HOW TO USE THE SEARCH ENGINE
This
page explains a few very useful things that make use of the search
engine a joy:
1
THE SEARCH FORM
Figure
1.1. The search form
The search form may
look intimidating, but you don't have to use all fields. To find
files, fill in at least one of the search fields and click on GO.
Any field may be left empty, but not all of them at once.
Example: the search on
the Figure 1.1 will find all sets of files, which have words
"heard" and "news" in the subject line, posted
to newsgroups with word "lossless" in name.
Important things to keep in mind:
- This search engine indexes files posted to the Usenet servers
in the last 200+ days. They may or may not have made it to
the news server that you use. This depends on the groups your
server carries and the feeds it receives.
- The other reason why you may not be able to download files that
you've found using this engine is that they may have expired on
your server. If a file was posted more than 100 days ago, most
servers will not have it by now. If you can't download a file
that was posted less than 30 days ago, you should consider switching
to a better server. Most commercial servers store files longer
than this.
- When looking for multimedia files, such as music and especially
videos, you will miss most of them if you limit your search to
"sound" or "video" file types. This is because most large files
are posted in compressed format and can be found if you limit
the search to "compressed" files. So, use the "file type" option
with care.
- For convenience of search and browsing, the search engine groups
related files into sets. When you send a query or enter a group,
you will see a list of sets. For each set, a sample of subject
text is shown with other information. If interested, click on
the subject.
- When you click on a subject, you will see the files posted in
this set. If a file in incomplete, its size is shown in red colour.
Downloading options are straightforward.
- Your search terms are automatically highlighted in the result
pages. You can setup custom highlighters that will highlight words
of particular interest for you in all set lists, whether search
results or when you browse a group.
- As not to shock some of our users, we try to keep adult and
non-adult groups separated. You can limit your search to either
part using the content filter in the search form. By default,
it is off.
- Always download parity sets (par2) files. Even if some of the
core files come incomplete or corrupted, you will be able to recover
them, provided that you have enough parity sets.
- More information and a couple of reference to good free software
is available at Oz Insight support page: http://www.ozinsight.com/support.html.
2
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIONS
Figure
2.1. The options form
To see the options form,
click on the Options button on the search page or on search
results pages. Your options are stored in the cookies of your web
browser, so, it has to have cookies enabled. Also, JavaScript must
be enabled for the search engine to work.
Visual theme -
this allows you to select one of the available visual themes. Note:
a) this apply to all pages except the search form; b) the changes
come into force when you click on apply and reload the page.
Default page ordering
- this defines how your results pages are sorted automatically after
loading.
Default content filter
- selects default value for the content filter in the search form.
Default search depth
- selects default
value for in the past... days field in the search from. You
should set this value to the retention period of your news server.
For example, if your server keeps articles for 30 days, set it to
30. If you set it for more, you will find a lot of files that you
won't be able to get from your server.
Sets in page -
defines max number of set entries you want to get in results pages.
Files in page -
defines max number of file entries you want to get when you go to
a set page.
Highlighters
This is a very useful
feature that allows you to setup rules for a) highlighting words
that are of interest for you and b) hiding sets that you don't want
to see.
To set a rule, you have
to:
1) Select whether you
want the whole subject/poster texts highlighted or the matching
words only.
2) Type in words to create
a matching condition. You have to fill at least one field.
3) Select where to look
for matches: in the subject text or the poster name/email.
3) Select the color to
use for highlighting. This is easy to forget. If you select
HIDE instead of a color, the matching set entries will be
hidden instead of being highlighted.
To add a new highlighting
rule, click on More highlighters. To delete a rule, click
on the cross (X) button next to it. You can create as many
highlighters as you wish. Their number is limited by the max cookie
size - 4KB, which is plenty. Also, keep in mind that numerous rules
may noticeably slow down page processing on loading.
Example: the rules on
the Figure 2.1 will hide sets that have "milosh"
in poster name/email, hide sets that have "xxx" or "porn"
in subject and will highlight word "elvis" in other subjects
with orange color. Note that highlighters are case insensitive.
3
SET LISTS
Figure
3.1. A set list entry
As a result of your
search, you get a list of sets. Figure 3.1 shows an example
of an entry in such a list. If this list is too big to fit in one
page, it is split into several pages and links to them are provided
in a form of "fish eye view".
Each set is represented
by a sample of subject text from this set. Normally, other files
in the set have similar subjects to this sample, but not always.
Each set entry has information
describing the set, and 3 links. The information is easy to interpret.
For example, the set on Figure 3.1 has 9 files, some of them
compressed and some of "other" type, most likely, parity
sets. It was posted on the 19th of August by kattek to newsgroup
alt.binaries.sounds.lossless. Word "Elwis" is highlighted
in this set by the highlighting rules setup on Figure 2.1,
and words "Heard" and "News" are highlighted
because they were used to find this set by the search on Figure
1.1.
If you click on the +
sign at the start of the subject text, the set will be expanded
"in-line" and the + sign replaced with -
on which you can click to collapse the set.
If you click on the rest
of the subject, you will open a new page listing files of this set.
You can start browsing
contents of the newsgroup by clicking on the newsgroup link. When
you browse a group, you will get a similar set list, except they
will be only from that group and there will not be a link to a newsgroup
in each set entry.
Each set has a checkbox
to the left of it. Checking this check box makes this set "selected".
What you can do with selected sets is explained below.
To
select or clear selection fast:
To select: hold
the Control key down and move (don't drag) your mouse
pointer across the subject lines or checkboxes of the sets you want
to select.
To clear selection:
do the same, but hold down the Shift key instead of the Control
key.
To reverse selection:
do the same, but hold down the Alt key.
4 THE CONTEXT MENU
Figure
4.1. The context menu
Right-clicking
anywhere in set list or file list pages displays a context (pop-up)
menu shown on Figure 4.1. Clicking on a menu item or anywhere
else in the page hides it. The menu options are explained below.
4.1
Get Selected
This will get selected
sets - if you've clicked outside of any expanded sets, or files
- if you've clicked in an expanded set. Note that by "get sets"
we mean that the search engine will send you information necessary
to automatically get the files from your news server, provided that
your news server has them.
Limitations:
this operation will not work if there are more than 100 sets selected
or if selected sets belong to more than one newsgroup. Thus, to
get several sets at once, make sure that you select only sets from
the same newsgroup and that there are no more than 100 sets selected.
4.2
Get Samples of Selected
It is strongly recommended
that you "preview" what you are about download before
wasting time and traffic on downloading large files that you may
not want:
- The videos may happen
to be not playable on your computer due to missing exotic codecs;
- They may happen to
be in a wrong language;
- They may happen to
be of very poor quality;
- You may decide that
the content is not interesting;
- Spammers often send
protected videos to make you pay for them.
The search engine will
do its best to choose for you samples from the selected sets, such
as:
- short video samples
if they are available;
- image captures of
video frames, if they are available;
- a few audio files
if the set consists of audio files;
- up to 15% of random
images if the set consists of images;
- first volume of each
multivolume rar archive posted in the set. When downloaded from
your news server, you can unpack it and watch the first few minutes
of the video, if it is there. The rar tool that you use to unpack
the sample will complain that the file is incomplete/corrupt.
Just ignore it. Certainly, it is incomplete. You are only working
with the first volume, to get an idea of what is inside.
If you've ordered and
downloaded samples of several sets at once, it may be tricky to
find the sets you want after you've viewed the samples and made
your choice. For example, if you've ordered samples of 10 sets,
you may end up with 10-50 files in your target directory. If there
are any rar files, you will have even more after you unpack them.
To link samples back to the sets they came from, you can use their
file names as search strings in the search form, provided that the
names are fairly distinct.
Example:
Suppose, you've selected 3 sets, clicked on Get Samples of Selected
and after downloading got these files:
video-sample-by-videomania-1.avi
screens_rgh1.jpg
screens_rgh2.jpg
dogfighter.part001.rar
bestcat.rar
After unpacking dogfighter.part001.rar and bestcat.rar you have
received 2 more files:
DogFighter-CD1.avi
CatThatLikesBirds.mpg
Your rar tool complained about incompleteness on both of the files,
but, this does not matter, as noted above.
After viewing screens_rgh1.jpg, screens_rgh2.jpg, DogFighter-CD1.avi
and CatThatLikesBirds.mpg you decided that you really want to view
full DogFighter video. How do you get it? To get it, you must get
the whole set that the sample came from. If you only work with 3
sets, it is not hard to browse through them all and find the one.
But, what if you've downloaded samples from 50 sets? Then it is
harder. In this case you can use name of the original sample to
search for the set. Note that you have to use the name of the rar
file, not of what is inside, because the search engine does not
know what is inside rars. So, you put "dogfighter" ("part001.rar"
should be dropped as it does not make a difference) to the top field
of the search form and click on "Go". The search engine
will list all sets that have this term in subject. You should recognise
the one you've selected for sampling.
Limitations: Get Samples of Selected will not work if there
are more than 100 sets selected or if selected sets belong to different
newsgroups. Thus, to get several sets at once, make sure that you
select only sets from the same newsgroup and that there are no more
than 100 sets selected. It will also not work if you select files
(in an expanded set) instead of sets.
4.3
Get Set
This will get the set
you clicked on.
4.4 Get Set
Samples
This will get samples
of the set you clicked on. See above for more information on how
to use them.
4.5
Clear Selection
This will clear all
checkboxes.
4.6
Inverse Selection
This will tick boxes
that are currently clear and clear those that are currently ticked.
4.7
Delete Selected
This will remove selected
items from your page. If you've removed more than you wanted, it
is easy to return everything back by reloading the page.
4.8
Flag Selected
This will mark selected
items with a flag to make it easier for you to return to them later.
See below.
4.9
Clear Flags off Selected
This will clear flags.
4.10
Select Flagged
If you've flagged a
few items to deal with them later, this is how you do it. You click
on Select Flagged and then you can do with them anything that you
can do with selected items.
This will move you to
the previous page.
4.12
Explain This Menu
This will move you to
the previous page.
5 WORKING WITH LARGE FILES
Most large (e.g. media
and software) files are split when posted to the Usenet. First,
they are packed and/or split into volumes, then they are split again
into parts that are attached to articles by the posting software.
Binjet downloader re-assembles these parts automatically. It can also do the
higher level assembling and extraction, but in some cases, for example,
when recovery is required, it helps if you can do this manually.
It is not hard.
You may have been in a situation when you've spent quite some
time and bandwidth on downloading a huge file (e.g. a DVD movie),
but could not use it because one or more articles turned out to
be missing or corrupted. This is not uncommon. The larger the file
is the greater are the chances that something went wrong on it's
long way from the poster's hard drive to yours.
Do not get upset! This can be helped if there are parity sets available.
Read below.
5.1
MasterSplitter Files
Names of these files
typically look like this:
The_Beatles.mpeg.001
The_Beatles.mpeg.002
The_Beatles.mpeg.003
The_Beatles.mpeg.004
The_Beatles.mpeg.005
...
Note the numbers after the "normal" extension like ".mpeg".
Usually, a batch file (with extension .bat) is posted with MasterSplitter
generated files. You are supposed to download and decode all parts
and this batch file into one directory and then start this batch
file. This is not a safe operation. You should never start any batch
file downloaded from the net without examining it first. Batch files
are sets of commands. You have no guarantee that one of them won't
wipe your hard drive.
We
recommend using 7-Zip for all your archiving and extraction
needs. It is an excellent open source freeware tool supporting
all imaginable archives formats, including various disk images,
and very easy to use. Download it from www.7-Zip.org
and install. To extract the files in the example above, open the
directory in your Windows Explorer and right-click on The_Beatles.mpeg.001
(it is important to click on the first volume). You should
see 7-Zip entry in the context menu. Click on it and select Extract
Here.
5.2
Rar Archives
Rar is the most widely
used archive format on the Usenet. Unlike zip files, rar files have
file table at the start of the archive. This lets you get some value
from a rar file even if it is incomplete. Zip files have their tables
at the end of the archive. So, you can do nothing with a zip file
if it is incomplete.
There are 2 naming conventions
for rar files. Files of the example in 5.5.1 would look like this
in the old naming convention, if they were posted in rar format:
The_Beatles.rar
The_Beatles.r00
The_Beatles.r01
The_Beatles.r02
The_Beatles.r03
...
Note that file with
extension ".rar" is the first volume. Files of the example
in 5.5.1 would look like this in the new naming convention, if they
were posted in rar format:
The_Beatles.part001.rar
The_Beatles.part002.rar
The_Beatles.part003.rar
The_Beatles.part004.rar
The_Beatles.part005.rar
...
Here, the first volume
is file with extension "part001.rar". To get content out
of the archive, you need to extract them. You
can do it using 7-Zip: open the directory in your Windows Explorer
and right-click on the first volume. You should see 7-Zip entry
in the context menu. Click on it and select Extract Here.
5.3
Recovery Files (Parity Sets)
Error recovery files
(parity sets, par) are redundant additions that can be (and usually
are) posted with multipart files, such as rar archives or files
created by MasterSplitter (see above). When available, parity sets
can be used to recover any missing or damaged volume of the set
as long as there are enough parity sets available. Parity sets
are good for error recovery and nothing else. You don't need to
download parity sets if you have all parts of the multivolume file
available.
Normally, you can restore
a set of files if total size of the parity sets is a bit more than
total size of the missing parts. There are 2 formats of parity sets.
Par2 is the new and most used one. You can recognise recovery files
by extension par2. To be able to use recovery files, download and
install QuickPar from parchive.sourceforge.net.
QuickPar is
an excellent application and free.
If files of the example
in 5.5.1 were posted with parity sets, they would look like this:
The_Beatles.mpeg.001
The_Beatles.mpeg.002
The_Beatles.mpeg.003
The_Beatles.mpeg.004
The_Beatles.mpeg.005
...
The_Beatles.par2
The_Beatles.vol000+01.PAR2
The_Beatles.vol001+02.PAR2
The_Beatles.vol003+04.PAR2
...
Here, file The_Beatles.par2
is a par2 header file. QuickPar uses it to check if any files
are missing or damaged and how many recovery volumes you would need
to recover them.
To recover a damaged
or incomplete file set:
- Download available
content files, including the incomplete ones.
- Download PAR2 header
file posted with the files you've downloaded so far. It is a file
with extension "par2", but without ".vol...+..."
text.
- Make sure that you
have all downloaded files of this file set and the PAR2 in the
same directory.
- Open the PAR2 header
file with QuickPar. QuickPar will check that you have all needed
files and that they are all correct (not corrupted). If some of
the files are missing or corrupted, QuickPar will tell you this.
- If needed, download
error recovery files (as in the picture in (6) above) and repeat
step 4 until QuickPar tells you that it is ready to recover. Run
the recovery - and you will have all files as they should be.
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