[Milsurplus] Google groups

[Mike Hanz]

On 12/13/2010 12:06 PM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
> I'm one of those who have no choice. I live in a rural area with no cable and no prospect of getting it, and it's too many cable feet from the switch to get DSL or even ISDN. I'm stuck with a USB cell modem, which is better than dial-up but still unsuitable for big email attachments. I'd be forced to leave any mailing list that allowed arbitrary attachments.

In actuality, there are some other choices, Mark.  I'm in the same boat 
as you, living in a rural part of Virginia.  Things are changing 
constantly from a broadband perspective, and you need to stay in touch 
with the progress in your particular area.  The first thing you should 
explore is the status of wireless cell phone internet service.  If you 
have a friend with a 3G cell phone or book reader like Kindle, have him 
stop by your house and see how many "bars" he has in your location.  You 
may be surprised!  The second option (which I chose three years ago but 
may abandon as 3G cell phone coverage continues to expand), is satellite 
service.  It occasionally has its problems in web browsing because of 
the delay, but the e-mail is fast and efficient, and the lowest speed 
plans are not that expensive.  The last option (assuming it is offered 
by the mail list) is to simply use the digest format from the reflector 
- I think both google groups and yahoo strips the attachments in that 
mode, so you don't need to abandon the mailing list unless it is so 
archaic that it won't accommodate current technology.  Frankly, I join 
Todd in asking myself whether it's worth me keeping up with a group that 
is held to the lowest common denominator.  I don't mean to be 
unsympathetic, but our hobby is image dominant!  What takes pages to 
describe in narrative is immediately apparent in one photo.  The 
successful transition of the glowbugs list has been a breath of fresh 
air, with both dial-up and broadband users accommodated to one degree or 
another.  Sure, some folks don't understand how to reduce the size of 
their attachments, but it has worked exceedingly well so far for the 
entire spectrum of readers because of the options available.  The 
moderated status of new subscribers keeps the spam to a minimum.  I 
can't recall a single spam e-mail posted to the list, and even those 
posted to lists I frequent that don't have active moderation are pretty 
obvious and are quickly caught by the membership.

Things change...and are never as bad as they seem...:-)

Mike  KC4TOS