Matt’s Journal

Loving this website..

Posted by Matt under Happy

You may have heard of the internet phenomenon that is lolcats, if you havent its basically pictures of cats with awesome captions.

Take a look:

http://www.icanhascheezburger.com

Faster Download Speeds with uTorrent

Posted by Matt under Tech

I have days when I leave the computer on all day to download a particularly large torrent, the problem is that you may find by the time you arrive home, the file is still quite a distance of completing.

If you are a uTorrent user like myself, there are ways you can make sure you get better download speeds just by tweaking a few settings:

1. If you have a router, make sure that the uTorrent bittorrent port is forwarded (so your router knows to allow incoming connections for the files you download).

Copy and Paste the Current Port (I tend to change it to a number above 40,000) and note the manufacturer and model of your router and head over to PortForward.com, making effort to select uTorrent from the Applications list. Paste the Current Port into the page and it will prepare the steps for you.

2. Going into “Preferences” from the menu, will take you into a screen much like this one:

Here I untick Enable uPnP Port Mapping and set my global upload to about 14kb/s. This will allow you to share and keep the download as strong as it can be. One of the biggest reasons I use uTorrent is its Protocol Encryption, still on the same category make sure that Protocol Encryption is Enabled and be sure to click Allow incoming legacy connections. This will trick the traffic shaping methods your ISP has setup and allow you to download at your full capacity.

3. Set:
- Global Maximum Number of Connections to 125 (for Bittorrent, less is more!).
- Maximum number of connected peers per torrent to around 25.
- Number of upload slots per torrent to 3 or 4.

This will allow you to get a better quality of download.

4. Under Advanced change the Change the net.max_halfopen value to 100 by selecting the line, changing the value at the bottom to 100 and clicking Set.

If you have an up-to-date Windows machine, patch tcpip.sys with LvlLord’s Patcher to allow for more open connections in Windows.

DO NOT CHANGE THIS OPTION unless you have Windows XP SP2 and have patched tcpip.sys.

If you have forwarded the ports and set it up correctly, a icon will show at the bottom of the window showing did it!

Thats about it! Good luck!

Working it out.

Posted by Matt under General, Update

The last few weeks have been filled with lots of good things but its been very busy. As mentioned previously I was generously invited to attend We Will Rock You with my super girlfriend as a gift for Valentines Day, I have to say that it “Rocked Me”. Growing up to Queen, I was expectant that it would bring back all the old classics and I would be hard pressed to keep myself from singing and dancing to the music. Well……I managed to stay relatively still but I was able to embarrass K (short name for my g/f) with my not-so-in-tune singing This was pre-empted with a lovely Limo ride into London, a hearty English meal and of course the comfy return home.

Completely moving off on a tangent, my business seems to be gaining momentum. We are now a registered business in the UK, we have a brand new business bank account and are on the verge of getting our Registered VAT number (UK Tax). I have brought in some outside help to aid me with the web design, hopefully it will be the start of a good partnership. We have outfitted our current client with all their IT needs, incorporated a fantastic new telephone system and even managed to fire the inner geek in me by purchasing two 42inch LCD screens and have them run straight off the network, mind you this is not at my place, it’s the clients

I have been gaming a little more too, I have been pushing Gears of War even further in pursuit of all the achievements. The latest to fall were gaining all 30 COG tags and killing three bad guys at once ten times (sounds fun eh?!). To me M$ have got it right with the achievements system as it has made me play the single player on all difficulties and attempt to pwn online (I am still a way off that as the ranking system means I get pitched against some crazily good players).

To finish, I will write to congratulate K for gaining entry to her nursing course which will start in March. K decided that Law wasn’t pushing her buttons so she decided to take on a nursing diploma, I think she will be great at it.

Woo for the Wii!

Posted by Matt under Gaming, Happy

Dont hate me, dont have a go at me because I waste my money but today I managed to secure a Wii! I belong to a site called Hotukdeals which serves to bring down the cost of shopping by promoting online discounts and where to find great deals. Well today they had this post which showed that Amazon UK had 500 Wii’s in stock and they were selling fast. Just happening to check at the right time, I popped on and pushed through the order not even hesitating to think whether I could afford it!

The confirmation email came through, the payment was taken and now I just have to wait for delivery!

Now the sickener, I will be giving it to my girlfriend. I asked her around Christmas time whether she would play if I got one, so this is me fulfilling my end

So….er………yeah. Carry on