[Pan-users] Re: Newsfeed

[Beartooth]

On Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:56:40 +0000, Duncan wrote:

> Beartooth <address@hidden> posted
> address@hidden, excerpted below,
> on  Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:47:40 +0000:

>> Alan Meyer suggested :

>>> You might try www.motzarella.org.  I like them.

        Went there, signed up, did that; many thanks!

>>      Hmmm... I don't see Gmane, nor grc, nor va in their list of
>> hierarchies; does that mean trouble?
> 
> No, no trouble, because those aren't publicly distributed news feeds --
> you have to get them from whatever private "news" server.  ("News" is in
> quotes there since it's not news in the normal/public/USENET sense.)

        I was hoping it was something like that. But I was getting scads
of red marks on the event monitor, all of them from swva dot net -- till I
deleted that from the list of servers ...

        Otoh, without swva.net, I don't ever have bburg.general in my
list of all groups any more. Also, there are several groups in the list 
(such as va.general and rec.hunting) for which I get no headers, even 
when I call for all.
 
>>      When I list six or eight newsservers in Pan, what determines how
>> I actually get to them? Am I getting news.gmane.org, for instance,
>> through comcast, or still through swva, or somehow directly, or what??
> 
> Once you setup a server in pan, it grabs the newsgroup list from that
> server, and automatically adds any new ones to the combined list of
> newsgroups.  When you visit a group, then, pan automatically checks all
> servers that carry that group for messages, then automatically grabs
> messages from whatever server they are on.

        I'm thinking I need yet another server besides motzarella; got
any good ones??

> If all servers are ranked the same priority, it'll treat them the same
> when fetching messages.  If you have some set lower priority, it'll try
> the high priority ones first, only falling back to the others if the
> high priority servers don't have the message to download.

        Iow, if I have to use one I pay for, set that to a lower
priority, right? Do all feeds charge the same way -- i.e., by bandwidth,
or by flat rate? Or is it a howling chaos out there?

> Since all the gmane groups, for instance, will only be on the gmane
> server, it'll only grab them from there.  Same, I expect, with the grc
> groups, etc, from the grc server only.

        That's fer sartin shore. Steve Gibson is as close to the world
champion of computer defenses as any one person I know of.

> But if you have several normal USENET servers, proper USENET groups 
will probably appear on most or all
> of them and pan will simply "do the right thing" for downloads.

        Only one so far -- but in the words of the old joke, I gotta
feelin' I'm gonna ...

> Uploads are somewhat different.  However, since you like things in small
> easy steps, I'd suggest setting up the new news server and verifying
> that you can download before you worry about posting at all.

        Went there, did that -- with much thanks for help.

> When you have downloading working, setup at least one posting profile
> for each server you want to post to.  Presumably that means you'll have
> at least one profile each for gmane, grc, etc, since they're the only
> ones carrying those group, plus at least one for one of your normal
> USENET servers.  While you're setting up the profiles, be sure to select
> the server you want to post to for that profile.  Don't forget and leave
> it at the default or pan will give you a warning if you try to use a
> profile that posts to a server that doesn't carry that group.

        Been there, bonked that elbow -- often.

> Each posting profile is associated with a posting server.  By choosing
> that posting profile, you choose that server.  As I mentioned above, if
> that server doesn't have that particular group, pan will warn you and
> ask if you want to post anyway.  Just say no and choose the posting
> profile that you setup to use the correct server, above.

        With four or five servers and at least a dozen profiles for the
last few years, I'm only too familiar with that. This time I'll try to
give them all names that tell me a little more ....

> Note that pan will normally remember the posting profile you used for
> each group, so you should only have to choose the profile only the first
> time you post to each group, and pan will use that one after that.

        That's if I use only one .sig per server; but I prefer to have a
variety. (I keep close to a couple hundred on tap for email.)

> The first post can be slightly confusing, however, if the profile pan
uses
> by default isn't the one you intended to use and you forgot that you
> hadn't set it for that group yet.  Again, pan warns you if the server
> doesn't carry the group.  It's just that some people don't make the
> connection between posting profile and posting server right away.

        Been there, bumped skull on that. Btw, if you edit a profile
after you start a post, you can't put it under that post -- except by 
saving it as a draft, starting a new followup, and opening the draft.
 
> That's why I've repeated it several different ways now. =:^)

        Duncan, I can always count on you. I wish you were on more of the
groups I follow.
-- 
Beartooth Coalbiter, Linux Evangelist
B'eo thu bl'ithe aet thisse b'eorthege! -- JRR Tolkien