Impossible to post questions or replies

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Just to answer one question:

<<By "Download," do you mean "download," or do you mean "view" messages
that are never physically moved to my hard drive? Later on it says I
will "receive" all the messages the first time I look at a particular
newsgroup. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to "receive" tens of
thousands of messages from this group back in November!>>

Yes, when you use an NNTP newsreader, you must download a message to your
machine to open and read it. The advantage to this is that you can read and
reply to messages offline (which is important for some users who pay by the
minute both for their phone connection AND their Internet access). They are
stored on the local machine, but you can set a time for them to expire (this
could be as little as one day). Unless you have an exceedingly tiny HD, this
is not really an issue, since a message starts out as 1KB, though it may
grow larger in a long thread if previous messages are quoted. For example,
the message to which I am replying is all of 11KB.

Also, you wouldn't received messages back to November, as the msnews servers
themselves expire posts after 90 days. The only way to find older posts is
through Google or other sites that "slurp" Usenet. OTOH, if you keep copies
of sent messages, then you can keep your replies indefinitely (which is
handy if you want to repeat one). This is one reason I wouldn't want to use
a Web interface: it does not allow me to store my messages locally.

I know you were asking only out of curiosity, and I am not attempting to
persuade you, just answering the question.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

IF you were using Outlook Express,

But I'm not, am I.

I do not think that the Yahoo interface
would preclude you from connecting to the newsgroups by following these
instructions.

1.1. Connect to a newsgroup server using Outlook Express

Open Outlook Express and follow these steps:
On the Tools menu, click Accounts.
In the Internet Account dialog box, click Add, and then click News.
The Internet Connection Wizard starts. Follow these steps in the wizard:
On the first screen, in the Display name box, type the name that other
users
will see when you post a message to the newsgroup, and then click Next.
On the second screen, type your full e-mail address in the E-mail address
box, and then click Next.
On the third screen, in the News (NNTP) Server box, type the name of your
news server. To subscribe to the newsgroups hosted on Microsoft's servers,

Why would I want to do that? They're only newsgroups about MS
products.

type msnews.microsoft.com. If you don't know the name of your news server,
contact your Internet provider.

I already told you. My ISP has no knowledge that newsgroups exist.

If necessary, select the My news server requires me to log on check box,
and
then click Next. If you don't know whether your server requires you to log
on, contact your Internet provider. The Microsoft server does not require
a
user name and password.
On the last screen, click Finish.
Click Close, and then click Yes when asked if you want to download
newsgroups from the account you just created. The Newsgroup Subscriptions
dialog box appears.
Select the newsgroups you want to use, click Subscribe, and then click OK.

On the Tools menu, click Options, click the Read tab, and then clear the
Get
300 headers at a time check box.
Click the Maintenance tab, clear the Delete new messages n days after
being
downloaded check box, and then click OK.
Step 5 allows you to download and read all the newsgroup's postings when
you
first subscribe. Step 6 allows you to read older messages.

By "Download," do you mean "download," or do you mean "view" messages
that are never physically moved to my hard drive? Later on it says I
will "receive" all the messages the first time I look at a particular
newsgroup. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to "receive" tens of
thousands of messages from this group back in November!

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Peter,

FWIW, the Google groups web interface one seems to me to be one of the better ones as far as something to use regularly, including
getting an email summary of messages posted if it is wanted. Adding a nickname to your subscribed http://groups.google.com
managed subscription list for this group should have had it appear in messages you post here, unless you have cookies blocked on
google. Not having a nickname defaults to only showing your email address that is on the registered google account, and your
default 'nickname' is usually pulled from your email address.

As an FYI only, Verizon does offer, to its own subscribers via nntp://news.verizon.net (you listed it as nttp in a prior post) that
you can access via Mozilla Thunderbird if you were so inclined, but it has been somewhat iffy for some folks in getting it setup.
Additionally, Verizon ratcheted down its NNTP offering late in June to 'Big-8'
(http://www.big-8.org) and its own customer support groups (0.verizon.*) grouping.

=============

IF you were using Outlook Express,

But I'm not, am I.

I do not think that the Yahoo interface
would preclude you from connecting to the newsgroups by following these
instructions.

1.1. Connect to a newsgroup server using Outlook Express

Open Outlook Express and follow these steps:
On the Tools menu, click Accounts.
In the Internet Account dialog box, click Add, and then click News.
The Internet Connection Wizard starts. Follow these steps in the wizard:
On the first screen, in the Display name box, type the name that other users
will see when you post a message to the newsgroup, and then click Next.
On the second screen, type your full e-mail address in the E-mail address
box, and then click Next.
On the third screen, in the News (NNTP) Server box, type the name of your
news server. To subscribe to the newsgroups hosted on Microsoft's servers,

Why would I want to do that? They're only newsgroups about MS
products.

type msnews.microsoft.com. If you don't know the name of your news server,
contact your Internet provider.

I already told you. My ISP has no knowledge that newsgroups exist.

If necessary, select the My news server requires me to log on check box, and
then click Next. If you don't know whether your server requires you to log
on, contact your Internet provider. The Microsoft server does not require a
user name and password.
On the last screen, click Finish.
Click Close, and then click Yes when asked if you want to download
newsgroups from the account you just created. The Newsgroup Subscriptions
dialog box appears.
Select the newsgroups you want to use, click Subscribe, and then click OK.

On the Tools menu, click Options, click the Read tab, and then clear the Get
300 headers at a time check box.
Click the Maintenance tab, clear the Delete new messages n days after being
downloaded check box, and then click OK.
Step 5 allows you to download and read all the newsgroup's postings when you
first subscribe. Step 6 allows you to read older messages.

By "Download," do you mean "download," or do you mean "view" messages
that are never physically moved to my hard drive? Later on it says I
will "receive" all the messages the first time I look at a particular
newsgroup. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to "receive" tens of
thousands of messages from this group back in November! >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*