By: Nikita Melkin
It is no secret that major search engines such as Google and Yahoo are the largest and often the only source to bring visitors to most Web sites. Importantly, you don't pay search engines for every visitor they send to your site. It's hard to underestimate the potential of this free traffic.How do you get more visitors? The short answer is: you have to get your site a better visibility on search engines.At this very moment, your competitors are improving their sites. They are fighting to be in the top search results in order to get more visitors.Statistically, your potential visitors only look through the first twenty or so results in the listings presented by search engines as the results of search requests. If you have more than twenty competitors, chances are that potential visitors would never find out about your site or product, but will instead be pointed towards your competition.So how do you get more visitors? Again, the short answer is: you have to optimize your site for better rankings in major search engines.There are several ways to optimize your site. You could contract a company specializing in Search Engine Optimization, or hire a SEO specialist. This can be effective but very expensive. Besides, an over-optimization of your site or the use of certain (mostly borderline) optimization methods can trigger the search engines to completely delete your site from their index. Because of this, contracting a third party to do a SEO job for you might be risky, and is not always a good idea.It's much better if you optimize your site yourself. As the owner of the site, you won't do anything risky that could lead to a ban by major search engines. As a good starting point, there is a SEO tutorial for beginners at http://seo-utorial.seoadministrator.com/After you read the tutorial, you may wonder what keyword density your pages have, what keywords your visitors use to find your site, and what rankings you have for those keywords on different search engines. Counting the keywords on a page, analyzing log files and running search queries on major search engines can be a long, time-consuming process. Furthermore, analyzing the results often requires certain statistical and mathematical knowledge.What if you don't have that much time or mathematical skills? After all, do your competitors have a Ph.D. in Mathematics?No, they don't need to. Your competitors are using tools that are specifically designed for gathering data on keywords and visitors, and tools for analyzing such data. They are getting nicely formatted reports that summarize their keywords, rankings, and visitor's behavior. Some of the best tools can even make suggestions on what they can do to rank higher for specific keywords, or even suggest new keywords that complement those already in use.SEO Administrator tools available at http://www.seoadministrator.com/ do all that, and much more. This package has everything to automatically analyze and track your site's rankings in various search engines, check sites that have links to your pages, and verify that your Web site is indexed properly by the search engines. It even does things as complex as finding the sites that link to your competitors, and offers their owners to link to you instead!This suite of SEO Administrator tools won't break the bank either, offering a terrific value at only $70 for the basic edition and all the way up to just $150 for the full-featured Enterprise version. You're getting a much better deal than your competitors! Visit http://www.seoadministrator.com/seo-software.html and see for yourself what this great set of SEO tools can do to grow your business!
Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com
2.9.50
Grow Your Business and Get More Visitors by Optimizing Your Site for Search Engines
Free Software Downloads
By: ingrid sure
Have you ever wondered what is software and why are we in such a great need of it?Computer software constitutes a procedural program used to schedule instruction streams onto a computer running process. It provides the capacity to run certain tasks, tasks that can only be undertaken with software programs. Software programs are specially designed to perform certain tasks and, through its usage, a PC is enabled to perform applications.A computer`s software consists in applications of the software, such as words processed to perform productive chores for its users. A system software engages an operating system together with the hardware, for the latter to run the necessary services for users-interfaces and apps. Additionally, as mentioned previously, we can observe that for a computer operating system to be able to run its tasks and application, interoperability between software and hardware is required.These being outlined, we shall distinguish between three types of computer systems: system software, programming software and application software.The system software incorporates features that have the task of enabling the user's computer to run both the computer hardware and the computer system. It also runs a multiple task performing, regarding the operating systems, the device drivers, diagnostic tools, windowing systems, utilities, and so on. Its major priority and goal is to protect the applications programmer, particular the computer complex, memory and other hardware accessory devices that are attached to a computer (printers, readers, display, keyboard, scanner, communications etc.).The second important part of the computer system, the programming software, provides tools and assistance for the user to write through computer programs and software with different programming languages, that best suits the operator of the PC. The featured tools are linkers, debuggers, tracing, a text editor, compiling and much more.The last computer system is represented by the application software which enables the user in achieving one or more tasks of its interests.We have already defined and understood what a computer system is and what features it incorporates. It is important to determine which software must be assessed because not all software combine and work at their maximum parameters. We also have to consider antivirus protection or any other task / application of the PC.Let`s take for example an operating system such as Windows 95 or Windows 98. It is endowed with the latest software, no matter what application the latter is installed for, since the risk of it to not work properly at its maximum functional parameters becomes a real fact.Microsoft Office is the software developed by Microsoft. This version is available for the operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X. The Microsoft Office 2003 versions have all the common office programs, except for those of Microsoft Office Basic Edition 2003. Microsoft Office Basic Edition consists in Word, Excel and Outlook. The other programs included are Microsoft Access, Microsoft InfoPath, Microsoft Vision, Microsoft Office Picture Manager, Microsoft Publisher and many other programs.The Microsoft Office 2007 system is the latest version that works with Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Outlook, Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office PowerPoint, Microsoft Office OneNote and many other Microsoft Components.Windows Vista is the latest version of an operating system developed by Microsoft.Through this operating system, Microsoft ensures its potential users that by using Windows Vista, they will experience a faster boot and also faster resumes from standby.Windows Vista Security’s download offers its users instructions and assistance in what concerns possible way in which desktop’s security can be reinforced while running this operating system.This version is also endowed with an installation kit, which is designed to help deploying Windows onto hardware.By using Windows Vista, users are provided with a multi-featured operating system, having a high-tech running performance.Norton Antivirus is a product developed by Symantec Corporation and is one of the most common and most used antivirus programs. Symantec's Live Update offers virus updates, which allows Norton Antivirus to detect potential viruses known by Symantec virus database. Free Downloads Center is an unique software archive that provides "Link to email" for free. It is enough for a user to enter his email address and he will instantly receive a link to Norton Antivirus.
Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com
World of Warcraft – The Goliath of Online Games
By: urlreader
Nowadays, people across the globe are on playing World of Warcraft (WOW) - an award-winning MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) that is set in the background of a warcraft universe. But in contrast to other MMORPGs, World of Warcraft permits users to play the game at their own pace, whether it is for a few hours or for a longer period. One of the other prime benefits of WOW is that it is a faster style of game with minimal downtime. WOW contains a huge variety of enticing quests with dynamic events, story elements, and flexible reward systems. Further, it comes with easy-to-use features and tools such as animated and audible characters, friends’ lists, and chat channels. The game also has options to customize its interface using XML. However, there are certain minimum system requirements for playing WOW, like Windows 2000 or Windows XP, Mac System OS X 10.3.5 OS, 933 MHz or higher G4 or G5 processor, 512 MB or more of RAM, latest video drivers, more hard drive space of at least 4 GB, and 56k or higher modem with an Internet connection. But, the pricing of WOW varies from region to region. For instance, in the US and Canada, the game is made available through software packages, which includes 30 days of game play for no additional cost. After a month, players can buy additional service using a valid credit card. But, to play WOW in Korea, players are required to purchase time credits online through credit card or the ARS billing system. Likewise, in many of the European nations, WOW is sold in DVD forms, which is inclusive of the game as well as 14 days of game play. An exciting feature of WOW is that since it is a MMORPG, it allows hordes of players to interact within the same world. Other key features of WOW, among many others, are opportunity to explore an expansive world filled with deserts, forests, snow-blown mountains, and other interesting lands; multiple modes of transportation, four realm types to choose from including Normal, Player versus Player, and Role-playing; joining the alliance as one of the eight playable races, options to select any of the nine classes, such as holy Paladins, shape-shifting Druids, powerful Warriors and Mages, and demon-summoning Warlocks; journey through an epic world consisting of various dungeons; and presence of 6 huge capital cities, which plays the role of major hubs for the races inhabiting them.In order to reach victory, WOW players have to go through multiple challenges and conquer multiple enemies, for which players are required to employ a myriad of valuable weapons. These weapons can be acquired after paying for it with world of warcraft gold. WOW gold is just a virtual currency, which is used to buy or sell items from other players in the arena. Due to its valuable presence in the game, WOW gold now seems to be of special significance rather than a real physical gold.But, the decision to buy wow gold is one that many video gamers wrestle with. A lot number of options are now available to buy WOW gold. One of the best options to buy cheap WOW gold is through individuals selling their own WOW gold via online auction sites. You can also find companies or individuals selling their gold on some professional business websites. Additionally, there are instant providers in the scenario to make you available WOW gold for your immediate purpose. Whether it is any source, one should make proper investigation with regard to the reputation of a particular company or individual, before providing your personal or credit card information. Additionally, it must also be checked whether they provide on time delivery of WOW gold.
Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com
Read More......Audio, Video and Backup Tools
By: Wolfgang Schmuck
Buying software online has never been easier with such as wide variety of retailers all competing for your business. However, choosing a reliable and trustworthy retailer becomes much more difficult when you have to separate the signal from the noise. In an effort to ensure that consumers are better equipped for buying certain types of software we have provided a step-by-step guide for buying audio software tools, video software tools and backup software tools. When it comes to choosing which specific retailer to buy from, try to do some research on the company to uncover if everything appears to be above-board. The company should have a telephone number in the instance where you have problems with your orders, and they should also have an acceptable policy for handling faulty products. You should try to find out what other people are saying about them on the web. If you can find nothing but good reviews, then the chances are that everything should be fine. Audio Tools: When you are going to be buying audio software tools, then the first thing to consider is compatibility. You need to ensure that any audio tools that you purchase are able to work on your operating system, and also be able to handle the kind of files that you will be using to output your audio files and also input your audio files. When it comes to audio another consideration, like with anything, is cost. It is important to ensure that you get the best deal so always remember to look around before splashing out. You may also find that many of the tools that you are willing to pay for are already available for free if you are prepared to look around and browse the web until you find them. Video Tools:When it comes to buying video tools, compatibility is a very important aspect that everyone should be prepared to consider. You should always remember that when it comes to software tools for video you have to be prepared to consider more than just compatibility with your operating system. This means that you have to ensure that the software is able to handle the form in which you will be inputting your files, and also the form in which you wish to output your files. In order to ensure you have no problems where this is concerned, the best thing to do is send off an email to the retailer if you are not sure. Backup Tools: Backup tools are something which few people take the time to invest in. The reasons for this change a lot from person to person. Some people say they cannot afford it, while other people do not believe that they losing data is something that is going to happen to them. However, little do they know that over 30% of computers suffer data loss at one time or another. This means that the chances are that it is going to happen to you at one point in your life. Look to buy backup tools that are stored in a different location from where your data is currently.
Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com
Software Windows XP Vista, iPod, Palm
By: Wolfgang Schmuck
When it comes to buying software it can be hard to know if you are getting the best deal that is out there. It is also hard to know if there are ways you can get the same software for free, and if so whether you are doing so in a way that is legal or not. When it comes to buying software, it is usually the case that it is much cheaper buying it online rather than offline. The main reason for this is cost. When an offline retailer wants to sell a product they have far more cost-centers to absorb. These include retail outlets, the need for more staff and the problems they encounter through being limited to who they can sell to. An online retailer has a global audience to which they market. Whether you are looking to buy software for your ipod, or palm, or even the new Windows XP Vista you can be sure to get the best deal if you are willing to dedicate time to comparing sources and taking advantage of deals. Choose The Product You Want When it comes to choosing the product that you want, you may be surprised to learn that it becomes less attractive when you become aware of the alternatives. That's why you should firstly look at what's available, and read reviews in order to get an idea if it provides all the functionality that you are after. You may also find that there are alternatives available that have the same functionality at a much reduced cost. Find Retailers Offering The ProductOnce you have decided on the product that you want to buy you should find retailers that offer the product. Some ways to do this involve using search engines, such as Google, or to use a comparison shopping engine such as shopping.com for example. Once you have identified retailers, you should then check to see what shipping options and payments options that offer. If they don't ship to where you live, or they charge too much, then you should choose another option. When it comes to computer software for the ipod, palm and Windows XP Vista you should also ensure that the retailer has an appropriate policy for returns in the instance where the software is not compatible or does not function correctly. Find CouponsNow you have decided on the software you want to buy, and possible sources from which to buy from, now you should find out if any of those retailers have coupon codes that mean you can gain discounts on those products. You can visit a coupon website or alternatively do a search for a phrase such as ipod software coupons, Palm software coupons or Windows XP Vista coupons into Google or alternatively into a coupon specific website. From there you will be able to calculate the retail price, less the coupon discount, and work out which is going to be the cheapest way to pick up your software online. Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com
What is BitTorrent?
BitTorrent is a protocol designed for transferring files. It is peer-to-peer in nature, as users connect to each other directly to send and receive portions of the file. However, there is a central server (called a tracker) which coordinates the action of all such peers. The tracker only manages connections, it does not have any knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed, and therefore a large number of users can be supported with relatively limited tracker bandwidth. The key philosophy of BitTorrent is that users should upload (transmit outbound) at the same time they are downloading (receiving inbound.) In this manner, network bandwidth is utilized as efficiently as possible. BitTorrent is designed to work better as the number of people interested in a certain file increases, in contrast to other file transfer protocols.
One analogy to describe this process might be to visualize a group of people sitting at a table. Each person at the table can both talk and listen to any other person at the table. These people are each trying to get a complete copy of a book. Person A announces that he has pages 1-10, 23, 42-50, and 75. Persons C, D, and E are each missing some of those pages that A has, and so they coordinate such that A gives them each copies of the pages he has that they are missing. Person B then announces that she has pages 11-22, 31-37, and 63-70. Persons A, D, and E tell B they would like some of her pages, so she gives them copies of the pages that she has. The process continues around the table until everyone has announced what they have (and hence what they are missing.) The people at the table coordinate to swap parts of this book until everyone has everything. There is also another person at the table, who we'll call 'S'. This person has a complete copy of the book, and so doesn't need anything sent to him. He responds with pages that no one else in the group has. At first, when everyone has just arrived, they all must talk to him to get their first set of pages. However, the people are smart enough to not all get the same pages from him. After a short while they all have most of the book amongst themselves, even if no one person has the whole thing. In this manner, this one person can share a book that he has with many other people, without having to give a full copy to everyone that's interested. He can instead give out different parts to different people, and they will be able to share it amongst themselves. This person who we've referred to as 'S' is called a seed in the terminology of BitTorrent. There's more about the various terms in a later section.
How does BitTorrent compare to other forms of file transfer?
The most common method by which files are transferred on the Internet is the client-server model. A central server sends the entire file to each client that requests it -- this is how both http and ftp work. The clients only speak to the server, and never to each other. The main advantages of this method are that it's simple to set up, and the files are usually always available since the servers tend to be dedicated to the task of serving, and are always on and connected to the Internet. However, this model has a significant problem with files that are large or very popular, or both. Namely, it takes a great deal of bandwidth and server resources to distribute such a file, since the server must transmit the entire file to each client. Perhaps you may have tried to download a demo of a new game just released, or CD images of a new Linux distribution, and found that all the servers report "too many users," or there is a long queue that you have to wait through. The concept of mirrors partially addresses this shortcoming by distributing the load across multiple servers. But it requires a lot of coordination and effort to set up an efficient network of mirrors, and it's usually only feasible for the busiest of sites.
Another method of transferring files has become popular recently: the peer-to-peer network, systems such as Kazaa, eDonkey, Gnutella, Direct Connect, etc. In most of these networks, ordinary Internet users trade files by directly connecting one-to-one. The advantage here is that files can be shared without having access to a proper server, and because of this there is little accountability for the contents of the files. Hence, these networks tend to be very popular for illicit files such as music, movies, pirated software, etc. Typically, a downloader receives a file from a single source, however the newest version of some clients allow downloading a single file from multiple sources for higher speeds. The problem discussed above of popular downloads is somewhat mitigated, because there's a greater chance that a popular file will be offered by a number of peers. The breadth of files available tends to be fairly good, though download speeds for obscure files tend to be low. Another common problem sometimes associated with these systems is the significant protocol overhead for passing search queries amongst the peers, and the number of peers that one can reach is often limited as a result. Partially downloaded files are usually not available to other peers, although some newer clients may offer this functionality. Availability is generally dependent on the goodwill of the users, to the extent that some of these networks have tried to enforce rules or restrictions regarding send/receive ratios.
Use of the Usenet binary newsgroups is yet another method of file distribution, one that is substantially different from the other methods. Files transferred over Usenet are often subject to miniscule windows of opportunity. Typical retention time of binary news servers are often as low as 24 hours, and having a posted file available for a week is considered a long time. However, the Usenet model is relatively efficient, in that the messages are passed around a large web of peers from one news server to another, and finally fanned out to the end user from there. Often the end user connects to a server provided by his or her ISP, resulting in further bandwidth savings. Usenet is also one of the more anonymous forms of file sharing, and it too is often used for illicit files of almost any nature. Due to the nature of NNTP, a file's popularity has little to do with its availability and hence downloads from Usenet tend to be quite fast regardless of content. The downsides of this method include a baroque set of rules and procedures, and requires a certain amount of effort and understanding from the user. Patience is often required to get a complete file due to the nature of splitting big files into a huge number of smaller posts. Finally, access to Usenet often must be purchased due to the extremely high volume of messages in the binary groups.
BitTorrent is closest to Usenet, in my opinion. It is best suited to newer files, of which a number of people have interest in. Obscure or older files tend to not be available. Perhaps as the software matures a more suitable means of keeping torrents seeded will emerge, but currently the client is quite resource-intensive, making it cumbersome to share a number of files. BitTorrent also deals well with files that are in high demand, especially compared to the other methods.
Where can I download the BitTorrent program?
There are several choices here, because unlike some peer to peer applications (such as Kazaa), the BitTorrent implementation is open source. This means that programmers are free to take the source code to the program and modify it, if they feel there is something they'd like to change. Here are the various clients of which I am aware:
Microsoft Windows
· The Shad0w's experimental client - Recommended! This client incorporates the codebase of the official version as well as all the improvements of the experimental version, below. Additionally, there are some misc. bug fixes, improvements from the latest development CVS sources, a user preferences feature that remembers its settings, and more. I highly recommend this version! (alternate) (alternate 2)
· burst! - Recommended! This client features a smaller memory footprint compared to the others, due to replacing the wxPython GUI with one written in Delphi. The GUI lets you control multiple transfers from a single window, in addition to many other handy features such as a built-in TorrentSpy-like capability. It uses the same Python back-end as The Shad0w's client so you also get all of the recent developments included therein.
· burst plus! - A client which is based on the burst base and includes Spanish language support, as well as some other additions.
· SimpleBT - Another fork of the burst code base that features Chinese language support.
· ABC ("Another BitTorrent Client") - This is a relatively new client that includes many of the most recent changes in the experimental versions, as well as other added features such as controling multiple downloads from a single window, queueing, automatic seeding, etc. See also: Sourceforge page.
· Official client - This is the "official" client in that it is the latest supported version from Bram Cohen, architect of BitTorrent. It has the fewest features of all the clients, and releases are much more conservative than the experimental versions. Use this if you want stability but don't need any of the common features of the other clients, such as upload rate limiting. See also: (CVS view), Sourceforge page.
· Eike Frost's Experimental client - This is based on the official version, with patches to allow upload rate control and show statistics about the number of peers and seeds, among other things. New in the "-2" revision is support for displaying additional details about the peers that are connected, as well as some annoyance and bug fixes.
· Azureus - A very nice Java client that incorporates a full-featured GUI with extensive visualizations/statistics about the transfer. You will need the 1.4 JRE installed to run this, which can be obtained from this link. See also: Screen shots.
· Personal Torrent Collector (PTC) - This is an alternative GUI interface to the Python BitTorrent client. It has support for a number of interesting features, such as the ability to control the total bandwidth usage of a group of BitTorrent transfers, and RSS syndication for organizing torrent files. See also: SourceForge page.
· Shareaza - Newer public beta versions of this program now include BitTorrent support, in addition to the eDonkey2k and Gnutella protocols. However, the BitTorrent support may still have bugs, and some things (such as seeding a file) may not be as straightforward as with dedicated BitTorrent clients.
· NovaTorrent - I welcome reviews of this client. :-) I have not personally evaluated it yet.
· BitTorrent++ - This is an alternative to the official client. It supports extra functionality such as multiple downloads from a single GUI. Some people (myself included) have experienced major bugs with this program, so consider it unstable and use a different client unless you want to experiment. It appears to be abandoned and has not had any bug fixes in a long time. Therefore, since these bugs have the ability to adversely affect the performance of the BitTorrent swarm, so pleae do not use this client.
What other BitTorrent-related utilities are out there?
· TorrentSpy - Recommended! An MS Windows tool which allows you to query a tracker about a specific torrent, view metadata info, check a file's hashes, etc. A new feature is the "create" tab for making torrent files to upload.
· maketorrent - A utility for creating torrent files, by the author of the burst! client. Version 1.x of MakeTorrent was a modified version of the Python 'completedir' program with extra features. Version 2.x is a complete rewrite in Delphi. Highly recommended!
· completedir 1.0.1 - A utility for creating new .torrent files, part of the official BitTorrent client package. This is packaged as a Windows installer, get the source code for use with other platforms.
· BNBT - This is a C++ implementation of a BitTorrent tracker. It should compile under most any Unix with GCC available, as well as MS Windows with MSVC (binaries included.) It includes all of the functionality of the reference Python tracker, but it also includes many enhancements: user accounts, improved web interface, statistics, etc. See also the TrackPak for a bundled BNBT and installer that's easy to use.
· Java BitTorrent Tools - A metafile viewer/editor, availability checker, and a basic tracker.
· BTChange 0.94a - For modifying tracker info in an existing .torrent file. Use this if the tracker changes, so that you don't have to recreate the file. See also: Sourceforge page.
· PHPBTTracker - a free (GPL) tracker implementation in PHP with a MySQL back-end, includes built-in statistics collection and reporting. See also: sample output.
· DumpTorrentCGI - Use this handy web page to parse and output the contents of a .torrent file (from either your local system or a link URL.) Use this to quickly determine a torrent's hash ID or which tracker is hosting it.
· trackerlyze.pl 1.11 - A free (GPL) Perl script that analyzes the logfile of a tracker and creates graphs and reports of the bandwidth used and number of peers/seeds. See also: Home page.
· libbt - A library implementation of the BitTorrent protocol in C. This project is still under development, and is not suitable to end-users at this point.
How do I uninstall BitTorrent?
MS Windows
Go to Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel. There should exist an entry for BitTorrent. If it's not there, suspect an incorrect install. You can always reinstall the latest version and then uninstall it.
If you know what you are doing, you can manually remove BitTorrent by deleting the directory C:\Program Files\BitTorrent\ (substituting the actual location of your Program Files dir) and removing the following registry keys:
· HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.torrent
· HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MIME\Database\Content Type\application/x-bittorrent
· HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\bittorrent HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\BitTorrent
What do all these words mean? (seeding, uploading, share rating, etc.)
Here is a brief list of words associated with BitTorrent and their meanings.
torrent
Usually this refers to the small metadata file you receive from the web server (the one that ends in .torrent.) Metadata here means that the file contains information about the data you want to download, not the data itself. This is what is sent to your computer when you click on a download link on a website. You can also save the torrent file to your local system, and then click on it to open the BitTorrent download. This is useful if you want to be able to re-open the torrent later on without having to find the link again.
In some uses, it can also refer to everything associated with a certain file available with BitTorrent. For example, someone might say "I downloaded that torrent" or "that server has a lot of good torrents", meaning there are lots of good files available via BitTorrent on that server.
peer
A peer is another computer on the internet that you connect to and transfer data. Generally a peer does not have the complete file, otherwise it would be called a seed. Some people also refer to peers as leeches, to distinguish them from those generous folks who have completed their download and continue to leave the client running and act as a seed.
seed
A computer that has a complete copy of a certain torrent. Once your client finishes downloading, it will remain open until you click the Finish button (or otherwise close it.) This is known as being a seed or seeding. You can also start a BT client with a complete file, and once BT has checked the file it will connect and seed the file to others. Generally, it's considered good manners to continue seeding a file after you have finished downloading, to help out others. Also, when a new torrent is posted to a tracker, someone must seed it in order for it to be available to others. Remember, the tracker doesn't know anything of the actual contents of a file, so it's important to follow through and seed a file if you upload the torrent to a tracker.
reseed
When there are zero seeds for a given torrent (and not enough peers to have a distributed copy), then eventually all the peers will get stuck with an incomplete file, since no one in the swarm has the missing pieces. When this happens, someone with a complete file (a seed) must connect to the swarm so that those missing pieces can be transferred. This is called reseeding. Usually a request for a reseed comes with an implicit promise that the requester will leave his or her client open for some time period after finishing (to add longevity to the torrent) in return for the kind soul reseeding the file.
swarm
The group of machines that are collectively connected for a particular file. For example, if you start a BitTorrent client and it tells you that you're connected to 10 peers and 3 seeds, then the swarm consists of you and those 13 other people.
tracker
A server on the Internet that acts to coordinate the action of BitTorrent clients. When you open a torrent, your machine contacts the tracker and asks for a list of peers to contact. Periodically throughout the transfer, your machine will check in with the tracker, telling it how much you've downloaded and uploaded, how much you have left before finishing, and the state you're in (starting, finished download, stopping.) If a tracker is down and you try to open a torrent, you will be unable to connect. If a tracker goes down during a torrent (i.e., you have already connected at some point and are already talking to peers), you will be able to continue transferring with those peers, but no new peers will be able to contact you. Often tracker errors are temporary, so the best thing to do is just wait and leave the client open to continue trying.
downloading
Receiving data FROM another computer.
uploading
Sending data TO another computer.
share rating
If you are using the experimental client with the stats-patch, you will see a share rating displayed on the GUI panel. This is simply the ratio of your amount uploaded divided by your amount downloaded. The amounts used are for the current session only, not over the history of the file. If you achieve a share ratio of 1.0, that would mean you've uploaded as much as you've downloaded. The higher the number, the more you have contributed. If you see a share ratio of "oo", this means infinity, which will happen if you open a BT client with a complete file (i.e., you seed the file.) In this case you download nothing since you have the full file, and so anything you send will cause the ratio to reach infinity. Note: The share rating is just a number that is displayed for your convenience. It does not directly affect any aspect of the client at all. In general, out of courtesy to others you should strive to keep this ratio as high as possible, of course.
distributed copies
In some versions of the client, you will see the text "Connected to n seeds; also seeing n.nnn distributed copies." A seed is a machine with the complete file. However, the swarm can collectively have a complete copy (or copies) of the file, and that is what this is telling you. Referring again to the "people at a table" analogy, consider the case where the book has 10 pages, and person A has pp.1-5 and B has pp.6-10. Collectively, A and B have a complete copy of the book, even though no one person has the whole thing. In other words, even if there are no seeds, as long as there is at least one distributed copy of the file everyone can eventually get a complete file. Meditate on this, the Zen of BitTorrent, grasshopper.
choked
This is a term used in the description of the BitTorrent protocol. It refers to the state of an uploader, i.e. the thread that sends data to another peer. When a connection is choked, it means that the transmitter doesn't currently want to send anything on that link. A BT client signals that it's choked to other clients for a number of reasons, but the most common is that by default a client will only maintain --max_uploads active simultaneous uploads, the rest will be marked choked. (The default value is 4 and this is the same setting that experimental client GUI lets you adjust.) A connection can also be choked for other reasons, for example a peer downloading from a seed will mark his connection as choked since the seed is not interested in receiving anything. Note that since each connection is bidirectional and symmetrical, there are two choked flags for each connection, one for each Tx endpoint.
interested
Another term used in the protocol specification. This is the corollary to the choked flag, in that interested refers to the state of a downloader with respect to a connection. A downloader is marked as interested if the other end of the link has any pieces that the client wants, otherwise the connection is marked as not interested.
snubbed
If the client has not received anything after a certain period (default: 60 seconds), it marks a connection as snubbed, in that the peer on the other end has chosen not to send in a while. See the definition of choked for reasons why an uploader might mark a connection as choked. The real function of keeping track of this variable is to improve download speeds. Occasionally the client will find itself in a state where even though it is connected to many peers, it is choked by all of them. The client uses the snubbed flag in an attempt to prevent this situation. It notes that a peer with whom it would like to trade pieces with has not sent anything in a while, and rather than leaving it up to the optimistic choking to eventuall select that peer, it instead reserves one of its upload slots for sending to that peer. (Reference)
optimistic unchoking Periodically, the client shakes up the list of uploaders and tries sending on different connections that were previously choked, and choking the connections it was just using. You can observe this action every 10 or 20 seconds or so, by watching the "Advanced" panel of one of the experimental clients.
