Help with nntp server (OT)
michael...@compuserve.com
after three years' absence, I've discovered that neither my old nor my
new ISP provide an nntp server through which I can access this
newsgroup with Outlook Express (or Mail). A search for an alternative
has been unsuccessful. Is Google really my only alternative?
Thanks for any advice.
Regards,
Mike Metcalf
dpb
> Sorry to bother you folks with this, but after returning to Germany
> after three years' absence, I've discovered that neither my old nor my
> new ISP provide an nntp server through which I can access this
> newsgroup with Outlook Express (or Mail). A search for an alternative
> has been unsuccessful. Is Google really my only alternative?
I've been using news.aioe.org as the newsserver here since local isp
also dropped their access. Not greatest, but ok and the price is
right... :)
--
Richard Maine
Hi Mike, and welcome back.
There are several alternatives. I personally consider google groups to
be about the worst of them. In addition to a horrible interface (which
encourages poor posting practices), it has other problems. In some other
newsgroups I subscribe to, I (and others in those groups) auto-kill
postings from google groups because the signal-to-noise ratio is just
too bad. Fortunately, I haven't had to resort to that in
comp.lang.fortran.
The service I'm currently using is news.individual.net. See their web
site for details. It isn't free, but the cost is very modest (10
EU/year) and I think worth it. There are others, even some free ones,
that are probably fine, but that's what I'm using.
--
Richard Maine | Good judgement comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgement.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain
Gary Scott
Googling finds a bunch of free and pay newsgroup servers. Here's a list.
I'd recommend finding an ISP that does support news groups. I had
initial difficulty with SBC/AT&T originally. They just don't advertise
their newsgroup servers very well, but they do provide those services.
--
Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net
Fortran Library: http://www.fortranlib.com
Support the Original G95 Project: http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project: http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html
If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows
it can't be done.
-- Henry Ford
dpb
...
> I'd recommend finding an ISP that does support news groups. ...
I'd recommend That as well if you're in an area that has choice(s); not
so much if in (very) small markets where number of local suppliers is
quite limited... :(
--
james...@att.net
...
> There are several alternatives. I personally consider google groups to
> be about the worst of them. In addition to a horrible interface (which
I haven't posted from google for more than six months, but
I usually use it when travelling since it's easier than
reconfiguring my computer for nntp access from another
ISP. In what way is this message "poor posting practice"?
It seems to work the same way as I remember.
Of course, since it's a web-based service, maybe it works
differently in different browsers. I suppose it might
even be unacceptable from, say, Netscape (which I haven't
tried in years).
--
J. Giles
"I conclude that there are two ways of constructing a software
design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously
no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated
that there are no obvious deficiencies." -- C. A. R. Hoare
"Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability" -- E. W. Dijkstra
Richard Maine
> On Aug 20, 11:05 am, nos...@see.signature (Richard Maine) wrote:
> ...
> > There are several alternatives. I personally consider google groups to
> > be about the worst of them. In addition to a horrible interface (which
> > encourages poor posting practices), it has other problems. [...]
> In what way is this message "poor posting practice"?
It isn't that I see. I didn't say google groups forces poor practices -
just that it encourages them. The two are not particularly close to the
same. I've not tried posting through google in ages that I can recall,
but I am assured by many other people that it:
1. Makes proper quoting/citation awkward. Obviously not impossible, as
you demonstrate, but awkward.
2. Likewise, it makes proper followup nonobvious. We have some pretty
regular and explicit demonstration of that in this newsgroup, where
there are one or two people (no point in names) who simply cannot ever
manage to figure it out through google in spite of multiple
explanations. I'm aware that you can, but we have proof by example that
some can't.
I have been assured by several knowlegable people here that the google
groups interface substantially contributes to these problems. I'll
comment on a post that is obviously replying to something, but not to
what it is following up, and with no clue from citations. There will
then be third party replies saying things like "to be fair, he's using
google groups, which makes it harder."
And that's not to speak of the signal-to-noise problem in some groups.
Some of the Mac groups are all but unusable unless you filter out the
postings through google - and even more so if you use an nntp server
that doesn't do a good job of spam filtering. You end up with mostly
spam, most of the rest flames, and much of the rest postings that are
just too hopelessly clueless to be worth tying to answer (more so than
almost anything we see in this group). The "good" stuff is just swamped.
In any case, I'll not reply further on this subtopic. I've said what I
have to say on it. I'll not debate the points.
Gary Scott
> On Aug 20, 11:05 am, nos...@see.signature (Richard Maine) wrote:
> ...
>
>>There are several alternatives. I personally consider google groups to
>>be about the worst of them. In addition to a horrible interface (which
>>encourages poor posting practices), it has other problems. [...]
>
>
> I haven't posted from google for more than six months, but
> I usually use it when travelling since it's easier than
> reconfiguring my computer for nntp access from another
> ISP. In what way is this message "poor posting practice"?
> It seems to work the same way as I remember.
>
> Of course, since it's a web-based service, maybe it works
> differently in different browsers. I suppose it might
> even be unacceptable from, say, Netscape (which I haven't
> tried in years).
I will continue using netscape 7 for that purpose until it no longer
functions. Seamonkey is an updated complete suite like NS 7 and
earlier, but I've found it to be somewhat sloppily produced, at least
the latest release had a number of visual design deficiencies (incorrect
background for various icons, alignment issues with icons, etc.). For
newsgroups, it is probably as good as NS. The browser component is
latest and greatest firefox I believe.
>
> --
> J. Giles
>
> "I conclude that there are two ways of constructing a software
> design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously
> no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated
> that there are no obvious deficiencies." -- C. A. R. Hoare
>
> "Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability" -- E. W. Dijkstra
Dr Ivan D. Reid
wrote in <1ilyuas.bzxp8m15cmyqwN%nos...@see.signature>:
> The service I'm currently using is news.individual.net. See their web
> site for details. It isn't free, but the cost is very modest (10
> EU/year) and I think worth it. There are others, even some free ones,
> that are probably fine, but that's what I'm using.
Many people over here also use individual, and swear by it
(although their preferred payment method has drawn criticism lately).
Luckily I have my academic connections (although Brunel figures that since
I'm the only person to complain when their server goes down, I must be the
only person using it; they're trying to work out how I can access a JANET
server directly so they can stop their server).
--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".
James Giles
....
> 1. Makes proper quoting/citation awkward. Obviously not impossible, as
> you demonstrate, but awkward.
>
> 2. Likewise, it makes proper followup nonobvious. We have some pretty
> regular and explicit demonstration of that in this newsgroup, where
> there are one or two people (no point in names) who simply cannot ever
> manage to figure it out through google in spite of multiple
> explanations. I'm aware that you can, but we have proof by example
> that some can't.
Well, this is no criticism of Maine - I'm sure he is reporting
exactly what he sees. But, I didn't have to figure out anything.
I found an article I wanted to respond to and pressed "reply".
At that point an editable window appeared with the article
to which I was responding quoted within it (properly shifted
right and prepended with greater-than characters). And, it
was preceeded with a proper atribution of who wrote the
article, when, and so on. After editing that (the editor is
rudimentary but simple), I merely pressed "send". If there
was more work than that, I probably would have found
some other route to the usenet while travelling. (Part of
being smart is being lazy - doing things the simplest way.)
This *has* to be a browser problem. It seems to me that
you would have to go to lots of extra work to foul this up
unless the browser was fouling it up for you.
To be sure, some people foul things up even without google.
One kind of thing that bothers me is people that don't delete
the parts of the article they're responding to that isn't relevant
to their response. If two such people are participating you have
to wade through increasingly long copies of previous articles
before you find the three sentences that are new....
Craig Powers
I'm not sure how effective it is outside the U.S., but I've found
Motzarella to work very well for me.
Gary Scott
Tastes good too.
Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply
<garyl...@sbcglobal.net> writes:
> I'd recommend finding an ISP that does support news groups. I had
> initial difficulty with SBC/AT&T originally. They just don't advertise
> their newsgroup servers very well, but they do provide those services.
1&1, one of the more popular providers in Germany, provides the
news.online.de NNTP server, which works fine. I've used it for years.
They don't advertise it much, but it is there and problems are fixed if
one complains (for example, a moderated group was marked as unmarked),
though I haven't noticed many problems.
Ron Ford
posted:
news.individual.net was the answer for me. It costs something like fifteen
bucks for a year but is worth every penny. It takes the spam and porn
right out of usenet. The folks at the freie universitaet in Berlin run it,
although you never have much need to talk to them.
OE was also a hardship. I switched to dialog.
Mit freundlichem Gruss,
--
We must be willing to pay a price for freedom. 4
H. L. Mencken
user1
yep, I started using motzarella when roadrunner dropped usenet service.
Ron Ford
> On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:05:54 -0700, Richard Maine <nos...@see.signature>
> wrote in <1ilyuas.bzxp8m15cmyqwN%nos...@see.signature>:
>
>> The service I'm currently using is news.individual.net. See their web
>> site for details. It isn't free, but the cost is very modest (10
>> EU/year) and I think worth it. There are others, even some free ones,
>> that are probably fine, but that's what I'm using.
>
> Many people over here also use individual, and swear by it
> (although their preferred payment method has drawn criticism lately).
> Luckily I have my academic connections (although Brunel figures that since
> I'm the only person to complain when their server goes down, I must be the
> only person using it; they're trying to work out how I can access a JANET
> server directly so they can stop their server).
I just wanted to note that I paid them with the notion that if I don't
authorize another payment, they won't try to do it and potentially cause me
a cascade of $35 mistakes because I didn't remember that I was to send
money to Berlin. I passed the house today of the only person who did send
me money as I checked out charlie; I always remember that.
They were to send me an e-mail when I was one month from expiration. It
won't arrive, because I fired netzero in favor of copper, which allows
dial-up from a linmodem.
I always intended to return to the freie universitaet. This is probably
the form it takes.
--
We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is
moonshine. 3
H. L. Mencken
michael...@compuserve.com
Thanks to everyone for the replies and helpful advice. Given that I've
just changed countries, ISP, H/W and OS, I'll stick with Google for a
while and see how it goes. It's seems clearly the case that the days
of nntp servers are numbered (I used roadrunner three years ago too,
and now that's gone as well), so a Web-based solution is possibly a
wiser long-term choice.
Regards,
Mike Metcalf