FAQ Program name: EasyNews Newsgroup Services 1. EasyNews Questions 1.1 NNTP Vs HTTP 1.2 EasyNews Payment Methods 1.3 The Autobuy Tool 1.4 EasyNews Secure Site 1.5 EasyNews monthly subscription plan 1.6 Changing A Route With EasyNews 1.7 EasyNews Header Downloads 1.8 EasyNews Trace Route 1.9 Retrieval of EasyNews Username and Password 1.10 EasyNews Gig Limit 1.11 EasyNews Password Scrambled 1.12 Secure Credit Card Sign Up 1.13 EasyNews Password Scrambling 1.14 EasyNews Advanced / Global Search 1.15 EasyNews Subscription Plans 1.16 EasyNews Terms of Service 1.17 EasyNews Support 1.18 Addition of Newsgroup to EasyNews' Servers. 1.19 EasyNews Postcount Increase 1.20 Sharing EasyNews Accounts 1.21 EasyNews Secure Site 1.22 EasyNews 1.23 Accessing EasyNews From Multiple Computers 1.24 EasyNews Downloads 1.25 EasyNews Privacy Policy 1.26 Password Hacking/Compromises 1.27 EasyNews Rebill Date 1.28 Rerouting My Connecition 1.29 Slow Speeds with EasyNews 1.30 EasyNews Dial Up Users 1.31 EasyNews Policy Regarding Gig Rollover 1.32 EasyNews Retention 1.33 Bookmarking www.easynews.com 1.34 EasyNews Backlog Status 1.35 EasyNews Gig Counter 1.36 EasyNews and Mac Users 1.37 Prompted To Re-enter Username and Password 1.38 EasyNews Completion 1.39 Earn Gigs Progam 1.40 EasyNews Earn Gigs Error 1.41 Earning Gigs for Two or More Different EasyNews Accounts 1.42 Limits On Earning Free Gigs 1.43 File Renamer 1.44 CRC Errors with ZIPs from ZIP Manager 1.45 Cancelling Posts 1.46 EasyNews Propagation 1.47 Newsgroup List 1.48 Easynews' Disappearing Retention 1.49 Using Jabber to contact Support live 1.50 PeerGuardian problems. 2. EasyNews Abuse 2.1 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) 2.2 EasyNews Copyright Policy 2.3 EasyNews Child Porn Policy 2.4 EasyNews Spam Policy 2.5 Reporting Violations to EasyNews 2.6 EasyNews Abuse 3. EasyNews Billing 3.1 Updating a Credit Card 3.2 Mailing in a payment to EasyNews 3.3 Credit Card Declined During Sign-up 3.4 Confirmation Email 3.5 EasyNews Reset Date Changing 3.6 Purchasing More Gigs 3.7 Multiple Charges from EasyNews 3.8 El Dorado Sales 3.9 Web 900 Pin Code Not Working 3.10 Voice Authorization Error When Signing Up 3.11 Valid Forms of ID for Mail In Customers 3.12 EasyNews Billing 3.13 EasyNews Gig Bank 4. EasyNews Download Questions - NNTP 4.1 EasyNews NNTP Server Addresses 4.2 100061 Error Using the NNTP Server 4.3 503 Error When Logging Into NNTP Server 4.4 EasyNews NNTP Server Access 4.5 yEnc, yProxy, and EasyNews 4.6 Headers and Your EasyNews Download Limit 5. General Usenet Topics 5.1 Starting Your Own Newsgroup 5.2 General Net Traffic 5.3 Additional Sites To Use for Help 5.4 Usenet 5.5 Spam 5.6 SSL 5.7 Usenet Sites for Newbies 5.8 Usenet Netiquette 5.9 Tips On Choosing Passwords 5.10 Download Managers 5.11 User Supplied: Codec, DVD and MPEG links. 5.12 Usenet FAQs 6. General Download Questions - File Types 6.1 Characters in File Names Being Replaced With Underscore 6.2 Converting Video Files 6.3 yEnc and UUEncoding 6.4 Other File Extensions 6.5 .PAR and .PAR2 Files 6.6 "Not A Recognized Format" Error 6.7 .RAR Files 6.8 "Cannot Find File Error" in MS Media Player 6.9 .SIT (Stuffit) Files 6.10 Uncompressing .IMG files 6.11 Unknown Method Error with WinRar 6.12 SFV Files 6.13 .REV files 6.14 .NTX Extensions 6.15 DX50 Decompression Not Found 6.16 Route Change and NNTP Access 6.17 Disconnection When Retrieving Headers 6.18 .BIN/.CUE Files 6.19 DivX Codecs 6.20 .NFO Files 6.21 .001, .002, .003, etc. Files 6.22 Unknown File Formats 6.23 .IFO Files 6.24 .TXT Files 6.25 .FLAC Files 7. General Download Questions - Applications 7.1 Media Players 7.2 Agent Reports Too Many Headers To Retrieve 7.3 DAP Freezing at 99% Complete When Downloading a File 7.4 Using ReGET To Split Files 7.5 Extracting Files with WinRar 7.6 Download Limit Errors with Newsbin 7.7 STunnel and EasyNews 7.8 Movies Not Playing in Media Player 7.9 User supplied STunnel Error 7.10 Mozilla 7.11 Joining and/or Splitting Files 7.12 DAP Does Not Resume 7.13 Windows Media Player Fix 7.14 BN Encoded Files 7.15 Moving an Existing Agent Profile to a New Computer or Directory 7.16 Creating Another Instance of Agent Without Reinstalling 8. General Download Questions - Misc 8.1 Images Saving as .BMP's 8.2 Increasing Your Cache 8.3 General Guidelines for Downloading Games 8.4 Benefits of Using Port 81 instead of Port 80 8.5 Changing Projects with Grid.org 8.6 Slow Downloads with EasyNews 8.7 Downloads Not Resuming 8.8 Viewing Movies With MacIntosh 8.9 Frozen Downloads 8.10 Mp3 Groups Automatically Try to Download 8.11 This Image Is No Longer Available Message 8.12 Netscape and SSL Multiple Dialog Box Issues 8.13 AOL Picture Quality 8.14 Saving Image Files with AOL 8.15 Download Limitations with User's OS 8.16 Default Route 9. EasyNews Download Questions - HTTP 9.1 General Download Guidelines 9.2 EasyNews Ranges Button 9.3 Zip Manager Queue Is Empty After File is Queued. 9.4 Zip Queue Empty but Stating It Is Locked. 9.5 Zip Manager 9.6 Global Search Updates 10. EasyNews Upload and Posting Questions 10.1 Unable to Post Via EasyNews 10.2 General Posting Guidelines 10.3 Posts Not Showing Up 10.4 Posting to EasyNews/UseNet Using (Free) Agent 10.5 Posting Binaries to EasyNews with a MacIntosh 10.6 News Server Address for Posting to EasyNews 10.7 Posting Limit 10.8 Uploading Binaries with PowerPost 10.9 Top-Posting and Bottom-Posting 10.10 E-mail Server For Posting 10.11 Posting error -- "441 Posting Failed ("From" Header not in Internet Syntax.)" 10.12 Posting File Size Limit 11. EasyNews Account Questions 11.1 Cancelling an existing EasyNews Account 11.2 Updating your EasyNews Account Profile 11.3 Recreating a Cancelled Account 1. EasyNews Questions 1.1. NNTP Vs HTTP Question: What is the difference between EasyNews' NNTP and HTTP servers? Answer: The NNTP (news) server contains all groups on usenet and handles groups that contain both text and binaries (movies, music, and pictures). The amount of time that a post is kept (retention) is lower on this server as compared to the HTTP server since more groups and posts are available. A user must use a news reader such as Forte Agent or Newsbin Pro to access this server. The HTTP (web) server contains groups that are binary only (movie, music, and pictures). This interface has fewer groups since the server does not include text based dicscussion groups. The retention is higher on this server, due in part to this reason. The web server can be accessed by logging into http://www.easynews.com and proceeding to the Main Members Area. 1.2. EasyNews Payment Methods Question: What methods of payment does EasyNews accept? Answer: EasyNews currently accepts on-line payments via credit card, payments via postal mail, and payments via a 900 number (for U.S. customers only). EasyNews accepts the following credit cards Visa, Mastercard, and Discover. Accounts signed up on-line via credit card are monthly recurring charges until cancelled by the customer. The charge is $9.98 for 20 GB or 30 days access. Gigs not used in one month are carried over to future months as long as the account still exists. EasyNews also accepts payments via postal mail. We require that these payments be sent in the form or a cashier's check or money order. Payments may be made in any increment of $10, where each $10 gets 20 GB / 30 days access. For U.S. customers, EasyNews offers payment via the web 900 service. This payment is billed through the customer's phone bill. The charge is $10 for 20 GB or 3 weeks access, whichever comes first. For more details regarding the various payment methods, please visit the link below. Once you have read the Terms of Service and agreed to them, you will be brought to a page displaying the details of the different forms of payment. https://www.easynews.com/agreement.phtml 1.3. The Autobuy Tool Question: What is the autobuy tool and what does it do? Answer: The autobuy tool is a feature for users who are "heavy" downloaders or users who have downloads planned that they know will exceed their current gig limit. Normally, if a user exceeds their 20 GB limit, they are locked out of their account until the rebill date or until they manually purchase more gigs. You can set your autobuy feature to purchase gigs automatically. Go to our web page: http://www.easynews.com and log in. Click on the "View/Edit/Change your Account" link. You will find the autobuy feature there. Then enter the number of times you would like your credit card to be automatically charged once you hit your gig limit. The counter will count down from the number entered (1 - 10) until it reaches zero. At this time you will need to reactivate the autobuy feature if you want to continue using this feature. Please be advised when using this feature, turning autobuy to zero DOES NOT cancel the account or suspend billing. If you do not want to be billed again, you will need to contact us or cancel your account on-line. It is important to note that the Autobuy feature has nothing to do with renewing your account. All EasyNews accounts auto-renew at the end of a billing cycle. The only way to avoid this is to set your account to cancel at the end of the billing cycle. This can be done by visiting: https://www.easynews.com/cancel/ and choosing the cancel at end of billing cycle option. 1.4. EasyNews Secure Site Question: Does EasyNews have a secure site? Answer: Yes we do. If you want to access EasyNews' HTTP (web) server through a secure connection, you can use the address: https://secure.members.easynews.com/ If you want to connect to the NNTP (news) server via a secure connection, you can use the address: secure.news.easynews.com on port 563. You must be using a NNTPS-capable newsreader or a SSL-tunnel, such as STunnel. 1.5. EasyNews monthly subscription plan Question: What do I get from EasyNews with my monthly subscription? Answer: For $9.98, EasyNews offers 30 days of service or 20GB of downloads, which ever limit you reach first. This is a monthly recurring charge until cancelled by the customer. 1.6. Changing A Route With EasyNews Question: How do I change my default route with EasyNews? Answer: If you are looking to change your route with EasyNews in attempt to achieve a more stable or faster connection, use the following tool: http://members.easynews.com/route This tool will run a throughput test and display the results of your current connection as well as an option to choose a different connection from up to 9 different connections. Route changes last for 10 days. Please be advised that this re-routes the traffic from EasyNews to the user, not from the user to EasyNews. The fastest route is not always the most stable. You may have try several routes to find one that is ideal. 1.7. EasyNews Header Downloads Question: Does downloading headers through EasyNews count against my gig counter? Answer: Our NNTP server contains "headers" that are downloaded by your news reader. There are no charges for downloading headers. What you are charged for is the actual articles. Whenever you download an article or a binary attachment our servers will add the file size to your total. Our HTTP server does not contain headers. The HTTP server dishes out dynamically created web pages. On the HTTP server, anything that is transferred from our server to you, is counted against your download limit. This includes Web index files, searches, news groups listing and all binary files. 1.8. EasyNews Trace Route Question: How do I conduct a trace route with EasyNews? Answer: You can conduct a traceroute at http://www.easynews.com/trace . This trace tool will conduct a trace route from EasyNews to you and display information regarding speeds, packet loss, and latency. A reliable route from EasyNews to you is important in helping keep your connections reliable and fast. If you'd like to try a new route for traffic from us to you, please visit http://members.easynews.com/route/ If you'd like to perform a traceroute from you to EasyNews, do the following: If you are using a Windows 95, 98, or ME system, click on [Start], then "Run....", type "command" and press enter. Then type "tracert members.easynews.com". If you are using a Windows NT, 2K, or XP system, click on [Start], then "Run....", type "command" and press enter. Then type "tracert members.easynews.com" If you are using a Unix or clone system, get to a shell prompt and type "traceroute members.easynews.com" You will be shown all of the routers ("hops") between your and EasyNews. While the route from you to EasyNews isn't as important to your download speeds as the connection from EasyNews to you is, an unreliable or slow connection from you to EasyNews can affect your download speeds because we will nto be receiving your requests for additional data as fast as required to maximize your connection. You can use TCP Optimizer (for Windows), available at http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php to help maximize your download speeds. 1.9. Retrieval of EasyNews Username and Password Question: How do I retrieve my EasyNews Username and Password? Answer: If you need to retrieve your EasyNews Username and/or Password, you can email support@easynews.com. Please include the last 8 digits of the credit card used on the account and your EasyNews Username (if you know it). If you only need to retrieve your EasyNews Password you may do so online at the following link: http://www.easynews.com/getpass.phtml 1.10. EasyNews Gig Limit Question: What is the EasyNews gig limit? Answer: The subscription EasyNews offers is $9.98 for 30 days of service or 20GB of downloads, which ever limit is reached first. This is a monthly recurring charge until cancelled by the customer. If the 20GB limit is reached before a billing cycle is reset, the user will be "locked out" of the account until the rebill date or until additional gigs are purchased, manually resetting the account for another 30 days or 20GB. Any part of the 20 GB not used during a month "rolls over" and is available for use in the next month and following months. 1.11. EasyNews Password Scrambled Question: Why was my EasyNews Password scrambled and how do I retrieve it? Answer: The reason your EasyNews Password was scrambled was because your account has been accessed from more than 15 different domains since your last password change. A quick and easy way to access your new EasyNews Password is to go to http://www.easynews.com/getpass.phtml. You can then follow the on-screen instructions to retrieve your password from our online password retrieval system. If you receive a message that says "sending the email", and the email never arrives, the email supplied in your account profile is incorrect. If this occurs, you can then send your EasyNews Username and the last 8 digits of the credit card used on the account to support@easynews.com and we can verify and release your account information to you via email. 1.12. Secure Credit Card Sign Up Question: Is my credit card secure with EasyNews? Answer: Yes. No vital credit card information is transmitted in the open. If you click on the link to change your credit card information, it will take you to a secure page. The account history only details billing dates. Any information that contains your credit card will be secure. We have handled over a million accounts in our 8 year history without any loss of private information. Our practices are certified by national watchdog groups as well. Feel free to check out our privacy policy at: http://www.easynews.com/privacypolicy.html 1.13. EasyNews Password Scrambling Question: What was my EasyNews password scrambled? Answer: As part of a means of protecting your account EasyNews will scramble your password if more than 15 domains have been used to access your account. You can retrieve your password by contacting support (http://support.easynews.com/contact.phtml) or by using our automated password retrieval tool (http://www.easynews.com/getpass.phtml). 1.14. EasyNews Advanced / Global Search Question: What is the Advanced / Global Search and what is the link to it? Answer: The Advanced Search is a way for our users to search the EasyNews HTTP (web) server by entering search parameters such as subject, poster, file type, data posted, and more. The search will return all files available on our HTTP (web) server that match the criteria entered. Beta 2 of our advanced search for the HTTP server can be found at http://members.easynews.com/global/ while Beta 4 can be found at http://members.easynews.com/global4/ . Please note that beta 2 is being phased out as global 4 is being updated. Global search data is refreshed as soon as the web interface decodes it. If an item is in the Up-To-The-Minute page for a newsgroup, it should be available in the Global search. The only reason it wouldn't show up is if the global search importer is backlogged, which happens sometimes due to the volume of posts. 1.15. EasyNews Subscription Plans Question: What Subscription plans does EasyNews offer? Answer: EasyNews currently offers 20 GB / 30 days access for $9.98 (via credit card) or $10 (through other payment options). You can see all of the payment options available at https://www.easynews.com/agreement.phtml EasyNews feels this is a competetive value, considering our quality of service and support, our speed, our web tools, and our retention. 1.16. EasyNews Terms of Service Question: Where can I find the EasyNews Terms of Service (TOS)/Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)? Answer: You can find the EasyNews TOS/AUP at the following link: https://www.easynews.com/agreement.phtml 1.17. EasyNews Support Question: How do I contact EasyNews Support? Answer: You can contact EasyNews Support via email at support@easynews.com. You can also use our secure, encrypted, live chat (PHPLive!) available at: http://support.easynews.com/contact.phtml You may also call us at: 866-EZNEWS-4 (866.396.3974) toll-free, 310.493.4653 outside the U.S. Our new international numbers: Australia: 800.302.624 Denmark: 80.88.68.79 France: 0800.917442 Germany: 0800.0004455 Ireland: 800.570090 Italy: 800.787874 Japan: 0066.33.801529 Netherlands: 0800.0220993 New Zealand: 0800.449962 Norway: 800.15.098 Portugal: 800.815.371 South Korea: 00308.12.0344 Spain: 900.94.19.50 Sweden: 020.79.7585 Switzerland: 0800.561984 UK: 0808.234.7206 United States: 866.396.3974 1.18. Addition of Newsgroup to EasyNews' Servers. Question: How do I request the addition of a newsgroup to EasyNews' servers? Answer: You can request a group to be added to the EasyNews' servers by going to the URL below: http://members.easynews.com/addgroup 1.19. EasyNews Postcount Increase Question: How do I get my postcount increased by EasyNews? Answer: If you have an account paid for with a credit card you can request an increase in your postcount by contacting us via any of the methods listed at http://support.easynews.com/contact.phtml . Please be prepared to provide us with your user name as well as either the last eight digits of the card number used for the account or the answer to your security question (if you set one). We will then review the account history and set the appropriate increase. The default postcount limit is 200 posts per 24 hours. If you have an account created via a money order or cashier's check, or our 900 number service you will need to either send us a clear duplication of a government-issued ID (via post or e-mail) or provide us with the last 8 digits of a card number you've previously used with EasyNews for verification purposes. This information is used solely to identify you as a unique poster so we can help prevent abuse of our service. We can then enable posting for these types of accounts. 1.20. Sharing EasyNews Accounts Question: Can I share my EasyNews account with a friend or family member? Answer: We are sorry, but EasyNews accounts are not meant to be shared. This violates our Terms of Service Agreement. To read our Terms of Service, please follow the link below. https://www.easynews.com/agreement.phtml 1.21. EasyNews Secure Site Question: What is the "secure" site for and how does it differ from the regular site? Answer: Secure interface = SSL . There is considerable CPU overhead, but negligible byte/volume overhead. This overhead does not count against you. You only get charged for the size of the file. Please note if you have your browser configured not to save encypted pages to disk, you will not be able to save jpegs as jpegs, just bmp's. 1.22. EasyNews Question: What is EasyNews? Answer: EasyNews is a premium Usenet service and has been in business since 1995. Our NTTP and Web-based services offer some of the best retention, completion, and download speeds in the industry. We are confident that you will find Easynews to be one of the best and most useful Internet services available anywhere. For more information on Usenet please see: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/what-is/part1/ http://slyck.com/ng.php http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet 1.23. Accessing EasyNews From Multiple Computers Question: Can I access EasyNews from multiple computers? Answer: Yes, you can. Logging in from multiple computers from the same domain has no effect on your EasyNews account. However, EasyNews does log domains used when you log in and if your account is accessed by more than 15 different domains, EasyNews will scramble the account password as a security precaution. If this occurs, you can retrieve your password by going to http://www.easynews.com/getpass.phtml or email support@easynews.com. Please include your username and either the last 8 digits of the credit card used number on the account or the answer to your security question. 1.24. EasyNews Downloads Question: Does EasyNews log or track downloads? Answer: No, EasyNews does not log or track downloads from our servers. 1.25. EasyNews Privacy Policy Question: Where do I find EasyNews' Privacy Policy? Answer: The EasyNews Privacy Policy can be found at: http://www.easynews.com/privacypolicy.html 1.26. Password Hacking/Compromises Question: How do people attain/hack passwords? Answer: There are 3 basic ways hackers get your username/password. 1. Hackers brute force a web site. They try thousands of username and Password pairs until they get one that works. Basically guessing your password. This is sometimes called a "dictionary" attack, as they try variations of words in the dictionary. 2. Hackers hack successfully into a web site and "steal" a master username and password list. Hackers combine the results of both 1 and 2 to make password lists that they trade and update regularly. The third method is the most effective and the most insidious: 3. Hackers use their compiled password lists against thousands of web sites looking for hits -- successful logins. More EasyNews accounts are compromised by method #3 than any other method. We have very sophisticated anti-hack measures in place to prevent #1 and #2. In fact, we are known in the hacker community for being a very hard site to attain working accounts from. Therefore, we are a popular site to use method #3 on. To prevent #3 from happening to your account, pick a password that is very hard to guess. Use letters, digits, and special characters. Most importantly, use a password that is unique to EasyNews. Do not use the same password on numerous web sites! You may also want to scan your computer for any keylogging viruses or spyware that log and send usernames and passwords via email. 1.27. EasyNews Rebill Date Question: Today is my rebill date, why hasn't my account been reset? Answer: The server has thousands of accounts that it has to process, which includes resetting the billing, cancelations, and gig counters. The system does this in a random order. You have two options to choose from: 1) You can either wait until the system resets your account. or 2) You can purchase more gigs. This will give you 20 gigs/ 30 days immediately. Purchasing more gigs is the same as the system resetting your account. If you choose to purchase more gigs the system will recognize that the account has been charged and reset. It will not charge you twice. 1.28. Rerouting My Connecition Question: How do I reroute my connection with EasyNews? Answer: If you are experiencing slow speeds or frequent disconnects, you may need to re-route your connection. Please go to the following link and look to see if it shows where the slow speeds are coming from. http://www.easynews.com/trace.phtml This will show you which hosts have the worst connection and where any loss has occurred. Under this response, you will see a link to re-route your traffic in attempt to increase speed and decrease latency. Click on that link to see if you can re-route and resolve your speed problem you are experiencing. 1.29. Slow Speeds with EasyNews Question: I am experiencing slow speeds when downloading with EasyNews, what can I do to fix this? Answer: If you are experiencing slow speeds or frequent disconnects, you may need to re-route your connection. Please go to the following link and look to see if it shows where the bottlenecks are occurring. http://www.easynews.com/trace.phtml This will show you which hosts have the worst connection and where any loss has occurred. Under this response, you will see a link to re-route your traffic in attempt to increase speed and decrease latency. Click on that link to see if you can re-route and resolve your speed problem you are experiencing. If all options are reflecting slow speeds, your ISP is having problems and you will need to contact them regarding the issues you are having. 1.30. EasyNews Dial Up Users Question: Can dial up users use EasyNews? Answer: Yes they can. However, dial up users won't receive the same high speed benefits from our broadband connections that other high speed users will experience. They will, however, benefit more from our substantial retention time. 1.31. EasyNews Policy Regarding Gig Rollover Question: Does EasyNews rollover gigs? Answer: As of October 1st, 2004, EasyNews now has gig rollover on all accounts. This means that unused gigs from one month are available for use in the future as long as the account exists (or is re-created with the same user name and password within one year of cancelling). 1.32. EasyNews Retention Question: What is the retention on EasyNews' servers? Answer: Retention on the web interface (HTTP) is approximately 35 days. On the NTTP server, retention is about 12 days. 1.33. Bookmarking www.easynews.com Question: Why should I always bookmark www.easynews.com, not http://members.easynews.com? Answer: Bookmarking www.easynews.com will allow a user to enter our site through our main page. If there are any announcements, updates, or critical messages regarding your account, you will receive these messages on the page immediately following log in. If you access the site directly through http://members.easynews.com, you will bypass the page that may contain important messages regarding your account. 1.34. EasyNews Backlog Status Question: Where do I find the EasyNews backlog stats? Answer: You can find the EasyNews backlog stats at the following link: http://www.easynews.com/howmuch.phtml 1.35. EasyNews Gig Counter Question: My gig counter appears to be inaccurate. Why is it showing more gigs downloaded than I actually have downloaded? Answer: The gig counter is accurate and proven to not overstate the gig total. If you are noticing a gig total that you feel is inaccurate, there are a few reasons this may be occurring. Your account may have been compromised. When logging into the Main Members Area, you will see a domain list of domains that have accessed your account. If there are domains that you do not recognize, your account may have been compromised. We suggest running a virus scan and then change your password. If the domains are all domains you use to access the account, then it may be a port issue. The default web port is port 80. If your ISP uses proxy or cache servers, this could be the root of the problem. These types of servers are notorious for not supporting resuming downloads and causing other problems with downloads resulting in more gigs being used to download than originally intended. We strongly suggest using port 81 to download files. Our gig counter only charges for gigs that were requested and subsequently sent out by our servers. Using a download manager such as Download Accelerator Plus (www.speedbit.com) or ReGet (www.reget.com), port 81, and IE 5.5 or higher will greatly increase the accuracy of downloads and decrease the problems that may occur when downloading files via the internet. For more download hints and tips, please visit the following link: http://members.easynews.com/zipmanager.html 1.36. EasyNews and Mac Users Question: Can Mac users use EasyNews? Answer: Yes they can. There are several groups on our servers devoted to Mac users. Our site is compliant with Mac OS's and news clients. Hogwasher users, please note: Make sure the XOVER option in your server settings is disabled. If you forget to disable it, you will encounter all sorts of strange behavior. 1.37. Prompted To Re-enter Username and Password Question: I keep getting prompted to re-enter my username and password over and over again. What is wrong? Answer: To avoid being prompted to re-enter your username and password continuously, please ensure that you have cookies turned on (or your browser is set to accept cookies) and javascript is enabled. Another possible cause is outdated cached information or cookies. This can happen if you've previously logged in with a different account or have changed your password. Clear your browser's cache, restart the browser, and try again. If this is still happening you may be entering an incorrect username and password combination. If you want to verify you are using the correct information please contact support@easynews.com and supply the last 8 digits of the credit card used on the account. We will verify the account and release the information to you. 1.38. EasyNews Completion Question: What is the average completion for EasyNews? Answer: The average completion for EasyNews is about 98%. Please visit the link below for a review of our service. http://www.smr-usenet.com/review/easynews.shtml 1.39. Earn Gigs Progam Question: What is the EasyNews Earn Gigs progam that I have heard so much about? Answer: Please follow the link below for a complete description of the EasyNews participation in cancer research and the Earn Gigs program. http://www.easynews.com/cancer/ 1.40. EasyNews Earn Gigs Error Question: I get an error message when I try to retrieve gigs from Grid.org. What is the problem? Answer: The error you are receiving will happen for one of two reasons: If Grid.org is updating their site and records, you will not be able to retrieve gigs as the servers are not accessible at this time. You will have to try to retrieve gigs at a later time. The other reason may be that our server is not recognizing the Grid.org username or EasyNews username you entered. Make sure you have both of them entered correctly as the server is case sensitive. If you are positive you have entered them correctly, then make sure you are under the EasyNews/Grid.org team. Here is the link for the team stats upon which we base our calculations. http://www.grid.org/services/teams/team.htm?id=2D637F7B-4786-4785-B72E-F18EA8C06346 1.41. Earning Gigs for Two or More Different EasyNews Accounts Question: Can I earn gigs with Grid.org for 2 different EasyNews accounts? Answer: Yes, you can redeem free gigs into any EasyNews account you put into the EN Username field. In order to be able to do so, your Grid.org account(s) must be part of the EasyNews team. You must also make sure that you type in your EasyNews and Grid.org usernames and passwords correctly, as they are all case sensitive. To see/join the EasyNews Team please visit http://www.grid.org/services/teams/team.htm?id=2D637F7B-4786-4785-B72E-F18EA8C06346 1.42. Limits On Earning Free Gigs Question: Is there a limit on the free gigs you can reclaim in a given amount of time? Answer: No, there is not. So if you can get 15 days of accumulated CPU time ever 24 hours, then you can get 1 gig free per day! Redeemded gigs are added to your gig bank. 1.43. File Renamer Question: The zip manager keeps changing my files names to names with underscores, how do I rename these all at once? Answer: To ensure compatability with as many operating systems and file systems as possible, EasyNews changes all non-alphanumeric characters in a file name to underscores. To correct the file names, you can download a file renamer which can rename all the files at one time. Here is a list of some freeware renamers: http://www.webattack.com/freeware/system/fwfilerename.shtml http://nonags.com/nonags/fileren.html Flexible Renamer. http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA014830/english/FlexRena/ FSraid can automatically correct file names using a PAR file by simply clicking the "Rename Files" button. It is available at: http://www.fluidstudios.com/fsraid.html QuickPAR can automatically rename files if you have a PAR, PAR2, MD5, or SFV file and have the complete set of files. QuickPAR is available at http://www.quickpar.org.uk/ 1.44. CRC Errors with ZIPs from ZIP Manager Question: Why am I getting CRC errors when trying to open ZIPs from the ZIP Manager? Answer: When a file is deleted on the EasyNews' server due to retention or Terms of Service violations, it also is removed from your ZIP queue. If you are downloading the ZIP file at the moment, this can corrupt the ZIP file. In most cases you can repair the corrupt ZIP file with pkzipfix (http://www.pkware.com/), zipmagic (http://www.aladdinsys.com/zipmagic/), or a similar program, and retrieve almost all files except the deleted ones without problems. Several extraction programs, such as WinRAR (http://www.rarlabs.com/), have the option to extract files from damaged volumes as well. The ZIP Manager shows when the oldest file will expire from a ZIP queue. In the edit page for a specific queue you can see when individual files will expire. Using this information you can download the ZIPs with the least time remaining first. You may also see WinRAR or other programs report CRC errors for specific files within a ZIP but report no errors with the ZIP itself. In this case, set WinRAR or whichever program you are using to keep damaged files. 1.45. Cancelling Posts Question: How do I cancel a post? Answer: Easynews, like most News Service Providers, does not honor cancels. This is due to the fact that cancel requests are easy to forge and therefore could be used for malevolent purposes. EasyNews does, however, propogate the cancel requests to other servers. 1.46. EasyNews Propagation Question: How long does it takes a binary file to find it's way onto the web based servers at Easynews after posted to Usenet? Answer: When a file is posted and we receive it usually the time is about 45 minutes before we decode it on the web. After that it can be about 3 hours before it will show up in the web indexes. Global search, per group search, and "up-to-the-minute" will show the file right after it's been decoded. 1.47. Newsgroup List Question: What newsgroups does EasyNews carry? Answer: Use the link below to find a full list of newsgroups available on EasyNews. http://www.easynews.com/list-all-groups.phtml This displays the entire list of the newsgroups we have available on our nntp server. Any group with binaries posted in it should show up on the web interface as well. 1.48. Easynews' Disappearing Retention Question: Why is Easynews' retention less than it was a few months ago? Answer: The amount of data posted to Usenet increases on a daily basis. The amount of data EasyNews stores isn't decreasing, but the number of days stored decreases as more is stored per day. EasyNews currently has over 30 days of retention on the web interface and will shortly be incerasing NNTP retention to match. 1.49. Using Jabber to contact Support live Question: What is Jabber and how can I use it to contact support? Answer: Jabber is an open instant messaging protocol that uses individual servers rather than a single, central server. This allows for greater flexibility (ex: it can be used on a LAN not connected to the Internet) and security. Jabber also can take advance of SSL encryption, allowing all communication to and from the server and other users to be encrypted. EasyNews has a public Jabber server for anyone to use. The server is "users.easynews.com". There are many Jabber clients available (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabber for a list). Below are instructions for setting up Psi to connect to the EasyNews Jabber server. Psi is available for download at http://psi.affinix.com/. As of this writing 0.9.2 is the latest version. Download and install it. You will then see a "Psi: Open Profile" window. Click "Profiles" and then "New" to create your new profile. This profile is a local profile for Psi to refer to your account(s). This is not your actual online account. Enter your profile name. Your real name would be fine. Click "Create". You should now see a window labeled "Psi: Add Account". Type in the name you want Psi to refer to this profile by. This is just a local name for the account. You can use something like "Nick's EasyNews Acct." (although you may want something shorter). Select "Register new account" if you do not yet have a Jabber account on users.easynews.com. Now click [Add]. A "Psi: Register Account" window will appear. For "Jabber ID" enter "username@users.easynews.com" where "username" is any name of your choice. Enter and confirm the password you will use to connect to the server with. If you'd like to connect to the server using SSL encryption (recommended) select "Use SSL encryption (to server)". Click "Register". If you enabled SSL you will see a dialog with the message "The users.easynews.com certificate failed the authenticity test. Reason: Certificate is self-signed." In this case, click [Continue]. You should now see a dialog with the message "The account was registered successfully". You can now connect! Click on the button with the grey star and the "Offline" message and select "Online". If SSL is enabled you will see the warning mentioned above. You will be prompted for your server password. Click on the button in the bottom left for Psi's main menu. To add a contact open the main menu and select "Add a contact". Enter in the "Jabber ID" of your contact, such as friend@users.easynews.com. To add information to your account, such as a nickname or e-mail address (this is option, of course), open the menu, select "Account Setup", select your profile, and press [Modify]. In the "Details" tab click [Edit Personal Details...]. Click [Retrieve] to make sure you have the latest information (this is only necessary if you connect from multiple PCs). Update your information and then press [Publish] and [Close]. To get rid of the certificate warning every time you connect open the main menu, click "Account Setup", select your profile, and click [Modify]. In the "Preferences" tab check "Ignore SSL warnings". If you'd like to set up a private/public key pair so your messages are encrypted even to the server you will need GPG on your system. If you are on a Unix/Linux system or have CYGWIN installed there's a good chance you already have GPG installed. A quick way to test is to open a command console/prompt and type "gpg --help". If you receive an error you do not have GPG installed. Installing GPG on a Windows System You can get GnuPG, a free GPG program, from http://www.gnupg.org/. Extract the ZIP to a temporary directory. Put the .EXE files in a permanent directory and add that directory to your path (Control Panel/System/Advanced/[Environment Variables]/"Path") or just place the EXE files in C:\Windows\System32. Create a directory on your C: drive called GNUPG (Start/Run.../"cmd"/"mkdir c:\gnupg"). Open a command prompt ([Start]/Run.../"cmd") and type "gpg --gen-key". You will be prompted for the kind of key to generate. Select option 1, "DSA and ElGamal". For keysize enter "2048". For key length enter whatever you want, probably 0 for "key does not exprie". Confirm your choices and then choose "y" for the "Is this correct (y/n)?" prompt. You will be prompted for the passphrase needed to use your key. This is like a password for your private key itself to make sure no one else can use the private key even if they have it. You will now need to enter user information to identify your key. Everyone you want to hold private communication with will be able to see this information once they receive your key, so only enter what you want others to see. Enter your real name, e-mail address, and a comment (which can be anything you want). For example, you could enter "Nick", "nick@something.invalid", and "EasyNews Customer". You will then be shown the information for confirmation. Select "O" if everything is okay. You now have to keep your computer busy for a few seconds to allow a good random key to be generated. Move your mouse, play some music, etc. to keep the computer working until you see the message "public and secret key created and signed. key marked as ultimately trusted." Your keys have been generated! They are now stored in the "pubring.gpg" and "secring.gpg" files in the c:\gnupg directory. To configure Psi to use your private key open Psi's menu and choose "Account Setup". Choose your account and click [Modify]. In the "Account" tab, click [Select Key], choose your private key, and click [OK]. You may optionally have Psi save your private key's passphrase so you don't have to enter it every time you connect. Click [Save] to save your settings. To have a private conversation with someone you will need to give that person your public key. To obtain your public key open a command prompt and type "gpg --export -a somethingunique" where "somethingunique" is something unique to your public key, such as your e-mail address. If you're not sure if what you are typing is unique enough, type "gpg --list-keys somethingunique" to see all keys that fit your pattern. Copy the exported key and give it to your friend. You can also export a public key by typing "gpg --export -a somethingunique > temp.txt". The key will appear in temp.txt. To import a public key open a command prompt and type "gpg --import". Then paste the public key and press F6 then [Enter]. You will see a message confirming that the key was imported. You will also see the real name, e-mail address, and comment for the key you imported. To use keys when sending messages click the little lock icon in a message window. When you send your first message you will be asked which key you want to use. Select it and press [OK]. If you want everyone to be able to contact you using message encryption you can place your public key in your account profile's notes section. Open Psi's menu, select "Account Setup", choose your profile, and click [Modify]. In the "Details" tab click [Edit Personal Details], optionally click [Retrieve] to make sure your local view is up to date, and paste your public key in the "About" tab. 1.50. PeerGuardian problems. Question: I just installed PeerGuardian (I've been doing a lot of Bittorrenting lately), and it seems to block Easynews' i.p. address (140.99.99.99) by default, saying it's in the i.p. range of "Datability Software Systems, Inc" Since when did Easynews become one of the "bad guys"? Answer: Just add the EasyNews IPs to your "permanently allow" list: 140.99.99.90 - www.easynews.com 140.99.99.99 - members.easynews.com 140.99.99.130 - news.easynews.com 140.99.99.100 - zip.members.easynews.com 140.99.99.102 - secure.members.easynews.com 140.99.99.134 - secure.news.easynews.com 140.99.99.138 - proxy.news.easynews.com 69.16.169.115 - support.easynews.com Easiest way? Start up PeerGuardian, start a command prompt and ping to each of those IPs, then right-click in PeerGuardian and choose "permanent allow". Or you can add the whole 140.99.0.0/16 ip block to the permanent allow list. that block was added to a spam database called SPEWS.. it was added by mistake, and all attempts to get it removed have failed. We are renumbering into a different IP block, so this won't be a problem in the future. 2. EasyNews Abuse 2.1. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Question: What is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)? Answer: The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a document passed in 1998 covering copyright and intellectual property rights in the digital age. The DMCA itself can be read at http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf You can find more information at: http://www.educause.edu/issues/dmca.html http://www.easynews.com/copyright.html 2.2. EasyNews Copyright Policy Question: What is EasyNews' Copyright Policy? Answer: For information regarding the EasyNews copyright policy, please click on the following link: http://www.easynews.com/copyright.html 2.3. EasyNews Child Porn Policy Question: What is EasyNews' policy on child porn? Answer: For information regarding the EasyNews policy regarding child porn, please click on the following link: http://www.easynews.com/childpolicy.html 2.4. EasyNews Spam Policy Question: What is EasyNews' policy on SPAM? Answer: EasyNews's formal Spam policy can be seen at https://www.easynews.com/agreement.phtml#spam 2.5. Reporting Violations to EasyNews Question: How do I report Usenet/EasyNews violations? Answer: If you are reporting a Usenet or EasyNews violation (flooding/spamming, CP, copyright/DMCA, etc.), please e-mail the complaint to abuse@easynews.com. Please include the message header or sample of the message headers for the post(s) in question. 2.6. EasyNews Abuse Question: How do I contact EasyNews Abuse? Answer: You can contact EasyNews Abuse via email at abuse@easynews.com. 3. EasyNews Billing 3.1. Updating a Credit Card Question: How do I update my credit card information with EasyNews? Answer: You can update your credit card information by logging in at http://www.easynews.com and then by clicking on "View/Edit/Change Your Account". From that page, you can change the credit card that your account is charged to. You can also reach the edit page by clicking on "YOUR ACCOUNT INFO" from the Main Members Page (http://members.easynews.com/) 3.2. Mailing in a payment to EasyNews Question: How do I mail in a payment to EasyNews? Answer: Mailing a payment into EasyNews is a simple process. Please follow the link below. Once you have agreed to our Terms of Service, you will be brought to a page detailing how to mail in a payment and what information to include. https://www.easynews.com/agreement.phtml 3.3. Credit Card Declined During Sign-up Question: My credit card was declined when trying to sign up, what do I do? Answer: In most cases, a card was declined due a problem with the information you entered or due to a flag rejecting (certain) Internet transactions that your credit card provider has placed on your card. Double check all information you have filled out in the form, such as the card's expiration date and security code. If you reside outside of the United States, please attempt to use 00000 as your zip code if your card is declined using your normal postal code (if you have one). If problems persist, it is recommended you contact the issued of your card and ask regarding denied transaction attempts from "El Dorado Sales", the billing company for EasyNews. In most cases, your bank should be able to see the transactio attmempts and provide information regarding the rejection. 3.4. Confirmation Email Question: I tried to sign up for EasyNews, where is my confirmation email? Answer: If you have tried to sign up for EasyNews, but never received the confirmation email, you should attempt to sign up again. The confirmation is an automatically generated email that is only sent out once to the address you provide. If you did not receive this email, the email bounced or was sent to an undeliverable email address. You may want to try a different email address upon attempting to sign up again. You will not be charged twice as the email contains a link that brings you back to the secure sign up page to finish the last phase of the credit card processing. If this link is not opened, the account is not created and the credit card is not charged. Also, check your spam/bulk mail folders if you have them. Our message might have been filtered as spam. If you are using Hotmail or Yahoo these e-mails are most likely deleted rather than moved. If this is the case, please temporarily disable spam/junkmail filtering and sign up again using the same username and password. As stated above, you will only be charged when you click the link in the confirmation e-mail. 3.5. EasyNews Reset Date Changing Question: My account is supposed to rebill today, but the date keeps changing, why? Answer: This may occur if we receive a bank decline on your credit card. We attempt to charge your credit card a total of three times. These attempts will occur every two days, thus pushing back your account renewal date by two days. If, on the third attempt the credit card is still declined, our system will cancel the account. Please contact your bank regarding the decline response on the credit card. If a cancellation occurs and you want to continue using EasyNews please sign up again at: https://www.easynews.com/agreement.phtml Make sure that you use the same username and password so the account is reactivated. 3.6. Purchasing More Gigs Question: How do I purchase more gigs for EasyNews? Answer: You can only purchase additional gigs if you are over the 20GB limit for the current billing cycle. If you are over your gig limit for the current cycle, you can log into http://www.easynews.com/. Upon logging in, you will be notified that you have exceeded your gig limit for the current cycle and can wait until the account rebills or manually purchase more gigs now. There will be a button to purchase additional gigs. Upon clicking this button, your credit card will be charged $9.98 and you will receive 30 days of service or 20GB of downloads, which ever limit is reached first. 3.7. Multiple Charges from EasyNews Question: I am receiving multiple charges on my monthly statement from EasyNews, why? Answer: If you are receiving multiple charges from EasyNews on your monthly statement, there are either multiple accounts opened for that credit card or additional gigs were purchased during the month. If you want to inquire if you have multiple accounts, please contact support@easynews.com and provide the last 8 digits of the credit card that is being charged. If you have been receiving multiple charges on your card per month and you do not have more than one account, then additional gigs were purchased. You can inquire about the dates of the purchases if you like by contacting support@easynews.com and provide the username and the last 8 digits of the credit card used on the account for verification. We will send you your account details via email. 3.8. El Dorado Sales Question: Who is El Dorado Sales? Answer: El Dorado Sales is the billing company for EasyNews. Your EasyNews account will be billed under "El Dorado Sales, Inc" on your credit card statement. 3.9. Web 900 Pin Code Not Working Question: I am unable to sign up with the web 900 pincode I received. What do I do? Answer: If you are experiencing problems with the sign up via the web 900 option, there a few things to double check. Please ensure that the pincode was correctly written down. Send an email to support@easynews.com with the pincode, telephone number (including area code) from which the call was made, and the username and password that was used in the attempted sign up. We will verify the information and release the details to you. If you have a correct pincode, but still cannot sign up, please ensure that the embedded code from the screen is entered with all upper-case letters. If lower-case letters are used, the sign up process will fail. If neither of these suggestions works for you, try the following. Clear your browser's cache and cookies. Return to the signup page and hit the Refresh button in your browser. This solves the problem 95% of the time. If you are still unable to sign up, please contact us at 866-EZNEWS-4 (866.396.3974) (toll-free). 3.10. Voice Authorization Error When Signing Up Question: What does "Transaction declined. Authorization with Address Verification. Approval from the card issuer's voice center is required to process this transaction" mean when I am trying to sign up? Answer: This error message means that your credit/debit card issuer requires you to call and confirm the transaction before they will allow the transaction. You can contact your card issuer and request that they either allow an online charge from "El Dorado Sales", the billing company for EasyNews, or completely remove the online transaction flag (some card issuers do not allow, by default, Internet transactions). 3.11. Valid Forms of ID for Mail In Customers Question: What type of ID is required for a mail-in subscription? Answer: Any picture that is issued by a state or federal government is valid. This includes a driver's license, a state ID, a passport, or a military ID. We are sorry, but no company ids, or privately issued ids are valid. 3.12. EasyNews Billing Question: How do I contact EasyNews Billing? Answer: You can contact EasyNews Support for billing issues via email at support@easynews.com You can also use our secure, encrypted live chat (PHPLive!) available at: http://support.easynews.com/contact.phtml You may also call us at: 866-EZNEWS-4 (866.396.3974) toll-free, 310.493.4653 outside the U.S. 3.13. EasyNews Gig Bank Question: What is my "gig bank"? Answer: Your "gig bank" is the total number of gigs you have purchased since our new rollover gigs system went into place on October 1st, 2004. It will also include your most recent purchase prior to October 1st. If you pay for your account using a credit card, your gig bank will increase by 20 GB on each of your billing dates. If you purchase extra gigs prior to your billing date, your bank will also increase by 20 GB. Credits for taking the survey and for the United Devices/Grid.org project are now added to your gig bank rather than subtracted from your current usage. Along these lines, usage is cumulative and will never decrease as well. Your available gigs for download can be calculated by subtracting your usage from your gig bank. That is, (gig bank) - (total usage) = (gig available) If an account is cancelled for any reason, its gig bank information will be stored for one year, meaning that you can sign up within a year using your old user name and password to restore your old gig counters. To reset your gig bank counter, (this has no effect on your actual available gigs) please visit https://www.easynews.com/edit and click the (reset) link next to yhe Total Usage statistic. 4. EasyNews Download Questions - NNTP 4.1. EasyNews NNTP Server Addresses Question: What are the NNTP server addresses for EasyNews? Answer: You can use the following NNTP server addresses for EasyNews: news.easynews.com on port 119 (the default port) proxy.news.easynews.com on ports 22, 23, 53, 80, 110, or 443 if your ISP uses proxy or cache servers, or rate-limits port 119 secure.news.easynews.com on port 563 if you are looking to connect through a secure, encrypted connection 4.2. 100061 Error Using the NNTP Server Question: I am getting a winsock error 100061, how do I fix this? Answer: Here a few things that may help you solve this problem. 1. Your ISP could be blocking port 119. You will need to change the port to an open port and switch to use "proxy.news.easynews.com". Try ports 21, 22, 23, 53, 80, 110, 443, 1080, or 8080. 2. Somewhere between you and EasyNews the route is experience problems. Try changing your route at http://members.easynews.com/route. 3. Your IP address could have been banned. The Easynews ban tool is very strict, and if you tried to log in with a wrong password a few times your IP address could be on the ban list (only if you have a static IP) . To test this, try to access http://www.easynews.com. If you cannot access the NNTP or HTTP servers, your IP address may be blocked, please contact the support department for further assistance. 4.3. 503 Error When Logging Into NNTP Server Question: I am receiving a "503 error: 61169FY" or "503 too many login attempts" error when logging into the NNTP server, why? Answer: This error is reported when there are several failed log in attempts with an incorrect user name and password combination via the NNTP server. If this occurs, your account and IP address will be blocked for an hour. Please do not try to access your account during this lock out period or more time will be assessed to the lock out. During this time you will still have access to our HTTP (web) server at http://www.easynews.com. Please ensure you are using the correct user name and password when trying to access your account. Both are case-sensitive. If you are unsure of your password, please contact support@easynews.com and include your user name (if you know it) and the last 8 digits of the credit card used for your EasyNews account. If you are certain you are using the correct user name and password, there may have been a brute force hack attempt on your account via the NNTP server. In this event, we suggest changing your password immediately to ensure your account has not been compromised. 4.4. EasyNews NNTP Server Access Question: How do I access the EasyNews news (NNTP) server? Answer: The EasyNews NNTP server can be reached at news.easynews.com on port 119 using any NewsReader. You can find a list of newsreaders at the following: http://slyck.com/ng.php?page=3 http://usenetwiki.org/usenetwiki/UsenetClients 4.5. yEnc, yProxy, and EasyNews Question: How do I configure yProxy to work with my newsreader? Answer: This is instructions for how to use yProxy with any Windows newsreader to decode yEncoded posts. 1. Download yProxy from http://www.yproxy.com/foreasynews/ (Note, yProxy appears to no longer be free. Links to older versions were given to us from the author. If you enjoy this software, please support them.) If you download the EXE, run and install it. If you get the ZIP, extract it to where you want to use it from (ex: c:\Program Files\yProxy\) 2. Run yProxy. Open the "Options" menu and enabled "Auto Start". Set "NNTP Server Address" to "news.easynews.com", "Remove Port" and "yProxy Port" to "119", and check "yEnc Decode". Click the [Start] button. 3. Open your newsreader and change it's server from "news.easynews.com" to "localhost". 4. Go ahead and download using your newsreader! yProxy will decode yEncoded content while not affecting non-yEnc messages. You may want to place yProxy in your Start menu's "Startup" group so yProxy runs every time you log into your PC. 4.6. Headers and Your EasyNews Download Limit Question: Do headers count as part of my download limit? Answer: Headers do not count as part of your download limit. This allows you to browse even the largest groups without using up your download limit. 5. General Usenet Topics 5.1. Starting Your Own Newsgroup Question: How do I start my own newsgroup? Answer: For information on how to start your own newsgroup, please click the following link: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/creating-newsgroups/part1/ 5.2. General Net Traffic Question: How do I check the general internet traffic? Answer: To check the general internet traffic, please click the following link: http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm 5.3. Additional Sites To Use for Help Question: What are other sites I can visit for help and tips with Usenet? Answer: There are many sites out there that are useful to a user of Usenet. Here are a few to check out: http://www.slyck.com/ng.php http://www.faqs.org/ http://www.dvdrhelp.com/ http://smr-usenet.com/ http://www.fluidstudios.com/fsraid.html http://www.usenetwiki.org/ 5.4. Usenet Question: What is Usenet? Answer: For a good overview of what Usenet is, please click the following link: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/what-is/part1/ 5.5. Spam Question: What is SPAM? Answer: Spam originally was a term for irrelevant messages in newsgroups. Now the term means any unsolicited messages in newsgroups and e-mail. A larger definition of spam can be found at http://spam.abuse.net/ 5.6. SSL Question: What is SSL? Answer: SSL -- "Secure Sockets Layer" -- is a means of encrypting communication so only the server and client (ex: EasyNews and you, respectively) can decipher the communication passing between you two. SSL is used for many communication protocols, such as for secure web sites, including EasyNews. To find out more about SSL, please click the following link: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SSL.html EasyNews' SSL servers are https://secure.members.easynews.com for the web and secure.news.easynews.com on port 563 for NNTP. 5.7. Usenet Sites for Newbies Question: What are some sites a newbie can visit for help and information on Usenet? Answer: Here is a list of a few sites that will help new users of Usenet: http://slyck.com/ng.php http://www.usenetwiki.org/ http://smr-usenet.com/ http://www.dvdrhelp.com/ http://www.ibiblio.org/usenet-i/usenet-help.html 5.8. Usenet Netiquette Question: What is proper Usenet "netiquette"? Answer: "Netiquette" is accepted behaviour for digital communications (Internet etiquette). You can find some information on common "netiquette" for Usenet at http://usenetwiki.org/usenetwiki/UsenetEtiquette 5.9. Tips On Choosing Passwords Question: What are some tips on choosing a password? Answer: To help avoid the problems of having an account compromised, we suggest the following guidelines when choosing passwords: 1) Choose a password that is at least 8 characters long. 2) The password should be alphanumeric (both letters and numbers) and numbers should not just be used at the end of the password 3) The password should be a non-dictionary type word 4) The password should be unique, not used with other accounts for hold. 5) Use different cases for the letters. 6) Have a current virus scanner to check for key logging viruses and spyware. 5.10. Download Managers Question: What do download managers do? Answer: Download managers are useful for download files from the web. These managers break a download into smaller more manageable segements helping to ensure the accuracy of data transfer. Download managers can also increase the overall speed of a download by downloading multiple parts at once through an ISP or network that limits the speed of an individual connection. It is suggested to never download a file or segment that is larger than 255mb with out breaking it down into smaller pieces. A download manager will accomplish this for you. We suggest the use of ReGet, available at http://www.reget.com. 5.11. User Supplied: Codec, DVD and MPEG links. Question: What are some links for more information on codecs, DVDs, and mpegs? Answer: Codec Central: http://www.terran.com/CodecCentral the codec zone http://gonow.to/codeczone multimedia codec info and conversion tools. looks like a very current site. the official (?) MPEG homepage http://www.cselt.it/mpeg more info mpeg codecs and processes than you can shake a stick at another page with Mpeg info http://www.research.att.com/~gjm/imusic/mpeg.html looks less technical than previous site a DVD FAQ http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html by far the best DVD faq i have found. also touches on elements of DVD-ROM etc a SCSI site http://www.scsi.com/scsiWorld.htm includes a link to a SCSI FAQ at http://www.scsifaq.org apperantly Indeo technology has been bought and is now at http://www.ligos.com/indeo Indeo is a common digital video technology orignated by Intel info for almost *all* Microsoft products is searchable at: http://search.support.microsoft.com/kb/c.asp?fr=0&SD=GN&LN=EN-US aka the 'Knowledge Base' Rawwrite for Linux http://www.linuxforum.com/99/08/rawrite.html this page has Windows version of rawwrite which I have found very usefull the best video codec on the planet http://www.divx.com this is the site thats been in the news quite a bit the other side of the DVD copyright picture http://www.lmicp.com/dvdcca/index.html DVD industry views and news Howto for DVD on Linux and freeBSD: http://www.opendvd.org Free Agent Newsreader http://www.forteinc.com/agent/ a long-time Internet user favorite (official site) the National Cristina Foundation http://www.cristina.org/index2.html a good charity to give your old computer equipment to -- click here for their "want list" http://www.cristina.org/donate.html this info courtesy of Ethan Schwarz 5.12. Usenet FAQs Question: Where can I find UseNet faqs? Answer: You can find a comprehensive list of faqs at: http://www.faqs.org/ http://www.usenetwiki.org/ 6. General Download Questions - File Types 6.1. Characters in File Names Being Replaced With Underscore Question: Why are certain characters in some files added to the ZIP manager replaced with underscores (_)? Answer: Many (mostly older) operating and file systems have trouble with filnames with special characters and spaces in them. Therefore, EasyNews avoids causing problems by replacing these characters with an underscore (_). However, EasyNews is slowly phasing out this practice. Files added to ZIPs from the PAR Viewer or Global Search will not have their filenames changed. 6.2. Converting Video Files Question: How do I convert amongst various video file types? Answer: There are many file types and many types to convert to. There is a very useful website which covers almost all of the standard conversion procedures and has great tips and instructions. You can visit this site to obtain more information: http://www.dvdrhelp.com/ 6.3. yEnc and UUEncoding Question: What are yEncoding (yEnc) and UUEncoding (UUE)? Answer: yEnc and UUE are methods of encoding binary data to be posted to UseNet. In short, UUEncode is the original standard created to allow 8-bit data to be posted to UseNet which was originally designed to only support 7 bits. The overhead from this increases posted file size (and thus amount of data transfered) by about 33%. Just about any newsreader should be able to interprety UUE. To compenstate for UUE overhead, EasyNews only counts 75% of data transferred from NNTP. yEnc was designed to allow 8-bit binaries to be posted with minimal overhead. The overhead due to yEnc is about 1%-2%. For more details regarding yenc, please visit the following link: http://www.yenc.org/whatis.htm For more details regarding uu encoding, please visit the following links: http://www.e-press.com/webhelp/ziphelp/UU-Encoding.htm http://www.skypoint.com/~gimonca/uuencode.html 6.4. Other File Extensions Question: I have a file with an extension that my software doesn't recognize. How do I find what software will handle this file type? Answer: If you need to find what software will handle a certain file extension, please use the following link: http://filext.com/ 6.5. .PAR and .PAR2 Files Question: What are .PAR and .PAR2 files and how do I use them? Answer: For a technical definition of what .PAR and .PAR2 files are, please visit http://www.slyck.com/ng.php?page=6 Download FSRaid for PAR files at http://www.fluidstudios.com/fsraid.html Download QuickPAR for PAR and PAR2 files at http://www.quickpar.org.uk/ See the official PARchive home page at http://parchive.sourceforge.net/ In short, .PAR and .PAR2 files are parity data that can be used to recover missing or damaged files in a set, such as a set of RAR files or images. In the case of PAR files, one PAR files (.P01, .P02, .P03, etc.) is needed for each damaged or missing file in the set. If you do not have at least as many .PAR files as damaged/missing files in the set, you cannot recoved any data at all. The .PAR file itself simply provides a list of files in the set and checksums. The .PAR file contains no recovery data. Programs that can used used for .PAR files include FSRaid (http://www.fluidstudios.com/fsraid.html) and QuickPAR (http://www.quickpar.org.uk/). .PAR2 files are more advanced than PAR files. .PAR2 files used blocks instead of files. You simply need enough blocks to recover and replace all of the missing or damaged blocks. This allows you to recover incomplete files, for example, or build entirely missing files. Block sizes vary from set to set, but can be anywhere from a few KiB for small sets to several MiB for larger file sets (videos, for example). The file name pattern for .PAR2 files is a little more cyptic than for .PAR files. The basic format is this: FileSetName.vol###+###.par2 The first ### is the number of the first block in the PAR2 set. The second ### is the number of blocks in that file. The first number is only significant in the case that you wan to find a full set of PAR2 files. For example, let's say you have the following files: Filename.vol00+01.par2 Filename.vol01+02.par2 Filename.vol03+04.par2 Filename.vol15+08.par2 The first file starts at block 0 and contains 1 block. The second file starts at block 1 and contains 2 blocks. The third starts with block 3 and contains 4 blocks. The fourth file starts with block 15 and contains 8 blocks. In total, you have 15 (1+2+4+8) blocks of recovery data. You can also conclude from the pattern in the filenames that a PAR2 file is missing, possibly named Filename.vol07+08.par2. Because the number of recover blocks are in the file name, you can actually download the file set, see how many blocks are needed, and then download at least that many recover blocks worth of PAR2 files. PAR2 files can be used with QuickPAR, available at http://www.quickpar.org.uk/ 6.6. "Not A Recognized Format" Error Question: I am trying to play a movie file I downloaded and keep getting a "Not recognized format" error when I try to play it. What is causing this? Answer: This error means that your media player does not know how to decode this video format. In most cases, simply installing the correct codec and restarting the media player (and sometimes the computer) will fix this problem. You can use GSpot (http://www.headbands.com/gspot/) or AVICodec (http://avicodec.duby.info/) to identify needed codecs. 6.7. .RAR Files Question: What are .RAR files and how do I use them? Answer: In short, a RAR file is a container file that contains one or more files in it in compressed form. RAR files can be used to split a large file into many smaller, easier-to-download files, or to put a set of many small files into a single, larger, easy-to-download file. For a full definition of .RAR files, please visit the following link: http://www.rarlab.com/rar_file.htm To handle .RAR files, you will need a program such as WinRar (http://www.rarlabs.com) or PowerArchiver (http://www.powerarchiver.com/) 6.8. "Cannot Find File Error" in MS Media Player Question: How do I fix the following problem: "MS-Media Player says cannot find file"? Answer: The Microsoft Media Player has a bug that prevents it from authenticating files correctly. When you click on a file, the media player will open up and ask you to authenticate again, then it will report that it can not open the file you requested. A work around for this to let the media player give you the error, THEN LEAVE IT OPEN -- do not close it -- and make the request again. The media player should play the video this time. Continue to leave it open and it will continue to work as expected. Microsoft has been notified, they are aware of the problem but there is no timeframe for a fix. The newest version of Windows Media Player solves this problem. You can run Windows Update to update WMP. 6.9. .SIT (Stuffit) Files Question: How do I combine .SIT files? Answer: If the file is not self extracting (double click the first segment of the file and it will extract itself), then will need to obtain third party software. MacIntosh's most common utility used is "Stuffit Expander" or "Stuffit Delux." One is free the other one will to be purchased. The software is available from http://www.aladdinsys.com Once the chosen software is loaded on your computer, you will have to open the rogram "stuffit expander". Then open the first file segment using Stuffit by going to File | Open. Proceed by double clicking on the first piece. If all goes well you will be asked for the location of the next segment, where you will browse to the next file and repeat until the archive is extracted. 6.10. Uncompressing .IMG files Question: How do I uncompress an .IMG file? Answer: *.IMG programs are disk images, not compressed files, that were created with Mac Diskcopy, or possibily Toast. If you're using a Mac, you can use either of those programs to open in. Alternatively, you can browse the file's contents with ISOBuster, http://www.isobuster.com or WinISO, http://www.winiso.com 6.11. Unknown Method Error with WinRar Question: I tried to join files using Winrar, and an error box starts saying unknown method in the first archive, then the rest say I have to start from a previous archive. FSraid does not show any problems. It says the files are valid. What would you suggest is the problem? Answer: If the rarfiles are in filename_part01.rar, filename_part02.rar, ... format, then you need to make sure you are using the newest version of WinRAR to decompress them. Older versions of WinRAR (pre 3.X) don't support the compression/splitting method used in WinRAR 3.X If you are using the newest version of WinRAR and everything checks out using PAR files, then the user probably created the archive, created the PAR files, but never tested the archive. In that case the archive is bad. If this archive contains multiple files, you might be able to salvage some or all of the files if you tell WinRAR not to delete broken files. 6.12. SFV Files Question: What is an sfv file? Answer: In the simplest terms, an sfv file is a file that stores records about a files or group of files integrity. When you compare an SFV file against a group of rar files it will check those rar files and tell you if they are complete or if they are "broken". It is essentially used to make sure you have downloaded the correct files that make up that archive. 6.13. .REV files Question: What are .REV Files? Answer: A .REV file is a WinRAR repair file. Similar to PAR/PAR2 files, they are used to fix broken files (.REV's only repair files made by WinRAR, PAR/PAR2's can fix pretty much anything). WinRAR 3 or higher is required to use .REV files. 6.14. .NTX Extensions Question: What are files with the .NTX extension? Answer: An .NTX is created by yenc32 (www.yenc32.com), usually for tests only. If you see an NTX file on usenet it means the poster converted his or her binary to NTX with yEnc32 and then uploaded that NTX file. NTX files can be decoded using yEnc utilities available from http://www.yenc.org 6.15. DX50 Decompression Not Found Question: I downloaded some movie files and when trying to play them I get a "Unable to Render DX50 Decompression Not Found" error. What do I need to do? Answer: This could be a divx 5.02 codec problem. Go to http://www.divx.com and download the latest freeware codec and you should be set. 6.16. Route Change and NNTP Access Question: I have changed my default traffic route using your online utilities. However, I normally access EASYNEWS via NNTP. My question: will the change I have made also change the NNTP route? Answer: Normally the change will affect everything that comes from the same IP, so http and nntp should go over the same route. However, if you are using a proxy to access easynews, then the route to the proxy will be changed instead, so only http will be affected. Sometimes an ISP forces all users through a transparent proxy that can be hard to detect. If you don't notice a difference on NNTP after the route change, may be that is the cause. In this case try https://secure.members.easynews.com/route/ to change your route 6.17. Disconnection When Retrieving Headers Question: Why do I keep getting disconnected when trying to pull down headers? Answer: As far as getting disconnected, all we can assume is that your modem is somehow interpreting something in the message header as a control code and hanging up. Make sure you are using "hardware" flow control and not "software" flow control. You may want to turn dial-up networking logging on in Windows and examine the log to see what the reason for disconnection was. This varies by Microsoft operating system so you will need to look at the DUN settings and/or modem settings to find where you can turn on logging, or do a search in Microsoft's knowledge base to see how to enable it for your OS. 6.18. .BIN/.CUE Files Question: What are .BIN/.CUE files? Answer: A BIN file is raw data from a CD or DVD while a CUE is the disc's table of contents. A CUE is basically a text file that tells CD/DVD-burning software how to write the BIN's data to disc. To burn the data to disc, first open the CUE file in a text editor such as notepad. The CUE will look something like this: FILE "filename.bin" BINARY TRACK 01 MODE1/2352 INDEX 01 00:00:00 Change the BIN filename in quotes to be the name of the BIN you have (if it isn't already). Make sure to remove any path references (ex: change "c:\windows\desktop\filename.bin" to just "filename.bin"). You can also change the path to point to location the BIN is on your hard drive, but this is only beneficial if the BIN and CUE files are in different directories on your computer. You can use Nero Burning Rom (http://www.nero.com/), CDRWin (http://www.goldenhawk.com/), BlindWrite, CloneCD, BurnAtOnce (http://www.burnatonce.com/), FireBurner (http://www.fireburner.com/), or Alcohol 120 (http://www.alcohol-software.com/) to burn the BIN data to disc. If you have OSX, you can use Dragon Burn (http://www.ntius.com/default.asp?p=dragonburn/dburn4_main). You can also use ISOBuster (http://www.isobuster.com/) or CDMage (http://cdmage.cjb.net) to extract the contents from the BIN. This isn't recommended unless you only want individual files from the disc, as many discs are organized in a precise manner. If using Nero 5, you can burn the data by opening the "File" menu and selecting "Burn Image....", and then selecting the CUE file. If using Nero 6/Ultimate Edition, open the "Burn" menu and select "Burn Image....". 6.19. DivX Codecs Question: Why do I hear no sound when playing a DivX video file? Answer: You mostly likely have a video in a newer DivX format than the codec you current have. You can use the links below to ensure you have the proper codec bundles for the files you have downloaded. http://www.divx.com - Official DivX home site http://www.btinternet.com/~nimosiro/ - Nimo Codec Pack (includes many obscure codecs) http://www.bsplayer.org/ - BSPlayer (alternative video player - greater success on some files) 6.20. .NFO Files Question: How do I open .NFO files? Answer: By default in Windows .NFO files are associated with Windows System Information. However, there's no known harm in changing the association to another program. Associate the .NFO file extension with a plain text editor, such Wordpad or Notepad. In Windows, this can be accomplished by right-click on the .NFO file, selecting "Open With...", "Choose Program...", choosing the new program (Notepad, for example), and checking "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file". Alternatively, you can download and install NFO Viewer: http://www.damn.to/software/nfoviewer.html 6.21. .001, .002, .003, etc. Files Question: How do I use .001, .002, .003, etc. files? Answer: Files with this extension may be on of two types: 1) .EXT.001, .EXT.002, etc. In other words, there is another file extension before the numerical extensions. For example, filename.AVI.001, filename.MPEG.002, etc. These files are parts of a large file split into multiple parts. They can be recombined using a program such as MasterSplitter (http://www.tomasoft.com/) or HJSplit (http://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit/). 2) .001, .002, etc. with no preceeding extension. These files are RAR files and can be extracted using WinRAR, available at http://www.rarlabs.com/ 6.22. Unknown File Formats Question: I have downloaded a file but have no idea what format it is it. How can I find out? Answer: You can use TrIDNet, available from http://mark0.ngi.it/soft-tridnet-e.html, to identify the format of unknown file types. Download and extract the ZIPs for either TrID or TrIDNet and the definition pack to the directory you want to use the program from. If using TrID just type "trid filename" in a command prompt where filename is the name of the file you want to identify. If using TrIDNet just click "Browse", point TrIDNet to the file, and click "Analyze". You may have to click "Rescan Defs" the first time you run the program. 6.23. .IFO Files Question: What is an IFO file? How can I use it? Answer: An IFO file is a video manager information file (VMGI) that contains scene and timing information for a video, such as resolution and format (NTSC, PAL, etc). Often an IFO file is associated with a VRO file, which contains the video itself. On a DVD, this file is used for video information for the entire disc. IFO files can be read and edited with utilities such as IfoEdit, available at http://ifoedit.com/ 6.24. .TXT Files Question: How do I use .TXT files? Answer: TXT files are files in plain text, meaning that just about any editor or word processor can open and view them. TXT files are often posted along with a set of files and contain a description of the post and possibly instructions. By downloading a TXT file before a file set (if available), you can see what is contained in a file set (especially if the file names are cryptic) and any special notes you may want to know about in advance. 6.25. .FLAC Files Question: What is a FLAC file? Answer: A FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) file is a compressed audio file. Lossless means that there is no quality lost, even though it is compressed. To compare, a MP3 is compressed but is of lower quality that the original recording. A FLAC file is smaller, but retains all of the original quality. Because of this, FLAC files are larger than the same audio clip encoded in MP3 and other lossy formats. You can get a codec and utilities for FLAC files at http://flac.sourceforge.net/ 7. General Download Questions - Applications 7.1. Media Players Question: What are some media players I can use with EasyNews? Answer: There are many media players available for use with EasyNews. Here is a list of some of the more popular ones. You can also conduct a Google search for "media players" if you like. http://www.microsoft.com - Windows Media Player http://www.winamp.com - WinAmp http://www.divx.com - Divx Player http://www.real.com - Real Player 7.2. Agent Reports Too Many Headers To Retrieve Question: Forte Agent reports too many headers to retrieve, how do I fix this? Answer: All versions of Agent and Free Agent prior to 1.93 can only handle a maximum of 32,676 headers. 1.93 supports 1 million headers. Versions 2.0 and above support 8 million headers. You have a few options to retrieve headers from large groups: 1) Set Agent to retrieve fewer headers. 32,000 works well in versions prior to 1.93. 500,000 works well in version 1.93. 2) Download a new version of Forte Agent or Free Agent from http://www.forteinc.com/ 3) Try a different newsreader that will be able to retrieve and handle over one million headers (many users recommend Newsbin Pro). 7.3. DAP Freezing at 99% Complete When Downloading a File Question: Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) keeps stopping at 99% complete when I am trying to download a file, why? Answer: Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) will stall at 99% when Internet Explorer's temporary internet file folder is full. When this occurs, DAP cannot write to that folder. The user must clear their temporary internet files, enabling DAP to finish the download. To delete the temporary internet files open Internet Explorer and go to Tools | Internet Options... | General tab, and click [Delete files...]. 7.4. Using ReGET To Split Files Question: How do I get ReGET to split a file it is downloading into sections? Answer: Reget automatically splits the download into sections. If this is not happening automatically, make sure the value of the option 'Number of allowed simultaneous connections' in 'Default download settings' is set to 0. A setting of 1 will make the program not split up the file into sections. 7.5. Extracting Files with WinRar Question: How do I extract files with WinRar? Answer: Please follow the below steps to join rar files: 1. If you have downloaded .ZIP files that contain WinRAR files, you must first extract all of the contents of those ZIP files files into one folder. If you have downloaded WinRAR files then you can skip this step. 2. Once all the files are located in one folder, you can continue to extract the archive. 3. Open the archive by double clicking on the RAR (or the first file if you have aset of RAR files) in the directory/folder it is contained in or by opening WinRAR and browsing to the archive. Sets of part files have similar names, but have different extensions (either .R01, .R02, etc.; .part01.rar, .part02.rar, etc; or .001, .002, etc.). 4. Click "Extract to". 5. Specify the folder to which you want to extract it. 6. The files will now be extracted to the specified folder. For more detailed information, please refer: http://www.antichip.org/tutorials/winrar.html 7.6. Download Limit Errors with Newsbin Question: I am using Newsbin. I got the following error: " 12/11/2002 21:31:34 protocol=download engine, server=easynews, MSG=Newsbin says-Hit Download Limit for Server" I can download fine from other servers. I haven't made any changes to my settings. What do I do? Answer: There is an option in newsbin to set your download limit on the number of downloads from a certain news server. It is under Preferences->Options->Setup Uncheck the Enable Post Limiter option. You will need to set this to a really high number or use unlimited. 7.7. STunnel and EasyNews Question: How do I set up STunnel for use with EasyNews? Answer: This is how you setup a secure tunnel between your computer and our secure news server. 1. Go to http://www.stunnel.org/ and download stunnel and install on your system. if you are using Windows, Get the Windows Binaries and OpenSSL Libraries from this page: http://www.stunnel.org/download/binaries.html 2. In the directory you have stunnel installed in, create a text file called 'stunnel.conf' which contains these lines: # sample config file for connecting to easynews.com client = yes [nntps] accept = localhost:119 connect = secure.news.easynews.com:563 # end of sample config 3. Start the secure tunnel. In the directory that you have installed stunnel, type this line: stunnel-#.##.exe , where #.## is the current version number you downloaded. (Always keep stunnel running when you are using the news client) 4. Now, just tell your favorite news reader that your news server is 'localhost' (without the quotes). whew! If you want to use the web via SSL, all you have to do is go to http://secure.members.easynews.com/ (much easier!) Note: Stunnel 3.X used command line options for setting up the server, but Stunnel 4.X uses a configuration file for settings. 7.8. Movies Not Playing in Media Player Question: I cant' get my movies to player properly in my media player. What do I do? Answer: Some movie files that are posted to usenet are compressed with codecs that are not included in your operating system. You have to download and install these files to be able to decompress these videos on your machine. Make sure you have the most current drivers: The most common format as of this writing is the DivX format, which would usually be a file with the .AVO extension. Obtain the Divx codec from: http://www.divx.com Intel Indeo drivers: http://support.intel.com/support/technologies/multimedia/indeo i263 codec drivers: http://apps.intel.com/scripts-util/download.asp?url=/support/createshare/camerapack/CODINSTL.EXE&title=Codec+Installer+[CODINSTL.EXE]&fullpg=3&site=Support Apple QuickTime drivers: http://www.apple.com/quicktime Also, check out The Codec Zone for help with all codecs, especially MPEG4 and AVI problems: http://codeczone.home.att.net You can also use the programs available from http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ or