10 June 2009
Apple has now released Safari 4 and claims that as of now, is the fastest browser on the planet. Although this would be true for Macs, the same can't be said for Windows. Extensions are only available on Macs and the amount of memory that it takes up on Windows is unbelievable (A good 100MB with just two tabs open).
The browser is nice I suppose, if you're running it on a Mac. For Windows users, I think its best to stick with Chrome/Opera/Firefox for now.
09 June 2009
Although I do not support the download of torrents containing illegal content, I do think that I should have a post on the more popular BitTorrent clients that are used.
1. uTorrent
My personal favorite and one that I suggest you use. When it's running you hardly notice that it's there since its memory usage is so little. It also has all the features a client needs such as prioritizing torrents, RSS support, selective downloading, built-in trackers, and more.
2. BitComet
3. Azureus
A very good BitTorrent client with all the features that uTorrent has, but a lot heavier on system resources.
There's a myth going around that some clients are able to achieve faster downloading speeds. However, this is not true. Your download speed depends on two things. First, your download speed will never exceed the limit that you have with your ISP. If you want to raise this limit, you'd have to purchase it from your internet provider. Secondly, the amount of people seeding and leeching. The more seeders you have, the higher chance of you hitting that download cap.
A program that can help block IPs from connecting to you (whether they be from the government or anyone else trying to stalk your torrenting activities) is PeerGuardian, but download speeds might be lower.
As always, scan your torrents after you finish with a reputable antivirus program to prevent a trojan/virus infection.
08 June 2009
The popular instant messaging tool AIM has now released its newest beta, AIM 7 beta 1.
- New look and feel! We've got a redesigned user interface that we think you'll love.
- Better performance. We've been under the hood tweaking the software to make it run faster and use less of your PC's resources.
- Bigger buddy icons! What's not to love about that?
- Buddy icon cropper. Click on your icon near the top of your buddy list and you can pick a picture off of your PC and zoom in on your face for a great buddy icon.
- Big status entry area. We make it really easy to see your current status message. Also, when you change from online to away we'll put your cursor in the status message so you can tell people what you're up to.
- New advertisement size and placement. We think the new ad fits better in the buddy list and hope you agree.
07 June 2009
Have you ever wondered how fast your internet connection is? Or maybe your ISP is advertising a certain speed and you don't know if you're actually getting it. Well, that's easy to fix. There are plenty of speed tests on the internet, and I personally prefer this one here.
First, click the city that you're closest to. When you do, it'll automatically run the download and upload tests. After you're done, you will get two numbers, the download speed and upload speed. Divide the number they give you by 8 and that's how fast you can download/upload. So if my score read 8000 kbps, it would actually be 1000 kBps (Kilobytes per second). Keep in mind that 1000 kBps is equivalent to 1 MBps. The big number however, is usually what internet companies use to advertise their services.
Also, remember that if you're on a wireless connection, numbers might vary depending on how far away you are from the source.