Five tips to get the best out of your broadband connection

Many ISPs have 'freakingly frustrating' schemes where the happy hours (free downloads) are in the dead of the night. You have two choices - either you can stay up all night to download your favourite stuff and go to work looking like a zombie or you can teach your computer to do all the work for you. Here are a few tips which will help you schedule your downloads in the night and let you catch up on much required sleep:-

1) Setting your DSL router in Bridge mode - If you have an DSL line, your router can be configured as 'always on' or in 'bridge mode'. Putting your DSL router in bridge mode lets you use the broadband connection as a dial-up one. This means you do not have to keep it logged on always and thus save whatever little bandwidth you can by those random pings and background processes. an optional step. Also since using bridge mode, you connect only when you want to, thus safeguarding your computer from outside access. Bridge mode or no bridge mode, you should always use a personal firewall to protect your computer. To setup your DSL modem to bridge mode, first follow this and then create a new PPPoE connection (Here's a tutorial to turn it back to auto-dial). To schedule this new connection to be dialed automatically, see this tutorial in conjunction with the Task Scheduler tutorial given below.

2) Rapidshare and other file uploading sites - If you use Rapidshare or other file uploading services and if you do not have a premium account, it can be really frustrating to deal with the file download restrictions. There is a solution. Sites such as Ibiet & Rapidcat convert the free links to premium links thus letting you download more than one file at a time. This is made possible by the premium accounts donated by users. Paste the free Rapidshare link in the textbox and get the premium link. Copy the premium link in your favourite download manager and schedule it (tutorial given below) to run during the happy hours. One problem is that there are thousands of users using these sites. So the accounts which are donated run out of bandwidth quickly. Keep checking the site regularly. If you're lucky, you'll catch the site when it still has a few accounts active.

2) Download streaming videos - If you prefer to watch videos after downloading them rather then watch them on sites such as YouTube or Google Video, you can download these videos all at a time. If you use the Firefox browser, download the DownloadHelper extension which will provide you with the download link for the video. For those not using Firefox, try this YouTube downloader. Just paste the URL of the video which you're watching and it will provide the download link. Copy this download link in your download manager and schedule it.

3) Use bittorrent - I could rave and rave about bittorrent but let me just provide this link for a quick tutorial of how bittorrent works. Some bittorent clients have a scheduler built-in using which you can restrict your downloads/uploads only during your free hours. Using this in conjunction with Windows Scheduled Tasks, you can fire up the client at the start of your happy hours and then shut it down when the happy hours are over. Just remember, the bittorent technology is legal. What you download from it may not be.

4) RSS feeds - If you like to read blogs/news through RSS feeds, you can schedule your RSS client to download the feeds during the happy hours, thus presenting you with all the fresh news and blog posts when you wake up in the morning. More of how to schedule using Windows Scheduled Tasks next.

5) Windows Task Scheduler - This is one of the most underused utilities in Windows. By using this program you can schedule any program to start up at any time you wish. Depending on your computer's BIOS, you can even start the computer from sleep/hibernate mode.
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i) Start Task Scheduler by going to Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Scheduled Tasks.

ii) Click on Add Scheduled Task.

iii) Click Next on the wizard screen that appears. Depending on the number of programs installed on your computer, it may take some time to load the list.

iv) Select the program which you want to run from the list, or click Browse and navigate to the directory where the program is installed. This can be your bittorrent client / browser / download manager / RSS reader etc. Just remember to configure your program to start downloading as soon as it starts. Click Next.

v) In the next screen, select the frequency at which you want to run the program. This can be Daily, Weekly etc. The most common setting would be Daily. Click Next.

vi) Select the time when you want to run the program, and fill up the other details shown on the screen. Click Next.

vii) This screen asks for the username under which you want to run the program. This should ideally be an admininstrative account. The name of the logged-on user will be displayed as default. Enter the password for the same user, or enter the username and password of another user with admin privileges. Click Next.

viii) The next screen will show you the summary of the details you have provided. Click Finished if you're satisfied, else click Back and change any setting you want.

ix) A new task will appear in the Task Scheduler list. Right click on the scheduled task you just created and click Properties. Uncheck the 'Run only if logged on' checkbox, and check the 'Enabled' checkbox.

x) Click the Settings tab. You can set the amount of time you want to run the program. Check the 'Stop the task if it runs for' and enter the time period you want. e.g. For BSNL DataOne, the happy hours are from 2am - 8am. So you can start the scheduled task at 2:10 (to compensate for the difference in time between your computer and the server), and then enter 5 hours and 45 minutes as the amount of time you want to run the task. So the selected program will start at 2:10am and will close at 7:55am.

xi) Lastly if you're going to keep the computer in sleep mode, check the 'Wake the computer to run this task' checkbox. Depending on your preferences, you may want to check/uncheck the other two Power Management options.

I suggest trying out a sample schedule with Notepad to test if the settings work correctly.