Using A Free Trial To Your Advantage
September 22, 2009 - NewsAdmin Staff Writer

I was working part-time, taking a full course load at school, and had to find an easy elective class to satisfy the 3 remaining credits I required for graduation. In retrospect "Beginners Tap Dancing" may not have been the best choice, but the meeting times fit my schedule, it took care of the 3 credits I desperately needed, and the class would more than likely be populated with hot female tap dancers.

While the latter was true, 10 minutes into the first class I quickly discovered that hot female tap dancers are not attracted to male tap dancers... particularly male tap dancers that lack rhythm, coordination, and athletic ability. Shunned by my female classmates, I found a place to hide near the back of the room where I could privately click, clack and windmill myself into oblivion... occasionally sharing an awkward smile and head nod with the only other guy on campus stupid enough to enroll in the class.

The months that followed were a blur of pulled muscles, blisters, and fatigued jazz fingers, concluding with a final class meeting that was to be held at a small auditorium on campus. As we all filed onto the stage the instructor announced that to celebrate our final session together she wanted to give us the "gift" of performing in front of a live audience. Sweat began to accumulate on my forehead, the room began to spin, and before I could fully process what was about to happen... music was queued, stage curtains opened, and we were standing in front of 90 guys from the ROTC program that had been invited to view our impromptu dance recital. Though I've suppressed most of the details of that horrifying afternoon, the sound of their whistles and cat calls will forever haunt my memory.

If I learned anything from this experience is that in any situation it's important to understand what you're getting yourself into... whether it be a "Beginners Tap Dancing" class, or the selection of Usenet provider. Fortunately for newsgroup enthusiasts, most providers offer free trial accounts that give you an opportunity to evaluate their service before purchasing a membership. Included below are a few suggestions for getting the most out of your free trial.

Regardless of how many bells and whistles a provider offers, you won't be able to use them if you can't establish a fast, stable connection to their service. Before you charge forward with your trial account, retrieve a complete list of newsgroups from a provider's servers to get a general feel for your download speeds. If a provider offers multiple server addresses, access and retrieve a newsgroup list from each server to ensure that your speeds are uniform. You can also use this as an opportunity to confirm that a provider carries all of the groups that you may frequent. With a copy of their newsgroup list in hand, try downloading a couple of files (+5MB) from a binary newsgroup (photos, video, sound, etc.) to see if your speeds continue to hold up. If you also contribute to the newsgroups, you may consider sending a post (+1MB) to a group such as "alt.binaries.test" to see if the same performance tracks to your upload speeds.

A fast connection to a Usenet service isn't worth anything unless there's content to be accessed. More specifically you'll want to verify that a provider offers content for a reasonable period of time (retention) and that the content isn't incomplete or missing parts (completion). Some providers will advertise attractive retention limits (example: "300 Days Retention!") and completion ratings (example: "No Missing Posts!") only to find out that those claims are not accurate, or that they don't apply to all the newsgroups that they carry. We recommend connecting to a few high traffic binary newsgroup (example: alt.binaries.boneless or alt.binaries.cores), download a complete list of headers, and see if the retention and completion within those groups matches the information advertised by the provider.

Depending upon your requirements, SSL encryption and concurrent connections may also be worth evaluating while your trial account is active. Connection speeds may vary through SSL and non-SSL ports, and occasionally the decrease in performance will be significant. In the course of downloading newsgroup lists or header lists, you may want to alternate your connections between SSL and non-SSL ports to see how the performance compares. Similarly, most providers allow a certain number of simultaneous connections on their servers (usually 10 or more), but they may decrease access speeds based upon the total number of connections you've initiated on their servers. This is easily verified by setting your newsreader program to the maximum number of concurrent connections allowed by a provider, and accessing their servers to see if you can access at full speed through each of the connections.

Last but not least, a few words regarding customer support. No matter how much expertise and experience you have using the newsgroups, there inevitably comes a time when you encounter a problem with your service. Maybe your posts aren't showing up on a given day... maybe your download speeds have slowed to a crawl... maybe you're unable to login... whatever the dilemma might be, it's not going to correct itself, so your Usenet provider will need to assist with the problem. Since some support staffs are better than others, during your trial period you may want to contact the provider with a few questions to see how quickly and thoroughly their staff responds to your inquiry. If it takes them a few days to reply, or if they answer every question by telling you to "restart your computer", you may want to continue looking at other providers.

While not as embarrassing as a tap dancing class, a membership with a bad Usenet provider can be just as painful, but hopefully these recommendations will help you to find an arrangement that best suits your requirements.

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