Daniel B. Curran Jr.

Lets say you were going to get rid of your television but still wanted to be able to watch your favorite shows at your leisure.  No problem. Here’s how:

This is not going to be a tutorial on the magic of Bit-Torrent, Wikipedia does a fine job at that:

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files, and it has been estimated that it accounts for approximately 27-55% of all Internet traffic (depending on geographical location) as of February 2009.

BitTorrent protocol allows users to distribute large amounts of data without putting the level of strain on their computers that would be needed for standard Internet hosting…. The protocol works as an alternative data distribution method that makes even small computers with low bandwidth capable of participating in large data transfers.

There are several bit torrent programs available but in the spirit of keeping things extremely simple we are going to use a pre-configured version of uTorrent. We are also going to use an anonymizer service that will cost about $7.00 a month.  I stand by it whole-heartedly and believe it is worth the 7 bucks a month to remain anonymous. If you don’t feel the need to use it  – skip ahead to right here: Click Me.

First, Go to BTGuard.com and create an account. I have a subscription. If you just want to “test the water” make a single month payment.

Once your account has been created click on the link that reads Install BTGuard

Choose the Easy Install

Recommended for most users, the easy method will install a pre-configured BitTorrent client (uTorrent) & encryption software. All you need to do is download and install!

For windows only, please use the advanced install of Vuze for Mac or Linux.

Once you have downloaded the BTGuard file, run it to install the pre-configured version of uTorrent

You will be prompted for your BTGuard login information, fill it in and select ok.:

The software will check your account status and then give you a message stating all’s well!

Select Continue and  – whats this?

If you get a similar firewall message make sure you tell the program to ALLOW uTorrent. In this case I will choose Unblock.

Would you like to make uTorrent the default torrent application? Yes indeed and “Always perform this check!”

Ta-Da! You have a Bit Torrent program installed!

Let’s look at 2 settings  – Click on the yellow gear icon or select OPTIONS –> PREFERENCES and go to CONNECTION

You will see that the information for a proxy server has been filled in automatically:

The other setting to take a look at is DIRECTORIES. I don’t think i need to give you a screen shot for that one – just select what folder you want your downloaded files put into. I have a folder in My Documents I created called Recently Downloaded. Whatever works for you – make it so!

At this point we have the ability to download movies and television shows using uTorrent. Now let’s set up which ones we want . .

Go to showRSS and register for a new account. You don’t even need to supply an email address!

Don’t forget your username and password. You will need it to add and remove programs later!

Once you have created the account the next step is to create a list of television programs you want to subscribe to. I’ll add 3 to mine:

I added Californication, Caprica and Dexter. You can add all the programs you want.

Finished? Ok, now click on FEEDS

Next to Get Your Feed Address choose BOTH TYPES OF TORRENTS and INCLUDE PROPER AND REPACKS then click GENERATE.

You will be taken to a page like this:

Copy the link that looks like this: http://showrss.karmorra.info/rss.php?user_id=24575&hd=2&proper=1

Here comes the magic . . . Open uTorrent, select FILE then ADD RSS FEED

Paste the link address in the FEED URL Box.

Check CUSTOM ALIAS and make up a name like TV SHOWS

Select AUTOMATICALLY DOWNLOAD ITEMS PUBLISHED IN FEED

and check the box for USE SMART EPISODE FILTER

Click OK and hold on to your hat:

Things to remember:

1) BTGuard is costing you $7.00 a month to provide you an anonymous Bit Torrent connection.

2) uTorrent is the program you are using to download “Torrent Files” of your choosing.

3) ShowRSS is where you are managing what TV shows are automatically downloaded with uTorrent.

4) Log in to ShowRSS to add or remove programs.

5) If uTorrent is running, its checking for new episodes!

And now that you have a Bit Torrent program . . .go find some torrents!

All I ask for in return is Beer and Books. Beer and Books.

Cheers!