Using Xnews to fill incomplete binaries from different servers

This is useful because:

Incomplete binaries are a source of much discussion and unnecessary reposting on the OTR binaries newsgroups
if you have two or more NNTP feeds you can use Xnews to complete binaries from different servers.
if you have a lousy free news server from your ISP and a pay server you can get all you can from your free server and then fill from your pay server. This will minimize your costs and may increase your d/l speeds. I am going to call this the "pay server fills" approach. If you need an extra server to help with completion, try a newzbot search for unsecured nntp servers.

This is the only app that I have used personally, although there may be others that work as well or better:

skulker recommends Binary News Reader (BNR) which has its own mailing list.
If you are sufficiently advanced/motivated, you can use an amalgamating local news multiplexer like Newsplex, hamster, NNTPcache, etc. I quit using newsplex only because XPAT didn't work through it.

How to do it using Xnews

Get Xnews. Install the latest version. Scratch your head: Xnews is strange and wonderful.
Read the manual. Read news:news.software.readers, watching those threads with "xnews" in the subject.
Set up some additional servers. If you need freebie extra servers, check the open servers list to find out which ones carry:
Add as many as you can to xnews in the [ctrl-F1] setup screen. As they expire or prove UN-useful delete them from the [ctrl-F1] screen. Only servers that support XPAT will be useful for this procedure.
Yes, open servers are slow and have very little retention. But remember you want them only for fill-segments, not for all your downloading needs.
Peruse the OTR binary groups as usual. If you find a binary you want, select it and then use "Article | QArchive -> _Queue". This will put the incomplete bin in the _Queue folder. The _Queue folder (unless you gave it another name) is the only place this process will work. Not only that, but you can have your downloads going on there while you continue your news reading normally.
"Folder | /_Queue/" to actually go to the Queue folder and see your binary or binaries. There they are, taunting you. Damn you, missing segments! :-)
New method: Rightclick on the binary (or selected binaries) and select "find missing binaries parts [extended]". Select as many or few servers as you want. [F4] to begin the decode. If none of your servers can complete it, leave that bin in the _Queue until later on and try again.
Notes:
- find missing binaries parts looks only for missing parts, which is probably what you want if you are trying to complete your binary. find missing binaries parts extended will query for all segments again which is probably what you want if you're trying to do the "pay server fills" stunt described above.
- Another note for pay server fills: the order in which the servers get queried is critical. You can select the name of the server and use +/- to move it up or down. Put your selected expensive servers at the top and the free servers later. Since they are run in order, top to bottom, arranging them this way will result in the segments on the expensive servers being superseded by the free ones.
Once the binary[s] shows complete, decode it as usual ([F-4] or whatever). Celebrate: you are victorious!
Delete decoded bins: "[del]". Laugh at your NNTP server. Final score: OTR fan, 1. Server, 0.
If you get consistent errors, timeouts, or failures to connect to a server then remove that server from your list with [Ctrl-F1]. Note: remove the server after you leave the _Queue folder - if you remove it while you're in it, the server indexing gets thrown off. No harm done, it's just confusing to look at.

$Id: xnewsbin.orb,v 1.9 2004/01/10 15:24:16 mouse Exp $

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