Newbie Newsreader/Newsserver?
Joseph A Holsten
skills have reverted to newbiedom, so I thought I'd post here.
What's the easiest to use newsreader/server setup you've found? I spend
most of my time on a mac, so I'm playing with Unison. But their hosting
seems tuned to binaries and I'm just after text, so I'm using a
giganews' jade account. I'm also using gmane's news<->mailinglist
interface, which is keeping my mail inbox nice and lean. I do use mac
and windows and various *nix boxen, so any recomendations are welcome.
But I'm realizing that it sure would be nice to have remote access to
my groups. I'm thinking something similar to a mail server with
roundcube and IMAP, so I can access it from any browser, and have
clients on multiple machines sync read status on messages. I still get
a hankering for slrn when I'm in flatland. Has anyone managed to set up
this sort of arrangement?
--
Joseph Holsten
http://josephholsten.com
mailto:jos...@josephholsten.com
tel:+1-918-948-6747
Steve Bonine
> What's the easiest to use newsreader/server setup you've found? I spend
> most of my time on a mac, so I'm playing with Unison. But their hosting
> seems tuned to binaries and I'm just after text, so I'm using a
> giganews' jade account. I'm also using gmane's news<->mailinglist
> interface, which is keeping my mail inbox nice and lean. I do use mac
> and windows and various *nix boxen, so any recomendations are welcome.
>
> But I'm realizing that it sure would be nice to have remote access to my
> groups. I'm thinking something similar to a mail server with roundcube
> and IMAP, so I can access it from any browser, and have clients on
> multiple machines sync read status on messages. I still get a hankering
> for slrn when I'm in flatland. Has anyone managed to set up this sort of
> arrangement?
Based on the second paragraph, I get the impression that you're looking
for a finely-tuned and highly-capable news reading experience and don't
mind spending the time to achieve it. The suggestion I'll make is
rather the opposite -- SeaMonkey. You can use it as a browser so it's
not necessarily an additional piece of software just for reading news.
I'm told that Thunderbird does news too (I have no first hand knowledge
of that) so if you wanted to combine mail and news that would be an
alternative.
MacSOUP is also a popular Mac-based news reader.
Kathy Morgan
> I'm getting back into usenet again after a many year lapse. Seems my
> skills have reverted to newbiedom, so I thought I'd post here.
Welcome back!
> What's the easiest to use newsreader/server setup you've found? I spend
> most of my time on a mac, so I'm playing with Unison. But their hosting
> seems tuned to binaries and I'm just after text, so I'm using a
> giganews' jade account. I'm also using gmane's news<->mailinglist
> interface, which is keeping my mail inbox nice and lean. I do use mac
> and windows and various *nix boxen, so any recomendations are welcome.
I *really* like MacSOUP, which is an offline newsreader for the Mac.
Other popular Mac newsreaders are MT-NewsWatcher and YA-NewsWatcher and
the Mozilla newsreader. I avoid Windows whenever possible, so I can't
help much there, except to say that Ooutlook/Outlook Express are abysmal
and produce such broken posts that some people have all posts from them
killfiled. Agent and XNews are often recommended for Windows but I have
no personal experience with them.
> But I'm realizing that it sure would be nice to have remote access to
> my groups. I'm thinking something similar to a mail server with
> roundcube and IMAP, so I can access it from any browser, and have
> clients on multiple machines sync read status on messages. I still get
> a hankering for slrn when I'm in flatland. Has anyone managed to set up
> this sort of arrangement?
Well, if you really want to access newsgroups through a browser, I'd
recommend Newsreader.com, which offers both NNTP access and a
server-based Web newsreader that's GNKSA approved. If you use the Web
interface, it will have your newsrc file so syncing isn't a problem.
Another option would be an account with an NSP (News Service Provider)
and carry your newsreader and associated files around on a thumb drive
that you could use on whatever machine you're using--as long as it's the
same OS. My ISP's news server sucked when they were running one (and I
thinked they've now dropped newsgroups), and I'm now using the
Individual.net server. They run a good, well-filtered newserver with
just text groups for 10 Euros per year, which is well worth it to me. I
understand there are also some good free news servers, and there are a
number of other for-pay NSP's.
I know nothing whatever about roundcube, IMAP, or slrn, so I can't help
at all with that idea.
--
Kathy
Whiskers
> I'm getting back into usenet again after a many year lapse. Seems my
> skills have reverted to newbiedom, so I thought I'd post here.
Welcome back :))
> What's the easiest to use newsreader/server setup you've found? I spend
> most of my time on a mac, so I'm playing with Unison. But their hosting
> seems tuned to binaries and I'm just after text, so I'm using a
> giganews' jade account. I'm also using gmane's news<->mailinglist
> interface, which is keeping my mail inbox nice and lean. I do use mac
> and windows and various *nix boxen, so any recomendations are welcome.
>
> But I'm realizing that it sure would be nice to have remote access to
> my groups. I'm thinking something similar to a mail server with
> roundcube and IMAP, so I can access it from any browser, and have
> clients on multiple machines sync read status on messages.
Could be easier to arrange one newsreader on one machine and then telnet
(or better, SSL) into that from the other machines. The information about
which articles have been read and which newsgroups are subscribed to, is
held by the newsreader - so sharing that information between different
programs on different machines isn't straight-forward.
> I still get a hankering for slrn when I'm in flatland.
So use slrn :)) I'm sure some people use it on Macs, and it's certainly
useable on Windows.
> Has anyone managed to set up
> this sort of arrangement?
See news.software.readers.
There are news-servers that carry only text groups; some are free, others
make a modest charge. I can recommend Individual.net and Datemas.de for
reliable cheap service. See alt.free.newsservers and
alt.usenet.news-server-comparison.
If you want to combine two or more news-servers into a single 'feed' for
your own newsreader, you can run a 'caching proxy news-server'; "Hamster"
on Windows or "Leafnode" on *nix seem to be the most popular. (Leafnode
is the easier to set up, in my opinion; if you can handle slrn then
Leafnode should be no problem at all).
--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~
Nick Cramer
> [ . . . ]
> Well, if you really want to access newsgroups through a browser, I'd
> recommend Newsreader.com, which offers both NNTP access and a
> server-based Web newsreader that's GNKSA approved. If you use the Web
> interface, it will have your newsrc file so syncing isn't a problem.
I've been with NewsReader.com for around ten years. I'm very happy with
them. Their service is great!
--
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