The Jaded Tech

Trying to get updated torrent to work

Since TPB has shut down their tracker and going with a more decentralized torrent tracker system, I decided to follow suit. Now still being relatively new to Ubuntu, this has become a bit of a challenge. I have been using KTorrent and been pretty happy with it. Nice interface and reasonably uncomplicated configuration overall. So I test out the ‘magnet link’ and firefox gives me an error with “Firefox doesn’t know how to open this address, because the protocol (magnet) isn’t associated with any program.” type message. Do some digging and find out how to setup the new protocol. Do so, restart FF and still same error message. More digging and many people are experiencing the same thing.

Then I find out that KTorrent does not support the ‘magnet’ protocol that is needed for the new decentralized tracker. Ugh. Ok, so lets go back to the BT client I used when I ran XP, uTorrent. Oh wait….there is no Linux version of uTorrent but here are some nice examples of how to get it working under WINE. 15mins later and still it just wants to keep installing/install does not complete. Ok, screw that, back ever further to Azureus.

I left Azureus when it had become just too slow and painful to run, seems that a lot of people don’t the Java-style program and that it chewed up a lot of memory. Also, when they went to that ‘vuze’ interface, that really annoyed the shit out of me. Luckily there are bright people out there and quickly a ‘no-vuze hack popped up and all was reasonably good again.

Ok, so let’s try Azureus now. Ok, it’s installed and working….had to tweak the port forwarding on my router (damn Azureus wouldn’t go as high as I wanted…..ugh). Ok, so I got it to work ‘normally’, without using the magnet link. Damn FF won’t recognize the protocol. I suspect it has to do with the version of FF I’m running (3.5.5). More digging….

20mins later and still no answer. Everything says to do ‘this’. And do it and triple check and still the error message happens. FF is one of those love/hate relationships. I’m gonna take a break from this for awhile.

There are times in my life when the skills I have developed in technology really do have a big impact on me. I realize that not everyone puts so much effort in understanding technology as much as I do. Heck, how many people will follow a Google search 40 pages deep just to see what’s there? Or who do you know that has ever made a university’s print out 20 colour copies of the candy bra and laugh their ass off while having a hard time seeing the screen through teary eyes, all from their home system?

The point is that with all this technology that has been in all of our lives there are still people who seemed to live in caves and stare in wonder at awe at a wooden wheel. The following is a true conversation that happened this past saturday night.

LLPH “Do dvds have to be rewound?”

I was about to laugh but something made me pause. The way it was said that had an odd flavour of innocence to it.

Me: “Are you serious?”

LLP: “Oh, I uh, guess you don’t eh?”

Me: “No, you don’t.”

True story, as painful as it was.

In case you missed this classic vid, I suggest you watch and learn!