I only get to see textmessages in newsgroups, and i would like to see
photo's and or files...........
Can anyone explain me how to make this happen??
(for the general idea, i am a NoOb)
For starters there is no such thing as a text only or binaries
newsgroup regardless what the name of the newsgroup is. While that was
the original intent years ago, with well in excess of 130,000
different newsgroups now in existence people for various reasons post
binaries to groups that don't have binaries in their name.
The REASON you may not see binaries in so-called misnamed "text"
groups is the news service provider is simply blocking them. That's
the only reason. They do this since binaries take up way more space
then simple little text files and of course most providers are simply
too damn cheap to buy enough storage.
To "see" a image or binary file several things need to happen. First,
nearly all images posted to newsgroups are encoded. Unless you use a
news reader that can automatically DECODE the file you won't see
anything in the way of picture. On top of that many images today are
encoded to yEnc which is a special form of compression to reduce a
file's size. Not all news readers support yEnc, so even if they can
decode a normal image, they may not be able to decode a yEnc format.
Third many images are sent in pieces. Such 1 of 2, 2 of 2. If so,
again if your newsreader doesn't automatically convert them (most can)
then you have to do that step in another application.
Depending on which news reader you're using you may need to tell it
which type of images to decode or which of your applications to use to
display the decoded file as a image. Not all news readers do this
automatically.
Now that you understand the basics. The process should work something
like this:
1. Go to any newsgroup you KNOW has images posted to it.
2. Do whatever you need to retrieve new headers.
3. Find the command that says launch attachment or some similar
command. This will get the body associated with the header
which simply describe the content of the file.
4. In a few seconds time IF your news reader is capable of decoding
the file you picked, typically a jpeg it should by itself launch
a viewer and you should see the image.
When you configure your news reader you need to specify WHERE on your
computer you wish to store any downloaded images. The decoded files
will get placed here and they will be just like any other image of a
similar type.
Cautions:
Some news readers like Agent will decode the image and display it but
will not automatically save it unless configured to. Most news reader
will change the icon to something difference once the image is
decoded. For example Agent creates a yellow icon to indicate a image
has been decoded and shows a green icon if the image as also been
automatically saved to the folder you specified.
It is common for malicious people to post Trojans to graphic
newsgroups, so be sure you have some protection like a anti-virus
scanner that automatically scans downloads.
Best advice if you using any build in Windows crap as your news
reader, dump it. Nearly anything you can try is far better.
