Xref: utzoo comp.sys.att:10747 unix-pc.general:6364
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!fernwood!portal!cup.portal.com!thad
From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att,unix-pc.general
Subject: Re: Monthly posting about Unix-PC network
Message-ID: <35660@cup.portal.com>
Date: 6 Nov 90 11:01:42 GMT
References: <1990Nov1.080516.14051@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
  <1990Nov3.045636.12735@cs.ucla.edu> <35534@cup.portal.com>
  <30978@ditka.UUCP>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 42

kls@ditka.UUCP (Karl Swartz) in <30978@ditka.UUCP> writes in response to one
of my blatherings, er ..., postings:

	>As far as UCLA administration asserting unix-pc.* is too big to
	>forward via e-mail, bushwa!  How do you think much of the stuff
	>is presently propagated?

	Virtually all of the traffic is propagated via NetNews -- compressed
	batches over uucp or nntp over the Internet.  Perhaps being a Portal
	user rather than running a Usenet site you're not familiar with the
	difference between that and e-mail, Thad?

Yep, sorta.  I know the conceptual difference but have no first-hand
experiences with operating an actual Usenet site since I never had enough free
disk space to consider that as an option; I'm always operating around 1-5%
free no matter how many HDs I add to the systems.  This will change shortly as
I'll be putting "thadlabs" on the "net" for email only after I complete
yet-another-hardware-mod.  Though PORTAL is fine for news (they get
everything, and access is only $10/month any baud, any time, any duration, and
they have multi-GB HDs online) the email storage charges on PORTAL are/were
nickling-and-diming me to death due to my having 1746 messages more-or-less
unanswered (THIS "problem" is presently being rectified; the problem was that
there was no way to know which messages were unread, and, with getting
anywhere from 50-100 emails a day, I had to "guess" at which was the last one
read; this is my only real complaint regarding PORTAL's service).

Karl continues:

	I'm also willing to help folks wanting an nntp feed of unix-pc, either
	showing them which of their feeds already carry it, or if necessary I
	can help them arrange a feed through Stanford University.

Now THAT is interesting!  The question about "feeds" continuously comes up
during the local user group meetings, and my "pat" answer was to contract
with PORTAL, btr.com, or netcom (or netsys (sorry, keep confusing these two))
for a full or partial feed along with email.  Karl, I'd be happy to assist
this effort; let's continue this in email and I'll summarize after the details
are worked out.

Thad

Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]