Usenet Megathread & SABnzbd+ Appreciation Station v0.4.0

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware / Software Crap > Usenet Megathread & SABnzbd+ Appreciation Station v0.4.0

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inpheaux: Jul 12, 2001

Welcome yet again to the best megathread in the history of time. SABnzbd+ 0.4.0 has finally been released after a lenghty alpha/beta/rc process, and it's been about six months since I started the last thread. So, it's time for a new one.

_{Note: Before you run to upgrade, if you're coming from 0.3.4 or even some of the earlier 0.4.0 betas / rc's, please let your queue finish first.}

===========================================================
Ok, so what's Usenet and why should I care?
===========================================================

Usenet is the distant but common ancestor of every discussion forum on the internet. While today in the amazing year 2008 most discussion happens on web-based forums (like this one!), or blogs, or YouTube comments

, or whatever, back in the dark ages all we had was Usenet for our public place to flame idiots online.

Usenet was invented back before we had these newfangled "graphical user interfaces", and as such it is purely text-based. Think of it as massively multiplayer distributed e-mail. Like all good things on the internet, somewhere along the line some enterprising individuals developed a method to encode data into easy-to-assemble multi-part text files that could then be posted to Usenet just like normal articles. This permitted them to post these so-called "binaries" to Usenet, and since the news feeds get mirrored worldwide, anyone with Usenet access could saunter in and download them. This is why you should care.

Here's the super short version of what you need to get going:

1) A Usenet Provider - Usenet isn't some website, and it isn't a lovely peer-to-peer program. To reap the glorious bounty of Usenet you're probably going to need to pay someone for access. Before you rush to shell out a monthly fee, check out the big ISP list, as your ISP might provide free access. Unfortunately, thanks to some dick most major US ISPs no longer do this.

If your ISP doesn't offer something for free, you're going to have to pay for it. As far as paid news hosts go, in my opinion there are only two options: Giganews (Sign up through this link and give the SABnzbd project kickbacks!) and Astraweb. Giganews is the Big Dog of the News Server Industry, currently offering ~330 days of retention (and growing to 365+) for $30/mo with SSL or $25/mo without. In the past, Astraweb has been less than reliable, but they're better now and they've got the best deal in the industry for cheapskates, with 315 days of retention (growing to 400-ish) and free SSL for $11/mo. At this point, retention dickwaving is sort of irrelevant, since it's so ridiculously high these days. I mean, do you really need something that was posted 15 months ago? It's probably been reposted seven times since then.

Here are some other popular choices, which are all wrong for various reasons: Newshosting (finally increasing their retention, but Astraweb offers similar specs for cheaper), PowerUsenet (Giganews Reseller, but Astraweb has better specs for cheaper), UsenetServer (Periodically crap service, worse specs than Astraweb/Newshosting/etc), and Easynews (lol download quotas lol). If you really want to shop around, check here for a more in-depth analysis of pretty much all the major hosts.

2) A Usenet Indexer / Search Service - An indexing service is important because Usenet is a big place. You don't want to slog through terabytes upon terabytes of headers just to find what you want. So get something to let you search. In my opinion, the best out there is still the original: Newzbin. Premium credit (which you'll need to generate nzbs) runs about 50c per week, and you can pay for months at a time. I cannot stress enough how important Newzbin is. Free alternatives exist, like binsearch.info and alt.binaries.nl, but really, nothing compares to Newzbin.

Newzbin is INVITE ONLY. AGAIN.

Rather than clutter the thread with 800 posts of "OMG OMG PLZ INVITE ME", and an equally high number of "HAY GUYS PM ME FOR INVITES" posts, ribena has tossed up a page on his wiki where you can post your name and PM URL if you've got invites, and have a list of PM links if you need invites. Alternatively, come over to our Newzbin Invite Thread if you're really desperate.

_{Newzbin does a yearly half-off sale in the second-half of December, but you missed it because you suck.}

If you've got a non-crap internet-capable phone, you might be interested in a thing I made called Newzbin Mobile. It's basically a stripped-down interface to Newzbin, with large difficult-to-fat-finger buttons for adding stuff to your bookmarks. Just log into normal Newzbin on your phone or whatever, and make sure your SABnzbd installation is set to retrieve bookmarks. That's it. No figuring out how to make SABnzbd listen on an external interface, no setting passwords, no copy&pasting report ID's, nothing. Just set bookmarks and SABnzbd will handle it from there. If you've got questions or whatever, feel free to ask them here, or over on the SABnzbd Forums.

_{Note: I've sort of taken Newzbin Mobile as far as I can from the outside without resorting to screen scraping or dealing with login data, so I've turned the source over to Freaky, the main developer over at Newzbin. Hopefully in the near future he'll make it into a real project available at Newzbin.com, with direct table access, saved searches, etc.}

3) A Newsreader - As far as I'm considered, if you want binaries, there is no finer newsreader than SABnzbd+, and I promise I'm not just saying this because I'm one of the developers. It's cross platform (it'll work on pretty much anything that can run Python), it's incredibly easy to set up (Download, extract, run), it's dead-simple to use (if you can point and click you can download things. It does all the downloading, repairing and extracting for you, and cleans up after itself too!), it's incredibly extensible (we've got a full API for developers to play with, a full theming system, scriptable plugins, etc), and it's under constant development (by super cool awesome people). It's a pure NZB processor, but really, at this point if you're not using NZBs you're some kind of freakish masochist.

If for some insane reason you really desperately want to do things the hard way, you can check out some of the alternatives here. Don't say I didn't warn you.

4) A Firefox Extension - Our own duz (of SALR fame) has a great little extension called nzbdStatus. nzbdStatus puts convenient links in Newzbin search results to let you send reports to SABnzbd+ without having to leave the page. It also has a little icon in your Firefox tray that shows you the status of your SABnzbd+ queue and now handles sending any downloaded NZB to SABnzbd+ automagically, so even if you're too much of a cheapskate to pay for Newzbin, so long as you've got SOMEWHERE to get NZBs from it'll work well. The next major version will hopefully support tracking (and sending to) multiple daemons for those of you with a veritable army of SABnzbd+ installs to leech with.

Opera users (and users of other browsers capable of using user.js), your savior is here: Charun has updated my prehistoric script to make it Actually Work and support the API Key. So go get it.

5) A Guide - The SABnzbd+ manual has a nice Quick-Start Guide, a General Usage Guide, and a bunch of other useful stuff like a full API reference. I strongly suggest reading through the whole thing.

===========================================================
Why should I care about SABnzbd+?
===========================================================

Reason #1: Bug Fixes & Enhancements
Here are the highlights from 0.4.0:

Built in SSL. If you've got SSL from your host you can now download over an encrypted channel, which may dodge ISP throttling. Unfortunately it adds some overhead, so you may not get your absolute peak speeds, but what you get should be better than what it would be throttled down to, assuming that's why you're using SSL in the first place.
RSS no longer sucks. You can perform live queries to see exactly what SABnzbd+ thinks is in the feed, and what it is being filtered down to. Shypike spent a hell of a lot of time making it work well.
Better Newzbin integration. SABnzbd+ can now read straight from your Newzbin bookmarks, so you can use this like a round-about way of remotely accessing your install. You can log in to Newzbin from anywhere, search for stuff, bookmark it, and SABnzbd+ will go grab it when it checks your bookmarks. SABnzbd+ also works with the new (well, sorta new) www.newzbin.com, which is more than we can say about old mainline SABnzbd.
Automatic Renaming & Sorting of TV Shows. . you know, for your extensive (and fully legal) NOVA collection or whatever.
Shitload of new theme stuff. Everything has streamlined config entries now (which hopefully make a bit more sense), Plush has drag & drop sort [among other things], There's a special native iPhone skin [which you can run simultaneously alongside a normal theme], all kinds of stuff.
Sane bandwidth control. No more decimal crap. Just put a number in and it'll limit your download speed to that many K/s.
Better Integrated Support. In addition to the standardized context-sensitive help links in the config, all official themes have a built-in AJAX IRC thing, so you can bitch at us from right within your browser.

Reason #2: New Themes, Better Themes, Actual Theme Development
In addition to our built-in themes which keep getting better, we have awesome new stuff in the pipe. Switch has his 0.5.0 Prototype Theme that looks and feels like a native application, I've got a lightweight sidebar theme I'm working on, and duz is planning on a XUL theme.

Reason #3: Active Development by a Usenet Dream-Team
For awhile I thought SABnzbd couldn't be improved upon. Shypike and friends keep proving me wrong. And we really do have a great team working on SABnzbd+. The latest addition to our dev team is rAf, one of the guys who had been building OSX .app versions on his own. He'll be helping us get the .app versions up on SF.net, so there'll only ever be one place to get official releases.

Reason #4: The Dev Team Gives a poo poo
Remember old mainline SABnzbd? You were lucky to ever see tdian, let alone have him listen to you. Now, to be fair to him, he did an absolutely amazing job and produced a revolutionary program on his own, but that development model is exactly what caused SABnzbd to die. For SABnzbd+ we've got a great forum up and running with specific sections for bug reports, feature requests, sharing post-processing scripts, etc. And hey, if you don't feel like asking over there, ask here. paradigmm and I read the thread constantly, and if we don't have an immediate answer we'll forward it on to the rest of the dev team. We've also got a semi-active IRC channel for support and discussion, #sabnzbd on irc.synirc.net. So if you've got questions or want to tell us how amazing we are you can do so there.

===========================================================
Mini FAQ
===========================================================

Q: How do I upgrade between versions of SABnzbd+?
A: Just install it. Unless you specify otherwise, SABnzbd+ stores your ini somewhere that won't get overwritten.

Q: Where's my SABnzbd.ini?
A: Go to the index of the config page. It'll tell you the full path to your SABnzbd.ini. Its location depends on your platform.

Q: How do I get access SABnzbd+ from another computer?
A: Have it listen on another IP. If you just want to access it on your LAN, under Config -> General change the first item - "Host" - from "localhost" to your computer's local IP. If you want it available to computers outside your network, have it listen on your external IP. Note that if you do this you'll probably want to add a password.

Q: Usenet is safe, right?
A: Yeah, Usenet is totally safe, unless you start posting stuff. For the big bad (RI|MP)AA to get at you, they'd have to know what you're downloading, and simply put they can't unless you like . . tell them or something. If you start posting, well, that's a whole other thing.

Q: But wait, isn't Usenet like . . getting sued or something?
A: That was Usenet.com, not actually "Usenet" as a whole. Usenet.com hosed up, hardcore. They were a lovely third-rate host, they specifically advertised "LOL DUDEZ C'MON DOWN FOR DA FILEZZZ! USENET IS TOTALLY THE BESTEST PLACE FOR DA FILEZ NOW THAT P2P IS GETTING SHUT DOWN LOLLLL!!!!!", they ATTEMPTED TO COVER THIS UP when they got sued, and as such they were violently raped by the RIAA. Sucks to be them. Luckily, none of the hosts anyone should care about have websites like that.

Q: No seriously, I heard that like, the entire alt.* hierarchy was being removed.
A: This is only true for ISP-sponsored news servers which were notoriously poo poo in the first place. No harm, no foul, as far as I'm concerned.

Q: Ok, what about Newzbin? I heard they were being sued too. Or something.
A: Newzbin has received a letter from the MPA, the international equivalent of the MPAA. It is just a letter, it is not the end of the world. Something may need to change about Newzbin, but at this point we have no idea what (if anything), so there's no sense in worrying about it. All you need to know is that Newzbin won't be going away. There's a chance it may become less useful, but I am confident everything will be alright.

Q: My ISP hates me and my freedom, and is throttling all NNTP traffic down to unusable speeds. Halp, plz.
A: Get a news host that offers SSL and use it. Since it's encrypted, your ISP should have a harder time figuring out that it's NNTP traffic and thus should be throttled. Failing that, get a new ISP.

===========================================================
AN IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT SAFETY
===========================================================

Usenet, due to the nature of its contents, is a touchy subject to talk about in an open forum that's actually getting indexed by Google now. Lets all be careful, ok? I suggest the following safety guidelines:

Don't talk about the specific contents of specific newsgroups.
Don't talk about things you want to download from Usenet, things you've already downloaded from Usenet, or ask for help with utilizing things you've downloaded from Usenet.
Don't post direct links to NZBs, collections of NZBs, or Newzbin reports of copyrighted material.
Don't post screenshots or logs that haven't been sanitized. Black bars, people. Use them.

inpheaux fucked around with this message at Oct 26, 2009 around 19:14

# ? Jul 05, 2008 19:50

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Feb 09, 2010 18:48

paradigmm: May 28, 2002

The already-included "Plush" web interface has changed considerably since 0.3.4:

completely rewritten to function in Firefox2,3/Safari3/Opera9/IE6,7
sports a new skin provided by "injectx" (thanks again to real_scud for helping with this)
new features + quicker methods

The #1 complaint with plush is that it "loads too slow". Here is one remedy to this problem:

Increase your refresh rate if the interface is slow or unresponsive.

There is also a new feature which helps to remedy this problem, the new limit menus:

Only load a subset of your queue/history, a saving grace with large lists.

There was a funky change made right before final, the new menu toggler:

You have to hover your mouse cursor at the top of the screen to access it. Notice that you can trigger it from anywhere at the top of the screen. It's meant to provide quick access while also letting you keep all the extras minimized. Yes, you can toggle both of them on and it saves your preference most the time.
1x click yields:

2x click yields:

===============================================================

Before you bitch about how Plush looks, please realize that you can create new themes for it effortlessly.

To get started, open up your SABnzbd install dir and open up interfaces/Plush/templates.

(not that important:) The first thing you are going to see is a bunch of ______.tmpl files. These are templates which contain primarily HTML, as well as bits of Cheetah/Python.

code:

$this_is_a_variable
<!--# this is Cheetah code #-->
<% this is Python code %>

Here's the thing... you can go about modifying Plush (or the other interfaces) in two different ways:

(1) You can modify the _____.tmpl files, but that means it won't be Plush anymore. You would be best off making a totally separate copy of Plush in your interfaces folder. That way, Plush stays intact. It's simple to select your brand new interface from the General Config.

(2) (easier way) New with SABnzbd 0.4.0, you can theme existing web interfaces fairly effortlessly. I will focus on this method. (read on...)

So did you notice the "static" directory yet? You should have...
SABnzbd/interfaces/Plush/templates/static/images/
SABnzbd/interfaces/Plush/templates/static/javascripts/
SABnzbd/interfaces/Plush/templates/static/stylesheets/

Before we start, please realize that if you change the JavaScript around, you may as well create your own brand new theme, as the "theming" I'm about to describe can only handle CSS/imagery changes.

Create a new directory within stylesheets/ called "colorschemes"
Place a new .css file in it, call it anything you want.
Add some CSS to your new stylesheet -- I'm not going to go into the details, but basically you want to extract bits of plush-default.css and overwrite them with your new declarations. (BOTH stylesheets will be included on every page)
Add some new imagery -- you can reference this imagery from your stylesheet, makes sense right? I would recommend popping in a new folder in the static/images like I have done for "plush-default" -- call it whatever you want, perhaps "mytheme".
Almost done! Now open up your General Config, and specify your new "Web Interface Schema":
Refresh the main plush screen now -- your styles should take effect! You DO NOT need to manually restart SABnzbd for color schema changes. You can also theme out the Config!

Hopefully that makes sense, I am available if anyone wants help. You can use this same approach for any of SABnzbd's web interfaces.

# ? Jul 05, 2008 19:52

Sir Bobert Fishbone: Jan 16, 2006; Beebort

This reminds me, I need to top up my newzbin account. Thanks for the continued releases of such a great app! It's really the best way to use newsgroups that I've ever found.

# ? Jul 05, 2008 19:53

DigitalChaos: Aug 18, 2003

IRC client? wtf... Can't that be made an optional addon or something?
bloat FTL

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Jul 05, 2008 20:30

PirateDentist: Mar 28, 2006; Sailing The Seven Seas Searching For Scurvy

Oh happy day! The new Plush fixes almost every annoyance I had with it.

Big thanks to all the developers for all their hard work.

# ? Jul 05, 2008 20:55

inpheaux: Jul 12, 2001

DigitalChaos posted:

IRC client? wtf... Can't that be made an optional addon or something?
bloat FTL

It's a link. Look, this is all it is. There is no actual code involved, and it took practically zero development time.

It's incredibly useful since now users can just mash the IRC link and have a direct line to whichever of us are conscious at the time. No client setup, no connecting to a server, just click a link, enter a name [or not], ask for help.

I'll admit, initially I was against it because it feels totally unnecessary, but it's so simple and makes it so easy for users to get immediate support, and added nothing to our codebase.

inpheaux fucked around with this message at Jul 05, 2008 around 21:00

# ? Jul 05, 2008 20:58

paradigmm: May 28, 2002

The (10.5-only) OS X SABnzbd.app for 0.4.0 is now available on the SourceForge.net download page

rAf, the person who created the above, also has been working on a new "iPlush" interface, which is basically Plush for your iPhone/iPod. It's a little bit different.. I haven't been involved with it at all.. you can check out the iPlush work in progress here.

paradigmm fucked around with this message at Jul 06, 2008 around 01:07

# ? Jul 05, 2008 21:39

Pzykotic: Feb 20, 2004; Da Boom!

I'm excited about upgrading to 0.4.0! I just got into sabnzbd and it's awesome.

I've been using hellanzb on my OS X server for a long time... it does the job but it's not as nice as this. The newzbin integration is the killer part.

Nice to see there's a standalone OS X app now, maybe I'll give that a shot on my Mac! Woop!

# ? Jul 05, 2008 22:09

DigitalChaos: Aug 18, 2003

inpheaux posted:

It's a link. Look, this is all it is. There is no actual code involved, and it took practically zero development time.

It's incredibly useful since now users can just mash the IRC link and have a direct line to whichever of us are conscious at the time. No client setup, no connecting to a server, just click a link, enter a name [or not], ask for help.

I'll admit, initially I was against it because it feels totally unnecessary, but it's so simple and makes it so easy for users to get immediate support, and added nothing to our codebase.

oh.. well then that is fine then

# ? Jul 05, 2008 22:20

Sizzlechest: May 07, 2007; After the twist, you'll feel a snap and the body goes ragdoll on you.

Very nice interface! BTW, I know it's not the fastest usenet provider, but UNS is the cheapest, offers SSL, and has 105+ days retention. Plus, they have a search engine that generates nzb files. For the occasional user, it can't be beat.

# ? Jul 05, 2008 22:22

Pzykotic: Feb 20, 2004; Da Boom!

Sizzlechest posted:

Very nice interface! BTW, I know it's not the fastest usenet provider, but UNS is the cheapest, offers SSL, and has 105+ days retention. Plus, they have a search engine that generates nzb files. For the occasional user, it can't be beat.

I recently went from Giganews to UNS... UNS has its problems like missing articles and less speed (which can usually be corrected with their convenient routing tool)

I miss Giganews and its superior speed, completeness and ridiculous retention, but not enough to continue to justify spending $24/mo on it. I'm paying about $13/mo for UNS by paying once every 3 months.

If Giganews would come down to, say, $15/mo or so I'd go back. But it doesn't look like they're much interested in lowering prices!

# ? Jul 05, 2008 22:46

inpheaux: Jul 12, 2001

Pzykotic posted:

If Giganews would come down to, say, $15/mo or so I'd go back. But it doesn't look like they're much interested in lowering prices!

So . . like PowerUsenet, then? PowerUsenet is a Giganews reseller. The only difference is 125 days of retention instead of 200+. It'll be the same speed, completion, etc.

# ? Jul 05, 2008 22:50

Sizzlechest: May 07, 2007; After the twist, you'll feel a snap and the body goes ragdoll on you.

inpheaux posted:

So . . like PowerUsenet, then? PowerUsenet is a Giganews reseller. The only difference is 125 days of retention instead of 200+. It'll be the same speed, completion, etc.

Uh, PowerUsenet is only 6 concurrent connections and no SSL for that price. And it's still more than UsenetServer.

# ? Jul 06, 2008 02:18

desy: Dec 21, 2006; Day man,
Fighter of the Night Man

Sizzlechest posted:

Uh, PowerUsenet is only 6 concurrent connections and no SSL for that price. And it's still more than UsenetServer.

What's so bad about 'only 6 concurrent connections'? I'm pretty sure that will max out whatever line you're on.

# ? Jul 06, 2008 03:04

Sizzlechest: May 07, 2007; After the twist, you'll feel a snap and the body goes ragdoll on you.

desy posted:

What's so bad about 'only 6 concurrent connections'? I'm pretty sure that will max out whatever line you're on.

I haven't tried cutting my connections down to 6 to see if it makes a difference, but I'm getting 20 Mbps down with Usenetserver and SSL to boot. Other than the 20 extra days of retention, there's nothing better about PowerUsenet.

# ? Jul 06, 2008 03:46

Krittick: Dec 14, 2005; Discover the reality.

Uhh, what? Anyone else get this?

# ? Jul 06, 2008 05:23

imnotzig: Jun 06, 2005

Yeah mine says that too.

# ? Jul 06, 2008 05:35

Krittick: Dec 14, 2005; Discover the reality.

zigzigzig posted:

Yeah mine says that too.

Good to know it's not just me then.

# ? Jul 06, 2008 05:45

Smeep: Jan 20, 2004

Mmmm, this is awesome, thanks to the developers!

# ? Jul 06, 2008 07:20

stevo9er: Feb 08, 2005

Thanks for the latest SABnzbd. I just updated from like 2.0 or something and wow this is great.

# ? Jul 06, 2008 17:23

Fourteen: Aug 15, 2002; No, no, no you imbecile! That's not talc, that's paprika!

Thanks for this, guys. This is wonderful :-)

# ? Jul 06, 2008 18:20

Bateau: May 15, 2002; Cold War Supervillain

Is there an app that makes uploading just as easy as downloading in SABnzbd+? Something that would take care of splitting, compressing and making PARs.

# ? Jul 07, 2008 11:45

Always Shirtless: Oct 14, 2006; by Fistgrrl

Bateau posted:

Is there an app that makes uploading just as easy as downloading in SABnzbd+? Something that would take care of splitting, compressing and making PARs.

Preusenet should do everything for you to prepare posts (there's an english readme and it's all in english)

# ? Jul 07, 2008 16:58

DigitalChaos: Aug 18, 2003

rofl.. I love the senseless probation that seems to pop up once a year for me. The use of acronyms??? (few posts up) Last year was from not capitalizing the first letter of a few sentences (seriously).

Anyway, my newzbin account does not have unlimited invites

I have a few left if anyone wants one though.

All this talk about powerusenet has really got me interested in trying it out for a bit. I have been a newshosting whore for years.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Jul 07, 2008 20:20

bazaar apparatus: Nov 30, 2006; Whenever my body starts to get sick, I just stop being sick and be awesome instead

DigitalChaos posted:

rofl.. I love the senseless probation that seems to pop up once a year for me. The use of acronyms??? (few posts up) Last year was from not capitalizing the first letter of a few sentences (seriously).

not so much the use of an acronym as it was the use of a phrase as completely stupid as "for the lose" i'm betting

to the dev team: i'm not somebody who needs sabnzbd to sort out my downloads into category folders, and i can't find an option anywhere that just allows me to toggle a "use categories" switch so i have to delete each one individually. is there any way this could be implemented in future versions?

this project has seriously come a long way since its inception so thank you guys for doing such an awesome job!

# ? Jul 07, 2008 21:50

inpheaux: Jul 12, 2001

bazaar apparatus posted:

to the dev team: i'm not somebody who needs sabnzbd to sort out my downloads into category folders, and i can't find an option anywhere that just allows me to toggle a "use categories" switch so i have to delete each one individually. is there any way this could be implemented in future versions?

I just never mashed "Set Up Categories", so it's never pulled them for me. If we're shipping with categories populated by default, a toggle would probably be nice.

# ? Jul 07, 2008 22:12

torjus: Nov 22, 2005; I want YOU to MSPaint!

I decided to take this for a spin and within 30 minutes from receiving the Newzbin invite I am downloading full speed. Very impressive and way cool!

Thanks for the thread!

# ? Jul 07, 2008 23:22

Jam2: Jan 15, 2008; With Energy For Mayhem

Has anyone had any luck running this program as a service in Windows Server 2008? Having to leave a remote session logged in indefinitely is kinda lame.

# ? Jul 07, 2008 23:31

pseudointellectual: Dec 29, 2007

Has anybody used Entropay to pay for their news service? I don't have a credit card, and this seems the only way around it.

# ? Jul 07, 2008 23:33

Pzykotic: Feb 20, 2004; Da Boom!

pseudointellectual posted:

Has anybody used Entropay to pay for their news service? I don't have a credit card, and this seems the only way around it.

Got paypal? Install the paypal toolbar and you can generate unlimited free mastercard numbers with spending limits (I think it's called SecureCard), up to $1000 per day.

# ? Jul 08, 2008 02:15

Ashex: Jun 25, 2007; These pipes are cleeeean!!!

Kick rear end client. I've been tempted by usenet but never really usenet since I was generally a little daunted by it. Currently using PowerUsenet and it's kickin' rear end.

Edit: Wow, first time a brain fart turned into a really bad pun.

Ashex fucked around with this message at Jul 08, 2008 around 03:42

# ? Jul 08, 2008 03:27

MajorMajor: Nov 11, 2005; Some people say you are Henry Fonda.

inpheaux posted:

Before you rush to shell out a monthly fee, check out the big ISP list, as your ISP might provide free access.

I'm glad you re-posted this thread before I wasted any more time. A couple of weeks ago I wasn't able to download anything from Usenet and after spending hours going through all the configs and documentation for Newzbin, SABnzbd+, nzbdStatus, and Firefox 3.0 and getting nowhere I was beyond frustrated. Then I clicked that link and found out that Road Runner discontinued their news service on June 23.

I don't utilize Usenet nearly enough to justify paying $15/mo. for it. Oh well. It was awesome while it lasted. Thanks to you and the dev team for an awesome program.

# ? Jul 08, 2008 06:29

paradigmm: May 28, 2002

MajorMajor posted:

So sign up for one month every 200 days?

# ? Jul 08, 2008 06:33

inpheaux: Jul 12, 2001

MajorMajor posted:

I don't utilize Usenet nearly enough to justify paying $15/mo. for it. Oh well. It was awesome while it lasted. Thanks to you and the dev team for an awesome program.

paradigmm posted:

So sign up for one month every 200 days?

Better than that, go look at services like Astraweb or hell, even Megabitz where you can buy non-expiring blocks. I usually don't suggest these services because they aren't super for heavy usage, but none of the big guys offer blocks.

# ? Jul 08, 2008 06:47

echo465: Jun 03, 2007; I like ice cream

Pzykotic posted:

Got paypal? Install the paypal toolbar and you can generate unlimited free mastercard numbers with spending limits (I think it's called SecureCard), up to $1000 per day.

You don't need to install the stupid toolbar either. From your PayPal 'My Account' screen, click 'Paypal plug-in' on the left. On that screen, click 'secure cards', again on the left, and click the 'Generate a new card' button. I did exactly this to fund my newzbin account.

# ? Jul 08, 2008 07:29

pseudointellectual: Dec 29, 2007

echo465 posted:

You don't need to install the stupid toolbar either. From your PayPal 'My Account' screen, click 'Paypal plug-in' on the left. On that screen, click 'secure cards', again on the left, and click the 'Generate a new card' button. I did exactly this to fund my newzbin account.

Looks like I can't get either of these in Britain. :-(

# ? Jul 08, 2008 14:40

sw-itch: Apr 06, 2008

pseudointellectual posted:

Looks like I can't get either of these in Britain. :-(

Try http://www.newsdemon.com/ they are a reseller of something from Highwinds and have many different pricing options. I have had no issues with them in the two years or so I have been with them. You can pay through WorldPay or PayPal with your debit card.

Also I think review20 should give you 20% off for life.

# ? Jul 08, 2008 15:34

Ashex: Jun 25, 2007; These pipes are cleeeean!!!

where does SABnzbd+ read the default browser from in linux? I have it set to opera, but it still opens in firefox.

# ? Jul 08, 2008 15:49

bazaar apparatus: Nov 30, 2006; Whenever my body starts to get sick, I just stop being sick and be awesome instead

inpheaux posted:

I just never mashed "Set Up Categories", so it's never pulled them for me. If we're shipping with categories populated by default, a toggle would probably be nice.

that's exactly what's happened to me on the last few versions, they already came with premade categories that i didn't really wanna use

# ? Jul 08, 2008 15:58

pseudointellectual: Dec 29, 2007

sw-itch posted:

Also I think review20 should give you 20% off for life.

Thanks for the heads up.
That's a referral code, I take it?

EDIT: Incidentally, does anybody know if there's an old-style usenet reader for windows that automatically groups posts into easy to browse packages like Unison does for OS X? Not sure what newzbin is like now, but a year and a half ago I was still browsing newsgroups for plenty of stuff that wasn't put indexed on newzbin, as well as *gasp* the occasional discussion. Of course, browsing in something like grabit was just impossible, but with Unison it was actually incredibly easy, and I've missed it dearly since I transitioned back to windows.

pseudointellectual fucked around with this message at Jul 08, 2008 around 17:31

# ? Jul 08, 2008 16:03

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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware / Software Crap > Usenet Megathread & SABnzbd+ Appreciation Station v0.4.0

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