


        As promised, we are going to take a look at FreeJacks QWKNews. I
 would like to preface this review by letting everyone know that QWKNews
 has some problems. Gary has inherited it this way, and it will be some
 time before he will be able to fix these problems. The reason is that it
 is no programed in C++ like TriBBS, but in Delphi. So, if you are
 interested in QWKNews, read the section about bugs carefully so you will
 be prepared for them when they crop up.



                                QWKNews v1.0


        QWKNews is a WIN95 Winsock program (it requires the WIN95 32-bit
 Winsock. It may run with Trumpets 32-bit Winsock, but I don't know) QWKNews
 will log onto your NNTP server (opps, thats your mail server if you did
 not know), and download the newsgroups you have set up, in a QWK format.
 You can then use TriNet to import them into your BBS.

        While the set-up is fairly easy, it does take some time, and you
 will need to plan ahead just a little.

        I suggest that before you even set up QWKNews, you should already
 know what newsgroups that you wish to carry. You need to remember the
 nature of the TriBBS Message areas. You definatly don't want to carry
 any of the binary newsgroups. These will end up confusing your users,
 and create a HUGE message base. I'll explain in a minute why you should
 pick your groups before you set things up, but lets continue with the
 TriBBS side of things.

        Now, lets set up your message areas. Its just like setting up any
 other network. The only difference is you may have some newsgroups that
 are read only. (you reply via an email address, not via the newsgroup)
 As you are setting up these conferences, write down the conference numbers,
 you will need them latter when you set up TriNet and QWKNews.

        Now, we are going to make things very simple for the TriNet setup.
 When QWKNews first came out, several folks were very confused over how
 they should set up TriNet. The reason was that there really is no Host
 Sysop, or Host Tag. Well, just lie. In my setup, I've just used my name
 as the Host and Local Sysop, and the same tagline for the Host and Local
 Tag. It really makes no difference at all.

        Now, remember when I said write down the Conference Numbers, here
 is where your going to use them. I've found out the easiest way to set
 up TriNet and QWKNews is to use the SAME numbers for the conferences. In
 other words, on my BBS, the TriBBS conference is number 22. Since I gate
 this conference into the Usenet, I set up alt.bbs.tribbs as conference 22.
 This makes it very easy for me to make changes, as the number in the Trinet
 config file, is the same as the number in QWKNews. IE

        conf=22,22
        conf=191,191
        conf=192,192

        You can see how this would make changing the TriNet cfg file easier
 later on. With both numbers being the same, there is no looking around to
 figure out which conference is which.

        Ok, so now we we have TriBBS and TriNet set up, lets get down to
 QWKNews.

        When unzipping QWKNews there are two files, Setup.exe and the usual
 File_id.diz. Just run Setup, and answer the questions. I would highly
 suggest that you use the defaults when it ask for the directory to install
 in. My first attempt failed when I tried to install to a different dir.

        Once installed, run QWKNews and lets set it up to run on our system.
 Under settings, the first choice is NNTP Settings. You have 4 different
 settings here, most of which you will not even touch. The first is the
 most important, your NNTP Server. Most of you will know this, but for
 those who don't, I suggest you contact your ISP. Most of the time, the
 server address will be very simple, just like your email address,
 news.domainname.com. If this does not work, contact your ISP for this.
 Next is your server port. 99.9% of the time, this will not need to be
 changed. So, Don't. If QWKNews is unable to log onto your server, then
 contact your ISP and check this setting.

        Your User ID and Password is something that most, if not all of
 you can ignore. Most ISP's do not require a separate logon once you are
 on your system. Once again, if in doubt, check with your ISP.

        Next is the Identity section. This has two areas that we must fill
 in (and one of which we can usually ignore) Your Domain name is not
 needed. If you have one, of course, put it in, but QWKNews will run
 without it. Organization though, is required. In my Setup, I've just
 put my BBS name. The reason this is required is so QWKNews will not
 download articles that you have just uploaded.

        Our QWK Settings are next. All areas in this section must be
 filled out. First is your QWK ID. This can basicly be anything you
 wish. In my case, I've named it fields (remember, this will also be
 the name of your TriNet Config file) The Max lines setting can be
 left as it is. While I'm not sure of the maximum settings on TriBBS,
 I do know that setting it at 90 works just fine. The last setting here
 is your work directory. This is where QWKNews will place your QWK pack,
 and look for your REP packs. I suggest that you make it your TriNet
 directory to simplify things.

        So, now we are ready to log on. Click the Log On button, and
 allow your system to log onto your news server. This is where the
 real work starts, and where the first real problem may start too.
 QWKNews is a memory hog. There is no two ways about it. While I can
 run it on my 8 meg system, I've had to take some short cuts to get
 it working. You may wish to use these shortcuts even if your have
 more memory than me.

        The first thing you will want to do is to retrieve a list of
 newsgroups from your server. This is where I ran into my problem. QWKNews
 will download the names, but it could take a very long time for it to
 process them. I waited 2 hours, and it still did not finish processing
 them. QWKNews has to process the names, and prepare them to be used by
 the program. This is where you cheat. Why do you need ALL the newsgroup
 names if you already know which ones you want. You can simply create your
 own groups.dat in this format:

        alt.bbs -1 0
        alt.bbs.doors -1 0
        alt.bbs.tribbs -1 0

        The first number is the QWK number, the second is the last message
 read. If you write your own groups.dat, don't worry about putting the qwk
 number yet, we can do that from inside QWKNews.

        So, one way or another, you've gotten your news groups list, and
 are ready to download them. You will need to click on each group, and
 assign them a QWK Conference number. If your smart, you will simply use
 the same number as the conference number when you set it up. As I explained
 before, it makes it much simplier if you ever need to change things.

        So, now you are ready, you can download and upload till your hearts
 content. I will tell you that it is kinda slow. The first time you set up
 a newsgroup, it could take hours. Just be prepared. Since news servers
 keep track of the message numbers differently, yours could be much faster
 than mine. I've discovered that on mine, it may have the conference number,
 but no message. This made my first run a very very long one, and my BBS
 was down most of the day (of course, I was pulling over 200 newsgroups !)

        Now, for the part you've all NOT been waiting for. I said before that
 QWK news has some problems, and I've mentioned a couple in the article.
 Now I'll spend a little more time on what they are, and some possible ways
 to work around them. I've not run into every one of these, but I have seen
 many of them.

        First and foremost, QWKNews does not seem to like Windows NT. Why,
 I can't tell you. On many systems, the setup program will not even work,
 and on others, it will appear to work, but the program will be unable to
 find all the files it needs to run. The solution to this has not yet been
 found, and probably won't for a while. Gary has set up an NT server, but
 is having problems understanding the complicated Programing language used
 in QWKNews. Be assured though that He is working on this and hopefully,
 we will see a fix soon.

        Our next problem is the behaviour of the program if your loose
 your connection to your host (phone goes offline) QWKNews will lock up.
 I have yet to be able to get the program running again, or to be able
 to shut it down normally. The only way I've been able to close it is to
 CLT-ALT-DEL in Win95. This will present you with a list of programs
 running, and let you choose to shut one down, or to re-boot the system.
 In this case, just shutting down QWKNews should do it. BUT, this creates
 another problem. About 75% of the time, when you do this, your groups.dat
 file will be truncated. To protect it, copy it before you shut down. BUT,
 this creates one more problem (needless to say, you don't want to loose
 your connection <G>) The groups.dat file you just copied, has not had
 its last message pointers updated. You get two choices here. If you do
 not have many newsgroups, you can just not worry about it. Or, you can
 use the "new" groups.dat that has been truncated, and get the latest
 pointers, for the conferences before QWKNews stopped, and manually up-
 date them. (big pain when you have over 200 newsgroups.) Anyway, all this
 may be a pain, but I do have one good bit of news for you. By shutting it
 down this way, you have saved the messages that were already downloaded.
 If you look in the QWKNews work directory before you shut it down, you
 will find a zero bit message.dat file. But after shutting it down, this
 file will be full. You only need zip it up with your qwk id and move it
 over to your trinet directory for importing.

        While it has not happened to me, I'm told that several folks
 have a problem when a newsgroup has over 500 messages in it. It seems
 to cause QWKNews to lock up (like above) and return an error code. I've
 not seen this, but there have been multiple reports of it. If you follow
 the "shut down" as above, you may be able to recover from this.

        As we can see, QWKNews has allot of potential
