I'm back!!!!

Welcome home, Tricia! :) It's good to see you back here.

Welcome back, Tricia. Big hugs to you!

Karen, Queen of Squishies

Ack! As of this morning, I can no longer get newsgroups! I don't know what's going on, and I've talked to five different techs at EarthLink so far, all to no avail. Yesterday I got a message telling me that EarthLink's newsgroup service was going to be better than ever, but they've apparently messed something up that was working just fine before. :((( I'm on Google right now, but I hate that I can't find a way to disguise my email addy or to have an automatic signature! : (

Sandy in Henderson, near Las Vegas

Sandy- quick get yourself a Yahoo addy and use that. That's how I've done it for three years. Yahoo has a great spam filter, too. It's a really good option for not being able to munge your email addy.

Leslie & The Furbabies >> I'm doing backflips over the fact that Houston Comcast and Earthlink have

Hey Sandy, Try

... they give FREE accounts out - all youneed is a reader and an internet connection. It's private, safe and-ahem- FREE - so while you're being jerked around by Earthlink, you'renot risking a loss of privacy or extra $$ being spent. Everyone I know who uses it LOVES it! :)

I hope it all works out, Sandy!!

Gosh, thanks, Connie! You've rescued me! :D It was really easy to set up an account with them, and all of my settings in my newsreader just worked fine. Motzarella doesn't carry a couple of the groups I've been reading, but that's not a big deal -- it has most of them.

Thanks again! Yippee! :D

Thanks, Leslie! I'll keep that in mind if/when I need to use Google again. :)

I was just passing along advice someone gave me when Knology (my ISP) decided that newsgroups just wasn't important enough to keep stable. :)

I ended up using it for about two days - then Knology came back up (I imagine after tons of angry calls? Lord knows I complained!!!). But before that, I lost NGs every day - they'd just .... disappear! ... so I'm feelin' ya! :)

Motzarella doesn't carry any binary groups ... but I don't see you downloading black market apps, so ... :)

But Motzarella DOES add new groups every day (so I've been told and so I've seen). So take heart - if you end up having to use M for a bit, your groups will pop up! :)

Thanks again, Connie! :) It was a bit of a panic here for a little while when I couldn't access Motzarella either after the first try, but now things seem back to normal. :D

Absolutely ANY time, Sandy! :) Lord knows, you've done WAY more for me! Still don't know how you managed to keep your patience with me harassing you about EQ! :)

Gosh, I didn't have to do anything to write those messages, Connie! But I do appreciate you pointing me toward Motz (which is down again -- they must be having serious problems) and Aioe (which is my backup now ). The combination is pretty much perfect! :)

Pfft. I quizzed you worse and more annoyingly than the average 2 yo asking "Why" every two seconds! :)

You've the patience of a saint! :)

*rolls eyes* I should have pointed you towards Aioe first, though. I have friends who use it ALL the time with no problem, but I've actually used Motz so I felt "safer" in recommending it. Now I wish I'd have mentioned Aioe first. :/

But really, all I care about is you getting in here! Tis a duller, lonelier place without you! :)

Awww ... Connie, you're too nice! :)

Let me in on Aioe.... sigh. I am getting even more disenchanted with earthlink news service and it turns out that covad discontinued their news server last month. sigh.

Pati, in Phx>

C> >

Pfft. Tell me hubby that - he'd NEVER believe you! :)

But in about a week, I'll be the most beautiful, intelligent, kindest woman in the entire world - he's off on a week & half biz trip and his memory ain't what it used to be. Then it's back to hard, cold, mean reality! :)

I've never used Aioe

personally - I do have aMotzarella account that I use when Knology(the biggest provider here in FL - and the cheapest! LOL) poops out(about once a month?) ... Both offer free, secure (meaning private - you can munge your e-mail addy), NON-binary newsgroup access. Motz is in german - and you have to sign up for an account - but it's still easy to figure out. And you use your own reader for it.

For Aioe there's no "sign up" you simply plug in the server settings into YOUR reader and go! I do have a few friends that use Aioe and use it regularly - preferring it over their own ISP's access. And I've never heard of Aioe pooping out.

Motz does poop out occasionally. The longest I've had Motz poop out was about 2 days - the longest with my paid access (Knology) was two MONTHS! And if you've not had a tiny bit of experience with the German language, you'll probably have to translate some of their e-mail - I do have experience, but not much so I had to use

... I hope I made sense here - didn't get much sleep last night - hubby took off on a biz trip to England/Scotland (lucky, lucky booger!!) and we stayed up most of the night (and morning) getting him packed, his meds under control, etc.

BTW, NAYY with any of the companies I mentioned. But sometimes, I wish! :)

Thank you so much. I am now using Aioe. Will see how things shape up.

EL's upgrade has really messed with my use of it. Was not remembering read messages, and asking for username/password at irregular intervals, sometimes minutes apart. sigh.

Hope this works well.

And I agree about your DH being lucky to be going to England/Scotland. I have often wished I could manage a trip there and to Ireland. sigh. You made good sense and the site was easy to use.

Pati, in Phx

C> >

De nada, my friend! :)

Aioe should be good - I've never heard a bad word about it - other than the inability to use the Binary groups. But then, I don't think most people are really concerned about the binary groups!

Knology (my ISP) did that for a while ... we had "upgrades" going on at the time, too. I don't think it's forever - once the upgrades are finished they work out all the kinks, you'll be back to using EL!

Knology still goes out occasionally, but not nearly as often as it DID!

I almost went with him - the opportunity was presented, but I just couldn't get away right now - mild health problems that keep me from traveling. :/ (He travels ALL the time so we've got more than enough frequent flyer miles! He's on travel about 60-75% of the year! )

Thank you, Patti! :)

Unbelievable as it sounds, I *think* I have my EL newsgroups back again! Of course, it's taken me several hours of (not-so) patiently dealing with various tech support people over the course of the past few days, but it boiled down to a change in the server's address. I hadn't been able to authenticate my connection because of it. It amazes me how little some of these tech support people know -- one didn't even recognize the terms "newsgroup" or "usenet". Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhh!

Anyway, Pati, in case it might help you, they've told me to use (minus the brackets), rather than one of the ones with "east" or "west" in them. That did the trick for me, though I'm hanging onto both Motzarella and Aioe, just in case. ;)

Ooops -- it seems that, while I can read from EL, I can't post. Another authentication error.

Good luck to us all!