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Reply To: | VICUG-L: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List |
Date: | Mon, 17 Aug 1998 15:38:10 -0700 |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
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Hi All,
I'll preface my comments by saying that the number of binary files I've
downloaded from newsgroups over the years probably wouldn't fill one floppy
disk. I've always found the process of sorting through the hundreds of
messages not to mention decoding the attachments more trouble than it is
worth. I know there are interesting music files and other treasures out
there but it is simply something I haven't explored. That said, I thought
I'd share a resource I discovered that may make the process of collecting
binary files from usenet much easier.
The resource is a handy little utility called NewsBin that is billed as,
"the cutting edge newsgroup binary extractor." At just under 120K as a
download from
http://www.newsbin.com/nb222.zip
I figured the program was worth exploring.
This is a no frills but highly functional program. Installation is
accomplished by unzipping the archive to a directory of your choosing.
>From there it is simply a matter of launching the program, entering
connection details about your news server, selecting the groups you want to
monitor and letting the software take charge. And charge it does.
I selected a couple of the alt.binary.sound... groups to try the program.
My ISP keeps about seven days of news around and the program grabbed more
than 200 audio files from just those groups. If you are into collecting
MP3, Midi, and other such files, NewsBin might be for you. With a
shareware registration of $19.95 the price is certainly right.
NewsBin is reasonably friendly to use with a screen reader. The heart of
the program is controlled by clicking on one of several tabs just below the
menu bar. These are text labels of things like "Main", "Status", "Groups",
and "Servers". As far as I could tell there's no way to switch between
these settings from the keyboard so you will have to use your screen
reader's review feature and mouse click key. You'll want to use this same
strategy after clicking on the "Groups" tab to find an asterisk located to
the left of the "Submit" button. You can then tab between controls for
entering a keyword to limit the list of newsgroups displayed, lists of
unsubscribed and subscribed groups, and controls to alter the order in
which subscribed groups are processed.
When you have selected the newsgroups you want searched, click on the
"Main" tab and then locate a "Start" button near the bottom of the screen.
Click on that and then find something else to do as the program starts the
search and download process. You'll find all the files downloaded in a
directory called download off the main newsbin directory.
NewsBin has filtering capabilities to limit what's downloaded. The basic
program screen appears much like the "Group" feature, although I didn't
explore this in detail.
The home page for NewsBin is
http://www.newsbin.com
Although I didn't address any screen reader issues with the author of
NewsBin, I can say that support email is answered promptly. My inquiry
related to a connection difficulty was responded to in a few hours and in a
very helpful manner. The author seemed to have a genuine interest in
making sure I could use the program. If you enjoy grabbing files from
usenet this utility might be for you. The program's author is confident
enough of his software to link directly to the web sites of his
competitors. I can only say that in less than 30 minutes I downloaded more
files with no messing around with decoding, collecting all the posts of a
file and suchthan I had in several years of being on the net. Simply put,
NewsBin does the job it sets out to do.
Kelly
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