Newsgroup readers

[Gene E. Bloch]

I have AVG and it reports excessive memory-grabbing when it occurs. I've
only ever seen it report Firefox when it's gobbled up 250MB. I've never
seen it report Thunderbird.

I've been monitoring Tbird (latest 15.01 version) since I loaded it half
an hour ago. It went in at 75MB and it's currently at 93MB.

Ed

P.S. You and I believe in the correspondence theory of truth. Char
Jackson appears to believe in the he-who-has-the-last-word wins theory.
I've known some women like that.

Well, Usenet is a nice microcosm of real life, apparently.

I can get pretty obstreperous too. I try to avoid it here, but my
success is at best a qualified one

As for women, I'll avoid commenting. It's too risky - this computer is
available to someone else, if she wants to look

 

[Paul]

I'm trying to understand your simplified and hence inaccurate account


OK, what I really was about is a bit OT, but your post led me to
reminisce.

Years ago, it was very easy to make memory leaks but very hard to find
them. Nowadays it's still easy to make them, but there are automated
tools that keep track, so really, there's not good excuse for a
professional level program to have them.

I remember years ago creating a macro, actually a fairly simple one, in
one rather large and complicated C program of mine, that caught and
counted calls to alloc and dealloc and reported to me the net count when
I closed the program. It didn't tell me why the count wasn't zero, but
just having that count info helped *a lot*...

There's an example of a current problem here. TB 15.0 fixed in 15.0.1.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=782899

Paul

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

[snip]

I was trying to explain a concept. I wasn't trying to be 100%
technically correct and complete. That's what 'simplified' means.

You did not simplify but distorted. "never releases any" and
"does not release all" are about the same level of complexity. One is
more accurate.

Let me try again, since you seem to be misunderstanding. I was trying
to explain a concept. I was not trying to be 100% accurate, correct, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
or complete. HTH

^^^^^^^^^^^^
How would it? An inaccurate, incorrect, incomplete explanation is
not very good.

Despite your claims, that doesn't seem to be the case.

You are arguing about how in explaining something, there were
three errors you were not concerned about: accuracy, correctness, and
completeness. I am rather more concerned about it.

The hilarity is that with my minor adjustment, your explanation
was actually rather good. It is too bad you can not go that little
bit more to a better answer. I simplify explanations for beginners,
too, but I do not use it as an excuse for being inaccurate.

Sincerely,

Gene Wrichenko

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Mon, 8 Oct 2012 14:31:26 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"

[snip]

I remember years ago creating a macro, actually a fairly simple one, in
one rather large and complicated C program of mine, that caught and
counted calls to alloc and dealloc and reported to me the net count when
I closed the program. It didn't tell me why the count wasn't zero, but
just having that count info helped *a lot*...

From years back ('90s), Microsoft's C compiler put code in
programs so that when terminating, address 0 was checked to see if any
writes had been done through a null pointer. I expect that was of
similar usefulness. Just knowing one has an error can be helpful.

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

On Mon, 8 Oct 2012 14:31:26 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"

[snip]

I remember years ago creating a macro, actually a fairly simple one, in
one rather large and complicated C program of mine, that caught and
counted calls to alloc and dealloc and reported to me the net count when
I closed the program. It didn't tell me why the count wasn't zero, but
just having that count info helped *a lot*...

From years back ('90s), Microsoft's C compiler put code in
programs so that when terminating, address 0 was checked to see if any
writes had been done through a null pointer. I expect that was of
similar usefulness. Just knowing one has an error can be helpful.

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

That seems odd. In my experience, writing through a null pointer always
crashed my programs. And it was not a rare event for me

First, such a check would always pass if the program had no such error
and therefore wouldn't crash.

Second, the check could never execute if the program had such an error,
since it would have already crashed.

 

[TS742]

Okay, currently using Thunderbird for reading newsgroups. It's terribly
buggy for this purpose, suffers from all kinds of memory leaks. Thinking
of removing the newsgroup functionality from it, and put it somewhere
else. What's still out there that is free and is not made by Mozilla?
I'm looking for a real reader as opposed to a binary group downloader,
of course.

I've tried other news readers looking for something better, but have
gone back to Forte Agent. I've tried Outlook, Thunderbird, and some
other free ones.

 

[Ken Blake]

I've tried other news readers looking for something better, but have
gone back to Forte Agent. I've tried Outlook, Thunderbird, and some
other free ones.

You couldn't have tried Outlook, because Outlook has no newsreading
capability. Perhaps you mean Outlook Express, which is a very
different program.

 

[bd]

I've tried other news readers looking for something better, but have
gone back to Forte Agent. I've tried Outlook, Thunderbird, and some
other free ones.

Xnews is quick and easy.

 

[Robin Bignall]

Version 3.3 to be exact. To be downloaded here:
<http://www.forteinc.com/agent/download-all.php>

You start with a full version and after 30 days of trial Agent will
revert to Free Agent.

I refuse to believe that there's anybody in this group who can't afford
$29, or whatever Agent is today.

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 18:16:56 -0700, Gene Wirchenko wrote:
[snip]

From years back ('90s), Microsoft's C compiler put code in
programs so that when terminating, address 0 was checked to see if any
writes had been done through a null pointer. I expect that was of
similar usefulness. Just knowing one has an error can be helpful.

That seems odd. In my experience, writing through a null pointer always
crashed my programs. And it was not a rare event for me

Well, I managed to and not have it crash. Microsoft's warning
was just that, not a panacea.

First, such a check would always pass if the program had no such error
and therefore wouldn't crash.

Second, the check could never execute if the program had such an error,
since it would have already crashed.

There is no guarantee that it would crash.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[tb]

Okay, currently using Thunderbird for reading newsgroups. It's
terribly buggy for this purpose, suffers from all kinds of memory
leaks. Thinking of removing the newsgroup functionality from it, and
put it somewhere else. What's still out there that is free and is not
made by Mozilla? I'm looking for a real reader as opposed to a binary
group downloader, of course.

Yousuf Khan

If you're not a power user, then try XanaNews. Available at
http://xananews.techtips.com.br/releases/xananews-1-19-1-320/

It offers many bells and whistles but it probably does not satisfy the
needs of power users...

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I've given Gravity a quick try, and it seems OK. However, it doesn't do
mail, so I decided to concentrate on playing with Thunderbird
as a possible alternative mail/news client.

Well, I'm not interested in using it for mail, I just want it to do
newsgroups. I'm keeping Tbird for mail, and calendar.

Yousuf Khan

 

[mechanic]

Well, I'm not interested in using it for mail, I just want it to
do newsgroups. I'm keeping Tbird for mail, and calendar.

Why are you asking this in Windows and Ubuntu groups?

 

[XS11E]

Why are you asking this in Windows and Ubuntu groups?

Maybe because everyone in those groups is using a newsreader?

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Why are you asking this in Windows and Ubuntu groups?

Because I need to change it for both OS's, and each OS has a different
set of alternatives. I've posted it separately for Windows and Ubuntu
because I don't want any flaming between the two camps.

As you can see, I am trying very hard to keep this an useful thread
rather than the usual flamewar they tend to become.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Allen Drake]

I refuse to believe that there's anybody in this group who can't afford
$29, or whatever Agent is today.

Maybe the 47%ers Mittens knows.

 

[Allen Drake]

I don't exactly recommend my favorite, Here's part of my standard post
on the subject:

"Some people will tell you to use Windows Live Mail; others will tell
you to use Thunderbird; still others may have other recommendations.

My advice is to ignore all such recommendations. I personally use
Microsoft Outlook for e-mail and Forté Agent for newsgroups, but you
should try several and choose what *you* like best, rather than make
your decision based on what I, or anyone else, likes best (or even
what Microsoft suggests)."

Those are the two I use but maybe you can tell me something about
Agent. I am having difficulties editing with Agent ver.7. If I edit in
the middle of a sentence the rest of the words will be eaten up so I
have to start over again. How do I insert words to stop this from
happening. I tried the insert key but that pastes whatever is on my
clipboard. I also have difficulties sorting out what others post from
what I posted and in long threads it gets confusing. I liked Outlook
that would use different colors.

Thanks for any tips.

Al.

 

[Allen Drake]

I don't exactly recommend my favorite, Here's part of my standard post
on the subject:

"Some people will tell you to use Windows Live Mail; others will tell
you to use Thunderbird; still others may have other recommendations.

My advice is to ignore all such recommendations. I personally use
Microsoft Outlook for e-mail and Forté Agent for newsgroups, but you
should try several and choose what *you* like best, rather than make
your decision based on what I, or anyone else, likes best (or even
what Microsoft suggests)."

I meant Outlook Express and not Outlook.

 

[mechanic]

Because I need to change it for both OS's, and each OS has a different
set of alternatives. I've posted it separately for Windows and Ubuntu
because I don't want any flaming between the two camps.

As you can see, I am trying very hard to keep this an useful thread
rather than the usual flamewar they tend to become.

Fair enough.

 

[Tim Slattery]

Those are the two I use but maybe you can tell me something about
Agent. I am having difficulties editing with Agent ver.7. If I edit in
the middle of a sentence the rest of the words will be eaten up so I
have to start over again.

Just hit the "Insert" key. It toggles the editor between insert and
overwrite modes.