Top 50 Tools For Torrenting

When they think of torrents, most people think only of illegal downloads. But the same file sharing technology can be used for legal distribution of all kinds of content. Today, for instance, the record label Labrador Records is asking fans to share its free summer sample on The Pirate Bay to ease the load on its servers.

To show that torrenting isn’t all bad, we’ve rounded up 50+ tools to help you get started on the torrent path, all with totally legal uses.

Distribution Sites Of Legal Content

BitTorrent – From the makers of the original software, they now offer a mixture of free and pay-for content.

bt.etree.org – Band videos of “trade friendly” musicians.

BTSharp – Integrates with .NET apps and helps you distribute with private trackers.

Ibiblo.org – Torrent distribution site of ibiblo content.

Legaltorrents.com – A completely legal torrent site and a great place to experiment and get a feeling for how it works.

LegitTorrents.info – Includes free videos, games and Linux distributions.

LinuxTracker.org – A centralized location for Linux related software, all delivered by torrent.

PublicDomainTorrents.com – Hundreds of torrent media files that reside in the public domain such as movies, TV shows, serials and more. (WARNING:Occasional rotating questionable ad)

Revision3.com – Mixture of torrent-delivered media and direct downloads of vidcasts.

Star Trek:New Voyages – Fan-produced Star Trek episodes, some with original cast members, all distributed with torrents.

SXSW – Free torrents from the organizers of the SXSW music festival.

tlm-project.org – The Linux Mirror Project, helping spread the alternative operating system.

Vuze.com – From the makers of the Azureus client, hosts a mixture of free and pay-for content, all delivered via torrents.

Information Sites

Brian’s BitTorrent FAQ – Large FAQ that answers some of the most basic questions about starting with torrents.

Magoo’s Guide To BitTorrent – An in-depth instruction from beginning to advanced torrent use.

Slyck.com – News from around the torrent community.

TorrentFreak.com – Up-to-date news on the torrent community of both the legal and illegal variety. Occasionally offers legal downloads. They also have a good tutorial on how to start a torrent of your own using some of the most popular clients.

Video Tutorial – A nearly 14 minute video demo of how to get started with torrent clients and downloading from sclipo.com.

Vlad44.com FAQ – Covers some very in-depth questions about torrents such as how to make your own and to configure your web server to host the files.

Wikipedia entry on BitTorrent – Explains how the technology works, some of the history, legal issues, and more.

Torrent Clients

ABC Client – Runs on Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP and Linux.

Acquisition – A torrent client exclusively for Macs.

Arctic Torrent – Runs on Windows 2000/XP/XP 64/2003/2003 64.

Azureus – Runs on all operating systems and supports numerous languages.

BitComet – Runs on Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista, some support for Windows 98.

BitLord – Works with Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003.

BitPump – Runs on all versions of Windows.

BitSpirit – Compatible with Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003.

BitTornado – Windows (doesn’t list which versions), Linux, OS X, BSD.

BitTorrent – The original one developed by Bram Cohen. Works with OS X, Linux, and Windows. Is sometimes referred to as “Mainline” to denote its status as the original.

BitTyrant – Works with Linux, OS X, and Windows.

Bits On Wheels – Exclusively for Macs, features 3D images of your peer swarm.

Burst! – Compatible back to Windows 98.

Deluge – A Linux client

Enhanced cTorrent – For Linux.

FlashGet – Windows-only client program.

FoxTorrent – Torrent client that integrates with the Firefox browser.

Gnome BitTorrent – Another Linux only torrent client.

Halite – Windows NT, 2000, XP

KTorrent – For Linux and OS X.

Opera – Web browsing suite with a built-in torrent client.

qBittorent – For Linux and OS X.

QTorrent – A bittorrent client for Linux.

rTorrent – For Linux and OS X.

sharktorrent – For Linux, OS X, Windows.

Tomato Torrent – Only for the OS X operating system.

Torrent Swapper – For Linux, OS X and Windows – all flavors.

TorrentVolve – For Linux, OS X and Windows (versions not listed).

Transmission – Available for Linux and OS X.

Turbo Torrent – Windows only.

μTorrent – Windows only.

WizBit – For S60 smartphones.

Wikipedia Client Comparison – Lists the features of all the clients so you can choose which one best suits your needs. (via)

Top 30 Plugins for Wordpress Comments

When working on a WordPress blog, posts often take center stage. However, the comments are often just as important – they create valuable discussion. And yet the default WordPress comment box is simplistic and uninspiring – here are Mashable’s favorite comment-focused WordPress plugins that can eliminate spam, improve the appearance of comments, and add more value to your posts.

Fight Spam

Akismet – Antispam plugin from the creators of WordPress that uses a central database of spam comments to flag spam. Requires a free API key from WordPress.com

Spam Karma – Analyzes comments for spam based on a karma system.

Bad Behavior – Prevents spambots from even accessing your site by analyzing their HTTP requests.

Did You Pass Math? – Asks commenters a simple math question before their comments are posted.

Comment Timeout – Closes comments on old posts.

Encourage Commenting

BlogFollow – Shows a snippet of the commenter’s blog at the bottom of the comment.

DoFollow – Removes “nofollow” attributes from links in comments so search engines can follow them.

DoFollow Trackbacks – Removes “nofollow” attributes from trackbacks

Show Top Commentators – Lists the most frequent commentators on your blog, along with links to their blogs, in your sidebar.

Improve appearance

Nicer Trackbacks – Improves the appearance of trackbacks from other blogs.

WP-NoSh*t – Filters bad words from comments.

Numbered Comments Adds numbers to comments.

AuthorHighlight – Highlights comments by the blog’s author.

Comment Highlighter – Styles comments based on the author’s name, email, or URL.

wp-chunk – Truncates long URLs in comments to prevent them from stretching the page.

Enable rich comments

Custom Smileys – Adds clickable smiley emoticons to comments.

TinyMCEComments – Turns the comment box into a full-featured rich text editor.

Live Comment Preview – Allows readers to preview their comment before posting.

Edit Comments XT – Lets commentators edit their own comments.

Enable avatars

Gravatar – Displays user-selected avatars from a central database next to comments.

Favatars – Pulls the favicon from a commenter’s blog or website, and uses that for their avatar.

MBLA – Adds user images from MyBlogLog to comments.

OpenID Comments – Lets readers comment with their OpenID identity.

Show off comments

WP-Most Commented Posts – Displays posts with the most comments in the sidebar.

Latest Comments with Avatars Reloaded – Shows the latest comments, along with the MyBlogLog avatars of the commenters.

Allow better conversation

Simple CoComments – Tracks the conversation across blogs.

Comment Karma – Digg-style voting on comments.

Quoter – Allows users to quote a previous comment in their comment.

Whisper – Lets users “whisper” comments that are only visible to one person.

Moderate comments effectively

Comment Twitter SMS Notification – Notifies you of new comments through Twitter SMS.

Bannage – Adds the ability to ban users from commenting by name, email, or IP.

CommentCentral – Allows batch opening and closing of comments on multiple posts. (via)

Top 40 Firefox Add-ons for High Speed Blogging

Firefox works great on its own, but it’s the thousands of extensions that make it excel. We’ve pulled together more than 40 add-ons for Firefox that provide quick access to handy blogging tools. But whatever you do, don’t install them all at once.

Blog Publishing

Blogger Bar – Search Blogger, “Blog This” function for any page you’re on.

Clipmarks – Clip any portion of a website to save, email or put on your blog.

Deepest Sender – Blog to multiple platforms from one window.

JustBlogIt – Just right click, and you’re blogging about the page you’re viewing.

LiveJournal Addons – Notifies you of friends updates, messages and more.

LiveJournal Hook – Gives you quick access to many LiveJournal commands and tags.

MySpace Blog Editor – Post directly from Firefox, drag and drop clips from sites.

Scribefire – A blog editor that integrates with your browser and allows you to drag and drop items from a web page into a blog post.

Twitterbar – Post to Twitter directly from the address bar.

WordPress.com Sidebar – Adds a quick access sidebar to get to your WordPress.com account.

Uploading Photos and Media

Fireflix – Sidebar extension to upload, browse, and manage your Flickr photos.

Firefox Companion for Kodak EasyShare Gallery – Upload photos directly to your Kodak EasyShare Gallery.

Firefox Universal Uploader – Universal program for uploading to sites such as Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, and Facebook.

FireFTP – An integrated FTP system that syncs and checks versions.

Flickr Sidebar – View the pictures in your account in a sidebar.

Fotofox – Select, tag, and upload images to popular sites such as Flickr.

ImageBot – Lets you upload photos to ImageShack or Photobucket.

OakFlickr4PFF – Allows uploading to your Flickr account.

Blog Tools

Adsense Notifier – Displays your current earnings from Google Adsense in the status bar.

Copy as HTML Link – Copies the address of a page to the clipboard as an HTML ready link.

Create short URLs – Right click an address, click wrapURL, and create a shortened URL for your use.

Dict – Highlight a word, right click it, select define and get a definition in a pop-up window.

DictionarySearch – Similar to Dict, but the result appears in a new tab.

FastDict – Add quick access to any number of dictionary sites to spruce up your blog entries.

ShrinkThisLink Link Shrinker – Use the ShrinkThisLink service without leaving the page.

Tiny.pl – Shortens an address via the tiny.pl service.

Blog Design, Customization and Development

ColorZilla – Get a color reading from any spot in your browser.

DT Whois – Adds a button for Domaintools.com whois service for the site you are currently viewing.

Firebug – Look under the hood of your favorite websites and take a peak at their code.

Greasemonkey – Allows you to run small java scripts to manipulate the way a page displays to you.

HTML Validator – Checks the validity of a page’s HTML and tells you the results in simple graphics.

IE Tab – Lets you view a webpage in an Internet Explorer tab without leaving Firefox.

iWEBTOOL Webmaster’s Toolbar – Allows you quick access to services and tools from iWEBTOOL.

JavaScript Debugger – In browser Java script debugging.

KGen – Allows you to see the strongest keywords for a given site.

LinkChecker – Checks the validity of all links on a given page.

Load Time Analyzer – Allows developers to measure how long a page takes to load.

MeasureIt – Draws out a ruler to get a pixel dimension of any element on a page.

MetaTags – Checks the meta information of a site and features an automated search engine submission tool.

RankQuest SEO Toolbar – Quick access to over 30 SEO tools.

SearchStatus – Keyword density analyser and checks backlinks.

SEOHAND – Tracks a site’s standings and creates graphs over time.

SEOQuake – Ever wonder why a page gets good search ranking? This will help you figure it out.

Web Developer – A highly regarded debugging tool for designers. (via)