Help with nntp server (OT)

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?

Thanks for any advice.

Regards,

Mike Metcalf

michaelmetcalf@compuserve.com wrote:
> 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...

--

<michaelmetcalf@compuserve.com> wrote:

> 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?
>
> Thanks for any advice.

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

dpb wrote:

> michaelmetcalf@compuserve.com wrote:
>
>> 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...
>
> --
Googling finds a bunch of free and pay newsgroup servers. Here's a list.

http://www.disenter.com/

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

Gary Scott wrote:
....
> 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...

--

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).

--
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

jamesgiles@att.net <jamesgiles@att.net> wrote:

> 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.

--
Richard Maine | Good judgement comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgement.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain

jamesgiles@att.net wrote:

> 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


--

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

On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:05:54 -0700, Richard Maine <nospam@see.signature>
wrote in <1ilyuas.bzxp8m15cmyqwN%nospam@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".

Richard Maine wrote:
.....
> 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....

--
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