Saturday, 7 December 2013

BitTorrent & Media Server

Introduction

A couple of months ago I installed a combined Bit Torrent & Media Server in my living room. This does two things...
  • Downloads torrents from Internet
  • Streams video over my home network to TV

Motivation

The motivation for setting up this server was to save time. Six month ago I was using my laptop to download torrents and transferring files on to USB memory stick, this was really slow.

How it works

I control the server using app I have installed on both my smartphone & tablet. This can be used for adding torrents and monitoring the progress of downloads. There are many apps that do, I'm using
Remote Transmission (available on Google Play Store).



The Server

This is a Raspberry Pi with a Wifi dongle and a 500MB hard drive attached. Torrents are downloaded by this computer and saved on to the hard drive attached. Torrents are also shared on the network and can be played on TV or device that can stream video.


Media Streaming







Tuesday, 29 October 2013

Windows: The world's most expensive operating system

What are the issues with Windows ?

Performance
Windows tends to get slower over time, so much so that software to improve performance is very popular. This can add to cost of ownership if you address issue by purchasing software or have PC serviced.

Malware
Windows is by far the largest target of malware including viruses, trojans, worms, ransomware, spyware and adware. While products like McAfee and Norton go along way to prevent malware at best they will only detect 25% of threats.

Price
Windows is the only major desktop operating system that is not free. In comparison Mac OS, Linux, Android and IOS are free.

You might think that the PC or laptop you bought included a free copy of Windows. Microsoft don't do free, typically you pay €80 for Windows Home Premium or €160 or Windows Professional.