(erielack) Re: ABPR

[Kevin DeGroff <kdegroff_@_starpower.net>]

> At the risk of sounding really dumb...what's the ABPR url?  Thank you.


The real A.B.P.R., or alt.binaries.pictures.rail isn't a URL, its a place. Its a
newsgroup where people from all over the world post train pictures.

You have to configure your browser to point to the "news server" operated by
your local ISP.  If you don't know the name of your ISP's News server, call them.
Once you know that info, you configure your browser which produces a list of 
newsgroups offered by your ISP via that news server.  You will see the group 
names on the server (they will vary from ISP to ISP).  You need to subscribe 
to the group named alt.binaries.pictures.rail

Netscape Communicator (and IE for that matter) has a "news reader" that is similar
to the "mail reader".  The news reader lists all "photo messages" which have been
posted throughout the day.  When a person posts a picture, their ISP's server 
distributes it to most other newsgroup servers in other parts of the world,
which allows others to download it.  This "handoff" between servers is not an 
exact science, and some messages don't make it to some servers.   Clogged
internetwork traffic between here and Europe will kill the ability of posts
to reach that part of the world on certain days.  Each ISP also has their own 
message retention policies, so some people may see the messages linger for a week 
before the sysadmin deletes it, for other ISPs, the retention might be 2 days.

Henry's software pulls these messages off some news server in his area, and adds
ae URL which brings up all pictures each day that landed on the server.  Not all of 
them do make it, as he stated with this example. 

Using the news reader on your PC overlaps with Henry's efforts.  Sometimes 
there are pics that my ISP's server picks up, but Henry's server does not.  Or 
vice-versa, where my local ISP news server missed it, but Henry's archive picked 
it up.  Having access to both methods keeps some incredible rail pictures from 
slipping through the cracks.

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