>BTW, from the scuttlebutt I heard, Concentric had a major hardware
>failure in the shell side and decided to pull the plug rather than fix
>it.

After days of not telling anyone what was going on they sent mail saying
they weren't going to fix it.  They gave the impression that all anyone ever
uses the shell for was for file maintainance, then they ignored all protests
and calls for help.  Their customer support has gone from bad to just plain
horrible and insulting.  The news server can be down for days without any
word of explanation.  I'm not giving up my account just now, but I certainly
can't recommend these jokers anymore.