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<channel>
	<title>Geek and a Half</title>
	<link>http://spikex.net/blog</link>
	<description></description>
	<pubDate>Thu, 04 Sep 2008 08:15:17 +0000</pubDate>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.3</generator>
	<language>en</language>
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		<title>Even More Of Chrome&#8217;s Hidden Features</title>
		<link>http://spikex.net/blog/2008/09/04/even-more-of-chromes-hidden-features/</link>
		<comments>http://spikex.net/blog/2008/09/04/even-more-of-chromes-hidden-features/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:53:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake</dc:creator>
		
	<dc:subject>Misc.</dc:subject><dc:subject>chrome</dc:subject><dc:subject>google</dc:subject><dc:subject>internet</dc:subject><dc:subject>software</dc:subject>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://spikex.net/blog/2008/09/04/even-more-of-chromes-hidden-features/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[So by now you&#8217;ve all heard about Google&#8217;s new browser, but here are some nifty little (and some useless) things that you probably didn&#8217;t know about it.
All of these must be typed manually, they cannot be linked to with an &#60;a&#62; tag, as far as I&#8217;ve seen.

The &#8220;New Tab&#8221; page, the smart page that shows [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>So by now you&#8217;ve all heard about <a href="http://chrome.google.com/">Google&#8217;s new browser</a>, but here are some nifty little (and some useless) things that you probably didn&#8217;t know about it.</p>
<p>All of these must be typed manually, they cannot be linked to with an &lt;a&gt; tag, as far as I&#8217;ve seen.</p>
<ul>
<li>The &#8220;New Tab&#8221; page, the smart page that shows your most visited pages, can be accessed by going to <code>chrome-internal:</code></li>
<li>Easter egg: Type <code>about:internets</code> into the Omnibox. The title of the page says <b>&#8220;The Tubes are Clogged!&#8221;</b>, and the page is supposed to show the old Windows screen saver of the tubes going in various directions, however it doesn&#8217;t appear to be working for me on Windows Vista. Google has a great sense of humor nonetheless.</li>
<li>As of the initial release version, 0.2.149.27, typing the following into the Omnibox will crash Google Chrome: &#8220;:%&#8221;, no quotes.</li>
<li><code>about:stats</code> will produce a page entitled &#8220;Shhh! This page is secret!&#8221;, and also give you some scripting statistics.</li>
<li><code>about:plugins</code> will produce a page showing you plugin information.</li>
<li><code>about:version</code> will obviously display information about the browser itself, similar to the About dialog box.</li>
<li><code>about:memory</code> is the same as clicking the &#8220;Stats for nerds&#8221; link in the Chrome Task Manager.</li>
<li><code>about:histograms</code> will show connection times.</li>
<li><code>about:dns</code> will show lots of DNS info, like precaching and access times.</li>
<li><code>about:cache</code> brings up a HUGE list of your Internet cache.</li>
<li><code>about:network</code> brings up a menu and a few output windows for various network tests and monitors.</li>
<li><code>view-cache:stats</code> brings up what appears to be memory addresses for various things.</li>
<li><code>chrome-resource://favicon</code> will display the binary data for a PNG file, presumably a favicon. The code does not change if you visit different websites before or after.
</li>
</ul>
<p>Some of these are more for fun, while others are more for diagnostic purposes. Take of it what you will.</p>
<p>Have your own that isn&#8217;t listed here? Let us know in the comments!</p>
<p><center><font size="4"><a href="http://digg.com/software/Even_More_Hidden_Features_In_Chrome"><b>Digg this story!</b></a></font></center>
</p>
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		<title>Video Conversion Made Easy</title>
		<link>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/10/23/video-conversion-made-easy/</link>
		<comments>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/10/23/video-conversion-made-easy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Oct 2007 01:52:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake</dc:creator>
		
	<dc:subject>Misc.</dc:subject><dc:subject>reviews</dc:subject><dc:subject>software</dc:subject><dc:subject>video</dc:subject>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://spikex.net/blog/2007/10/23/video-conversion-made-easy/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve dealt with a lot of video converters over the years, a lot of which were utter crap. But recently I stumbled upon a converter that did it all, for free. I&#8217;m actually impressed that other converters aren&#8217;t as simple as this one.
It&#8217;s called Any Video Converter. No, I&#8217;m not getting paid to write this, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ve dealt with a lot of video converters over the years, a lot of which were utter crap. But recently I stumbled upon a converter that did it all, for free. I&#8217;m actually impressed that other converters aren&#8217;t as simple as this one.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s called <b><a href="http://www.any-video-converter.com/" target="_blank">Any Video Converter</a></b>. No, I&#8217;m not getting paid to write this, I just wanted to tell the world that I think this is a great program.</p>
<p>It&#8217;ll convert to/from MPEG, AVI, FLV, or MP4. There are even advanced options for customizing size, aspect ratio, bitrate, and start/endpoints. It even works with the custom codec and unusually high bitrate used by <b><a href="http://fraps.com/" target="_blank">Fraps</a></b>, so I can take a 1GB game video and compress it into a 15MB MPEG-2 video for YouTube with a few clicks. And while there&#8217;s a &#8220;nag screen&#8221; after converting is complete to buy the Pro Edition (the standard version is freeware), it&#8217;s a small price to pay for a solid, working video converter.</p>
<p>To all the other video converters out there: Take a page out of this program&#8217;s book.
</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<item>
		<title>This Site Is Now iPhone/iTouch Approved</title>
		<link>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/10/09/this-site-is-now-iphoneitouch-approved/</link>
		<comments>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/10/09/this-site-is-now-iphoneitouch-approved/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:32:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake</dc:creator>
		
	<dc:subject>Misc.</dc:subject><dc:subject>iPhone</dc:subject><dc:subject>ipod</dc:subject><dc:subject>site</dc:subject>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://spikex.net/blog/2007/10/09/this-site-is-now-iphoneitouch-approved/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m happy to report that I&#8217;ve jumped on the bandwagon and made my site iPhone/iPod Touch accessible (It was only a matter of time, right?). Hey, if there are going to be ten million of these things by 2008, I might as well start now, right?
To view the site in iMode, just visit us on [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;m happy to report that I&#8217;ve jumped on the bandwagon and made my site iPhone/iPod Touch accessible (It was only a <a href="http://spikex.net/blog/2007/09/14/my-first-ipod-the-iphod/">matter of time</a>, right?). Hey, if there are going to be <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/01/12/iphone/index.html" target="_blank">ten million of these things</a> by 2008, I might as well start now, right?</p>
<p>To view the site in iMode, just visit us on an iPod Touch or iPhone (or tell your browser to pretend to be an iPhone). Enjoy.</p>
<p>(I promise, the next article will <b>not</b> be about anything related to Apple.)
</p>
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		<title>iPod Touch Regains Calendar Add/Edit</title>
		<link>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/10/07/ipod-touch-regains-calendar-addedit/</link>
		<comments>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/10/07/ipod-touch-regains-calendar-addedit/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 07 Oct 2007 18:18:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake</dc:creator>
		
	<dc:subject>Misc.</dc:subject><dc:subject>apple</dc:subject><dc:subject>ipod</dc:subject>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://spikex.net/blog/2007/10/07/ipod-touch-regains-calendar-addedit/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I usually don&#8217;t like to relay Digg stories here, but I thought this one was important. This is a step in the right direction for the iPod touch, and if this email is really from Steve himself&#8230; well, let&#8217;s just say my hopes are a little bit higher.
Article Source (MacWorld Forums) &#124; digg story

]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I usually don&#8217;t like to relay Digg stories here, but I thought this one was important. This is a step in the right direction for the iPod touch, and if this email is really from Steve himself&#8230; well, let&#8217;s just say my hopes are a little bit higher.</p>
<p><a href="http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=365304">Article Source (MacWorld Forums)</a> | <a href="http://digg.com/apple/Add_Edit_calendars_WILL_be_added_to_iPod_Touch_in_future_software_update">digg story</a>
</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<item>
		<title>iPod Touch Followup</title>
		<link>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/10/01/ipod-touch-followup/</link>
		<comments>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/10/01/ipod-touch-followup/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Oct 2007 04:11:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake</dc:creator>
		
	<dc:subject>Misc.</dc:subject><dc:subject>apple</dc:subject><dc:subject>ipod</dc:subject><dc:subject>music</dc:subject><dc:subject>reviews</dc:subject>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://spikex.net/blog/2007/10/01/ipod-touch-followup/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I just posted some pictures I took of my new iPod in a Flickr Photo Set. The iPod came on Friday, Sept. 28, the day that it was supposedly officially released by Apple nationwide. Good timing Apple.
I really like it a lot. It&#8217;s exactly the way I envisioned it, too. Of course&#8230; some of the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I just posted some pictures I took of my new iPod in a <b><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/spikex/sets/72157602234711693/" target="_blank">Flickr Photo Set</a></b>. The iPod came on Friday, Sept. 28, the day that it was supposedly officially released by Apple nationwide. Good timing Apple.</p>
<p>I really like it a lot. It&#8217;s exactly the way I envisioned it, too. Of course&#8230; some of the gripes that you&#8217;ve seen circulating the Internet still hold true (<a href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/breaking/apple-cripples-ipod-touch-eliminates-add-button-from-calendar-297994.php" target="_blank">crippled Calendar app</a>, anyone?), but most of them are fixable. And my iPod is thankfully a Week 38 iPod, so I can confirm it does <b>not</b> have the <a href="http://digg.com/apple/iPod_Touch_screen_problem_Negative_Black_Effect?t=9208924" target="_blank">infamous screen defect</a>. And, despite what people are saying, I didn&#8217;t ever expect this device to be or act like an iPhone (however similar it is), so I&#8217;m quite happy with it.</p>
<p><center><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1435/1471275360_c8f7afcd72.jpg" /></center>
</p>
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		<item>
		<title>My First iPod: The &#8220;iPhod&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/09/14/my-first-ipod-the-iphod/</link>
		<comments>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/09/14/my-first-ipod-the-iphod/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Sep 2007 05:07:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake</dc:creator>
		
	<dc:subject>Misc.</dc:subject><dc:subject>apple</dc:subject><dc:subject>ipod</dc:subject><dc:subject>music</dc:subject>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://spikex.net/blog/2007/09/14/my-first-ipod-the-iphod/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
At least that&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve been calling Apple&#8217;s latest media device. Because that&#8217;s what it is. An iPhone minus the phone part. Hence, iPhod.
Regardless, I&#8217;ve preordered one. This will be my very first iPod. Ever. And I&#8217;m excited. I&#8217;ve used iPhones before, and they&#8217;re really amazing pieces of technology. They live up to all the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div style="float:left"><img src="http://spikex.net/i/iphone%20touch.png" hspace="10" alt="iPod Touch" /></div>
<p>At least that&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve been calling Apple&#8217;s latest media device. Because that&#8217;s what it is. An iPhone minus the phone part. Hence, iPhod.</p>
<p>Regardless, I&#8217;ve preordered one. This will be my very first iPod. Ever. And I&#8217;m excited. I&#8217;ve used iPhones before, and they&#8217;re really amazing pieces of technology. They live up to all the hype that they&#8217;ve been given, and I think the new iPod touch will, too. Now, I&#8217;m not saying this because I&#8217;m an Apple fanboy or anything (in fact, I sold my Mac Mini to pay for the new iPod, hardly a replacement, but we&#8217;ll see), but they really are neat. I think one of the big selling points for me was that it combined a lot of PDA elements into it, besides being a music player. It&#8217;s got a calendar (supposedly, you <a href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/breaking/apple-cripples-ipod-touch-eliminates-add-button-from-calendar-297994.php" target="_blank">can&#8217;t add events on the fly anymore</a>, though), clock, address book, alarms, calculator&#8230; all the little things that come in handy when you least expect them to. And it&#8217;s not to say that the old iPods didn&#8217;t have these features, either, they&#8217;re just presented a whole lot better on the touch.</p>
<p>Oh, and we can&#8217;t forget about the revolutionary web browser that&#8217;s in it too (yeah, the device has built-in WiFi, in case you haven&#8217;t guessed). Full-sized webpages, just like on your computer, but on that neat little screen with all the pinch and tap functionality. Like I said before&#8230; <b>It&#8217;s an iPhone without the phone.</b> Perfect for me, someone who&#8217;s stuck with Verizon Wireless on a family plan.</p>
<p>One more point of interest, as well&#8230; &#8220;supposedly&#8221; these things are fully hackable, just like the iPhone is (and Apple <a href="http://digg.com/apple/Apple_You_have_our_blessing_to_hack_the_iPhone_to_bits_2" target="_blank">doesn&#8217;t even care</a> that you&#8217;re hacking their stuff!), or at least, that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m hoping when I get it. From what I hear from friends who have iPhones, the hack process really isn&#8217;t a hack at all. It&#8217;s pretty much download, run, and it&#8217;s hacked. Feel free to install whatever apps you want on it at that point. I can only hope the touch is as hackable as the iPhone is, but I have a pretty good feeling it is.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve just now preordered the 16GB model, and with shipping the price tag comes out to be roughly $430. You can also get the 8GB model for $300. They ship Sept 28 and arrive in homes starting Oct 2. Personally, I can&#8217;t wait.
</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Geek Food: Amazing Puppy Chow</title>
		<link>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/09/10/geek-food-amazing-puppy-chow/</link>
		<comments>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/09/10/geek-food-amazing-puppy-chow/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Sep 2007 06:21:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake</dc:creator>
		
	<dc:subject>Misc.</dc:subject><dc:subject>food</dc:subject><dc:subject>tutorial</dc:subject>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://spikex.net/blog/2007/09/10/geek-food-amazing-puppy-chow/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[So normally I don&#8217;t do this sort of thing (recipes), but this is absolutely delicious geek food, so I wanted to share the recipe with you. It&#8217;s pretty simple, you have to really suck at cooking to screw this up. ;)
What you&#8217;ll need:

2-4 cups powdered sugar
2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup creamy [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>So normally I don&#8217;t do this sort of thing (recipes), but this is absolutely delicious geek food, so I wanted to share the recipe with you. It&#8217;s pretty simple, you have to really suck at cooking to screw this up. ;)</p>
<p>What you&#8217;ll need:
<ul>
<li>2-4 cups powdered sugar</li>
<li>2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips</li>
<li>1 stick unsalted butter</li>
<li>1/2 cup creamy peanut butter</li>
<li>1 box Rice/Corn Chex Cereal</li>
</ul>
<p>And here&#8217;s how you do it:
<ul>
<li>Get a small pot, put it on the stove. Turn the heat on to the lowest setting.</li>
<li>Pour into said pot the following: butter, peanut butter, chocolate chips.</li>
<li>Cook on LOW HEAT until fully melted. This is important, if you cook it too fast you&#8217;ll burn the chocolate and it&#8217;ll smell/taste like crap.</li>
<li>After it&#8217;s all melted, get your cereal and pour the whole box out into a big bowl. Get the chocolate mixture and pour it over the cereal as you mix it. Try not to crush the cereal ;)</li>
<li>After all the cereal&#8217;s coated with the chocolate mix, pour it into a bag of some sort. I use a clean garbage bag, but a paper bag works, too.</li>
<li>Pour some of the powdered sugar in, close the bag and shake. Repeat this step until all of it is coated with powdered sugar.</li>
<li>Pour into serving bowl(s) and enjoy.</li>
</ul>
<p>If done right, this is a really delicious geek treat. Enjoy. :)</p>
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		<title>Trillian Astra Alpha Preview</title>
		<link>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/09/04/trillian-astra-alpha-preview/</link>
		<comments>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/09/04/trillian-astra-alpha-preview/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Sep 2007 19:33:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake</dc:creator>
		
	<dc:subject>Misc.</dc:subject><dc:subject>beta</dc:subject><dc:subject>im</dc:subject><dc:subject>trillian</dc:subject><dc:subject>web 2.0</dc:subject>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://spikex.net/blog/2007/09/04/trillian-astra-alpha-preview/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was recently invited to join the Trillian Astra Alpha Preview, and I must say I&#8217;m impressed. While it&#8217;s still an alpha release, and there are bugs, there are also MAJOR improvements over Trilian 3.x.
Their central theme is &#8220;one contact for all contacts&#8221;, if that makse sense. So, you have one contact which in turn [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I was recently invited to join the Trillian Astra Alpha Preview, and I must say I&#8217;m impressed. While it&#8217;s still an alpha release, and there are bugs, there are also MAJOR improvements over Trilian 3.x.</p>
<p>Their central theme is &#8220;one contact for all contacts&#8221;, if that makse sense. So, you have one contact which in turn holds all your other contacts. My &#8220;AstraContact&#8221; is SpikeX, and it holds all my IM account information, for AIM, MSN, Google Talk, etc. They have strict privacy controls, as well, allowing you to restrict who can view what.</p>
<p>They&#8217;re also going mobile (in two ways). They have a very nice flash-based website that will act as a <a href="http://meebo.com/" target="_blank">Meebo</a>-like clone, and then they have this &#8220;TrillianMini&#8221; thing, it&#8217;s pretty much a forum signature banner that shows off your contacts. Oh, and they have an iPhone site set up, too. Whoop-de-frickin-do.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s my Trillian Mini:<br />
<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://www.trillianastra.com/widgets/TrillianStatus.swf?user=SpikeX&#038;theme=platinum" width="400" height="64"><br />
<font size="-3">(Requires Flash)</font></p>
<p>Not much, I know, but I&#8217;m sure it will be perfected im time for the final release.</p>
<p>There are quite a few bugs I can point out still, but overall it&#8217;s coming along very well. If <a href="http://talk.google.com/" target="_blank">Google Talk</a> doesn&#8217;t get its act together and release some updates, I might just switch to Trillian.</embed>
</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Ads Suck</title>
		<link>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/08/30/ads/</link>
		<comments>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/08/30/ads/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 30 Aug 2007 07:22:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake</dc:creator>
		
	<dc:subject>Misc.</dc:subject><dc:subject>misc</dc:subject><dc:subject>site</dc:subject>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://spikex.net/blog/2007/08/30/ads/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m sorry to report this, but I&#8217;ve broken down and gotten ads for the blog. I know, I know&#8230; I hate them as much as you do. But a college studen&#8217;t got to live, too, you know. :P
Within the next few days, you&#8217;ll see an AdSense box appear in the right navigation. If you have [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;m sorry to report this, but I&#8217;ve broken down and gotten ads for the blog. I know, I know&#8230; I hate them as much as you do. But a college studen&#8217;t got to live, too, you know. :P</p>
<p>Within the next few days, you&#8217;ll see an AdSense box appear in the right navigation. If you have a web content filter, don&#8217;t sweat it: it&#8217;ll get filtered out.</p>
<p>On another, semi-related note: I&#8217;m thinking about re-skinning the blog to give it a bit more modern-esque format. Stay tuened over the coming week(s).
</p>
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		<title>Why Comcast is not a great ISP.</title>
		<link>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/08/24/why-comcast-is-not-a-great-isp/</link>
		<comments>http://spikex.net/blog/2007/08/24/why-comcast-is-not-a-great-isp/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Aug 2007 23:39:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake</dc:creator>
		
	<dc:subject>Misc.</dc:subject><dc:subject>internet</dc:subject><dc:subject>news</dc:subject>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://spikex.net/blog/2007/08/24/why-comcast-is-not-a-great-isp/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A little contradictory considering my last entry, I know. But I just recently found out that Comcast, using a special network application, is blocking BitTorrent seeding. Using specific software known as Sandvine, it allows Comcast to allow upload traffic, but only when a download is in progress. As soon as you start seeding, this application [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A little contradictory considering my <a href="http://spikex.net/blog/2007/08/07/why-comcast-is-a-great-isp/">last entry</a>, I know. But I just recently found out that Comcast, using a special network application, is <a href="http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2007/08/21/comcast-is-starting-the-tiered-internet-whether-we-like-it-or-not/" target="_blank">blocking</a> <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r18323368-Comcast-is-using-Sandvine-to-manage-P2P-Connections" target="_blank">BitTorrent</a> <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-throttles-bittorrent-traffic-seeding-impossible/" target="__blank">seeding</a>. Using specific software known as <b>Sandvine</b>, it allows Comcast to allow upload traffic, <i>but only when a download is in progress</i>. As soon as you start seeding, this application tags all BitTorrent traffic with the &#8220;RST&#8221; flag (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Control_Protocol#Connection_termination" target="_blank">read more about the RST flag at Wikipedia</a>).</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve recieved mixed reports about this. Some of my fellow Comcast subscribers say they have been affected by this new software, others closer in proximity to my location have reported that this is not the case (yet).</p>
<p>Either way, this is the beginning of the end for the internet, as far as I can tell. First one protocol, then another, then it&#8217;s $5/mo extra to access YouTube, then it&#8217;s $1/mo/service you want to use on their lines (HTTP, FTP, SSH, etc). Okay, maybe it won&#8217;t be <i>that</i> bad, at least not for awhile. But it could be the future of the internet for your kids&#8230; and guess who&#8217;s gonna pay that bill? :)
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