DMZ host : The secret to blazing torrents

The term DMZ comes from military origins, Demilitarized Zone, in netwoking terminology it essentially means an interface to the outside world which is free from all restrictions i.e all ports open, now torrents are community driven, so openess is very important. To enable DMZ on most modems follow the steps given below:

1. Go to network settigs-> local area connections and go to the properties of TCP/IP protocol and change your IP to any local address (192.168.1.XXX) and set your default gateway to your modems IP (in my case 192.168.1.1)

2. Go to your modem's configuration page (in my case http://192.168.1.1) you will be prompted for a username and password (usually "admin" "admin", if not contact service provider).

3. Here serarch for NAT settings, under which DMZ host will be there, set the DMZ host to your computers IP and reboot modem.

This method made my torrents continuos (reliable speeds) and increased speeds by about 40%.
Hope it works for you!!

Torrents taking forever: Improving torrent speeds

I was downloading this file with an availability of 15.33, yet no dowload speed. I was cursing the peers (who by coincidence were all Indians i swear!).

1.I enabled port forwarding on the comp by following instructions for my modem on

portforward.com

If u are an amateur at networking technologies do NOT try this at home. I had to reset my modem multiple times, but got it to work eventually.

2. Then I used the Azureus client on Debian Linux and Voila i was getting speeds in excess of 40 kB/s. USE TORRENTS ON LINUX, simplest solution.

3. But then i got to thinking what about the poor souls on Windows a.k.a voleware (I know a few hardened ones, who are like, aanithang dats freey is bad fer ya son), the difference turned out to be the no of connections that can be made to peers is limited in voleware by default. Use this "patch" to correct the problem, and your torrents will zoom.

http://torrentfreak.com/static/EvID4226Patch223d-en.zip

Ubuntu 9.04 live cd on acer aspire 4520, blank screen

This laptop has traditionally had compatibility issues with Linux, these issues have almost completly been ironed out in recent distros. Overall the most stable has been Debian lenny.

I decided to try the new ubuntu as ubuntu is generally known for its superior hardware compatibility. Was I disappointed.

I don't know how compatibility got reduced from the previous version. Ubuntu 8 effortlessly worked. This version however is error ridden.

If you still want to run it you will probably face the blank screen.

Press F4 during startup to boot in safe mode. Then there will be a screen with "Loading....", type

startx

and press enter, if it does not work use Ctrl+Fn keys to switch console then try.

After that I had a few missing icons, after this I gave up.

ipod not scrobbling: last.fm

I just reinstalled Itunes, and my ipod was not scrobbling. All you gotta do is either go to diagnostics -> ipod scrobbling and click manually scrobble or reinstall your ipod firmware by restoring in itunes. Beware this will erase all tracks, alarms, settings in your ipod. However you can back up ur tracklist on a playlist.