Two pit threads in the space of 2 minutes. How happy must I be?
Seriously - Why do newsgroup binary posters post their stuff using yEnc? It results in a whole lot of fannying about in order to see a picture you may not have wanted, but had to download and then fanny about with some third party yEnc decoder to see if it was something you wanted.
All for the sake of getting their pictures uploaded a bit faster!
Why? Is there some more excuseable reason than saving a bit of time?
And I have become too used to my current newsgroup reader to change to one that decodes yEnc automatically.
I did try once - Downloaded the most highly reccomended NG reader. didn’t like it. went back to trusty Outlook Express.
It makes a lot of sense. Using a 7-bit encoding system can add 20%-30% to the size of a file. Maybe not a big deal if you just wanna see Gillian Anderson’s head pasted onto nekkid pics, but totally unacceptable if you can avoid it. Ever download an 800Mb archive set from a binary group?
Why waste bandwidth? Get a real newsreader, or quit whining.
What Larry said: my newsreader (Forte Agent) incorporated yNec before the binaries groups started to be seriously innundated with yNec. If a lot of people with toy newsreaders hadn’t been whining about it, I’d have never noticed (excepr for the increase in speed)
Fenris
There doesn’t NEED to be a more ‘excusable’ reason. No excuse of any kind whatsoever is required.
Usenet posters contribute material at zero cost to you, for no other reason than a desire to share and no more reward than the very, very rare ‘thank you’. And believe it or not, posting to Usenet isn’t our whole lives and anything that cuts down on the time required is welcomed. The software required to decode a yEncoded post is freely available and open-source, and comes in several different implementations - embedded routines, external proxies, standalone decoders, etcetera.
Your convenience isn’t a consideration, and your unwillingness to learn to use anything more challenging than a glorified e-mail program is your problem. Most real newsreaders either currently support yEnc or plan to; ditto for the in-house web gateways of many major commercial news services.
The reasons for using yEnc have been repeated thousands of times in at least that many newsgroups, and the most legitimate arguments against it (as opposed to the demonstrably false ones, e.g. ‘contains viruses/trojans’) amount to nothing more than “I don’t want to learn how to use it.”
Not trying to be a jerk about it, but as a regular poster I’m sick of the whole debate. It’s just getting stupid. Your participation is voluntary, and so is your refusal to adapt. You don’t have to like it, but quit trying to put the onus on the people who actually contribute.
I can see I stepped on a few toes.
I can get annoyed can’t I? Even if they do do it for free. I am still frustrated by being unable to see a picture with an Intriguing title.
$rightAnswer =~ s/unable/unwilling/gi;
I am sure I have forte somewhere on my HD. I paid for it afterall! I guess I will have to get used to it.
apotheosis It’s not as if I am refusing to adapt. I haven’t touched a binary newsgroup for almost a year. I have only just stated using them today. I have had ONE day in which to have to adapt. And I will adapt. I am downloading forte free agent right now.
I still think I was entitled to be annoyed at the inconsistency with the current trend in computers and the internet - which is - less emphasis on file size and speed, more epmphasis on convenicence/ease of use.
Question: by ‘highly recommended newsreader’ did you mean XNews, by any chance?
If not, you might want to give it a try. It’s freeware, and though it’s got a somewhat steep initial lurning curve (meaning you have to actually read the documentation), once you get it figured out it’s very powerful and has great spam-filtering features. And it handles yEnc natively, no external software necessary.
HTH.
I have found forte already installed on my comp (I downloaded it and then found it) How do I download the full list of newsgroups?
after much searching I figured out how to set it up with my news server.
I think the gripe would me more properly directed at Microsoft for not implementing something that should be a universal standard by now.
Let’s take a look at the last thing I downloaded from usenet: A 210Mb .avi file of a TV show that I can’t bear to miss.
As a yEnc file, while the “real” size of the file was 210Mb, it’s encoded size 216Mb.
If it had been encoded with UUE, it’s encoded size would have been 273Mb. So yEnc saved 57Mb of useless data from being transmitted. How many other people downloaded this very popular show? Make a guess and multiply that bandwidth-savings accordingly. That’s for one file. Factor in all the files in all the video groups, the .mp3 groups, and even the ubiquitous pictures groups, and you’ll begin the get an idea of what sort of improvement yEnc is. Bandwidth is not a limitless resource, and anything that leads to less unecessary traffic on the network is a very good thing
Sorry about the “whining” remark, by the way. It was misdirected wrath for Microsoft and their cavalier attitudes about standards compliance. And crap software.
I have been drinking - my judgement is impaired. Forte is probably quite straightforward once you get past the setting up of server and individual groups. I just can’t tell in my current state.
apotheosis, I use Xnews exclusively for downloading binaries. I especially like the way it sorts everything and puts multipart messages on one line (with a nice icon so you can tell at a glance if there are any missing parts.) It used to drive me nuts trying to spot missing parts with Forte Agent.
That being said, I’ll be sodomized with a cedar stick if I can use Xnews to read the regular newsgroups. How do you navigate through the threads? That’s an instance where I’m guilty of not learning to adapt-- I keep Agent installed for reading/posting to the alt.books.* groups, etc.
Personally, the way I read 'em depends on the length of the thread. Short single messages, I usually just split the screen so the lower half is the message viewer; but if it’s a long message or one way down in a thread, I double-click the subject so it opens in a new fullscreen window. Less scrolling that way. The ‘/’ key opens the next unread message.
I agree with you there’s probably a better solution for text-only groups, but it’s no big hassle. The features are good and the price is right.
If it becomes a hassle, I’ll start insisting people write text messages in Acrobat, then upload the PDFs as yEnc’ed binaries so I can view them without the hassle of changing newsreaders. 
I never found the extra step or two with Outlook to be much of a problem. Normally I dump whatever I’m interested in into a local folder and sort it out later, so it’s relatively easy to just drag the yEnc encoded files into a directory and decode them.
If you want to do it on the fly, search for yProxy. I haven’t used it, but it is supposed to act as a transparent plug-in for Outlook.
I’ve been using Gravity as a newsreader for several years now, and have always liked its features. In December of 2001, the software company that developed it (MicroPlanet) made the decision to close down, and released Gravity into the public domain. Around that time, one of the former Gravity developers made some changes, to the official release, and Super Gravity was born. Super Gravity has been able to decode yEnc natively since January 2002.
I’ve also seen some rumblings on Usenet lately about FidoLook. This is apparently an add-on to Outlook Express that will allow OE to decode yEnc posts. Haven’t actually tried it, though, as I can’t stand OE as a newsreader…
Sorry, I missed that. I imagine you’ve probably figured it out by now, but just in case, it’s Online —> Refresh Groups List (KB shortcut Alt-O, R)
…and clicking on the top of the groups window, (where is says either “All Groups”, “New Groups”, or “Subscribed Groups”,) cycles between the three.
And apotheosis, thanks for initiating me into the mysteries of the ‘/’ key. That works fine.
Don’t I feel like idjit, though? :smack: