Note: Many of the URL's provided in this and other columns have changed or disappeared in the decade since this column was written. They are left intact in these columns to preserve the original content.

USENET is a rapidly growing collection of independent discussion "News Groups", with topics ranging from the extremely useful (like specific "disciplines" such as comp.databases.pick) to the bizarre enough to concern our alert US politicians.

"News Groups" are like digital bulletin boards, where you can post a thought or question and usually expect someone in the group to respond. If you're REAL lucky, or post something potentially offensive to more than a small cross-section of the group, you're likely to get LOTS of responses. This can be bad.

With over 13,000 newsgroups to choose from - growing by dozens per day - there is just not enough time to follow more than a few groups actively. There is also a pervasive problem with USENET of a very low "signal-to-noise" ratio. But there are gems in there, if you want to mine them.

In the Dark Ages of the Net, the only "News Readers" were those used from shell accounts. There were typically character-based Unix programs like TIN and PINE. You had to be on-line to scan through your subcribed list of groups, reading, ignoring, posting or killing posts.

The solution is to use an "offline" newsreader smart enough to handle all your administrative issues. Offline News Readers typically offer features like keeping your list of subscribed groups; managing message "threads"; cleaning up old and deleted posts; and most importantly, being able to log on, pick up new message headers in your groups, plus any messages you had tagged for retrieval, then disconnecting. If you use a dial-up connection, this can save you BIG bucks.

This months's best-of-the-lot News Reader is Free Agent, a shareware package downloadable from http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~neuroses/cwsa.html. This is the site of "The Consummate Winsock Apps List", created by Forrest H. Stroud, and is a MUST-VISIT site with an excellent list of Winsock-compliant clent applications very logically organized and indexed.

"Free Agent" is the free version of the product. A commercial version, "Agent .99" is currently available for $29. The new release, Agent 1.0 is expected in September, and the suggested retail will be $40(US).

Among its other features are:

• "Kill lists" (release 1.0) - also called "Bozo Filters" - which allow you to ignore posts from certain authors or on certain topics. This can make it much easier to read newsgroups containing controversy, flame-wars, or frequent off-topic posts.
• "Watch lists" (in current releases) are the opposite - Agent will automatically download the text of articles by specified authors or on specified topics. It scans the headers in busy newsgroups looking for the topics in which you are interested or care about.
• Sorting and Filtering. Agent makes it easier for you to browse the list of articles in a newsgroup or folder by allowing you to sort them in various orders, and to filter the list to see only the category of articles that interests you. You can sort articles by various criteria, including date, subject, author, and size. Filtering allows you to do things like display only unread articles, or only those whose text has been downloaded. (Does this sound like Pick's ACCESS to you?)
• Also coming in release 1.0 :
  • more flexible database purging
  • database compression to reduce the amount of disk space required
  • substantial speed improvements during threading and purging

This package is getting a lot of notice around the 'net and is well worth the money.

While you're at this site, also grab a copy of PowWow, an amazing shareware NetScape add-on package containing real-time interactive "chat windows" with up to four other people, plus a "group-browser" that permits a bunch of people to take simultaneous "cruises" (sound like anyone we knew?) through Web sites, lead by the group's "designated driver". Another must-have.

Where does all the time go?

See you next issue.

Jon Sisk
www.jes.com

Original article for Computing News & Review, July 1995

Copyright © 1995 Jonathan E. Sisk.