P2P

See this site here for a review of the Azureus, uTorrent and Transmission (mac only) bittorrent clients.
As per my recent A-List, uTorrent comes out on top:

When you see my results, just remember that I was running a specific case. My hardware probably isn’t close to what you are running and I doubt you would be downloading such a large amount of data as I was, or at least from such an active torrent. However, in my case uTorrent seems like the definite choice for a simple BitTorrent client. uTorrent does everything you could ask from a BitTorrent client and it does it without breaking a sweat. Azureus still has its place in this world, besides being compatible with nearly every operating system, Azureus also supports plug-ins and has an extensive Wiki that can answer nearly any question you have. Either way, no matter which client you choose, I am sure you will be satisfied as both clients make it very easy to enjoy the benefits of BitTorrent and open up this large world of networks to the common user.

During the testing, the author observed Azureus taking up 80% of the CPU and 160MB of memory.  uTorrent however was only utilizing 9mb of memory and up to 30% of the CPU.

Dave Winer over at Dave’s Wordpress Blog has written an editorial on the Next Steps for Bittorrent.

In the article he describes the recent milestones of the technology and outlines the future needs in regards to software client integration and usability.

In my opinion, Bittorrent has probably hit its peak.  Over 50% of all internet traffic is Bittorrent based.  The only thing that is holding back the further use of the technology is “ease of use”.

For the lay-man or basic computer user, obtaining the correct software, torrent files and working out which file has the best seeds and peers ratio is not really making the process easy for people to understand and use.  Bittorrent clients such as uTorrent do go a long way to make things easier for people to use the technology - but I envisage something alot easier.

If a user could sign into a website and select a torrent from a list to download and then have the website download the torrent file for them into a folder held on that website - then that would make life alot easier.  The user could sign off the site and still have the torrent downloading for them.  People could be forced to share the files back to a preset ratio and also, locally held completed copies of the torrents could be made available immediately to the user and then seeded back too.

If anyone has ever used the Easynews website to download from Newsgroup servers - then you will have the basic idea of what I mean.

This facility would make the interface to the Bittorrent network accessible, faster and less open to file leechers.  Of course this is just an idea of mine and the resources to run such a service would be huge but would bring benefit to basic users.

Its about time of the year that I did another A-List. A detail of my favorite software that I am installing/using these days. It's probably not going to be much different from the previous list, but here goes…

OS:
Windows XP Media Center editon with Office 2003.
Installed this version of Windows so I could stream video to my Xbox 360.

Virus/Spyware:
I have ditched the Symantec AntiVirus 10 and the Giant Anti Spyware (now known as Microsoft Defender) and am using ZoneAlarm Security Suite. Since having this installed I have had nothing unusual turn up on the PC, only cookies. Even with Symantec and Giant installed before, if I ran a scan it always found something, but ZoneAlarm seems excellent! Plus with the ZoneAlarm firewall built in you can't go wrong.

Browser:
Firefox, firefox, firefox!!! Get it! This is a no-brainer really. Since using this my spyware infections have literally dropped off the planet. I have also installed the FasterFox extension which makes it even faster! I also have the Web Developer Toolbar installed into Firefox which makes checking and testing CSS changes in my blog all the easier. It also makes me into a god when helping people over at the Blogger Help Group.

Torrent Sites:

• Demonoid
• Mininova
• ISOHunt

I still use torrents frequently and they are the three sites that I use most often.
I have started using uTorrent to download torrent files as I found that the webs most popular torrent client, Azureus was big, bloated, built from Java and made my router hang all the time (despite its numerous awards) . uTorrent is small, runs from a folder with no installation needed and is fast! I have also found that on my 2mb ADSL line, if I limit my upload to 18kbps on each torrent, the download speed goes up like a rocket (seeds pending out course). I am thinking of doing a basic "uTorrent users guide" soon - so watch this space.

P2P Apps:
None.
Yep - thats right - none!
I have given up on using these. The last time I was bothering, Warez was still my favorite but now that the torrents have really picked up and downloading stuff does not seem so important any more, I have stopped using it.

Bookmarks:
Some new bookmarks that I go to each day are the Del.icio.us popular links, my Bloglines subscriptions and the Digg.com homepage. There is always something new and amazing on there to look at over lunch. I have started using Del.icio.us more to store my bookmarks now. With Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature, they are available immediately regardless of if I am at home or work.

Recap:
Away Goal:
ZoneAlarm, uTorrent, Del.icio.us, Digg, Torrents

Own Goal:
Symantec, Giant Antispyware, P2P apps, Azureus

Technorati Tags: a-list, symantec, zonelabs, zonealarm, spyware, virus, microsoft, defender, bittorrent, utorrent, azureus, firefox, media center, fasterfox, delicious, bloglines, digg
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I managed to get a copy of TRON from… er… somewhere and it's a great copy in widescreen too!

I attempted to convert it to DVD using DVD Santa and got an "Unsupported video stream" error. Roxio 8 also decides to give me a cryptic "unspecified error" plus a load of hex to go with it! Fecking computers!

So, it appears that the format of the file is one of those odd DivX ones that refuses to convert without a lot of hassle. I also downloaded DivXtoDVD too (after reading a few good things about it) and after converting and burning which took about 2 hours, the quality of the DVD is jumpy and the audio is about 3 seconds ahead of the video!

Good job i've still got my old, modded XBox to watch it on over the network.

On a side note, I have decided to post at least once per day this month in an attempt to kick start my blogging again. I failed yesterday though already! I was discussing a possible "april fools day" post with Swimpig over breakfast yesterday but nothing came of it.

Technorati Tags: divx, dvdsanta, divxtodvd, tron, dvd, convert, blog, roxio, xbox,

Back in the day, this blog used to be all about Torrents and warez and stuff like that - so in honour of my old ways, here's a link to the mostest biggerest list of torrent sites I have ever seen!

All mixed down into categories too!

Thankyou Web of Knowledge