Electric Sheep seriously rocks my socks. I wish I was on a Mac, cuz I've seen how pretty it is on that, but on my sweet little Dell on Windows, it's still pretty awesome.

I wonder why they called it that though.

Weird.

"Mother,
Tell your children not to walk my way"
Danzig - Mother.

It's been ages since I've been searching for a good task scheduler that also can schedule scripts like:
1] Connecting to a certain connection at a certain time.
2] Disconnecting from a certain connection at a certain time.

I'm using a BSNL Dataone internet connection. I don't get charged for using the internet from 2am to 8am. I ain't sacrificing my sleep to download stuff, ergo I need to find a good scheduler.

So far, I found:

1] AlarmWiz. You can download AlarmWiz here, but it's shareware and it lasts only for 30 days. It can run scripts and launch applications at whatever time you desire, it works great too.

2] If you're just itching to do something cooler what you could do is write a Windows Script file to connect, and schedule that script file for execution at whatever time you wanted it to. To know more about writing scripts just type out the words "Automating the dial-up logon process by using Windows scripting" in your Windows help.

Or, better still let me tell you how to do it using basic DOS commands.
A] Make sure you have administrator privileges first. If not , give yourself some.

B] Open a basic text editor. Type in the command "rasdial your_connection_name your_user_name your_password" without the inverted commas of course. Save this as filename1.bat. ".bat" is the extension for an MS-DOS batch file.

C] Similarly create another file "filename2.bat" with the command "rasdial your_connection_name /DISCONNECT" and there we have it your done.

D] Use Windows task scheduler to run filename1.bat when you want to connect and filename2.bat when you want to disconnect.

3] There's a file in your systemroot\System32\Ras folder called Switch.inf, this file is basically a set of small scripts. SystemRoot is your root directory, or Windows directory.

Thanks to this page on Dial-Up Scheduling.

If you guys want it. You can download LimeWire. Current Version on www.LimeWire.org is 4.9.37.

Facts about LimeWire:

1] No bundled software i.e. no adware.

2] Supports Windows, Mac, OSX, Linux.

3] LimeWire is compatible with the Gnutella file-sharing protocol and can connect with anyone else running Gnutella-compatible software.

4] Swarm Downloads help you to download large files from multiple users. This helps in reducing the time it takes to download large files. When you search for a file, a small number appears on the left hand side. That number is the number of identical files found for the same result. This is how "Swarm Downloading" is implemented. Higher the number of hosts, faster the download.

5] LimeWire uses this technology called Ultrapeer selection to make the Gnutella network more scalable and efficient. What it basically does is users with high network bandwidth [bigger connections] and greater CPU power [better processing power] are assigned a higher status. The whole point of this assignment is so that these Ultrapeers can take load away from normal users like you and me. They also implement a whole load of algorithms on the Gnutella networks to ensure that if you have a 256 kbps connection you do only that much work, and if you're running along with a 2 mbps connection you get to do most of the work. Here's a good paper describing Ultrapeers: Another Step Towards Gnutella Scalability.

6] Here's an intriguing article about how LimeWire 5 rumoured to include liscence verification. If this is true, I'm screwed.

7] LimeWire says that it support firewall to firewall transfers. A lot of the users out there are firewalled ergo access to certain networks isn't allowed.

This line describes it perfectly; "firewalls drop incoming packets first, ask questions later."

LimeWire does this via a technique called Port Forwarding. Port Forwarding basically helps you to open up a port on your router or firewall for use. By use, I mean online gaming, BitTorrent streaming [incoming BitTorrent downloads] or in our case, incoming LimeWire downloads. You can set up forwarding on TCP and UDP ports at port number 6346, which is the default port at which LimeWire[Gnutella Network] connects to your firewall or router. TCP and UDP are transfer protocols that describe the behaviour of both the sender, receiver, the connection between them. Only one of the two are needed.

If you are behind a firewall or on a private network that uses a router, then either contact the guy you bought the firewall from, or your network administrator to guide you on how to setup manual port forwarding.

Here's a list of some port numbers and what they do.

If both you and the user you're downloading from are behind firewalls, this fails. So if you keep getting a "Need More Sources", your best bet would be to download whatever you want from a different user or disable your firewall.

8] Clean Interface. God knows it's true. Check out the snapshot.






9] Preview supports a good MP3 player and mostly all video media including OGG VORBIS. See my post on OGG MEDIA.

10] While installing, If you hit hard spots. Installation Guide.

11] Be cool, and get LimeWire skins.
For more info, there's this nice page on Why LimeWire downloads Needs More Sources.