11/17/04 10:00PM EST
Version 4.33 Beta 6 has some bug fixes.
- Fixed problem creating proper filename for UUEncoded multipart posts.
- Added logic to ignore the failed group command if downloading by message-id.
- Fixed problem deleting locked out posters.
For complete list, read the release notes. Registered users can download 4.33B6 from that link as well.
11/11/04 10:30PM EST
Version 4.33 Beta 5 has more minor changes and bug fixes. Some highlights:
- Server Download Limit fixed
- Fixed problem where column positions were not saved in server list.
- Fixed problem where everything was filtered if no filters were defined but, the filter checkbox was enabled.
- New right-click menu in status messages tab
- Implemented clear post list function in TCP interface so the next release of NBUFF can clear the post list on new searches (as an option - will be in version 1.61 release).
For complete list, read the release notes. Registered users can download 4.33B5 from that link as well.
11/4/04 10:45PM EST
For those of you who use Usenet Indexing services such as BinNews and NewzBin, we have made things easier for you! NewsBin Usenet Filefind (NBUFF), allows you to perform a keyword search of either indexing service's database and displays the search results in NewsBin's post list. This saves you from navigating their website, performing the search, downloading the message ID file (NZB or BNS), and then importing into NewsBin. NBUFF is free for all NewsBin users. Go here and download either the BinNews or the Newzbin version of NBUFF, depending on which service you subscribe to. NBUFF requires that you have a subscription to either BinNews or Newzbin.
NewsBin Version 5 is still under development and progress is being made. We have posts of screenshots in our forums here and here. Sorry, no release date yet.
10/15/04 1:45PM EST
If you have Automatic Updates turned on, and you leave your machine on 24x7, be aware that Microsoft may reboot your machine after an update is installed without you confirming it. This happened to me and a few others, while they had expected NewsBin to download a bunch of stuff for them overnight. To avoid this from happening, go under Control Panel/Automatic Updates and either set Automatic Update to a time you are at your machine (default is 3:00am) or set "Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them". This will save you from getting bit like we did.
We have heard that Verizon is in the process of updating their news server software which will cause problems if you download by message-id such as .nzb, .bns, or NewsBin's saved download lists. A Verizon customer posted a quote from Verizon about this situation here.
10/12/04 9:30AM EST
We want to put version 4.33 to bed before we start public testing of the Version 5 series. Version 4.33 Beta 4 has a few minor changes and bug fixes:
- The original green highlight for new posts is now used.
- New feature to set the download folder to the name of the NZB file when NZB files are used.
- Fixed day filter for 15 and 20 days, was broken.
For complete list, read the release notes. Registered users can download 4.33B4 from that link as well.
Due to popular demand, we are testing a version of NBUFF which works with the newzBin indexing service. NBUFFNZB takes the results of a newzBin search and automatically sends it to NewsBin for download. If you are currently a newzBin subscriber, we're looking for beta testers on the NewsBin IRC channel.
10/02/04 12:45AM EST
We are receiving complaints from Rogers-Yahoo Internet customers that their download speeds to usenet has decreased. As of September 30, Rogers switched over to a third party News Service Provider, Giganews. While Giganews is one of the top news services in the industry, Rogers customers are capped at 2 simultaneous connections and 256Kbps each. Full details here. If you are serious about your usenet access and speeds, you can sign up with Giganews for either their metered or unlimited plans or one of the other news service providers listed in our news services section on the UsenetTools site.
Version 5 is in use by Quade daily and we hope to start Alpha testing with a small group soon. If you are interested in being involved, hang out on our IRC channel. You just have to be in the right place at the right time to get in on it.
If you are experiencing high memory usage when saving download lists or using NewsBin's autosave feature, you should be using the latest beta release, version 4.33B3. It addresses these memory issues as well as some other small bugs. This beta is available for registered users only.
9/24/04 7:35AM EST
We continue to receive reports of NewsBin naming files incorrectly. We have traced this to a problem with ZoneAlarm somehow intercepting files as they are written to disk and messing up the filenames. If you are seeing embedded spaces removed from your filenames or other strange changes, update to the latest version of ZA, it seems to be fixed there.
If you haven't been reading our forums, we have released screenshots of the upcoming NewsBin Version 5.
9/17/04 8:55PM EST
Everything is back up and running. If you placed an order on our website around 6:20PM EST and have not received your key, you will need to enter your order again. We guarantee you will not be charged twice.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
9/17/04 8:30PM EST
Our server went down about an hour ago when the data center we are in was hit by a tornado. It was not a peaceful shutdown and we have to do some repair work to our database. While the MOTD and the main web page is up, the forums and the registration server are down. We are working to resolve this as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.
9/16/04 3:40PM EST
Will NewsBin Version 5 ever come into existence? Quade works on it every day. It is a totally different look from the Version 4 series, allows multiple connection to be applied to the same multi-part post, and will have the capability of being multi-lingual. Since Quade still has a day job, we can't give an estimate of when Version 5 will enter beta testing, it depends on how much time he can allocate to it.
In other news, a new version of NewsBin Usenet Filefind (NBUFF) is in private beta testing. It now encrypts password information saved in the config file and we are testing support for another popular usenet indexing service. Expect release in a few days.
For any questions about using NewsBin or NBUFF, please visit our forums, our IRC Channel, or use our Tech Support Form
9/14/04 10:30AM EST
Congress will soon be voting on legislation targeting "public dissemination" technology companies. What’s a public dissemination company? It’s a company that makes money from, or attracts users with, any kind of technology that would encourage or facilitate copyright infringement.
Currently, technology companies cannot be held liable for copyright infringement by their customers, as long as the technology in question is capable of substantial non-infringing uses. This could change with the impending vote, which would mean that P2P file sharing apps, newsgroup clients, and other technologies that facilitate downloading could be outlawed.
Interested in getting involved? A group called Downhill Battle is organizing a national call-in today. Also, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is an excellent source of information about our digital rights.
9/13/04 10:00AM EST
Version 4.33B3 has a fix for processing .BNS files from BinNews. That means NewsBin Usenet Filefind now works with the latest beta release. Other changes includes an experimental color scheme, better "Show Filenames" filtering, and a couple of other bug fixes. Details about the release and links for downloading are here.
Please report any problems through the forums, through IRC, or through our Tech Support Form
9/8/04 11:50PM EST
NewsBin Usenet Filefind version 1.4.3 does not work with the latest NewsBin Beta, version 4.33B2. If you are running NBUFF, you will need to run NewsBin version 4.32. Keep in mind that 4.32 will only run on Windows 2K, XP, and 2003. We should have a new beta release within the next couple of days.
Please report any problems through the forums, through IRC, or through our Tech Support Form
9/4/04 1:30PM EST
We have made 2 releases today. NewsBin version 4.33 Beta 2 and NewsBin Usenet Filefind version 1.4.3.
The NewsBin Beta release now integrates .nzb and .bns file support into the executable instead of a separate plugin DLL. This will hopefully resolve installation problems that broke NZB file processing for many people. We have also installed a more feature rich Regular Expression Parser that now applies to searches and filters. Read more about the changes here.
NewsBin Usenet Filefind (NBUFF) includes a change to make the delivery of search results into NewsBin more reliable. There have been reports that NBUFF sometimes reports search results but they never show up in NewsBin. Version 1.4.3 should resolve this.
Please report any problems through the forums, through IRC, or through our Tech Support Form
8/25/04 9:30AM EST
Found a problem where BinNews usernames or passwords containing non alphanumeric characters were not being loaded correctly from the configuration file. Specifically people who's email address serves as their username for the BinNews indexing service. Version 1.4.3 fixes this and is available for download here.
Thanks to everyone for their kind comments and helpful suggestions for this new application.
Please report any problems through the forums, through IRC, or through our Tech Support Form
8/23/04 9:00AM EST
Several people have reported intermittent bugs in NBUFF. One is that it always returns a 400 error when searching, the other was that some search strings did not return the same set as a straight BinNews search from their web site. Version 1.4.1 fixes both of these problems and is available for download here.
Thanks to everyone for their kind comments and helpful suggestions for this new application.
Please report any problems through the forums, through IRC, or through our Tech Support Form.
8/20/04 9:30AM EST
We have released a free utility to help find files on usenet. It works in conjunction with BinNews and automatically sends search results into NewsBin ready for download. BinNews is offering a free trial you can use to try NewsBin Usenet FileFind (NBUFF). Sign up for the BinNews Free Trial here and download NBUFF here. NBUFF requires NewsBin version 4.3 or higher to run.
Keep in mind this is a first public release, there are bound to be problems, but the beta testers have found it useful.
Please report any problems through the forums, through IRC, or through our Tech Support Form.
8/17/04 2:15PM EST
Giganews has just announced an unlimited service for $24.99/mo. If you are interested in signing up, or upgrading your existing Giganews service, click here.
Please report any problems through the forums, through IRC, or through our Tech Support Form.
7/24/04 8:00AM EST
We have entered beta testing of version 4.33 for Windows NT, 2000, XP, and 2003. There were two bugs in 4.32 the warranted a new release.
1) Fixed "small last part" bug for multipart posts which had a very small last part
2) Fixed a problem where newsbin will try forever on a server authentication error.
Registered users can download the beta here.
Please report any problems through the forums, through IRC, or through our Tech Support Form.
7/9/04 1:30PM EST
We have just released NewsBin Version 4.32 for Windows NT, 2000, XP, and 2003. It has a much more robust support for importing the ever popular NZB files, including less RAM utilization. Please read the release notes for information on additional features and bug fixes.
We have announced the NewsBin plugin interface for any C developers who want to make an interesting plugin. The interface is in the process of being documented (thanks itimpi). If you want to contribute, visit the plugin forum and send a Private Message (PM) to Dexter for access. Currently the plugin forum is only available to registered users. If you are a developer and wish to request special access, contact us.
Please report any problems through the forums, through IRC, or through our Tech Support Form.
7/6/04 11:50PM EST
Registered users can now download the 4.32 Release Candidate, version 4.32B7 Build 4962. NZB file processing from http://www.dvdrs.net/ now work. We've also added a version system for the plugins so you don't have to be as careful about cleaning out the plugins folder when you upgrade.
Please read the release notes before downloading. There, you will learn about a small new feature that was implemented.
Fully half our tech support questions to the forum and through our tech support form were discussed in the release notes or in the forums so please look there first if you encounter problems.
Please report any problems through the forums, through IRC, or through our Tech Support Form.
6/28/04 1:00PM EST
Registered users can now download version 4.32 Beta 5 which fixes the autoload function. It also includes a new DLL that supports NZB files created by alt.binaries.nl.
Please read the Release Notes before downloading.
If you are a C programmer interested in writing plugins for NewsBin, start in our forums to learn more about the interface and contact Dexter for a link to a plugin template and the current interface documentation. Currently only registered users have access to the interface until it evolves more.
Please report any problems through the forums, through IRC, or through our Tech Support Form.
6/23/04 12:00PM EST
Due to overwhelming spam and viral email we receive, we have disabled our public technical support email account. All technical support questions should now be placed through our Technical Support Form. If you need to send attachments, we will make other arrangements but first contact needs to be through the form. This should cause no inconvenience as the form helps you give us more pertinent information about your system so we can better help you.
We have a new beta entering private testing that fixes the problem with NZB files created by alt.binaries.nl and also fixes the problem with autosave files not being transferred to the download list on startup if configured that way.
6/20/04 11:00AM EST
We think we've fixed a few esoteric problems that have cropped up in the 4.3 series with this beta. At some point we broke how autosave works and that is now fixed (mostly). We have a new high detail log option to help us debug problems. We now have separate DLL's for processing BinNews (.bns) or NewZbin (.nzb) files. The loading of nzb files takes much less memory than the 4.30 and 4.31 versions. Registered users can download this beta release here. Please read the release notes first.
We are also in the process of documenting the plugin interface so anyone who knows C++ can write a plugin for NewsBin. If you are interested in this, drop by our IRC channel and listen in on our plugin interface forum for more information.
Looking for a new news server? Our favorites are listed on our UsenetTools website.
Any questions or bug reports, please use the NewsBin User Forums, contact us on IRC, or use our Technical Support Form
6/8/04 9:00AM EST
There have been enough small issues to warrant another iteration of the 4.3 series. Version 4.32 is now in private beta testing. The issues do not effect most mainstream users, it is more for people pushing the limits with very large .NZB files or using poorly performing servers. We have found that NewsBin mis-reports certain errors in some cases.
The largest problem people have upgrading to 4.3 remains to be firewall problems. ZoneAlarm for example, thinks that the upgrade is a new program and will not let it access the internet by default. Even if you think ZA is disabled, it continues to run in the background until you reboot. If the MOTD doesn't come up when you start NewsBin after an upgrade, most likely it is a firewall issue.
The second largest problem are people who are running a bad cracks. All cracks we've tested mess up NewsBin's internals and manifest itself in the form of "Bad Message ID" or "Bad yEnc CRC" errors. If your files are not downloading, or are corrupted when downloading, look in your status messages tab for these errors. Maybe a friend installed NewsBin for you and you were unaware it was an illegal copy. Best bet is to download a clean version here and reinstall over your existing installation.
Looking for a new news server? Our favorites are listed on our UsenetTools website.
Any questions or bug reports, please use the NewsBin User Forums, contact us on IRC, or use our Technical Support Form
5/23/04 1:40AM EST
We think everything is back to normal after our server move. We did have lingering issues with people still running and trying to register version 3 and versions prior to 4.1. We recommend that everyone upgrade to the latest release. Windows 2K, XP, or 2003 users should upgrade to version 4.31. Windows 98 and ME users can only go up to version 4.22.
We have a list of our favorite news servers on UsenetTools. Here is a quick summary, in alphabetical order:
AlltheNewsgroups has all the newsgroups, over 110,000 of them. Imagine that. They are currently offering a 3 day free trial.
Giganews offers a 3 day free trial (1GB limit) and has the longest retention in the industry, up to 40 days in binary groups.
NewsHosting allows unlimited downloads, 4 connections and 14 day retention in the binary groups for $14.95 per month.
UsenetMonster offers free extra gigs upon signup to NewsBin Users. Also has a rollover gig plan so you never lose the gigs you have paid for, even if you don't use them up in a month.
Any questions or bug reports, please use the NewsBin User Forums, contact us on IRC (irc.cyber2k.net, #newsbin), or use our Technical Support Form
5/21/04 9:40AM EST
So it took an extra hour and 40 minutes. But we are back up and running now. There may still be some minor hiccups but, the order forms and registration process is now working, as well as the forums.
If you notice any problems with the website please contact us and select "Website Issue" as the topic.
5/21/04 8:00AM EST
We are having problems getting our key server working on the new machine. Re-registering NewsBin will fail until this is fixed. We are working on the problem.
If you notice any other problems with the website, including ordering or registration problems, please contact us and select "Website Issue" as the topic.
5/21/04 7:00AM EST
If you are seeing this message, our new web server is up! We are in a new data center with a faster and more reliable backbone. If you notice any problems with the website, including ordering or registration problems, please contact us and select "Website Issue" as the topic.
5/21/04 1:30AM EST
We will be switching servers (and data centers) this morning, at 7:00am EST. The forum will be turned off and user registrations will be delayed for up to an hour (hopefully less) as the DNS changes propagate. The MOTD may timeout until the new server is on and redirects are working.
Hopefully this will cause minimal inconvenience.
5/19/04 8:20AM EST
We understand that many of you are going through withdraw, not having a new beta release to test every week. Rest assured that Quade is hard at work at NewsBin Version 5 which has many key features that have been requested from our users.
Our current 4.31 release has proven to perform well, that should hold you over until Version 5 is available. No need to hold off registering, Version 5 will be a free upgrade for currently registered users.
We continue to be inundated by viral email. Please run a virus scanner and make sure you are not infected with a mailing trojan. We have reports from people receiving faked mail seemingly coming from us or our mail servers. We are clean and are not contributing to the viral mail. We are a prime target because the viruses glean email addresses from the infected user's address book and web cache.
If you are looking for an excellent unlimited news service, NewsHosting allows unlimited downloads, 4 connections and 14 day retention in the binary groups for $14.95 per month. We continue to be impressed with the perfomance and support of another news service, UsenetMonster. NewsBin users get free extra gigs upon signup. They offer plans that are less expensive for the occasional usenet user and any unused download amounts carry over to subsequent months. For comparison, we list several of our favorite news services on our UsenetTools site under the News Services section.
Any questions or bug reports, use the NewsBin User Forums, contact us on IRC (irc.cyber2k.net, #newsbin), or use our Technical Support Form
5/04/04 2:20PM EST
There were two critical problems in version 4.3 that only affected first time users during the setup process. Version 4.31 addresses the following issues:
1) Was not saving server info from the setup wizard.
2) Queued posts would not download the first time unless connections were adjusted or NewsBin was restarted.
3) Filename filters did not work when multiple servers were configured
4) Temporary server errors retried forever, no cap that.
Note that this version does not work under Windows 95, 98, 98SE, or Windows ME. If you are still running one of those OS's, you will need to stick with Version 4.22. Download version 4.31 here.
If you are looking for an excellent unlimited news service, NewsHosting allows unlimited downloads, 4 connections and 14 day retention in the binary groups for $14.95 per month. Read more and sign up for a NewsHosting account here. For comparison, we list several of our favorite news services on our UsenetTools site under the News Services section.
Any questions or bug reports, use the NewsBin User Forums, contact us on IRC (irc.cyber2k.net, #newsbin), or use our Technical Support Form
5/03/04 11:50PM EST
The installation wizard in 4.3 is not working properly. If you are installing NewsBin for the first time, you should cancel out of the "Introduction" screen that gathers your server and group information and configure NewsBin manually. To do this, go under "Preferences/Server Options" and enter your news server address and username/password if it is required. Then go under "Preferences/Group Options" to select the newsgroups you want to use. More detailed information on adding a server and subscribing to groups is in this tutorial. After adding the server information, save your configuration and restart NewsBin, then everything should work fine.
If you are looking for an excellent unlimited news service, NewsHosting allows unlimited downloads, 4 connections and 14 day retention in the binary groups for $14.95 per month. Read more and sign up for a NewsHosting account here.
Any questions or bug reports, use the NewsBin User Forums, contact us on IRC (irc.cyber2k.net, #newsbin), or use our Technical Support Form
5/03/04 4:50PM EST
One of the best news services available is now offering unlimited accounts. NewsHosting allows unlimited downloads, 4 connections and 14 day retention in the binary groups for $14.95 per month. Read more and sign up for a NewsHosting account here.
We are working on a version 4.31 to fix a couple of bugs that cropped up. Filename filters don't work if you run multiple servers and, some people have reported that the download list will stall when you add posts. Temporarily increasing the number of connections appears to be a workaround.
Any questions or bug reports, use the NewsBin User Forums, contact us on IRC (irc.cyber2k.net, #newsbin), or use our Technical Support Form
4/21/04 12:00PM EST
Sign up for an account with UsenetMonster and receive an extra 2GB to 16GB free depending on the plan you choose. UsenetMonster has become well known for its exceptional customer support and is active in the NewsBin Forums so they can provide expedited service to NewsBin users. An order link for UsenetMonster is on our UsenetTools site in the News Services section.
NewsBin Version 4.3 is now available and has been well received. Keep in mind that it is not compatible with Windows 95/98/ME machines. If you are still running the older operating systems, stay with NewsBin Version 4.22.
Any questions or bug reports, use the NewsBin User Forums, contact us on IRC (irc.cyber2k.net, #newsbin), or use our Technical Support Form
4/19/04 2:30PM EST
We have just released version 4.3! This version uses less than half the RAM of version 4.22. It also has support for indexing services like BinNews and newzBin so you don't have to download headers to find stuff on usenet.
There are many new features and enhancements to version 4.3. You can read more about it in the release notes and then click the download tab from there to download the release.
Any questions or bug reports, use the NewsBin User Forums, contact us on IRC (irc.cyber2k.net, #newsbin), or use our Technical Support Form
4/12/04 1:15PM EST
We are getting complaints from Comcast customers of decreased datarates. We believe Comcast is limiting the datarate for accessing their newsgroups in some cases but are not sure. Either that or server load issues. There is discussion about it in our NewsBin User Forums. If you are serious about getting your full datarate, consider signing up for a commercial news service. We list several on our UsenetTools site in the News Services section.
We have released version 4.3 to our private testers. Final release should be this week.
4/9/04 11:45PM EST
We have added an option to modify your fonts and beefed up a few existing features. Please read the release notes for details. Along with a number of bug fixes, we found a critical problem with the duplicate detection mechanism that has been around since 4.3B6 we believe. This beta is available for registered users only. Please have your NewsBin registration key available if you choose to download the beta version.
Any questions or bug reports, either post to our Beta Test Forum, visit us on IRC (irc.cyber2k.net, #newsbin), or use our Technical Support Form
03/30/04 8:45AM EST
Our 8th beta version for 4.3 is being tested by our brave pre-beta test team now. A couple of very annoying bugs have finally been squashed and we have included another configuration feature that gives you more ways to customize the look of NewsBin. We hope to have this version available this weekend.
If you are looking for a news service, or for other tools invloving usenet, please visit our UsenetTools site.
03/24/04 11:45PM EST
One of our favorite news services, UsenetMonster, has announced that they no longer charge for header downloads. This is in response to many requests from their subscribers. Now is the time to sign up if this was the primary reason for passing on them.
Our Beta Version 4.3B7 has been well received but a few more bugs have been discovered. There will be a 4.3B8 in our near future.
If you find additional problems with the beta that are not covered in the release notes or in our forums, contact technical support using our technical support form.
03/19/04 2:15PM EST
Beta version 4.3B7 is now available to all registered users. This version has a great time-saving feature. You can download a PAR or PAR2 file, and then tell NewsBin to download all posts required to complete the file represented by the PAR file. We have also updated the look of NewsBin with a new default toolbar and the ability to take on an XP look for XP users. Details about new features, bug fixes, and known issues are in the Release Notes. You'll find the link to download the beta there as well. You will need to enter your NewsBin registration key to download the beta.
If you find problems with the beta that are not covered in the release notes or in our forums, contact technical support using our technical support form.
03/17/04 3:45PM EST
Version 4.3 is coming along slowly. We are testing 4.3B7 internally and hope to make a release announcement soon for this beta.
We were forced to kill the poll on indexing services because one of the services had a fan who thought it would be cool to stuff the ballot box. We did learn from the poll that BinNews and newzBin are neck and neck as the most popular services. We get credit if you sign up with BinNews, click here to check them out.
We recommend a number of news services on our UsenetTools site. Our favorites right now are AllTheNewsgroups and UsenetMonster. We are working on an objective news service comparison chart complete with real time retention checking. It should be up and running this Spring.
If you are interested in downloading pictures from the web, give WebVacuum a try. I found it handy for downloading a friend's online photo album so I can view photos from my machine when I want instead of putting up with having to click each thumbnail individually.
If you need of technical support for NewsBin, please use our technical support form.
03/2/04 10:45PM EST
With the growing number of usenet indexing services, we were curious which one is the most popular. Please participate in this poll and let us know what you think. The services we are aware of are listed in the News Services section of our UsenetTools site.
We are up to 4.3 Beta 6 in our internal testing. There is an issue with the filters getting messed up in some cases so we aren't ready to release it to everyone. If you don't use filters, it is better than 4.3B3 which is the last one we announced publicly. If you are a registered user running a 4.3 Beta already, it is worth an upgrade if you don't use the filters. Read the release notes and backup you config files before running it.
If you need of technical support, please use our technical support form.
02/28/04 8:15AM EST
We've been the target of a false viral email campaign. You may receive email seemingly from newsbin.com warning you that your account is expiring. First of all we don't have accounts! Your registration key is good for life and we don't expire your forum username. Here is a copy of the email I just received:
We are very close to releasing version 4.3B6 to registered users. If fixes many known problems in 4.3B5 and has a few new features.
If you are looking for general information, helper applications, or recommended news services, visit our sister site, usenettools.net.
02/23/04 11:45AM EST
For anyone in need of technical support, please use our technical support form instead of email. Our email accounts are so overrun with spam now that we have been missing legitimate mail. You can usually receive help faster by visiting our forums and either search for your topic or post a question.
If you are looking for general information, helper applications, or recommended news services, visit our sister site, usenettools.net.
02/07/04 1:55PM EST
We are finding that supporting older processors and operating systems is holding us back from making NewsBin the best it can be. Help us gauge how many of you are holding on to older technology by visiting our Polls and participate in the Processor Poll and OS Poll. We have also reset the News Service poll, just for curiosity's sake sense a few new services have come on the scene.
Our last public announcement of a beta release was 4.3B3. We are up to 4.3B5 but still don't feel it is good enough for wide consumption. We hope to have a 4.3B6 available within a few days that is good enough for all the brave beta users to jump on.
We are working to expand our Usenet Tools site to include a news service comparison page including a real time retention checker. This will be coming this month.
01/29/04 2:15PM EST
We are getting hit hard by the current worm running loose on the internet. Anyone who is infected starts sending us email if they recently visited our website or had prior email communications with us. Also, the worm will sometimes use one of our email addresses as a fake "From" address so it looks like we are infected, but we aren't. If you receive any email from us with an attachment, delete it, we don't send attachments unless you specifically requested it as a result of some troubleshooting effort.
We about to start internal beta testing on 4.3 Beta 5 which should bring us another step closer to the final 4.3 release. If testing goes well, the new beta should be available to registered users in a few days.
Don't forget to visit our Usenet Tools site if you need any help with usenet, information on how to use the files you download from usenet, or are in search of a news service.
01/22/04 10:15AM EST
Just because we haven't posted a new MOTD in a while doesn't mean we aren't working. Since the 4.3 Beta 3 release, we have gone through 7 internal releases of 4.3 Beta 4. We are still chasing a couple of critical problems but there are many improvements over 4.3B3 such as fixing a bug with some .nzb file formats, and implementing logic that significantly decreases spool load times.
In other news, we have given up on reselling a news service. It just isn't worth the hassle. We have recommended that our current subscribers to news.newsbin.com sign up with UsenetMonster. We have affiliate arrangements with several other news services, including AllTheNewsgroups.com, uncensored-news.com, and Usenetserver. Please use the links available at UsenetTools in the "Services" section so we get some credit if you choose to sign up with any of them..
01/07/04 2:30PM EST
The long awaited support for the usenet binaries indexing services has been implemented in this release. If you are searching for specific posts, you don't have to download headers anymore. Just perform a search from Binnews or newzBin and then download the resulting "message id" file. It can then be imported into NewsBin for download. Read the release notes for more information and then download the beta by clicking on the Download tab.
A new news service is now online. Our forum users may remember being used as guinea pigs while they were setting up their servers. UsenetMonster is now open for business and has flexible download plans. They have an average of 14 days retention, do not save activity logs, and carry all the active newsgroups. So far they have been very reliable with excellent download speeds. They have committed to limiting the number of subscribers to ensure everyone gets the best performance possible. You can read more about the service here.
