Free softwares that you should have on your pc

In the internet world there is tons of software that could help you speed up your sluggish PC or solve your crash problems. Here are the list of useful software that could help you solve some of your nasty problems.

Download Accelerator Plus (DAP)

Is a download manager software develop by speedbit that use multi-channel technology to download files from multiple servers hence faster downloading.

http://www.speedbit.com/

Smart Defrag

Is the same as your normal Windows Defrag software but it offers optimization that place your frequently used files on the fastest area on the disk plus it got an auto shut down its very convenient when you plan to defrag your pc all night without the worry of electricity wastage.

http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html

Advance SystemCare

This is an all-in-one software that provide the tools to clean your system registry, optimize and fix system errors, Defrag your system, remove spyware, and etc. Its free to download and use but there are some features require you to buy the software but the free edition is consider fine.

http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

Is a good anti-malware software that detect and remove all kinds of malware that is not detectable from your standard antivirus like Kaspersky and Norton. This software will come in handy when your PC seem to have a malware your standard antivirus could not detect it.

http://malwarebytes.org/

CCleaner

This software is very useful when you want to free up some space on your harddrive and it beats waiting the long frustrated Windows Disk Cleanup. This software have the feature to clean your registry keys, uninstall softwares, remove startup programs and remove useless system restore points.

http://www.ccleaner.com/

OpenOffice

OpenOffice is a free version of Windows Office it have everything what Windows Office has. I recommend this software if you have a tight pocket.

http://www.openoffice.org/

VLC

If you have a problem playing certain video format and don't have the codec for it this software will solve all your codec problem. VLC has the ability to play all your favourite like mpeg to divx and its a great alternative for Windows Media Player.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Which graphic card you should buy if you are on a budget

We all have our own budget on upgrading our computer hardwares and since the release of  Mass Effect 2 we need a good performance pc to run this games at the highest quality available. Graphic Cards are the core of handling heavy duty complex task to run games and its the most important hardware for gamers like me.

Recommended Graphic Cards

Power Colour 4890 1GB DDR5 Zerotherm

Price: RM 660/ USD 193

Crysis Warhead Avg FPS(1920x1200): 25

DX Support: 10.1

Sapphire 5770 Vapor X 1GB DDR5

Price: RM 620/ USD 181

Crysis Warhead Avg FPS(1920x1200): 19

DX Support: 11

Palit GTS 260 Sonic 896MB DDR3

Price: RM 599/ USD 175

Crysis Warhead Avg FPS(1920x1200): 18

DX Support: 10

How to speed up torrent downloads

Many people complain that their torrent download speed is very slow especially if you live in Malaysia and you are using some crapy ISP's like Streamyx. I realize that I still get good download speed despite people claim that Streamyx is throttling torrent download speed.

Selecting a good torrent client
There's a lot of good torrent clients and most of them do almost the same thing regardless what client you are using some of my optimize download method are compatible to any client, for now I'm just focusing a single client uTorrent.

Increase the numbers of max half open port
Some of don't know that Windows XP limits the half open port by 10 and they got a good reason to limit the port. To adjust the limit of the half open port is to download a patch from http://www.lvllord.de/. Just download the zip file, unzip it and run the program.You can set whatever number of port you want but I recommend just set it to 50 to decrease the probability of worms and viruses attacking your computer.

Adjust your port forwarding
Usually some people say that between 49152-65535 are private/dynamic ports that are use for keeping out ISP from torrent traffic. Regardless which port you are using make sure you test it before using it. As you can see mine is 80 and I have no problem with it. Go to option-> preference-> connection to adjust your port number.

uTorrent settings
You all must remember that the main reason why you have a slow download speed is because you guys limiting your upload speed. Limiting your upload speed will at the same time limit your download speed. I recommend all of you set your upload speed to 0 or automatic this ensure that you have a good share ratio so that people will let you download more of the file. Just go to option-> preference-> bandwidth and follow the settings as shown on the image above.
Just go to option-> preference-> bittorrent and follow the settings as shown on the image above.

I recommend to download only one at a time to hasten the download process of the torrent file. Just go to option-> preference-> queueing and adjust it to your own preference.

Now go to option-> preference-> advance and change:

bt.transp_disposition to 255
net.max_halfopen to 50
peer.disconnect_inactive_interval to 600

Final notes
If you want the best download speed I recommend download torrents from private sites instead of public sites since private torrent sites offer better download rate but some of this sites have limited membership account they could give. The other piece of advice is stop being greedy and increase your upload limit and seed some files so that your share ratio could go up and this will the people to give you more download speed since you are downloading from other people computers and not from a server. If anyone is using Xunlei/Thunder 5 I recommend not to use this software since they will upload your file without permission and it only download small files at high speed and not those big files like the 7GB ones.

Dragonica Review

Dragonica is a free-to-play 3D side-scroller with nice graphic and fine gameplay. If you ever play Maple Story and seriously bored with it this game is for you. Dragonica story is about an angry evil dragon named Elga who was imprisoned but freed by a cute evil bitch named Paris and now this bad ass evil dragon wants to take revenge by turning those cute creatures into fearsome sons of a bitch monster. You as a young cute adorable hero have the responsibility to forge a group of cute warriors to face the manace of evil before is too late.

Classes
There is only 4 type of classes.


Warrior - the guy with high HP, high strength and a melee fighter
Magician - this magic wielder pack a good punch on long range
Archer - this is second to the magician but has the highest attack rate on long range
Thief - fast, agile and cause the most burst damage in melee



Gameplay
The gameplay is what you expect from Maple Story but in 3D. The 3D side-scrolling is a good element for this MMORPG away with from the traditional point and click. There are two set of quick slots in the game, one for the numpad keys and the other for the QWERASDF key. This quick slot system is basically give you more room for your skills and items and this is useful if you want to us more skills and still able to us the remaining slot for your HP and MP potions. The gameplay is basically a hack and slash there is not much else then that and is pretty easy to play alone without any friends until you reach the area you get gangbang by a group cute angry animals. Mission are mediocre is the basically is the kill this much, collect this much and go meet this guy type of quest and is pretty boring even for sake of the money and EXP. Some of the quest are story driven of the main plot is the only thing interesting if you plan to go through with it. There is also an Mission Portal where you teleport yourself into an arcade mode of the game where you can hack and slash all the enemies until you reach the boss stage. The arcade mode can be easy if you playing alone but when you reach the boss stage it can be challenge to your skill and patient unless you have assemble a party. The Hero Quest can be only unlock if you accept and complete certain storyline quest of certain characters. The leveling is easy in this game since its arcade style gameplay makes it easier for the impatient bastards to level up their warrior to level 20 in less then a week but thats depend how much effort you play this game.


Graphics
The graphics are not that stunning but still consider in the okay level. I like the anime cute design on the characters it makes the game feel more appealing for those anime freaks out there who like this kind characters for the wrong reasons. The graphics will not strain anyone graphic cards unless you still leaving in the stone age. A good main stream graphic card will be just fine for the since its resolution is fixed on 1024x768 and thats consider a let down for those who have high resolution monitor.


Sound
The sounds in the game is consider normal for its consider standard. The music is okay to my ears but it can be a little bit boring at times although you can turn off the music and use your own music player software to play your own tune.


Conclusion
This game is consider to be fun at first but it can be boring a times only if you have no friends to party with. Unlike all other MMORPG this game is much better than Cabal and way better then Maple Strory in terms of graphics and gameplay. There is some topics I didn't cover about this game but it's features is the same to the mainstream MMORPG that you ever played.


Rating:
3.5/5


Screenshot