>> Update.
>> After which the screens are stable for that Forum.
>
> 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.
