This is the moment that I have been waiting for. And I am very excited when such offer came out last weekend..

HAHAHA! Thanks Steam!

And the next thing I know, I am downloading it from them.. =)

Will update you with the review if time permits! Hehehe.

Anyway, in few post backs, I shared my personal experience with Torrent, and the alternative to get around its weaknesses. Here, I am planning to share on something that I just recently signed up. But before that, let me share on the incidents that led me to this. Who knows, you might be having similar scenario as we speak.

It all started when I was desperate, looking for this particular file from the internet. Thanks to Pakcik Google, I managed to get a working link, but I was turned off when I discovered the file was hosted by HOTFILE. What makes things become even worse; there was no other mirror link and I don’t have the premium account for Hotfile >.< One knows that it is VERY expensive to maintain several premium account at one go. Just thought of sharing with you the fee for one month;

Rapidshare – ^€6.99 – RM 30

Megaupload – USD10 – RM 33

Hotfile – USD 9 – RM 30

Netload – ^€8 – RM35

Storage.to – ^€7.99 – RM35

To simplify thing, you will need to pay roughly about RM 130 per month to maintain the premium accesses to all the filehosting site. That is madness! There is no way that I am going to set aside that amount of cash monthly! Absurd!

My frustration led me to Service Noticeboard @ Lowyat. And this is where I got my solution to this problem; DLNext service.

DLNext service started several months back and I knew it since I was selected to become the beta testers. I found the speed was very stable and lightning fast. However, since I did not have any pressing reasons to get one, I just simply quit after the trial expired. Looking at current scenario, where the uploaders have started to upload somewhere else, there is a need for me to find alternatives to this.

Taken from DLNext page:

DLNext is a transfer/storage script for use on various popular download sites
Supported: Rapidshare/Megaupload/Depositfiles/Hotfile/Netload/FileFactory/Megashares/Storage.to/Uploading.com/Easy-share at the moment.

DLNext transfers files from Rapidshare/Megaupload/Depositfiles/Hotfile/Netload/FileFactory/Megashares/Storage.to/Uploading.com/Easy-share to our servers and dumps the file on our server.
Premium users may then download these files from our server anytime later.

They got some pretty good server too..

Server Specification (SV1 & SV2)
# Processor – Phenom II X4 810 (4 x 2,6 Ghz)
# Memory – 8 GByte DDR2 800
# Hard Disk – 2 x 1 TByte SATA II (RAID0)
# OS – Linux Debian 5.0 (codenamed Lenny)
# Webserver – Lighttpd
# Network – 1 GBit onboard
# Traffic – 100 Mbit unmetered
# Server Location – Europe.

And the T&C ( I suggest you to read all of this, before signing up)

Guarantee below : -
# Can download any things, 100% privacy
# No storage days limitation, keep as long your account still active
# Support Forum
# Either HTTP or FTP Download.
# Server is open for public and everyone can join
# Chinese characters are supported
# Pass protection Megaupload can be downloaded.

Supported Filehosting : -
# Rapidshare, Megaupload, Netload, Hotfile, Depositfiles, Filefactory, Storage.to, Megashares, Uploading.com, Easy-Share, MediaFire.

Traffic Limit : -
# Rapidshare 7GB/Daily Individual
# Filefacotry & DepositFiles (12GB/Daily Shared among all user)
# Megaupload, Netload, Hotfile, Storage.to, Megashares, Uploading.com, Easy-Share, MediaFire (UNLIMITED DOWNLOAD)

Range of speed (FILEHOSTING to SERVER) : -
# We cannot guarantee it’ll be HighSpeed.
# Range 300KB/s – 7MB/s

Range of speed (SERVER to PC) : -
# Max speed.
# Max concurrent connection: 24 including surfing DLNext & Downloading to PC.

Terms and Conditions: -
# No refunds.
# Shared account is allowed. (Not more than 2 user including urself)
# No remote-upload (Permanent BAN)
# No sharing links to non-subscriber (Permanent BAN)

And finally, the package:

DLNext Premium Service PACKAGE
Inclusive: 20GB Storage , Unlimited download to PC , 24 Max Concurrent.
7 days premium account – RM10
1 month premium account – RM30
3 months premium account – RM80
6 months premium account – RM150

Additional storage 10GB = RM10/month (At least 10GB)

Why I chose them?
1. He is a reliable service provider; the thread has already reached 142 pages loonoooog…

2. Based on the comments from the users, he has been providing very fast service!

3. There are lots of positive feedback on the server uptime and reliability.

4. For a start, 20GB storage is HUGE!

5. You gained premium access to SEVEN file hosting under one account; that is RM100 cheaper (and will be way cheaper if we talk about monthts of subcription)

6. Fast transfer speed from Server to PC, i.e. I maxed out my access speed to 1.5 Mbps

7. My good experience during the beta test

8. It uses the famous rapidleech script, which I have been using for quite some time already on my shared server. So, there is almost no learning curve for me

He took about 5 minutes (from the moment I made my payment) to configure my account. Was it fast? ABSOLUTE YES! He then gave me the login server details along with my login details. Without hesitance, I logged into the server:

The login page looks very simple and neat, so you could expect the loading page to be extremely fast.

Above, is the main page of DLNext. Simple, yet informative. And, you doesn’t need to be a TechG33K to get around the interface, as it is very user-friendly and pretty straightforward. Just head to AutoDownload section to dump your links for downloading purpose.

I decided to give try, i.e. downloaded several files from HotFile server. It turned out to be really good; downloading at 6.5 Mbps speed. Very impressive!

And finally, the ultimate test, download speed from the DLNext server to the PC. Let`s see whether it lives up to expectation..

NICE! It almost maxed out my access speed (1.5Mbps).

The Conclusion: The only drawback of this service is you could download one file at a time from RS/MU/HF to the server, but this setback is counter-balanced with lightning downloading speed. So, I have no issue on that. Overall, I am very satisfied with the service. I believe I may terminate my RS premium account later and add 10GB to DLNext storage space to provide some breathing room (buffer). With this sort of speed, coupled with responsive and excellent customer support (did I tell you, he added me into his YM so that I can just ask him question straight away), I believe DLNext is here to stay. I hereby recommend to those who are looking forward to subscribe to any of the filehosting server, to stop and look at what DLNext has to offer. I bet you it is really worth it!

p/s: Oh crap, my 1.5 TB of harddisk is almost full…

However, Micro Genius was not that ‘genius’ after all. Later, we started to notice that our TV’s screen slowly turned yellowish ;( Initially, the yellowish effect was temporary, but later it became permanent. Abah explained that the culprit was the console, and asked us to play sparingly (only during school holidays). Otherwise, we will make the kedai repair TV kaya plak need to keep on sending the TV for repair, which was troublesome, and expensive too. So, from almost every weekend, it went to just few times a year. Most of the times, it became dust collector. It was hard to swallow, but what to do kan?

Not long after that, Sony revolutionized the industry by introducing PlayStation, which uses disc rather that cartridge. Being a typical kid, I felt that it was the best thing to have. In fact, I used to keep a dream of having one in home. LOL! (though I know Abah confirm tak beli kan lah.. Haha!). In Soksek, things started to change; I accidentally indugle myself in PC Gaming, which turned out to be better! (cait, alasan jer, padahal sbb utama adalah karena tak mampu nak beli PS) Starcraft, Red Alert, Duke Nukem were among my all-time-favourites.

PS2 was introduced in 2000 and I kept the same wish too; to own one when Im in campus. However, in UTP, I found that reasons to stick to PC Gaming are stronger; UTP network FTW! UTP gamers rocks! Thanks to my sponsor, I manage to build decent gaming rig. It was powered by AMD Athlon 1800+ and GeForce Ti 4400 (Titanium series was the 2nd top VGA card laa masa tuh, to the extend that ada sorang neh sanggup jd kelawar kat PC aku to finish up Mafia The Game). So, the dream that I used to have, was slowly fading and hilang entah ke mana… Haha!

Somewhere in 2004 to 2005, industry gaming became interesting. Microsoft was to beef up the challenges with Sony’s PS3, by introducing XBOX 360. And that childish dream came again. LOL! I was attracted by some of the key functions; HD Movies (be it BD or HD DVD), online gaming, wireless controllers, built-in harddisk, downloadable content (DLC) and more console-exclusive games. Mmg jaw-dropping abis lah! In fact, I used to put aside some money, hoping that someday down the road, I could own PS3, but somehow, it never manage to reach the target.. Hahaha! (kesah neh macam lagu ‘Apa Nak Jadi by SM Salim jer..)

And now..

After years of waiting…

… wishing

… dreaming

The dream that I thought would never be true..

… is made possible!!

Thanks again sayang for the present!

Introducing ….. (drumroll)

My PS3 !! *yeayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy*

Unboxing the package .. *yeayyyyy*

XMB (Xross Media Bar in action) *yeayyy*

Number of games, as appetizer.. *yeahhhhh*

Anyone to accompany me?

Shout-out to Effi: Dude, seriously im still on PC ok, this thing is just for the exclusive game title jer lah..

Shout-out to Jeme and Butet: sila tunjuk ajar!!

So, does the title.. The Return of Console Gaming ! LOL!

Yesterday, the curiosity came…

“Im wondering.. how does torrent perform right now, here.. It is pretty interesting to do some sort of investigation neh.. hehe”

uTorrent was my favourite torrent client, not only because of its small size (read: 270Kb), but it is also not a resource hogger. Once it has been isntalled and running fine, it is time to find the torrent. hehe! EZTV has been known for its good high quality media, and I was using its as my main source of TV series, in the past lar..

The ‘torrenting’ process went smooth initially, with initial rate of 5 KB/s… Although it was kinda slow, but knowing the fact that torrent requires little more time to “warm up” (read: connect to seeds and peers), I left it running for two hours, unattended…

As expected, the speed was still sluggish (barely maintain above 25 KB/s)… even after i have done the portforward and enabling encryption..

And for comparison sake, this is what I have been getting all this while using direct download (DL) links…

Can you guys notice the different in speed??

27KBps vs 177 KBps

It is INSANE, I know.. and, i’m lucky to be able to get excellent speed from DL.. DL enables me to fully utilize my bandwidth to the max, and that`s what I want.. Although, I need to fork out additional money for the premium account, sigh~

Anyway, for those torrent-maniac, don’t just simply be mad and give up, actually there are several ways to work around this… One of my old friends, Tesla did some blogging about that (clue: VPN).. Perhaps, you could run a quick check.. hehe !

4 jobs I have had in my life:
1. Twisties seller @ Asrama Putera SOKSEK (1998 – 2000)
2. Shopkeeper for KOPERASI (a.k.a. KOOP) SOKSEK (1998 – 2000)
3. IRCOP for UTPCHAT Network (2003 – 2005)
4. Front-End Engineer for PCSB (2005)

4 movies/tv series I could watch over and over:
1. Prison Break
2. Shawshank Redemption
3. LOST
4. Lord of the Rings trilogy

4 places I’ve lived in:
1. Taman Midah, Kuala Lumpur (1 – 3 y.o.)
2. Taiping, Perak (3 – 12 y.o.)
3. Bukit Mertajam, Pulau Pinang (13 – 18 y.o.)
4. Tronoh, Perak (18 – 23 y.o.)

4 places I’ve been to:
1. BAJT-H platform, offshore Sarawak
2. Bali, Indonesia
3. Johor Bahru
4. Pulau Redang, Terengganu

4 main sources of emails:
1. UTPmates
2. Projectmates
3. West Alliance drilling rig (as of now..)
4. My dear sayang!

4 of my favourite food:
1. Ayam penyet/lalapan
2. Laksa ‘pusing’
3. Sup tulang/ekor/gearbox
4. Masak lemak cili api daging salai

4 places I would rather be right now:
1. Anywhere, as long as my dear is with me!
2. Taiping, Perak (homesick plak ;()
3. Hollywood, nak jupe Scofield.. huhu
4. Dating at Genting Highlands

4 people to tag:
1. Loki
2. Effi
3. Azwa
4. Limau

p/s: thanks Kakcik for replying to my previous tag