Well, it's that time of the month again at Newsgroupdirect.com, Terabyte Tuesday.
Scroll down to the blog post for Terabyte Tuesday for the deal.
For those who love Usenet…
1 TB / 1.1 TB (10% header allowance) block account with no expiry date. Up to 50 connections, SSL, US and EU servers. Deal is valid until 3 pm 15 August.
This is similar to other deals in the past but they have expired.
The URL above is affiliate free. If you would like to send some love my way to help me buy more block accounts, here's my affiliate URL;
http://www.newsgroupdirect.com/?aff=75933
The choice is yours. Just happy to post a deal.
I've posted this comment before at http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/74128#comment-935318 but some seemed to find it helpful so I've posted it again below.
If mods feel it is too long, feel free to just cut it and reference my original comment above.
I find the service to be as good as Astraweb or better.
NewsGroupDirect is a Highwinds reseller, so it should be as reliable as any of their resellers, which are many. If you want to know more about Highwinds, read here;
http://www.newsgroupservers.net/usenetserver_newshosting_hig…
For those of you who don't know much about Usenet or where to get started, here's something I wrote for a friend. Hopefully it will be helpful for you too;
To get super quick downloads, you'll need three things. Initially it's more difficult than clicking on a torrent, but stay with me, once it's set up it's easy.
Access to Usenet.
Subscription to a Usenet indexing site, so you can easily find downloads.
Software to integrate 1 and 2 above, download what you want and spit out the yummy results.
ACCESS TO USENET
Usenet is a subset of the internet, separate from the world wide web. Up until five years ago, it was common for your ISP to have their own Usenet server, as well as offering access to the WWW. Nowadays that is not practical. You see, whenever someone posts a comment or binary file to Usenet, it is sent automatically to every other Usenet system on the internet. Therefore there is no centralised point of administration and messages / posts get distributed and propagate quickly.
The downside is that with hundreds or perhaps thousands of TBs of information being uploaded every day, no Australian ISP can afford to download that much information, let alone host it. Only a tiny percentage of their customers use Usenet, so why put all the time, effort and expense of maintaining your own servers?
Luckily, there is still a convenient way of accessing Usenet. There are many companies in the USA who specialise in offering Usenet access, for a fee. Some used to be a lot better than others, but there has been a lot of consolidation in the last few years with one company (Highwinds) buying up smaller providers. There is one company that is supposed to be the absolute best, but it charges Telstra style charges. I always use the ones that offer Optus / TPG style prices and have found that over the last ten years, I haven't had any problems and the speed has always been very fast and never wished I spent more than double what I do…
So, which Usenet provider to use? That's your choice of course. I have used several, EasyNews, NewsHosting and NewsGroupDirect. They are all owned by the one large company that I mentioned. much like resellers of Optus. There are a few differences but not majorly significant.
There are two ways to buy Usenet access, either on a time basis (month to month, year to year) or on a block basis (XGb for $Y, such as 500 GB for US$40). If you're just dipping your toe into Usenet and don't want to spend too much, I would suggest;
http://www.newsgroupdirect.com?aff=75933
Yes, that's an affiliate ID right there. I'll get about $10 for sitting on my backside writing this for you if you click on it. Scroll down to "The NGD Blog" and click on "Summer Block Sale". Up until 3 pm today (4/7) they are offering half price off a 500 GB block of Usenet, so $20. That is a bargain and will keep you going with Usenet for a few months at least probably unless you are a very heavy user, so pretty cheap way to test things out.
SUBSCRIPTION TO A USENET INDEXING SITE
OK, so you've bought your access to Usenet. Now how in heck are you going to sort through hundreds of TBs of posts a day, let alone what else has been posted in the last 1000+ days or so? Well, that's a problem us old Usenet users used to face, but no more. There are several companies that index what has been posted on Usenet, much like a library database you use to find books.
Some of these companies are free, but I've always found the best one to be ;
http://www.newzbin2.es
It costs 30 UK pence a week, so less than 50 Aussie cents. The standard charge in their drop down menu is 50 pence, but you click on 30 pence if you choose. There is no difference in service level between the two prices. If you ever had the torture of trying to work out what was posted prior to these indexing sites popping up, you would know that was a bargain. If you do subscribe, work out how many weeks to Christmas as they usually have a half price Christmas sale for about a week before Christmas up until the New Year.
Once you have NewzBin2 access, you can search through the majority of what has been posted on Usenet for the last 700+ days. It's not a perfect replica of everything posted, but almost all the major materials that has been posted will be indexed for you. If it's not, there is a way to even search for unindexed material easily. Once you find something you would like to download, you click the little icon that looks like an open book to the left of the post. That "bookmarks" that post for your software to download.
SOFTWARE TO TIE EVERYTHING TOGETHER
Your Usenet provider and your Usenet indexing site don't know anything about each other. They are like ships in the night. To get them working together, you need an introduction agency. Unlike dating agencies who charge an arm and a leg, the Usenet dating agencies are cheap or free. There are naturally many options to choose, but I chose the free solution and I like it the best.
It is called SABnzbd+. A catchy name to be sure.
http://sabnzbd.org/
But look past that and it works wonderfully. It is easy to set up, including a setup walkthrough on the website as well as a manual there too. It runs as a service, unlike a normal program that has its own interface. You interact with through your web browser of choice, much like you would if you were viewing a webpage, except that that webpage is being hosted on your computer. You tell it your Newzbin details and your NewsGroupDirect details and it takes it from there. It fetches the tiny pieces of whatever you are downloading, fetches more if some are missing or corrupt, puts them all together and puts them in the folder of your choice on your computer. It is probably as fast as your ADSL line will allow and it is a very well developed and capable bit of software. Very occasionally things go wrong with a download and you have to manually do things to make it work, but I've found that to be less than 1% of the time. You can decide whether to learn the inner workings (which aren't too difficult) if that 1% bothers you.
So, in essence, that's Usenet. Most people don't even know it exists, let alone how it works. It suits my needs very well and even though it is slightly more difficult than clicking on a torrent to set up and you have to pay for some things, it is completely worth the advantages it brings.
And what is the first rule of Usenet? Not to talk about Usenet. May the Usenet deities have mercy on my soul.