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Mirror Magazine

Downloading different file types

Yahoo still POPs
Yahoo only withdrew the 'free' POP3 access from April 24
of this year. Instead, they made these services available for a fee. The subscription fee quoted then was US $29.99 per year for regular accounts but a discount to $19.99 for the first year was offered to existing account holders.

With regard to 3rd party programmes that do the 'POPing' of for us, I use 'YahooPOPs!' - this freeware has been developed by Anuj Seth and K. Shyam - their website is: http://"YahooPOPs!".sourceforge.net/

The download size of the latest version (V 0.4) for Windows is about 3.7 MB. This programme while running provides a gateway to our e-mail client (such as Eudora or Outlook Express) as a POP3 server (residing at local host) interfacing the client on one side and on the other side, it simulates a browser to access our Yahoo mail account. Earlier, the programme was providing only POP3 (port 110) access, that is for incoming mails only. However, now with the version 0.4 released last week, it also provides SMTP (port 25) service in addition for sending mails with our Yahoo mail ID.

I do not know much of the legality issues involved but in the FAQ section, the developers of YahooPOPs! have indicated that this method is not illegal. Regardless of whether that is true or not, what I see is that it works with Eudora. For persons like me, who prefer POP3 access with an e-mail client such as Eudora and getting the Yahoo mail into my hard disk (for offline reading) than browsing the Yahoo mailboxes online to read mail, this programme seems to be a suitable candidate.

I also very much look forward to seeing information on any other such 3rd party *free* Yahoo Mail fetchers in Techno Page.
K. Sethu

Editor's note:
YahooPOPs! is the most reliable software that I have used

that successfully enables your yahoo mail to be downloaded through an e-mail client such as MS Outlook or Eudora. There are others such as YoSucker (Latest stable version is Prototype 23a) but they are not so reliable. More importantly YahooPOPs! is the only software that claims the legality of the process they employ to access your yahoo mailbox through a client programme.

Nevertheless, for YahooPOPs! to work for you, you have to upgrade it whenever the version you are using gets outdated and fails to do its job (that is every three months on average). Once you have installed it on your computer you will find instructions on how to use YahooPOPs! at: Start>Programs>YahooPOPs!>YahooPOPs! Help.

By Harendra Alwis
In our exploration of cyberspace through e-mail last week, we showed you how to do a simple ftp search and discussed how you could download simple files from those sites. This week we will take it a step further with an example and a few finer points about how to make e-mail a useful tool you could use it to download different file types.

OK, for a start, let's grab the text of The Magna Carta. Here's the message you send to an ftpmail server:

open wiretap.area.com (The name of the FTP site)

chdir /Gov/World/ (Directory where the file lives)
get magna.txt (Sign here please, John)

quit (Bring it on home)
Here are the commands you would send to get a file from the Simtel Software Repository that was mentioned earlier.

open ftp.simtel.net (mirrored at other world-wide sites)
cd pub/simtelnet/msdos/disasm/

binary (Because we're getting a ZIP file)
get bubble.zip

quit
Some other interesting FTP sites you may want to visit are listed here. (Use these site names on the 'open' command and the suggested directory name on your 'chdir' command, as in the previous examples.)

rtfm.mit.edu
Try: pub/usenet/news.answers for USENET info

ftp.simtel.net
Try: pub/simtelnet a huge DOS/WIN software library

gatekeeper.dec.com Try: pub/recipes for a cooking and recipe archive
Remember that you can't just send e-mail to ftpmail@<anysite>, rather, you should send the 'open <site>' command to one of the known ftpmail servers.

o The ftpmail servers tend to be quitebusy. Your reply may not arrive for several minutes, hours, or days.
o Some large files may be split into smaller pieces and returned to you as multiple messages. You can control this (and also override the return e-mail address) using special ftpmail commands.

o The commands are not the same on every server - send the 'help' command to find out how FTP mail works on the server you are using!

o Often the ftpmail servers keep local archives. Open the local archives by not specifying a site on the 'open' line. Using the local archives gives your request priority so it will be processed before all outside requests.

If the file that is returned to you ends up looking something like what you see below, (the word 'begin' with a number and the file name on one line, followed by a bunch of 61-character lines) it most likely is a binary file that has been 'uuencoded' by the sender. (This is required in order to reliably transmit binary files by e-mail.)

begin 666 answer2.zip

M4$L#!'H'!@'.'/6H?18.$-Z$F@P"'@?"',""5$5,25@S,34N5%A480I[

M!P8;!KL,2P,)!PL).PD'%@.(!@4.!P8%-@.6%PL*!@@*.P4.%00.%P4*.'4.

You'll need to find a version of the 'uudecode' programme for your operating system (DOS, OS/2, UNIX, Mac, etc.) in order to reconstruct the file. Most likely, you'll find a copy already at your site or in your service provider's download library, but if not you can use the instructions in the next section to find out how to search FTP sites for a copy.
Sennan Constantine
(To be continued)

BearShare 4.0.5
BearShare is free software that lets you search for, download and share files with everyone on the global Gnutella peer-to-peer information network. This programme works with MP3, MPEG, AVI, ASF, MOV, JPEG, GIF, and all other file types. It features full documentation (installed with the programme), slick graphics, and a user interface that makes searching, downloading, and file-sharing easy.

It also features upload bandwidth controls, enhanced connection management and improved downloading. The programme has a community button that instantly connects you through your browser to BearShare. Net, a forum with information and resources to help you use the network. It has a theatre feature that lets you preview videos directly in your existing Windows Media Player software.

This can be downloaded at www.zdnet.com

Damien Lloyd

BearShare 4.0.5

BearShare is free software that lets you search for, download and share files with everyone on the global Gnutella peer-to-peer information network. This programme works with MP3, MPEG, AVI, ASF, MOV, JPEG, GIF, and all other file types. It features full documentation (installed with the programme), slick graphics, and a user interface that makes searching, downloading, and file-sharing easy.

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