Hi out there in binaryland,

For those who may have found my DL series interesting and informative I
present a another lesson in downloading. I am posting in A.B.M.E. because
my server doesn't make A.B.M.E.d. available and the unknowing wouldn't
find it there anyway.

The information presented here is directly applicable to a fast PC running
Windows95 but should work for any reasonably fast machine using Win3.1 and
the appropriate version of any programs listed.

Title: Learning to Play in the A.B.M.E World (and others) (pt. 3)

Content: Answers to those nagging questions about downloading which you
         have always wanted to know but were afraid to ask, such as:
         1. Why does DLing with FreeAgent (FA) eat up so much memory?
         2. Where have all the flowers gone?

Well - here we go again!!

1. Why does DLing with FreeAgent (FA) eat up so much memory?
    a. There is a large overhead when using FreeAgent. It keeps track
    of everything you do and everywhere you go in a set of files that
    can grow to truly tremendous size.
    b. These files are the 000000xx.dat and 000000xx.idx found in your
    FA folder. There is one of each for every newsgroup you had some
    activity in. They do carry over from session to session and continue
    to grow.
    c. Do I need them? No, they do provide a backup of sorts if you forget
    or don't manually save files that FA cannot decode (problems). My
    experience has been that FA is not clean in this area. When I decode
    000000xx.dat via VuePrint (VuePro4.4) many of the pics are incomplete.
    d. To reclaim disk space simply delete all of these files after
    exiting FA. It won't let you do it while running.

2. Where have all the flowers gone?
    a. Check out the .avi series junk yard dykes. The flowers went in there.
    b. Isn't it nice to have Spring!!

Thanks for listening, and help stop the whining and spamming,

My thanks to all the posters!!

I do not profess that these lessons are all inclusive, exclusive, or
emcompassing - only what I have learned by trial and errrrror.

Refrigeraider