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Yep The Bat still alive from the Windows98 era till Windows 10. https://www.ritlabs.com/en/pro...

Another one i liked was Agent mail and news integrated from http://www.forteinc.com/

I only used Agent with Windows, version 1.9 was my Usenet, e-mailer program for years, then 6 to connect to Google.

Yep The Bat still alive from the Windows98 era till Windows 10. https://www.ritlabs.com/en/pro...

Another one i liked was Agent mail and news integrated from http://www.forteinc.com/

+1 for a Qt (non-XUL) clone of Thunderbird, for both performance and aesthetic reasons.

FWIW, current releases of Thunderbird *crawl* on an otherwise empty 2GHz Athlon XP (so single-core), 2GB RAM WinXP machine - and this just ain't right. On that machine (used to be my main workstation a couple of builds ago) early versions of TB ran like a charm, but as I say, with the latest versions every damn mouse click in the GUI results in an hourglass and a 15-second delay. I fear feature-bloat and framework-itis are to blame.

On the same old Athlon XP workstation, Forte Agent still runs beautifully - the GUI uses WxWidgets. Sorry - Windows only.

I have overwhelmingly observed that the majority of computer users, do not want a truly free, democratic, autonomous, or self-empowering scenario, where their use of a computer is concerned.

With computer use, we now essentially have two groups of people. A minority of specialised, elitist programmers who write software for an almost completely unskilled, disinterested, and technophobic majority; and said technophobic majority themselves.

It seems that the proverbial "owner driver," of computers (a group among whom I gladly self-identify) are becoming a dying breed. I sat up all night last night, until 7 am this morning, compiling and re-compiling sources for my new NetBSD/amd64 vm. I have found use of that system tricky; and the current install is my third attempt. It is uneven in some areas, and there are many jagged edges. Nevertheless, I am determined, and while it has been somewhat frustrating, I have enjoyed the process; to the point where I have since only had six hours' sleep, in part due to my level of enthusiasm to get back into it.

People need to understand that maintaining their freedom requires vigilance, personal initiative and responsibility, and active defense. The psychopaths are tireless in their attempts to take it away from us; and more, to convince us that we should actually want them to take it away.

Learn to program yourself; but when I say this, I do not merely mean the new languages that are popular, which will win you approval from a manager. I mean the old languages, like C, FORTH, Tcl/Tk, shell, awk, m4, and LaTeX. Learn simple HTML, and use RMS' own web site as a code example if you do not know how. Java might bring you money, but in my observation at least, it will not bring you joy.

Use the BSDs. Get comfortable with compiling something from source code. A lot of applications are designed much more smoothly than they used to be, so this is nowhere near as difficult as it once was. Get VMware Player, and install an Open or NetBSD guest. Use it to teach yourself the command line and shell scripting, and then realise that there is no reason for you to pay hundreds of dollars to Microsoft for Windows if you don't want to. You can buy a perfectly good computer from here, which has completely Free Software compatible hardware, and then run one of the BSDs natively, and dual boot it with Windows if you want. I don't hate Microsoft at all; I just think people should have that choice.

In addition to your use of Twitter, consider downloading XChat 2 and discovering Internet Relay Chat. Many open source software projects have IRC channels, so if you do start using *BSD, that will also be a good way of getting help if you need it.

In addition to your use of Reddit, get Forte Agent and find out if your service provider maintains a Usenet server. If they don't, Forte sells Usenet access at $3/month for 20GB.

I know many of you want the new, shiny thing; but voluntary simplicity is becoming a major movement in other areas of life as well, and truthfully I really think it's time we brought it to computer use as well. I am certified as a Permaculture designer, and I truthfully view use of the BSDs as being as close as I can get to using a computer in a Permacultural manner. The word Permaculture is short for "permanent culture," and UNIX is timeless.

I don't know how many links are still good, but there seems to be a good list of news clients at the Open Directory. If you're in Windows, FWIW, the readers I've liked the most are Xnews and Forte Agent.

I figure that if we can all pick a particular group, it will be a good place to coordinate/discuss any protests (Slashdot is deleting posts/sigs that even suggest anything) and hang out during the boycott at the very least.

Forte is quite a bit cheaper at $2.95 for 12 gigs, or if you really want to go on the cheap, Motzarella offers free text-only groups.

$3/month for 10 GB. Enough for my TV downloads.

You're being reamed!

I pay $3 a month for 10GB. It's $6 for 20GB, $10 for 60GB. For $15, you get unlimited downloads. 70 days retention, and if you exceed your cap, you can pony up for your next month early to get your service back.

http://www.forteinc.com/apn/index.php

If a third party can offer this service at this price point, an ISP can undercut them with ease, because they don't have to pay for the much larger interconnect bandwidth bills.

Agent http://www.forteinc.com/ running under wine works like a charm.

Forte Agent Newsreader, argueably the best USENET reader of all time for WinTel, has always released exceptional "crippleware".

Free Agent is the free version, a good basic USENET and email client. Agent is the advanced version with all the buttons and whistles. I used Free Agent for 1 year, paid for Agent, and years later paid for an upgrade to version 2.0, all while using it on Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2k, XP, fully supported.

Their "crippled" version just has much less features (uuencode/decode/mime on the fly, etc.) but is still a good enough if you don't d/l binaries.

Not all crippleware is junk. I have installed Free Agent on many a computer for friends who wanted a simple and more virus safe way to get TEXT ONLY email via pop3. And it is free, forever, for personal use.

Also bought alot of shareware door games when I ran the BBS, but that is another story.

Well, then perhaps you should purchase a new file sharing client I've never been forced to upload with this one.

no, you are not allowed to peek at those links either... ;)

I use Thunderbird but i also use it as my main mail client so YMMV
Free Agent

Never had any problem with Agent.

Forte Free Agent, a free and excellent news reader http://www.forteinc.com/agent/index.php

ZoneAlarm is an excellent free firewall, but it does seem to nag more than before http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/catalog/prod ucts/sku_list_za.jsp;jsessionid=BQnRnRFFu7vlwK9sR9 zM3ydKxKZB7qdA2NEZ1dOyQNX1I20o5O2I!138179110!-1062 696904!7551!7552!-2058358518!-1062696905!7551!7552

The Microsoft PowerToys are free add-ons for Windows, some of which are very useful http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/power toys/xppowertoys.mspx

Exact Audio Copy (EAC) is one of the best CD rippers, and free http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

DVDINFOPro is freeware that gives information about CD and DVD media http://www.dvdinfopro.com/

StrokeIt lets you use mouse gestures in any program http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/

I've used Forte Agent for my email and usenet at home for almost ten years now. Its still a great application which is being actively developed again although its not open source and doesn't really handle multiple mail accounts (that's coming soon).

I tried Thunderbird a while back with a thought to switching to get the multiple accounts. One thing stopped me from switching. In Agent, I'm used to getting new articles in a newsgroup, reading those that interest me and then deleting all or some of the articles. As far as I could figure, you can't delete usenet articles in Thunderbird. I don't remember the exact details now but somehow marking articles as read didn't make them disappear.

Maybe I'm missing the point of how a news reader should work because I think Outlook Express works similar to Thunderbird in this way. It just seems so easy and logical in Agent to simply get articles, read some and then toss them out so as to start with a clean slate next time. I think if I tried to delete articles in Thunderbird it thought I was trying to send a cancel message out to the world.

Agreed ... from RFC977, Brian Kantor (U.C. San Diego), Phil Lapsley (U.C. Berkeley) February 1986

"NNTP specifies a protocol for the distribution, inquiry, retrieval, and posting of news articles using a reliable stream-based transmission of news among the ARPA-Internet community."

Note: Usenet was not limited to TCP/IP. Before the internet was deployed we used modems, 800 numbers and uucp to transfer the article streams. The protocol allowed the receiving system to specify which newsgroups to fetch articles and updates from. Each server only fetched what it didn't have. And one shouldn't forget about the NNRP protocol used between server and clients which uses many of the same principles.

B.T.W. In unix land we used CRON to automatically schedule NNTP/UUCP updates.

Also from the RFC.."Such news provides for the rapid dissemination of items of interest such as software bug fixes,"

As for menu based stuff.. Virtually all of the old text clients RN, Tin, NN news readers had curses driven menus (text of course). Xn and large number of other news readers cover the GUI arena. Heck, I've been using the Agent since 1995.

The patent appears to have been filed in Apr 20, 2000.
Microsoft had their windows 98 update feature deployed long before that date.
I think that just about covers most of the Method and Apparatus claims.

As usual, the USPTO has once again demonstrated it's gross incompetence.

Nearly every piece of software I use looks like that. Really. There is a massive tidal wave of uncalled-for overreaction by the Mac zealots here -- all of which are rapidly being moderated up to +5, Insightful in what is fast becoming yet another infomercial for Apple on a "supposed" open-source site. I would have thought that there would be less reactionary name-calling and product-promoting, and more balanced thinking and unbiased discussion, but of course I was wrong.

What happened to "standing on the shoulders of giants?" Does Ferrari attack BMW for "stealing" their idea of having nice rounded edges, or putting their engine in the same place, or having the dashboards designed very similarly? No, because that would be moronic. Certain aesthetic designs are just naturally good. Efficient. Nice. Natural. Self-evident. And they SHOULD be copied. That's how we progress. We take the good from other designs, add more good to it, and that forces others to improve on our designs in order to compete. Not that I'm saying the Linspire apps are any good or not, I haven't used them, and I refuse to use their stuff on ethical grounds, but what's even more disgusting than Linspire still being allowed to live is the absolute selfish egotistical zealotry of the mac faithful who actually are so deluded to compare Apple's apps with these rookie Linspire apps and demand a boycott based on some bizarre notion of "cool design theft".

Look at screenshots of iTunes, iPhoto, then these Linspire apps side by side. Do you REALLY think these apps look the same? Be honest. The Linspire apps have SOME SHARED BASIC CHARACTERISTICS -- AS SHOULD ALL APPS WHICH DO THE SAME THING, but are different in other ways as well. Should Apple get in trouble for stealing their GarageBand Interface from the other music creation apps out there, such as ACID? (very old version screenshot) NO! Software is a TOOL, and every tool that is intended to do the same thing MUST share characteristics if it is to be useful.

Think about it in simpler, more universal terms: Do you think if Apple invented a tool such as the fork they'd expect everyone else to eat with their hands forever because they were the first ones to pick up a piece of wood and put food on it? No. If someone else tries to make a fork with tines, should Apple be able to prevent them from doing this, thus ensuring a monopoly? No. Society is about working TOGETHER to a degree, building off other's work; it's part of competition. Competition cannot happen if one group can demand that other groups stop advancement because their forks are too similar, WHEN THAT DESIGN IS SELF-APPARENT. And Apple WASN'T the first ones to have designs like this. They took the originals and improved on it (see my GarageBand example above). But they shouldn't be restricted from using tracks for a music sequencer just because the other guys did it first. You can't claim ownership of things at that low of a level.

How about this? It's an ancient Windows program. It seems to have all the same features that make a photo program useful, but it's laid out in reverse (less logical order for Western society, where we tend to read from left to right).

Left side = main category, right side = subcategory, etc. Other MP3 software looks like that, the Agent Newsreader I use every day is even MORE similar, popular

I've always been curious about installers. I don't understand why they have to be complicated or why uninstalling should be such a problem. Providing the user doesn't move things around after the install, why can't the install app or script work in reverse to cleanly remove an app? Some Windows apps such as the newsreader Forte Agent, and the IRC client called mIRC use a simple installer to basically unpack files into a directory of the user's choosing. Later if I want to run multiple instances of these apps, or just relocate them to another partition or directory structure, I can simply drag them. I needn't worry about DLLs getting lost or registy/ini settings getting screwed up. I wish all Windows apps could be like this. But it seems like the larger and more complex a Windows app is the more likely it will have a complicated installer - or am I confused by what an installer actually is?

Besides, Mac-style drag-and-drop installs have their own problems: they don't get updated properly and they don't verify or deal with dependencies on install; they just dump the mess into the user's lap.
It probably leads to having multiple or redundant versions of the same library installed in several isolated locations needlessly sucking up space. Is there an app that Mac users use to deal with this, like some sort of library utility that scans a drive and pulls up a list of every library installed, including version information?

> INI files in the program directory NEVER worked under NT.

Funny how the developers of Forte Agent managed to miss that fact.

It's still the standard for Windows Usenet readers as far as I'm concerned. Too bad the content on Usenet's driven me away from regular use.

TS

In regards to mIRC, I also find it to suit my needs perfectly. Again, it could be because it's what I'm used to. But then again, I have tried numerous IRC clients, especially for Linux. I've also tried pIRCh, Klient and some other clients I don't remember the name of. Then there's X-chat, Kvirc and so on for Linux.

I generally consider myself quite open-minded about software. If there is a clearly superior product out there for my needs, I will use it. I use The Bat! for my e-mail needs, Agent for Usenet (never quite got the hang of Xnews, and Netscape is terrible, as is Outlook Express).

As a browser, I use Mozilla, Phoenix and Opera. I used to be a die-hard Netscape 4 user, but then Opera won me over with its superior ease of use, convenience and power surfing. When Mozilla became a real alternative, I found myself using it too, because I can't quite decide what is better for me. Opera is small, fast, and very polished. Mozilla has all kinds of "bells and whistles", many of which are actually useful, and you can "plug in" new functionality. I'm not sure I would recommend anyone new to PCs to use Mozilla, though.

Anyway, the point of this is that I use mIRC because I haven't found anything to better serve my needs. And since I generally use "alternative" software, apart from the operating system itself, I'd say that mIRC isn't actually all that bad. Unless it doesn't serve your needs. But to categorically judge it as crappy software is more a sign of narrow-mindedness than a nose for quality.

But hey, if you know of any other IRC clients for Windows I should have a look at, let me know.

Check out Agent by Forteinc.

Not really in the same category, I know, but for personal internet (smtp and pop) mail and usenet, I've been happy with Agent for about eight years now. Development has been dormant for a while but now a new group have taken it over and things are forging ahead with great plans. Its Windows but works well with Wine. I wish them well!

Not really in the same category, I know, but for personal internet (smtp and pop) mail and usenet, I've been happy with Agent for about eight years now. Development has been dormant for a while but now a new group have taken it over and things are forging ahead with great plans. Its Windows but works well with Wine. I wish them well!

Quick! To arms! Everyone to the forte!

*groan*

Try Agent. I love it, but some people may consider not rendering HTML to be a problem. It has *never* crashed on me. Not once. It's immune to the latest Outlook virus of the week. It doesn't render HTML, so no "image bugs" (image tags in HTML emails to verify that you viewed the message). It's clean, and it's fast.

Forte Agent is what I use for email and newsreading. I'm pretty happy
with it so far and have gotten 0 virii/worms. It doesn't render HTML, but I
consider that a feature. I use it on an individual basis, so I can't intelligently talk about its use by a larger group. You can even download it for 30 days free
to check it out.

See Agent Product Page for more information.

(disclaimer: I don't work for Forte, I'm just a satisfied customer.)

There is a similar kind of site at www.kuro5hin.org

Also, check out Usenet. You'll need a newsreader and the address of a newsserver (your isp should have a server). I use Pan for newsreading on Linux, get it here

If you use Windows, try Freeagent, available here

Had Jürgen picked up where I left off and did the thing right, I would be singing an entirely different tune.

I read your text with interest, and you have many valid and important points. However, I think you are being too harsh towards Helbing. At least this is my impression. It sounds too much like Helbing did this on purpose to try to spread yEnc "by force". I don't think it should be necessary to mention Helbing at all, as it is the yEnc issue which is important. According to Helbing himself, the release of yEnc was too early, and a mistake. Indeed, Helbing might not be the one to blame at all. I don't want to start the "pointing" game and find someone to blame, but Helbing can hardly be criticized for others releasing yEnc implementations too early.

My impression is that Helbing is aware of these issues, and that he really wants to do something about it. Perhaps it is still time to do this "the proper way" and create a well thought-out standard? Currently, updates to yEnc will cause problems for developers, but there is nothing saying that yEnc will continue to change forever.

What we are seeing right now is basically a massive public beta test, and various newsreader are adding support for the current version of yEnc. Perhaps this beta test will end one day, and we will have a mature version of yEnc which will have addressed all or most of the issues you point out?

Communicate with Helbing and continue to point out flaws in yEnc. I am sure he is more than willing to work on addressing these issues.

You can't stop yEnc now, but we can all help it mature into something which doesn't cause all these problems.

Don't you agree?

The first yEnc draft was never meant to be the base of a fundamental change to Usenet (this was a discussion proposal). And all I can do today is to apologize for the mess I did create with it.

Thanks to the AC who posted this link in another comment.

Nevertheless, the way yEnc has been spread is not beneficial. But it can't really be "blamed" on any single person as such.

I think a company such as Forté could create a real standard using an encoding method similar to yEnc (it wasn't "invented" by yEnc's author, anyway). I think Agent's programmers, of all people, should know how hard it is to deal with these (non)standards, and could save themselves a lof of work in the future by making sure it's done right.

The funny part is the Mr Jurgen doesn't even like it's current inception. Check the Follwing link

That message is a week old and was sent in response to a one week delay in the release of Agent 1.91 (the first version with yEnc support). And in any case, the link you provided shows Mr. Juergen being very complementary to Forte Inc. and the Agent development team.

Since then Agent 1.91 has been released and Mr. Juergen posted this message to the Agent newsgroup thanking the Agent team.

The funny part is the Mr Jurgen doesn't even like it's current inception. Check the Follwing Link: link

... the implementation sucked.

I leech regularily from alt.binaries.anime and the related newsgroups. When the yEnc posts started coming in, I simply upgraded my newsreader to the newest version. But a LOT of people out there use Agent, and it was absolute pain to combine/decode all the yEnc posts that started popping up all over the place. The worst of it is that the yEnc posters were basically saying, "Start living in the present and upgrade". Nevermind that at the time that only yEnc-capable newsreaders were for Windows...

I mean, I don't know, but this sounds a lot like the OS wars that have been going on for quite some time. Some people simply don't want to have to switch newsreaders. Some people don't want to have to switch OSes. And that's fine, because it's a free world out there. I like the idea of yEnc (I get more out of my Easynews account), but I really don't think it should have been introduced so quickly.

Forte released Agent 1.91 2 days ago with yEnc support. it looks like Mr. Nixon is fighting a losing battle.

Forte released Agent 1.91 2 days ago with yEnc support. it looks like Mr. Nixon is fighting a losing battle.

Never have a prob finding what I need. Of course, you need a decent news server...but it still takes less time than reading all this claptrap on /. about kazaa/napster/spywear :-)

Usenet: Sex, hamsters and duck tape

The collective wants you. Join Usenet, the largest information repository on the Internet.

Every day, thousands of articles are posted on Usenet, short for Users' Network. Since its inception in 1979-1980 at Duke University, an estimated terabyte (1012 bytes) or the equivalent of one billion pages of information and discussions have been generated in over 500 million posts by millions of people.

Usenet is essentially a global bulletin board. Like e-mail, participants read and post text messages, but it also allows anyone to contribute their experience and expertise by reading and replying to those messages and forming threads. For this reason, many people flock to Usenet solely to find instant-gratification answers to their questions.

Over 50,000 groups exist to cover topics including Rush Limbaugh and sex with hamsters using duct tape (no relation). Experts (and quacks) from around the world are more than willing to offer their advice for free, and there are plenty of people on Usenet who could use any knowledge you have.

To participate in Usenet, you will need a news reader program such as Forte Agent for Windows, Tin for AIX (available with your university account), or Yet Another Newswatcher for Mac. Netscape Messenger and Microsoft Outlook for Macintosh and/or Windows are competent news readers but lack some features. You will also need access to a news server, such as the one provided by the U of C or another Internet service provider.

Once you are online, you will need to choose a few news groups (such as alt.tv.star-trek). The easiest way to find a group is by browsing the Usenet newsgroup hierarchy which structures news groups by topic (for example, alt.tv.star-trek.voyager is for discussions regarding Star Trek: Voyager while alt.tv.star-trek is for Star Trek).

Most new users should start in a group under one of the Big Eight newsgroups which include "comp" for computer-related discussions (comp.os for example), "rec" for recreational topics (television, games, etc) and "sci" for academic discussions regarding science. The other large hierarchy, "alt," contains discussions on almost everything imaginable although "alt" can be somewhat chaotic since almost none

of the news-groups under it are moderated. In moderated groups such as those under "comp," article submissions are approved by a human being before they reach the actual newsgroup. This helps to reduce the volume of low-quality and redundant posts.

Users can find out about a particular group by lurking. Lurking, reading others' posts for a while to understand the general flow of ideas in the community, is a good way to acquaint yourself with the group. Another good idea is to read the FAQ (a list of frequently asked questions) from the newsgroup before posting since most of the common questions have already been asked and answered by others.

If you think you've come up with a question or a discussion topic not previously addressed, or would like to contribute to a discussion, be sure to read the FAQ for posting guidelines. For instance, discussion groups about current TV shows request spoiler space (a bunch of blank lines) before anything that may give away the plot.

There are a few other things to keep in mind when posting. The subject line should describe what your post or question is about and you should provide as many details as possible in the body of your message. "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US" as a subject line or contents of the body does not count. If you are requesting a specific file or piece of information, it is customary to put "REQ:" in the subject line of the article. Not all groups allow the posting of binaries, that is, any file that is not text. Those that do are often denoted by ".binaries." in their name and are nor particularly great for extended discussions since messages expire quickly, that is, they are deleted from the server because the attached files tend to be large.

If your news server suffers from a lack of interesting groups or fast expiry, there are alternatives. MailandNews.com, for example, offers free Usenet and mail service. For older postings, there are searchable archives of discussions such as DejaNews' Usenet archive.

Have fun but remember that other posters are mostly human. Don't say things that you wouldn't in real life. "Flaming" or being a "troll" (read: bastard) will get you plonked (permanently ignored) very quickly.

Forte Agent supports Secure Password Authentication. It's not a Microsoft only standard, and has nothing to do with Microsoft specifically, just clients that support secure authentication.

There are two mailing lists, a developer's list and a very active user's mailing list. Users are encouraged to submit bug reports and requests for enhancement to the list, and we'll try to fix it as soon as possible.

There's a public CVS available so you can keep up with the latest version and somebody with write access will commit any good patches you submit.

This is a great project to get involved with, it's already in a usable state and it's actively worked on with new versions regulary released. I got involved because I wanted a Free alternative to Forte Agent (which works very well under Wine). Even if you can't program please use Pan and submit bug reports, any help is good.

Forté Agent worked pretty well, though proprietary, Win32/Win16 only, and relegated to maintenance mode by the vendor.

Whoops! I'll never get to informative that way.
http://www.forteinc.com/

And what about the idea behind Agent? Free Agent is a fine piece of freeware, so people willingly send money to Forte' for the full version. Perhaps there's something in the Freeware/Payware model that would work for normal/enhanced song production. You get a low-bitrate mp3 for free, but if you want the song that sounds incredible, pay to get an unlock code. Granted, code and encryption schemes are breakable, but the point is that distribution models like these are not inherently unsuccessful, so it's something to think about. We need to devise a system for music sharing and artist compensation that will work. The pre-Internet model of music distribution clearly will not.

I tend to agree that shareware purchasers are actually a tiny percentage of shareware users. With music, however, if that "tiny percentage" of payment went to the artists rather than the Giant Corporations, most artists arguably could still make more money than what they are making as corporate slaves. And as I said in my first post, it could certainly boost the quality of their output.

Like the man said, no problems; only solutions. :-)

And what about the idea behind Agent? Free Agent is a fine piece of freeware, so people willingly send money to Forte' for the full version. Perhaps there's something in the Freeware/Payware model that would work for normal/enhanced song production. You get a low-bitrate mp3 for free, but if you want the song that sounds incredible, pay to get an unlock code. Granted, code and encryption schemes are breakable, but the point is that distribution models like these are not inherently unsuccessful, so it's something to think about. We need to devise a system for music sharing and artist compensation that will work. The pre-Internet model of music distribution clearly will not.

I tend to agree that shareware purchasers are actually a tiny percentage of shareware users. With music, however, if that "tiny percentage" of payment went to the artists rather than the Giant Corporations, most artists arguably could still make more money than what they are making as corporate slaves. And as I said in my first post, it could certainly boost the quality of their output.

Like the man said, no problems; only solutions. :-)

And, in fact, is available in all good Windows GUI newsreaders,and likely most Unix ones as well. I use Agent under Wine at home, and have a good set of filters which take care of most spam, and even most lame spam follow-ups. It's even possible to noticeably reduce the spam in the pr0n groups with a few intelligent filters.