Performance on this web site

[Jim Burke in Novi]

This web site has been horribly slow lately! Before I only occasionaly had
problems, but recently things have gotten bad. Lately it's often quite slow,
and I frequently get error messages. Just want to make sure someone at
Microsoft is aware of this.

I remember someone recently talking about questions being posted multiple
times, and someone mentioned something about alternate ways to get to this
forum. Is there some other way to get here other than just going through the
'standard' Micorsoft newsgroup pages?

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

The best way to get here is to use a newsgroup reader. There are many out
there. Outlook Express comes free with Windows XP and earlier, Windows Mail
comes free with Vista. Point to server msnews.microsoft.com and you should
be good to go.

BTW, just because you've posted here doesn't mean someone at Microsoft will
see your message. While Microsoft established the newsgroups, they're
intended for peer-to-peer support: Microsoft employees don't spend much time
here.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

Accessmonster.com has the same questions posted as Microsoft's site does,
only it's faster and more reliable.

And Access Monster are making money from my replies by selling ads.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

 

[David W. Fenton]

The best way to get here is to use a newsgroup reader. There are
many out there. Outlook Express comes free with Windows XP and
earlier, Windows Mail comes free with Vista. Point to server
msnews.microsoft.com and you should be good to go.

Uh, neither of those is a news reader -- both are email programs
that have been jerry-rigged to "work" with newsgroups.

Better is a real newsreader, such as xNews.

 

[David W. Fenton]

The ads pay for accessmonster.com's commercial subscription to the
newsserver. Most ISPs dropped these to prevent child porn from
proliferating on the Internet (if you believe their excuse). We
have few options to access these groups. I wouldn't post if it
weren't for accessmonster.com.

Uh, there are a number of commercial Usenet providers. I use
Newsguy.com, for instance. There are also free and very inexpensive
news servers. And you can connect directly to MS's news server with
a news reader, without needing to muck around with MS's web
interface.

However, I've observed that the content on MS's own news server is
rather different (and less complete) than what you find on non-MS
news servers, so I would never depend on MS's news server -- I only
use it as a backup.

 

[David W. Fenton]

For security reasons, we're locked down here. Web access only and
no installing unauthorized software.

That's not a common scenario for most readers of these groups, seems
to me.

If I was forced to use web access to newsgroups, I'd stop using
them. Not having killfiles is just too much to give up.

 

[David W. Fenton]

Example: over a hundred questions have been posted in these
groups today and only a few have been answered. Why? The people
posting questions are using Microsoft's site and Microsoft isn't
sending the posts to the rest of the world. Almost none of the
people answering are using Microsoft's site. We don't see all the
questions unless we go to Microsoft's site today.

Microsoft's site has fewer posts than Newsguy, for instance. I've
monitored this for a long time, and MS's news server reports many
more posts in terms of the article IDs on its server, but when you
load the actual headers, there are never as many posts as there are
on the other servers I've compared it to. The fact is, there are
lots of posts *elsewhere* that aren't getting to MS's server, and my
observation over quite some time shows that posts to MS's server get
propagated everwhere, but MS doesn't pick up the posts from
elsewhere.

To me, this shows that it is foolish to use MS's server, as you're
going to miss much of the discussion.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

For security reasons, we're locked down here. Web access only and no
installing unauthorized software.

You're answering questions from work?

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

Example: over a hundred questions have been posted in these groups today and
only a few have been answered. Why? The people posting questions are using
Microsoft's site and Microsoft isn't sending the posts to the rest of the
world. Almost none of the people answering are using Microsoft's site. We
don't see all the questions unless we go to Microsoft's site today.

Responsible folks at MS have been notified.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

 

[David W. Fenton]

At accessmonster it's easy to spot posts from spammers and trolls
(if you recognize troll names - we have only few in the Access
groups, so it's not hard). I skip those posts and concentrate on
posts from people asking questions.

This is nothing like killfiles -- it makes you do manually what a
killfile does automatically. And you have to wade through the dreck,
which makes it easy to miss important stuff.

Unanswered questions are marked and replies to my posts are
tracked and linked for me in my site profile. The layout and
organization makes it one of the easiest and quickest forums I've
posted at.

There is not a single web-based interface to Usenet that comes close
to the ease of use and features of even the most primitive dedicated
news reader. The terminal-based news reader I used in 1994 (tin, as
a matter of fact) had more capability than any website in existence
that is repacking Usenet posts.

 

[David W. Fenton]

Admittedly I have to wait for pages to load but I don't view many
pages and I have a fast connection so it takes seconds. Unlike
Microsoft's site.

Free clue:

I'm not comparing it to Microsoft's site.

In fact, I'm comparing it to NO SITE WHATSOEVER.

Using a dedicated news reader is going to be more efficient and
result in a more pleasant reading experience. Granted, you lack the
permissions to do that at work, but my guess is that your situation
is extremely rare, and thus, not terribly relevant outside your own
circumstances.

 

[David W. Fenton]

Most people who post in these groups only post one or two
questions and we never hear from them again. For the majority of
us using these groups, the pleasant and efficient capabilities you
need are too expensive in resources for us to implement.

Eh? There are free news servers (including MS's). There are free
news readers.

Exactly what expenses are being incurred?

[ridiculous hyperbole about nuclear power plants deleted]

 

[David W. Fenton]

Compare that experience with the fact most don't know what a news
reader or news server is the first time. They have to:

What *are* you nattering on about? I'm addressing people who are
ALREADY READING THE MS NEWSGROUPS, and are dissatisfied with
whichever method they may be using.

I don't really know who *you're* addressing, but it's certainly not
the same people I'm trying to help by pointing out how simple and
easy it is to acquire, install and configure a free news reader.