If you’re long time makeuseof reader at one point or another you may have seen several of these websites before. We have covered lots of lists and round-ups but this one is quite different: it lists undiscovered webservices that are original, rather unique, unusual, useful, free, and must-be bookmarked type. You won’t find any collaboration, storage or ToDo service here. More >>>
BitTorrent is often referred to as the best filesharing protocol for sharing large files. But why? What makes BitTorrent so unique? Well, lets take a sneak peek under the hood of your BitTorrent client, and list a couple of features that make BitTorrent as fast, stable, and robust as it is.
Torrents are great, they are the best way to share large files with your friends, or even with people you don’t know at all. But surprisingly enough, not many people create torrents when they need to share something. We show you how.
The uTorrent website has a great beginners guide for BitTorrent newbies. Worth a visit if you just started using BitTorrent.
By now you probably know how BitTorrent works, now you need a good place to find .torrent files. Here’s a list of 10 great BitTorrent sites. There’s also a list of 20 less known BitTorrent sites.
Some Internet providers try to slow you down when you use torrents. The Azureus wiki has list of ISPs who throttle BitTorrent traffic. It also suggests what encryption levels you should use.
More and more ISP’s are limiting and throttling BitTorrent traffic on their networks. By throttling BitTorrent traffic the speed of BitTorrent downloads decreases, and high speed downloads are out of the question. We show you some techniques that should help you evade some of these measures.
Sometimes it is impossible to use BitTorrent, if you’re at work, school, Comcast! or connected to a public hotspot for example. But there is an easy solution to overcome this problem. If you use a secure connection (SSH), you will be able to bypass almost every firewall.
The Swedish Pirate Party introduced a completely anonymous (VPN) service called Relakks. Relakks makes it possible to browse the web, and use p2p-applications (like BitTorrent) without being monitored by your ISP or anti-piracy gangs like the MPAA and RIAA.
BitTorrent can be fun, as long as you get decent speeds. Not satisfied with your current speeds? These suggestions might help you to optimize your download pleasures.
90% off all people use the default settings on their client, and that’s a problem. Azureus users might want to try this tutorial by Paul Stamatiou.
Configuring your BitTorrent client is extremely important if you want to get the best out of BitTorrent. However, the settings pane of the average BitTorrent client might be a bit overwhelming, and some people just don’t know where to start.
Nothing is more frustrating than your download getting stuck. The fact that a torrent has stopped downloading can have several reasons.
Are you tired of scanning several BitTorrent sites for the latest episodes of your favorite TV show? You should definitely try using RSS feeds then. RSS and BitTorrent are a perfect match.
How to create a personalized TV torrent feed, and have all your favorite TV torrents in one feed.
TVNanny is a BitTorrent site specializing in the indexing of TV show torrents. Using a subscription based interface, it’s possible to automatically download your favorite TV show episodes to your PC, utilizing the RSS feature in your chosen torrent client.
Gmail is more than a useful email service. In just a few steps you can turn it into your personal torrent search engine. And by using labels and filters you can keep your inbox clean.
A portable version of uTorrent may come in handy when you’re with friends, at school, or at work. It will fit perfectly on every usb-stick, iPod, mobile phone, or any other device that is recognized a “removable disk”.
uTorrent is currently only available for Windows. But that doesn’t going to stop us from running it in OS X.
The uTorrent WebUI can be used to access uTorrent from an external computer. This Firefox extension will make it even easier.
BitTorrent is great, but all those downloaded torrents have the habit of making a mess of your harddrive. Do you still have all your downloaded stuff in a single folder? Take action, organize your torrents. More >>>
1. Turn off Windows Search Indexing
Windows Vista search indexing is constantly reviewing files on your system to make their contents available for quick searching. This is handy, but can severely impact system performance.
To disable constant indexing:
* Click Start then Computer
* Right Click the C: Drive
* On General Tab, Uncheck Index this drive for faster searching
* On the subsequent dialog box, Select Include subfolders and files
2. Turn off Remote Differential Compression
Remote Differential Compression measures the changes in files over a network to transfer them with minimal bandwidth rather than transferring an entire file that has previously been moved. By constantly checking for file changes, this service can hinder system performance.
To disable this service:
* Open Control Panel
* Switch to Classic View
* Select Program Features
* Choose Turn Windows features on and off
* Scroll down and uncheck Remote Differential Compression
3. Turn off Automatic Windows Defender Operation
Windows Defender real-time protection against malware continues to run despite having Automatic operation disabled.
To disable this feature:
* Open Control Panel
* Select Windows Defender
* Choose Tools from the top menu
* Select Options
* Uncheck Auto Start at the bottom of the window
4. Turn off Automatic Disk Defragmentation
Windows Vista and its always-on defragment feature isn’t really that necessary and can cause system slow down. Just remember to run a defrag manually every week or so.
To disable this:
* Click Start then Computer
* Right Click the C: Drive
* Select the Tools Tab
* Uncheck Run on a schedule
5. Add a 2GB or higher USB Flash drive to take advantage of Windows Ready Boost (Additional Memory Cache)
Ready Boost is Microsoft’s name for using a USB thumb/flash drive to provide some quick access memory the operating system can use as extra RAM. The Ready Boost system can significantly improve system performance.
To set this up:
* Insert a USB Flash Drive
* Click Start then Computer
* Right Click the USB Drive in My Computer
* Select the Ready Boost Tab
* Choose Use this device
* Select as much space as you can free up for RAM usage vs. Storage
6. Turn off Windows Hibernation
Windows hibernation background services can use a large amount of system resources. If you don’t use the Hibernate feature on a regular basis you may want to disable it to give Vista a performance boost.
To disable Hibernation:
* Select the Control Panel then Power Options
* Click Change Plan Settings
* Click on Change Advanced Power Settings
* Expand the Sleep selection
* Expand the Hibernate After selection
* Crank the selector down to zero
* Click Apply
7. Turn off System Restore
Analysis and restore point creation by Windows Vista can eat a fair amount of system resources. Disabling this service will obviously mean the system restore feature in Vista will not be available in the event of a system crash. Change this at your own risk.
To disable this service:
* Control Panel>System
* Click System Protection on the left panel
* Uncheck the main system drive
* Agree to the confirmation
8. Disable User Access Control (UAC)
This much-loathed new Vista feature attempts to protect your system from malware infection by making you manually confirm a whole host of everyday user operations. While it doesn’t directly impact performance, it can be annoying and might be more hassle than good.
To disable User Access Control:
* Click Start then Control Panel
* Select User Accounts
* Select Turn User Account Control on or off
* Uncheck User Account Control Box
* Restart as recommended
9. Disable excess Windows Services that Auto-Launch at Startup
Just like Windows XP, Vista ships with all kinds of services enabled that load at startup and may never be used by most users.
To see what loads at startup and disable the ones you likely won’t be needing (they can always be started manually later):
* Click Start then Control Panel
* Select Administrative Tools
* Choose System Configuration
* Click the Services Tab
* You can safely deselect:
o Offline Files (unless you’re using Offline File Sync)
o Tablet PC Input Service (unless you have a tablet PC)
o Terminal Services
o Windows Search (If you have already disabled indexing)
o Fax (unless you’re using a fax modem)
10. Disable Excess Windows Features
Windows ships with other features that are listed separately in the Vista operating system from the startup services.
You can view and disable these features by:
* Clicking Start then Control Panel
* Select Program Features
* On the left panel, select Turn Windows Features on or off
* You can safely deselect:
o Indexing Service
o Remote Differential Compression
o Tablet PC Optional Components
o Windows DFS Replication Service
o Windows Fax & Scan (unless you use a modem for faxing)
o Windows Meeting Space (unless you use the Live Meeting Service)
Extremely handy terminal command reference sheet, available as a PDF file (image visible and readable on the page). Divided into the following categories: File Commands, Process Management, File Permissions, SSH, Searching, System Info, Compression, Network, Installation, and Shortcuts. Licensed under Creative Commons. More >>>
