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Download Torrents Directly to Your Android Phone with Swarm
To appreciate the mega-awesomeness of this feat, let’s first explain what a torrent is.
In the old days, file sharing sites would connect two computers together and one person could transfer a file from the other persons computer onto their own. The problem was that if the sender logged off, the receiver was completely cut off and left only with a partial file and would have to find another computer to copy from and start the whole process all over again. No bueno.
Enter the torrent. Now, instead of getting the file in one big piece from one other computer, your computer assembles it from little bits gathered from a lot of peoples computers. This means that if one person turns off their computer, the download will just continue with bits from other senders. No interruption and a faster overall download process.
To get your computer to download these little bits, first it needs some instructions on what it’s looking for, where to find the bits of information, and then how to put it all together in the end to make a complete file. These instructions are the actual torrent files. First a person goes to a torrent search engine like one of the ones listed below…
Torrentscan.com is a great site because it’s a list of multiple torrent search engines so it saves you some time when searching. From there, you type in the name of the file you’re looking for. You’ll see a list of files that match your search pop up. You will also see a column that shows “Seeders” and “Leechers.” Seeders are the number of people who are sharing a file from their computer, and Leechers (or peers) are the number of people looking for the file. If there are not enough seeders, the file will either be very slow to download or unavailable. Common courtesy in the torrent sharing community says to make sure to seed files you have while you search for other files. That way everyone can keep the action going. Once you know which file you want, click to download the torrent and small file (the instructions for downloading the real file) will be saved to your computer (or phone in our case).
Now that you have that torrent file, you need another application to open that file, read those instructions inside on what you want to download, and then it will begin the process of seeking it out, downloading and putting it all together. Until recently, this fairly complicated function was only capable from a computer as most phones did not have the horsepower or internet speed capabilities to handle this. Now, there’s an app that’s changed all that.
Swarm is an app for Android that will take a torrent and download the file directly to your phone. This means you could possibly download a movie directly to your phone and then watch it, all without having to get a computer involved (as long as it’s the right format, like .MP4). Swarm is an extremely simple app to use so let’s walk through and see how it works. Download Swarm from the link below…
Click Here to Download Swarm from the Android Market
By now you should have gone to the torrent site of your choice, found a good file and downloaded the torrent. Launch Swarm and click on the Add button in the top right of the screen. It will now ask you to find the file on your phone. Usually, this will have downloaded into the Downloads folder on your memory card or built in memory (depending on your model of Android phone). When you select the file, it will ask you what parts of the torrent you want to download. Some of the torrents include multiple parts (for example, an album download includes each song as an individual file…select only the ones you want to download or just download everything). From there it will say that’s it’s allocating the file and once that’s done, the download begins. That’s it!
A lot of adjustments can be made in the Preferences page
You can also go to the Preferences by click on the Prefs button on the top right of the screen and make any adjustments you want. You can also tell it exactly where you want the files you are downloading to be stored. Also, just remember that this sucks down battery like like a madman so you probably want to keep your phone plugged in while you’re downloading. It’s also not unusual for this to also make your phone a little hot because your CPU will probably be working overtime to make it happen.
Files will normally be in the Downloads folder
Hope this works out for you. If you have any other additional sites for finding torrents, drop them in the comments section below. Enjoy and happy sharing!
Free Android Apps with Aptoide
Not to sound like a broken record, but here’s yet another way to get FREE APPS FOR YOUR ANDROID!
To start off, here’s a little background info. Apps are stored in a place called a repository. A repository is a type of library or bank where these apps are stored and by using a particular app, you can access these libraries and download directly to your phone. The official Android Market itself is a type of repository. Just like the Blackmarket Alpha app we had mentioned before, Aptoide is another app repository full of appy goodness.
Aptoid is available on the regular Android Market so follow the link below on your Android powered device and download the Aptoide Installer.
Click Here for Aptoide Installer From Android Market
Get the Installer and run it and you’ll get the Aptoide app on your phone. Aptoid itself is a program that reads repositories, so now we need to tell it where the repositories are. We will start off by doing it the automated way and downloading another app from the Android Market that works with Aptoide to add the repositories. Click on the link below for the Aptoide Repos app.
Click Here for Aptoide Repos App from Android Market
Now we’re going to run the Aptoid Repos app and it’s going to automatically add a list of repositories (or repos). Let it do it’s thing and then run Aptoide. The first time you run it (and periodically from now on) the app will ask you if you want it to update it’s list of apps from the listed repositories. Click yes and let it re-populate the list. Once this is done, you can click on Games, Applications or Others to take you to the
Press Manage Repos to add repositories
corresponding lists of apps. You can also press the menu button and use the search option to find a particular app among the thousands listed.
The power of Aptoide lies in the ability to manually add any new repositories that they don’t list automatically through the Aptoide Repos app. To do this, click on the menu button from the main page, then click on Manage Repo. This takes you to the list of repositories you already have. To add a new one, click on the menu button, then click New Repository. This brings up a new box with a field for the website address. Enter the address and press Add. For our example, type http://repo.blackdroid.net and click Add. You will now see the new repository listed. When you go back to the Aptoide main screen by pressing the back key, it will again ask you if you want to update your list of apps based on this new repository. Let it update and you’re good to go.
Depending on what repos are automatically added, here are a couple must have for more free apps…
http://blackmarket.bazaarandroid.com
Adding a new Repo
Aptoide is also great because it lists what apps that you have already downloaded have updates available so you’re always running the latest and greatest version of your apps.
Hopefully this works for you. Drop a comment below if you know of any other noteworthy repositories that are floating around out there and happy downloading!
Free Music with GTunes Music
Apps aren’t the only thing floating out there for free. Now your ears can join in all the free goodness with the GTunes app. This app allows you to search for any song, album or artist and download directly to your phone for free. GTunes logs into online music libraries to bring them to your phone.
There was an earlier version of GTunes available on the Android Market for a limited time that allowed the best search and download capabilities. It was pulled early and replaced by another more watered down edition. The new GTunes (currently available on the market as of the writing of this post) lets you search for Artists only and then allows the download of only a few of that artists songs, often times live or acoustic versions. While this can be handy, it’s no where near as powerful as the original.
Worried that the original isn’t available on the market anymore? Fear not, readers…Hackmondo to the rescue. From your phone’s browser, click on the link below to download the original, more powerful version directly to your phone!
Click here for GTunes Android App
When you install the app and run it, it will most likely tell you that there’s a new version of the app available. Don’t bother with the upgrade. We’re pretty happy with what we have.
GTunes is a very simple and well laid out app overall. The first tab is the about tab which is what you will use to exit the app when not in use. To find a particular song, artist or album, click onto the Search tab and type in search box. Click on the magnifying glass to the right and it will pull up a list of matching search results. The list is compromised of songs or albums from various sources so you’ll see multiple copies. You’ll also see some written in foreign languages. For the most part, it’s best to download the file that has a larger file size since that usually equates to a higher quality audio file. When you select a song, you have the option of streaming it to make sure it’s the right song. Once you pick a song and click on download, you can go over to the download tab and see the progress. Naturally, the stronger your data or wifi signal, the faster the download.
You also have a Library tab to see all your downloaded songs (as well as any other music on your device) and a decent little audio player so you could do everything you need to do from within this one little app.
Now sit back, relax and let the music take you away! If this worked for you, drop a comment below and let us know what device and version of Android you were running and let us know if you use any other free music apps.
Free Droid Phones!!
If you haven’t had a chance yet, we just wanted to share with you some great deals available from one of our main sponsors, SGTWireless. Right now they’re offering tons of awesome free phones for Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Nextel. Some of the current deals include the killer Droid 2 Global on Verizon (with a suction dashboard/windshield mount and a Motorola Multimedia Station, a combined $80) all for FREE! We know how much you all love free things (free apps, free movies, free music) so why not free phones!?
The truth is we put out a ton of info for our readers for free and it wouldn’t be possible without the support of great companies like SGTWireless. There are a lot of companies and groups out there who are charging people for the kind of information we provide for free. Sponsors help us to make sure we never have to ask our readers for anything but their support. Please take a moment and click on their add on this page and you’ll not only be supporting Hackmondo.com but also saving a ton of cash and getting a great phone all at the same time. What’s not to love about that?!
Applanet Status
For those of you that are still holding out hoping and checking back regularly that Applanet is coming back…it looks like you will have to keep waiting. In recent blog posts on his site, the founder of the service (which allows you to download free and paid apps from the Android Market for free) has gone into great detail about the troubles plaguing the site.
In the process of working on Applanet 3.0, he took on a business partner which has lead to difficulty bringing the new version to fruition. The issues inside the business have been compounded by issues with the company hosting the site on it’s servers. From the looks of it, he’s still working hard on solving these issues and getting the service back up and running. Keep checking back on Applanet.net and we’ll let you know once it’s back online.
Turn your iPhone into a Wifi Hotspot
No one wants to pay the telephone companies a monthly fee to allow you to use a feature that your device already has built in. That’s basically like buying a car and then paying the automaker a monthly fee to use the trunk. You shouldn’t have to! You bought it…you should get to do what you want with it!!
The Home Screen
OK…rant over. The guys over at Intelliborn seem to agree and have had one of the most popular WiFi hotspot apps available for iOS for some time now. The app is called MiWi and is only available on the Cydia app store since it’s way too cool, useful and necessary for Apple to include it in their App store. (OK, to be fair, it’s typically pressure from the carriers that pushes apps like this out of the more “legitimate” channels.) To install the app, your iOS device must first be Jailbroken (click here to find out how to jailbreak). If you haven’t jail broken yet, do it! It gives you the capability to add a ton of features your iPhone should have had from day one, but remember, it does void your warranty.
You can download the app by launching Cydia on your iPhone. From Cydia, press the Search icon and type in MyWi. Tap on the app from the list of search results and download and you’re good to go. They thoughtfully give you a 3 day free trial and if it works and you like it, it will cost you a one time fee of $19.99 to buy. That’s a wwaaayyyy better deal than paying your phone company a ridiculous monthly fee for the same service. Also, when you log into Cydia to make the purchase, it remembers your transaction so if you should install Cydia on another iPhone later, you can download the app again and won’t be charged. Very cool.
The app itself is very clean and elegantly designed. The home screen shows you your options and even asks you what you want to connect to. By default, the program has the ability to create a wifi hotspot or to plug into your computer via usb and tether that way. Another option is to tether to a device through it’s Bluetooth connection, but that option does require you to pay a few more bucks.
WiFi Hotspot Tab
On the home screen you will see three icons in a row. The first shows the wifi logo, the second is the USB icon and the third is for creating the bluetooth connection (if you purchased that option). Click on the Wifi logo and you’re off and running. It is recommended that you click on the Wifi logo at the top of the app, then click on WEP Security to make sure your hotspot is secured with a 10 digit password of your choosing. If you don’t someone near by can jump onto your hotspot and slow you down considerably.
Adjust WiFi Hotspot Security Settings
With each updated version the app becomes even more stable and easier to use. Don’t be surprised if you occassionally have to reboot the app or try to reconnect your device. Don’t worry, though…that’s a small price to pay for HotSpot-y goodness!
Root HTC Evo 4G Running Gingerbread 2.3
The guys at AndroidAuthority.com have posted a great tutorial on rooting your HTC Evo 4G running Gingerbread (aka Android 2.3). This process is just slightly more involved than the simple rooting methods in the past like Z4Root but is also one of the only ways so far to do it. They have made a great tutorial video they posted on YouTube and we have had confirmation from one of our readers that this method does work and at least for them, did not result in “bricking” the phone. Here’s the video to check out and head over to AndroidAuthority.com for more details and lots of other great Android info.
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