Alt.binaries.Music.SHN.DMB

[he hate me]

Ive been trying to find out what this is all about. I used Billi'sTV 's guide. http://www.anyoneseenthebridge.com/msgboard/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38958e
But he has Optimum Online and Road Runner. Which I think are service providers that I dont have. I reside in Cumming, GA and have Adelphia. Is there anyway I can use alt.binaries.Music.SHN.DMB in any shape, way, or form? Thanks everyone!
JR

[eelall]

Call Adelphia and ask them if they have a news server. Plug that name in for your server name in Xnews (or whatever news reader you are using) and the rest of the FAQ is the same for everyone.

If they don't have one - then you can subscribe to one. But that usually costs $$$ and if you only want it for DMB that may not be the best route to go.

Hope that helps

Eric

[scoot_14]

What if you're at a college and are connected to a LAN?

[jgano]

this is kinda late but i have adelphia cable too in cleveland

anyway i just discovered the newsgroups....i'm finally getting speeds that cable internet is supposed to bring. so the answer is yes, you can use adelphia to connect to adelphia's news server. i have xnews...here's how you set it up

1 dload xnews from their website
2 unzip to whatever folder
3 run it
4 setup the server with whatever username you want
5 at this point im not really sure, but i know it works...at setup server, fill in only nntp for server name and smtp for send mail server
6 you may have to fill in identies tab, i did part, but i dont know if you have to
7 connect to your server and scroll down or find alt.binaries.music.shn.dmb
8 self-explanatory from there i think

[rhuss]

Originally posted by scoot_14
What if you're at a college and are connected to a LAN?

they usually don't have the binary newsgroups ... so your usually out of luck, but check with your campus IT department.

[ajnelson4]

There are services available on the net to get access to a News Server. My ISP doesn't provide access to a News Server, so I had to go and pay for one. Check out this site.

http://www.newscene.com/

I think I pay $16/month or something like that. Not a great alternative, but it's an alternative for those of us without News Server access.

[buzzy]

You need 2 things to make this work:

1. Software - the easy part
Most users will find Grabit (download, tutorials, etc) (http://www.shemes.com/grabit/) to be easy and powerful software to use for this. It's free. See below for more discussion.

2. News server - the not so easy part
- Every ISP offers news servers, but they don't all have the binaries newsgroups with a.b.m.shn.dmb. You have to install GrabIt, enter your server address, and download the list of groups to find out - see if it's there. (The address of your ISP news server is usually at their main customer service page. If you want more discussion of that, see Billie's TV's list (http://www.antsmarching.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23543&perpage=15&pagenumber=1) .)
- Even if your ISP has the group, they don't all run reliably.
- There are pay services you can try, as others have noted.

Here's the long explanation:

Introduction to Newsgroups

abmsd = alt.binaries.music.shn.dmb It is a newsgroup. The idea is that text messages (almost like email messages) are stored on servers all around the web where anyone can download them.

Some smart people figured out that you could use a code to put music, video, pictures, etc. into text and onto these servers and share files that way. (They are usually in separate newsgroups, referred to as "binaries" groups, because the messages are encoded and they would get in the way at text news groups.) But it usually takes many message posts to post 1 file. So to get at all the good stuff at ABMSD, you want to have software that will consolidate all the messages (1 song can be posted in 200+ messages), download them, and decode them for you.

A few key things to understand about binaries newsgroups:
- They have limited storage space, so after some period of time older stuff gets deleted to make room for newer stuff. So if you want something, get it right away or it will be gone. The time varies by ISP or news server, but it can be gone in as little as 1 day.
- Everyone is using a different server, so you will see different stuff than what other people are seeing.
- Files posted to any server get forwarded around the web, but not immediately and not always 100% complete. So you may need to wait several hours for parts of files to show up, and try more than 1 server to find complete files.

Software

Using the right tool is critical. People have tried many of the programs to see how they work with binaries. Here's a quick overview:

Almost everyone new to binaries (even if you are an expert at text newsgroups) should start by using either Grabit (download, tutorials, etc) (http://www.shemes.com/grabit/) (free, more help files) or NewsReactor (http://www.daansystems.com/newsreactor/) (free trial, works better than GrabIt if you are are using multiple news servers to get parts of 1 file). They are clean, simple, easy to use, and designed specifically for binaries. They will show you each file as one line (not each of 165 parts, as Free Agent will). They will download a batch of files and decode them. If you have a decent news server (big if) - you can be downloading in 10-15 minutes. Start with 1 small file, just as a test.

If you use a Mac, I've heard good things about Hogwasher (http://www.asar.com/)

NewsBin (http://www.newsbin.com/), NewsPro (http://www.usenetopia.com/), and xnews are worth a look if you want something with more features. Perhaps if you want one tool for text and binaries, and posting, these are more what you want. But be sure to try before you buy.

News Servers

Getting reliable access to news servers may be the biggest hurdle in using abmsd. Usually your ISP will carry news groups, and offer access to news servers as part of the service. AOL has its own setup, which I'm not familiar with, and may not offer access to ABMSD.

If your ISP does not carry ABMSD, a few options:
- ask them to add it, many will.
- like everything else, you can pay for service - www.giganews.com (http://www.giganews.com) and www.easynews.com (http://www.easynews.com) are the big guns, but there are lots of choices. In Europe, try claranews (http://www.uk.clara.net/homeaccess/options/claranews.phtml). One big advantage to the premium news servers is that the "retention" - the time files stay on the servers - is much longer, a couple weeks or so. They also have better "completion" - all the parts of a file are more likely to be there.

File Formats

A couple comments on file formats:

- Some messages (much like this post, but shorter!) are posted in the binaries group, you can simply select them and "read" the message.

- All posts of files show the filename, so you can tell what kind of file it is from the file extension - such as shn, txt, etc.

- txt and nfo files. Be sure to download and read the txt or nfo files, they describe what you are getting. Open them with a text editor like Notepad.

- shn and md5 files. shn is a lossless audio compression format; you can recreate the original wav (CD-quality audio) track using a shn file. md5 files are used to verify that you got a good copy. Files are normally posted as shns, not encoded again as rar files. You just need to make sure they pass the md5 test after download. If not, download it again. (Lately people have been posting PAR files too, see below, these can be used to repair or replace files that are missing or corrupt on your server. It's magic.) A couple super-useful shn links:
www.etree.org (http://www.etree.org) - software links and very useful installation faqs, a must-read for mkwACT to get the defaults right
Diana Hamilton's excellent SHN FAQ with lots of links and info (http://research.umbc.edu/~hamilton/shnfaq.html)

-- rar or ro1, ro2, ... files. Files are sometimes posted in RAR format, which is a compression format like zip, used for a variety of file types. RAR also breaks up the file into chunks, which is more reliable for downloads. Download all the rar or r01, r02 etc parts. Then use Winrar (free trial) or Unrar (free) to test the download and unpack the files. Available for all OS platforms at www.rarlab.com (http://www.rarlab.com) - RAR, Downloads or Extras

If you get all the parts, and run WinRar or UnRar, it will create a set of files.

- par or po1, po2, ... files. PAR or parity files are optional. They are there to help complete any files that are missing or incomplete on your server. If the files you are trying to get are complete, then you don't need the PAR files. (For example if you get all the RAR parts for a shn set and they pass the WinRAR test or if you get a full set of shns and they pass the md5 test - then you are all set.) If not, to use the PARs you need the small PAR file, and one of the big files (which may be numbered P01, P02, etc.) for each missing or corrupt file you want to fix. Use SmartPar (http://www.slyck.com/smartpar.html) or FSRaid (http://www.fluidstudios.com/fsraid.html) to test and recover rar, shn or any other type of files if PAR files are posted with the files.

[Joe M.]

Thanks Buzzy. You didn't have to do that we already have directions in the F.A.Q. but cool.

I'll add your post to it too. :)

[buzzy]

Oh. Thanks for mentioning that, hope this doesn't confuse things. I'd written it for another band and thought it would help so I posted it. With all the servers DMB fans have, I thought newsgroups would be little known, but I see from the other thread that's not the case!

The local version of the Billie's TV thread is at this thread (http://www.antsmarching.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23543&perpage=15&pagenumber=1) . There are details on how to use xnews; and some lists of ISP news servers. Billie's TV also posted this link to lists of ISP news servers (http://dmbshnhavenii.net/cgi-bin/ib3/ikonboard.cgi?;act=SF;f=6)

[jyiii]

is there a place with a list of groups?

[buzzy]

A list of newsgroups? Your software will show you the list, for example in GrabIt there's an "All groups on ..." your server button. If you put alt.binaries.music in, you can see just groups that start with that. Or if you plug in "shn" it will show groups with shn in it. You can see which ones are active by the number of articles posted.

There are thousands.

[jyiii]

cool i assume the same works for newsreactor thanks