Let me tell you about my story with NetFlix and Blockbuster and why I chose NetFlix once again and urge you to take advantage of the free

I once was a long time user of NetFlix. I used it and loved it, got 3 rentals at a time and things were good. Later I crossed over to Blockbuster to save a few dollars, and Blockbuster allowed you to return your movies to the store and get your next free rental right there in the store. I thought this was neat and it was at the time cheaper than NetFlix.

I was enjoying Blockbuster until an unfortunate turn of events in 2008 left me without a 9 to 5, so I dropped it.

Now that I have a new line of work, I can once again afford a simple luxury of online movie rentals, and the best part is that it all has become even more affordable.

There have also been many advances in the online movie rental business lately which makes it even more appealing.

month long trial they are offering right now.

With more than 15 million members, Netflix, is the world’s largest subscription service streaming movies and TV episodes over the Internet and sending DVDs by mail. For $8.99 a month, Netflix members can instantly watch unlimited TV episodes and movies streamed to their TVs and computers and can receive unlimited DVDs delivered quickly to their homes. With Netflix, there are never any due dates or late fees. Members can select from a growing library of titles that can be watched instantly and a vast array of titles on DVD. Among the large and expanding base of devices that can stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix are Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s PS3 and Nintendo’s Wii consoles; Blu-ray disc players from Samsung, LG and Insignia; Internet TVs from LG, Sony and VIZIO; the Roku digital video player and TiVo digital video recorders, and Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Streaming video is all the rage now, and NetFlix is in the lead with its new iPhone / iPod / iPad application and its even included in the new Apple TV, even Microsoft has adopted it into its Windows Vista and Windows 7 Media Center.

Poor Blockbuster…. with its lack of streaming is facing bankruptcy as it cant keep up.

Recently, I became interested in NetFlix again, especially in the streaming ability to portable devices. I wanted to stream to my iPhone and to my Windows Media Center 7 in the living room, so using another family members account and I was able to test it out and I was well pleased. I really enjoyed how smooth the video was on my iPhone. It even works really well over 3G.

On the Windows Media Center it works really well too. The install was a breeze, simply navigate to the NetFlix icon and press it. Then you will be presented with a button to press to install it. Then all you will need to do is log in and start searching for movies.

Watch a short video of it how it all works on Media Center here. (From Microsoft)

I found this video on YouTube and its pretty good and showing you exactly how it is on the Windows Media Center.

After that I found another video on YouTube showcasing how NetFlix works on the iPhone.

Both pretty good videos.

I think NetFlix is here to stay and will definitely be around for a long time to come. I think you should at least give the free trial a shot.

This is convenient if your work forbids you from downloading torrents.  I was once with some friends having dinner and one asks have I seen The Uninvited. I says no. Then I thought hey I can download that right now before I forget, so I broke out my iphone, opened safari, went to the bookmark I had set for thepiratebay.org, looked for the movie, copied the link, then opened a new page in safari and clicked on the bookmark I had set for my utorrent on my personal machine at home, then logged into it, pasted the url to the torrent in there and clicked go. It began to download. Everyone was amazed. About 25 minutes later as we were getting in the car, my phone churped and it was an email notifying me that the download was complete and ready to watch ( I still have not watched it yet).

Now I am going to show you how you can do exactly the same thing.

First we need to setup a http://www.dyndns.com/ account to turn your ip address into a name.

Your ip address is a number that your internet service provider or ISP for short assigns you to allow you internet access. Sometimes this number changes and it would be hard to remember so we need to turn this number into a name.

Here is a how to article from their website.

https://www.dyndns.com/services/dns/dyndns/howto.html

Register for a free account at  http://www.dyndns.com/.  Agree to the site’s terms, and use a legitimate email address to complete registration. Once in awhile, DynDNS will email you at that address asking you to confirm that it continue your service.

Log into your new account. Go to the “My Services” area on the left side. Under “Host  Services” click “Add New HostName.” There, fill in the name you want to use.  DynDNS will autofill your IP address (if you’re doing this from your home computer). Choose a domain and type in a custom subdomain, which can be anything from lifehacker.kicks-ass.org or john.is-a-geek.com or something, like below:

Set up your computer to update DynDNS.

Now that your computer is registered with DynDNS, each time your computer’s IP address changes, it has to let DynDNS know. This can be done either with free updater client software or through your router.

If your computer is connected directly to the Internet, download the DynDNS updater client for Mac or Windows here. Install and enter your DynDNS information so that your computer can update DynDNS’s database regularly.

If you are behind a router, you’re in luck. Most modern routers support dynamic DNS services. Here’s a screen shot from a routers configuration page for just such a setup.

You’re done. Give your new domain a spin!

Type your new domain name by entering it in your web browser’s address bar. It should resolve to your home server. From here you can publicize or bookmark your server’s new domain name no matter how often your IP address changes.

Now that you have your dyndns, and utorrent setup, and know how to use it, let me show you how to use your iphone or computer from a remote location to download torrents to home.

In order for this to work you must have a computer at home that is on all the time acting as a “server”. This computer will have utorrent with its web interface running on it and possibly a dyndns updater.

So this is typically what I do…

Launch Safari and choose my torrent book mark of choice which is thepiratebay.org

I zoom in and type in the show or movie I want to download.

I zoomed in and selected a torrent.

Where it says “DOWNLOAD THIS TORRENT” I press and hold over the word to bring up the following window.

I select COPY to copy the selected link.

I open a new tab and select my home address where utorrent is running over the web.

I log into it.

I am in my box at home.

I zoom in and select the BLUE folder.

Now I select the Torrent URL: box and paste the torrent location into there.

The Torrent URL is posted. I click done and OK

It is now downloading. I can do this from anywhere in the world.

At this point I am feeling better than Superman.

This is what the email notifications look like

And that’s it. That is how I download torrents to my home Media Center using the iphone remotely.

Pretty neat huh?

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.

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!

Download the program here

Once downloaded simple double click the executable to start the install process.

You may have to tell your computer to Run this program.

Click “Next” to proceed.

Click “Next” after reading this.

Read and Agree to the License Agreement to continue.

Click “Next” to install utorrent to the default location.

Leave these standard defaults checked and click “Next”.

OK pay attention here. This is how a lot of toolbars sneak in on computers.
UNCHECK this 3 items about installing the ASK toolbar and click “Install” to continue.
It will install very fast as it is a small lightweight program.

After it installs you will be presented with this screen.
Click on “Run speed test” to determine your connection type.

This was my connection speed.

So I chose the 2Mbit connection speed.

Now lets test the Port that it random generated and see if its open.
NOTE: if its not open you may have to open or forward a port on your router.
This website will help you with step by step guides for your specific router.
http://portforward.com/

Looks like my port is ok and I am good to go!

Additional Settings

This is the web interface. Set this up if you plan to use your iphone or remote computer to initiate downloads while you are away.
Set a username and password that you will remember. Also you can set a port to whatever you wish or leave it at the default of 8080.
Using this, you may want to set up an account with dyndns.org so that you can easily reach your computer instead of having to remember your ip address.

Set your queuing to match the picture above. This will allow you to SEED (share back with others) your torrents, but not for too long to where it draws attention.

Finally lets set Encryption to enabled. This will prevent your ISP from noticing what you are downloading.
The network packets will be encrypted and they will not see that you are downloading the movie Avatar for example.

For more information on utorrent, please visit http://www.utorrent.com/faq

Some good sites to get tv shows would be:
http://eztv.it/

A good site for anything would be:
http://thepiratebay.org/

http://www.demonoid.com/

http://www.bitenova.org/

http://www.torrentreactor.to/

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”.

Read and Accept the License Agreement to continue.

Click “Next” to continue.

Click “Next” to install PeerGuardian 2 in the default location.

Click “Next” to create the default Start Menu folder.

Place a checkmark in the box next to “Start with Windows” and then click Next to continue.

Click “Install”

The install process takes place.

The installation is complete. Click “Finish” to start PeerGuardian.

Running PeerGuardian 2 For The First Time
Begin the First Time Setup Wizard by clicking “Next”.

Make sure the P2P list is check marked. The P2P Block List contains the addresses of corporations and organizations that scan or monitor peer-to-peer networks. Place a check mark next to “Always Allow HTTP” so that web surfing will not be effected by PeerGuardian. Click “Next” to continue.

Accept the default Automatic Update settings of “Every other day” and check for “PeerGuardian” and “Lists” updates. Click “Next” to continue”.

Click “Finish” to end the First Time Setup Wizard. Updates will be checked automatically and a List Cache will be generated.

Additional Settings

Click on the Settings tab at the top left of the main PeerGuardian 2 window.

Change the first group of settings at the top called “Log Window” to match the picture.
Make sure you remove the check mark from “Show Allowed Connections”.
Showing allowed connections. We don’t want to overload your system.

Change the middle group of settings at the top called “History” to match the picture.
Make sure you remove the check mark from “Log Allowed Connections”.
Again, We don’t want to overload your system.

Change the bottom group of settings at the top called “Notification” to match the picture.

Click on the “Next” button on the bottom right corner of the window and ensure your settings are the same as the picture below.

Thats it, all done. Now you are supposedly protected from prying eyes as to what you are downloading using programs like UTorrent and Limewire.

The demo video pretty much says it all. The historic imagery lets you go back in time to see how the location you’re viewing has changed over the years. For the cubicle-based deep sea explorers, the new ocean features integrate maps of the ocean’s floor along with videos from National Geographic with Google Earth. Finally, if you’ve ever wanted to record a custom tour, a new record feature makes it easy to create and save tours of the globe. Looking good, GOOG.

Source: Lifehacker.com