In article , madgardener wrote:

one day I hope to have located either an affordable ISDN service, or DSL
will come because so many people are moving here that actually HAVE
computers!


That's so odd. I'm just a little south of you in the even more
rural NW Georgia, and we've had DSL for some time. I was hesitant
to move out here in part because I was worried about connectivity,
but there's actually competition between the Alltel's DSL and
Charter cable. The only thing that has bothered me is that it
is a little pricey to get a static IP address.

billo

(Bill Oliver) expounded:

That's so odd. I'm just a little south of you in the even more
rural NW Georgia, and we've had DSL for some time. I was hesitant
to move out here in part because I was worried about connectivity,
but there's actually competition between the Alltel's DSL and
Charter cable. The only thing that has bothered me is that it
is a little pricey to get a static IP address.

Bill, I live 25 miles out of Boston in a very suburban (for this area)
town and I can't get DSL. The lines are too old, I'm 18,000 feet from
the substation, and can't get it. It's a real pain being chained to
the cable modem for highspeed access.

--
Ann, gardening in Zone 6a
South of Boston, Massachusetts
e-mail address is not checked
******************************

On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 12:25:14 -0500, "madgardener"
wrote:

wow, thanks for educating me Warren. to think of the gardeners as a small
fraction of users humbles me (I am most sincere in this statement) and what
on earth will we do if we can't visit each other at rec.gardens?? I've made
life friends here on the newsgroup over these last seven years, and hope to
touch more gardeners out there with my foolish but passionate rambles and
what not postings. I'm not selfish, I just appreciate what we have here. My
alternative is gardenweb who is strictly monitored by Spike and I've been
careful not to overstep my limits with him because I understand he can

I realize that my message here is doing little more than taking up
space, but I must add that I am also greatly appreciative that this
group has hung together so well for so long. My interest here follows
the seasons, I generally drop out near the end of the summer and
resubscribe in January, when the gardening itch demands scratching.
I've participated in numerous groups, both Usenet and Listservs, over
the years, and I'm so happy that this group has not been overtaken by
spammers or control freaks. Thanks guys.

-- Mr Gardener
-- Zone 5 - On The Maine Coast

Hi Maddy!!!
I just got cable as of Friday so now I can actually pull up this
newsgroup the way I want to. I had to use google before and it was a
pain. I'm so excited! This is way cool so I hope you get it too someday.

I have been out today and edging one of my flower beds. It felt so good
to be out doing stuff but I got tired and sore before I got done. I'm
just getting old!

Did I tell you that I'm into worm composting? I have even gotten my
class to do it too. These "pets" are much easier to care for than most pets!

Hope you had a good weekend.

loony

madgardener wrote:
MY problem is where I live in Eastern Tennessee isn't offering cable
internet yet. I am tethered to an ISDN line thru BellSouth and my server
provider is now businesses only but still has a few of us die hards who love
his services who are residents. I am one of those die hards. When I can get
cable internet (DSL) then I am outa there............I not only pay
Bellsouth for the ISDN lines each month (it's a given considering it's my
ONLY alternative, and yes I considered satellite service thru Direct t.v.
but no thank you, bad enough when a really powerful storm cell knocks out my
t.v. services including my desperately needed local stations I pay for and
what good is that when there is a nasty tornado or storm approaching? but to
also lose my internet capabilities too? no thank you but I also have my
ISDN service fee's which cost me $49 every month...............huge sigh.

one day I hope to have located either an affordable ISDN service, or DSL
will come because so many people are moving here that actually HAVE
computers! (the population here is astounding. apparently the slogan
"tennessee is the place to be" is catching fire. EVERYONE is relocating
here. Now if only the wages would rise at the jobs around
here...........................and who knows? maybe we'll get that traffic
light in town! LOL yeppers, we still don't have a traffic light in town. I
think it'll come soon enough. one nasty traffic accident by some old person
turning into the local store and someone not paying attention going in the
opposite direction who shouldn't be driving faster than 40 will sadly be the
reason we'll finally get that much needed light.............(we've needed
two of them now for as long as I've been here, which is 13 years now)

back to the subject, I just have to patiently wait for other options for
internet services. despite that I love the quality of service provided by
V.I.C. I'd leave in a heartbeat if I could cut my provider fee's in half and
drop that ISDN line fee with Bellsouth.....................
of course having DSL would be a whole different breed of cat too.......I
better be careful what I wish for unless I know what I'm reaching into,
right?
madgardener trying to recover from spreading herself too thin these last
three weeks
"Jeana" wrote in message
news:dToVd.1360$ju.1327@okepread07...

madgardener wrote:
I myself despise that all those pop up's are everywhere

Although I don't really know what I'm doing half the time on the
computer, my cable connection works great for me. I started out with AOL
and then my grown son had me switch to a local cheaper ISP. He said
worse things about AOL than it sucked. After I got the hang of that,
I went to cable. I don't have any pop ups, and so far, no spam. Not one
bit since AOL.

I remember Marilyn from my AOL days.

I wish you could change your isp someday.

Jean from Ohio too

"madgardener" wrote:
hmmmmmm interesting option.........any idea's Janet?
"Janet Baraclough" wrote:
Why not use an offline-newsreader? No pop-ups or tracking are possible.

Outlook Express is an offline newsreader. The basic definition of
an offline newsreader means it downloads the newsgroup to your
hard disk and stores it in a file for reading later on. OE does this
when you click on the Synchronize Newsgroup menu item.

For security, make sure Outlook Express is set to view files in
Plain Text (Tools, Options, Read tab). And never open any
attached documents by double-clicking on them (except maybe
..jpg or .gif and ONLY if Internet Explorer is NOT set up as the
default program to view such files).

--
Jim Carlock
Please post replies to newsgroup.

Jim Carlock wrote:
"madgardener" wrote:
hmmmmmm interesting option.........any idea's Janet?
"Janet Baraclough" wrote:
Why not use an offline-newsreader? No pop-ups or tracking are
possible.

Outlook Express is an offline newsreader. The basic definition of
an offline newsreader means it downloads the newsgroup to your
hard disk and stores it in a file for reading later on. OE does this
when you click on the Synchronize Newsgroup menu item.

There are two ways to use an "offline" newsreader.
1. Download every message in a group, so that the messages are
available to read offline, or
2. First download all the headers, go offline, mark those you want
to read, go back online, retrieve those messages, and then go offline
again.

In the first example, no tracking is possible because you've downloaded
everything. No one can guess which messages you read, and which you
didn't. In the second example, tracking is as possible as reading the
messages online. The difference is in offline reading, you do not stay
connected to the ISP while you're reading.

If you have dial-up, and only one phone line, then the advantage of the
second example is that your phone line is only tied-up while you're
actually downloading the messages, and not while you're reading them. If
you're paying by the minute for your dial-up connection, the advantage
is obvious. If you're doing the first method, and downloading everything
before going offline, the benefit is less, unless you were going to read
every message anyway.

If you're not paying by the minute, or if you have a dedicated
connection (either a phone line just for the modem, or you're on cable,
DSL or other "always-on" type system), there simply is no benefit to
using a newsreader in offline mode.

--
Warren H.

==========
Disclaimer: My views reflect those of myself, and not my
employer, my friends, nor (as she often tells me) my wife.
Any resemblance to the views of anybody living or dead is
coincidental. No animals were hurt in the writing of this
response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants
to go outside now.
Clean-up your yard this spring with Black and Decker tools:
http://www.holzemville.com/mall/blac...ker/index.html

"Warren" wrote:
There are two ways to use an "offline" newsreader.
Download every message in a group, so that the messages
are available to read offline, [or download the headers and
disconnect].

In the first example, no tracking is possible because you've
downloaded everything. No one can guess which messages
you read, and which you didn't.

Hi Warren,

Not sure what you mean by no tracking is possible. As I was
specifically talking about Outlook Express, and I don't see
anyone as being able to "track" which messages YOU read
unless you reply to them. That statement just doesn't make
any sense to me...

Almost all newsreaders provide a mechanism for highlighting
message threads (called "watching" the thread). Also, unread
messages are usually flagged or boldened in some manner. A
thread with an unread message gets enboldened as well,
making it very easy to tell if there's an unread message in any
thread.

When you first download the messages in OE, unread ones
are highlighted (boldened)... it's very easy to tell which you
have read and which you haven't. Furthermore, there are
two other mechanisms in Outlook Express... 1) Flag, you
can flag any message, I only find this useful in rare cases,
and 2) you can watch messages. Watched messages show
up as a red highlight. And if it's an unread watched message,
the newsgroup is shows up as bold red.

Microsoft put a convenient feature inside of Outlook Express
as well. OE will download the "watched" messages (red)
first. And then it'll finish downloading the headers and then
move on to the next newsgroup. ;-)

Just remember, watched is red, whether it's read or not, whether
or not you actively watch it. Ctrl+A, Ctrl+Q turns off all bold
entries and marks everything as read, whether it's red or unread
or BOTH!

Being that you are using Outlook Express, I'm a little puzzled by
what you mean by tracking.

;-) Enjoy! It was fun writing about watched messages and Ctrl+Q.

Oh, by the way, you usually can tell if the thread interests you, by
reading the first item in the thread. If it doesn't interest you, Ctrl+Q
on that first item marks the whole thread as read and you can then
do a Ctrl+U to jump to the next unread message.

--
Jim Carlock
Please post replies to newsgroup.

Jim Carlock wrote:
Not sure what you mean by no tracking is possible. As I was
specifically talking about Outlook Express, and I don't see
anyone as being able to "track" which messages YOU read
unless you reply to them. That statement just doesn't make
any sense to me...

Your news service provider (for most people their ISP) could, if they
wished, track who downloads what messages. For practical reasons (both
technical and legal) they don't. But theoretically they can track what
you download.

In the traditional sense of online news reading, an assumption could be
made that if you download one message, then there's a gap before you
download the next message, then you're likely reading those messages. So
while they can't really know what you're reading, they could make an
assumption based on which messages you download.

With off-line news reading, if you download every message in the group,
the only assumption anyone could make is that you're going to read some
of the messages in the group. So if one of those messages in a gardens
group happens to have a title of "See Kiddie Porn Here", the fact that
you've downloaded every message to read offline would be a built-in
defense if someone accused you of picking out the obscene messages to
download. You didn't make a content-based decision. It just happened to
be in the batch.

Please note that I'm not saying anyone is tracking which messages you
pick and choose to read. It really isn't practical for anyone to do that
(although I'll concede that if a supeana to allow the government to do
so was presented, it would be technically possible.)

Almost all newsreaders provide a mechanism for highlighting
message threads (called "watching" the thread). Also, unread
messages are usually flagged or boldened in some manner. A
thread with an unread message gets enboldened as well,
making it very easy to tell if there's an unread message in any
thread.

Threading, watching, and highlighting read messages are all client-side
issues. Someone would need physical access to your computer to check the
logs of what you are reading or watching. However since most people mark
messages they don't want to see on their unread list as read even if
they didn't read those messages, even having access to those logs, and
checking to see which messages are marked read won't help you tell what
was really read, and what was just dismissed by being marked as read.

But this is all getting into minutia that's really not the primary
purpose of an offline newsreader. Or at least it shouldn't matter.
Anyone who is choosing to read messages offline after downloading all
the message bodies in order to mask an outsider's ability to tell which
messages they're actually reading is quite simply paranoid. And the only
reason I even addressed this minor aspect of the effect of offline news
reading is that someone else brought it up.

In the end, the only real use for offline news reading is to save on
per-minute connection charges, or to open a phone line. If neither of
these issues apply, then there is no benefit to reading messages
offline.

--
Warren H.

==========
Disclaimer: My views reflect those of myself, and not my
employer, my friends, nor (as she often tells me) my wife.
Any resemblance to the views of anybody living or dead is
coincidental. No animals were hurt in the writing of this
response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants
to go outside now.
Clean-up your yard this spring with Black and Decker tools:
http://www.holzemville.com/mall/blac...ker/index.html

You listen to Janet. She's the resident troll here.

She can turn even the most innocent posting into a hateful flame war!!!!!


"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from "Jim Carlock" contains these words:

Oh, by the way, you usually can tell if the thread interests you, by
reading the first item in the thread.

Hm, threads sometimes start dull but become interesting later. On my
offline newsreader, I can click open a thread's header to show a list of
participants, before opening any messages. Often the authors list is a
far more reliable indicator of the thread's interest-level for myself,
than its header.

Janet.

On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:30:36 GMT, "Cereus-validus....."
wrote:

You listen to Janet. She's the resident troll here.

She can turn even the most innocent posting into a hateful flame war!!!!!
But tell the truth, you'd **** anything!