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Newsgroups Tutorial



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  172 Cup
(Please note - This is here to help you download legal material, Cliosport cannot take any responsibility if you chose to download copyrighted material and by writing this tutorial I am in no way encouraging you to do so. Please also note that some aspects of Usenet/News Server have been simplified for the purpose of this tutorial)


What are Newsgroups?

If you were to replace the word “news” with “discussion” that would probably be more of an accurate description. Newsgroups have been around since the dawn of the internet. They are essentially groups setup to discuss/promote something of interest to them. A fundamental part of Newsgroups is the ability to send information/files (articles) between them which have grown/exploded into the file sharing goliath of today.

Ok so I know I can download files from Newsgroups but how do I get my hands on them?

There are 4 main “ingredients” which you need before you can set about downloading files. These are –

1, A News server

2, A Client for downloading the articles (Files are commonly referred to as articles – A reference that’s stuck from the days scientists used Newsgroups to send articles between themselves)

3, A Usenet Binary Index (Essentially a search site similar to many Torrent sites you will have seen)

4, Finally a data verification/recovery program.

Ok so what do they all do?

News Server – Programmes such as Bit Torrent, Kazaa, Limewire etc are all known as Peer to Peer programmes. Essentially they operate by linking many 1000’s of computers together enabling the end user to download their file of choice from a number of different people. Because this method relies on 1 or more person uploading the file at their end the speed you will download at can vary from quite respectable on well seeded Torrents to absolutely awful on the less popular files.

A News Server is essentially your private connection to the world of Newsgroups (Usenet). If you find a file you want to download that is stored somewhere in the Newsgroup universe then your chosen News Server acts like a high speed courier. As there are no 3rd parties involved and downloading is not dependant upon anyone else uploading your download speeds are pretty much limited only by your connection.

Download client – Just as you would use a Torrent client to download files via Bit Torrent you need some software to handle the transfer of files from the Newsgroups to your machine. All the download client really needs to know is the details of your News Server and what file(s) you want to download. Once it has these details and the connection is made to your News Server then the download starts.

Usenet Binary Index - Don’t let the name put you off. For all intents and purposes it’s a simple search engine that searches for the file of your choice. It’s perfectly possible to search each and every News Group to see what’s on offer but with literally ten’s of thousands it’s easier just to perform a search. Rather than simply return a list of matches it provide extra information such as file types, file sizes, info on the “author” of the file and so on..

Data Verification/Recovery – Rather than spend 3 days downloading that Torrent to find out its corrupt files downloaded from News Groups come attached with “Par” files. Once your download is completed the par file is essentially used to “scan” the downloaded file(s) to search for missing data or blocks. If it finds something is missing rather than downloading everything all over again you can simply download the missing data and your recovery programme will reconstruct you file(s) for you.

Ok I can now see the advantage of News Groups but how do I get started?

First things first you need to chose a News Server. Some ISP’s provide these free of charge as part of your Broadband package however these are nearly always extremely poor in terms of speed and completion.

Most users opt to pay for a high speed, highly efficient News Server such as www.newshosting.com or http://www.giganews.com/. This costs approximately £8 a month and for that it allows you unlimited downloads at whatever speed your connection is capable of. Whether you’re on 512k or 16mb ADSL2+ it will still max out speed wise.

Signing up is simple. You simply follow the link for “Personal Accounts” then use the link to sign up for “Unlimited” Once you have completed the process you are issued with a server address (unlimted.newshosting.com), a username and a password. Make a note of these and keep them safe.

Next we need to get ourselves a download client. There are numerous about but for the sake of this tutorial I’d recommend www.newsleecher.com. Obviously follow the instructions to download the software and install it.

Once installed you need to tell it what server to use – Simply go to “servers”, “add new server” and enter the details you noted down a minute ago as demonstrated by the screenshot below….

newsleecher.jpg


After you have successfully entered the server details go to “options” and ensure the options under “NZB Files” matches the screenshot below…

newsleecher2.jpg


You can now close Newsleecher.
 
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  172 Cup
Re: Newsgroups Tutorial - Part 1

Continued from Part 1...

You now have the ability to download files from Newsgroups but we need to find the file(s) you want. For this I recommend www.newzbin.com. This also charges people to use but fortunately it’s only 25p a week. Use the link on the left hand side to register an account. (PLEASE NOTE SIGNUPS FOR NEWZBIN ARE CLOSED UNLESS YOU ARE INVITED BY A CURRENT USER SO PM ME FOR MORE INFO)

Once signed up and logged in you can begin searching. For this example I’m going to use Linux. As it’s open sourced it’s perfectly legal to download the source code and inspect it before purchasing a license. The version I’m after is called “Mandriva” so I would enter that into the search bar and see what came back..

After a few seconds the results come back and I can see that “Mandriva Linux Powerpack 2006 (DVD)” is available.. Clicking on the description takes you to a second page where all of the information on the “article” is displayed.

Newzbin.jpg


As you can see from the screenshot there’s a lot of information for your benefit. Sometimes people may attach comments to the “article” which you can read. They could be simple installation tips to full blown reviews.

The important button on this page is “Get Message-IDs” Pressing this will instruct Newzbin that you want to download the “article” and it will normally offer you the option of saving or opening an .NZB file. Choose “Open” and if requested instruct it to open with “Newsleecher”

This should automatically launch Newsleecher as the file(s) you have instructed it to download should be displayed under the "Download Queue" tab. If you press the "Connect" button Newsleecher will connect to your News Server and the download will commence as shown below..

newsleecher3.jpg


The final piece of software required is QuickPar - www.quickpar.org.uk (The data verification/recovery tool). Simply download this and install it.

As before go to the options page and ensure all the options match mine…

quickpar.jpg


You can now close Quickpar.

OK my file(s) have downloaded now what?

Depending on the size of your download and your connection it could take minutes or hours to complete. Once it’s finished the files can be found in the “Downloads” folder of Newsleecher (normally program files/newsleecher/downloads). You may notice that some files are left behind in Newsleecher. These are the “Par” files. Only one of them will end “Par2” and ensure that this file is not paused but has been downloaded.

Browse to the downloads folder and in my case a new folder called “Mandriva Linux Powerpack 2006” has appeared full of compressed rar files. I’m not going to go into rar files as I’m sure most of you are more than aware of how to work with them. You need to find the “Par2” and double click on it.. Quickpar will then automatically “scan” the download for any problems. Most of the time it will finish and inform you all is well but sometime it may report that a few blocks are damaged or missing. If this happens go back onto Newsleecher and un-pause the first “par” file in the list allowing it to download. Double click the original “Par2” file and see what happens this time. Keep repeating this process if necessary but ultimately it will download the missing blocks and repair your download.

Only once Quickpar has confirmed you download is intact and doesn’t need any additional blocks can you delete the left over par files from Newsleecher.

You’re now free to extract/burn/mount your download.

(11/11/2005)

(If there are any obvious errors (simplification aside) or you are not sure on any aspect of this tutorial please PM me)
 
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