Re: problem with Forum display

On 2008-01-12 17:51:14 -0400, Terence <tbwright@xxxxxxxxx> said:

Update.

I checked over and over what happens when I select another google
group URL from all the groups i usually consult or post on.

Only this one and alt.lanng.asm have the double-screen initial
display.

After which the screens are stable for that Forum.

I am still trying to understand what the above posters mean about
direct access to User Groups without going through a Google interface.
How?
I use Opera by choice over the MS applications and Netscape, all of
which I have the latest versions. I need to be able to selectively
clear refeence and history out.

Lets backup a few steps.

Newsgroups use something called NNTP which is Network Newsgroup
Transport Protocol, or something close to that name. There are
specialized programs, that look a lot like email programs to users and
they often are often bundled to add to the confusion, that deal with a
NNTP source. The NNTP source is typically part of the service offered by
an ISP. It used to be mentioned early in their ads but now it is often
hard to find. It will be called news.city.isp.net if you subscribe to
isp.net and they choose to localize traffic in city, or whatever arcane
sequence of symbols the isp guru chose to dream up. The isp will be
running a news server that both receives news postings from other news
operators and sends them posting. The route from you to me is typically
fragmented in the internet style which leads to all the technical
difficulties of dealing with messages that may be duplicated and out of
order etc. That is why the posting can be out of order and can have
"echos" if one of the servers botchs the labelling so duplication is no
longer detected. A side confusion is the NNTP uses different TCP/IP
ports than other services like the web or email. The purpose of all
this is that one copy of the posting arrives at the isp and can be read
by many newsgroup readers. A mailing list would have to send separate
copies to each reader at greater communication cost.

As a service to those who do not bother to get a NNTP reader many isps
offer a web interface to the newsgroups. If they can offer a web
interface to email then it is a small step to do the same for
newsgroups. That used to be the AOL way and was often noted for the many
totally clueless newgroup users who arrived via AOL. Google has its web
interface so you do not even need to use your local isp.

Many sites offer forums for technical support or discussing the state of
the world. They have seaparate users postings but that is about the
limit of the similarity to newsgroups. Forum posting stay there and are
not exchanged. Compare this newsgroup to the Intel support forums as a
concrete example. Web interfaces to newsgroups and forums will have
similar visual appearances so it is easy to be confused.

A news reader can be online in which it requests the content of a
posting as you select it from the titles which have been downloading
when you selected the newsgroup. This can lead to delays when you hit
return for that posting if the server is busy. A news reader can also be
offline in which it will download all the posting for the newsgroups
that you have selected in advance. It will spool the contents to your
local disk with whatever dealys are required. It allows you to read the
postings from your disk with no delays. When 9600 baud was a fast modem
the offline style was common. In the days of 1.5mbs cable feeds the
online style is the most common.

If you read newsgroups regularly it is a very good bet that the use
of a specialized newsreader will make things easier in the long run.
The initial cost of choosing a newsreader, which is as subjective as
choosing an editor, will save itself in the ease of use over a web
interface. When you go an vacation and really need to keep up then
the web interface can be tolerated.

Google will be several layers away from the real NNTP service so all
sorts of funny things can be going on. Get a nice NNTP reader and
use the NNTP service of you local isp and things will look a lot
cleaner. There are several open source newsreaders (ask Google!)
although I use a commercal one on MacOsX. It is an online reader
as I have a cable modem. I still like the offline reader that I had
on MacOs back when the bleeding edge was 38k dialups. I have also
had times when I used PCs and found that I preferred the commercial
newsreaders there. I tend to prefer a well choosen set of useful
features out of the box rather than an uncountablely large collection
of arcane fetures with an awkward set of defaults which is all too
typical of various open software offerings. Some open software follows
the usability style so my tar brush is not universal. Gnome vrs KDE
is a good example of this issue. Or Ubuntu comapred to other Linux
offerings. "It just works" sounds real good to me so I can spend my
time on other persuits.

So much for ramblings on isps and newsgroups.









.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: problem with Forum display
    ... direct access to User Groups without going through a Google interface. ... Newsgroups use something called NNTP which is Network Newsgroup ... That is why the posting can be out of order and can have ...
    (comp.lang.fortran)
  • Re: problem with Forum display
    ... direct access to User Groups without going through a Google interface. ... Newsgroups use something called NNTP which is Network Newsgroup ... That is why the posting can be out of order and can have ...
    (comp.lang.fortran)
  • A newbie? Welcome to comp.os.linux.setup, read this first if youre new here (FAQ)
    ... you can get an answer a lot faster without posting your question ... A comprehensive overview of 159 Linux newsgroups, ... try to think of what will best help the reader when he ... Anyway, to summarize, cross-posting is infinitely better than ...
    (comp.os.linux.setup)
  • A new reader? Welcome to comp.os.linux.setup, read this first if youre new here (FAQ)
    ... you can get an answer a lot faster without posting your question ... A comprehensive overview of 159 Linux newsgroups: ... try to think of what will best help the reader when he ... Anyway, to summarize, cross-posting is infinitely better than ...
    (comp.os.linux.setup)
  • A new reader? Welcome to comp.os.linux.setup, read this first if youre new here (FAQ)
    ... you can get an answer a lot faster without posting your question ... A comprehensive overview of 159 Linux newsgroups: ... try to think of what will best help the reader when he ... Anyway, to summarize, cross-posting is infinitely better than ...
    (comp.os.linux.setup)