Download from a paypal site without paying a penny

Just a little basic html tip for those who are trying to download an application from sites which has an paypal order page & link to start you off.

Use a proxy when you try this to hide your ip as some sites will record your ip when you connect for security.

1) Rightclick your mouse (ctrl+click) viewsource and open the source of the site in an a texteditor
2) Search for the word "return"
3) Next to it you can find the url for the thank you page
4) Copy the url and paste it in your browser and you will see the download link

This works only if you can download instantly after payment, it will not work if the link needs to be emailed to you.

You can try it here to start with:
Code:
http://www.ramphelp.com/halfpipe.html


About half way down the page you will find:



Copy the link into your browser and download.

How to find MP3's real quickly

Another good way of finding MP3s (or other formats) is using Google and typing the following:

parent + directory + mp3 + OR + wma+ #dido#

Replace #dido# by whatever artist you wish to find, for example:

parent + directory + mp3 + OR + wma+ #Lamb#

You should get plenty of dirs with MP3s or WMA files (you could add OGG, etc, to the query). Cheers.

FlashGet v1.4 - More Download Simultaneously

Tutorial Objective

This tutorial guides the user how he/she is able to specify more files download at the same time from the FlashGet Option setting.


Tutorial Introduction & Background & Fact

Pre-requistes Tools

* FlashGet v1.4


Terminology & Explanation

Implementation

This tutorial requires you to modify the registry; therefore, backup your registry before you start to implement what this tutorial says.

CODE

Start "regedit" and go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JetCar\JetCar\General

open "General"

right-click with your mouse into the right window
and create a new "DWORD" value

name new value "MaxSimJobs"

now doubleclick "MaxSimJobs" ,chose "dezimal" and
enter a new value "100"

press "return" and close registry-editor

In Flashget/tools/ options you can now set max.downloads to 100
instead of 8.


Benefical

* It allows the user to have more files to download simultaneously by using FlashGet v1.4 download manager.


Additional Information
(None)


Search Keyword
FlashGet multiple download simultaneously simultaneous

Download Timeframes

Size <<<<<< 28.8k <<<<<< 56K <<<<<< T1
500K<<<<<<4 minutes<<<2 minutes<<<<1 minute
1 MB<<<<<<7 minutes<<<4 minutes<<<<1 minute
5 MB<<<<<37 minutes<<<22 minutes<<<1 minute
20 MB<<<<148 minutes<<89 minutes<<<<2 minutes
50 MB<<<<370 minutes<<222 minutes<<<4 minutes
100 MB<<<<741 minutes<<444 minutes<<9 minutes

Bittorrent guide for beginners

Lets get into bittorents, cause its the easiest thing to setup.

All you do is install the bittorent client (see link above). go to
CODE
http://suprnova.org
and click on a torrent you like. I recommend that you right click and save the torrent. and then click on the saved torrent to start a download. this way if your download fails, u can resume it from the torrent you saved rather then having to go to the website. Confusing? it may be, thats why I recommend you go here for more helpful info.
CODE
http://www.dessent.net/btfaq/


The next thing that you need to note is, thats if you are using firewalls etc... you will need to free up some TCP ports. That is from 6881 to 6999. Otherwise the program will show you a yellow dot and your downloads will be slow.!!!

Now for all of you with limited connections, even though the faster you share the file you are downloading the faster you will download it at, IS TRUE. If you saturate your uplink, aside form making your internet connection crawl slower then a constipated snail, you will also slow down your bittorrent download as your pc will not be able to acknowledge the packets which you receive fast enough, since you are using all your uplink to share. In this case the *WISE* thing to do is to click on the torrent window and select Settings for [Dial up/ISDN] and move the arrow on the right of this all the way down to 3k for uploads.

I would also like to point out that with bittorrents, unlike other p2p sharing programs, you only share the file which you are downloading and NO other files on your pc. Torrents work by downloading bits of the file like a puzzle from various people. So if you have a part of the puzzle that someone else wants, you swap and so on.

(IMPORTANT often a torrent may appear to be completed on your hard disk (take up 500 megs as u expected) but it won't really be because torrents often reserve space and then this space gets filled up with the missing bits of the puzzle. PLEASE remember that a torrent is not finished downloading until it says "Download Finished"

It is also generally considered polite to leave the torrent open even after you have finished your download so that other people can download for you. If you don't wanna, then at least do it at times when there are 0 hosts and a few peers, that way you keep the torrent alive. (a host is a person or persons who have posted the torrent or left their finished file for sharing and peers are people who are downloading the file i.e. the host has the entire file and peers are ppl who don't and are downloading it)

FINALLY you should be able to find lots of handy stuff on suprnova but before you click to download a file, check that it has AT LEAST 1 SEED or if it has 0 seeds that it has quiet a few peers. The reason being that it is possible that all those people combined among themselves will not have enough data to put together the entier thing you are downloading (you will know that this is the case if after a while you still have a blue dot) Sometimes i have left these files going for a day or 2 and someone has kindly come in and shared their file again, and I managed to finish these downloads, so don't give up on these files straight away.

I know i have written a fair bit here, but you can probably ignore most of it heheh
Happy Torrennting!!

Free Hosting For WAREZ

Place to stick your warez and how to do it.
if you have a file you wish to upload and its too large for a free webhost and you still want it online try this method.

www.rarlab.com: download rar and cut the file up into 1MB files.
Mass Rename them to .doc (i forgot how to do it but its via CMD)
www.hostultra.com: sign up for the free hosting, which has unlimited bandwidth and space with a REAL (yet not your main) hotmail account.
Upload the files via FTP

Goto www.projectw.org
and tell people the link ie. http://www.hostultra.com/blah/blah1.doc - blah100.doc
Use Flashget to download!

And there you have it, as long as the people on hostultra dont find your site your fine icon_razz.gif


Downsides:
hostultra only allows max file size of 1MB files.
hostultra does not allow .exe or .mp3

Hostultra:
Unlimited Data Transfer
Unlimited Disk Space
100mbps Network Connection
99.9% Uptime
Free Sub Directory ( hostultra.com/~you )
Cool yourname.vzz.net URL!
Free Subdomains ( Many domains to choose from! )
Free Domain Hosting ( yourdomain.com )
Custom Domain DNS Control ( A/CNAME/MX Records )
Browser and FTP Uploading
PHP / MySQL*
Unlimited Domains / Unlimited Subdomains
Free Search Engine Submission

Terms Of Use For HostUltra
# In addition to the above, User shall not upload onto their hostultra web space any of the following:

1. audio or video files of any type this includes but is not limited to .wma .wmv .wav .mp3 .avi .mpg .asf .mov (however flash and midi files are allowed);
2. spanned archives such as such as .z01 .rar .ace;
3. any binary files that are not linked to an html page on the Site;
4. sites which contain only (or mostly) downloadable files;
5. download sites of any kind, including but not limited to, shareware, freeware, trialware, demos, warez, appz, gamez, iso, cracks;
6. photo albums, image galleries or TGPs;

(THOUGH WHOS LISTENING TO THE RULES?!)

to make it less likely hostultra will delete your account, add a fake little site on there, like a few pages of crappy html about some stupid thing which has nothing to do with warez. (ie. bob's site)

Google dirty hacker secrets

Method 1:

put this string in google search:

"parent directory " /appz/ -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums
"parent directory " DVDRip -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums
"parent directory "Xvid -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums
"parent directory " Gamez -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums
"parent directory " MP3 -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums
"parent directory " Name of Singer or album -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

Notice that i am only changing the word after the parent directory, change it to what you want and you will get a lot of stuff.

voila!

Method 2:

put this string in google search:

?intitle:index.of? mp3

You only need add the name of the song/artist/singer.
Example: ?intitle:index.of? mp3 jackson

Yahoo + geocities Posts

The Beginning :
You must use a downloading program like flashget. 150+ Kbps download speeds

There is a lot of people downloading from these servers so don't be surprised
if it's hard to get the files lickity split, it will take time, maybe up to 24hours or longer.
Error 503 (Service Temporarily Unavailable), 508 (Unused) or 999 (Not available)
will be a Normal Response

( Error 404 is the only response you DON'T want = File deleted )

The following are tips for downloading from Yahoo/Geocities, you will get
what you want quicker and easier by following them.

A few restrictions that I've figured out by downloading from the Y/G servers:
You Must only use 1 jet (split part) per file, each extra jet added acts like a
separate file and you will have to do the IP change more often (see below).

Example: file.zip with 8 jets or split parts seems like 8 separate files
to the server yet you've only downloaded 1 file (IP change range 10 to 15 files)
If you don't mind changing your IP every 5 minutes then use all the jets you want, LoL
but I recommend just leaving at 1 jet per file.

(MOST Important)
You MUST change the Referrer on every file so it is Blank, if it isn't set correctly
you will get a 403 (forbidden error)
(Tip from DarkKnightz)

_____________________________________________________________________
The next section in most cases won't need to be read, But if
you do have a problem come back and read the rest, LoL
_____________________________________________________________________

Your downloads will stop at times with a code 999, 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable
or 508 Unused, be patient it will restart but give it some time, But if it doesn't
restart after 10 or so retries try pausing the download for 5 to 15 minutes, or
move on to another file and come back to it later. Keep bouncing around because
sooner or later they will start.

Most times if you pause your downloads for 5 to 15 minutes, they will restart,
But this is a last resort (IP Change)
Before doing this make sure you gave the files plenty of retries (approximately
25 No starts) If No more of the files will start downloading and your getting a
503 Service Temporarily Unavailable, 508 Unused or 999 Not available,
all you need to do is change your IP number.

#1 by re-dialing (Dial-up)

OR

#2 disconnect your modem from the net (disconnect your modem in the setup interface)
for about 30 seconds, reconnect the modem and you'll have a new IP.
Unless you have a static IP, in which you'll have to use proxies like with BRTurbo
to evade the max bandwidth restriction.

Any files that continue to be a problem Re-check to make sure you have the proper
referrer set, if they're all OK then you may have to wait a few hours and start where
you left off.

If you have a static IP use a proxy like when you download from BRTurbo links.

Download From Ftps, Using Ftp Search Sites

Toolz Needed:
SmartFTP [ smartftp.com ]
NAPALM FTP Search Site [ search.ftphost.net ]
vcdquality.com Release Nfo Site
DAMN NFO Viewer or just notepad [www.damn.to ]

This tutorial is so i can stop answering tha same NewB questionz everyday
in this tutorial I'll xplain how to use search sites like NAPALM effectively.
basically better search results and a quality release.
we are gunna use a movie as tha example so here we go...
first thing I do is try and figure who all released it & if any were nuked and why
most of tha time you can find tha NFO at tha sites below
www.theisonews.com - www.nforce.nl - www.vcdquality.com

we are gunna use vcdquality to find out NFO on Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life
h**p://www.vcdquality.com/index.php?imdbid=0325703
ok say you chose tha copy Centropy released
here is tha link to tha nfo file (( You May Wanna Get DAMN NFO Viewer B.T.W. ))
h**p://www.vcdquality.com/nfo.php/ctp-tr2.nfo?id=16662&show=text&save=1
if you read it you see a section that sayz Archives [56/56*15]
ok so now ya know your looking for 2 CD'z & that are Split Rar files @ 15mb each
also you will see this (( passwd is "drudgereportdotcom" )) im sure that will help later
so now to go find tha file names by do'n a search here are some sites you can use
NAPALM - RELIZ - AMUN - FTPSpider
im gunna use NAPALM for tha example do an un-filtered search for "tomb raider centropy" without tha quotes
but I wouldn't recommend alwayz searching as above b/c
tha Name of tha Movie/App/Game/ReleaseGroup isnt alwayz gunna be in file name or url
so results could be limited but it helps on getting correct file namez
you should notice the file name seems to be in this format ctp-tr1.r54 & ctp-tr2.r54
"ctp-tr1.r54" be'n a file from CD1 and "ctp-tr2.r54" be'n a file from CD2
ok so now we know tha file names, so search for ctp-tr2.r54 and you will have more streamline results
b4 we had over 100 results from each ftp that had this movie one result per file @ over 50 files per cd
that would take way to long to go through page by page till you get to each FTP site
but now that we have tha search narrowed down by a single file name each result is a different ftp site
notice also that I searched for a high # file from cd 2 the reason for this is b/c
it is more likely that it has been fully uploaded and not missing any files b/c most people start uploading
from cd1 and in order of first split file .rar .r00 .r01 NOT from cd2 and backwards .r50 .r49 .r48
ok that wuz ez enough but now we get to tha hopefully not slow part DOWNLOADING tha filez
normally you can get better speeds from an anonymous server b/c you can use multiple connections at once
say tha server only gives ya 4k down you may be able to connect 50 times at once and get more like 200k down
but a FTP tha needs a Password and user name normally isnt that EZ
reason why is normally only 1 connection per IP is allowed
and amount of users at one time is limited to about 15 or less
so alwayz long line of peepz waiting to get in
basically even if could have more than one connection per IP
if it took 9 hrz to get access you would need to wait that long for each connection or thread
by tha time another thread connected you would have prob already finished downloading tha file anyway
NAPALM search site has nice search filter/option that will only show anonymous serverz in the results page
now open up SmartFTP and there are a few options we wanna be sure and change
Tools > Settings > General::
Set Default Download Path to whatever you want
Tools > Settings > Connection ::
Set Max Retries to -1 (( -1 = unlimited ))
Set Retry Delay to @ least 40 sec.*
*(( b/c some ftp'z will ban if you hammer/try and login to often ))
*(( read welcome messages on tha ftp log/status window for possible hammer rulez ))
Tools > Settings > Connection > Keep Alive ::
Make sure Keepalive is checked
Set interval to about 40
(( if set to low will be anoying & to high may not be effective on some sitez ))
Highlight NOOP in tha list and push Remove
Now type LIST into tha box and push tha Add
(( This is the command that keepalive uses to pretend your not idle ))
(( some ftps will kick you out if you are idle to long ))
(( and some still do with tha NOOP command we so have changed it to LIST
(( if you want you can change it to something better all i know is this works for me ))
(( nobody wants to sit 9hrz waiting to get in then get kicked out ))

SmartFTP also has Clipboard monitoring so all you need to do is have smart ftp open/running
go Back to NAPALM right click a link and select "Copy Shortcut" from tha menu and smartFtp will
popup and say FTP URL in clipboard detected if you wanna open that site Just cick yes EZ enough i think
but it can be even more simple than that if you want...

Tools > Settings > Display > Prompts ::
Uncheck: On URL Catch
(( Now it will just open tha FTP without any prompt ))

When you are conecting to ftpz you need to watch tha log/status window
For possibe crap links (( dead links and/or ratio sites ))
These are tha most common errorz to look for:

530 Account Disabled.

No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it.

A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time,
or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.

550 Permission denied. - while try'n to download a file
(( this is probably a ratio site if it has everything you ever wanted and more & looks to good to be true ))
(( it probably is and id just move on to tha next site ))

Another problem you may find on anonymous ftpz is that tha filez or folders are not there
2 reasonz for that is they were either deleted or just moved
if they were moved this could be a problem most people uploading to anonymous ftpz
make a huge maze of locked folders to hide their filez and that makes for an endless task
tryn to find the filez unless you have an app that can spider the ftp
and has tha capability to get through locked folders if so then should take only a few min
to have a list of every file on the ftp I dont know of any public app i can recommend with that capability
but they do exist... this app can get through locked folders and may kinda help seemz like a crap program
but best i could find on google in about 5 min worth of searching
PubView.zip - www.jtpfxp.net has nfo about dir locking & breaking dirs

K now ill go over some basic instructions on downloading from Anonymous and NonAnonymous Sitez
or maybe i should say sites That allow more than one connection per IP and ones that Dont
we will start with anonymous or multiple thread capable FTPz
once you have tha ftp open and you see tha files you want just drag and drop them into
the Global Queue tab on tha transfers window and then just push the start button
should have tha in speed @ bottom right status bar if its not going fast enough
you can adjust tha amount of connections/threads you have running
keep adding threads until your bandwidth is maxed or until your total In speed doesnt get any faster
another thing you may wanna keep in mind is that you can connect to more than one ftp
downloading CD1 from one site and CD2 from the other etc. for a combined speed
now we go onto NonAnonymous Sitez.... You cant use Global Queue b/c you cant have multiple threads
so just right click tha file or folder you want and select Download > Direct > Select Folder
most of these sites will be slow and could take hrz maybe dayz to get into
so what i do is just open every single result in NAPALM at tha same time
I figure i have a better chance waiting on 10 sitez then 1
so when you have them all open just close out tha ones that have tha errors mentioned above
then you can walk away and check every so often to see if you have gotten in one yet
this is where tha keepalive option helps out and of course if you happen to get into more than one @ a time
just go for tha combined speed method if going slow

thats about it, all simple stuff but seems to be tha best process i have found
hope this helpz happy hunting

You Want Lots Of Music, Appz, Anything?, Try Dex Hunting

So what's this Dex Hunting, anyway?

See: lots of people post files of any kind on their websites to share them with friends. Those files are "protected" by not mentioning them. There's no visible link given, and for literally hundreds of thousands this seems to be enough.

What they don't know: There are many nice techniques to locate the invisible stuff.

I don't want to get in too deep - and as I'm rather new here it's possible some of the tricks might have been posted elsewhere.


But if you want to find lots of music the way I described it - and want other people doing the "dirty" work I recommend:

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
A free message board - gathering place of the best "dex hunters" in the universe. There you will find loads of *fresh* (!) mp3 links. Not only this - they update with lightspeed. This is a site you won't visit once a month or once a week. I visit them hourly, and I know why.
CODE
http://www.fionasforum.com/Stairway/


Remember: as soon as a fresh dex is posted there, it will be invaded and can die within hours. But I swear there will be enough left for your needs.

Curious?
Wanna try it for yourself?

Try this one. It's a search bot, and instead typing complicated data strings for Dex Hunting just type what you're looking for, and the bot does the rest for you. Sounds nice, huh?

http://www.exploseek.com

not very sexy at first sight - but very effective.

Hope you'll like it!

How To Download Directly From Crackdb.com

Some of you may not know this, others may already knew it, however, because
of Sod rules which do no not allow indirect crack links, and because CrackDB
is a very good resource for cracks, i will show how to post links that lead
to a direct download from CrackDB.

The CrackDB server sends the archive of a crack as an attachment to the respond
for an HTTP request made by your browser, this means you (and your browser)
will never know the real location of the file, because of this you can't post a direct
link to the crack in your topic.


Using the Referer variable we can overcome this problem, but what referer to
use? if you used the domain name http://www.crackdb.com/
you will get nothing but a useless image file.

The correct refere is shown on your browser address bar. For example, if you
want the crack for IsoBuster Pro v1.6 you just type the name in the search box
and press Enter, the next page displays a list of items that match or nearly
match your search keywords, click on IsoBuster Pro v1.6 from the list and
you are now in the download page, the hyperlink named "Download" is the
link that initiates the request to the server to download the file, which looks
like this:

http://www.crackdb.com/x.php?id=12356


The referer is now displayed on your browser address bar, which looks like this:

http://www.crackdb.com/get.php?id=12356


Now, you use both links to refer to a direct crack download from CrackDB, like this
Fix:

http://www.crackdb.com/x.php?id=12356
Use this referer:
http://www.crackdb.com/get.php?id=12356


Any member now can copy & paste the links into his/her download manager and
start downloading immediatley.

I hope you find something usefull here. Thanx for reading this.

Bit Torrent Tutorials

The first things you need to know about using Bit Torrent:
-- Bit Torrent is aimed at broadband users (or any connection better than dialup).
-- Sharing is highly appreciated, and sharing is what keeps bit torrent alive.
-- A bit torrent file (*.torrent) contains information about the piece structure of the download (more on this later)
-- The method of downloading is not your conventional type of download. Since downloads do not come in as one
big chunk, you are able to download from many people at once, increasing your download speeds. There may be
100 "pieces" to a file, or 20,000+ pieces, all depending on what you're downloading. Pieces are usually small (under 200kb)
-- The speeds are based upon people sharing as they download, and seeders. Seeders are people who constantly
share in order to keep torrents alive. Usually seeders are on fast connections (10mb or higher).


In this tutorial, I will be describing it all using a bit torrent client called Azureus. This client is used to decode the .torrent files into a useable format to download from other peers. From here on out, I will refer to Bit Torrent as BT.

Which BT client you use, is purely up to you. I have tried them all, and my personal favorite is Azureus for many reasons. A big problem with most BT clients out there, is that they are extremely CPU intensive, usually using 100% of your cpu power during the whole process. This is the number one reason I use Azureus. Another, is a recently released plug-in that enables you to browse all current files listed on suprnova.org (the #1 source for torrent downloads).

Before you use the plug-in, take a look at /http://www.suprnova.org, and browse the files. Hold your mouse over the links, and you'll notice every file ends in .torrent. This is the BT file extension. Usually, .torrent files are very small, under 200kb. They contain a wealth of information about the file you want to download. A .torrent file can contain just 1 single file, or a a directory full of files and more directories. But regardless, every download is split up into hundreds or thousands of pieces. The pieces make it much easier to download at higher speeds. Back to suprnova.org. Look at the columns:

Added | Name | Filesize | Seeds | DLs (and a few more which aren't very useful.)

I'll break this down.
Added: Self explanitory, its the date the torrent was added.
Name: Also self explanitory.
Filesize: Duh
Seeds: This is how many people are strictly UPLOADING, or sharing. These people are the ones that keep .torrent files alive. By "alive", I mean, if there's no one sharing the .torrent file, no one can download.
DLs: This is how many people currently downloading that particular torrent. They also help keep the torrent alive as they share while they download.

It's always best to download using a torrent that has a decent amount of seeders and downloaders, this way you can be assured there's a good chance your download will finish. The more the better.

Now that you should understand how torrent files work, and how to use them, on to Azureus!
First, get JAVA! You need this to run Azureus, as java is what powers it. Get Java here: /http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html
Next, get Azureus at: /http://azureus.sourceforge.net
Next, get the Suprnovalister plugin from /http://s93732957.onlinehome.us/storage/suprnovalister.jar

Install Java JRE before you do ANYTHING.

Install Azureus, and then in the installation folder, create 2 more folders. ./Plugins/suprnovalister (For example, if you installed Azureus to C:\PROGRAM FILES\AZUREUS, create C:\PROGRAM FILES\AZUREUS\PLUGINS\SUPRNOVALISTER). Next, put the suprnovalister.jar file that you downloaded, in that folder.

Load up Azureus, and if you want, go through the settings and personalize it.

The tab labeled "My Torrents" is the section of Azureus you need the most often. That lists all your transfers, uploads and downloads. It shows every bit of information you could possibly want to know about torrents you download.

In the menu bar, go to View > Plugins > Suprnova Lister. This will open up a new tab in Azureus. Click on "Update Mirror". This will get a mirror site of suprnova.org containing all current torrent files available. Once a mirror is grabbed, choose a category from the drop-down box to the left and click "Update". Wah-lah, all the available downloads appear in the main chart above. Just double click a download you want, and bang its starting to download. Open the "My Torrents" tab again to view and make sure your download started.

After your download has finished, be nice, and leave the torrent transferring. So people can get pieces of the file from you, just as you got pieces from other people.

Alternatively, if you don't want to use the plugin... you can just head to suprnova.org and download files to any folder. Then go to File > Open > .torrent File in Azureus.

This should about wrap it up for the Bit Torrent Tutorial. If you guys think of anything I should add, or whatnot, just let me know and I'll check into it.

BandWidth Explained

Most hosting companies offer a variety of bandwidth options in their plans. So exactly what is bandwidth as it relates to web hosting? Put simply, bandwidth is the amount of traffic that is allowed to occur between your web site and the rest of the internet. The amount of bandwidth a hosting company can provide is determined by their network connections, both internal to their data center and external to the public internet.


Network Connectivity


The internet, in the most simplest of terms, is a group of millions of computers connected by networks. These connections within the internet can be large or small depending upon the cabling and equipment that is used at a particular internet location. It is the size of each network connection that determines how much bandwidth is available. For example, if you use a DSL connection to connect to the internet, you have 1.54 Mega bits (Mb) of bandwidth. Bandwidth therefore is measured in bits (a single 0 or 1). Bits are grouped in bytes which form words, text, and other information that is transferred between your computer and the internet.

If you have a DSL connection to the internet, you have dedicated bandwidth between your computer and your internet provider. But your internet provider may have thousands of DSL connections to their location. All of these connection aggregate at your internet provider who then has their own dedicated connection to the internet (or multiple connections) which is much larger than your single connection. They must have enough bandwidth to serve your computing needs as well as all of their other customers. So while you have a 1.54Mb connection to your internet provider, your internet provider may have a 255Mb connection to the internet so it can accommodate your needs and up to 166 other users (255/1.54).


Traffic

A very simple analogy to use to understand bandwidth and traffic is to think of highways and cars. Bandwidth is the number of lanes on the highway and traffic is the number of cars on the highway. If you are the only car on a highway, you can travel very quickly. If you are stuck in the middle of rush hour, you may travel very slowly since all of the lanes are being used up.

Traffic is simply the number of bits that are transferred on network connections. It is easiest to understand traffic using examples. One Gigabyte is 2 to the 30th power (1,073,741,824) bytes. One gigabyte is equal to 1,024 megabytes. To put this in perspective, it takes one byte to store one character. Imagine 100 file cabinets in a building, each of these cabinets holds 1000 folders. Each folder has 100 papers. Each paper contains 100 characters - A GB is all the characters in the building. An MP3 song is about 4MB, the same song in wav format is about 40MB, a full length movie can be 800MB to 1000MB (1000MB = 1GB).

If you were to transfer this MP3 song from a web site to your computer, you would create 4MB of traffic between the web site you are downloading from and your computer. Depending upon the network connection between the web site and the internet, the transfer may occur very quickly, or it could take time if other people are also downloading files at the same time. If, for example, the web site you download from has a 10MB connection to the internet, and you are the only person accessing that web site to download your MP3, your 4MB file will be the only traffic on that web site. However, if three people are all downloading that same MP at the same time, 12MB (3 x 4MB) of traffic has been created. Because in this example, the host only has 10MB of bandwidth, someone will have to wait. The network equipment at the hosting company will cycle through each person downloading the file and transfer a small portion at a time so each person's file transfer can take place, but the transfer for everyone downloading the file will be slower. If 100 people all came to the site and downloaded the MP3 at the same time, the transfers would be extremely slow. If the host wanted to decrease the time it took to download files simultaneously, it could increase the bandwidth of their internet connection (at a cost due to upgrading equipment).


Hosting Bandwidth

In the example above, we discussed traffic in terms of downloading an MP3 file. However, each time you visit a web site, you are creating traffic, because in order to view that web page on your computer, the web page is first downloaded to your computer (between the web site and you) which is then displayed using your browser software (Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.) . The page itself is simply a file that creates traffic just like the MP3 file in the example above (however, a web page is usually much smaller than a music file).

A web page may be very small or large depending upon the amount of text and the number and quality of images integrated within the web page. For example, the home page for CNN.com is about 200KB (200 Kilobytes = 200,000 bytes = 1,600,000 bits). This is typically large for a web page. In comparison, Yahoo's home page is about 70KB.


How Much Bandwidth Is Enough?

It depends (don't you hate that answer). But in truth, it does. Since bandwidth is a significant determinant of hosting plan prices, you should take time to determine just how much is right for you. Almost all hosting plans have bandwidth requirements measured in months, so you need to estimate the amount of bandwidth that will be required by your site on a monthly basis

If you do not intend to provide file download capability from your site, the formula for calculating bandwidth is fairly straightforward:

Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size x 31 x Fudge Factor

If you intend to allow people to download files from your site, your bandwidth calculation should be:

[(Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size) +
(Average Daily File Downloads x Average File Size)] x 31 x Fudge Factor

Let us examine each item in the formula:

Average Daily Visitors - The number of people you expect to visit your site, on average, each day. Depending upon how you market your site, this number could be from 1 to 1,000,000.

Average Page Views - On average, the number of web pages you expect a person to view. If you have 50 web pages in your web site, an average person may only view 5 of those pages each time they visit.

Average Page Size - The average size of your web pages, in Kilobytes (KB). If you have already designed your site, you can calculate this directly.

Average Daily File Downloads - The number of downloads you expect to occur on your site. This is a function of the numbers of visitors and how many times a visitor downloads a file, on average, each day.

Average File Size - Average file size of files that are downloadable from your site. Similar to your web pages, if you already know which files can be downloaded, you can calculate this directly.

Fudge Factor - A number greater than 1. Using 1.5 would be safe, which assumes that your estimate is off by 50%. However, if you were very unsure, you could use 2 or 3 to ensure that your bandwidth requirements are more than met.

Usually, hosting plans offer bandwidth in terms of Gigabytes (GB) per month. This is why our formula takes daily averages and multiplies them by 31.


Summary

Most personal or small business sites will not need more than 1GB of bandwidth per month. If you have a web site that is composed of static web pages and you expect little traffic to your site on a daily basis, go with a low bandwidth plan. If you go over the amount of bandwidth allocated in your plan, your hosting company could charge you over usage fees, so if you think the traffic to your site will be significant, you may want to go through the calculations above to estimate the amount of bandwidth required in a hosting plan.