How to Use Torrents

Torrents are one of the most popular forms of file sharing on the internet, accounting for over 50% of all internet traffic. While they are incredibly widespread, they can still be daunting for newcomers. Luckily, getting into the torrent scene is actually quite easy, and you can be sharing files in just a few minutes. See Step 1 below to learn how.

Part 1 of 4: Installing a Torrent Client

1

Understand the basics of torrents. Torrent files allow you to download virtually any type of file from everyone else that is sharing it. Torrents allow files to be split into many small chunks. These chunks are then downloaded from other users who already have that chunk on their computer. Once all of the pieces are downloaded, the file is reconstructed and is ready to use on your computer.[1]

1.When you are downloading torrent content you are a "leecher". When you are sharing content, you are a "seeder". This terminology will come up more later.

2. Read up on copyright law. A lot of what is shared using Torrents is done so illegally. Do not be one of these people. Only share and download material that you have the legal right to share.

2

Download a BitTorrent client. A BitTorrent client manages your torrent downloads and seeding. It is required in order to download a torrent. Make sure you download your torrent client from a reliable source. There are dozens of clients available, but some popular choices are BitTorrent, uTorrent, and Vuze.

3

Install the client. Be very careful during the installation of your torrent client. Many clients come bundled with adware and browser hijackers that need to be manually deselected during the installation process.

Part 2 of 4: Downloading Torrents

Find a tracker site. Torrent trackers are listings of torrent files. The trackers don't actually host any content on their servers, but simply act as a repository for torrent files. Trackers exist in two varieties: public and private.

1.Public trackers are open to anyone, and can be easily found with a quick Google search. They do not require registration, and have no sharing requirements. Public trackers are often littered with advertisements. Because of their public nature, many torrents are tracked by copyright holders, and downloading them can result in action from your internet service provider.

2.Private trackers are usually invite-only, and can typically not be found through Google searches. You will be required to sign up for an account, and your file sharing ratio is often monitored to make sure you are seeding at least as much as you are leeching.

2

Search for the file you want. Use the search function on the torrent tracker to find the file that you want to download. The tracker will return a list of results based on your search. There will likely be several results to choose from, especially if the file is a popular one.

1.Use popular shorthand for finding the file you want. For example: if you need the fifth episode from the fourth season of a show, search for "<show name> s04e05".

2.Many public trackers will list advertisements at the top of your search results designed to look like legitimate search results.

3

Determine which file you should download. When there are multiple results for the file you want, you'll need to determine which one to choose. There are a couple factors to consider when choosing a result.

1.Quality - If you are downloading a video, the encoding process will result in differing quality between files. In general, larger files will be higher quality than smaller ones. Check the Comments on the torrent to ensure that the quality of the file is good. Many torrents allow users to rate them, which can help with your decision.

2.Number of seeders - The more seeders a file has, the quicker you will be able to download it. This is because there will be more people to connect to when you are downloading the chunks of the file. If there are significantly more leechers than seeders, you may be waiting a while for the file to finish. Most trackers list the number of seeders and the number of leechers next to each search result. Most trackers will allow you to sort by the number of seeders.

4

Ensure that you can run the content. This is especially important for video files, as they are often encoded with file formats that are not supported by Windows Media Player or QuickTime. To ensure that you can watch any video you download, install a specialized video player such as VLC Player or Media Player Classic.

.Oftentimes torrent files come in ISO format. These are rips of discs, and need to be burned or mounted in a virtual drive in order to run them.

5

Be careful when choosing a file. Torrents are a popular way to transmit viruses and other infected files. If a file has a lot of seeders, the file is much more likely to be safe. Likewise, the Comments section will often clue you in to bad torrents.

6

Download the torrent. Once you've found the torrent file you want, click the download link on the tracker to download the torrent to your computer. The actual torrent file is very small, and should only take a second to download. Remember, the torrent file itself doesn't contain any content, it only serves as a way to connect to other people sharing the file.

7

Open the torrent file. Most torrent files will configure Windows to automatically start your torrent client when a torrent file is opened. If not, open your torrent client and then use the client to open the file.

1.If you didn't configure a download location when you installed your client, you will be asked where you want to save the file when the torrent is loaded.

2.If you don't have enough free space for the file you want to download, you will not be able to start the download process.

8

Wait for the download to begin. After a few moments, your torrent client will begin connecting to seeders. You will see your download speed increase in the status bar for your download, and the 1.progress bar will start creeping towards 100%.[2]

You can download multiple torrents at the same time, though your overall maximum download speed will be split between all active transfers.

Part 3 of 4: Seeding Torrents

1

Keep sharing after your file has finished. Torrents rely on the community sharing files. Torrent files will die if there are no seeders that have the entire file. Every torrent user should do their part and share files after they have finished downloading.

1.Most internet service plans have slower upload speeds than download speeds. This means that in order to maintain a 1:1 ratio of leech to seed, you may need to keep your Torrent tracker open longer than just the time needed to download. A good way to do this is to leave your Torrent client running in the background.

2.Note: If you move or delete the files, you will lose the ability to seed.

2

Set an upload limit. Many torrent clients allow you to set a limit that the torrent will seed to. This option is typically found in the Preferences menu of your client, under the Queueing section.

1.Set a minimum ratio. This will be the minimum that your torrents will seed to after the download has been finished. Try to set it to at least 100%. This means that if you downloaded a 300MB file, you would seed until you reached 300MB sent.

2.If you want seeding to stop after the ratio has been met, set the speed limit to 0.

3

Seed for private trackers. Private trackers often have strict seeding requirements. Oftentimes they require that you seed at least 100% of what you share, usually more. If you don't maintain this ratio, your account will be banned and you will lose access to the tracker.[3]

Part 4 of 4: Creating a Torrent

1

Open your torrent client. Besides downloading torrent files, your torrent client can also create torrent files. Torrents are a great way to share files with friends, family, or your enthusiast community. Be very careful when sharing copyright material, as the creator of the torrent is much more likely to be prosecuted than the people that download it.

2

Create the torrent file. While the process varies slightly depending on the client, you can generally click File and select "Create New Torrent" or something similar. This will open the torrent creation tool.

3

Add your files. Torrents can contain one or many files. Use the "Add File" and "Add Directory" buttons to browse your computer for files that you want to add to the torrent. You can share virtually any type of file with a torrent.

4

Add trackers. In the Torrent Properties section, you can find the "Trackers" field. Enter in tracker addresses to share your torrent on multiple trackers. Most torrent clients will automatically include the most popular trackers, but if you are using a private tracker you will need to add it manually.

5

Start seeding. Click the Create button and your torrent will begin seeding. Make sure that you keep seeding until a good number of other seeders have grabbed the file. If you stop seeding before anyone is able to finish downloading, your torrent will die.

00:49

How to Activate GPRS

GPRS (Global Packet Radio Service) is a packet-based method of data transfer, used for wireless services on cellular phones and mobile Internet devices. This means that data files are broken into chunks, or packets, to be routed through different Internet channels, then are put together again to form the complete data file once they reach their destination location. With GPRS, data transfers at a much faster rate than with mobile communication services, and those using GPRS have uninterrupted Internet connections on all of their mobile devices. GPRS services enable MP3 downloads, videos, games, wallpapers, animations and more. Each mobile service provider has different guidelines for activating GPRS, so follow the method appropriate to your provider. Mobile phone SIM (Subscriber Identification Module) cards sometimes come with the GPRS capabilities already activated, but if your SIM is not equipped with GPRS, you will have to opt-in to GPRS services. Follow the steps below for how to activate GPRS.

                              Steps

1

Determine that you have a phone with a SIM card that is equipped for Global Packet Radio Service. You cannot activate GPRS on a phone that is not programmed for GPRS services. If you do not have the correct type of phone and/or SIM card, you will have to get a new one.

2

Enroll in a mobile service provider plan that is GPRS compatible. GPRS is available in over 200 countries. Shop around for a mobile phone service that provides GPRS and GPRS-equipped phones.

3

Contact your service provider and ask for instructions. The customer care department should be able to guide you through the steps necessary to activate GPRS services on your phone. The activation process generally requires 1 of the following 3 steps:

Calling your provider's automated GPRS activation service using the appropriate number code.

Sending an SMS (Short Message Service) or text message to activate GPRS. The message text will be a number or codeword that your service provider can give you.

Accessing GPRS services settings through a menu on your mobile phone. Once your service provider gives you instructions to guide you to the appropriate menu, you can control the GPRS services settings on your phone, and sometimes access GPRS applications, depending on your service provider and the mobile telephone model you are using.

00:50

How to Change the 2013/2014 TDSB Desktop Wallpaper

So not too long ago, the TDSB implemented what seemed to be an "unchangeable" desktop wallpaper. It was originally speculated that it was just an image that was being displayed over the actual desktop. This, for the most part, turned out to be true. Thanks to the TDSB understanding less about how Windows works than the students, we have figured out a way around the overlapping image.

Steps

1

Start by picking a wallpaper: preferably one larger than the resolution of the screen attached to the computer.

2

Right click the image and click the "Save image as" option. Save the image to your desktop with the name "tdsb.jpg".

3

If the computer is running Windows XP, click the start button in the bottom left and select "Run". In the run textbox, type %systemroot% and hit enter. If the computer is running Windows 7, just open the start menu and type %systemroot% into the search bar at the bottom. If for some reason you do not have access to the "run" feature, simply open up any explorer window (Ex. Home Drive) and type %systemroot% into the address bar.

4

Find the image. When you are at systemroot (It will appear as "C:\Windows"), you will have to search for a file named tdsb.jpg. When you find it, replace it with your version of tdsb.jpg. If you cannot find tdsb.jpg, just drag your tdsb.jpg version into the folder and it will still work.'

5

Log off and back on and voilà! You have a new desktop wallpaper!

17:40

How to Build a Supercomputer

Are you in need of a machine that can deliver hundreds of trillions of floating-point calculations per second? Or are you in need of a bar story about how the supercomputer in your basement flipped a breaker? Building your own High Performance Compute cluster, a.k.a. supercomputer, is a challenge any expert geek with a weekend of free time and some cash to burn can tackle. Technically speaking, a modern, multi-processor supercomputer is a network of computers working together in parallel to solve a problem. This article will briefly describe each step in the process, focusing on hardware and software.

Steps

1

First determine the hardware components and resources needed. You will need one head node, at least a dozen identical compute nodes, an Ethernet switch, a power distribution unit, and a rack. Determine the electrical demand, cooling and space required. Also decide on what IP address you want for your private networks, what to name the nodes, what software packages you want installed, and what technology you want to provide the parallel computing capabilities (more on this later).

Though the hardware is expensive, all software listed in this how-to is free, and most are open source.

If you would like to see how fast your supercomputer would theoretically be, use this tool: http://hpl-calculator.sourceforge.net/

2

Build the compute nodes. You will need to assemble the compute nodes or acquire pre-build servers.

Choose a computer server chassis that maximizes space, cooling, and energy efficiency.

Or you can utilize a dozen or so used, outdated servers - whose whole will outweigh the sum of their parts yet save you a sizable lump of cash. All processors, network adapters, and motherboards should be identical for the whole system to play together nicely. Of course, don't forget about RAM and storage for each node and at least one optical drive for the head node.

3

Install the servers into the rack. Start from the bottom, so the rack isn't top heavy. You will need a friend to help you with this - the dense servers can be very heavy and guiding them into the rails that hold them into the rack is difficult.

4

Install the Ethernet switch above the server chassis. Take this moment to configure the switch: allow for jumbo frame sizes of 9000 bytes, set the IP address to the static address you decided on in step 1, and turn off unnecessary routing protocols such as SMTP Snooping.

5

Install the PDU (Power Distribution Unit). Depending on how much current your nodes may need at maximum load, you may need 220 volts for high performance computing.

6

With everything installed, you can begin the configuration process. Linux is the de facto OS for HPC clusters–not only is it the ideal environment for scientific computing, but it doesn't cost a thing to install it on hundreds or even thousands of nodes. Imagine how much it would cost to install Windows on all those nodes?

Begin with installing the latest version of the motherboard BIOS and firmware, which should be the same on all nodes.

Install your preferred linux distro on each node, with a graphical UI for the head node. Popular choices include CentOS, OpenSuse, Scientific Linux, RedHat, and SLES.

This author highly recommends using the Rocks Cluster Distribution. In addition to installing all the tools necessary for a compute cluster to function, Rocks uses a great method for 'distributing' many instances of itself to the nodes very quickly using PXE boot and the Red Hat 'Kick Start' procedure.

7

Install the message-passing interface, resource-manager, and other necessary libraries. If you didn't install Rocks in the previous step, you will have to manually setup the necessary software to enable the parallel computing mechanisms.

First you will need a portable bash management system, such as the Torque Resource Manager, which allows you to break-up and distribute tasks to multiple machines.

Pair Torque with the Maui Cluster Scheduler to complete the setup.

Next you will need to install the message passing interface, necessary for the individual processes on the separate compute nodes to share the same data. OpenMP is a no-brainer.

Don't forget the multi-threading math libraries and compilers to build your parallel computing programs. Did I mention that you should just install Rocks?

8

Network the compute nodes together. The head node sends the compute tasks to the compute nodes, which in turn must send the result back, as well as sending messages to each other. The faster the better.

Use a private ethernet network to connect all the nodes in the cluster.

The head node can also act as a NFS, PXE, DHCP, TFTP, and NTP server over the Ethernet network.

You must separate this network from public networks, which ensures that broadcast packets don't interfere with other networks in your LAN.

9

Test the cluster. The last thing you may want to do before releasing all this compute power to your users is test it's performance. The HPL (High Performance Lynpack) benchmark is a popular choice for measuring the computational speed of the cluster. You will need to compile it from source with all possible optimizations your compiler offers for the architecture you chose.

You must, of course, compile from source with all possible optimization options for your platform. For example, if using AMD CPUs, compile with Open64 with -0fast optimization level.

Compare your results on TOP500.org to compare your cluster to the fastest 500 supercomputers in the world!

11:13

How to Add a Sound Device to a Computer

Are you looking for a way to add a sound device to your computer? Well, here is a simple solution so easy, that even a cave man can do it!

Steps

1

Go to your start menu. It's the button in the bottom left or top left corner on your computer.

2

Once you have pressed the start menu button, your computer menu should pop up on the side. Do not go to "Programs". Instead, look on the right column and search for the control panel.

3

Click on it and wait a while for the control panel to load.

4

Within a few seconds, your control panel should pop-up. Proceed looking through the different icons until you see a button that says "Hardware and Sound."

5

Click where it says "Add a device".

6

Follow the set up wizard to add the device.

11:02

How to Add a Printer to Mac or iOS Devices

Are you finding it difficult to add a printer to your Mac device? When the print command is given to the Mac OS X app, then printing dialog appears representing a sheet with the window. In the printer popup menu, you can check the lists of all the available printers that can be used to accomplish printing jobs. The Apple Mac OS X device has the built-in software for few printers, this helps in automatically adding printer to the list when USB port is needed.

Steps

1

Connect Printer to the PC. Before you begin with the printing process, make sure the printer is properly connected to your computer system, and check all the cables are plugged in nicely. Then turn on the device.

2

Browse Printer Menu. In the Mac OS X v 10.2.8 or earlier versions, you can go in the ‘Printer’ menu to select ‘Edit Printer List’. As soon as you do this, the Printer List window appears soon. You can now select the ‘Show Printer List’ in the ‘View’ menu and then the ‘Printer List window’ appears

3

Add Printer. Now look for the ‘Add Printer’ button and click it for establishing connectivity with the printer and the computer system.

4

Complete USB Printer Connectivity. In the first popup menu, you have to select USB. Then your printer appearing in the list is selected. Click on ‘Add’ option. After completing the connectivity, close the ‘Printer List Window’

10:33

How to Clean a Touch Screen

Two Methods:Using a microfiber clothUsing alcohol gel

Smudges all over your gadget's touchscreen? Maybe the fingerprint trail for the latest, must-have game you are addicted to lies on your screen? Regularly cleaning your cell phone, tablet, MP3 player's touchscreen, or any other touch screen device is essential for its upkeep and longevity. Learn how to wipe away those smudges with ease and how to avoid doing things your touchscreen would not appreciate.

Method 1 of 2: Using a microfiber cloth

1

Choose a microfiber cloth. This is ideal for cleaning a touchscreen. Some devices will have such a cloth included or perhaps you can borrow one you use on your sunglasses.

.The cost of such cloth varies. For cloth recommended by companies for their products, the price can be considerably higher simply because of the recommendation. Look around for a good deal on such cloth or substitute with a cheaper but still effective microfiber cloth.

2

Turn off the device before commencing to clean it. It is usually much easier to see where to clean when the device is switched off.

3

Give the screen a once over by brushing it with the microfiber in small circles. This will remove the majority of simple imperfections.

4

Only if truly needed, moisten a cotton cloth, even the corner of your cotton shirt, and repeat the small circular motions. It may actually be enough to just breathe over the screen and use that moisture to clean with.

Read the instructions accompanying the cloth you're using. Some of them need to be made slightly damp before use. If this is the case, skip this step and follow the cloth's instructions instead.

If dampening a cloth, it is best to use distilled water.

5

Brush again with the microfiber cloth to finish off. Don't over-rub though! And if there is any dampness left, just leave it to air dry.

Do not put too much pressure on the screen when cleaning it.

6

Wash the microfiber cloth. To wash the microfiber cloth, soak it in warm, soapy water. The warm water serves to open the fibers and release the grime that may have gathered. Scrub the cloth lightly while soaking it (not too hard or you will damage the cloth). After soaking, avoid squeezing out any excess water, let the cloth out to air dry. If you're in a hurry, you may want to blow dry it. Do not wash any screens with the cloth until dry (or lightly damp) to the touch.

          Method 2 of 2: Using alcohol gel

This method is good because the sanitizer kills all the germs.

1

Get some alcohol gel. It is also known as hand sanitizer.

2

Take a clean paper towel.

3

Squeeze a little gel into the paper towel.

4

Wipe down the screen.

5

Use a clean microfiber cloth to remove smudges - but there shouldn't be any!

10:15