OT: Recommended Wintel Newsreaders
Luke
MT-Newswatcher -- I'm accustomed to. What are the recommendations for a Win
XP compatible reader?
Luke
Paul Hobson
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
Dear Luke,
Talk is cheap, but you can get the list of posters least able to keep
quiet so far this month from
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/about
You can see which newsreader any of these blabbermouths favor by
looking at one of their posts in google groups, clicking on
more-options, choosing show-original, and peeking at the header:
choice of weapon outbursts nom de guerre
---------------- --------- -------------
Mozilla/5.0 Mac 183 Qui si parla Campagnolo
Forte Free Agent 152 carlfo...@comcast.net
(or posting.google.com) (this poster is a shifty character)
posting.google.com 140 ddog
Thunderbird 125 spamvor...@bad.example.net
Forte Agent 1.93 124 usenetrem...@jt10000.com
MT-NewsWatcher/Mac OS 120 rub...@pacbell.net
Thunderbird 118 a...@yellowjersey.org
tin (linux) 117 jobst.bra...@stanfordalumni.org
Outlook Express 104 verktygj...@aol.spamski.com
Thunderbird 104 Peter Cole
Thunderbird seems to be the club most likely to be used by those who
have the highest scores in the golf tournament of RBT:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/
Here's a sample how-to-set-Thunderbird-up page:
https://hdc.tamu.edu/reference/documentation/?section_id=669
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Pat Lamb
Agent. Free Agent if you want to try it out, but I liked it so much I
bought the thing.
Pat
DougC
Free Agent is no longer available, at least not from the publisher. They
only have the pay version now, only $25 or something, but still.
The problem with Thunderbird is that it doesn't do any message filtering
unless you download all messages to your PC, apparently. The "message
filters" only apply to regular e-mail, not newsgroups.
~
John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
>Outlook Express is mediocre compared to the Mac newsreaders -- Thoth,
>MT-Newswatcher -- I'm accustomed to. What are the recommendations for a Win
>XP compatible reader?
I'm on an earlier version of Windows with Agent and like it.
--
JT
****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************
Bob Flumere
<usenet...@jt10000.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:19:36 -0500, "Luke" <lucasi...@rogers.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Outlook Express is mediocre compared to the Mac newsreaders -- Thoth,
>>MT-Newswatcher -- I'm accustomed to. What are the recommendations for a Win
>>XP compatible reader?
>I'm on an earlier version of Windows with Agent and like it
Second .. Agent is (and has been for several years and
versions of Windows) the best all around news reader.
An absolute bargain at $29.00
landotter
windows version, but used it for years under *nix. Totally free:
John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
Stuff like this confounds me:
"Linking requires files with extension '.so' (i.e., without the
version number). So, you need libesd.so. On RPM-based systems, you
need to install the esound-devel RPM package."
Kinky Cowboy
wrote:
>Outlook Express is mediocre compared to the Mac newsreaders -- Thoth,
Forte Agent; the $30 is very quickly forgotten, the flaws in other
readers draw attention to themselves every day.
Kinky Cowboy*
*Batteries not included
May contain traces of nuts
Your milage may vary
landotter
On Jan 26, 7:06 pm, John Forrest Tomlinson <usenetrem...@jt10000.com>
wrote:
> On 26 Jan 2007 17:00:51 -0800, "landotter" <landot...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >http://pan.rebelbase.com/Stuff like this confounds me:
> "Linking requires files with extension '.so' (i.e., without the
> version number). So, you need libesd.so. On RPM-based systems, you
> need to install the esound-devel RPM package."
Where'd you come across that error? Installs cleanly here, though I
can't get my ISPs news server to work, so I use Google Groups. :-P
I've been enjoying the nicknames since development restarted last
summer:
January 22, 2007 - Pan 0.121: "Dortmunder":)
January 2, 2007 - Pan 0.120: "Plate of Shrimp"
November 10, 2006 - Pan 0.119: "Karma Hunters"
November 2, 2006 - Pan 0.118: "Gustaf Von Musterhausen"
October 16, 2006 - Pan 0.117: "We'll fly and we'll fall and we'll burn"
October 10, 2006: 0.116: "Blanton's"
September 30, 2006: 0.115: "Mrs. Kerr Says Remember the Tip Jar"
September 25, 2006: 0.114: "You'll Have to Go Sideways"
September 18, 2006: 0.113 is one of Nakata's favorites"
September 10, 2006: 0.112: "Elijah Craig"
September 3, 2006: 0.111: "Tweedy"
August 27, 2006: 0.110: "Beable Beable"
August 18, 2006: 0.109: "Beable"
August 13, 2006: 0.108: "Mama's Little Joyboy Loves Lobsters, Lobsters"
August 8, 2006: 0.107: "Umi De No Jiatsu"
August 2, 2006: 0.106: "Dum Maro Dum"
July 26, 2006: 0.105: "When Churchill opened the door, it was a new
car, a Chevrolet Nova."
John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
>
>
>On Jan 26, 7:06 pm, John Forrest Tomlinson <usenetrem...@jt10000.com>
>wrote:
>> On 26 Jan 2007 17:00:51 -0800, "landotter" <landot...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >http://pan.rebelbase.com/Stuff like this confounds me:
>> "Linking requires files with extension '.so' (i.e., without the
>> version number). So, you need libesd.so. On RPM-based systems, you
>> need to install the esound-devel RPM package."
>
>Where'd you come across that error? Installs cleanly here, though I
>can't get my ISPs news server to work, so I use Google Groups. :-P
>
I don't the use the program, but saw stuff like that on the website on
a cursory look.
landotter
On Jan 26, 8:06 pm, John Forrest Tomlinson <usenetrem...@jt10000.com>
wrote:
> >Where'd you come across that error? Installs cleanly here, though I
> >can't get my ISPs news server to work, so I use Google Groups. :-P
>I don't the use the program, but saw stuff like that on the website on
> a cursory look.
Oh that's just for the people that are compiling from scratch. Some
folks like to do such things.
With Windows, it's a matter of downloading and double clicking. With
most modern versions of Linux, it's also a matter of downloading the
proper package and double clicking. Alternately, I can just fire up a
terminal and type "sudo apt-get install pan" and it will download and
install with any necessary dependencies and no input from me.
David L. Johnson
> Second .. Agent is (and has been for several years and
> versions of Windows) the best all around news reader.
>
> An absolute bargain at $29.00
Can't resist: you could get linux and pan, with much better performance,
all for free.
--
David L. Johnson
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries,
and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. [1 Corinth. 13:2]
landotter
On Jan 26, 9:22 pm, "David L. Johnson" <david.john...@lehigh.edu>
wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 18:48:20 -0500, Bob Flumere wrote:
> > Second .. Agent is (and has been for several years and
> > versions of Windows) the best all around news reader.
>
> > An absolute bargain at $29.00Can't resist: you could get linux and pan, with much better performance,
> all for free.
>
Dunno about performance for day to day tasks. I run a lean XP and a
pretty standard Ubuntu install (services tweaked of course) on both my
desktop and lappie, and meh, they suck about the same amount of
resources. Of course, Ubuntu shines when I've got three virtual
workspaces filled with stuff. :-P XP gets mainly used as a giant
scanning and printing application. *g*
Pan works OK with Windows. It's only a pain when you want to have other
gtk stuff installed like Gaim and the Gimp, as they can't all play nice
and use the same gtk libs. Oh no.
Tim McNamara
"Luke" <lucasi...@rogers.com> wrote:
Check out a comprehensive list of the options at www.newsreaders.com.
Ryan Cousineau
carl...@comcast.net wrote:
So that makes you what, an 80-handicapper?
Scratch poster,
--
Ryan Cousineau rcou...@sfu.ca http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos
Tim McNamara
John Forrest Tomlinson <usenet...@jt10000.com> wrote:
> On 26 Jan 2007 17:00:51 -0800, "landotter" <land...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >http://pan.rebelbase.com/
>
> Stuff like this confounds me:
> "Linking requires files with extension '.so' (i.e., without the
> version number). So, you need libesd.so. On RPM-based systems, you
> need to install the esound-devel RPM package."
Linux-heads are used to it. ;-) pan comes from the Linux side.
A Muzi
>>> Outlook Express is mediocre compared to the Mac newsreaders --
>>> Thoth, MT-Newswatcher -- I'm accustomed to. What are the
>>> recommendations for a Win XP compatible reader?
> Pat Lamb wrote:
>> Agent. Free Agent if you want to try it out, but I liked it so much I
>> bought the thing.
DougC wrote:
> Free Agent is no longer available, at least not from the publisher. They
> only have the pay version now, only $25 or something, but still.
>
> The problem with Thunderbird is that it doesn't do any message filtering
> unless you download all messages to your PC, apparently. The "message
> filters" only apply to regular e-mail, not newsgroups.
> ~
Filter? What ?? and miss an rbt post? The horror!
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971
Bill Westphal
>
>
> On Jan 26, 7:06 pm, John Forrest Tomlinson <usenetrem...@jt10000.com>
> wrote:
>> On 26 Jan 2007 17:00:51 -0800, "landotter" <landot...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >http://pan.rebelbase.com/Stuff like this confounds me:
>> "Linking requires files with extension '.so' (i.e., without the
>> version number). So, you need libesd.so. On RPM-based systems, you
>> need to install the esound-devel RPM package."
>
> Where'd you come across that error? Installs cleanly here, though I
> can't get my ISPs news server to work, so I use Google Groups. :-P
>
[snip]
I thought all ISP's ababdoned news service. I think most of the
so-called tech support don't know what "news" is these days, let alone
"where is your server".
No problem, so use a free nntp server. I use news.aioe.net port 119.
It's text only, has a relatively short expire, but you can get through
your news about 8 times faster than with a web interface like google.
I think it's from italy, but when I say tab: next article, it's there
pronto.
Bill Westphal
A Muzi
Bill Westphal wrote:
> I thought all ISP's ababdoned news service. I think most of the
> so-called tech support don't know what "news" is these days, let alone
> "where is your server".
>
> No problem, so use a free nntp server. I use news.aioe.net port 119.
> It's text only, has a relatively short expire, but you can get through
> your news about 8 times faster than with a web interface like google.
> I think it's from italy, but when I say tab: next article, it's there
> pronto.
Our ISP suports news, news-radius.core.com
carl...@comcast.net
<ai...@westphal.org> wrote:
>landotter <land...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Jan 26, 7:06 pm, John Forrest Tomlinson <usenetrem...@jt10000.com>
>> wrote:
>>> On 26 Jan 2007 17:00:51 -0800, "landotter" <landot...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> >http://pan.rebelbase.com/Stuff like this confounds me:
>>> "Linking requires files with extension '.so' (i.e., without the
>>> version number). So, you need libesd.so. On RPM-based systems, you
>>> need to install the esound-devel RPM package."
>>
>> Where'd you come across that error? Installs cleanly here, though I
>> can't get my ISPs news server to work, so I use Google Groups. :-P
>>
>
>[snip]
>
>I thought all ISP's ababdoned news service.
[snip]
>Bill Westphal
Dear Bill,
Cheers,
Bill Westphal
Dear Carl, Hmmm, two difficult assignments:
1. What kind of fallacy where you refute my claim w/ one example. But
admitedly, I provided a biased sample, based on calls to the 2
ISP's in NW Montana.
2. What percentage of ISP's provide nntp service these days, and what
are the trends. I'd be interested in a study of trends and
relationships of usenet usage, as compared to web usage and blogs,
and, while I'm at it, TV, radio, and print. Also, how popular is
"groups" in the Google scheme of things, and what impact has Google
had on usenet.
Bill Westphal
Tim McNamara
wrote:
> I thought all ISP's ababdoned news service.
Many ISPs have, especially large ones, because only a fraction of their
customers use the service. Relatively few Internet users even know
about Usenet. For most people, Internet = WWW and they don't even
understand that e-mail != WWW.
Ben C
A surprising number of people these days seem to access e-mail through
the www anyway, using things like gmail, which is all right until their
browser crashes halfway through editing a long message.
Paul Cassel
> Pat Lamb wrote:
>
> The problem with Thunderbird is that it doesn't do any message filtering
> unless you download all messages to your PC, apparently. The "message
> filters" only apply to regular e-mail, not newsgroups.
> ~
Seems to be working here.
Matt O'Toole
> Free Agent is no longer available, at least not from the publisher. They
> only have the pay version now, only $25 or something, but still.
The full version works for 30 days or whatever, and then reverts to a
less full-featured version equivalent to the old Free Agent.
BTW it runs fine on Linux with WINE.
Matt O.
carl...@comcast.net
Dear Matt,
Thanks for explaining the change.
I looked at the Forte site and assumed that the trial version just
stopped working.
Now I'll fiddle around with a newer version of Forte on another system
and change the date by 30 days to see what happens.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
carl...@comcast.net
<ai...@westphal.org> wrote:
Dear Bill,
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
landotter
> No problem, so use a free nntp server. I use news.aioe.net port 119.
> It's text only, has a relatively short expire, but you can get through
> your news about 8 times faster than with a web interface like google.
> I think it's from italy, but when I say tab: next article, it's there
> pronto.
>
>
Tried that, didn't work, but nntp.aioe.org seems to work great. I don't
know if a newsreader is 8X faster than GG, but it's pretty nice.
The new Pan beta version seems stable enough, btw.
Tim McNamara
Ben C <spam...@spam.eggs> wrote:
And as long as they don't mind the fact that their personal
communications are being kept in the possession of an ethically shaky
company whose stated goal is to "index" all the information in the world.
Using browsers for this sort of thing is *so* frickin' slow and
cumbersome. I don't know how people can tolerate it. That being said,
my wife's uncle uses Juno's Webmail because he knows how and just can't
quite seem to make the shift to using a mail client and a POP server. I
even set up his mail client for him to be able to just download his mail
from Juno, all he has to do is launch the doggone thing. When I was
over there last week to fix some things it was clear he hadn't used the
mail client in over a year. Sigh.
At least gmail's interface is vastly better than the horror that is Juno.
Bill Westphal
Sorry, you're right, it's .org, not .net. That's what I meant to
type, but my brain interceded and "corrected" it, because .net follows
the intended (network service) intent of .net domainname.
Tim McNamara
wrote:
I notice that you're posting in UTF-8. Is that pan's default setting or
your choice?
Mike DeMicco
news:vN6dnRmgZdPVySfY...@giganews.com:
> Outlook Express is mediocre compared to the Mac newsreaders -- Thoth,
> MT-Newswatcher -- I'm accustomed to. What are the recommendations for
> a Win XP compatible reader?
>
> Luke
>
>
>
XNews. The only problems I see are 1) no spell checker, and 2) no longer
supported.
--
Mike DeMicco <blast...@comcast.net>
carl...@comcast.net
Aaargh!
No, the 30-day trial doesn't revert to a less full-featured version
like the old Forte Free Agent.
After 30 days, it essentially stops working. You can't go online to do
anything, so it's useless--no new headers, posts, or replies.
From what I saw before I moved the date forward, the new version works
much like the old Forte Free Agent that I use and like.
I should emphasize that I can't complain, since I've gotten far more
than my money's worth from the old Forte Free Agent.
CF
landotter
Default, I'm still dialing it in. Is there something superior? Pan can
likely do it 25 different ways--the preferences are daunting.
Andrew Price
<david....@lehigh.edu> wrote:
>> Second .. Agent is (and has been for several years and
>> versions of Windows) the best all around news reader.
>>
>> An absolute bargain at $29.00
>
>Can't resist: you could get linux and pan, with much better performance,
>all for free.
The "all for free" is, of course, unbeatable, but how do you quantify
"much better performance" ?
Tim McNamara
wrote:
I don't now about "superior." UTF-8 seems to be the direction that
Linux is going in as a default standard. I think it does allow
non-English languages to be readily rendered easily.
I really only noticed it because my newsreader is a little weird about
UTF-8 and insists on rendering it in a tiny, barely readable font. It's
a bug that the developer is supposedly fixing.
landotter
This is Western, New. Look any nicer than Unicode?
Ben C
I think that's your font, not the encoding of your messages. You're
still sending the header:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
The real problem though is the bug in Tim McNamara's newsreader. UTF-8
is a good way to send messages even in English if they include things
like the occasional pound character.
landotter
Ah, I figured out how to change it on a message by message basis. Still
can't find how to set the default encoding to anything but Unicode.
The headers on this one *should* read ISO-8859 which is "western, new"
There it is... a "remember charset for this group" tickbox. Been a while
since I used Pan. :-P
Bill Sornson
> Outlook Express is mediocre compared to the Mac newsreaders -- Thoth,
> MT-Newswatcher -- I'm accustomed to. What are the recommendations for
> a Win XP compatible reader?
OE with Quotefix. Works fine.
Bill "if it's free it's for me" S.
Andrew Price
[UTF-8]
>I really only noticed it because my newsreader is a little weird about
>UTF-8 and insists on rendering it in a tiny, barely readable font. It's
>a bug that the developer is supposedly fixing.
I think it probably upsets quite a few newsreaders - posting in UTF-8
is banned on one of my servers.
Gary Young
With gmail it's easy to redirect your email to a pop client. Also, great
spam filtering. I figure my email is too boring to advance google's
nefarious purposes.
David L. Johnson
Depends on what you use the computer for, but for the things I need
(LaTeX and maple, mostly) linux really outshines windows.
--
David L. Johnson
What is objectionable, and what is dangerous about extremists is
not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. --Robert F. Kennedy
Tim McNamara
Andrew Price <ajp...@free.fr> wrote:
Huh. I did not know about that sort of reaction to UTF-8.
Tim McNamara
wrote:
Looks the same. Your headers for this posts still say:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
So I think that pan is still using UTF-8. But heck, there;'s no reason
to adjust on my account!
Tim McNamara
Ben C <spam...@spam.eggs> wrote:
> On 2007-01-27, landotter <land...@geemale.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 14:35:57 -0600, Tim McNamara wrote:
> >
> >> In article <epgc1r$c27$1...@aioe.org>, landotter
> >> <land...@geemale.com> wrote:
> >>> Default, I'm still dialing it in. Is there something superior?
> >>> Pan can likely do it 25 different ways--the preferences are
> >>> daunting.
> >>
> >> I don't now about "superior." UTF-8 seems to be the direction
> >> that Linux is going in as a default standard. I think it does
> >> allow non-English languages to be readily rendered easily.
> >>
> >> I really only noticed it because my newsreader is a little weird
> >> about UTF-8 and insists on rendering it in a tiny, barely readable
> >> font. It's a bug that the developer is supposedly fixing.
> >
> > This is Western, New. Look any nicer than Unicode?
>
> I think that's your font, not the encoding of your messages. You're
> still sending the header:
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> The real problem though is the bug in Tim McNamara's newsreader.
Yup. An acknowledged one at that.
> UTF-8 is a good way to send messages even in English if they include
> things like the occasional pound character.
I suspect that UTF-8 is the future standard encoding for this sort of
reason.
Tim McNamara
wrote:
The change was successful. But again, the real problem is a bug in my
newsreader, not in your use of UTF-8. I see there is a newer version of
my newsreader available, so I will get that and check it out.
Tim McNamara
Tim McNamara <tim...@bitstream.net> wrote:
> But again, the real problem is a bug in my newsreader, not in your
> use of UTF-8. I see there is a newer version of my newsreader
> available, so I will get that and check it out.
And indeed, Simon seems to have fixed the problem with how the
newsreader renders UTF-8.
Ben C
> Ben C <spam...@spam.eggs> wrote:
>> UTF-8 is a good way to send messages even in English if they include
>> things like the occasional pound character.
>
> I suspect that UTF-8 is the future standard encoding for this sort of
> reason.
UTF-8 is a consistent encoding for all Unicode characters (loosely
speaking all characters in all languages), so you can just use it for
everything. It only uses 8 bits per character for English, so there's no
overhead, and no guesswork about what code corresponds to what character
or how they're encoded, which is what's involved with dealing with all
the other encodings.
Bill Westphal
Actually, ascii includes the # character. ascii is 2 to the 7'th bits
per character, which is 128 bits. See wikipedia for gory details of
ascii, and unicode, among other encoding schemes. Unicode is 2 to the
8'th bits/character, or 256, which takes more space, but allows more
characters. If you're writing straight text in English it's a waste
of space, but if you're writing in Cyrillic, or Tamil, e.g., it's a
nice convenient standard. Of course the whole world revolves around
the US and ENglish, so I don't care about people struggling with
Hiragana and Katakana in Japan. But wait, my favorite newsreader mew,
is written by and maintained by Japanese programmers. And UTF-8 works
on it. Whoops.
Bill Westphal
Bill Westphal
what I meant to say is 256 possible combinations of the 8 bits, vs
only 128 for the 7 bits. One extra bit per character, which English
doesn't need. I should just shut up.
> Bill Westphal
DougC
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
Dear Doug,
And these, chosen from a list in a recent PC World article on ISP
speed, service, and reliability:
news.west.earthlink.net news.east.earthlink.net
news.verizon.net
news.cox.net
newsgroups.bellsouth.net
news.adelphia.net
netnews.insightbb.com
Some, like AOL and MSN, have indeed dropped newsgroups, but the
typical nationwide ISP that shows up in mainstream computer magazine
comparisons still offers newsgroups.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
DougC
> DougC wrote:
>> Pat Lamb wrote:
>
>>
>> The problem with Thunderbird is that it doesn't do any message
>> filtering unless you download all messages to your PC, apparently. The
>> "message filters" only apply to regular e-mail, not newsgroups.
>> ~
>
> Seems to be working here.
So,,,, if there was a message that I wanted filtered out, I would
highlight it, then click [Message] -> [create filter from message], and
then what do I tell Thunderbird to DO with massages from this author?
"Delete" and "Ignore" don't do it--I still see the messages I want gone.
~
Matt O'Toole
> No, the 30-day trial doesn't revert to a less full-featured version
> like the old Forte Free Agent.
>
> After 30 days, it essentially stops working. You can't go online to do
> anything, so it's useless--no new headers, posts, or replies.
Aack! It continued to work the last time I tried, a year or two ago. Oh,
well.
> From what I saw before I moved the date forward, the new version works
> much like the old Forte Free Agent that I use and like.
>
> I should emphasize that I can't complain, since I've gotten far more
> than my money's worth from the old Forte Free Agent.
There are usually old versions available somewhere.
You might try Gravity, a fully featured newsreader some consider better
than Agent.
Matt O.
Matt O'Toole
> Can't resist: you could get linux and pan, with much better performance,
> all for free.
Supposedly Pan runs on Windows too.
Matt O.
Matt O'Toole
> OE with Quotefix. Works fine.
Even with Quotefix the text editor is still too buggy.
Matt O.
Ben C
> Tim McNamara <tim...@bitstream.net> wrote:
>> In article <slrnerng5r....@bowser.marioworld>,
>> Ben C <spam...@spam.eggs> wrote:
>>> UTF-8 is a good way to send messages even in English if they include
>>> things like the occasional pound character.
>>
>> I suspect that UTF-8 is the future standard encoding for this sort of
>> reason.
>
> Actually, ascii includes the # character. ascii is 2 to the 7'th bits
> per character, which is 128 bits.
You're right, it includes # (which we call "hash"), but not "pound" in
the sense of the perverted L-shaped glyph used to mean "pounds
sterling".
> See wikipedia for gory details of
> ascii, and unicode, among other encoding schemes. Unicode is 2 to the
> 8'th bits/character, or 256, which takes more space, but allows more
> characters. If you're writing straight text in English it's a waste
> of space, but if you're writing in Cyrillic, or Tamil, e.g., it's a
> nice convenient standard.
It's rare not to represent text with sequences of at least 8-bit
characters, even though you only need 7 for ascii. The bottom 127
characters of the 256-character range are the normal alphabetic ones,
the upper ones represent a selection of extra characters for different
European languages. Which code corresponds to which character depends on
which variant of the encoding you're using ("Latin-1", etc)
UTF-8 also uses 8 bits per character unless more are needed, in which
case it may use 16 or more (up to 48). Every character has a unique
code, so you can use the same encoding for everything, and you don't
waste any space (compared to 8-bit ascii). If a character is in the
range 1-127, it's a single-byte ascii character. If it's > 127, it's
part of a sequence representing some other character. There's a clever
way of working out how long the sequence is and how to decode it.
Patrick Lamb
wrote:
>Pat Lamb wrote:
>>
>> Agent. Free Agent if you want to try it out, but I liked it so much I
>> bought the thing.
>
>Free Agent is no longer available, at least not from the publisher. They
>only have the pay version now, only $25 or something, but still.
Bummer. The OP will just have to take my word for Agent (and the word
of everybody else who likes it!).
:)
Pat
Email address works as is.
Patrick Lamb
wrote:
>> Pat Lamb wrote:
>>> Agent. Free Agent if you want to try it out, but I liked it so much I
>>> bought the thing.
>
>> The problem with Thunderbird is that it doesn't do any message filtering
>> unless you download all messages to your PC, apparently. The "message
>> filters" only apply to regular e-mail, not newsgroups.
>
And turn off irritating posters for a week or so, when they start
getting to me? That timed kill file entry is worth the price of
admission, and then some!
Patrick Lamb
wrote:
>Paul Cassel wrote:
>> DougC wrote:
>>> The problem with Thunderbird is that it doesn't do any message
>>> filtering unless you download all messages to your PC, apparently. The
>>> "message filters" only apply to regular e-mail, not newsgroups.
>>
>
>So,,,, if there was a message that I wanted filtered out, I would
>highlight it, then click [Message] -> [create filter from message], and
>then what do I tell Thunderbird to DO with massages from this author?
>"Delete" and "Ignore" don't do it--I still see the messages I want gone.
"Mark as read" works when you're only viewing unread messages.
landotter
> And turn off irritating posters for a week or so, when they start
> getting to me? That timed kill file entry is worth the price of
> admission, and then some!
Pan has timed kill files as well. There is no cost of admission. It's
priceless, ain't it?
*nix/mac/win
landotter
I'm posting this using Pan on XP, as I was curious if the latest beta
worked properly.
Get the installer:
http://davies147.googlepages.com/
Which is dependent on the GTK libraries:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gimp-win/gtk%2B-2.10.6-1-setup.zip
Works great!
Michael Press
<timmcn-A6CDF0....@news.iphouse.com>,
Tim McNamara <tim...@bitstream.net> wrote:
Dag nab it. 7 bit ASCII was good enough for my
grandfather, and it's good enough for me.
--
Gabby Johnson
Michael Press
<slrneroq91....@bowser.marioworld>,
Ben C <spam...@spam.eggs> wrote:
> On 2007-01-28, Bill Westphal <ai...@westphal.org> wrote:
> > Tim McNamara <tim...@bitstream.net> wrote:
> >> In article <slrnerng5r....@bowser.marioworld>,
> >> Ben C <spam...@spam.eggs> wrote:
> [snip]
> >>> UTF-8 is a good way to send messages even in English if they include
> >>> things like the occasional pound character.
> >>
> >> I suspect that UTF-8 is the future standard encoding for this sort of
> >> reason.
> >
> > Actually, ascii includes the # character. ascii is 2 to the 7'th bits
> > per character, which is 128 bits.
>
> You're right, it includes # (which we call "hash"), but not "pound" in
> the sense of the perverted L-shaped glyph used to mean "pounds
> sterling".
and is derived from lira, and lira evolved from libra,
and libra means level.
--
Michael Press
John Forrest Tomlinson
>Dear Doug,
>
>And these, chosen from a list in a recent PC World article on ISP
>speed, service, and reliability:
>
Not reliable. I use verizon as my ISP and their news service stopped
working for a long while -- months -- and I could not find info on how
to get it working, nor could several support people help me. It might
be working now, or at any point in time, but out of several years of
use I couldn't use it for about three months.
--
JT
****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************
Bill Westphal
> In article
> <slrneroq91....@bowser.marioworld>,
> Ben C <spam...@spam.eggs> wrote:
>
[snip]
>> >
>> > Actually, ascii includes the # character. ascii is 2 to the 7'th bits
>> > per character, which is 128 bits.
>>
>> You're right, it includes # (which we call "hash"), but not "pound" in
>> the sense of the perverted L-shaped glyph used to mean "pounds
>> sterling".
>
> and is derived from lira, and lira evolved from libra,
> and libra means level.
>
And libretto is a "little book", which this is becoming.
Bill Westphal
ASCII replaced EBSDIC (sp?), developed for the mainframes. 3
generations since the mid '60's is pretty good. And you already
learned how to ride a bike too. Actually, that is a long time,
damnit. I'm getting older than I realized. I need to go on a
bikeride to feel young again.
Paul Hobson
It only filters the incoming messages as it downloads the headers from
the server. The filters work, just not on messages whose headers are
already on your system.
\\paul
Paul Hobson
> On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 21:03:47 +0100, Andrew Price wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 21:22:42 -0600, "David L. Johnson"
>>
>>>> Second .. Agent is (and has been for several years and
>>>> versions of Windows) the best all around news reader.
>>>>
>>>> An absolute bargain at $29.00
>>> Can't resist: you could get linux and pan, with much better performance,
>>> all for free.
>> "much better performance" ?
>
> Depends on what you use the computer for, but for the things I need
> (LaTeX and maple, mostly) linux really outshines windows.
>
If I told you I was going to be doing a bunch of MATLAB and maybe
running Wine or Crossover to use MathCad (+ email, internet, etc), would
you say that Debian or Ubuntu would be better for me (P4, 160 GB, in
dire need of upgraded RAM)???
\\paul
Michael Press
"Bill Westphal" <ai...@westphal.org> wrote:
Completely different word. Libretto comes from old
latin leber that means "primarily 'bast' (fibre between
the wood and the outer bark of esp a tree), hence,
because--before papyrus was introduced--`that on which
one writes, paper', hence finally `book'."
--
Michael Press
landotter
> David L. Johnson wrote:
>> Depends on what you use the computer for, but for the things I need
>> (LaTeX and maple, mostly) linux really outshines windows.
>>
>
> If I told you I was going to be doing a bunch of MATLAB and maybe
> running Wine or Crossover to use MathCad (+ email, internet, etc), would
> you say that Debian or Ubuntu would be better for me (P4, 160 GB, in
> dire need of upgraded RAM)???
Either is fine--but for the desktop user, Ubuntu is so incredibly popular
that it's a good choice as there's tons of documentation. It's still got a
heart of Debian, though, so great package management--and super easy
upgrades.
I've used Suse, Fedora, and Mandrake(iva) as well, and they're all just
fine. In the end it's all Linux. Ubuntu's the one I like out of the box
the best, but meh, you can shape and tweak any one to your heart's delight.
Both my Desktop and lappie are long in the tooth, but run Ubuntu just fine
with 256mb of ram. 512 does make things noticeably faster, and 128 is
doable for a machine that's not doing anything demanding. Processor speed
is of little importance. 400mhz+ and you're good.
There are two installers for Ubuntu these days, one that boots a live
session, and the "alternate" which is a straight up curses based
installer. The latter isn't as pretty, but it's very reliable, and is what
I recommend. It's a single CD, so less of a hassle than the multi CD
Linuxes.
Have fun!
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
On Jan 28, 8:13 pm, Paul Hobson <gtg6...@mail.gatech.edu> wrote:
> > Depends on what you use the computer for, but for the things I need
> > (LaTeX and maple, mostly) linux really outshines windows.
> If I told you I was going to be doing a bunch of MATLAB and maybe
> running Wine or Crossover to use MathCad (+ email, internet, etc), would
> you say that Debian or Ubuntu would be better for me (P4, 160 GB, in
> dire need of upgraded RAM)???
Either will work but Ubuntu is easier for a novice to install,
add software to, keep up to date and so on. How much
RAM do you have, and you're not regarding that as an
outdated computer are you?
Ubuntu is more out-of-the-box and defaults to being
graphical, while Debian is easier to set up as a stripped
down system. For ex, I have used Debian (sarge) on a
laptop with a P1 233 MHz processor with 96 mb ram,
even to program and run Openoffice (No really I have).
That would be a pain with Ubuntu because it uses a
more resource hungry window manager. If you
are short on memory, Xubuntu economizes on
memory by not using Gnome as the window manager.
I'm typing this on an 5 yr old P3/600 laptop (running
Fedora). It stays up for months at a time, unless I shut
it down to travel.
Ben
Ben C
> David L. Johnson wrote:
[snip]
>> Depends on what you use the computer for, but for the things I need
>> (LaTeX and maple, mostly) linux really outshines windows.
>>
>
> If I told you I was going to be doing a bunch of MATLAB and maybe
> running Wine or Crossover to use MathCad (+ email, internet, etc), would
> you say that Debian or Ubuntu would be better for me (P4, 160 GB, in
> dire need of upgraded RAM)???
> \\paul
Another possibility is to use GNU Octave instead of MATLAB.
http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/
I've never used MATLAB, only Octave, but they're "mostly compatible".
Paul Hobson
I've looked into that...but I noticed that on the box of my student copy
of MATLAB, it has Linux installation instructions. So I'm in the clear.
Mathcad and (maybe) VBA via Excel are the only windows-only
applications I have (I don't steal software...just not my style).
\\paul
Paul Hobson
>
> On Jan 28, 8:13 pm, Paul Hobson <gtg6...@mail.gatech.edu> wrote:
>
>>> Depends on what you use the computer for, but for the things I need
>>> (LaTeX and maple, mostly) linux really outshines windows.
>
>> If I told you I was going to be doing a bunch of MATLAB and maybe
>> running Wine or Crossover to use MathCad (+ email, internet, etc), would
>> you say that Debian or Ubuntu would be better for me (P4, 160 GB, in
>> dire need of upgraded RAM)???
>
> Either will work but Ubuntu is easier for a novice to install,
> add software to, keep up to date and so on. How much
> RAM do you have, and you're not regarding that as an
> outdated computer are you?
No, but 256 GB of RAM just seems silly to have since that stuff has
gotten so cheap lately. Currently opening MATLAB and Mathcad bog this
system down a little bit, but a lot of that could be my old installation
of XP.
[informative Linux advice snipped]
Thanks!
Paul Hobson
> On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 22:13:00 -0500, Paul Hobson typed:
>
>> David L. Johnson wrote:
>
>>> Depends on what you use the computer for, but for the things I need
>>> (LaTeX and maple, mostly) linux really outshines windows.
>>>
>> If I told you I was going to be doing a bunch of MATLAB and maybe
>> running Wine or Crossover to use MathCad (+ email, internet, etc), would
>> you say that Debian or Ubuntu would be better for me (P4, 160 GB, in
>> dire need of upgraded RAM)???
>
>
> Either is fine--but for the desktop user, Ubuntu is so incredibly popular
> that it's a good choice as there's tons of documentation. It's still got a
> heart of Debian, though, so great package management--and super easy
> upgrades.
OK. My local Linux guru wants to get me on Debian, but what I could
decipher from the intraweb is pretty much what you've said.
[snip]
> There are two installers for Ubuntu these days, one that boots a live
> session, and the "alternate" which is a straight up curses based
> installer. The latter isn't as pretty, but it's very reliable, and is what
> I recommend. It's a single CD, so less of a hassle than the multi CD
> Linuxes.
>
> Have fun!
Thanks for the tips!
Marcus Coles
Bast, the cat woman, god, goddess or tree fibre?
Marcus, user of the legendary Thunderbird for general news reading and
Pan, (the god/goat/guy with the harmonica) when binaries are involved.
Tim McNamara
Paul Hobson <gtg...@mail.gatech.edu> wrote:
> OK. My local Linux guru wants to get me on Debian, but what I could
> decipher from the intraweb is pretty much what you've said.
Remember that your local Linux guru is, after all, a Linux guru and
doing things the hard way seems normal to him.
David L. Johnson
> On Jan 28, 8:13 pm, Paul Hobson <gtg6...@mail.gatech.edu> wrote:
>
>> > Depends on what you use the computer for, but for the things I need
>> > (LaTeX and maple, mostly) linux really outshines windows.
>
>> If I told you I was going to be doing a bunch of MATLAB and maybe
>> running Wine or Crossover to use MathCad (+ email, internet, etc), would
>> you say that Debian or Ubuntu would be better for me (P4, 160 GB, in
>> dire need of upgraded RAM)???
Using wine for email and other internet access is totally unnecessary, if
that is what you meant. I don't particularly like MathCad, and wonder
what you will need it for. LyX will soon (in version 1.5, I believe) have
the potential to interact with mathematical programs such as Maple or
matlab, both of which have linux ports. Especially in a slower system, it
would be better to avoid having to use wine. Crossover I have never
fiddled with.
I've never used Ubuntu, but there are persistent good reviews from those
who do. Debian is almost infinitely configurable, so if you know what you
are doing you can set it up properly for a very minimal system. Ubuntu is
actually a debian variant, so much the same applies to it, with more
automation of the choices and so some limitation of the possibilities.
--
David L. Johnson
The lottery is a tax on those who fail to understand mathematics.
landotter
LOL!! Took the words right out of my mouth. Not that there's a thing wrong
with Debian, mind, but it's likely the wrong tool for the job.
Reminds me of when my mother asked her friend what kind of new car she
should buy. He insisted "4Runner", and she replied, "but I don't off road,
hunt, or fish" and he was incredulous--it's the ole' "when ya got a
hammer..." philosophy.
Ben C
You can run VBA in Open Office.
landotter
Does it work with Gnumeric? Open Office is great and good, mind, but
Gnumeric has a much smaller footprint.
Ben C
I've not tried it, but I should think it would be less likely to, since
VBA is considered fairly objectionable by proper programmers who work on
GNU projects like Gnumeric. OpenOffice supports VBA since it's trying to
be compatible with MS Office.
Dan Connelly
Fedora Cores I'd been using previously. For resource-starved systems,
I'd try xubuntu. I have an old 256MB 233 MHz system, and plan to
install xubuntu on it, replacing the existing RH9.
Dan
Paul Hobson
On Jan 29, 10:59 am, "David L. Johnson" <david.john...@lehigh.edu>
wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 22:43:33 -0800, b...@mambo.ucolick.org wrote:
> > On Jan 28, 8:13 pm, Paul Hobson <gtg6...@mail.gatech.edu> wrote:
>
> >> > Depends on what you use the computer for, but for the things I need
> >> > (LaTeX and maple, mostly) linux really outshines windows.
>
> >> If I told you I was going to be doing a bunch of MATLAB and maybe
> >> running Wine or Crossover to use MathCad (+ email, internet, etc), would
> >> you say that Debian or Ubuntu would be better for me (P4, 160 GB, in
> >> dire need of upgraded RAM)???
> Using wine for email and other internet access is totally unnecessary, if
> that is what you meant.
Oh god. No it's not what I meant. Wine would only be for Mathcad.
Apologies for the terribly confusing post.
> I don't particularly like MathCad, and wonder
> what you will need it for. LyX will soon (in version 1.5, I believe) have
> the potential to interact with mathematical programs such as Maple or
> matlab, both of which have linux ports.
I do my homework for school in it. I prefer to do things in MATLAB,
but handing a prof or TA a stack of MATLAB code is a sure-fire way to
not get any partial credit when something goes wrong (unless they ask
you do to MATLAB, which does happen). The visual/symbolic nature of
Mathcad + the graphing and programming features make it sweet spot for
me. I'll look into LyX though.
> Especially in a slower system, it
> would be better to avoid having to use wine. Crossover I have never
> fiddled with.
Duely noted. Thanks.
\\paul
Marcus Coles
I prefer KDE to Gnome.
I would suggest a beginner looking at Mepis
http://www.mepis.com
It is Ubuntu based and uses the same repositories for programs, but IMHO
enables a smoother transition from Windows, a more representative
introduction to Linux and is IME less cranky than Kubuntu.
After 10 years of trying many different distros, I seem to have settled
on Debian for most things, this particular box is running Sidux, based
on Debian Unstable. http://www.sidux.com.
Probably a little bleeding edge for most, but fun for those so inclined.
Marcus
Bill Westphal
Yes, but his motivation is to provide functionality, and promote
evolution. He doesn't think the old stuff is/was better, or even
nearly good enough. He considers it experimental and preliminary.
Unfortunately it was good enough that some people got used to it and
want it to stay that way forever, for their convenience.
Windoze/macintosh are easier to the layman, but trapped in backwards
compatibility, stiffling inovation. But mainly their design is driven
by what produces profits for the stockholder. Why do you think it
takes a new windoze box so long to boot? Going against the lazy
"luser" and the Bill Gates of the world is indeed hard. I remember
the justice dept spent years chasing him down and prosecuting him and
one of the first things the 43 crew did when he took office is to drop
all those investigations/negotiations and let him continue his wanton
destruction of computer software. At that point it became even
harder. The local UNIX/Linux guru is your friend, whether you like it
or not.
Bill Westphal
landotter
> The local UNIX/Linux guru is your friend, whether you like it
> or not.
You make them sound like Jesus People, not weird pale fat guys that read
Marvel Comics. Soothing, and a bit perverse. Nice.
Note my headers...
:-P
Bill Westphal
Hey, my message is evolution, and rejection of dogma. I'll bet the
evil vista-geeks fit your description though,... and I knew you picked
up my Italian connection. I'm not as big a brother as Carl, but I try
landotter
> landotter <land...@geemale.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 02:36:20 +0100, Bill Westphal typed:
>>
>>> The local UNIX/Linux guru is your friend, whether you like it
>>> or not.
>>
>> You make them sound like Jesus People, not weird pale fat guys that read
>> Marvel Comics. Soothing, and a bit perverse. Nice.
>>
>> Note my headers...
>>
>> :-P
>
> Hey, my message is evolution, and rejection of dogma. I'll bet the
> evil vista-geeks fit your description though,
again, note my headers...
> and I knew you picked
> up my Italian connection.
I assumed you were the patriarch of a Teutonic empire.
>I'm not as big a
>brother as Carl, but I try
Carl's a pretty small brother on my screen on Sunday nights, only about
15" or so when he's in the full frame.
Patrick Lamb
<gtg...@mail.gatech.edu> wrote:
>landotter wrote:
>> Either is fine--but for the desktop user, Ubuntu is so incredibly popular
>> that it's a good choice as there's tons of documentation. It's still got a
>> heart of Debian, though, so great package management--and super easy
>> upgrades.
>
>OK. My local Linux guru wants to get me on Debian, but what I could
>decipher from the intraweb is pretty much what you've said.
If you have a local Linux guru who's willing to help you learn the
system, it's probably worth taking his advice.
<rant>Lots of folks seem to have forgotten just how "intuitive" their
computer wasn't, back when they started using it. If you had to help
teach a parent, spouse, or child how to use even the dominant OS, you
may remember how painful the process could be. It was probably a lot
easier for them, because they could call you (sometimes long distance)
for help. If you're even thinking about leaving the software
monoculture, don't expect it to mirror all the quirks you may have
taken years or decades to learn. You may be able to unlearn all the
old quirks and learn some new ones without assistance (aside from
newsgroups and web searches), but having someone to ask can make a
huge difference.</rant>
Pat
Email address works as is.
chuck
describe above. I tried several linux distributions on it, but none of
them ran as fast as FreeBSD. Compiling programs is another story though.
landotter
No dis on FreeBSD, as it's cool in its own right, but it's pretty easy to
"lighten" any Linux system by editing the usually overly heavy services.
Using a light window manager like my favorite, Openbox, can also help.
chuck
I should have mentioned that this was comparing BSD and linux with both
running gnome. I've used fluxbox and windowmaker for years. Since Beryl
came out, I've been using it with Gnome, but I wouldn't attempt that on
an old computer. The only complaints I had with FreeBSD were lack of
video drivers and it's hard to get configured.
I've never run a better and cooler looking newsreader than Slrn set to
transparent in a transparent aterm. The same goes for web browsing with
W3m. What's even better than the transparency is the fact that I never
need a mouse for these tasks.
G.T.
"landotter" <land...@geemale.com> wrote in message
news:eprvoo$nkg$3...@aioe.org...
I switched to OpenBSD in 2000 and rarely look back on Linux. I'm forced to
use RHEL here at work and every once in awhile I'll check out a Linux
distro. Linux still suffers from the same crappy documentation and
fragmented development paths that it did back in the years that I used it,
add to that the fact that most of the Linux distros do nothing to help
reduce the numbers of binary blobs
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_blob) forced on users by hardware
manufacturers (and Linux advocates call their OS free, what a joke), and
I've yet to see a reason to switch back to Linux.
Greg
David L. Johnson
> I switched to OpenBSD in 2000 and rarely look back on Linux. I'm forced to
> use RHEL here at work and every once in awhile I'll check out a Linux
> distro. Linux still suffers from the same crappy documentation and
> fragmented development paths that it did back in the years that I used it,
> add to that the fact that most of the Linux distros do nothing to help
> reduce the numbers of binary blobs
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_blob) forced on users by hardware
> manufacturers (and Linux advocates call their OS free, what a joke), and
> I've yet to see a reason to switch back to Linux.
Hmm. How many of those hardware manufacturers make source code
available to BSD? You either deal with their binary-only drivers or you
do without the hardware, in either linux or bsd. This is not only a
linux issue, and bsd is doing no more to deal with it than linux is.
--
David L. Johnson
Accept risk. Accept responsibility. Put a lawyer out of business.
G.T.
Bullshit. The OpenBSD project has had much success with getting several
vendors to open up their documentation.
http://os.newsforge.com/os/06/03/20/2050223.shtml?tid=8
http://kerneltrap.org/node/6550
http://kerneltrap.org/node/4118
Where the OpenBSD project makes great efforts in convincing hardware
vendors that opening their documentation will do the vendor good, Linux
developers and vendors write crappy NDIS wrappers so that one can use
Windows binary blob device drivers. Sorry, there is a big difference
there.
Greg
--
"All my time I spent in heaven
Revelries of dance and wine
Waking to the sound of laughter
Up I'd rise and kiss the sky" - The Mekons