Sometimes, when you are chatting with friends or colleagues you will highlight the fact that you saw an awesome film on DVD the other day or heard a really cool album that you downloaded via iTunes, only for them to reply: “Yeah, well I heard/saw that ages ago, I downloaded it the day it came out”. The conversation then turns to how they did this and how can you do the same but your request is met with a reply that simply implies it’s too difficult for you to fathom and might include the suggestion to look into something called Bittorrent.
Bittorrent, put simply is a way of downloading large collections of files without the need for complicated software packages, it uses one protocol that can be accessed many different ways. Many people are used to peer-to-peer programs such as Limewire, Gnutella and Napster and associate this with the downloading of Bittorrent files.
So, completely forget about firing up a software program and searching away for the file of your choice. Bittorrent is much a much simpler but altogether different way of downloading files but today we want to explain the basics so you can harness the power of Bittorrent without any of the confusing jargon and related technical rubbish.
Let’s get one thing straight, it is illegal to download copyrighted works via the internet, WillINeedIt doesn’t condone any sharing of this nature. Bittorrent can be used to serve legal data also, with this article serving as a guide to using the protocol so users can decide what they wish to download, from wherever they wish.
On 11.24.09, In Tips/Tricks, by pads
Google Wave is one of the latest applications Google is touting at the moment and it’s got some hype – people are clambering high and low to get invites. But is it the ultimate online collaboration tool? Google Wave incorporates external bots and plugins to aid collaboration, although it isn’t clear just how many people use them.
Many of these bots and gadgets are limited in their use at the moment, mainly because most Wave users aren’t completely clear on how Google Wave will work best for them. In the coming months, we expect there to be some real standout applications that help push the Wave service to new heights.
Only time will tell (collaboration is only as powerful as the people using it) but in the meantime we’ll show you 5 things you can do with Google Wave right now by using bots and gadgets.
Please Note: We are also giving away some Google Wave invites, click here for more information.
On 10.29.09, In Tips/Tricks, by Matt Brian
Domain names are unique identifiers, addresses that direct people to your online presence. The cost of domains have plummeted over the years with anyone able to register their own dot-com domain for less than £10, something that has meant there is a serious rush to grab the best domains before anyone else snaps them up.
Some people buy domains and never have any intention of using them, sitting on the domain hoping that someone would buy it off of them for a much higher price than originally bought for. Others snap up domains that are relevant to their business, nickname or their full name, so that they can ensure other people can’t have their website mistaken for their own. But then again, some just buy domains and completely forget about them, renewing them just in case they decide to use them in the future.
For those people who have bought their domain but have no idea how to use it, we have compiled a list of really cool things you can do with your domain (in some cases needing hosting too) that will enable you to have some fun, become more organised and publicise yourself or your business.
If you are the owner of an iPhone or know your gadgets, you will know that jailbreaking your iPhone can mean you open your device so you can use it without Apple’s inbuilt restrictions and even use it on another mobile network. Apple recently released two firmware updates for their iPhone and iPod Touch devices, with the newest firmware 3.1.2 fixing many bugs brought by previous interactions.
This update meant that a lot of jailbroken iPhone users lost their carrier unlocks and their jailbroken firmware, resulting in them losing the ability to run custom apps and much more. Until last week, there wasn’t an easy way to get these customisations back but after a very timely release from the GeoHot team, it is now possible to jailbreak your Apple device and very quickly too.
The following article explains how to unlock your iPod 3G/3GS and iPod Touch on a Windows machine. This will not unlock your iPhone to work on other mobile carriers and it is advised to wait until the PwnageTool is released by the iPhone Dev Team before upgrading your iPhone from 3.0 or 3.1.
Most modern internet browsers now support the newest HTML 5 coding, but sadly, Internet Explorer is the only web browser out there (with the exception of any mobile browsers) that does not natively support it yet. For those of you who aren’t familiar with web design, HTML is the Hyper-Text Markup Language. This, as well as various other components, give a website its design. A simple analogy of this would be a control room. The people inside the control room would be the HTML programming, given a set of commands to follow, such as redirect flight A to runway B. The flight A would be a plug-in, and runway B would be another form of file, usually Javascript or Cascading Style Sheets, but anyways, the control tower would tell the plugin to run on a certain instruction set (javascript or CSS).
The new HTML 5 is a vast improvement over HTML 4. For example, instead of having to install a separate program to run flash (Adobe Flash plug-in, which is sadly not compatible with Safari Mobile), HTML 5 would be able to run video and sound files without the need for additional plug-ins. Some other new functions include 2-D drawing inside the HTML code, timed media playback (playing a file, say fifteen seconds after you load the website), offline storage (similar to cookies, but more advanced), document editing (Google Docs or Office Live), drag-and-drop (good for file hosting where you have to specify the path of the file), and much more. You may wonder how much of this may affect an average user, but these changes are quite significant. Flash files are larger than most components in a website. These files create beautiful special effects, but they may take some time to load on old, or slow computers. The new HTML 5 will integrate that into itself, so that it can play videos and sounds without having to load much extras. Document editing is currently restricted to its respective online service, like Office Live or Google Docs. These both require you to import files in order to edit and distribute, but the improvements in the HTML 5 allow it to be edited locally and saved locally, without having to upload and download the file.
The Windows 7 launch is just around the corner (we should know, we are attending the launch) but many tech-savvy computer users are already experiencing the joys of Microsoft’s newest release by way of their Windows 7 Release Candidate beta registrations.
Users of Windows XP who held back from upgrading their systems to Vista will have a little bit of a shock when they come to upgrade their systems to Windows 7, mostly because there isn’t a natural upgrade process between the two systems. Coupled with numerous cosmetic changes and a complete graphic overhaul, many people will be swimming in a Windows sea without any sight of land.
That’s where we come in! Today we will list 14 simple tips and tricks you can use on your Windows 7 installation, stopping you from sinking under the torrent of all the new features that comes with it.
Website owners are starting to realise the impact that social media has on their traffic and site interaction but for some it can be a thankless task. Webmasters need to identify the best social networks to submit their content to but they also need to supply the tools so that their website visitors can submit also.
In one of our recent articles we mentioned how Facebook was making inroads into traditional social media sharing sites, standing out as a large traffic referrer on it’s own. Whilst, there are quite a few tools that enable you to share your content with friends on Facebook, one really simple and easy to setup button stands out for me, so much so it now sits pretty on this very site. This article details how to install a Tweetmeme-like Facebook share button onto your website or blog, giving your website visitors the opportunity to distribute your articles amongst their friends.
Facebook is a behemoth, harbouring over 300 million users, housing 40 million status updates a day and hosting 14 million new videos a month, it’s easy to see how the service has started to make inroads into the other media sharing services like YouTube, Vimeo and Flickr.
One of the most popular types of media shared on the website are photos, mainly down to the simple usability of the site and the fact you can add and tag photos of friends. This allows users to view lots of different user submitted photos, possibly from the save event from many different perspectives. With 2 billion photos uploaded a month, the proof is in the statistics.
There is one drawback of having being tagged in a set of photos from the same event you attended, you don’t physically have a copy of them. Sure you could sit there and download them, one by one, but that would take all day and night if it was a particularly big album. Luckily for those people who use the Mozilla Firefox browser, there is a clever little addon that allows you to download entire Facebook albums with the click of a button.
A few months ago, Facebook went the way of their competitors (Myspace, Bebo et al) and enabled it’s millions of users to personalise their Facebook profile by registering a unique username that could be directed to their personal profile page. These usernames, or what the internet media have dubbed “Vanity URL’s”, were snapped up quickly by internet savvy users but the service is still available for all today.
In a recent Facebook blog post, the company released information stating that users could now use their Vanity URL to log into their Facebook account, removing the need to enter an email address when wanting to access your account. Read after the jump, how to register your own Vanity URL if you don’t already have one and then how to access your account thereafter.
IRC (Internet Relay Chat), was very popular around 10 years ago, around the age of dial-up internet but continues to be popular today. If you are new to IRC, think of it as a mass chatroom, where anybody can join a selected “channel”, unless it has been made private to selected users. If you’re at school, or work trying to access your favorite IRC server, chances are that the ports used for IRC communication have been blocked.
Mibbit, is a fully functional online IRC client that you can use with just your browser. Though it may be hard to use at first, it gets easier once you familiarise yourself with the service and the commands used.
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