For beginners with little experience with news, I strongly recommend using Newsbin.
Newsbin does not have some nice features that SBNews has.
However, after helping out a large number of beginners, I've found it much easier to start with Newsbin.
Otherwise, I recommend SBNews instead.
It has most of the important features of Newsbin in addition to some features that Newsbin lacks.
Advantages of each
2) Ther are several advantages of SBNews.
SBNews provides detailed logs to help you in troubleshooting (optional).
If the particular file being downloaded is a picture, SBNews can optionally display a preview of that picture so you stop downloading it if you don't like it (or even lockout further files posted by the same person).
It features a headers menu so that you can see the list of posts and reject any you don't want before SBNews even gets to them.
It features effective spam filters to help eliminate spam.
It uses the pointer system to keep track of which posts you've read between sessions, so that next time you run SBNews, it will skip the posts you've seen and start at the newer posts.
SBNews allows you to enter multiple newsgroups and jump between them freely.
It is best used if you have a single reliable news server that doesn't miss many posts.
3) There are several advantages of Newsbin.
Newsbin allows you to use multiple news servers, so that one server can fill in the posts that another server misses.
It has built-in features that allow Newsbin to distinguish between different news servers (unlike SBNews which assumes you will only use one server)
It is best used if you have multiple news servers that each miss many posts.
Shareware Nags
4) Many newsbots have shareware nags.
SBNews has only one shareware nag at the very beginning. It makes you wait a few seconds at first, but this delay increases through time (apparently one second a day) until you register. SBNews is fully functional otherwise.
Newsbin also has a nag that pops up during downloads. This prevents you from downloading while you sleep, for example. This is because if you leave it unattended, it will stop downloading after a while (unless you register).
Shareware nags for other newsreaders are listed at the end of FAQ 2F.
Filtering out Spam
What spam is
1) What is spam?
As described in FAQ 7, Usenet convention defines spam to be either:
a) a message repeatedly posted on purpose with little or no modification
b) unwanted or off-topic commercial advertising
Spam is bad.
To find out how to eliminate spam, see either the section on Newsbin or SBNews, depending on which one you use. There I will provide specific ways to eliminate spam. In this section, I will only give general background information.
What crossposts are
2) What are crossposts?
Crossposts are messages posted to more than one newsgroup.
If a message is posted to a large number of newsgroups, it is a general indication that it is off-topic.
As an analogy, suppose you were organizing a gathering for everyone in your city. Crossposting would be like sending flyers out to neighboring cities that weren't involved.
It used to be that some spammers would crosspost so much that it would be the equivalent of sending flyers out to every city in Japan, just to organize a meeting for those living in Yokohama.
Spam filters
3) Both SBNews and Newsbin have a setting that allows you to eliminate crosposts.
The best way to get rid of the majority of spam is to eliminate crossposts. SBNews and Newsbin both allow you to do this.
It's the option called Xref in SBNews and Max Spammer in Newsbin.
Suppose you set this option to a value of 1. In this case, all crossposts will be ignored by SBNews/Newsbin.
For most people, I recommend setting it to 2 or 3.
4) Newsbin uses a minimum filesize filter to eliminate spam.
Another way to eliminate spam is set a minimum file size through the minimum filesize filter.
On Newsbin, 6-10 kilobytes would be a good minimum and would eliminate most .htm files and other useless junk.
SBNews does not use a minimum filesize filter, but instead it uses a minimum lines filter (which is a much better method).
5) SBNews uses a minimum lines filter to eliminate spam.
The advantage of this over a minimum filesize filter is that SBNews knows beforehand exactly how many lines a post will be.
With a minimum filesize filter on the the other hand, Newsbin doesn't realize that a file is too small until it's already finished downloading.
For this reason, SBNews has an incredible speed advantage over Newsbin when used to its fullest.
I recommend setting the minimum lines option to about 150. In this case, SBNews would skip all posts that are shorter than 150 lines long.
150 lines translates to roughly 10 kilobytes for binary files So, any post under 150 lines either contains no attatched file or contains a very small attached file that's under 10 kilobytes (which would often be a useless .htm file).
Under typical conditions, this option will speed up SBNews more than all other options combined.
Note that a file that is 800 lines long is indeed twice as big as a file that is 400 lines long, assuming you don't include any message that might precede the attatched file.
As a minor note, it is possible for more than one file to be attatched to any given post.
Important: Be careful of multi-part files with the minimum lines option, because the last part of the multi-part file might very well be only a few lines long, even though the file might be humongous.
So, in such a case you might want to disable the minimum line option (by setting it to 0).
General Tips
When reviewing what you have downloaded, I recommend you use ACDSee and sort the files in order of date modified. To do this, just click on the bar labeled "date modified". If you don't have a bar that says "date modified", there's an option to display it. If you do sort it by date modified, the most recent downloads will be on the bottom in this case. This has many advantages and should save you much time (if you know when to use it).
Be sure to use a good server.
Not all News Servers will have all of the posts (even though they are supposed to). Some don't even carry files (like Dejanews for example) but text mesages only. This is because not every computer will have a 24 hour T3 connection to the internet capable of handling gigabytes of transfers every day (including having over a hundred gigabytes of hard drive space to store it). As a result, one news server may differ greatly in quality compared to another. Newsbin is pretty good at working around this problem in that it searches through the servers that you specify and uses one server to fill in the posts that another missed.
Unlike Newsbin, SBNews allows only one news server. However, it is always better to have one good server than a thousand bad/decent servers, which is why I prefer SBNews.
Troubleshooting Tips
Notes on Troubleshooting
Important: Very often someone will tell me that SBNews or Newsbin isn't working. Most of the time, the problem is actually unrelated to the newsbot itself. When occasionally the problem does have to do with either SBNews or Newsbin, it's always because SBNews or Newsbin was not being used correctly. So, hopefully this section will address such concerns before you encounter them.
For the purposes of this section, I'll refer to only SBNews for the sake of simplicity, since most problems don't have anything to do with the Newsbot itself (though some do).
1) SBNews has two log windows that you should check first in the event of any problem.
The top one tells you exactly what SBNews is doing.
The bottom one tells you what SBNews has downloaded.
If SBNews skips a file, it should also use the bottom window to tell you exactly why under most conditions.
SBNews is normally very specific in these windows, provided you are using the recommended setup (which can be found in Part E).
Listing of Common Errors
1) Error: Cannot Connect.
If you get this message or anything similar when trying to connect to a news server, then server is probably either overwhelmed with traffic, private, or non-existant.
There are a few other possibilities (such as a low timeout value, slow response, or data packet loss), but the first three are the most common causes.
One other possibility worth noting is when your internet connection is unable to reach the server (which typically only happens with servers far away network-wise from your location).
2) Error: Unable to Resolve Hostname.
This usually means the server currently does not exist.
The server might have even existed a moment ago, but at the moment you tried to connect, it apparently doesn't.
If this is so, then there is nothing you can do to change this, except maybe check your spelling.
On very rare occasions, this might be a problem with the DNS server.
Note that there is also another possible cause for this error. The details aren't important, but if this is the case (and not the first possibility mentioned), then restarting SBNews will correct the error. If restarting doesn't correct the error, then it's probably the first scenario.
3) Error: Too Many Users, Permission Denied, or We Don't Like You.
If you do get connected but you are then disconnect soon after, then there are a few possible causes.
"Too many Users" is just what it sounds like - the news server has reached it's capacity and won't let you in until it is below capacity.
"Permission Denied" means that the server doesn't give you permission. This might be because you didn't pay the administrators money to subscribe or because the server is private (for members only).
It's very important to note that just because a free server allows you to connect one day doesn't mean that the next day it won't become private or start requiring a subscription.
Lastly, this problem could also indicate that the server is temporarily down.
In a few cases, a server might deny connections to certain domains (in other words, one person can connect, but another person gets permission denied).
In any case, free servers are free, and there is no reason to expect them to stay that way forever, because typically no one is paying them to do so. So, I hope you do not jump to conclusions when a server goes down.
4) Error: Unable to connect to Server.
This error is given by Newsbin and is usually very vague. It doesn't tell you why you can't connect, so you'll have to guess.
The most common cause is a "Permission Denied" error.
5) Error: Asynchronous.
This problem can usually be corrected by trying to reconnect to the news server.
If that repeatedly doesn't work, you can try closing and then restarting SBNews.
6) "I ran SBNews and it didn't download anything".
The most common cause of this problem is when someone tries to use more than one news server with SBNews. This is due to the fact that SBNews uses only one set of pointers to keep track of which posts you have read, and if you change to a different server, these pointers will be out of alignment with the new server. If you intend on using more than one news server, you can do either of the following to avoid this error:
A) Reset the pointers for newsgroups (which means you might download the same files twice if you're not careful)
B) Create multiple copies of each newsgroup entry, one copy for each news server that you use. Then make sure that each server you use only uses one copy.
If the previous situation does not apply and you still have this problem, try checking the log windows. A lot of times a person doesn't see a message like "Permission Denied" or something similar in the log window and concludes that the problem is the fault of SBNews.
Remember that with SBNews, most problems can be evaluated by reading the log windows. Even if the logs don't tell you exactly what's wrong, they will at least tell you what's not going wrong.
7) Error: User is broken.
This error means you didn't read FAQ 2. (Just kidding!) =)
Common causes of Problems
The following are a listing of critical problems roughly in order of how common they are. Minor problems are not included.
1) The person did not read the bright red flashing warning that appears two times in FAQ 2.
This problem is so common that I've had to put two bright red flashing warnings in FAQ 2 (and still people don't see it).
Remember that a good news server is more important than everything else combined.
2) The person did not follow the instructions in Step 5 on being patient.
Several people see the "Downloading Headers" message fom Newsbin, and after seeing Newsbin (apparently) do nothing, they conclude that it is not working (when they later find out that it was).
3) The person made a typo.
Computers are often not very forgiving. Even if you make a spelling mistake when typing in your news server or newsgroup, a computer will assume that you are perfect and trust you completely.
While making a misspelling might not seem like a critical problem, to a computer it certainly can be. ;)
4) The person lives in an country or area where only one ISP is available, and that ISP intentionally restricts all access (*not* just some) to news servers
This problem is extremely rare. However, dozens of people think they have this problem when they don't (most of them AOL users from the United States who think they can't access news when they can).
Only once have I ever met a person in this situation, and it was confirmed.
All other times when someone thought they had this problem, I discovered they really had another problem (and solved it).
