[James Cridland]

Here's the additional stuff, which you can include in any future releases. The numbers at the beginning are the original installation notes. I hope it's useful.

Initial thoughts are, certainly when using news.btinternet.com (my local ISP), that newnews.pl is very slow in grabbing new messages - typically up to 90 seconds per message. For this reason, I'm currently setting it to run once a day. Is this about right?

It strikes me that running a local news server would speed this process up; is there a suitable freeware news server available somewhere?

This is a brilliant addition; now in use (though not extensively) at http://forums.mediauk.com/

1. [Installing the modules]
WIN32/ActivePerl: To install these, type "PPM" into a command box. Then, type:
install News-NNTPClient
install NetServer-SMTP
install DBD-Mysql
install Text-Autoformat
install TimeDate
install MIME-tools
install URI-Find

3. [Running the sql scripts]
WIN32: To run these using mysql: type "mysql" at the command prompt. Then, type:
connect vbfor [where vbfor is the name of your database]
source vB_sql_structure.sql
source vB_sql_data.sql

8. [Editing newnews.pl]
WIN32: Comment out line 53 - line 67.

Running:
WIN32: Set up a shortcut (either on your desktop or in your start menu) to point to: "perl c:\path\newnews.pl"
Then, use Scheduler (Start|Programs|Accessories|System Tools|Scheduled Tasks) to run this program at specified times.