JDownloader - An Excellent File Downloader

Need a good tool for downloading files from Rapidshare, Megaupload or other file sharing sites?
Try a program called jDownloader. It's free and because it's written in Java, it's not platform dependent.
That means it will run in Linux, Windows, Mac or any other OS that has Java installed.

You can go to the site found here;
http://jdownloader.org/home/index


Download the installer that matches your OS. You will also need the Java Runtime jre installed.
If you have Ubuntu you can get it through the repositories. Other OS's can get it from Sun's website here;
http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp

When you unzip the downloaded file in Ubuntu you will have a folder with many files in it.
The one you want to use is the one named jDownloader.jar
Right click on it and select Java Runtime Environment as the launcher.
You will be greeted with a configuration screen. It will also ask  if you want to install apt-get in your Firefox browser so it will automatically grab the links you selected and add them to the link grabber section of jDownloader.

I'm not going to provide support for this software. That can be found in their forums.
What I will provide is some basic info to make your life easier.
If you don't have a premium membership to Rapidshare or any other file share site make sure you set the number of maximum connections for each site to 1.

You may also set your maximum simultaneous downloads to 1.
You also have the option to set your download speed plus many other options although the above are the most important.

Below is a screen shot of my linkgrabber screen. It has all the links for my 20 in 1 multiboot DVD ready to be added into the download section.

So what can jDownloader do for you?
It can automatically grab selected links and add it into your linkgrabber screen ready to be downloaded immediately or later on.

No need to sit and wait in between downloads because of mandatory wait times. This software does it for you! It also grabs the captcha codes like at Megaupload and puts them in for you.
And after the download is finished, it extracts the file from the rar or zip file.
It also has the ability to download protected links like those being circulated in several forums.
JDownloader supports hundreds of file sharing sites.

You cannot believe how much this software improves life for non-subscribers of file sharing sites.
I add the links and start it before leaving for work and depending on the size of file and speeds, it is usually done by the time I get home.
No more wasted time watching the pc waiting for the 15 minutes to be up so you can start the next link.
This software does the waiting for you.
No more typing in the captcha code. jDownloader does it for you.

Make your downloading life easier and give jDownloader a try.

Enjoy!

TaZMAn

Shoutcast Bug In Streamtuner

So last week I fired up Streamtuner. It's been awhile since I have used it to listen to online music now that I have been using Songbird, so I was a bit upset when I couldn't get any listings for the Shoutcast feed.
At first I thought there was a glitch with their server but after a few days of checking it, I found it was still not working.
So I went digging.

Turns out that Shoutcast changed their website. The old Streamtuner plug-in doesn't work with the new design. What needed to be done was to fire up a hex editor and update the plug-in. But not an update that would use their new site feed. Nope! That would require a full rewrite of the plug-in code.

What I did was to find the Shoutcast address in the plug-in and change it to the new address that points to the old site that Shoutcast is maintaining.

Here's what you need to do in order to fix the Shoutcast plug-in.
Fire up your favorite hex editor and use it to open up the shoutcast.so plug-in found in usr/lib/streamtuner/plugins.
Now search for the two instances of www.shoutcast.com and replace them with 205.188.234.120 making sure you keep the spacing sane.
Now save it back into your folder.
Open up Streamtuner and go to the Shoutcast tab. You should now see your listings. If your don't just click on the Reload button.

For those of you who are saying that you don't know how to use a hex editor, no worries.
Here is a link to the patched shoutcast plug-in.
Download Plugin

Copy the plug-in, go to usr/lib/streamtuner/plugins folder. Open it as Root. Delete the existing shoutcast.so file and paste this patched file in to the folder.
Now open up Streamtuner, go to the Shoutcast tab and your listings should show up.

This is only a quick fix as it doesn't allow Streamtuner to access the new Shoutcast site and categories. Streamtuner itself needs to be fixed. I believe the original designer quit the project several years ago as there haven't been any updated versions. But I do believe there are some people maintaining it and hopefully they will release a newer 'fixed' version.

Update!!!

Thanks to Ernie for this easy fix that offers more functionality.

An alternative solution can be to edit your hosts file (/etc/hosts) and add the following line:
205.188.234.120 www.shoutcast.com
That overrides the shoutcast.com ip address provided by the DNS. It fixes the issue and you can access the webpage from the browser too.

Thanks again Ernie!


Enjoy!

TaZMAn

Verizon Speed Test Lies

I decided to try Verizon's speed test found here;
http://www2.verizon.net/micro/speedtest/hsi/

They sure like to lie!
Why do I say that? Well the results are skewed to say the least.
Here's what I mean.

The results from Verizon's test page;







Download speeds seem a bit low considering I have a 5 Mbps connection.
The upload speed is way out of line. My ISP caps the max at 384 Kbps.


So I go to www.speedtest.net
This looks more like it should be;











To verify it, I go to www.testmy.net

Here are the results;

:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Download Connection is:: 4817 Kbps about 4.8 Mbps (tested with 6144 kB)
Download Speed is:: 588 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2008/07/06 - 1:43pm
Bottom Line:: 84X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 1.74 sec
Tested from a 6144 kB file and took 10.448 seconds to complete
Download Diagnosis:: Looks Great : 9.53 % faster than the average for host
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.15) Gecko/20080625 Ubuntu/7.10 (gutsy) Firefox/2.0.0.15 [!]

:::.. Upload Stats ..:::
Upload Connection is:: 356 Kbps about 0.4 Mbps (tested with 1013 kB)
Upload Speed is:: 43 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2008/07/06 - 1:46pm
Bottom Line:: 6X faster than 56K 1MB Upload in 23.81 sec
Tested from a 1013 kB file and took 23.322 seconds to complete
Upload Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 76.89 % of your hosts average
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.15) Gecko/20080625 Ubuntu/7.10 (gutsy) Firefox/2.0.0.15 [!]


Let's verify it one more time from here;
http://myspeed.visualware.com/

The results are as follows;

Download speed 4668 Kbps
Upload speed 364 Kbps
QOS 96 %
RTT 22 ms
Max Delay 113 ms


From 3 other testing sites my download range is 4668 Kbps to 4817 Kbps
and my upload range is from 356 Kbps to to 367 Kbps yet Verizon says
my Download speed is 2861 Kbps (2.86 Mbps) and
my Upload speed is 476 Kbps.

So what's the deal?
Why does Verizon cook the speed test?
I think I know why.
The download speeds are different because Verizon's packages have a max download speed of 3 Mbps.
They probably use a random generator to pick out numbers when the speed is near or over 3 Mbps.
In the case of the upload speeds, it is considered a low speed for their
specs (768 Kbps) so they juice the upload numbers to make it look
like you are uploading files faster then you actually are.
In this case, they are saying my upload speed is about 25% higher
then the max allowed by my ISP.

You can bet that if you call them up with speed issues they will direct you to their speed test site.
And I will also bet you a cup of coffee from my company's cafeteria (It's free!) that they won't even listen to you should you quote speed test results from other sites.

Ah! The joys of manipulating numbers.
It makes the customer feel good while he's getting screwed.
LOL!


TaZMAn