Wally Wang's Apple Farm
“BitTorrent Clients for the Mac”
by Wally Wang

Napster started the file sharing revolution by letting complete strangers connect their computers to a network and swap files with one another. The problem with such direct file sharing is that it takes time. With music files and high-speed Internet connections, sending and receiving files takes a few minutes at the most. With much larger files such as complete movies or major software applications such as Windows, sharing files can be frustrating since connections can get broken or computers simply go to sleep or shut down. When that happens, any partially transferred file is useless and you'll have to download that same massive file all over again.

The solution to sharing and transferring large files conveniently is BitTorrent. Instead of forcing you to download a single massive file from one computer, BitTorrent allows you to download a single file from multiple computers. Not only does this speed up the file transfer, but it also increases the chance that you'll actually get your file. If one computer loses its connection to your own, you'll still be able to retrieve data from a handful of other computers instead.

At the same time that your computer receives a BitTorrent file, it can start sending and sharing that file with other people. As a result, BitTorrent has become the preferred method for sharing large files.

To download a BitTorrent file, you need a special program called a BitTorrent client. If this sounds way too complicated already, take the easy way out and download the Opera browser, which includes a built-in BitTorrent client. All you have to do is search the Internet, find a BitTorrent file that you want to download, double-click on it, and Opera takes care of the rest.

An outdated but colorful BitTorrent client is Bits on Wheels, which offers a unique graphic image showing you all the computers that are sending you pieces of your file. Unfortunately, Bits on Wheels hasn't been updated since 2005, so you may not want to rely on a program that might never see an update for a while.



Another BitTorrent client is Transmission, an open-source project optimized to use as little memory as possible. One of the more popular clients is strangely named BitTorrent. Like Transmission, Bits on Wheels and Opera, the BitTorrent program is also free, so with so many different BitTorrent clients available, just grab one or more, try them out, and start downloading massive files off the Internet.




If you still rely on an answering machine, consider selling it on eBay or giving it away, and replace it with your Macintosh and a copy of PhoneValet, which essentially turns your Macintosh into a computerized telephone service. All you have to do is install the software, plug your telephone cord into the PhoneValet box, which plugs into your computer's USB port, and you'll be ready to go within minutes.

At the simplest level, PhoneValet can mimic an ordinary answering machine. Just set up a voice mailbox, record a message through a microphone (such as the built-in microphone found on the iMac and MacBook models), and now callers won't have any idea your Macintosh is really answering your calls. Of course, you can still use your Macintosh for ordinary work while PhoneValet silently waits in the background, ready to take your calls.

Just mimicking an answering machine is a waste of silicon, so PhoneValet goes a whole lot further. One neat feature is the ability to type in all or part of a phone number for PhoneValet to recognize. If you type in the number of your friend, any time your friend calls from that phone number, PhoneValet can display any information you've saved related to that phone number, such as your friend's face and contact information. Now you can see at an instant whether you want to answer your phone or just let PhoneValet take your call instead.



Rather than identify complete phone numbers, PhoneValet can also identify area codes. Since telemarketers typically call from 800 numbers, you can program PhoneValet to block all 800 callers.

Besides blocking area codes, PhoneValet can also block specific phone numbers. If you want to break up with someone, type in that person's phone number, and each time that person calls, PhoneValet can play a special recording for that specific phone number such as, "Get lost, you loser!" Of course, anyone else calling from a different phone number will just get routed to your ordinary answering message.

More flexible is PhoneValet's ability to create multiple mailboxes. For home use, this lets you create separate voices mailboxes for your spouse and your kids. For a small business, this lets you create an inexpensive phone service just using PhoneValet and your Macintosh. Set up multiple voice mailboxes for each of your employees, and anyone calling can get routed to the appropriate person right away.



Since PhoneValet records all messages as audio files on your hard disk, you'll always have a record of all your messages for as long as you want to keep those files. Tag your audio files, and now you'll be able to use Spotlight to search for particular messages, such as all messages left by a single person or all messages related to a specific topic.



PhoneValet comes in Home ($49.95) and Message Center editions ($169.95). The Home edition lets you create up to five voice mailboxes, while the Message Center edition gives you as many voice mailboxes as you can cram on to your hard disk. Either solution can turn your Macintosh into a sophisticated answering service for a one-time cost of PhoneValet.


Look for something in your favorite search engine, and you'll likely find yourself bombarded with an avalanche of Web pages that match your criteria. Now if you visit a particular Web site, you may suddenly wonder why this Web page popped up in your search results if you can't find your search term anywhere on the page.

At this point you could manually scan the page, but a faster solution in Safari is to press Command+F, which opens a Find text field in the upper-right corner of the Web page. Type a word or phrase that you want to find just on the currently displayed Web page, and Safari highlights all your search terms directly on the Web page. By clicking the Left and Right arrows near the Find text field, you can highlight all the found words on the Web page.