Newsgroup + Outlook Express problem = a late thanks

Hi,

The 13th of december, I posted a message to the newsgroup asking a question
about printer and serial port.  I thought I never received any answer:
Outlook Express (on XP home SP2) never showed one and still doesn't.
Today, using DSDN I browsed through the archives and discovered the 4
answers made at that time.  I checked with DejaNews and it showed them also.

So thanks for those answers.  Did anybody ever have this kind of problem ?

Thanks

Joseph

Joseph,

> The 13th of december, I posted a message to the newsgroup asking a question
> about printer and serial port.  I thought I never received any answer:
> Outlook Express (on XP home SP2) never showed one and still doesn't.
> Today, using DSDN I browsed through the archives and discovered the 4
> answers made at that time.  I checked with DejaNews and it showed them also.

Which news server do you use?  They are not necessarily perfect.  Are
there any other posts missing around that time?  Could you have filters
or a kill file that might explain it?  Your server could have since
expired the messages, so you might not be able to see them at this late
date.  Did you go on vacation or otherwise not check the group for a while?


> So thanks for those answers.  Did anybody ever have this kind of problem ?

You mean since switching to Mozilla/Thunderbird? :)  Highly recommended
BTW.  Humor and plugs aside, it would be difficult to tell, as you've
discovered.

Have a good one,

Bill


--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

Joseph,

> The 13th of december, I posted a message to the newsgroup asking a
> question about printer and serial port.  I thought I never received any
> answer: Outlook Express (on XP home SP2) never showed one and still
> doesn't.
> Today, using DSDN I browsed through the archives and discovered the 4
> answers made at that time.  I checked with DejaNews and it showed them
> also.
>
> So thanks for those answers.  Did anybody ever have this kind of problem ?

Unless you've set up OE incorrectly it's unlikely to be the problem.  It
works quite well, much better than some of them alternatives you see being
touted around these days :-) *

It's much more likely that your news server (or one of it's peers)  just
can't cope with the increased amount of news traffic, mostly binary, being
passed around these days and is just dropping posts.  The easiest way to
check is to add another news server to OE and see if that server sees
messages that your current one doesn't.  In the case of Smalltalk the best
server to add is probably the one provided by Totally Objects.  It's free,
contains _only_ Smalltalk related groups and works quite well, with the
caveat that they don't have any sort of spam filter on it and you do tend to
see some unwanted rubbish.  The server is "news.totallyobjects.com".

An alternative is to use the server provided by a German university called
"News.Individual.Net".  This carries only text newsgroups, has a very
aggressive spam filter and is _very_ good in terms of completion.  You do
have to register though - go to http://www.news.individual.net for info.

*OK, OK - wrong group for that particular argument.

--
Ian

Use the Reply-To address to contact me.
Mail sent to the From address is ignored.

Joseph Frippiat wrote:

> So thanks for those answers.  Did anybody ever have this kind of problem ?

I've occasionally seen similar problem using OE.  I send off a post; when I
next connect to the server OE downloads my post again (so far so good), and
then deletes it (!).  It's exactly as if I'd kill-filed myself...   Subsequent
replies (if any) show up OK, though, so I've never worried about it too much.

If you are doubtful about whether a post has made it to the outside world,
then it's worth checking Google (but leave it a few hours -- Google seems to be
good at picking stuff up, but is not quick).

(I'm still looking for a decent news reader / email client.  Thunderbird looked
promising, but I'm starting to doubt whether it'll ever cut it for me.  I keep
threatening to write my own...)

    -- chris

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 11:26:49 -0000, Chris Uppal  
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> (I'm still looking for a decent news reader / email client.  Thunderbird  
> looked
> promising, but I'm starting to doubt whether it'll ever cut it for me.

Tried Opera?

--
Regards
HweeBoon
MotionObj

Yar Hwee Boon wrote:

> > (I'm still looking for a decent news reader / email client.

> Tried Opera?

Not recently.  Took another look just now, but although it's definitely better
than I remember, I still can't say that I liked it very much.

And anyway, it's /massively/ bloated -- imagine including an entire web-browser
in an email client !  ;-)

    -- chris

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 16:42:28 -0000, Chris Uppal  
<[hidden email]> wrote:

Well, actually it also includes a new reads reader, IRC client and RSS  
feed reader :) As for being bloated, it is actually quite small disk  
space-wise - a 3+ MB installation file and around 20MB installed. Anyway,  
just a suggestion :)

PS: after I re-read your reply, I realise you were referring to including  
a browser IN an email client, so my comments probably don't apply :)

--
Regards
HweeBoon
MotionObj

Chris,

> (I'm still looking for a decent news reader / email client.  Thunderbird looked
> promising, but I'm starting to doubt whether it'll ever cut it for me.  I keep
> threatening to write my own...)

I seriously considered that myself, but retried Mozilla and never looked
back.  What are its deficiencies for you?

Have a good one,

Bill


--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

Bill,

> I seriously considered that myself, but retried Mozilla and never looked
> back.  What are its deficiencies for you?

In comparison with just sticking with OE (for all its faults):

    -- Can't use any kind of message "View"/filter at the same time as the
          tree-based presentation of threads.
    -- Can't "kill file" easily (the "shortcut" operation only applies to the
          current NG, not to every group on every server).
    -- Filters are server-specific, there's no way to make a global one.
    -- Doesn't propogate "read" flag across groups for x-posted messages.
    -- Uses more screen space than OE.
    -- Can't look at message headers without also looking at the message.
    -- Uses fixed-width font for message composition.
    -- I'm not really happy with its "flowed-text" sending format
          (though I might learn to love that in time).

Also, it's just plain irritating that it doesn't do anything much /better/ than
OE -- in fact the only good reason to switch is to avoid MS's security
blunders.  I do quite like it its junk mail detection, but why in hell can't we
use that for newsgroups too ?  -- I see /tons/ more junk on the newgroups than
the 2-3 emails per week that manage to reach my inbox.

    -- chris

Chris,

> In comparison with just sticking with OE (for all its faults):
[snip]

That's quite a list.


> Also, it's just plain irritating that it doesn't do anything much /better/ than
> OE

I'll give you that, but...


 > -- in fact the only good reason to switch is to avoid MS's security
> blunders.  

This is a big one for me.  Combine it with the fact that I can see a
list of servers and posts under each, and read/reply w/o many hassles,
and Thunderbird becomes a natural choice.


Have a good one,

Bill


--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]