in regard to
> joined multiparts, or would you have written something closer to the way
> BNR2 does it?
What I would do is irrelevant. I haven't been trying to justify the behaviour
of the product, just explaining the reality of the situation based on the
history of the product. Forté isn't striving to make a great binary
downloader. In fact, prior to their survey I don't think they even realized how
many people used if for that; and I think they have forgotten about that survey.
I think their interest in addressing binary issues is an on-again-off-again
affair.
> >So there is hope that the multipart issue will be addressed. Then it should do
>
> It should have been addressed the first time someone discovered that an
> error in a joined multipart would cause Agent to dump previously downloaded
> data.
As should have all the bugs, all feature shortcomings, and all missing features.
In fact, I am surprised that Forté didn't invent NZBs in 1995!
> >Maybe you have hitched your wagon to the wrong horse? What reasons do you have
> >to believe that Forté want Agent to be the best binary downloader? You think
>
> Best? How about just intelligently designed?
Well, if the binary aspects were intelligently designed wouldn't it likely be
one of the best?
> >that Agent should cater to dial-up users too impatient to wait for a multipart
> >to finish before rebooting their computer or broadband users worried about
>
> You asked what reasons a person might have for waiting to stop a task, so
> I listed some possible reasons.
Not really. I wrote, "But if you actually want the multipart, why would you
cancel the task?" I know why people want to stop tasks, but I think if people
don't want to loose data, they won't cancel a task until just after a multipart
completes. Whether they loose data in this case is in their control. And while
I don't agree with the philosophy, I believe most broadband users don't care
much about this. And I don't think Forté think a lot about dial-up users; which
I believe is a mistake.
>There's also the possibility of system crashes, power failures, etc.
Have you verified that BNR2, Newsbin, Newsleecher,etc., don't loose any data in
a power crash? This is more of a peformance/safety trade off. I think with
Newsbin, a power failure means you loose all headers in the group you are
working with, unless you have remembered to save them. Let a 20 million header
download run overnight in Newsbin and if power fails you will end up with
nothing. And it is a specialized binary download! What's up with that!?
> >occasionally loosing a few downloaded megabytes. I too wish they would but it
> >is quite likely they don't believe this is much of a priority. I think they
> >believe that the typical Agent users don't care much about that and those that
> >do are capable of mitigating the problem.
>
> If the car makers thought like the authors of Agent, cars today wouldn't
> have seatbelts or airbags, because you can mitigate the problem of
> accidents by just driving more carefully.
That's a rather silly example. It points to you putting an extremely high value
on a few lost bytes. Not to mention driving carefully won't reduce your chances
of getting hit by a drunk or a driver who has fallen asleep.
> >No, what you describe is really not relevant to much of anything. It is simply
> >an indication that the IDX is cached. If there was something wrong with Agent
> >not saving, then the body wouldn't be there when you unmarked it.
>
> You missed the point. You have a multipart in 100 parts.
No, you missed the point that, "The status of the messages isn't always written
(after a crash, some downloaded messages will still show as marked," doesn't
point out a serious problem as you claim. But this issue isn't important.
Everyone knows the issue is simply as you describe in Situation 2 below.
> Situation 1: You split the file, mark all 100 parts and start them
> downloading. While downloading the 100th part, your system crashes. When
> you reload Agent, 99 parts have been written to disk and you lost was
> whatever had been downloaded of the 100th part.
>
> Situation 2: You mark the joined multipart and start it downloading. Your
> system crashes at 99%. When you reload Agent 0% of the data has been saved
> to disk, or it has been saved in such a way that Agent can't recover it.
>
> What's wrong with this picture?
Well, there was a lot wrong with it when the data was lost because the server
dropped you, or you needed to use the phone. Now that that has been fixed I
think the vast amount of pain has been removed. Much more than 90% of the
problem has been solved. And I agree that sections of a multipart should be
saved such that one can cancel a task, or shutdown Agent without worrying about
loosing data. However, I don't agree that Forté should focus religiously on
guarding data from being lost in the advent of a power failure. And even if I
did agree, I think it is an almost impossible sell. What really needs to be
addressed is the problem of Agent running until it exhausts disk space. This
can result in and mismatch between a DAT and IDX when only one can be written to
the disk and that can loose data that you downloaded years ago and wanted to
keep.
> >Obviously. It is been that way ever since Agent first joined messages, and at
> >the time was the only reader that did so.
>
> The authors took the idea of making multiparts appear as a single post way
> too literally. Besides the convenience of having them appear as a single
> post, they imposed all the same limitations (SOME of which have now been
> fixed, but not all). This shows the lack of foresight on the part of the
> authors. The intelligent way to do it would have been to make the joining
> and display of multiparts be purely a display issue, while treating them
> internally as a series of parts (like it does when you split them). That
> this simple fact has eluded the authors even after all this time makes me
> seriously doubt their common sense.
1) You are preaching to the choir.
2) If you doubt their common sense, their intelligence and their foresight why
are you holding out hope for any change?
> >Which begs the question, how did they make a program good enough to be used by
> >so many? Why isn't everyone using BNR2 or another competitor instead?
>
> Because Agent is the best all-around newsreader. BNR2 is good (mostly) for
> binaries, but is no good for text posts.
That doesn't answer the question, "Which begs the question, how did they make a
program good enough to be used by so many?" How did it become the "best
all-around newsreader?" Guess that was just random luck? The "all-around" part
points to competing interests.
> That doesn't mean that it doesn't have some serious shortcomings that the authors
> refuse to acknowledge.
I don't know that they refuse to acknowledge the issue. It is more likely they
just assign it a very low priority. Such that other issues get addressed ahead
of it, such as sorting, background colour, etc. Things that help to make Agent
an "all-around" newsreader rather than one that specializes in guarding
in-flight files in-flight against loss in the advent of power loss.
Randall Bart
alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent stood in awe as "RC777"
<request...@hotmail.com> uttered:
>>In fact, for normal use
>Define normal in Africa
>Where I live.........
Normal is changing. Most of Africa has upgraded to Talking Drums 2.0.
--
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Argent
> Have you verified that BNR2, Newsbin, Newsleecher,etc., don't lose any
BNR does direct downloads, no one-big-temp-file intermediary.
So it saves each segment as it comes in, producing
oldfilm.part23.rar.01-09
oldfilm.part23.rar.11-22
and so on, with whatever segments it has downloaded at the time,
combining them as it goes along. When you restart after a program
crash, it scans the download directory, sees it has certain segments,
and doesn't download them again. It loses whatever segments were
actually in transit and not yet written to disc, but once they're on
disc they're reasonably safe.
No Body
<Tango...@CheckpointZero.invalid> wrote:
>As if everyone who designs something gets it perfect the first time out?
No. Some do, others usually fix the problem when it becomes apparent that
their design is flawed.
>What I would do is irrelevant. I haven't been trying to justify the behaviour
I'm making a point that common sense would tell you NOT to design a
program to deal with multiparts like the authors of Agent did.
>of the product, just explaining the reality of the situation based on the
>history of the product. Forté isn't striving to make a great binary
>downloader. In fact, prior to their survey I don't think they even realized how
>many people used if for that; and I think they have forgotten about that survey.
>I think their interest in addressing binary issues is an on-again-off-again
>affair.
Yet, they acknowledged binary downloaders enough to add the option to join
multipart posts.
>As should have all the bugs, all feature shortcomings, and all missing features.
>In fact, I am surprised that Forté didn't invent NZBs in 1995!
Bugs and shortcomings that cause data loss should absolutely be fixed as
soon as they're discovered.
>Well, if the binary aspects were intelligently designed wouldn't it likely be
>one of the best?
Not necessarily. Other programs can still have more features, like support
of NZBs, a database of previously downloaded files to avoid downloading
dupes, etc.
>Have you verified that BNR2, Newsbin, Newsleecher,etc., don't loose any data in
BNR2 is the only one I've used. The others I only looked at briefly. When
you download a multipart with BNR2, it writes each part to disk as it
downloads them, in the format
filename.ext.1
filename.ext.3-5
filename.ext.7
Etc. When it has any consecutive series of parts, it joins them together.
When it's downloaded all the parts, the complete file is written. Each part
is written in its decoded form, so if the file is incomplete, the parts can
be imported into Quickpar for repair. In the event of a crash, only the
sections "in flight" will be lost.
>a power crash? This is more of a peformance/safety trade off. I think with
>Newsbin, a power failure means you loose all headers in the group you are
>working with, unless you have remembered to save them. Let a 20 million header
>download run overnight in Newsbin and if power fails you will end up with
>nothing. And it is a specialized binary download! What's up with that!?
I don't know. I never bothered to test it much after learned that it
couldn't resume multipart downloads.
>No, you missed the point that, "The status of the messages isn't always written
>(after a crash, some downloaded messages will still show as marked," doesn't
>point out a serious problem as you claim. But this issue isn't important.
>Everyone knows the issue is simply as you describe in Situation 2 below.
The part about the status not being written in the event of a crash was
merely a side note, not the main point.
>problem has been solved. And I agree that sections of a multipart should be
>saved such that one can cancel a task, or shutdown Agent without worrying about
>loosing data. However, I don't agree that Forté should focus religiously on
>guarding data from being lost in the advent of a power failure. And even if I
>did agree, I think it is an almost impossible sell. What really needs to be
It's an almost impossible sell to have a program fixed to guard against
data loss?
>addressed is the problem of Agent running until it exhausts disk space. This
>can result in and mismatch between a DAT and IDX when only one can be written to
>the disk and that can loose data that you downloaded years ago and wanted to
>keep.
Agreed. It should be a simple matter to have Agent check the free space on
the drive and stop downloading when it reaches a certain point. Any program
that writes large amounts of data to disk should do this.
>2) If you doubt their common sense, their intelligence and their foresight why
>are you holding out hope for any change?
Because I keep hoping that if enough people complain it might eventually
get through to them.
>That doesn't answer the question, "Which begs the question, how did they make a
>program good enough to be used by so many?" How did it become the "best
>all-around newsreader?" Guess that was just random luck? The "all-around" part
>points to competing interests.
Because all other programs have even more shortcomings. Programs like BNR2
are good for binaries, but not good for text groups. Other newsreaders that
do both have various areas where they fall short. For example, XNews seemed
very confusing to me, and I hated the way it just dumps the entire contents
of a newsgroup when you close the window. Agent wins by default.
>I don't know that they refuse to acknowledge the issue. It is more likely they
>just assign it a very low priority. Such that other issues get addressed ahead
>of it, such as sorting, background colour, etc. Things that help to make Agent
>an "all-around" newsreader rather than one that specializes in guarding
>in-flight files in-flight against loss in the advent of power loss.
Of course the things you listed are more or less luxury features. Imagine
if a particular type of car stalled everytime it went above 50MPH and
instead of fixing this problem, the company spent their time adding extra
guages to the dashboard and more brightness settings to the headlights.
Paul Hantom
2005 21:25:42 -0400, No Body wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 01:30:58 -0700, Paul Hantom
> <Tango...@CheckpointZero.invalid> wrote:
>
> >As if everyone who designs something gets it perfect the first time out?
>
> No. Some do, others usually fix the problem when it becomes apparent that
> their design is flawed.
>
> >What I would do is irrelevant. I haven't been trying to justify the behaviour
>
> I'm making a point that common sense would tell you NOT to design a
> program to deal with multiparts like the authors of Agent did.
>
> >of the product, just explaining the reality of the situation based on the
> >history of the product. Forté isn't striving to make a great binary
> >downloader. In fact, prior to their survey I don't think they even realized how
> >many people used if for that; and I think they have forgotten about that survey.
> >I think their interest in addressing binary issues is an on-again-off-again
> >affair.
>
> Yet, they acknowledged binary downloaders enough to add the option to join
> multipart posts.
Which is hardly evidence that they are "striving to make a great binary
downloader." That feature was added almost ten years ago by a much different
team. Actually, I believe they invented the joined multipart, and thus may
have been the first virtualizing newsreader. A multipart is a virtualization
since multiparts do not exist on the server. At the time--mid 90's--newsreaders
like Netscape would toss all the messages in the group you were reading when you
switched groups. A very painful thing in binary groups, when broadband was very
rare and was only ISDN.
As I said, "I think their interest in addressing binary issues is an
on-again-off-again affair."
> >As should have all the bugs, all feature shortcomings, and all missing features.
> >In fact, I am surprised that Forté didn't invent NZBs in 1995!
>
> Bugs and shortcomings that cause data loss should absolutely be fixed as
> soon as they're discovered.
>
> >Well, if the binary aspects were intelligently designed wouldn't it likely be
> >one of the best?
>
> Not necessarily. Other programs can still have more features, like support
> of NZBs, a database of previously downloaded files to avoid downloading
> dupes, etc.
Still, it would be hard to have an intelligent design and not be among the best.
Since certain omissions from a design would mean it wasn't an intelligent
design.
[...]
> >problem has been solved. And I agree that sections of a multipart should be
> >saved such that one can cancel a task, or shutdown Agent without worrying about
> >loosing data. However, I don't agree that Forté should focus religiously on
> >guarding data from being lost in the advent of a power failure. And even if I
> >did agree, I think it is an almost impossible sell. What really needs to be
>
> It's an almost impossible sell to have a program fixed to guard against
> data loss?
When you just use the words "data loss" most everyone would agree with you. This
is because those words include data that you have had for some time, and which
may not be re-retrievable. Loss of data you are in the process of acquiring is
a different thing. And no consumer program "religiously" guards against data
loss in the advent of a power failure. There is almost always a window in which
a loss of newly acquired, or newly created, data will occur. It is just a
matter of how big that window is.
To you of course, to many others probably not. I am sure there were others that
were constantly annoyed by the white background who couldn't care less if they
occasionally lost part of a mutlipart being downloaded to a power failure or
system crash. If you have a 1.5 Mbps broadband and only want to download one
DVD a day it simply doesn't matter. One person's luxury feature is another's
must have feature.
> Imagine if a particular type of car stalled everytime it went above 50MPH and
> instead of fixing this problem, the company spent their time adding extra
> guages to the dashboard and more brightness settings to the headlights.
It is have been done. There are many examples of bad, yet successful, car
designs. Ever try to back up a Lamborghini Countach or even just take it for a
country drive? The car was meant to be beautiful not practical to drive; to be
looked at, not actually driven. There have been lots of hot cars that were only
safe to drive in a straight line. Cars that have killed people because if the
driver made the slightest of mistakes it was just itching to swap ends. As for
stalling above 50MPH, there are plenty of practical uses for a vehicle that
can't go above 50MPH.
Randall Bart
alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent stood in awe as Paul Hantom
<Tango...@CheckpointZero.invalid> uttered:
> At the time--mid 90's--newsreaders
>like Netscape would toss all the messages in the group you were reading when you
>switched groups.
What bugged me was that Netscape cached web pages and displayed newsgroups
as though they were web pages, but didn't cache newsgroup messages. If
you wanted to save a message, you could move it to a mail folder, but then
you were blocked from replying to it. Even so, what drove me away from
Netscape as a newsreader was just fundamental slowness. Large files were
slow beyond reason. Netscape 3.0 had some code which was optimized for
Unix, which ran correctly under Windows but was painfully slow, and they
never even understood the problem.
Randall Bart
alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent stood in awe as Paul Hantom
<Tango...@CheckpointZero.invalid> uttered:
>When you just use the words "data loss" most everyone would agree with you. This
>is because those words include data that you have had for some time, and which
>may not be re-retrievable. Loss of data you are in the process of acquiring is
>a different thing. And no consumer program "religiously" guards against data
>loss in the advent of a power failure. There is almost always a window in which
>a loss of newly acquired, or newly created, data will occur. It is just a
>matter of how big that window is.
I don't think Eudora has ever lost any of my data, and I have had Windows
lock up a hundred times while Eudora was fetching and filtering mail. I
don't doubt that some timing hole could lead to data loss, but I've never
found it. OTOH, Agent had (has?) a long standing bug where any error
while opening a file (eg, it's locked for a microsecond by the indexing
service) led to destruction of the file.
Does Agent 3.1 still turn off indexing for its directory? If so, I assume
Mark still hasn't fixed the bug.
No Body
<Tango...@CheckpointZero.invalid> wrote:
>Still, it would be hard to have an intelligent design and not be among the best.
>Since certain omissions from a design would mean it wasn't an intelligent
>design.
Not necessarily. A design that works as intended, with no unexpected
problems or shortcomings, and which is logical to the majority of people
is intelligently designed, even if it doesn't have the most features.
Imagine buying a microwave that doesn't include a turntable or presets for
different types of food. You enter the time, the power level (optional) and
press Start. It's just a plain, basic microwave that works as you'd expect.
Now imagine that same microwave, but in order to keep it running, you have
to stand there with your finger on the COOK button, or it will stop.
Even though the first is more intelligently designed than the second, it's
still not the best you can buy. Then again, just because it's not the best
you can buy, doesn't mean there's actually anything wrong its design.
>When you just use the words "data loss" most everyone would agree with you. This
>is because those words include data that you have had for some time, and which
>may not be re-retrievable. Loss of data you are in the process of acquiring is
>a different thing. And no consumer program "religiously" guards against data
>loss in the advent of a power failure. There is almost always a window in which
>a loss of newly acquired, or newly created, data will occur. It is just a
>matter of how big that window is.
True, however once Agent has downloaded a segment of a multipart post,
there is no logical reason that data should be lost. It should be written
to the database in a manner in which it will still be accessable even if
the user stops the download, or there's a system crash. There's no reason
for it not to other than bad design.
>To you of course, to many others probably not. I am sure there were others that
>were constantly annoyed by the white background who couldn't care less if they
I've never understood the problem with that. Ok, the Windows default of
pure white as a background color was annoying and hard on the eyes, but
that wasn't just in Agent. Virtually every other program that doesn't use a
custom background will default to whatever color Windows is currently
using. The part I can't understand is why people apparently want to leave
the default background color set to white and then change it individually
in every program. I mean, there's no option to change the background color
in Notepad, Wordpad, the numeric display in the calculator, Explorer (when
used to browse local directories) and lots of other programs.
The white background in every window annoyed me too, which is why one of
the first things I did was switch to the Marine (high-color) scheme, which
is more pastel. Now all my windows have an off-white background that's easy
on the eyes. Problem solved.
>stalling above 50MPH, there are plenty of practical uses for a vehicle that
>can't go above 50MPH.
How many people do you actually know, yourself included, who wouldn't run
into problems if they bought such a car?
Steve Urbach
> The white background in every window annoyed me too, which is why one of
>the first things I did was switch to the Marine (high-color) scheme, which
>is more pastel. Now all my windows have an off-white background that's easy
>on the eyes. Problem solved.
You can also use the "advanced button" on the "Display
Properties:Appearence tab" and set almost any screen/window color
independently. You can save these changes as you unique scheme.
No Body
<drago...@NOTmindspring.com> wrote:
>You can also use the "advanced button" on the "Display
>Properties:Appearence tab" and set almost any screen/window color
>independently. You can save these changes as you unique scheme.
Under Windows 98, you can do that directly from the Appearance tab.
Paul Hantom
2005 01:12:25 -0400, No Body wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Oct 2005 13:42:27 -0700, Paul Hantom
> <Tango...@CheckpointZero.invalid> wrote:
>
> >Still, it would be hard to have an intelligent design and not be among the best.
> >Since certain omissions from a design would mean it wasn't an intelligent
> >design.
>
> Not necessarily. A design that works as intended, with no unexpected
> problems or shortcomings, and which is logical to the majority of people
> is intelligently designed, even if it doesn't have the most features.
But having the "most features" does not necessarily place a newsreader amongst
the best. In fact, an intelligent design, which is "logical to the majority of
people," is more likely to be amongst the best than something that merely has a
higher feature count.
> Imagine buying a microwave that doesn't include a turntable or presets for
> different types of food. You enter the time, the power level (optional) and
> press Start. It's just a plain, basic microwave that works as you'd expect.
>
> Now imagine that same microwave, but in order to keep it running, you have
> to stand there with your finger on the COOK button, or it will stop.
>
> Even though the first is more intelligently designed than the second, it's
> still not the best you can buy. Then again, just because it's not the best
> you can buy, doesn't mean there's actually anything wrong its design.
We weren't arguing for one thing being more intelligently designed than another.
We were arguing about how an intelligent design would place. I would argue that
neither of the ovens you described would be considered intelligent designs
today.
> >When you just use the words "data loss" most everyone would agree with you. This
> >is because those words include data that you have had for some time, and which
> >may not be re-retrievable. Loss of data you are in the process of acquiring is
> >a different thing. And no consumer program "religiously" guards against data
> >loss in the advent of a power failure. There is almost always a window in which
> >a loss of newly acquired, or newly created, data will occur. It is just a
> >matter of how big that window is.
>
> True, however once Agent has downloaded a segment of a multipart post,
> there is no logical reason that data should be lost. It should be written
> to the database in a manner in which it will still be accessable even if
> the user stops the download, or there's a system crash. There's no reason
> for it not to other than bad design.
>
> >To you of course, to many others probably not. I am sure there were others that
> >were constantly annoyed by the white background who couldn't care less if they
>
> I've never understood the problem with that. Ok, the Windows default of
> pure white as a background color was annoying and hard on the eyes, but
> that wasn't just in Agent. Virtually every other program that doesn't use a
> custom background will default to whatever color Windows is currently
> using. The part I can't understand is why people apparently want to leave
> the default background color set to white and then change it individually
> in every program. I mean, there's no option to change the background color
> in Notepad, Wordpad, the numeric display in the calculator, Explorer (when
> used to browse local directories) and lots of other programs.
Even more interesting was that in the last ten years no one has offered up an
intelligent explanation of why they want to change the background colour of
Agent in dependant of Windows. The best argument I remember was, "Because I
want to." And usually my question, in reply to such a feature request, asking
why they want to change Agent and not the Windows default went unanswered.
People might have thought I didn't understand the need, but I do. I merely
wanted to see what others would offer for an explanation. The primary reason
people want to change the background colour of Agent is because they spend a lot
of time using it. And the white background can get hard on the eyes. Usually
such people won't spend that much time with other applications. If one change
the background colour in Windows to a gray virtually everything, of course,
becomes gray. After a while this can be depressing. Everything is just too
drab. A little variety is needed. Such variety is provided by using Windows
Explorer for instance. Not many spend a lot of time with that app. So people,
even with sensitive eyes, like a little white, or a little brightness for
variety. They just don't want to spend hours staring at a bright white
background.
That is just one explanation. Not everyone would find all applications with a
gray background drab. Just as some people simply don't care about changing
background colours at all. Some might not want to change Window's defaults.
Others might like certain applications with the default background colour.
> The white background in every window annoyed me too, which is why one of
> the first things I did was switch to the Marine (high-color) scheme, which
> is more pastel. Now all my windows have an off-white background that's easy
> on the eyes. Problem solved.
>
> >stalling above 50MPH, there are plenty of practical uses for a vehicle that
> >can't go above 50MPH.
>
> How many people do you actually know, yourself included, who wouldn't run
> into problems if they bought such a car?
Can't go above 50MPH or that stalls when taken about 50MPH? For the later it is
a simple matter to limit the revs so the car can't get above 50MPH. Well, where
I live it is illegal to drive faster than 30MPH within municipalities so it
would make a perfect around town vehicle. It even meets minimum freeway speeds
so you could take it on a freeway in a pinch, although that wouldn't be too
pleasant, unless of course you live where freeways often move slower than
regular roads. I know lots of people that wouldn't have trouble with such a
car. They are people that don't commute long distances or want to take a car on
long trip vacations. They are people that commute and shop within a city and
want something more flexible than public transit.