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What is P2P ? How is it used in torrents?

Torrents are the application of P2P technology.

“A peer-to-peer (or “P2P“, or, rarely, “PtP”) computer network uses diverse connectivity between participants in a network and the cumulative bandwidth of network participants rather than conventional centralized resources where a relatively low number of servers provide the core value to a service or application. ” stands the definition of P2P according to wikipedia.

Let me explain this, we download  say a software(ok its FREE software say Linux distributions), if 10 people are downloading from a central server which has a bandwidth or Line speed of 1Mbps upload. Then the maximum speed the ten people will get is 100kbps(for keeping it simple we will consider 1000kb=1Mb). Even if say all of these individuals are having a 512 kbps line, the maximum speed they will get is a shared value of server.

But now say i download a part of the file from server and share it again so everybody else can also download from me then the speed increases, think all these 10 people are downloading and as well uploading with 512 kbps. Then the total downloading bandwidth is 1000+ 10*(512) = 6000 (approx). That is the average availabilty has increased by 600% and each user will download at full speed of 512kbps. Now the speed of download is not limited by servers speed but by the users own line speed.

And in a pure P2P network there is no server, everybody is equal.. everybody is your equal soul a peer, and hence P2P.

Terminologies in P2P :

Tracker : The system or application or Server which mediates the communication between the peers.Tracker is needed for peers to initiate the communication with other peers, but once communication is established tracker is not needed. Trackers are hosted typically in a website like Piratebay or other torrent sites.

Leecher : The person who downloads the files from a seeder is a leecher.

Seeder : The person who initiates the upload/shares the file.When a leecher completes his down and shares it he also becomes a seeder.But many leechers do not share once their download is complete this is called as leeching.

Private Tracker : This is a tracker which verifies the amount of data downloaded and uploaded by a leecher and maintains rules. Basically a private tracker increases availability on a torrent network by making more leecers to share.

What do I need to get into P2P and use torrents ?

You need a torrent client like Azureus,Bitcomet,utorrent. Download it and install it.

How can I start downloading?

Go to your favorite torrent site and download the bittorrent file ie *.torrent. Open it , it will by default open in your torrent client. It will ask for a port number choose any number between 40000-60000. This is the port you have to setup Port forwarding in your modem/router.(we will look at this again)

Is it legal?

If downloading a movie/music online it mostly is illegal. But then its your choice.But there are lots of legal content on torrent sites.

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Symbian Series 60 v3 what is it? how is it different from UIQ ?

Symbian is a OS for mobile devices.Well everybody knows that, then what is this series 60 v2 and v3 and then they call feature pack.What exactly are these?.To know what they are we need to have a look at a bit of history.

Symbian Ltd is the original owner of Symbian OS , Symbian is currently owned by Nokia (47.9%), Ericsson (15.6%), Sony Ericsson (13.1%), Panasonic (10.5%), Siemens AG (8.4%) and Samsung (4.5%).

That time the UI was of different variants, It was fragmented between Nokia and Sony ericsson. Development of different UIs was made generic with a “reference design strategy” for either ‘smartphone’ or ‘communicator’ devices, subdivided further into keyboard- or tablet-based designs. Two reference UIs (DFRDs) were shipped – Quartz and Crystal. The former was merged with Ericsson’s ‘Ronneby’ design and became the basis for the UIQ interface, the latter reached the market as the Nokia Series 80 UI.

Later UIs were Sapphire,Ruby and Emerald. But in end it was Crystal for Nokia and Quartz for Sony Ericsson. By 2002 Symbian stopped development of UI and started giving its OS without UI. The UI development was taken by Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Whereas the Core OS is same for both companies UI’s differ. Nokia went on its development of Series 60 whereas Sony Ericsson came out with UIQ. Till this day this is the norm with both these companies, and even others like Motorola use either one of these UI’s.

Current major version of Symbian core is 9.1 and Nokia’s s60 v3 uses this version.Sony ericsson devices M600 and W950 uses this core. The Symbian 9.1 was a major upgrade from symbian 8.0 with more security and other features.

There have been three releases of Nokia S60: “Series 60” (2001), “Series 60 Second Edition” (2004) and “Series 60 3rd Edition” (2005). The third version is not compatible with earlier two versions and is based on Symbian 9.1.

2nd edition phones were the popular Nokia 3230,Nokia 6085,N70,N90,N72.

3rd edition phones include N73,N93,N95(with feature pack),E61i.

Nokia is planning to bring out the Series 60 v5 (they are skipping on v4 as 4  denotes death in Asia.. Im also from Asia but never knew this) in 2008, with support for touch screen much like iphone. But the only touch screen phone available currently from Nokia is 6708, it uses UIQ(sonyericsson’s) .

Nokia also has S40, the main differentiating factor being the S40 is not multitasking. You cant open more than a single application. Nokia 5300 is latest addition in S40.

S80 is the communicator series with Nokia 9300 and Nokia 9500. S90 being the N7700 or the new N770. S90,S80 and S40 are not compatible with S60.

S60 is also licensed and used by Samsung,LG,Lenova and Panasonic.UIQ is used by Motorola and others. Symbian covers almost 60+% of Smartphone market with Windows Mobile at 15% and Windows CE and RIM devices at 10%.

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A day with Nokia N95 8GB

nokia_n95_8gb_02_low.jpg

I don wanna explain the specs.. as u all know what they are still a basic intro

– 5 mp camera with xenon flash , carl zeiss lens and auto focus
– 8 GB memory
– GPS
– Real player
– Voip
– slide both ways
– 2.8″ screen

Now again specs really doesn give u wov, even i was very much skeptical about some features in the N95 spec, mainly GPS and the video capability.

Now its time u tell me if its good.. the GPS took a few mins in my case 2 mins outside and 4 mins inside my room to pick up atleast 7 different satellites. Location is pointed to within 30 mts with 4 satellite feeds and much precise with 5 satellites. I was quite impressed by the location pointing exactly over my room, neat for a mobile GPS(or Is it).
On my way back from Tuttle Mall in the bus I tested the navigation with Nokia maps.. was really stunned, the road map was so good even it gave me guess of my enire route(or rather COTA route?) the coverage was very good and it tracked with every second.
Back to my hotel again searched for nearby restaurants.. it gave a list of nearby restaurants with distance as sorting option, tht is wonderful. Even found groceries and it has some options to find almost all public places.Add to it the contact information, website information.. and all. This feauture is even better with Google Maps. I will try with Tom Tom and Garmin ..(I downloaded both these applications also) and update on this.

Nokia gave two more applications free of cost first is Fring, Fring allows you to make VOIP calls with Skype,GTalk,Yahoo,MSN,AOL and etc apart from normal chatting. Setup was very easy.
But surprise came from Gizmowith all the above features, fring gave me 20$ worth free minutes and a new VOIP number (a US number)..thts what I call real deal. I was able to make calls using my WLAN in next moment i nstalled and signed up with fring. And Incoming is free with fring.
Application support fro S60 v3 has improved much better now compared to the time when N73 and N93 first came out. I struggled to get some good apps on these devices. Now almost all major Symbian developer is working on v3. Now my next search is media.
I was searching for a good player apart from the Nokia MP4/MP3 and Real player I already have as default apps.And soon found a divx player from the divx corporation. Im saved from all the converting business i need to undergo for loading a movie, and it playes mpeg,avi and divx in full resolution and there is a option to offset voice/video lag.