Rete

Many of us, myself included, prefer to use this free newsgroup access medium. Google is slow and tedious; taking up to three hours for your post to appear after submission. Expats is instanteous. I do not use Outlook Express nor does my ISP have newsgroup capabilities. Also since I am allowed to use the internet during working hours, this is the perfect way for me to continue my involvement.

Rete

swoosh

I agree with you Rete. I got frustrated with google because it is so slow and thought I would give britishexpats a try. I never regretted it although I will still use google to search the newsgroup, seems to do a better job. It also feels more like a community here, because you can see who is online and stuff. Makes the whole experience less anonymous.

Just my 2 cents =).
Jeannine

Steve & Lisa

I always give the link out for the British Expat forum to reach this group when
receiving any e-mails asking help with INS information. (Along with giving them the
Google and Newreader options)

We personally use Outlook....hope we can continue to do so when we switch ISPs this
week. (I don't want to switch..lol...figure if it's not broken why fix it....but
Steve wants to try DSL.)

--
Lisa www.britsintheus.com/marriednhappy/timeline-aos.htm

Just Jenney

I made my first couple of posts on the Google newsgroup a few days ago, then by accident came by this forum and was surprised to see my posts in here!! I didn't realize that the two boards were "linked" at all.

The funny thing was, someone from THIS forum responded to one of my posts, saying that she and her UK fiance also lived in Richmond (where I'm from), and would we be interested in eventually meeting up? I thought, "Wow, what a coincidence! Another US-UK couple, and they're local!" I hadn't mentioned Mark's nationality in my post. It was only after stumbling across this forum and finding the same thread that I realized, DUH -- she probably assumed that my guy was British, as she read/responded to my post on here (not on Google).

(Did any of that make any sense?! LOL)

Anyway, I am now a convert to this forum as well. Much faster, nicer interface, and a better sense of community.

~ Jenney

Master Yoda

If you had a decent news server your posts would show in outlook instantly. If you
have an isp that doesn't even provide you with something as basic as newsgroup access
then your Isp sucks big time! get a new isp.

"Rete" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Many of us, myself included, prefer to use this free newsgroup access medium.
    > Google is slow and tedious; taking up to three hours for your post to appear after
    > submission. Expats is instanteous. I do not use Outlook Express nor does my ISP
    > have newsgroup capabilities. Also since I am allowed to use the internet during
    > working hours, this is the perfect way for me to continue my involvement.
    >
    > Rete
    >
    >
    >
    > --

Just Jenney

Dude, relax.

Firstly, not everyone (myself included) uses Outlook to view and post on newsgroups. I use the web, as do many others.

Secondly, maybe people can't access newsgroups via their ISP because they can't afford an ISP with that capability.

Thirdly, if web-based Google newsgroups were as fast as the web-based BritishExpat forums, then there wouldn't be a need to "get a new isp." It comes down to what is the most user-friendly. And the Google newsgroups are not as user-friendly as these forums here.

Just my $0.02...

~ Jenney

Rete

I didn't respond because the poster appears to be a little short on language skills and long on attitude.

I can afford an ISP that provides a newsgroup and recently signed up with an "upper crust" top of the line ISP. Even they don't provide NG service directly through their e-mail program but tells you to use Outlook Express for just such a purpose.

None of that helps as I can't use OE at the office so why go here, there and everywhere when expats is perfect for the job.


Rete

Steve & Lisa

Not everyone everywhere have the unlimited choices as you obviously have padwan.

"Master Yoda" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > If you had a decent news server your posts would show in outlook
instantly.
    > If you have an isp that doesn't even provide you with something as basic
as
    > newsgroup access then your Isp sucks big time! get a new isp.

jeffreyhy

Jenny,

I think the thing to realize is that Google and BritishExpats are 2 separate websites that provide access to 1 newsgroup, <alt.visa.us.marriage-based>. Google and BritishExpats are not 2 'separate but linked' 'forums'. It's not a question of this forum or that forum, but of how one accesses the forum.

Google provides access to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of newsgroups that are of interest to anybody and everybody, and maintains archives of past posts to those newsgroups.

BritishExpats provides access to a handful of newsgroups that are of interest to, well, British expats. And, in the case of the <alt.visa.us> and <alt.visa.us.marriage-based> newsgroups, of interest to a lot of non-British non-expats as well.

Regards, JEff

Just Jenney

Thanks for the clarification, Jeff. I'm pretty new to the whole newsgroup genre, although I've been using message boards for years. I didn't realize that this forum here is essentially a vein in the Google newsgroup system. Thanks for taking the time to educate me.

(That said, I'll correct myself and say that I prefer TO ACCESS the newsgroup via this forum!)

~ Jenney

Squire

In article <[email protected]>, Jenney &amp <?@?.?.com> writes
    >Master Yoda wrote:
    > > If you had a decent news server your posts would show in outlook instantly. If
    > > you have an isp that doesn't even provide you with something as basic as
    > > newsgroup access then your Isp sucks big time! get a new isp.
    >
    >
    >
    >Dude, relax.
    >
    >Firstly, not everyone (myself included) uses Outlook to view and post on newsgroups.
    >I use the web, as do many others.
    >
    >Secondly, maybe people can't access newsgroups via their ISP because they can't
    >afford an ISP with that capability.
    >
    >Thirdly, if web-based Google newsgroups were as fast as the web-based BritishExpat
    >forums, then there wouldn't be a need to "get a new isp." It comes down to what is
    >the most user-friendly. And the Google newsgroups are not as user-friendly as these
    >forums here.

Newsgroups are distributed world-wide via a system known as usenet (also often
referred to as netnews) and are organised into hierarchies. My ISP currently carries
about 47,000 separate newsgroups of which alt.visa.us.marriage-based is merely one
within the alt.* hierarchy. As you can see from the attribution at the top of this
posting, [email protected] uses a *gateway* to extract and post to messages on
alt.visa.us.marriage-based.

http://groups.google.com/ is also web based and similarly extracts postings from
usenet and archives them for use with sophisticated search engines. It will not store
this posting in its original form because I have used the "" facility in my headers
to prevent such archiving. Google trawls through well over 50,000 newsgroups 24/7 to
update its database, hence the time lag between each occasion it gets around to
alt.visa.us.marriage-based.

britishexpats forum users will see messages to and from other users of the forum more
or less instantly because such postings are within a 'local' system. However, other
postings direct to or from usenet will be delayed according to how frequently
britishexpats polls usenet. Not all newsgroup readers will see postings to threads in
the same sequence as other users, though there are various reasons for this including
Internet propagation and the threading processes of the newsreader client.

Rete has (succinctly as ever) pointed out the merits of web-based access to this
newsgroup to people who, though allowed to do so by their employers, are limited as
to the newsreaders available to them. Others, myself included, prefer to use non
Microsoft or Netscape products for various reasons including being virtually immune
from virus and trojan attacks. Horses for courses, as we say in the UK

If your ISP provides no satisfactory news service, a highly respected and free (non
web-based) service is available from -

<http://news.cis.dfn.de/>

Registration and use of this NetNews service are free of charge. It is a service of
DFN-CIS (Center for Information Services) located at the computer center of Freie
Universität Berlin, Germany. There is no provision for binary newsgroups access. Some
would say thats a 'good thing' <tm>

HTH

--
squire Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. (Groucho)

Paul Wells

Rete <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
    > Many of us, myself included, prefer to use this free newsgroup access medium.
    > Google is slow and tedious; taking up to three hours for your post to appear after
    > submission. Expats is instanteous. I do not use Outlook Express nor does my ISP
    > have newsgroup capabilities. Also since I am allowed to use the internet during
    > working hours, this is the perfect way for me to continue my involvement.
    >
Don't know if it's due to BritishExpats gateway, but messages posted via it are often
are missing any context or quoting of the message they are in response to when they
get out into Usenet.

--
paul

Rete

No it is due to the fact that you don't ask for the previous post to be quoted. I don't because I find it a waste of space to have to scroll pass all that previously posts attached. Not worth it IMHO.

Rete

PS I included the posts you included in your post. See what I mean?

jeffreyhy

Jenny,

You are now correct to say that you prefer to access the newsgroup from BritishExpats rather than Google, but you still seem to misunderstand something. The forum here is not any more a vein in the Google newsgroup system than Google is a vein in the British Expats newsgroup system.

Google does not own, operate, host, or whatever other word you want to use, the newsgroup. Google and BritishExpats perform the same basic function with respect to the newsgroup - they provide access to it from a browser. The other, more direct, method of access is with a newsgroup reader.

See Squire's excellent explanation.

Regards, JEff

Paul

No.
--
paul 58-77 Sheffield 77-79 Coventry 79-88 Sheffield 88-97 Milton Keynes 97-99 London
99-00 Seattle 00-?? Fremont