I just put on Windows ME last Sunday. After I did, the ping times on a lot of the Napster users was at 20. Thinking that I had gotten a hell of a ping rate, I tried downloading it. It yeilded no greater speed than the rest, but would actually become slower than the others.
Any thoughts on this?
The ping speeds on Napster are all crap. Irronically, the fastest downloads I have had come from users with pings ABOVE 400!
Figure that one out.
I used Napster for the first time the other day. The way I understand it is that I download this file onto my computer from someone else’s computer. Is that essentially correct?
So what would happen if the other user signed off mid-transfer?
Is there any way this type of sharing could lead to…er…electronically transmitted diseases?
Does this mean that if I can’t find a song now I can look again tomorrow and hope that another dude has it?
Screw the pings, pay attention to their connection speed. I just scan down the list until I see someone with at least a T1 and at least a 128 bit-rate for encoding (though I won’t get them higher than 192, usually).
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Yes, that is correct. Well, you get a message saying ‘transfer error.’ Yes, it could, if that file has a virus on it. Yes, it does mean that.
Like Kupek says. Since your connection speed is for downloads only, your actual upload speed is slower. So you should always try to download from connections that are faster than yours. I’ll take a T3 at a higher ping rate than DSL at a lower rate. And you can’t always go by ping rate, or even connection speeds for that matter. I just try for the fastest connection, and if it seems slow, try the next one on the search list.
Pundit Lisa - Yes, Napster is just a file sharing protocol. There are similar type programs in the science community allowing research papers to be shared.
If you’re downloading and someone exits Napster or disconnects, you’re screwed. If someone is in the middle of a download from me and I’m, say, getting ready for bed, I’ll disconnect from Napster. The connection remains for the person downloading, but no one else can see you on a Nap server, and therefore no new downloads begin. You can sometimes check a user’s status - right click on the user, and select view information. You have a better shot at a quicker download from someone with 0 up/downloads, than someone who’s got 14 going.
As for viruses, I don’t know. I wonder that myself. I suppose you could infect an MP3, or just create something with an MP3 extension. I guess you could be really insidious and then call it something like “New Song! - Backstreet Boys” and all kinds of people would go for it. And transfer errors are usually caused by data collisions or traffic on the internet, or when someone disconnects on you.
With finding files, people are on and off at different times just like you probably are. I also realized that you’ve got users from all over the planet, so you can potentially find something any time, day or night. I have looked for an obscure song for up to 2 weeks, and finally found it. Oddly enough, it seems that as soon as I download it, I’ll find like 3 people a night downloading it from me. Anyway, I’ve been amazed at the stuff I can find.
Also, for some reason, when you search just by artist or song title, like if you’re not sure of one or the other, you may find 3 or 4 choices of the song you’re looking for mixed in with 47 other different songs. If you then search for that artist and that song title, and you’ll likely get a page full of what you want, usually with a better selection of download speeds and bitrates.
I would also recommend getting Napigator - http://www.napigator.com
You can use this to switch not only to different Napster servers, but other “Nap” servers as well. In other words, I would guess that if the true Napster servers get shut down next month, these other independent sites would still be active.
You can also take care of getting un-banned from Napster, but this is reply is getting too long!!!