General question as to how people access this great resource.

D

Dana809904

Hello,
I am just wondering if most people access these forums through the
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/ web interface or if they prefer
to access them directly through a newgroup reader interface. It's been
awhile since I've had access to general newsgroups and am not sure if the
features like "notify me of replies", and the "Did this post answer your
question" option that the web interface supplies. I find these quite useful
and it would appear to me that the functionality would be lost if directly
accessing the newsgroups.
Thanks for any who care to comment, (especially MS MVP's) :)
Dana S.
 
A

Arvin Meyer

I only use a newsreader as even the fastest web interface is less than 1/4
the speed of a newsreader. I just don't have time to piddle around with a
browser interface.

Additional considerations are threading, filtering, the ability to store
posts, and the ease of opening multiple threads and/or multiple newsgroups.
"Notify me of replies" doesn't help me a bit since I connect from different
addresses, and don't post a real address because of spam. I can easily check
replies by either searching on my name or using the view menu.

"Did this post answer your question" seems a bit inane to me. If it didn't,
I'd expect the OP to post back and ask for more detail. Typically, they give
more detail when they post back.

I'm not sure if I'd want to answer questions if I couldn't use a newsreader.
One thing for certain, I wouldn't answer as many.
--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
Microsoft Access
Free Access downloads:
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.mvps.org/access
 
M

Mike Labosh

I agree with Arvin completely on every point. No browser surfing through
all that junk is as powerful as Outlook Express.

The Microsoft Certified Trainer community has for years been split between
using Outlook Express, and some product called Gravity. I don't think a
single one of them actually prefers a web interface. I prefer OE over
Gravity because I also use OE for my mail, so I get my real mail, my
hotmail, and my newsgroup "fix" all in one window.

--
Peace & happy computing,

Mike Labosh, MCSD

Feed the children!
Save the whales!
Free the mallocs!
 
J

John Vinson

The Microsoft Certified Trainer community has for years been split between
using Outlook Express, and some product called Gravity.
Click to expand...

Then there are those of us who swear by Agent.

I fully agree about the web interface. Spiffy cool features... but
slow slow slow, and often harder to find relevant posts.

John W. Vinson[MVP]
Join the online Access Chats
Tuesday 11am EDT - Thursday 3:30pm EDT
http://community.compuserve.com/msdevapps
 
B

Brendan Reynolds

In addition to the points that others have made, it seems to me that the
majority of the 'please help me with word, Excel, Powerpoint, anything but
Access posts' and the chopped-off subject line with no body posts are coming
from the web-based interface, which seems to indicate that significant
numbers of users are finding that interface confusing.

--
Brendan Reynolds (MVP)
http://brenreyn.blogspot.com

The spammers and script-kiddies have succeeded in making it impossible for
me to use a real e-mail address in public newsgroups. E-mail replies to
this post will be deleted without being read. Any e-mail claiming to be
from brenreyn at indigo dot ie that is not digitally signed by me with a
GlobalSign digital certificate is a forgery and should be deleted without
being read. Follow-up questions should in general be posted to the
newsgroup, but if you have a good reason to send me e-mail, you'll find
a useable e-mail address at the URL above.
 
A

Arvin Meyer

John Vinson said:
Then there are those of us who swear by Agent.
Click to expand...

Agent is great and I may switch from OE soon because Agent has better
threading. That way maybe I'll quit answering some posts that have already
been answered. Any (or should I make that every) newsreader beats a browser
interface.
--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
Microsoft Access
Free Access downloads:
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.mvps.org/access
 
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