Newsgroups aka Usenet news

Dakkon · Post by **Dakkon** » Thu Jan 06, 2000 2:41 am

Some of you may be wondering what all the buzz about "news groups" was about.
A quick over view first, usenet news is aka news groups. Usenet handles somewhere in the area of 70-100 GIGs of data a day

There is somewhere in the area of 80k+ message groups. It's free to subscribe to as many of them as you want.
On to the geeky side

I mean this is geeky!
The offical Request For Comments on NNTP can be found here RFC 977.
NNTP=Network News Transport Protocol
Check out this link!Interesting.

Here is an interesting bit of information Netizens: An Anthology ch. 4 The world of usenet.
Another interseting bit is Netizens: An Anthology ch. 8
Now for more none geeky stuff

You will want a decent news reader to access the usenet Netscape and Outlook express just won't cut it! The most popular is Forte' free agent. You can download it here Free Agent
99.9% of isps carry news. Just point the reader of your choice to news.YOUR_ISPs_NAME.COM
If that fails call and ask what the news server name is.
Later tonight I'll post some links and stats on commercial news servers.
4 now Have a nice day
Dakkon

[This message has been edited by Dakkon (edited January 05, 2000).]

Dakkon · Post by **Dakkon** » Sat Jan 08, 2000 10:22 pm

Tony,
Had to take some time out to get the Flu & recover from it

Here is what I dug up on the 6 most common commercial carriers.
Check out this web PageInformation.
The Forums had trouble handling that big of a table

Cheers,
Dakkon

p.s. Most of if not all of the ones I listed give you free 30 trail access! Only catch is that want a credit card.

[This message has been edited by Dakkon (edited January 09, 2000).]

Post by **gmattson** » Sun Jan 09, 2000 3:08 pm

Thanks for the information Chuck. Your post answered (or pointed to the answers) to many questions I've had about that mysterious world of Newsgroups!

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GEM

Dakkon · Post by **Dakkon** » Sun Jan 09, 2000 4:52 pm

Tony,
Thats a good question! I think you only messed with them for a couple weeks though so it's prob. not on your credit card statements.
Can't recall sorry.
Cheers,
Chuck

Dakkon · Post by **Dakkon** » Sun Jan 09, 2000 6:25 pm

George,
One thing comes to mind.
Is xpres.net the provider that you are using?
If not most ISPs will not allow "external" connections, cuts down on spam

If they are then you may need to "Log in" to the news server like you would to check mail.
Cheers,
Dakkon

Dakkon · Post by **Dakkon** » Sun Jan 09, 2000 7:42 pm

Tony i really think you had newscene. But if you had usenetsrver they where $9.95 a moth still one of the cheapest out there and back then it was unlimited bandwidth! They screwed their customers too, if you prepaid a year and they made the change to billing by bandwidth it didn't matter you had to pay to upgrade or you where stuck in what ever level the $9.95 bought you. Kinda something up don't expect as you took the risk to join them!
Cheers,
Chuck

Post by **gmattson** » Sun Jan 09, 2000 9:23 pm

Tried it both ways. If I don't use username and password, the error message says I need them to log on. When I use them I get the other error message. Wonder if it has anything to do with my DSL service?

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GEM

Post by **gmattson** » Mon Jan 10, 2000 5:55 am

I just downloaded and installed Free Agent, but when I tried to load newsgroups got an error message. (Authentication error 502)

Filled out the server info correctly (news.xpres.net) and other info. Any thoughts?

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GEM

Dakkon · Post by **Dakkon** » Sun Jan 16, 2000 8:51 am

Got a reply from Tech support for Supernews.
Yes they support DSL/Cable modems to the FULLEST.
Also a sidebar note. @home users are facing a UDP. UDP is Usenet Death Penalty sounds scary? GOOD ! it is, that penalty if imposed would effectivly stop ALL posts from any thing that has @home in the message header.
Read more about it @ C|Net.com. I'm for it as it will slow the flow of spam.

[This message has been edited by Dakkon (edited January 16, 2000).]

Dakkon · Post by **Dakkon** » Thu Jan 20, 2000 11:20 pm

@home users where spared the "UDP" today as @home beefed up security on servers.
C|Net has the article avail.
Regards,
Chuck