curefans.com

Other => Technical stuff => Topic started by: robiola on March 06, 2008, 20:42:36

Title: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: robiola on March 06, 2008, 20:42:36
Hey guys, I'm a brand new dimeadozen user, and I'm a bit confused about a few things. Is there a thread about this already? I searched, but didn't find anything. The dimeadozen help section helped a bit, but I'm still a little lost because all this is completely new to me, and even basic concepts escape me.... Such as, if I'm downloading files that nobody else is downloading, (it says connected to 0 peers)how can I keep my ratio up? I left the window open for the longest time after download was complete, but nothing happened... Could it be that there's something wrong with my PC settings? Or am I talking bullsh*t because I misunderstood how the thing is supposed to work? I don't really have any new files to share right now, all I can do is seed (is that how you say it?)the files I've downloaded, and besides right now creating a torrent is, I'm certain, beyond my capabilities....  :smth100
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: ernest newman on March 06, 2008, 21:17:25
Here is your problem, if you get on dimeadozen and feel like you want to download all shows on there when you pull up the cure you will end up getting banned. What you need to do is start by downloading all the new stuff that pops up where there are lots of people trying to grab it. Then keep your seeding up at full speed (even after your finished getting it) all the time for awhile on those current shows and develop a share ratio cushion. If you can your ratio to 2 or 3 with those new shows, then you can go back and grab older stuff that very few people are on and it will not kill your ratio. Shows that have been there awhile have very few people downloading them so to get your ratio back to 1 on them you will have to keep the window open for weeks to get there.

So as tempting as it is to go back and get old stuff (old meaning things that have been on there awhile, mainly more than a week or so) you have to earn the right to do it by establishing a large cushion
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: robiola on March 06, 2008, 21:33:14
I tried downloading one of the Top Ten torrents thinking it would meet the criteria you mentioned (I wanted it anyway, Led Zep!), but I had the same problem...I didn't check whether or not it was new... Maybe top ten means it's been downloaded a billion times but not necessarily recently...? So now I guess I'll try doing what you said, downloading new stuff even if I don't really want it, just for the purpose of seeding and getting my ratio up.
Just one more thing:
Quote from: ernest newman on March 06, 2008, 21:17:25
Then keep your seeding up at full speed
what exactly does that mean? I have to fiddle with the settings in the download/upload window? I always just left it as it was because I was afraid of messing things up!
Anyway, thank you for answering so quickly and fully, you've been extremely nice and helpful! :smth023
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: robiola on March 06, 2008, 22:05:28
Oooops, thought of another question or two... How do I spot the good ones for seeding? The ones that have a high count under the heading "snatched"? And for the life of me, I can't find the explanation for this...what the heck is a leecher? Sounds nasty. Sorry if I'm being a bother now with all these questions. :oops:
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: lostflower4 on March 06, 2008, 23:52:48
"Leecher" simply means you are a downloader (not the seeder). I know, it's kind of a crude term with negative connotations, but that's what it is.

As for keeping your ratio up, it can be extremely difficult for some people even if you follow the correct protocol. My ISP makes it especially difficult to connect to peers, so it's difficult for me to keep up a good sharing ratio even if I download brand new torrents and keep them open 24/7.

Couple that with the fact that my ISP recently increased my download speed/limit, and my ratio has been steadily going in the tank over the past few months. It's really embarrassing.  :oops:

Actually, the best thing you can do to help your ratio is to seed original torrents.
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: robiola on March 07, 2008, 00:33:18
Thanks lostflower4... unfortunately, being new to all this (hey, I'm just barely computer-literate) I have nothing new I can upload... I'm beginning to suspect that my dimeadozen adventure will be a brief one! I was lucky enough to get an account to download the Milan concert, and suddenly the wild wonderful world of torrenting opened up before my eyes :roll: (confusing me to no end). We'll see.
Oooooh, I don't want to be a leecher - ugh.
Hope you get your ratio back up, don't want you getting a bad reputation. ;)
Thank you for your help!
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: ernest newman on March 07, 2008, 00:58:13
In some cases you can have a bad provider that makes it difficult to seed. You are almost always going to run into a situation where it comes down much faster than you can seed back up (unless you are a college student or something sitting on a high speed line). All the internet companies cap your upload speed to make life difficult even though in reality it could go faster. Its just a matter of patience. The best thing to look for is not how many times snatched, the best one is where you see a new cure show, say today its the AT version of Milan and you see there is 1 seeder and 200-300 leechers trying to get it. That one will be hot for a little while everyone helps each other until the original seeder is finished. You download one like that and leave it open for a day or two after the thing finished and you should have plenty of opportunity to upload the same amount as you downloaded.

No need to give up, you were probably picking the wrong kind of seed. You want ones with few seeders and tons of leechers (which primarily are new torrents). you will learn to check dime twice a day so you can keep on top of it, and so your always on torrents that are moving
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: robiola on March 07, 2008, 01:29:58
Alright, I'll give it a try.
Thanks again to both you guys for your help. :D
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: j on March 07, 2008, 13:41:33
One other thing that I have learned (it may just be me) is in the settings of your torrent client, make sure that you have your upload speed set to the maximum setting, even if you will never reach that speed
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: robiola on March 07, 2008, 15:48:50
Quote from: j on March 07, 2008, 13:41:33
One other thing that I have learned (it may just be me) is in the settings of your torrent client, make sure that you have your upload speed set to the maximum setting, even if you will never reach that speed
Merci beaucoup, I'll have to check that out. Hey, I've got my ratio up to 0.57! It ain't much, but it sure is better than before. But my little old pc is trying to tell me it doesn't appreciate being left to run for hours on end at a time... I guess you gotta have halfway decent equipment to pull this off... My baby is old and tired. :?
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: rodney on March 10, 2008, 17:31:40
It's ideal to have your ratio at or over 1.0, but .57 is good enough to keep your account active.  I think you only need a .25 on DIME.
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: robiola on March 12, 2008, 23:16:12
Quote from: rodney on March 10, 2008, 17:31:40
It's ideal to have your ratio at or over 1.0, but .57 is good enough to keep your account active.  I think you only need a .25 on DIME.
That's right, but if I want to go back and download old stuff that nobody else is downloading, than I need to get it higher first!
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: rodney on March 13, 2008, 21:35:29
Ideally, yes, but as long as it's over .25 you're good.
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: CureCrusader on March 18, 2008, 05:17:18
I just got onto dime!!!!
I just got onto dime!!!!

I don't know what to do!!!    :smth100

I have a lucky day!!
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: CureCrusader on March 18, 2008, 05:26:06
how do I open the file?
I need a program that can do this ?
does anyone which is best for a torrent?

thankyou.
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: psychophysio on March 18, 2008, 06:45:17
I find utorrent is easy to use and doesn't take up much memory.

Put utorrent into google and off you go. Just keep your ratio over .25 and you can DL away! You can limit your sharing or DL speed with utorrent if you need to keep your ratio up as well.

Good luck!
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: CureCrusader on March 18, 2008, 18:00:31
Quote from: psychophysio on March 18, 2008, 06:45:17
I find utorrent is easy to use and doesn't take up much memory.

Put utorrent into google and off you go. Just keep your ratio over .25 and you can DL away! You can limit your sharing or DL speed with utorrent if you need to keep your ratio up as well.

Good luck!

THANKYOU FOR YOUR HELP, BUT I HAD ALREADY GOT BITTORRENT t-0-317 ( bITtORNADO), BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THEY RECOMMENDED?

there are so many things I don't know,,
i downloaded the Zurich 2008, and don't know how now to open up to seed anything back for this ratio.
At one time the speed was up to 188kb/s., then i got 27 seeders ( me the only leecher).. it slowed to 38kb/s.. 11 hours!!

does this dime put viruses in the computer, or remove files that are not supposedto?
Is it safe to use?
any help would be appreciated.  :roll:

Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: lostflower4 on March 18, 2008, 18:10:52
I started out with BitTornado because I didn't know any better, but it's pretty crappy compared to some other clients. These are my favorites â€" I alternate between both due to a throttling issue with my ISP:

http://azureus.sourceforge.net


Actually, Azureus has gotten really bloated lately, and I prefer to use an older version, available here:

http://download.oldversion.com/Azureus_2.5.0.0.exe


uTorrent is pretty awesome too, and uses a lot less memory than Azureus:

http://www.utorrent.com


These programs are pretty self-explanatory and you'll probably figure stuff out a lot faster with them compared to what you're using now.

As for viruses or other dangers, you definitely won't find these on music-only torrent sites like Dime, Trader's Den, or PPTC. It's impossible, because executive programs or archives that could contain them are not allowed.

For other torrent sites that host virtually everything (including warez), you gotta be more careful.

Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: CureCrusader on March 18, 2008, 18:17:43
thanks again lostflower4.. i might change over , i will try them out.

:smth023 :D
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: robiola on March 19, 2008, 17:43:21
I have BitTornado too, I just picked randomly...
I don't know if it's because of that, or something in my PC settings or what, but sometimes it says I'm connected to a lot of peers and yet my upload speed is zilch! I tried changing my firewall settings, but it didn't make a difference... So even if I leave my computer on a long time after my download is complete, my ratio goes downhill, because I don't upload much. Or sometimes the upload speed is 2-3 kb per sec, even though I set it to "unlimited". Bah.
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: japanesebaby on March 19, 2008, 22:45:49
Quote from: robiola on March 19, 2008, 17:43:21
I have BitTornado too, I just picked randomly...
I don't know if it's because of that, or something in my PC settings or what, but sometimes it says I'm connected to a lot of peers and yet my upload speed is zilch! I tried changing my firewall settings, but it didn't make a difference... So even if I leave my computer on a long time after my download is complete, my ratio goes downhill, because I don't upload much. Or sometimes the upload speed is 2-3 kb per sec, even though I set it to "unlimited". Bah.

you have to take into consideration that your upload/download speeds always depend on other people's speeds too: for instance, if you're downloading something and even if you'd have a super-fast connection yourself, if the guys seeding have slow connections then you'll be downloading slow. the same with firewalls: the problem might be that the other guys are not connectable, even if your firewall wasn't causing problems. sometimes you have peers but you just can't connect to anyone/the speeds are crawling. it just happens.
or, it could also be your internet provider throttling down detected torrent traffic... (they do that quite a lot all around these days i suppose). you could try running encrypted and see if there's any difference.
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: robiola on March 20, 2008, 09:14:21
Quote from: japanesebaby on March 19, 2008, 22:45:49
or, it could also be your internet provider throttling down detected torrent traffic... (they do that quite a lot all around these days i suppose).
Thanks, I hadn't thought of that. Always so much to learn...
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: billee on July 17, 2008, 14:31:58
 :smth100

hope someone can enlighten me.
Tried to go to dimeadozen tonight and I got this wretched message like this


Access forbidden!
You don't have permission to access the requested page.

Reason: IP address ( I've removed my ip addy here) is not allowed to access DIME; banned IP address or subnet

Error 403
www.dimeadozen.org
Thu Jul 17 13:59:22 2008
Apache/2.2.0 (Linux/SUSE)

I haven't been around to use it for almost 3 weeks and remember my ratio wasn't spectacular, around .57 , I think but have never had problems before. Would they kick me off for being AWOL for just a short time or is there another reason?
I have been to the Yahoo group site for dimeadozen with no explanation found and have sent an email ,hopefully I'll get a reply/explanation soon. Just wondering if any of you have struck this problem. I'm panic stricken. HELP........
:cry:
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: Steve on July 19, 2008, 10:47:19
Might be your ISP has decided to restrict torrents. Try asking them too.

Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: billee on July 20, 2008, 07:07:25
It's fixed :smth041

Contacted the site and got the reply that my isp range could've been banned due to abuse !!!

And then they fixed it so all is well..................much to my relief :smth023
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: scatcat on July 20, 2008, 19:12:49
 :smth023  phew!   billee!

was just gonna try a contact who has dimadozen account..  gratefully it has all worked out!

;)
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: Steve on July 20, 2008, 19:55:18
Great news.
:smth023
Title: Re: dimeadozen experts, help!
Post by: billee on July 24, 2008, 12:03:16
Thanks scatcat & steve :D