NetNewsWire and Keynote

Grok Headline matches for NetNewsWire and Keynote

NetNewsWire and NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.7
released

NetNewsWire and NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.7
released 12/22/2003 02:58 PM
This release of NetNewsWire and NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.7 adds support for favicons and feed URLs, boosts performance, and fixes dozens of bugs. The full version includes a new widescreen view especially suited for laptops.

See Wha t’s New in NetNewsWire 1.0.7 for details.

NetNewsWire, NetNewsWire Lite updated to
v1.0.7

NetNewsWire, NetNewsWire Lite updated to
v1.0.7 12/22/2003 06:30 PM
Ranchero Software today released NetNewsWire 1.0.7, the latest version of its easy-to-use RSS newsreader for Mac OS X...

NetNewsWire and NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.8

NetNewsWire and NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.8 02/10/2004 02:51 AM
NetNewsWire and NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.8 fix a couple small but important bugs and add a bunch of feeds to the Sites Drawer.

See Wha t’s New in 1.0.8 for details.

NetNewsWire 1.0.1b2

NetNewsWire 1.0.1b2 03/11/2003 09:44 AM
NetNewsWire 1.0.1b2 contains mostly fixes for the new XML-RPC code the weblog editor uses.

It’s still a beta! There are plenty more bugs to fix.

By the way, I hope to release my new XML-RPC client under a BSD license some time this week.

NetNewsWire 1.0.1 out

NetNewsWire 1.0.1 out 03/15/2003 08:20 AM
Ranchero reports on the release of NetNewsWire 1.0.1, the greatest RSS reader for the mac, and the only shareware product...

NetNewsWire 1.0.1

NetNewsWire 1.0.1 03/14/2003 06:18 PM
NetNewsWire is a scriptable RSS reader and weblog editor. Cha nges in this release include bug fixes in both the news reader and the weblog editor.

NetNewsWire

NetNewsWire 03/13/2003 10:16 AM
Brent has a new beta of NetNewsWireLite out. This one contains redirection and bandwidth monitoring, the two hot topics du...

NetNewsWire 1.0.6

NetNewsWire 1.0.6 10/29/2003 07:09 PM
There are so many good things to say about NetNewsWire that it is hard to find anything wrong with it. By Bryron Hinson (ActiveMac via MyAppleMenu)

NetNewsWire 1.0.7b7

NetNewsWire 1.0.7b7 12/18/2003 01:08 PM
NetNewsWire and NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.7b7 have been posted.

In the process of working on 1.1, we fixed a mach port leak and some performance bugs, and we didn’t want to wait until 1.1 before making these fixes available, so we decided to do a 1.0.7 release.

1.0.7 also contains a few of the smaller features that were planned for 1.1: a new wid escreen view is especially suited to laptops; favicons< /a> are now displayed in the Subscriptions pane; NetNewsWire now responds to the f eed URL scheme.

See the change notes for more new features and bug fixes.

The features chart comparing NetNewsWire and NetNewsWire Lite has been updated.

NetNewsWire 1.0.7

NetNewsWire 1.0.7 12/23/2003 04:29 PM
An easy-to-use RSS web newsreader for Mac OS X.

NetNewsWire 1.0.1b5

NetNewsWire 1.0.1b5 03/11/2003 02:00 PM
NetNewsWire 1.0.1b5 fixes some crashing bugs, partly fixes a bug regarding Movable Type categories, and moves commands from the View menu to the Window menu. (Commands that should have been in the Window menu to begin with, since they have to do with opening and hiding windows.)

Read the cha nge notes for the full scoop.

NetNewsWire 1.0.8

NetNewsWire 1.0.8 12/17/2004 06:35 PM
NetNewsWire is an easy-to-use RSS Web newsreader for Mac OS X. Its familiar three-paned interface -- similar to Apple Mail and Outlook Express -- can fetch and display news from thousands of different websites and weblogs, making it quick and easy to keep up with the latest news.

NetNewsWire 1.0.1b3

NetNewsWire 1.0.1b3 03/11/2003 09:44 AM
NetNewsWire 1.0.1b3 includes a variety of bug fixes.

One of the most common causes of problems in both the news reader and the weblog editor is unencoded ampersands—and NetNewsWire is now more forgiving of this error.

Downloading categories from Radio UserLand weblogs should work again. (It was broken in a recent beta.)

See the cha nge notes for more info.

NetNewsWire 1.0

NetNewsWire 1.0 02/12/2003 01:04 AM
NetNewsWire 1.0 has officially shipped. Which is great news. Thanks to Brent for all the work he did in getting this out. The only problems

NetNewsWire 1.0.1b4

NetNewsWire 1.0.1b4 03/11/2003 09:44 AM
NetNewsWire 1.0.1b4 fixes some news-reading bugs.

Read the cha nge notes for the full scoop.

About NetNewsWire Lite

About NetNewsWire Lite 05/20/2004 01:12 PM
Peter R. Wood asked on the comments for the previous post if there would be any commitment to releasing new versions of NetNewsWire Lite.

Yes. We plan to continue NetNewsWire Lite. It will continue to be free. The next release of Lite will ship on or about the same day NetNewsWire ships.

NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.8

NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.8 12/17/2004 06:35 PM
NetNewsWire Lit is an easy-to-use RSS Web newsreader for Mac OS X. Its familiar three-paned interface - similar to Apple Mail and Outlook Express - can fetch and display news from thousands of different websites and weblogs, making it quick and easy to keep up with the latest news.

What’s New in NetNewsWire 1.0.7

What’s New in NetNewsWire 1.0.7 12/23/2003 04:58 AM
NetNewsWire

ranchero.com/netnewswire/whatsnew/netnewswire107.php
track this site | 4 links

NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.7

NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.7 12/23/2003 04:29 PM
An easy-to-use RSS Web newsreader for Mac OS X.

NetNewsWire Goes To Version 2

NetNewsWire Goes To Version 2 09/22/2004 10:44 AM
The public beta of NetNewsWire 2.0 is out, and it has a ton of new, and interesting features. In particularly for me, the Smart List feature is really interesting. Look likes the role of MyAppleMenu.com plays in the grand scheme of things is diminishing.

Beta: NetNewsWire 2.0b3

Beta: NetNewsWire 2.0b3 09/23/2004 11:22 AM
The RSS and Atom newsreader adds flagged items that are kept indefinitely, incremental searches, an embedded web browser, and other changes.

NetNewsWire 1.0.8fc1

NetNewsWire 1.0.8fc1 01/24/2004 09:30 PM
NetNewsWire and NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.8fc1 are the same as 1.0.8b1 except that the Sites Drawer has been updated with new feeds. Two new categories, Movies and Music, were created.

We’re looking for deal-stopper bugs. If none are found, we’ll change the version number to 1.0.8 and release it.

New NetNewsWire 2.0 betas

New NetNewsWire 2.0 betas 02/05/2005 09:06 PM
Ranchero Software today announced new public beta versions of NetNewsWire and NetNewsWire Lite. I've been a beta tester for a while now, and I have to say (along with a lot of other people) that Brent runs the best damn...

NetNewsWire Updated

NetNewsWire Updated 12/22/2003 05:26 PM
Ranchero Software has updated NetNewsWire, its popular newsfeed aggregator for Mac OS X. Version 1.0.7 offers many improvements, including support for newsfeed favicons, a new widescreen view format, quick subscribing from feed: URLs, and other performance enhancements. NetNewsWire is $39.95. A free version, with less functionality, is also available.

NetNewsWire 1.0.2 progress

NetNewsWire 1.0.2 progress 03/19/2003 10:44 PM
In case you’re curious on how NetNewsWire 1.0.2 development is going...

It’s a four-step process:

1. Move low-level, relatively bug-free code into separate frameworks. The RSS parser, for instance, goes into a framework. (The main reason is that it makes code maintenance and testing easier, and it makes it so I can re-use this code easily in other software.)

2. Fix a bunch of small quick-hit bugs. Things like bugs with date display and keyboard shortcuts. A particular crashing bug in the weblog editor. That kind of thing.

3. Fix—or at least dramatically improve—performance and memory issues when one has lots of subscriptions and lots of unread headlines.

4. Add a few new features—mostly weblog editing features such as supporting more Radio and Movable Type options. (Some other things too.)

I gave myself a week to do step 1—but it’s already finished. I did it over the weekend. It was totally fun, by the way. If you’re a Cocoa developer, but you’ve shied away from building frameworks, you should know that it’s a piece of cake.

So now I’m in the middle of step 2, doing a bunch of quick-hit bug fixes. This is one of my favorite things to do, because it’s all about polish, getting the details right. With some good hours of brain-time you can knock off bugs by the anthill.

Later this week I’ll move on to performance and memory issues, then on to adding new features probably next week. Then I’ll release the first beta of 1.0.2.

Switched to NetNewsWire

Switched to NetNewsWire 01/15/2003 01:42 AM
Well, it's official. Last Friday I switched to NetNewsWire Lite even after I managed to break it. I've found that AmpehtaDesk is a memory hog and I simply don't have the time to deal with upgrading, making sure that AmphetaOutlines...

Safari, RSS, NetNewsWire

Safari, RSS, NetNewsWire 06/28/2004 02:57 PM

“So, Brent, what do you think of Apple putting RSS reading into Safari?”

The first thing to know is that we have no intention of stopping NetNewsWire development.

The second thing is, I’m not surprised. I half-expected it last year, and this year I’d heard rumors (even seen some screen shots) before WWDC, so it’s no shock. Syndication is such great technology, it makes sense for Apple—and Microsoft—to add RSS reading to their systems.

The RSS reader in Safari is not a full-featured newsreader, at least from what I could tell by the demo. For instance, it doesn’t appear to remember what items you’ve read or tell you how many unread items you have. And some of the other features that it does have—such as RSS searching—are coming in NetNewsWire 2.0.

So... even with Safari’s RSS reader, there is still a need for newsreaders that do more. (Much more.)

What I like about this announcement is that it popularizes syndication. Despite its fast growth, there’s still a huge education job to do. The average Mac user doesn’t know about the technology yet, but putting it in Safari means they will know about it, and it gives the technology a kind of validation, an Apple seal of approval, for the people who are slower to look at new technologies.

It also may mean that Apple will evangelize RSS to publications that haven’t yet adopted it. Which is great: it’s not something we have much time for, and when CNN hears from Apple it carries a bit more weight than when they hear from Ranchero Software.

This could trigger a shake-out in the Mac OS X newsreaders market. There are a dozen or so readers right now, but by this time next year there may be Safari and just a few others. (NetNewsWire will be one of them.)



So I don’t feel as we’ve been Sherlocked. But it does look to me as if the Konfabulator folks might have something to say about Dashboard.

NetNewsWire 1.0.1fc1

NetNewsWire 1.0.1fc1 03/12/2003 08:08 PM
NetNewsWire 1.0.1fc1 fixes a weblog editor bug with saving drafts and includes a couple other minor changes.

See the cha nge notes for the whole scoop.

This is a final candidate release. We’re looking for deal-stopper bugs, bugs bad enough to prevent this from being released as 1.0.1.

Once 1.0.1 is released, we’ll go back to fixing bugs—and also adding new features, such as supporting more Movable Type options, allowing Radio users to specify that a post shouldn’t go on a home page, and so on.

Mac OS X security bug and NetNewsWire

Mac OS X security bug and NetNewsWire 05/19/2004 05:48 PM
Recently a security bug was reported in Safari. Clicking on certain URLs could cause a script to run on your machine.

Sylvain Carle alerted us to the fact that this security bug is not really a Safari bug, it’s a bug in WebKit.

WebKit is Safari’s rendering system, provided by Apple as part of OS X, which other applications use too—including NetNewsWire.

NetNewsWire uses WebKit to display feed descriptions, so NetNewsWire (and other WebKit-using applications) may be vulnerable to this bug.

We certainly expect that Apple will fix the bug with a security update, and that should solve the problem. In the meantime we’re looking at the possibility of fixing it just for NetNewsWire, in case Apple doesn’t come through with a fix.

For reference: here’s the report on the bug, and here’s a CNET article about it, which states that Apple is aware of the issue.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at brent@ranchero.com.

NetNewsWire 1.0 Released

NetNewsWire 1.0 Released 03/13/2003 10:15 AM
NetNewsWire 1.0 has been released with a $29.95 introductory price.... NNW is without doubt the best blogger tool on the...

AppleScripting NetNewsWire

AppleScripting NetNewsWire 03/13/2003 10:16 AM
A screenshot of AppleScripting NetNewsWire from Brent Simmons. This rocks my world. For those without the joy of Mac in...

NetNewsWire 2.0 will run on Jaguar

NetNewsWire 2.0 will run on Jaguar 07/05/2004 07:16 PM

After listening to all the feedback (here and elsewhere) on this issue, we’ve decided to support Jaguar in NetNewsWire 2.0.

Jaguar was the first really good OS X release, and we’d support it forever if we could, but some day we’ll have to drop it. Not yet, though.

In case you’re curious, here’s why we decided to continue to support Jaguar:

1. We can provide the Panther-only features we want to provide without dropping Jaguar support.

The main thing is searching. SearchKit is part of Panther but not part of Jaguar, so Jaguar users just won’t get this feature, but Panther users will.

2. It would be more work at this point to switch over to Panther-only than to stick with Jaguar compatibility.

To switch over to using things like Cocoa bindings—which make our life easier but don’t provide new features to users—would mean more work. At some point, yes, we’ll make the switch, but only when there are other compelling reasons to drop Jaguar support.

Anyway, that’s the scoop.

Thanks for all the feedback!

NetNewsWire 2.0 Status

NetNewsWire 2.0 Status 08/19/2004 08:47 PM
So—where’s NetNewsWire 2.0?

Well, we’re working quite hard on it—which is why I haven’t been doing much posting, and why if you’ve sent me email I may not have replied.

It’s not ready for a public beta yet. The main new features are all in place. What remains is fixing bugs, adding a couple small features, updating the Help, adding polish, basically just taking care of all the many little details.

In other words, we’re in the final sprint. The to-do list is down to 95 items.

(If you’d like to help test, and you have a NetNewsWire license, just send me email. Bravery is required, though, because it does still have bugs. Most of the 95 items on the to-do list are bugs to fix.)

What remains to do

Only a few of the remaining items are big things like updating the Help book. Most are small, it’s just that there are many of them. To give you a flavor...

- A smart list will cause a crash if you unsubscribe from a feed and the smart list includes headlines from that feed.

- The Atom feed parser doesn’t support base64 encoding.

- The order of columns in the headlines table is not remembered between runs.

- The 32K limit to the HTML differences feature should be removed.

- Etc.

Each of the above—and most of the rest of the list—are small, easy-to-fix items.

This, luckily for me, is my favorite part of software development. I enjoy fixing bugs much more than I enjoy adding big new features, probably because I can fix a bunch of bugs in a few hours. It’s like eating chocolates throughout the day instead of eating one big steak once a week.

That’s not to say that there aren’t lots of big new features in 2.0. There are. What we’re doing right now is making sure that it’s not just ambitious but good.

(A reminder, in case you missed it: NetNewsWire 2.0 will be a free upgrade for everyone who has bought or will buy NetNewsWire 1.x.)

Random discussion of one small part of one feature

Here’s what tabs ended up looking like.



How many different ways can tabs be done? You’d be surprised. We tried just about every configuration.

I really wanted the favicons because they perform a usability function: the icons make it easier to find the tab you’re looking for. It’s not just for looks. (We’re Mac users, right? We like icons.)

But the close button needs to be on the left since that’s where it is in Safari, and since close buttons appear in the upper left of Aqua windows. (When we tried putting them on the right, testers could just not get the hang of it.)

We could have put them together—close button, favicon, then title—but that looked very jumbled.

Another option, which had its supporters, was to combine them. The favicons would become close buttons on mouseover. Slick, yes, but at the cost of explicitness. If you didn’t mouseover, you didn’t know there were close buttons.

Another option was to do it like Firefox. In Firefox, tabs have favicons on the left, and there’s just one close button to the right of all the tabs. (But when we tried it, the feedback was almost completely negative, even though many NetNewsWire testers use Firefox. I personally liked this approach, but that’s just me.)

It’s funny, though, because the Firefox style had a unique selling point: it meant you could close an “overflow” tab by clicking a close button. Try it in Safari—open a bunch of tabs so that you get the little tabs menu widget on the right. Select one of the tabs from that menu. Is there something you can click to close that tab? No, you have to use the Close Tab command. With Firefox you can still click the close button.

In the end we went with the configuration pictured above, and we decided to make it possible to turn off the favicons, since it became one of those 50-50 things: some people really wanted them, but other people really preferred a cleaner look.

All of the above is just to say that software development is about trade-offs, and this is a textbook case because the trade-offs are obvious and there is no one best way to do it.



By the way, I’ll be doing a session called “Using WebKit: User Interface Challenges” at O’Reilly’s Mac OS X Conference this October. I probably won’t talk about the specifics of tabs design—it will be at a higher, more conceptual level.

NetNewsWire and Jaguar

NetNewsWire and Jaguar 07/03/2004 06:04 PM

To be clear, in my previous post I’m thinking out loud about requiring Panther for NetNewsWire 2.0.

It’s just thinking, though. No decision has been made, I’m just bringing up the topic.

But if you’re a NetNewsWire user who uses Jaguar, I’d especially love to hear what you think. (And I’d like to know why you’re still on Jaguar. I’m sure there are good reasons I haven’t thought of.)

NetNewsWire 1.0.1 Ships

NetNewsWire 1.0.1 Ships 03/14/2003 05:06 PM
NetNewsWire 1.0.1 has been released! Here’s the Wha t’s New in NetNewsWire 1.0.1 page. The biggest changes since 1.0 are crashing bug fixes.

But there are some other nice things too—the news reader, for instance, is more forgiving of feeds with errors, so parsing failures will happen less often.

Today I’m starting work on 1.0.2, which will include more bug fixes but also some new features. Based on the feedback I’ve been getting, it sounds like what’s most wanted are new features for the weblog editor—specifically, support for more Radio and Movable Type options.

NetNewsWire 1.0.1 released

NetNewsWire 1.0.1 released 03/14/2003 07:33 PM
Ranchero Software today released NetNewsWire 1.0.1, the latest version of the company's popular RSS news reader and weblog editor...

NetNewsWire and Atom

NetNewsWire and Atom 12/22/2003 05:24 PM
We’re getting some people asking about our plans for Atom support in NetNewsWire. Here’s the deal:

A future version of NetNewsWire will support the Atom syndication format. The weblog editor will also support the Atom API.

That’s it. There isn’t really anything else to say.

MarsEdit And NetNewsWire Icons

MarsEdit And NetNewsWire Icons 09/24/2004 08:27 PM
Here’s Bryan Bell on designing the MarsEdit And NetNewsWire icons. His post includes some versions of the app icons that I myself never saw.

Also see Jon Hicks on designing icons for NetNewsWire (including a hack I mentioned previously for switching to the all-Jon-Hicks set).

Beta: NetNewsWire 2.0b10

Beta: NetNewsWire 2.0b10 01/03/2005 12:45 PM
The RSS and Atom news reader adds improved Atom and RSS parsing, a download window, direct downloading of podcasts to iTunes, new smart feed fields, and other changes.
Grok Description matches for NetNewsWire and Keynote
GrokA matches for NetNewsWire and Keynote

"Loki Torrent - Torrent Search, Torrent
Download, You name it..."

"Loki Torrent - Torrent Search, Torrent
Download, You name it..." 12/31/2004 10:23 AM

Loki Torrent - Torrent Search, Torrent
Download, You name it, we've got it.

Loki Torrent - Torrent Search, Torrent
Download, You name it, we've got it. 12/30/2004 11:53 AM
fights back .. lokittorrent .. Loki Torrent

lokitorrent.com
track this site | 5 links

Torrent for Windows XP Service Pack 2

Torrent for Windows XP Service Pack 2 08/09/2004 04:48 PM
Microsoft needs to distribute its new Win XP Service Pack 2 to 260 million Windows users at 75MB each. Moving a wodge that big to that many machines is too much even for the biggest software company on the planet. So the folks at Downhill Battle have seized upon this as an opportunity to prove the substantial noninfringing uses of P2P by releasing a .torrent of SP@ (complete with checksum info so that you can verify that this isn't some malware-riddled trojan, except to the extent that it is a typical piece of the Windows XP OS). Join the mesh, shoulder the load, get your medicine -- the 21st Century way. Link (via Waxy)

XP Service Pack torrent shut down by
Microsoft

XP Service Pack torrent shut down by
Microsoft 08/12/2004 11:21 AM
Remember SP2Torrent.com? This was the BitTorrent site that was helping distribute copies of the Windows XP Service Pack 2 (which is so unweildy and yet so critical and sought-after that MSFT is having a hard time distributing it effectively) via BitTorrent, a system that enlists everyone who tries to download a file into distributing it as well, so that the more popular a file becomes, the easier it is to download.

Anyway, the site is no longer providing this free service to Windows users, because the company threatened to sue them if they kept it up. Lucky MSFT customers, huh?

Microsoft sent DMCA takedown notices to our two webhosts, one of which was just linking to a torrent file on another server. We've stood up to these kinds of legal threats before (see the Grey Tuesday protests), but we decided not to bother this time, because we started this site primarily as a demonstration and to that end it's already been a huge success. SP2torrent.com showed how filesharing technlogy gives people without budgets or huge servers the power to solve problems themselves, without waiting for the government or some corporation to do it for them. For another demonstration that's still in action, check out p2pcongress.org. If you need Windows XP SP2, you can download it from Microsoft's inscrutable webpage:

Link (Thanks, Matt!)

bitoogle :: the bit torrent file search
engine (bittorrent)

bitoogle :: the bit torrent file search
engine (bittorrent) 07/14/2004 01:18 AM
bitoogle :: the bit torrent file search engine .. bitoogle

bitoogle.com
track this site | 4 links

"bitoogle :: the bit torrent file search
engine (bittorrent)"

"bitoogle :: the bit torrent file search
engine (bittorrent)" 07/13/2004 08:44 PM

ALL MULTIPLE P2P NETWORK FILE SHARING
SOFTWARE ARE NOT THE SAME: TrustyFiles
2.2 update adds Bit Torrent access and
delivers the fastest and most results
and download sources with 100% native
code.

ALL MULTIPLE P2P NETWORK FILE SHARING
SOFTWARE ARE NOT THE SAME: TrustyFiles
2.2 update adds Bit Torrent access and
delivers the fastest and most results
and download sources with 100% native
code. 06/07/2004 02:37 AM
RazorPop, Inc. announced the release of TrustyFiles 2.2 Personal File Sharing software at http://www.TrustyFiles.com. The performance-driven update cements TrustyFile’s position as the leader in Multi-P2P network software. TrustyFiles 2.2 features 100% native code and adds Bit Torrent network support. TrustyFiles continues to be FREE with NO spyware and NO additional bundled software. [PRWEB Jun 7, 2004]

Torrent Zip

Torrent Zip 03/31/2005 11:44 PM
The project is live!

Torrent 0.61

Torrent 0.61 01/27/2004 02:58 PM
An arcade game with colored tiles.

My first torrent

My first torrent 07/30/2004 03:00 AM

Thanks to Jim and Ado for setting up the BitTorrent tracker. Here is a torrent for Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture talk in Helsinki that I blogged about earlier.

UPDATE: Please standby. It doesn't seem to be working.

Comment - TrackBack

Following up on Torrent Shutdowns

Following up on Torrent Shutdowns 12/22/2004 01:40 AM
Slashdot Dec 21 2004 6:33PM GMT

Torrentocracy = RSS + Bit Torrent + Your
TV

Torrentocracy = RSS + Bit Torrent + Your
TV 06/21/2004 07:41 AM

Bit Torrent question

Bit Torrent question 04/09/2004 10:30 PM
Bit Torrent and the ability to download everything in one click (is this the end of Direct TV, Tivo and the music business?!).

Used BitTorrent a little bit when it first came out and was a bit underwhelmed. It didn’t work, there weren’t a lot of places to find files, etc.

I decided to take another look at it when a designer friend of mine was telling me that he has the latest version of every single piece of design software on his Mac compliments of bit torrent (yes, I know it’s wrong… not the point I’m trying to make, the point is coming :-).

Part I: I installed bit torrent and immediately noticed an amazing new trend (prob. not new to all of you) of people posting dozens of albums in one RAR file for download. Huge file sizes in the 500 to 4,000 meg size range. The last season of seven seasons of Southpark, every Nirvanna album and here is another file with every Howard Stern radio show from March in one file.

In one click you grab one really well organized, clean and deep sets of files—scary.

Part II: A couple of month ago I got the Gateway Connected DVD player. For $195 it connects via WiFi to my desktop and I can hit the My Music or My Videos button on the remote control and pull up those directories on my hard drive (in the other room).

Part III: Today I moved into my new apartment in Santa Monica and was faced with the standard $100 month cable/dish bill and I’m thinking “dang, I only watch less then a half dozen TV shows and they are all here on bit torrent… maybe I should save the $1,200 a year and just download the shows and watch them via my Gateway Connected DVD player?”

The Point/Question: How soon before you’ll be able-with one click-download every prime-time TV show or last year’s top 500 CDs in one click?!

(Note: This is not a trick question, I have yet to find a file containing that much content—however, I did find a file with last weeks top 100 singles that someone put together in one nice package).

[The Digital Music Weblog]

ShiftyGames Torrent 0.8.2

ShiftyGames Torrent 0.8.2 05/05/2004 10:52 PM
An arcade game with colored tiles.

Sri Lankan hip-hop mix: torrent

Sri Lankan hip-hop mix: torrent 03/17/2005 03:55 AM
Xeni Jardin: Boing Boing reader Lucas Emery says,

Your big article on M.I.A over the weekend reminded me that I had downloaded a mix mp3 shortly after the Tsunami disaster comprised exclusivly of Sri Lankan hip-hop. I can't remember where I originally found the mix (boomselection, maybe?) so I just made a .torrent. 58.4 Meg mp3 mix by Dr. Auratheft.

Link

Previously: M.I.A. is, well, MIA; and MIA for intergalactic overlord

Bit Torrent : An Analysis

Bit Torrent : An Analysis 12/19/2004 03:10 PM
Hardy news site, The Register, recently published a detailed analysis of the file sharing protocol Bit Torrent. Bit Torrent has received attention in the main stream news after reports that it was carrying as much as 50% of all peer 2 peer (p2p) traffic, which in tern amounted to a massive 30% of all the traffic on the internet. The paper, by Dr. Johan Pouwelse, examines the protocol and looks especially at one of the largest bit-torrent hubs, Suprnova.org. He examines how just 20 moderators solve the problem of fake files, something that plagues the traditional file sharing networks like Kazaa.

Dr Powelse notes that the major problems facing hubs like suprnova are fakes and maintaining hub availability. The availability of files on bit torrent is based on a centralised system; without it, the network fails as users cannot access the trackers. Decentralising bit torrent has already begun - Suprnova have started a project called "Exeem" which apparently has 5,000 beta testers trialling it, and has an ultimate aim of taking the best of Kazaa (a decentralised network) and merging it with Bit Torrent. Decentralisation removes the issue of poor availability at the tracker end, yet0 it also provides more scope for fake files and a reduction in data integrity at the user end.

The paper concludes that bit-torrent needs to evolve to create incentives to users to seed files. Bit-torrent as a protocol is a system that’s here to stay; it enjoys more and more usage from more main stream content providers. Yes, there is a lot of illegitimate use of the protocol, but unlike Kazaa, these users should not be allowed to over shadow the usefulness to legitimate users of the bit torrent protocol.

[Update] Since this article was published, Suprnova has shutdown as a hub for torrents. Although this cannot be confirmed, the shutdown is very likely related to legal action from the Hollywood against tracker websites; earlier in the week many other sites were taken down. The effectiveness of the takedowns could be massive; the paper below notes that when on the Suprnova mirrors went offline during their monitoring period, they saw a massive reduction in the number of users downloading files through the site.

Download: The Paper (pdf) | The Register

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CC Torrent Hosting

CC Torrent Hosting 12/17/2004 06:33 PM

Torrentocracy has announced a free BitTorrent hosting service for Creative Commons licensed content: Prodigem.

Download one of the beta torrents currently available. Send an email to Torrentocracy creator Gary Lerhaupt to request an upload account.

Update: Download all of the Duke Law School Arts Project Moving Image Contest finalists via one torrent at prodigem.

Xcode .torrent

Xcode .torrent 08/08/2004 02:13 AM
Apple just released an update to is Xcode development tools, but Apple's content distribution network is slow and poky, and as Danny notes, it "won't let you resume downloads using wget -c." So here's a .torrent for Xcode. Link (via Oblomovka)

It's the torrent, stupid

It's the torrent, stupid 12/22/2004 01:29 AM
Xeni Jardin: Mark Pesce rants about the recent shutdowns of BitTorrent supersites Suprnova.org and TorrentBits.com.

Hey, Hollywood! Can you feel the future slipping through your fingers? Do you understand how badly you've screwed up? You took a perfectly serviceable situation - a nice, centralized system for the distribution of media, and, through your own greed and shortsightedness, are giving birth to a system of digital distribution that you'll never, ever be able to defeat. In your avarice and arrogance you ignored the obvious: you should have cut a deal with SuprNova.org. In partnership you could have found a way to manage the disruptive change that's already well underway. Instead, you have repeated the mistakes made by the recording industry, chapter and verse. And thus you have spelled your own doom.

It's said that the best sequels are just like the original, only bigger and louder. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for one hell of a crash. This baby is now fully out of control.

Link (via waxy)

Battle Torrent

Battle Torrent 08/11/2004 09:45 AM

Thanks to Dave over at Scripting News for the link. The already easy process of downloading files via BitTorrent has just gotten easier. [Downhill Battle]

Better Than Bit Torrent, For Internet2
Users?

Better Than Bit Torrent, For Internet2
Users? 11/18/2003 07:54 PM

Grokster briefs torrent

Grokster briefs torrent 03/26/2005 05:13 AM
Cory Doctorow: Thad sez, "This is a torrent of all of the briefs submitted re: MGM v. Grokster, in the zip format provided on the U.S. Copyright Office site." Torrent Link for 74 briefs in 20.7MB

Torrent Site Status

Torrent Site Status 01/07/2005 04:15 AM
Don’t download too much pr0n .. Torrent Site Status

orbdesign.net/bt
track this site | 3 links

Microsoft builds a better Bit Torrent

Microsoft builds a better Bit Torrent 06/17/2005 03:18 PM
Researchers at Microsoft's computer science lab in Cambridge have developed a peer-to-peer filesharing system that they say overcomes the scheduling problems associated with existing distribution protocols such as Bit Torrent.

The researchers claim download times are between 20-30 per cent faster, using their network coding approach, than on systems that only code at the server, and between 200 and 300 per cent faster than distributing un-encoded information.

View: Full Article @ The Register
View: Avalanche Whitepaper

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SP2 Bit Torrent Legal Challenge

SP2 Bit Torrent Legal Challenge 08/11/2004 05:20 PM

Download the Windows XP Service Pack 2: The guys who were doing Microsoft a favor by pushing Service Pack 2 via Bit Torrent got slapped down by Redmond.

Microsoft sent DMCA takedown notices to our two webhosts, one of which was just linking to a torrent file on another server. We've stood up to these kinds of legal threats before (see the Grey Tuesday protests), but we decided not to bother this time, because we started this site primarily as a demonstration and to that end it's already been a huge success.

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Comrade - Bit Torrent Client

Comrade - Bit Torrent Client 06/24/2004 12:03 AM
Working.

"Torrent Link for 74 briefs in 20.7MB"

"Torrent Link for 74 briefs in 20.7MB" 03/27/2005 10:28 AM

Torrent of video from DV Guide

Torrent of video from DV Guide 08/30/2004 02:55 AM

dv.open4all.info/bblog/torrent_files/20040828_kinberg.mov.torrenttrack this site | 3 links

Bit Torrent creator laughs at Microsoft
P2P

Bit Torrent creator laughs at Microsoft
P2P 06/24/2005 08:36 PM

Defense fund for Bit Torrent indexer

Defense fund for Bit Torrent indexer 12/30/2004 02:45 AM
Cory Doctorow: LokiTorrent is a BitTorrent indexing site -- like the lamented Suprnova -- that has been threatened with legal action by the MPAA for telling people where to download torrent files that allow them to download video and other large data-objects. Unlike some of the other Torrent indexers that shut down last week, LokiTorrent is mounting a legal defense. They're trying to raise a legal defense fund of $30,000, and they've made $11,500 in the first 12 hours. Link (via /.)

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