Temporary Solution

Um, here I am, about to show my complete lack of understanding of what to do with those numbers. Help, anybody?

Diana

If you use Outlook Express, click on Tools>Accounts, then add a News Account. Enter that IP address as the server name. You will find an orchids and orchids.pictures newsgroups there.

Did it, in Sea Mankey. No result at all. Zip. Nada.

Try this

news://121.208.41.84:119

Maybe that will help you...

Steve can you tell me EXACTLY what you did in Thunderbird? I didn't want to use it for this as it's my main email/newsgroup program and I'm just coming off five months of not being able to access the newsgroups. That's why I used Sea Monkey (new software in the Netscape mold, browser/email/newsreader all in one). They're based on the same codes.

And no, I don't have outlook express on my miniMac.

But if you can give me a more specific, step-by-step process, I'll try it in Thunderbird.

What on earth is a cmd.exe window? I'm running OS 10.4.11, and have been online since the beginning, and have never heard of or seen such a thing.

Steve-

Thanks for your instructions. I ended up with exactly the same result as in Sea Monkey. Nothing. However, this morning, upon reflection, it seemed the icon in the file column to the left of my message window looked more like a folder than a newsgroup name. So as it was displaying the plain 'Newsgroups' page in said message window, I read through the lines there though I have seen but not used them before. One was a 'manage newsgroup subscriptions' setting which I then used - it opened a box where I found - lo and behold - a heading for'orchids' which, when opened, gave me the option of subscribing.

You're not a cook, are you, Steve? I'm trying to be positive here, but since that's not my normal nature it comes out sounding sour like me. But you WERE helpful. But to someone like me who is terribly precise in such things, the left out last three steps, if in a recipe, would have changed a souffle to a hockey puck or a lovely sauce to a lumpy, broken mess.

Just joking here, Steve!

Though I am long experienced with computers and the internet, it's sometimes surprising to be reminded just how much I DON'T know. I've always used the file heading at the top of my screen for controlling my programs and hadn't really noticed there was a 'page' for it.

Moral of story: just like a good cook who inadvertently leaves out a step or two which are so intuitive to them, we all often do this in areas with which we are intimately familiar and in attempting to avoid that are often brought to a new understanding of our own knowledge and the processes involved by a careful, minute examination and re-enactment of the actions involved.

Can you tell I just got up?? :)

:-)

Well, you're right. I wasn't as complete as I thought I was. I've seen you around the 2 older orchid newsgroups for so long, it never occurred to me to remind you that you have to subscribe to the desired groups once you get the server into your mail/news reader program. Can you tell I was up way past my bed time when I wrote the instructions?? :-)

Question:

Since the new group seems to be a newsgroup just like the others, how does that help those of you whose ISPs no longer carry newsgroups?