Re: Starting to use YARN

Ken Gresham (kgresham@america.net)
Sun, 10 Nov 1996 19:59:15 -0500 (EST)

There are three places on the web you can visit to answer most all your
questions, and get Yarn and Yarn-related software.

Kevin Martin's Hands-on How-to for Offline Readers
http://www.nic.com/~cannon/handson.html

PC Yarn Archive
http://www.vex.net/yarn/archive/

For a menu-based front-end to uqwk on your ISP's computer:
http://www.america.net/~kgresham/olmenu.html

I'll briefly answer your questions below.

On Sun, 10 Nov 1996, Thomas Jones wrote:

>
> Dear YARN-list:
>
> I am considering starting to use YARN. Some questions:
>
> (1) Would I be able to run YARN locally in my home PC? Or would I have to
> try to convince the ISP to install it and run it? (Talking to our ISP
> is like talking to cement.)

Yarn runs on your home PC. If you have a shell account on your ISP,
you'll use uqwk to create the SOUP packet components used by Yarn.
OLMenu is a menu-based front-end for uqwk that automates the process.
See the link above. If you use a ppp/slip connection, you'll use souper
on your computer to make the SOUP packet.

> (2) Is there some kind of installation *upstream* from the ISP (maybe a
> central YARN computer) which you tell which newsgroups you are
> interested in? I assume your ISP doesn't get all 15,000 newsgroups.
> (Right?)

With a shell account and uqwk, the file .newsrc in your home directory
(on the ISP's machine) contains the names of all the groups. You edit
that file to subscribe or unsubscribe to groups. Some online readers like
pine, tin and trn use the same .newsrc file (usually) and can make the
subscription process a little easier.

> (3) Is there a document I could download and read? If so, what are the
> URL, file name, etc.?

Kevin Martin's Hands-on How-to Offline Reader page will tell you
everything you need to know. Read it with your web browser, or download a
zipped version and read it offline. There are links to Yarn and other
useful utilities on his page.

Ken Gresham
kgresham@america.net
http://www.america.net/~kgresham