Binary Vortex

(c) 1998-2007 Scott M Baker, smbaker@binaryvortex.com or smbaker@sb-software.com

The Binary Vortex home page is http://www.binaryvortex.com/

Description:

Binary Vortex is a tool designed to allow you to download files (or pictures) from Binary Newsgroups. BinaryVortex is designed to perform this task automatically without user intervention. It can run in a fully unattended configuration, or if you are present, you can watch files as they are downloaded with the built in thumbnail viewer.

Binary Vortex is intended to be easy to use, as well as powerful. It is shareware, and has no delays, limits, crippled features, or other nags that would deter your enjoyment of this product.

Step-by-Step Installation Instructions:

[Note: We've added an illustrated howto on the web with pictures showing the installation and setup]

  1. Run the Setup Program (Setup.Exe). This will install all of the Binary Vortex files into a subdirectory of your choice and create a windows program group and desktop icon for them.
  2. Load Binary Vortex
    1. Locate the Binary Vortex icon on your desktop. It looks like a big blue "V".
    2. Click the icon
    3. The Binary Vortex program should launch and display the main window
  3. Configure your news host identity. You will need to know some specific information about your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to complete this section of the Installation. You will need to know your News Host Name, User Name, and Password. If you are unsure of these items, then you should contact your ISP. You may also be able to find the information in an existing program, such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer, which you have already configured to receive newsgroups.
    1. The first option is your News Host Name. This is the Internet Name of the computer that you must connect with to receive usenet news. It is usually "news.ispname.com" or "nntp.ispname.com" (ispname being the name of your Internet Service Provider). For example, if you were using Supernews, the name is "news.supernews.com". If you are unsure about this name, then contact your ISP; They will be happy to give you the information.
    2. The next option is your User Name. This is usually the name that you use to logon to the Internet. Again, your ISP may be able to give you this information if you don't know it. Note: A User Name (and Password) is not always required. Many ISP's will grant access to normal newsgroups, but not the alt.binary hierarchy unless you specify a name and password.
    3. The final option is your Password. The password corresponds to the User Name in the above step, and if you know one, then you probably already know the other.
    4. There's also a checkbox that lets you select Secure SSL usenet service. This is being offered by several providers, such as Giganews, and encrypts the traffic between the news server and your computer. Make sure your ISP or news service does support SSL before trying to use it, or Vortex will not be able to connect.
  4. Set your download path. By default, Binary Vortex will download into the current directory. If this is what you want, then leave it alone. If not, then designate a directory of your choice.
  5. Press the "Groups" Tab at the top of the dialog to configure your newsgroups
    1. Use the <Add> button to add a new newsgroup.
    2. If you know the name of the newsgroup you want to add, then just type it into the dialog and hit ok.
    3. Otherwise, you can get a list of groups from your News Server.
      1. Press the <Refresh> button in the add newsgroup dialog.
      2. Binary Vortex will connect to your news server and download a group list. This will take several minutes.
      3. Numerous things can go wrong here if you have something misconfigured (i.e. the wrong news host name, a bad password, etc). If something does go wrong, then get the correct info (contact your ISP!), enter it into the setup tab, and try again.
    4. Once the newsgroup list is downloaded, you can scroll through it and pick the groups you want.
    5. Repeat 1-4 until you've added all the groups you desire.
  6. Click the "Download!" tab at the top of the dialog to begin downloading.
    1. On the download page, there is a button with the caption "Click to Start!". Click this button.
    2. Congratulations! Your are now downloading binary news!

Program Features and Options

The program is organized in a tabular fashion.

The Boss Key Setting

Several people have asked for a way to place Binary Vortex on the system tray (taskbar) and password protect it. This let's Binary Vortex run in the background, and prevents people from inadvertently being able to access it.

The "Boss Key" is a special key that you can press to do this. The term "Boss Key" goes back to the 1980s where many games included a special key that you could press if the boss came around to hide the game and make it look like you are working. Here is how the Boss Key works:

  1. Press ALT-F10 (i.e. hold down the "Alt" key and press the "F10" key)
  2. The Binary Vortex main window will disappear, and be replaced by a blue "V" icon in your windows system tray. (the system tray is that area with little icons usually on the right hand side of the windows taskbar)
  3. To restore Binary Vortex, click the blue "V" icon in the system tray.

You can also password-protect Binary Vortex when it is on the system tray to prevent people from being able to restore it without a password. To do this, Use the "Advanced" tab in the Binary Vortex main window, and find the <settings> button next to the "enable boss key" option.

Advanced options:

The advanced options tab contains several "expert user" type settings. Generally I don't recommend messing with them unless you have a pretty good idea of what you are doing. However, you really won't break anything significant by playing with the settings, so feel free to experiment with them if you wish.

Auto-restart. Normally when vortex finishes processing all of your newsgroups, it'll just stop and sit there. The auto-restart setting will cause vortex to continually scan for new messages.

ZIP filter. Somebody asked for a filter that would prevent .ZIP archives from being downloaded. Maybe he just wasn't a big fan of ZIP archive files.... It sounded like a good idea, so I threw it in.

Save settings every 100 messages. This checkpoints Vortex's settings. It's useful in case your computer gets shutdown unexpectedly, so that vortex remembers where it left off.

Pause for x seconds between messages. If you have a DSL or cable modem, then Vortex will often download pictures so fast that it's hard for you to keep track of what's going on (and in particular, to hit the kill or lockout buttons when an undesirable picture flies by). The delay setting lets you slow things back down.

Enable the boss key. See the boss-key section above.

Enable JPEG auto-commenter. The JPEG auto-commenter is a handy feature that will store the subject, author, and other information in the JPEG comment block. If you have a viewer that displays jpeg comments (like sortpics), then this can be a handy way to get additional info on your images sometime down the road.

Automatically rename filename collisions. It's a fact of life that there are many files named "1.jpg". Vortex can be configured to either overwrite these files, or to rename the new file as it's downloaded.

Simple duplicate check and delete. Vortex includes a fairly simple duplicate checker that works by comparing downloaded files to existing files in the same directory. It first compares file size, and if the size matches then it will compare the file contents. If you have a large directory (tens of thousands of files), then the checker may cause vortex to slow down.

Registration:

We offer a couple of different registration packages. You can buy binary vortex by itself for $15, or you can buy Binary Vortex plus a whole suite of other programs for $26.95. For full details, see http://www.binaryvortex.com/order/

Contacting the Author:

You may email me at smbaker@binaryvortex.com or smbaker@sb-software.com

Details on contacting me via US Mail are available at:

http://www.sb-software.com/credit/mail.html

Revision History: