How To Make Media Center Download Torrents Automatically
Jan 20, 2010 Hacks, Information
I have been asked about my Windows Media Center setup and how I have it setup to automatically download tv shows and email me a message when they are complete for quite some time now. Well the time has now come, long awaited I know. I have been meaning to get around to this for well over 3 months now. Sorry about that but finally here it is.
First I think it would help if you read these articles first.
How to Install and Configure uTorrent
http://www.userbytes.com/how-to-install-and-configure-utorrent/
How to Install and Configure Peer Guardian
http://www.userbytes.com/how-to-install-and-configure-peer-guardian/
How to Spot the Best Torrents for Fast Downloads
http://www.userbytes.com/how-to-spot-the-best-torrents-for-fast-downloads/
Ok so like I was saying, simply put, I have a computer tucked away in our tv armoire that is connected to our 42 inch HDTV, and it monitors RSS feeds for television shows that I tell it to look for, and it downloads them when they are available. When the download is complete, the computer sends an email notification that it is indeed finished and ready for viewing.
My Setup
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
2.8 GHZ Intel Pentium D CPU x2
1.5 GiG Ram
500 Gig Harddrive
2 Video Capture Cards – Hauppauge WinTV PVR 150 with remote
I know its old but it has worked best for me for a long time now, since October 2006 I believe. Media Center is Microsoft’s Digital Video Recorder, or DVR as most call it. You can pause and record live tv, schedule shows and movies to record for later viewing too.
Read the rest of this entry »
How to Spot the Best Torrents for Fast Downloads
Jan 19, 2010 Information, Software
Ok so in a previous article you learned how to download and install utorrent a bittorrent downloading application. I also provided you with sites in which to download torrents.
On of my favorites is http://www.thepiratebay.org. We will use that site today and I will show you how to download an episode of The Office and how to choose the best one for faster downloads.
Open your browser and navigate to http://www.thepiratebay.org
I did a search for The Office and check the box that says Video.
This was my result.
On most search sites you will see Seeds and Leechers. SEeds are the people sharing this file, while LEechers are the people downloading the files.
You will want it to be equal or better to have more seeds than leechers.
What I do is organize it by clicking on the SE to put the most seeders at the top
See how I now have one and it has a lot of seeders and very little leachers. This will guarantee me a fast download.
I will click on the first one in the list.
After clicking on the first one in the list I was presented with this page where I can view comments on this file from other viewers and download the torrent.
Since I use FireFox, this is the save dialogue box I got when I clicked on the link to download the torrent.
I just clicked ok since it was set to open my default torrent client utorrent.
UTorrent is asking me where to save the file too. I am fine with the default of My DocumentsDownloads
You can barely see it cause I had to resize the image, but I was right, a very fast download indeed.
I will have this show in 5 minutes and it will be commercial free.
Once the download is complete I will navigate to where it downloaded and watch it on my computer or media center setup.
How to Install and Configure uTorrent
Jan 18, 2010 Information, Software
Ok now that you know how to protect your internet activities with Peer Guardian, lets proceed in teaching you what you need to use to download tv shows, music and possibly movies from the internet. If you want to do it and do it fast you will want to know all about torrents and the best program to use is µTorrent.
Utorrent is the worlds most popular bittorrent client. Most of the features present in other BitTorrent clients are present in µTorrent, including bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading and Mainline DHT (compatible with BitComet). Additionally, µTorrent supports the Protocol Encryption joint specification.
For more information on what a torrent is, and how it all works check out The Lowdown on BitTorrent or this Wiki page.
But to sum it up real fast, think of the file you want to download. Usually you would use something like LimeWire or BearShare or something, do a search, and download from a single individual that was sharing it on their computer. With Torrents, you download a piece of the file you want from many sources that are sharing it across the internet. This way you get it super fast. You are not limited to a single persons computer speed they are sharing from.
Ok lets move on and set this program up!
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How to Install and Configure Peer Guardian
Jan 17, 2010 Information, Software
PeerGuardian is an open source IP filter that is designed to block the IP addresses of certain organizations and corporations that may wish to invade a users privacy while using the Internet and peer-to-peer file sharing networks. The following tutorial shows how to set up PeerGuardian 2 for use p2p file sharing software like Utorrent and limewire.
You need this program if you do a lot of downloading of music, tv shows, movies, etc using torrents or other peer to peer programs to aquire such files.
Your internet provider and other government task forces monitor for such traffic and can prosecute if they catch you downloading illegal files.
First download the application and save it to somewhere like your desktop for easy access. Once installed you can delete the download package.
Begin by double clicking on the PeerGuardian Install Icon (the file you downloaded)
Begin the installation process by clicking “Next”.
Tags: peer guardian
How do I uninstall U3 from my flash drive?
Jan 9, 2010 Information
I am sure that many of you have gotten some USB Flash drives for Christmas or maybe just picked one up recently for file storage and you realized that it was hard to add files to it.
I know myself that I recently got one and it had the U3 mess installed on it which made it hard to know exactly where to put the files. It also acted like a cd rom at times. It was really annoying me.
I just wanted a simple USB drive to add files to easily.
So, the question arises. How do I uninstall U3 from my flash drive?
Most U3 smart drives come with an uninstall utility that converts the U3 smart drive into a regular USB flash drive.
This utility can be accessed from the U3 Launchpad.
Open the U3 Launchpad and click on Settings, then select U3 Launchpad Settings and click on the Uninstall tab.
Some devices have a link to the Uninstall utility under Help and Support.
If you can not find the uninstall utility on your U3 smart drive you can download it from the following locations:
Remove U3
U3 removal tool for MAC
Tags: U3 flashdrives
Top 5 Tech Articles of 2009
Dec 31, 2009 Information
Well the New Year is finally upon us and I wanted to share with you the top 5 posts of 2009 in case you missed it.
1. How To Set Up Email On Your Blackberry
2. How To Share Iphone Applications With Other Iphones
3. Roll Your Own MultiBoot USB Flash Drive
Hope you have enjoyed reading this technology blog and continue to come back often to read more.
Thanks!
Tags: Happy New Year
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Dec 24, 2009 Information
I would like to take this time to thanks all my UserBytes readers for visiting our site this year.
We want to wish you all a very Safe and Happy Holiday Season.
Remember… if you DRINK ALCOHOL this holiday season, DO NOT drive. Tennessee Highway Patrol Col. Mike Walker issued this warning: “If we catch you, we will arrest you. No exceptions. No excuses.”
Violators often face jail time, the loss of their driver’s license, higher insurance rates and dozens of other unanticipated expenses. These include attorney fees, other fines and court costs, towing and repairs, plus lost time at work.
This goes for all states not just Tennessee!!!
So please if you drink, find yourself a designated driver.
Please have yourself a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year
The iPhone Is Amazing
Dec 17, 2009 Information, iphone
I know I have said this time and time again but it really is and it can only get better and better.
Yesterday I went out of town to go shopping before all the last minute hustlers and bustlers ruled the road as well as the mall. I cant stand to be in the mall or on the roads with too many people that are aimless. I mean I see them walking in the malls like zombies with no clue as what they are doing there other than to be in my way. Same goes for the roads. I saw several drivers that failed to yield or even stop at stop signs. It was a mess.
This is how it is year after year. I started Christmas shopping early several years ago to avoid this mess but this year I have slacked a little. Luckily before the week of Christmas I am done.
Anyways back to why the iPhone is amazing, I was traveling yesterday and I had this song rattling in my head for several days now. I had this song in my collection at home once but I have somehow lost it. The day before this trip I looked hard for it as I was preparing my iPhone and my USB Flash DriveUSB Flash Drive full of music to listen to while traveling.
My car stereo is amazing too. It can receive music from my iPhone over bluetooth as well as play music back from a USB flash drive.
So I had just about shuffled through all of my music and I was still thinking about that song that I didn’t have that I really wanted to hear.
As I was traveling down Interstate 240 and cars were zooming all around like it was the Autobahn or Indy 500 I did a semi dangerous thing and decided to use my iPhone while driving, and launch the iTunes app within it (which I never use) and see if I could find that song and say what the hell and purchase it if I found it. Can I do this while driving down the road? You bet your jiggawatts you can and with ease too! Just a few clicks and 4 minutes is all it took.
Here is the song. Its Amerie 1 Thing. Very catchy tune.
I think later of course used my TomTom app on the phone to navigate to another store. Listing to music while navigating, and I get a phone call in the middle of it all and the music fades, I answer the call over the stereo that is also kick butt, and after the call, the TomTom app goes right back the where it was, and the music resumes.
This phone is just amazing!!!
Shutdown or Reboot Shortcut in Windows XP
Dec 16, 2009 Hacks, Information
Well now that you know how to launch several programs with one click, how about I show you how to shut your computer down superfast?
This file you are about to create should be used at your own risk. I just have to say that for legal mumbo jumbo, but hey trust me it will work.
This file will kill all currently running apps on a system that you have started with the exception of a few locked Windows processes and some antivirus products making for a fast shutdown or reboot.
Here is the recipe for what I call a “just do it!” script. What its doing is basically killing off all apps that are started in your username and at the end its rebooting the computer.
@echo off
title Kill all running apps
cd c:windowsSystem32
for /f “skip=3 tokens=1″ %%i in (‘TASKLIST /FI “USERNAME eq %userdomain%%username%” /FI “STATUS eq running”‘) do (
if not “%%i”==”svchost.exe” (
if not “%%i”==”explorer.exe” (
if not “%%i”==”cmd.exe” (
if not “%%i”==”tasklist.exe” (
echo.
taskkill /f /im “%%i”
echo.
)
)
)
)
)
shutdown -r -f -t 00
Remember to copy and paste this into notepad and save it as a bat file like we showed you in the earlier post
If you don’t want the computer to reboot and you simply want it to shutdown, and I mean shutdown fast, then just remove the -r like this shutdown -f -t 00
Start All Your Programs With One Click
Dec 16, 2009 Hacks, Information
Today I am going to show you an easy way to launch all your favorite programs with the click of one icon.
Normally I leave my computers running 24/7. I know that’s not very green of me but that’s what I do. On the occasional reboot I have several of the same apps that I constantly use and I hate to click each one and wait for it to load so I created a batch file that will launch the ones I use the most with one single click.
Here is how its done.
Lets say you want to launch Firefox, Microsoft Outlook, Opera, and Pidgin. These will need to be installed on your computer of course.
First open notepad and copy and paste the following into it and save it as something like “startall.bat”
@echo off
cd
c:
start /d “C:Program FilesPidgin” pidgin.exe
echo Launched Pidgin!
start /d “C:Program FilesMozilla Firefox” firefox.exe
echo Launched Firefox!
start /d “C:Program FilesOpera” opera.exe
echo Launched Opera!
start /d “C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice12″ outlook.exe
echo Launched Outlook!
exit
Remember that when in notepad go to File then Save As and notice the Save As Type in the dialogue box? Change that to All Files or it will default to a standard text document and this will not work.
That’s it! Save your batch file to your desktop labeled to something like I said earlier like StartAll.bat and there you go, double click it and all your apps that you coded into the file will launch.
Let me teach you how to find your own apps to add to this code above.
Through lots of trial and error I finally figured out the magic behind all this and its simply start /d and you have to have the correct quotations in place.
On your computer double click My Computer or click Start and click on My Computer and then Click your C drive and navigate to Program Files. Here lets look for programs that we want to launch when we want to.
For fun I have navigated to C:Program FilesInternet Explorer and within that directory I see iexplore.exe which is indeed the Internet Explorer Application.
Now if I want to add that to my StartAll.bat file I would simply need to modify the code a bit to look like this:
start /d “C:Program FilesInternet Explorer“ iexplore.exe
Just to be clear on the syntax for this I am going to retype this below and for spaces I will use [spacebar]
start[spacebar]/d[spacebar]“C:Program[spacebar]FilesInternet[spacebar]Explorer”[spacebar]iexplorer.exe
I hope this makes sense and helps you out.
If you have any tips or improvements to this please list them in the comments section below.
