January 2005

The draft list of guest stars at Collectormania 7 has been released on their website:

Collectormania

As we all know, Collectormania is held at the Milton Keynes shopping centre - near where i is living.

It appears it is mainly a Dr Who reunion and stars of the Star Wars prequels. Actually - i am not really sure i want to see any of them - but i’m sure i will be struggling through the crowds with 2 crying kids, a buggy and a wife that would rather be off buying clothes!

Actually - it will be a cool place to get an odd Manga Robot type toy for my Sons 6th birthday in June!

Here a nice link for the master of all that is corrupt, unjust and recycleable, Bigfootcookie.

http://www.nationalterroralert.com/

You probably seen it already Bigfoot, but it contains the USA National Terror alert headlines - which can make quite interesting reading! More US propaganda no doubt - but they do mention German police on there though so its not all completely anal. You can also get the code for a nifty Security Warning Status Internet Banner like this:

Homeland Security Advisory

You can add to your site - just in case something major happens when you are reading your own blog. Nice.

I was just reading the nominations for the 2005 Bloggies and came across this nomination for Best Article or essay about weblogs. I like reading about Blogging - actually i am probably more into reading about doing blogging than about actually blogging. A bit like reading porno mags i guess!!

Anyway - the article is quite funny and gives some real inspiration to all you bloggers out there.

How to blog

Also see the other nominations for this category (which i will read later tonight):

New Kids On the Blog
Random Reality Bites
Blogs, Bandwidth and Banjos: Tightly Knit Bonds in Weblogging
Warning: Blogs can be infectious

Right.. I’m off to start my private personal blog. Laters!

I have been doing some late night reading on Exeem and what people are saying about it since its release a few days ago. My opinion of the program has changed since reading these and my main points for concern are as follows:

1. The program DOES contain adware. Cydoor was dropped into my c:\windows\system32\adcache folder as part of the installation. Giant Anti Spyware detected and removed it after a scan. This all seems very familiar…..It’s just like Kazaa!

2. Someone over at the Slyck news page forums has reported 2 out of 2 fake files since using the program. Just like Kazaa?

3. The rating/comment system appears open to mass abuse. Anyone can rate a file highly and then comment on it saying it is excellent - when really it is a fake. Same as Kazaa! I never managed to get the Harry Potter 2 film from there either! It was always some dodgy mask wearing swedish B&W porn film! Overpeer will be flooding the network with fakes as we speak! Just like Kazaa!

4. Exeem client crashes. I had it crash on me once already. I was trying to work out a way to obtain a list of files with seeds over 1000 - and it died on its arse.

5. The first site offering exeem: links has appeared. http://www.exeems.com/ Not tried it yet though.

6. Rumors that Suprnova was not closed for legal reasons are rife on many forums. They are alledging that Sloncek closed the site to pave the way for promoting Exeem - for which he is being paid for don’t forget.

7. Someone pointed out that even though the program and its usage are termed as “de-centralized” the system must be able to obtain its list of number of users online and the number of active torrents. Digging in the registry reveals a list of IP addresses Exeem connects to for this information. So. Not de-centralized then. However, ammending this data could make it possible for you to set up a sub-network where exeem would still run - but not be connected to the main system.

The fact still holds that Exeem is a step in the right direction with regards to the technology it uses. I got some good speeds from it during testing but the network is currently open to severe abuse. It might be faster to get the files - but when they are fakes - what is the point!

When using Exeem - use an eBay mentality. Check the feedback on each file and only go where others have gone before you.

Personally i will be uninstalling it for now. Bittorrent is still going strong after the demise of Suprnova and other torrent sites which are more than capable of filling its boots have risen to the challenge. Check out the top 10 list of torrent sites over at the P2P Forums.

On on a complete side note…. check out Toogle image search for an interesting view on things.

Just realised that i have got over 500 hits now!
Wahooo! I’m well on the way to taking over this internet thing!! lol

Exeem has landed.

I have downloaded and installed the Exeem Public Beta this morning and done a few tests.
It seems ok! At this time of writing there are 21,512 users logged in sharing 5.5 terrabytes of data. This is pretty good going seeing as the client was only released yesterday!

If you have used either Kazaa, WinMX, eDonkey or any other program similar to these then the program will be very easy for you to navigate. There are separate tabs for Searching, viewing the Transfer activity, a log window showing the background processes and a tab for showing newly published files.

Each file has been manually published into the system by the users which means that there is less rubbish on there like you may find in Kazaa for example. There is plenty of content on there at the moment - but obviously less than you will find on somewhere like Kazaa or any other established P2P network. But it is still very early days in the life of Exeem at the moment.

You can “announce” a file into Exeem to share with others by choosing Publish File Pack from the File menu which then allows you to select one file or a whole directory to share.

This is a screenshot of the main exeem download window - clearly showing a file being downloaded at a resonable rate.

A brilliant feature is that you can right click on any file in the download or search screens to bring up a list of comments that people have left which can be handy for checking that a file is good before downloading.

One thing i have noticed is that after a file has been completed it does not get removed from your download list. You automatically begin to seed the file for other users - even after closing and restarting the Exeem client! This feature ensures that the file stays active on the network for longer than it may do normally when using torrent files. You can right click the completed file in your transfer window and choose to stop seeding at any time though. If this really is a problem for you there is an option in the configuration to automatically stop seeding after you have reached a certain share level - a feature brought from other bittorrent clients, which seems the most sensible option in my opinion.

So at a first glance Exeem looks like it might be another application that could take on the P2P networks by force the way that Kazaa did after the demise of Napster. The hype is there and the bittorrent userbase is already there. Also, there is already a Lite version of the Exeem program out too which does not contain the Cydoor adware component. When i installed the official beta of Exeem, my Giant anti-spyware software did not detect anything - but i will do a manual scan later just in case.

But then again. Last night via a torrent announced at Sharelive i managed to download over 700mb in just over 2 hours! Currently my bittorrent record!

If you get Exeem, let me know your thoughts.

Just came across this website for making an MSN avatar pic whilst watching the clock - waiting for 6 to come… eek! Its here! I’m off!

Portrait Avatar Maker - Let’s make an original icon!!

Check out the links to my mates Blogs on the right hand side.

But why are they all using a black template?
Am i missing something?

Actually - its nice to see you all here on Blogger. But I WAS HERE FIRST!!!

After discussing Star Wars in the office yesterday i went in search of the “Star Wars Holiday Special” show which is apparently trying to be banned by George Lucas because he is so embarrased by it. I jumped onto TorrentSpy and searched for “Star Wars” and lo… it cometh before me. After a quick overnight sleep and 700mb later it was ready.

And now i can see why he wants it banned.

Here is the plot outline copied from IMDB: Luke Skywalker and Han Solo battle evil Imperial forces to help Chewbacca reach his imperiled family on the Wookiee planet - in time for Life Day, their most important day of the year!

Throw in some bad TV sets, chronic acting, quite a few songs(!), a cartoon section and then some more songs plus an appearance of the big man-lady from The Golden Girls - who is also singing, and you have not even scratched the surface of just how bad this really is!

Instant classic! A must for Star Wars fans like me. Nearly as good as this!