Getting a decent news reader, filtering

Colorado Bicycler said:

Okay, you good USENET folks out there.

Currently I am on (and will continue on for a variety of reasons) AOL
(DSL), which no longer supports newsgroups.

I am using Google for newsgroups.

I would like to be able to reasonably filter out certain authors,
topics, and content (names mentioned) on rec.bicycles.misc.

What choices do I have? How would I access these choices?

I use giganews for my Usenet access. They may not be the cheapest
service out there. But the are reliable. Google "news servers".

And for a client I use mozilla thunderbird. It may not be the most
powerful, but it's free, fairly easy to use and has decent filters.

Quoted message said:

I will not be leaving AOL, so that is not an option.

I would be willing to pay a small fee if necessary.

The basic service at giganews is $7.99 a month for 2 gigabytes. I have
never even come close to that limit.

Quoted message said:

Do you believe that USENET will continue in its current format?

I hope it continues in this format. But who can say for sure.

Ken
--
New cycling jersey: $49
new cycling shorts: $39
Not being a slave to the petrol pump: priceless.

contact me here: http://www.bikesandmoreonline.com/contact.html

Ken C. M. wrote:

Thanks.

I will check Giga out.

Ken C. M. said:

Colorado Bicycler said:

Okay, you good USENET folks out there.
Currently I am on (and will continue on for a variety of reasons) AOL
(DSL), which no longer supports newsgroups.
I am using Google for newsgroups.
I would like to be able to reasonably filter out certain authors,
topics, and content (names mentioned) on rec.bicycles.misc.
What choices do I have? How would I access these choices?

I use giganews for my Usenet access. They may not be the cheapest
service out there. But the are reliable. Google "news servers".

And for a client I use mozilla thunderbird. It may not be the most
powerful, but it's free, fairly easy to use and has decent filters.

Quoted message said:

I will not be leaving AOL, so that is not an option.
I would be willing to pay a small fee if necessary.

The basic service at giganews is $7.99 a month for 2 gigabytes. I have
never even come close to that limit.

Blimey. I pay 10 dollars a year for news.individual.net

In article <[email hidden]>,

Colorado Bicycler () said:

Okay, you good USENET folks out there.

Currently I am on (and will continue on for a variety of reasons) AOL
(DSL), which no longer supports newsgroups.

I am using Google for newsgroups.

I would like to be able to reasonably filter out certain authors,
topics, and content (names mentioned) on rec.bicycles.misc.

What choices do I have? How would I access these choices?

I'm using Microplanet Gravity, which:

o is free, and
o allows one to filter stuff in the body of the message as well as the
subject and headers

<URL:http://mpgravity.sourceforge.net/>

It's no longer being supported, and occasionally crashes for no readily-
apparent reason, but I rather like it.

--
Dave Larrington - <http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/>
Official: Living in a wardrobe can be injurious to one's health
<URL:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1567961,00.html>

Colorado Bicycler said:

Okay, you good USENET folks out there.

Currently I am on (and will continue on for a variety of reasons) AOL
(DSL), which no longer supports newsgroups.

I am using Google for newsgroups.

I would like to be able to reasonably filter out certain authors,
topics, and content (names mentioned) on rec.bicycles.misc.

What choices do I have? How would I access these choices?

You need a reader and a provider. individual.net is my provider choice
for text-based groups, and 10 euros per year isn't bad. There are some
other providers, like www.giganews.net and teranews.net, that have
better coverage (like some at all) for some of the binary groups. Surf
over and check them out.

I like Agent best for a news reader on windoze -- look at
www.forteinc.com for trial or purchase. Unfortunately, it only runs on
windoze or a a windoze emulator like wine. When I can get wine running,
Agent is still my choice. Otherwise I'll go with Thunderbird, a free
download from www.mozilla.com.

There are other readers, so let us know what you decide on if you need
help setting up either the reader or the kill file.

Quoted message said:

I will not be leaving AOL, so that is not an option.

I would be willing to pay a small fee if necessary.

Do you believe that USENET will continue in its current format?

For the next few years, yes. After that, who knows? Some of the
web-based forums are getting some traction, so I don't know if usenet
will remain viable long-term or not.

Pat

Hadron Quark said:

"Ken C. M." <[email hidden]> writes:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The basic service at giganews is $7.99 a month for 2 gigabytes. I have
never even come close to that limit.

Blimey. I pay 10 dollars a year for news.individual.net

I used individual when they were free. But found them to be somewhat
un-reliable. Perhaps they are better now that they are not free.

Ken
--
New cycling jersey: $49
new cycling shorts: $39
Not being a slave to the petrol pump: priceless.

contact me here: http://www.bikesandmoreonline.com/contact.html

Ken C. M. said:

Hadron Quark said:

"Ken C. M." <[email hidden]> writes:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The basic service at giganews is $7.99 a month for 2 gigabytes. I have
never even come close to that limit.

Blimey. I pay 10 dollars a year for news.individual.net

I used individual when they were free. But found them to be somewhat
un-reliable. Perhaps they are better now that they are not free.

How unreliable? I have never had an issue. And there is a huge
discrepancy in costs : unless you're a binaries fiend of course.

"Hadron Quark" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Ken C. M. said:

Hadron Quark said:

"Ken C. M." <[email hidden]> writes:

Quoted message said:

>The basic service at giganews is $7.99 a month for 2 gigabytes. I have
>never even come close to that limit.
Blimey. I pay 10 dollars a year for news.individual.net

I used individual when they were free. But found them to be somewhat
un-reliable. Perhaps they are better now that they are not free.

How unreliable? I have never had an issue. And there is a huge
discrepancy in costs : unless you're a binaries fiend of course.

I found individual.de to be perfectly reliable when I used their service.
Now I'm getting it through Earthlink as a part of my ISP services. While
it's OK now, for several weeks the whole thing was completely screwed up,
and the company's interest in fixing it was pretty minimal. It made me
hanker for individual.de -- $10/year seems like a small price to pay to get
a reliable news feed.

--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
http://www.bicyclemeditations.org/
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

Hadron Quark said:

Ken C. M. said:

Hadron Quark said:

"Ken C. M." <[email hidden]> writes:

Quoted message said:

>The basic service at giganews is $7.99 a month for 2 gigabytes. I have
>never even come close to that limit.

Blimey. I pay 10 dollars a year for news.individual.net

I used individual when they were free. But found them to be somewhat
un-reliable. Perhaps they are better now that they are not free.

How unreliable? I have never had an issue. And there is a huge
discrepancy in costs : unless you're a binaries fiend of course.

Un-reliable as in trying to download headers and message bodies.
I'll give you the cost thing at $10 a year its certainly cheaper.

Ken
--
New cycling jersey: $49
new cycling shorts: $39
Not being a slave to the petrol pump: priceless.

contact me here: http://www.bikesandmoreonline.com/contact.html

On 6 Jun 2006 04:25:37 -0700, "Colorado Bicycler" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Okay, you good USENET folks out there.

Currently I am on (and will continue on for a variety of reasons) AOL
(DSL), which no longer supports newsgroups.

I am using Google for newsgroups.

I would like to be able to reasonably filter out certain authors,
topics, and content (names mentioned) on rec.bicycles.misc.

What choices do I have? How would I access these choices?

I will not be leaving AOL, so that is not an option.

I would be willing to pay a small fee if necessary.

Do you believe that USENET will continue in its current format?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

You seem to be confusing news servers with news readers. You
need a news server to give you access to Usenet since AOL no
longer provides you with one.

You then need a news reader to read the posts -- Outlook Express,
Agent, Thunderbird (Mozilla), or one of the others. OE and
Thunderbird and some of the others are free software. Agent
is very good but has a one-time fee to buy.

AOL provided you with both a news server and a news reader
(albeit a pretty lousy one).

A news server will deliver all the posts -- a news reader will allow
you to filter posts, and some news readers provide more options
for this than others.

You probably wll have to pay a fee to sign up for a news server.
But you can easily find a free news reader and download and install
the software. You probably have one, Outlook Express, on your
computer right now.

Ken C. M. said:

Colorado Bicycler said:

Okay, you good USENET folks out there.

Currently I am on (and will continue on for a variety of reasons) AOL
(DSL), which no longer supports newsgroups.

I am using Google for newsgroups.

Google basically is a last resort sort of deal for me. I subscribe to
Individual.net (individual.de is how you get to it, as I recall) and use
Mozilla Thunderbird for a reader. The filters are pretty good for
filtering subjects and senders. You can set the view options several
different ways, too. About the only thing I wish I could do and can't
seem to is filter out posts that are crossposted from other NGs that
generally wind up being trollish in nature. That would be an
improvement that I'd use.

Individual winds up costing between 1 and 2 dollars a month US. I was
on @OL, too. Just about anything is better than that was when they
supported newsgroups.

On Tue, 06 Jun 2006 10:04:33 -0500, catzz66 <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Ken C. M. said:

Colorado Bicycler said:

Okay, you good USENET folks out there.

Currently I am on (and will continue on for a variety of reasons) AOL
(DSL), which no longer supports newsgroups.

I am using Google for newsgroups.

Google basically is a last resort sort of deal for me. I subscribe to
Individual.net (individual.de is how you get to it, as I recall) and use
Mozilla Thunderbird for a reader. The filters are pretty good for
filtering subjects and senders. You can set the view options several
different ways, too. About the only thing I wish I could do and can't
seem to is filter out posts that are crossposted from other NGs that
generally wind up being trollish in nature. That would be an
improvement that I'd use.

There is a free program, very small and no longer supported, that
allows cross post filtering. It works as a proxy and intercepts posts
before you they reach your news reader. It is called Nfilter or
NewProxy. You can put the program in your start-up folder and
it will start with your computer.

http://www.aapcsite.plus.com/newsproxy.html

I have used this for some time and reading newsgroups is much more
pleasant with all cross posting filtered out so I never see these
posts.

Ken C. M. said:

Un-reliable as in trying to download headers and message bodies.
I'll give you the cost thing at $10 a year its certainly cheaper.

Individual has been fine for me for over a year. There are rare
hiccups, but most of the time it is very reliable.

catzz66 said:

Ken C. M. said:

Un-reliable as in trying to download headers and message bodies.
I'll give you the cost thing at $10 a year its certainly cheaper.

Individual has been fine for me for over a year. There are rare
hiccups, but most of the time it is very reliable.

Well I think they might have improved since I used them then.
I might have to re-investigate them as a more frugal alternative to
giganews.

Ken
--
New cycling jersey: $49
new cycling shorts: $39
Not being a slave to the petrol pump: priceless.

contact me here: http://www.bikesandmoreonline.com/contact.html

Hadron Quark said:

Quoted message said:

The basic service at giganews is $7.99 a month for 2 gigabytes. I have
never even come close to that limit.

Blimey. I pay 10 dollars a year for news.individual.net

Yes, that's what I would also suggest as a totally reliable news
server, and something like

Agent <www.forteinc.com>

or

Dialog <www.40tude.com/dialog>

as a newsreader. Agent costs $29, Dialog is free. Both enable the
extended filtering he is looking for.

Rita said:

On 6 Jun 2006 04:25:37 -0700, "Colorado Bicycler" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Okay, you good USENET folks out there.

Currently I am on (and will continue on for a variety of reasons) AOL
(DSL), which no longer supports newsgroups.

I am using Google for newsgroups.

I would like to be able to reasonably filter out certain authors,
topics, and content (names mentioned) on rec.bicycles.misc.

What choices do I have? How would I access these choices?

I will not be leaving AOL, so that is not an option.

I would be willing to pay a small fee if necessary.

Do you believe that USENET will continue in its current format?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

You seem to be confusing news servers with news readers. You
need a news server to give you access to Usenet since AOL no
longer provides you with one.

You then need a news reader to read the posts -- Outlook Express,
Agent, Thunderbird (Mozilla), or one of the others. OE and
Thunderbird and some of the others are free software. Agent
is very good but has a one-time fee to buy.

AOL provided you with both a news server and a news reader
(albeit a pretty lousy one).

A news server will deliver all the posts -- a news reader will allow
you to filter posts, and some news readers provide more options
for this than others.

You probably wll have to pay a fee to sign up for a news server.
But you can easily find a free news reader and download and install
the software. You probably have one, Outlook Express, on your
computer right now.

Thank you for all your responses. They have been very helpful!

"Colorado Bicycler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Rita said:

On 6 Jun 2006 04:25:37 -0700, "Colorado Bicycler" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Okay, you good USENET folks out there.

Currently I am on (and will continue on for a variety of reasons) AOL
(DSL), which no longer supports newsgroups.

I am using Google for newsgroups.

I would like to be able to reasonably filter out certain authors,
topics, and content (names mentioned) on rec.bicycles.misc.

What choices do I have? How would I access these choices?

I will not be leaving AOL, so that is not an option.

I would be willing to pay a small fee if necessary.

Do you believe that USENET will continue in its current format?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

You seem to be confusing news servers with news readers. You
need a news server to give you access to Usenet since AOL no
longer provides you with one.

You then need a news reader to read the posts -- Outlook Express,
Agent, Thunderbird (Mozilla), or one of the others. OE and
Thunderbird and some of the others are free software. Agent
is very good but has a one-time fee to buy.

AOL provided you with both a news server and a news reader
(albeit a pretty lousy one).

A news server will deliver all the posts -- a news reader will allow
you to filter posts, and some news readers provide more options
for this than others.

You probably wll have to pay a fee to sign up for a news server.
But you can easily find a free news reader and download and install
the software. You probably have one, Outlook Express, on your
computer right now.

Thank you for all your responses. They have been very helpful!

For heaven's sakes, just use your OE like any sensible person would. It is
free, works fine and you can filter with it to your heart's content if you
are brainless enough to want to do it. All those who advised you to pay for
a newsreader are totally insane and have more money than brains. Surely your
ISP services your OE? If not, get a new ISP!

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota

Edward Dolan said:

"Colorado Bicycler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Rita said:

On 6 Jun 2006 04:25:37 -0700, "Colorado Bicycler" <[email hidden]>
wrote:

>Okay, you good USENET folks out there.
>
>Currently I am on (and will continue on for a variety of reasons) AOL
>(DSL), which no longer supports newsgroups.
>
>I am using Google for newsgroups.
>
>I would like to be able to reasonably filter out certain authors,
>topics, and content (names mentioned) on rec.bicycles.misc.
>
>What choices do I have? How would I access these choices?
>
>I will not be leaving AOL, so that is not an option.
>
>I would be willing to pay a small fee if necessary.
>
>Do you believe that USENET will continue in its current format?
>
>Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

You seem to be confusing news servers with news readers. You
need a news server to give you access to Usenet since AOL no
longer provides you with one.

You then need a news reader to read the posts -- Outlook Express,
Agent, Thunderbird (Mozilla), or one of the others. OE and
Thunderbird and some of the others are free software. Agent
is very good but has a one-time fee to buy.

AOL provided you with both a news server and a news reader
(albeit a pretty lousy one).

A news server will deliver all the posts -- a news reader will allow
you to filter posts, and some news readers provide more options
for this than others.

You probably wll have to pay a fee to sign up for a news server.
But you can easily find a free news reader and download and install
the software. You probably have one, Outlook Express, on your
computer right now.

Thank you for all your responses. They have been very helpful!

For heaven's sakes, just use your OE like any sensible person would. It is
free, works fine and you can filter with it to your heart's content if you
are brainless enough to want to do it. All those who advised you to pay for
a newsreader are totally insane and have more money than brains. Surely your
ISP services your OE? If not, get a new ISP!

This reply is definately in the wrong newsgroup. alt.tasteless.jokes
would be more appropriate.

Quoted message said:

Edward Dolan said:

"Colorado Bicycler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Rita said:

On 6 Jun 2006 04:25:37 -0700, "Colorado Bicycler" <[email hidden]>
wrote:

>Okay, you good USENET folks out there.
>
>Currently I am on (and will continue on for a variety of reasons) AOL
>(DSL), which no longer supports newsgroups.
>
>I am using Google for newsgroups.
>
>I would like to be able to reasonably filter out certain authors,
>topics, and content (names mentioned) on rec.bicycles.misc.
>
>What choices do I have? How would I access these choices?
>
>I will not be leaving AOL, so that is not an option.
>
>I would be willing to pay a small fee if necessary.
>
>Do you believe that USENET will continue in its current format?
>
>Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

You seem to be confusing news servers with news readers. You
need a news server to give you access to Usenet since AOL no
longer provides you with one.

You then need a news reader to read the posts -- Outlook Express,
Agent, Thunderbird (Mozilla), or one of the others. OE and
Thunderbird and some of the others are free software. Agent
is very good but has a one-time fee to buy.

AOL provided you with both a news server and a news reader
(albeit a pretty lousy one).

A news server will deliver all the posts -- a news reader will allow
you to filter posts, and some news readers provide more options
for this than others.

You probably wll have to pay a fee to sign up for a news server.
But you can easily find a free news reader and download and install
the software. You probably have one, Outlook Express, on your
computer right now.

Thank you for all your responses. They have been very helpful!

For heaven's sakes, just use your OE like any sensible person would. It is
free, works fine and you can filter with it to your heart's content if you
are brainless enough to want to do it. All those who advised you to pay for
a newsreader are totally insane and have more money than brains. Surely your
ISP services your OE? If not, get a new ISP!

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota

If you would stop posting, I wouldn't need the filter.