Installing Hellanzb

For those of you that would like everything done automatically once you choose what you want to download through Newsgroups, here is the install procedure.

One thing I forgot to mention about Newsgroups is the SPEED. These form of downloading is so much faster than using any other P2P form due to the way it works.

Anyway, follow this carefully, I did have issues, and couldn't get it to work the first time I tried. Let me know if you have any questions about the install. Next blog will share some widgets and other items that will add to your newsgroup downloading experience.



Step 0) Install Apple's Xcode Developer Tools

Install Xcode, available from http://developer.apple.com/tools/xcode/



(Xcode is required for the GCC compiler that accompanies it)



Step 1) Install DarwinPorts

----------------------------------------

(NOTE: These instructions are tailored for DarwinPorts 1.0. If installing a later version

of DarwinPorts, please refer to its README file to complete its installation.



These instructions also assume you are using Mac OS X 10.3 or later)



Get the DarwinPorts 1.0 .dmg from:



http://www.darwinports.org/getdp/



Open the .dmg, double click on the Installer and follow the instructions to install

DarwinPorts



Open Terminal.app (Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app)



Run the following commands in Terminal.app:



touch ~/.profile



open -a TextEdit ~/.profile



This will open the file .profile in your home directory for editing in TextEdit



In TextEdit, add the following line to the end of .profile:



export PATH=$PATH:/opt/local/bin



Save the file and quit TextEdit

Quit Terminal.app



DarwinPorts is now installed





Step 2) Update DarwinPorts

----------------------------------------

Open Terminal.app (Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app)



You MUST be using a NEW Terminal.app window from the last step, to utilize the changes

made to your .profile



Run the following command in Terminal.app:



sudo port -d selfupdate



(You must enter your password when prompted)





Step 3) Install hellanzb via DarwinPorts

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Run the following command in Terminal.app:



sudo port install hellanzb



(You must enter your password when prompted)



This will trigger the installation of hellanzb. It may take some time, especially on G4

processors, as hellanzb and its dependencies are compiled and installed





Step 4) Configuring hellanzb

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Before using hellanzb, you must edit its configuration file. Open hellanzb's configuration

file in TextEdit, run the following command in Terminal.app:



open -a TextEdit /opt/local/etc/hellanzb.conf



The only configuration file options you should worry about changing are:



o The entire defineServer section

o Hellanzb.PREFIX_DIR

o Hellanzb.QUEUE_DIR (If you want, see below)

o the defineMusicType lines (see below)





A good location for your 'Hellanzb.PREFIX_DIR' is your home directory, E.g.:



Hellanzb.PREFIX_DIR = '/Users/grandma/'



(Don't forget the trailing slash in Hellanzb.PREFIX_DIR!!)





In Mac OS X, Safari will automatically download NZB files when you click on newzbin.com's

'Get Message-ID' button. It is recommended that you set hellanzb's 'Hellanzb.QUEUE_DIR' to

your Safari Downloads directory. hellanzb will then automatically pick up whatever NZB you

download. E.g.:



Hellanzb.QUEUE_DIR = '/Users/grandma/Desktop/Downloads/'





Mac OS X support for .flac and .shn is lacking. Uncomment (by removing the preceeding '#'

character) the following two lines in your configuration file and hellanzb will

automatically decompress these formats to iTunes compatible .wav:



defineMusicType('flac', 'flac -d <FILE>', 'wav')

defineMusicType('shn', 'shorten -x < <FILE> > <DESTFILE>', 'wav')





Step 5) And Finally

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Please also refer to hellanzb's README file for more information.

This is available from:

http://www.hellanzb.com/trac/file/tags/0.10/README



Once you've read the README, simply run:



hellanzb.py



in a Terminal.app window to start hellanzb!

(to do this just type hellanzb.py and press return. You need to leave terminal running for this to continue to work. However next post will be about using widget terminal windows instead.)

New RSS Feeds on this Blog

For those of you that are registered with Newzbin, these links should work brilliantly for you. If not, you may still be able to access these links, I'd love to know how it works for you, so comment here. I have put up the RSS feeds for those Binary Lists that I think you will be interested in. For example, Mac Apps.



Hope you like it!

Hellafox - Works with Firefox

What can it do?

You will need to install HellaNZB for this to work. More info will be posted on the complex install of HellaNZB for your reference soon.

Hellafox works by placing a 'Download this NZB' entry in the

right-click context menu. It will insert the context menu entry in the

following situations:

• When right clicking anywhere on the page, when the current page is a post report page on the site, Newzbin.
  
  
• When right clicking on a link to a Newzbin post report page.
  
  
• When right clicking on an NZB download link in the ZipManager on Usenet service provider EasyNews.
  
  
• When right clicking on an NZB download link on the site TVnzb.
  
  
• When right clicking on any link to a file ending in ".nzb".

Go Here for more info: Hellafox

Newzbin

Yes you need this. It's awesome and it's worth paying for. Newzbin does not hold anything online but it does give you awesome features, search, save searches, find anything, download with ease.

If you are using a mac (and sorry I won't be helping PC users on this blog), you also need to sign up with a Newsgroup. I use Thundernews which is fantastic.



Here is an example of how Newsgroups work (most helpful Binary newsgroups:

Binary newsgroups

While Newsgroups were not created with the intention of
distributing binary files, they have proven to be quite effective for
this. Due to the way they work, a file uploaded once will be spread and
can then be downloaded by an unlimited number of users. More useful is
the fact that every user is drawing on the bandwidth of their own news
server. This means that unlike P2P
technology, the user's download speed is under their own control, as
opposed to under the willingness of other people to share files. In
fact this is another benefit of Newsgroups: it is usually not expected
that users share. If every user makes uploads then the servers would be
flooded; thus it is acceptable and often encouraged for users to just leech.

There were originally a number of obstacles to the transmission of
binary files over Usenet. Firstly, Usenet was designed with the
transmission of text in mind. Due to this, for a long period of time,
it was impossible to send binary data as it was. So, a workaround, Uuencode (and later on Base64 and yEnc),
was developed which mapped the binary data from the files to be
transmitted (e.g. sound or video files) to text characters which would
survive transmission over Usenet. At the receiver's end, the data
needed to be decoded by the user's news client.
Additionally, there was a limit on the size of individual posts such
that large files could not be sent as single posts. To get around this,
Newsreaders were developed which were able to split long files into
several posts. Intelligent newsreaders at the other end could then
automatically group such split files into single files, allowing the
user to easily retrieve the file. These advances have meant that Usenet
is used to send and receive many Gigabytes of files per day.

There are two main issues that pose problems for transmitting binary files over Newsgroups. The first is completion rates and the other is Retention Rates. The business of premium News Servers
is generated primarily on their ability to offer superior Completion
and Retention Rates, as well as their ability to offer very fast
connections to users. Completion rates are significant when users wish
to download large files that are split into pieces; if any one piece is
missing, it is impossible to successfully download and reassemble the
desired file. To work around this, a redundancy scheme known as PAR is commonly used.

A number of websites exist for the purpose of keeping an index of the files posted to binary Newsgroups. (Such as Newsbin)

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsgroup

You also need Unison to as your downloading software. And finally MacPar for unpacking the files (joining them up into the complete file, such as an AVI)

In further blog's I'll give you some suggestions to streamline this even more with HellaNZB

My Nerdy Wisdom Blog

Hey there.
I always spend heaps of time trying to work out ways to make nerdy things work, usually to do with technology.
And most of the time once I've worked it out, I benefit from it. But I would like to have an easy way of sharing these insights with people and for them to make comments and ask questions, cause most of the time my own research relies on me searching the web for what other people have figured out.

Some of my posts will include such things as:

Automatically downloading from newsgroups and unpacking, and streaming to your TV without even needing to lift a finger!
Sending Free SMSs
Syncing issues and Mac/Phone related issues
Ical Replacements
Sharing everything, Ical, Songs, Pics etc.
Doing things Remotely with your mac.
Setting up a newsgroup workflow that works!
And more as I find new things out.

Hope this helps some people!