I read USENET at work through my firm's network with NewsExpress 1.0b4 but
for home we wanted to maintain the download, read/reply offline, upload
approach in order to save connect time for some websurfing. We're on a
DOS/Win31 system, and generally prefer DOS software, in part 'cuz screen
flicker drives my wife crazy after a while in a GUI.
After trying NetTamer and deciding that, while it did the job, it wasn't for
us, I decided we'd give YARN a try. I like working the freeware/shareware
world, the program looked pretty clean, and I figured that SOUP packets and
YARN sounded a lot like QWK packets and OLX. Naturally, however, our ISP
didn't have a SOUP capability, so I had to deal with that, too.
So I downloaded PC/YARN (0.92) and uqwk, and have worked with my ISP's
support tech to get things working. He's been very helpful, but it seems
like it's one thing after another, and I still don't have this working
smoothly. First it was the local news vs. NNTP version of uqwk, then it was
figuring out where mail really was on the system vs. uqwk's defaults, and
now I find that my ISP doesn't appear have inews, so my wife's posts haven't
actually made it into newsgroups (the uqwk message about "/usr/../inews not
found" didn't readily translate into "newsgroup message not posted, dummy",
at least not for me!).
Meanwhile I'm trying (in my oh-so-abundant spare time) to learn enough UNIX
and csh to write a few scripts and still need to write a batch file for the
home end to make this straightforward to use. While I'm definitely learning
and having some fun, it >is< beginning to get a little frustrating. YARN
seems like a nice program but I'm still working on the network end of it and
haven't had time to enjoy the local end.
Is this a typical YARN/uqwk start-up curve? Is there a better way? Pardon
the venting, but I need some encouragement or advice (or something <g>).
Thanks,
- DaveL
----------------------------------------------------------------
David P. Lemire | "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend
lemired@bah.com | Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read!"
Maryland, USA | -- the one and only Groucho