[Info-vax] Real Usenet clients, was: Re: backups and compaction or nocompaction might be better

[AEF]

 On Jan 31, 10:43 am, Paul Sture <nos... at sture.ch> wrote:
> In article <kednbp$43... at dont-email.me>,
>  Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>
> > On 2013-01-31, Paul Sture <nos... at sture.ch> wrote:
> > > In article
> > ><0cf854bd-6736-41a7-aef9-0f7b94ded... at u16g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
> > >  AEF <spamsink2... at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > >> I ask again:
>
> > >> I've been using Google Groups for posting to and reading this
> > >> newsgroup for years, and no one here has EVER complained about the
> > >> formatting of my posts. They _have_ complained about content (!), but
> > >> never formatting. Am I missing something here?
>
> > > I don't know what you are doing and others aren't but this post is
> > > perfectly legible here (using MT-NewsWatcher on OS X). It doesn't suffer
> > > from the double spaced lines that I see in other posts from Google
> > > Groups.
>
> > In addition, the message did not have the long lines problem as well.
>
> > I would also like to know what AEF is doing. Even in other technically
> > aware newsgroups (ie: comp.arch.embedded), you still see the same Google
> > Groups problems as you do here.
>
> I add my vote to AEF telling us how he does it.
>
> --
> Paul Sture

Well, I open Firefox, read a post, click Reply, type in my answer, do
some quote trimming, tab to the Send button, and press the spacebar.
That's how I do it now on the Mac. Before that, with PC's, it was
pretty similar. I cannot imagine what others are doing wrong.

Why do I use Google Groups? I used to use deja news. Then Google took
it over and it became a read-only deal for months. I tried one or two
other newsreaders. One of them was pathetic. Very hard to search;
very, very slow; and missing many posts. I forget what it was called
-- maybe newsnetone or similar.  We're talking like 2000 or 2001.

Finally Google Groups became postable, so to speak. I like the tree on
the left that you can sort by date or reply. Once I customized it the
way I like it was easy to stick with. It worked well enough that it
didn't seem worth the trouble to find anything else. Also, posts
appear almost instantly. We're talking single-digit seconds at the
most.

I hate the new Google Groups. Lousy format. Harder to scan titles with
your eyes because the metadata get in the way. No tree. No way to
reference posts by number. I pray they keep the old version around.

Maybe it's my settings (Options). I use "View as tree" and "Fixed
font". Maybe the font setting saves the day?

Maybe it's the browser I use? I usually FF in general, primarily
because it has this very cool feature: Press Cmd-F, type in a part of
the name of a link you desire to click. Then repeatedly press Enter
until you get to the link you want. Press Esc, press Enter, and you've
just clicked the link without using the mouse. I like to avoid using
the mouse if at all possible. And doing it this way can often be
faster! In some cases the link has letters in graphics and you can't
search for it. In that case you search for a nearby word and tab your
way to the link! Amazingly, IE also has this very cool feature. Does
anyone know if it has a name? I've tried to find it documented
somewhere on the Web, but without success. Safari can't do this!
Chrome can do this except that you can't go to a non-link word and tab
to the next link. Opera can't do it at all, it appears.

One thing about browsers I've noticed: Safari seems to be the best for
fast-motion video. Firefox is pretty bad for the same. Chrome and
Opera are in between, but a recent quick test of mine using Opera
showed it to be lacking. But Safari can't do the Find-Esc-Enter trick
to click links without using the mouse. Bummer. (But there's hope: The
new iTunes (v11) lets you tab all over the place, much unlike its
predecessor.) And has anyone noticed that Safari can't play a lot of
the videos on YouTube.

OK, that's enough for one post!

AEF