Newsgroups for n00bs.

=P



I'm writing this because I've explained newsgroups to about 8 people now in #dreamcast, and it seems like the vast majority of people on irc dont know what newsgroups are, or how they operate. Newsgroups work like bulletin boards. You can post messages to them, and reply and download other people's messages. The newsgroups are carried by your ISP. My isp, (road runner) subscribes to certain newsgroups, and they mirror all of the files. The messages posted newsgroups have a short lifespan. Typically about a week. On some high demand newsgroups the lifespan might only be a couple of days.

The Newsgroups are mirrored from ISP to ISP. When i go into a group like alt.binaries.dreamcast and post a message, it might be an hour or so before my message is mirrored across to @home's newsgroup server. Anyway, thats newsgroups in a nutshell, It's easier to understand if i dont get too compliated. For our purposes we're going to be using newsgroups to download files.

The problem: Newgroups have a limit of how much data can be attached to a message. You can't just attach a 20 meg rar to a message your posting.

The solution: The files will be broken up. A 20mb file might be split into 80 250k parts. The problem you run into because of this, is that your ISP might miss a piece of a file. and if you dont have the whole thing, you're screwed. So lets say you want tony hawk 2. theres like 25 rars x 20 mb each. well if one of the messages of rar 24 isnt on your server, you cant get the file. A good solution to this is to use a fills channel. #dcbythenose on efnet is good for dc fills. (get their rules when you get in there)



There are some websites you should keep in mind when browsing newsgroups. www.isonews.com will tell of any iso releases. and likewise binnews.com and binnewz.net keep you up to date on what is posted and which newsgroups they were posted to.

To get started you'll need a newsgroup browser. I use xnews. you can download it at http://xnews.3dnews.net/

Other options include Free Agent, binnews, and crappy outlook express.

After downloading xnews, you'll need to set it up. You dont have to fill in your name and nickname with real information, but just put something there. The next step is the most important. You'll need your ISP's newsgroup server. This can usually be found on your isp's help page. It should be in the same section that lists your DNS servers, and mail servers. My mail server is mail.mw.mediaone.net and my news server is news.mw.mediaone.net. If you can't find it, try calling your ISP and asking them. And no, you cannot use someone else's news server. (Not that I know of). Sites like dejanews don't carry the binaries either, so if your isp doesnt offer newsgroups, your out of luck. there may be some pay-per-use newsgroup servers available, i'm not sure. Some ISP's WILL NOT CARRY "controversial" newsgroups, others won't carry binary newsgroups because of the amount of disk space they demand. Alot of times you can request that a newsgroup be carried by your isp. if they're not carrying something you want, but you see similar newsgroups available, call them up and ASK! if they're carrying alt.binaries.dog.sex.porn.videos i dont see why they wouldnt carry isos.

After inputting your newsgroup server, xnews will go out and pull up all of the available newsgroups. At the bottom of the screen there is a small text field. This is the filter. if you were to type in "dream" it would find any newsgroup that has *dream* in it (such as alt.binaries.dreamcast alt.rec.videogames.dreamcast, alt.binaries.cd.images.dreamcast, etc) to subscribe to a newsgroup, click the small blue ball next to its name, you should now have a green triangle. Near the bottom of the screen there should be two buttons, Subscribed, and All. Click subscribed, it should only show the newsgroups you subscribed to (duh).

Now, to see what files are in a newsgroup double click the newsgroup. It should start loading them up (sometimes slowly depending on your isp and internet connection) Just sit back and watch the black bar at the bottom fill up. When it's complete, wait a little bit more and it should thread all of the files. You're almost there! Now just select the files you want to download.

If a message has an attachment, that is complete, you will see a light blue cube next to the name of the message. If it has a dark blue cube with a missing piece, it means the attachment IS NOT complete. DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT.

I use the queue method to download files. Click on a file you want to add to your queue, and hit the space bar. You should see a number next to it. keep browsing around adding all the files you want to your queue. Near the bottom of your screen there is a light blue cube that is missing some blocks, click on that and it will ask where you want to download your files too, select a location and hit okay, sit back and watch the data fly. it will go thru and download all of the files you selected.

You're downloading off your ISP so it should be pretty fast. It maxes out my cable (1.5mbit) so this is faster than most ftp's you'll ever get on. if you post a request you can usually find people who will help you out and post games you want.


Update: Theres a new technology being used in newsgroups. they're called PAR files. (parity). They allow you to get a recreate a missing file from the others that you DO have. so lets say for instance that you have rars 1-22 of Tony hawk 2, but dammit! file 4 is corrupt, and your missing a piece. No worries, with a PAR file you can build back that file you are missing using data from rars 1-3 and 5-22. If you are missing 2 files you'd need 2 PAR files. it uses some complex algorithms and crap that i dont think anyone understands BUT IT WORKS! read more info here: http://www.wehlus.de/mirror/ If you have questions, or i've missed something. msg me JeLLoNutS on Efnet