Technical Support Frequently Asked Questions

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FAQ's about News Xpress

What is News Xpress ?
Configuring News Xpress ?
Setting preferences ?
Opening News Xpress and connecting to Access ?
Subscribing and unsubscribing ?
Reading articles ?
Replying to and posting articles ?
Mailing articles ?
Finding newsgroups or articles ?
Retrieving articles you deleted and wish you hadn't ?
Getting rid of all the articles in a newsgroup ?
Seeing new newsgroups ?
Exiting News Xpress ?
Troubleshooting ?
For more information ?

Q. What is News Xpress ?

A. News Xpress is a newsreader for Windows. Unlike Trumpet's newsreader and Winvn, News Xpress allows you to collapse threads into one line in a group window. For a more detailed description of what NEWS is and for more general information about NEWS, see the "news" help file.

Q. Configuring News Xpress ?

A.

  1. Open News Xpress.
  2. Choose Setup from the Config menu.
  3. Configure the settings as follows

    a) For "News Server" type "news.accesscom.com".
    b) For "SMTP Mail Relay" type "smtp.accesscom.com".
    c) For "Full Name" type your real name. (Note: this is optional. You can leave this field blank, or type anything you want.)
    d) For "E-Mail" type your email address. Your email address is your user name followed by "@accesscom.com". For example, my user name is "docs" so I would type "docs@accesscom.com".
    e) For "Organization" type your company name.

    Note: This is optional. You can leave this field blank, or type whatever you want.

    f) Please leave the "Signature File" field blank for now. A signature is a few lines of text that is automatically appended to any message you send using News Xpress. People use these to include personal or professional information, opinions, whatever they want. You should leave this line blank for now, and use a copy of the Windows IP manual for directions on how to create a signature file.
    g) Leave the two fields under "Authorization Information" blank. This is VERY IMPORTANT! If you type anything in these fields NewsXpress cannot connect to our news server.

Q. Setting preferences ?

A. News Xpress' preferences allow you to customize News Xpress to your own personal tastes. You are free to experiment with different settings.

A few of the more useful settings are explained here. To change preferences, choose Preferences from the Config menu.

Connect at startup

"Connect at startup" tells News Xpress to automatically connect to Access's news server every time you open News Xpress.

We recommend that you turn this on. If you do not check this, you have to connect manually by choosing Connect from the File menu.)

Retrieve active groups

"Retrieve active groups" tells News Xpress to download all 13,000 newsgroups, as opposed to just those you are subscribed to, every time it connects to the news server.

We recommend that you set this to "No". Downloading 13,000 newsgroups is a long process. It makes more sense to download just those you are subscribed to. You can still _see_ and subscribe to any group on the full list even if you do not download all the groups.

Prompt for new newsgroups

"Prompt for new newsgroups" gives you a list of what groups are new since the last time you connected. This is a nice way to keep up to date on what groups exist.

We recommend that you turn this on. If this is turned on, when you open News Xpress you see a list of new groups. You can scroll through the list and subscribe to groups, but please note that you cannot _read_ the groups while you are in the New Groups list window.

Confirm on post and send mail

"Confirm on post and send mail" tells News Xpress to ask if you are sure you want to send an article or message when you click on the Send button.

We recommend that you turn this on. This is a nice safety feature since once you've sent an article it is generally too late to change your mind, and once you have send email you cannot change your mind.

New window for each group

"New window for each group" tells News Xpress to open a new window for each group you open. This means that if you open five groups, you have five group windows within the main News Xpress window.

We recommend that you turn this off so you only have one group window open at a time.

New window for each article

"New window for each article" tells News Xpress to open a new window for each article you read. This means that if you open five articles, you have five article windows within the main News Xpress window.

We recommend that you turn this off so you only have one article window open at a time.

Q. Opening News Xpress and connecting to Access ?

A. Depending on how you set the preferences, you may need to do one or both of these things when you open News Xpress

  1. Connect to Access's news server. If you do not select "Connect at startup" you have to connect News Xpress to Access's news server. To do this, choose Connect from the File menu.
  2. View new groups. The "New groups" list appears if you have checked "Prompt for new groups" in the Preferences window.

    Click Yes if you want to see a list of new groups. Click No if you want to go directly to the groups you are subscribed to.

    To subscribe to groups in this list

    a) Select the group name.
    b) Click in the box to the left of the group name. An "x" should appear in the box. If it does not, select the group name again and click Subscribe.
    c) Repeat steps 1 and 2 for other groups you want to subscribe to.
    d) Click OK.

Note: You cannot read articles in these groups until you have left the "New groups" list and are in the main News Xpress window. Once you have subscribed to the groups you want, click OK to go to the main News Xpress window.

Q. Subscribing and unsubscribing ?

A.

To subscribe to a group

  1. Choose All Groups from the View menu.
  2. Scroll through the list to find a group that interests you.

    Note: Choose Find from the Edit menu to search for a particular topic.

  3. Select the group you want to subscribe to.
  4. Click in the box to the left of the group name. An "x" should appear in the box. If it does not, select the group again and choose Subscribe from the Group menu.

    You are now subscribed to the group. Next time News Xpress connects to the news server, the articles in the group you just subscribed to will appear. To see them immediately, select the group name and choose Update from the Group menu.

    You can read a newsgroup without subscribing to it. However, unless you subscribe to the newsgroup you will not have a history of what you read in the group the next time you open News Xpress.

To unsubscribe from a group

  1. Select the group name.
  2. Click in the box to the left of the group name. The "x" in the box should disappear. If it does not, select the group again and choose Unsubscribe from the Group menu.

Q. Reading articles ?

A.

Once you are connected to News Xpress, you should now see a window entitled "Newsgroups" inside the main News Xpress window. The "Newsgroups" window should contain a list of the groups you are subscribed to. The number to the left of each group's name tells how many articles the group contains.

To open a newsgroup, double-click on the newsgroup's name. A window for that newsgroup opens. The window contains a list of threads and articles.

Articles are represented by a file icon, and threads are represented by folder icons. A thread is a series of articles with the same subject line. News Xpress groups all articles in a thread into one folder.

To the right of the icon is subject of the article or thread. The number to the right of the subject tells how many lines there are in an article, and how many articles in a thread.

To see all the articles in a thread, double-click on a thread's folder icon.

To read an article, double-click on the article's name.

Q. Replying to and posting articles ?

A. You can reply to an existing article via email, post a follow-up to an existing article, or post a new article.

Sending email is better than posting a follow-up unless you think your article is of interest to more than just the person whose post you are answering.

To reply to an article via email

  1. Select or open the article.
  2. Choose Reply from the Article menu.
  3. Delete any part of the article you do not want to include in your email.
  4. Write the message.
  5. Choose Send from the File menu. You may see a dialog box asking if you are ready to send the message.

To post a follow-up to an existing article

  1. Select or open the article.
  2. Choose Follow-up from the Article menu.
  3. Look at the "Newsgroups" field in the header. If it contains more than one group, delete any groups you do not want to post the follow-up article to.
  4. Delete any part of the article you do not want to include in your follow-up. Remember to leave enough that people understand the context, but not to leave parts that are not relevant. Always make sure you give credit to people for their ideas.
  5. Write your comments.
  6. Choose Send from the File menu. You may see a dialog box asking if you are ready to send the message.

To post a new article

  1. Choose Post from the Article menu.
  2. In the "Newsgroups" field type the group or groups you want to post to, If you are posting to more than one group, separate the group names with commas. For example: "accesscom.general,pdx.general,accesscom.talk".
  3. In the "Subject" field type a unique and descriptive subject. The more precise you are, the more likely interested people are to read your post.
  4. The rest of the header fields are optional.

    a) In the "To" field type the email address of anyone you want to email a copy to.
    b) In the "Keywords" field type keywords
    c) In the "Summary" field type a very brief summary.
    d) Click in the "Attachments" field to attach a file.

  5. Write the message.
  6. Choose Send from the File menu. You may see a dialog box asking if you are ready to send the message.

Q. Mailing articles ?

A.

To mail an article

  1. Select or open the article.
  2. Choose Mail/Forward from the Articles menu.
  3. In the "Recipients" field type one or more email addresses. If you type more than one, separate the addresses with a space. For example: "docs@accesscom.com test@accesscom.com".
  4. Click OK.

Q. Finding newsgroups or articles ?

A. You can use the Find command to search for a particular word or words in the list of newsgroups, or in a list of articles.

To find a newsgroup

  1. Choose All groups from the View menu.
  2. Choose Find from the Edit menu.
  3. In the Find field, type the word you want to find. For example, to find a newsgroup about cofee, type "coffee".
  4. Click OK.
  5. To find the same word again, choose Again from the Edit menu.

To find an article

  1. Open the newsgroup you want to search in.
  2. Choose Find from the Edit menu.
  3. In the Find field, type the word you want to find. For example, to find an article with the word "coffee" in the subject, type "coffee".
  4. Click OK.
  5. To find the same word again, choose Again from the Edit menu.

Note: If you check the Match Case box, News Xpress only searches for words in the same case you use in the Find field. For example, if you type "COFFEE", News Xpress only searches for the word in upper case.

Q. Retrieving articles you deleted and wish you hadn't ?

A.

  1. Select or open the newsgroup that contained the articles.
  2. Choose Reload old articles from the Group menu.

Q. Getting rid of all the articles in a newsgroup ?

A.

  1. Select or open the newsgroup.
  2. Choose Catch Up from the Group menu.

Q. Seeing new newsgroups ?

A. If you think there are new newsgroups you are not seeing when you choose All groups from the View menu, you can tell News Xpress to check the system for new groups.

  1. Choose Preferences from the Config menu.
  2. Make sure the box next to "Prompt for new newsgroups" is selected.
  3. Click OK.
  4. Exit News Xpress.
  5. Open News Xpress.

News Xpress should show a list of new newsgroups. If it does not, this means no new groups have been added since the last time you used News Xpress.

Q. Exiting News Xpress ?

A. When you close News Xpress you see a message in the lower status bar telling you that News Xpress is updating your newsrc. The newsrc is the file where News Xpress saves information about what groups you are subscribed to and which articles you have read in those groups.

Q. Troubleshooting ?

A.

Problem 1: You try to post an article and you see a message telling you that the article was posted in the future. The article actually never posts.

Cause 1: The time on your computer is set wrong, or the time zone selected is incorrect.

Solution 1: Reset the time or the time zone.

Problem 2: You see an error message that News Xpress cannot find the file "ctl3dv2.dll".

Cause 2: News Xpress cannot find the file. I don't know why this happens.

Solution 2: Find the file " ctl3dv2.dll" and copy it into the "/windows" directory. If that does not solve the problem, copy it into "/windows/system". Remember to restart your computer after you copy the file.

Problem 3: You see an error message that the file "ctl3dv2.dll" has not been installed correctly.

Cause 3: Usually this means that you have a copy of " the ctl3dv2.dll" file in the same directory as News Xpress.

Solution 3: Move the copy of "ctl3dv2.dll" out of the directory News Xpress is in. Also make sure you have "ctl3dv2.dll" in the correct directories (see Problem, Cause and Solution 2).

Q. For more information ?

A.

  1. News Xpress has built in help

    a) Choose Index from the Help menu.
    b) Click on a menu item to get information about that topic.

    If you cannot figure out how to use this help system, choose Using Help from the Help menu.

  2. Go to the NewsXpress FAQ World Wide Web page: http://www.malch.com/nxfaq.html