The information below will be very helpful to all.

Google - http://www.google.com/ (Who's computer is this?) - bookmark it and always check Google
before you ask for help or post a request. The answers are out there
and you will avoid many flaming replies by using it.

Get a good anti-virus program and use it. Always check your downloads for viruses. Some users
place all downloaded files into a holding folder and wait 2 weeks before opening them. This gives
their anti-virus software a chance to catch-up to new viruses.

The first question is what to do with all the garbled messages that
are posted here. MOST basic servers limit the size of messages to 10000 lines, so in order to get
large files to upload they are split into smaller sections. Then, In order to retrieve them into
something useful, they need to be joined. If you insist on using MSOutlook...select all the
sections and right click on them (make sure they are in order)...then select Join.

MicroSoft Outlook/Outlook Express are not designed for binary newsgroups. You will be better off
getting a proper newsreader that was designed for this purpose. Many experienced binary newsgroup
users prefer to use Forte Agent. Forte used to have a free newsreader but unfortunately they
discontinued it in 2006. http://www.forteinc.com/main/homepage.php (Who's computer is this?)


What is YENC? A type of encoding...see link below for more information.
http://www.yenc.org/whatis.htm (Who's computer is this?)
And it also importance to mention that MSOutlook does not support yEncoded files. Forte used to
provide a version of Free Agent that did not support yEnc, but since they discontinued this trial
version it is now a mute point.


Some people will recommend Grabbit. I personally was not very impressed with this program. It does
not keep threaded messages together and it has no way of answering a message in a thread. So the
user will not be able to properly follow what is going on and make appropriate responses. Here is
the link, but again, I don't recommend it.
http://www.shemes.com/ (Who's computer is this?)


WinRAR - the best archive tool out there. It can handle RAR, Zip, ACE
and many other formats, and more importantly, it will unzip multiple
files in one mouse click. You can get a trial version at their website
http://www.rarlab.com/ (Who's computer is this?)

Larger posts will also require PAR files for reposts. You will need
QuickPar for that. Don't worry about trying to understand it. It's
magic and it works that is all you need to know.
http://www.slyck.com/ng.php?page=6 (Who's computer is this?)

Most of the above mentioned software have free versions available for
download from their sites.

Oh yes...you should also invest in a "Premium" news server. Otherwise
you will miss a lot of the posts. This will be very frustrating to
you and will piss off everyone else if you are "constantly" asking for
re-posts. Occasionally a file or two goes missing and that is
understandable, but if you are only getting half the posts....then
it's time to get a better server.


Now save this post for future reference and to save you a lot of grief
(and possible flames, but we are mostly friendly here).


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