Preface

This guide is written for Ubuntu or any debian-based distro of Linux; Mainly because I’m lazy and decided to use apt-get.
I’m also not going to explain newsgroups or .nzb files in general right now. I might write a follow-up for that later. I do however recommend the use of Giganews.

• One: I get a small discount if you use my referral to sign up.
• Two: It’s only $20 for the first month with unlimited download, 20 connections, and SSL.
• Three: It’s the best usenet provider I’ve found so far and is able to max out my connection. Way faster than BitTorrent.

What is HellaNZB?

Here’s a description straight from their website:

hellanzb is a Python application designed for *nix environments that retrieves nzb files and fully processes them. The goal being to make getting files from Usenet (e.g.: Giganews Newsgroups) as hands-free as possible. Once fully installed, all thats required is moving an nzb file to the queue directory. The rest; fetching, par-checking, un-raring, etc. is taken care of by hellanzb.

Installation of HellaNZB

1. Open a terminal or connect to your server using SSH.
2. Use apt-get to install the prereqs :
   sudo apt-get install rar unrar par2 python-dev python-twisted python-pyopenssl wget tar screen
3. Download hellanzb and extract it. (Check the website to get the latest version)
   cd ~ ;
wget http://www.hellanzb.com/distfiles/hellanzb-0.13.tar.gz ;
tar xvf hellanzb*tar.gz ;
cd hellanzb-0.13< /li>
4. Install it (requires root access)
   sudo python setup.py install
5. Copy the configuration file
   sudo cp /usr/etc/hellanzb.conf.sample /usr/etc/hellanzb.conf
6. Edit the configuration file (replace vim with editor of choice)
   sudo vim /usr/etc/hellanzb.conf
   1. Make sure you configure the server information in the .conf file.  It’s pretty self explanatory and gives examples.
   2. If you’re planning to use SSL; make sure you enable the SSL option and change the port from 119 to 443.
   3. Set the PREFIX dir to something like /home/username/ or /mnt/storage/hellanzb/
7. That’s it.  You can download a .nzb file and put it in PREFIX_DIR/nzb/daemon.queue/ and if hellanzb is running, it will automatically start processing the .nzb file and then download its contents.   Start hellanzb like this:
   hellanzb.py
8. Once it finishes downloading a file.  It’ll check to make sure it’s all there and repair it using PAR if it needs to, then unrar it and copy the extracted content to PREFIX_DIR/usenet. It’ll also delete the .rar and .par files once it’s done with them.

Make Hellanzb startup on boot as an init script

I found this init.d script on the ubuntu forums that basically starts hellanzb in a screen session at boot.

1. Download my slightly modified init.d script
   wget http://www.thesh17.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/hellanzb ;
2. Copy and chmod the script
   sudo cp hellanzb /etc/init.d/hellanzb
   sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/hellanzb
3. Set it to run on boot
   sudo update-rc.d hellanzb defaults
4. Edit the init.d script to run hellanzb as your user(IMPORTANT)
   sudo vim /etc/init.d/hellanzb
   1. Change HELLAUSER=yourusernametorunhellanzbas to reflect your username.
5. Start hellanzb to see if it all worked
   sudo /etc/init.d/hellanzb start

Alternate Method to start on boot

If you get any errors. Just add this line inside /etc/rc.local and change $HELLAUSER to whatever your username is.

su -c '/usr/bin/screen -S hellanzb -d -m /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/hellanzb.py > /dev/null 2> /dev/null' $HELLAUSER

Now then.  You should be all set.  Just use SFTP or one of the web interfaces to hellanzb and download .nzb files into the queue folder.

The Cult of Rapture worked together with the Bioshock team to put together this free PDF art book. It’s full of 67 pages with pretty pictures that you can look at. You could download the hi-res version (75mb) and take it somewhere to print and bind. Maybe even make giant posters.

Bioshock: Breaking the Mold is the name of the free downloadable pdf ebook. Click below to download it.

http://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture/artbook.html

[source: The Elderly Gamer]

I was looking through Smashing Magazine’s “Best Of” for May/June today and found Wakoopa.

I’m not really sure how useful it is, but it’s cool anyway.   Wakoopa’s a little program(~800kb) that runs in the background, tracking what programs you use and how long you use them for.   Kind of like what Xfire does for PC games.

There’s a PC and a MAC version right now.  Supposedly a Linux version is on the way.

Go sign up and add me as a contact.

Direct X 9.0c Apr. 7 was released the other day. Download it here.

edit: Somehow the date on this post got set to May 7th instead of April.  My bad.

Edit:   Wtf.   I had a long post typed out and wordpress auto-saved it a few times.  But after I hit publish, it was all gone except the title/tags/categories.  I’ll retype it tomorrow :\

Daylight Savings starts earlier this year (this Sunday I think).   So if you use Windows, you’ll probably want to go to the link below and update your system so it can handle the new DST dates.    It’s really easy.

Daylight Saving Time Help and Support Center

Andy posted some videos of C&C 3 the other day. Now the demo is out, and you can play it yourself!
Goto the fileshack link below and download the file. If you don’t have a fileshack account, go to http://www.bugmenot.com and search for a fileshack account. Logged in users get capped at 500kb/s(less than an hour to download the 1.2gb demo) but if you don’t login it’ll cap you at 150kb/s(more than an hour).

FileShack - Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars Demo

Andy’s edit: FUUUUCK YEAHHHHH!!!!!