Star Downloader Pro: the star among the rest
I’m on a state between sleep and consciousness, so forgive me if (or when) I will make or have made mistakes in this post. I just want to set things straight before I finally pass out. I still keep on testing different download managers, and I don’t know why. Somehow I’m hoping that my Internet speed will be boosted, even if I know that it won’t and it couldn’t. I tried an updated version of Download Accelerator Plus Premium again. It still gave me the same results: it couldn’t handle links from Rapidshare properly and failed to handle other URLs as well, so I uninstalled it again. For something that expensive, I had expected the program to perform a little better.
I also tried a program which supposedly upgraded the BitTorrent Protocol. It was known as Warez Pro. When I tried download with the program, however, it just hung up on me and ultimately froze. It was stupid, and I uninstalled it with full force. Among the week’s trials the only program I found worth enough to keep was Star Downloader Pro. I think it was last updated on 2004; nevertheless, it still remained a robust program and a good one at that. I don’t know why I’m so addicted to testing software once again; I thought I had gotten over this, but it seems like I haven’t.
Anyway I do hope people would try the program I helped figure out, even if the program is quite old: I’m talking about NetPumper v. 1.0 with Banner Killer, the program I featured the previous post. I hope I could get over this hump. I’m glad that I made this other blog, though, because I wanted to avoid further corrupting my anime blog with technological material such as this.
Updates may happen soon.
The best download managers: reflections
I was wondering whether I was going to post on my other blog or in here. I haven’t definitively decided (I’m still vacillating), but I decided to post here because the title of both the blog and the site reflect my obsessios: this obsession is merely a fool’s inebriation (with nostalgia); yet it is also a dissemination of meanings. Compared to The Crescent Moon, writing here seems more relevant.
It was purely by accident that I rediscovered the fun and beauty of download managers. After seeing a download for Download Accelerator Pro, I recalled the enjoyment I had in the past playing with those download managers. With that I recalled the different programs I tried in the past and sought once more to enjoy them and their capabilities as download boosters.
I first remembered NetPumper Pro. About three years ago I utilized the program to download on Anti-Leech sites, a proprietary technology by the same creators of NetPumper to prevent leechers. It was useful as a technology, but it rapidly became infamous because the plug-ins for Anti-Leech also were conductors of spyware and adware. At times, the price to pay for hassle-free anime downloading was simply too much until it came to a point where no one wanted to use Anti-Leech downloads any longer. It was also to the downfall of the software that the BitTorrent protocol rapidly came to rise and dominate the distribution scene.
I never forgot about how bad the program was and how its only redeeming factor was that it was able to download from Anti-Leech sites, but I also loved the program in a perverse way. Having remembered about it, I hastened to download it and use it. The Pro version was good, especially so despite its age, but what was astounding was the very first version of the free version: by this, I pertain to NetPumper v. 1.0. I tracked the different implementations of people to escape the bane of adware, and in crack sites I found there were three. One were cracks of older Pro versions; the two were patches and fixes to two NetPumper versions, and these were v. 1.0 and v.1.10.2.
The patch for v.1.10.2 worked, but it did not hinder the display of pop-under advertisements and Cydoor and WhenU were still installed. It did well to prevent the banners within the program itself, but it didn’t solve the rest of the adware problems. However, the patch for v. 1.0 totally worked: the banners were totally removed from the interior of the program, and with the deletion of four useless files spyware no longer was a problem: I’ve used the program for more than a week and I’ve yet to see a pop-under or any form of advertising from any site while using the program. While the Pro version was good because it performed despite its age, NetPumper v. 1.0 (with Banner Killer) worked like a charm. Despite being seven years old, it still worked well with my Internet connection and maximized my bandwidth.
This is not to say I haven’t tried other download managers: I have also tried Internet Download Accelerator, but from my first impressions it has performed quite badly. An average of 10 KB/s wasn’t what I expected in a download accelerator. Download Accelerator Plus Premium worked decently, and was able to fully utilize my connection, but it didn’t work well with Firefox (from my experience) and sometimes completely botched file downloading. DownThemAll worked very well, and downloaded files the most speedily and the most consistently, but I removed it because I sought to try Internet Download Accelerator. That seemed like a bad decision, and I will rectify that by reinstalling the program once more. (I was actually sucked in by Internet Download Accelerator because of its cute, violet-colored about page. That’s all. Don’t believe their 500% download boost, that’s bollocks.)
As it stands, DownThemAll is currently the best among all the download managers I’ve managed and tried, while NetPumper v. 1.0 with Banner Killer was the most unexpectedly stable and good. I’m going to keep both of them truly because they exceeded my initial expectations and are both free programs at that (!).
To utilize NetPumper v. 1.0 with Banner Killer without fear and reprehension, follow the instructions below.
NetPumper v. 1.0 with Banner Killer
Executable and Crack
http://www.mediafire.com/?zzhzkj5ymwt
Instructions:
1. Download the .zip archive from the link provided.
2. Open and install netpumper-1.0-setup.exe.
3. After installation to the folder selected (default folder is C:\Program Files\NetPumper), delete these files:
NetPumperNNProxy.dll
NPNetPumper_Application.dll
NPNetPumper_Audio.dll
NPNetPumper_Video.dll
4. Extract BannerKill.exe (found in the archive as well) into the NetPumper folder, and open. (If you’re an administrator be sure to ‘run as administrator’ for the program to work.) Open the program, and click OK.
5. Open NetPumper. If everything’s followed correctly, the program will open as NetPumper – Banner Free.exe. There will be no more adware or spyware and the program will run as desired.
TESTED/WORKING/SPYWARE-FREE
Please reply if you encounter any problems. In my week’s use of the program it has been top-notch and clean. 
Man’s dispersio
Saint Augustine, in his Confessions, talked about a dispersio that happens within a human being. Most of us are familiar with the English word ‘dispersion,’ and the connotation of that word has little difference with what Saint Augustine means. However, the dispersio that he pertains to is the disintegration, the scattering of the pieces of our own selves, and this dispersio misdirects us and hinders us from the realization of God.
Marcel relates to this scattering of the self in his exploration of a concrete approach to the mystery of our own being. He says that to recollect, we must first remember and gather again (re-collect) our thoughts into a unified whole. Recollection is not an easy thing to do, however, and even non-philosophers avoid doing such a thing because it is such a burden of our faculties of thinking. For one to be inspired to do it, one must first experience an understanding that something is lacking, and this only happens when we realize that there is a bifurcation between who we are and what our lives are or when we look inside and realize that we were not ourselves all along.
Before digging and drilling into the abstract too much, I better present an example that would hopefully explain what I mean. Let’s take Max Payne, a contemporary figure of video gaming. Max Payne was a policeman, and he lived a relatively comfortable life. There came a time, however, when his wife and their soon-to-be child was murdered, and even as a policeman he could do nothing to rectify his situation.
This is the realization of dispersio: what seems to be one’s perfect life instantaneously and immediately falls apart at the seams that one is led to question ourselves. This experience subsequently opens ourselves to recognize, finally, that who we are is not what our lives are. Is Max Payne now only a policeman? Is he now only the spouse and father? Even he, however, realizes that he is so much more: he is a man more than merely his functions.
This is what society’s problem is right now: man is reduced to his functions. The only guideline is that he does his functions as perfectly as possible, and he becomes a perfect man: he becomes a god among men already. If one is a student, all that one has to do is to study as much and as perfectly as possible, get high grades and be the top of the class, and he becomes the paragon of humanity. People no longer care if he has an excellent attitude for the most part, or if he is sociable or friendly: they merely see his grades and afterward call him as a good person. This is what Marcel finds as wrong (or if I have interpreted incorrectly, kindly correct me), and what I find wrong as well. People are not machines or automata: they must not be judged according to the perfection in what they do. This is an offense as well as an insult to humanity itself. I once thought it was best to live within other people’s expectations and judgments, but I realized that it was an insult to my being, because only being merely the perfect student, or the perfect son was not the whole of me.
I was so much more. I am so much more. And so are you.
Death and the definition of the human person
Philosophy is among the subjects that I have right now that I believe are unnecessary simply because thought alone without the accompaniment of action is fruitless and futile, if not totally counter-productive. Philosophy is a leisure that not many people possess. To survive, people need to act, and not only and solely engage themselves in thinking. Despite this, I admit that I glean a lot of little truths and knowledge in my exploration of the thoughts of prominent philosophers. Though they may not be as efficient as the real world in teaching the lessons of life, they help in my survival and in my comprehension of it.
Gabriel Marcel, one of the few philosophers our class is doing a close reading of, once compared life to a series of lottery tickets: most of life happens in and with chance, and the only definite thing is a death in which one does not know of the time or place of its occurrence.
In the end, reflecting upon that paragraph, the only thing that is certain about life is the negation of it – death.
Within everyone, death is an ambivalence. It is both familiar to us because most, if not all of us experience or have experienced that sense of loss whenever a loved one passes on to the other side; yet it is also unfamiliar because most of us do not believe that it will happen to us in the near future. For most of us, death is something that will inevitably happen but is something that is distant from us. When it comes to death, also, the living are inexperienced. One can only experience a physical death once, and he can never return to the world of the living to tell its tale. Death, then, is something both known and unknown, but in the end what we know of it is the same as what we do not know of it: both aspects are incomplete.
I believe that looking at death as if it were something that will arrive later in the future is incorrect. It loses that sense of immediacy and agency. Death is not something that waits upon anyone: on the contrary, it is the one who acts ruthlessly to many, mercifully to others, but always with speed and quickness. I believe death should be looked upon as a looming spectre, as if it were the sword of Damocles. A thin string of chances holds together our lives as it does with the sword. It may fall anytime, however: it can fall sixty years from now, or it can fall later today.
My belief towards death is my belief towards how I live my life. A philosopher once said that life was a series of infinite moments of the present time. There was neither past nor future. They were merely present that has been, and present that will be. Life does not live in the past or the future.
I realized this not too long ago. Living in the past was as futile as living for the future. The uncertainty of death which hovers above every human life makes this true. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul? Academic excellence is pretty much the insurance one pays to profit him the whole world later on in life. Yet the fact still looms that he may not enjoy it, and it is a certainty that he cannot enjoy it fully for he has to pass his riches on to his heir. This does not mean that I do not believe in the academe, or that I believe in mediocrity (as much as this seems to imply): what I really want to deliver is that I believe there is more to life than the excellence in the academe.
I believe what is needed by every human being nowadays is a personal excellence, and excellence that reaches out instead of taking in; I believe in an excellence that is not and cannot be defined by numbers alone. I believe in a human excellence.
I may have failed in some examinations. My grades may not have been as high as they were when I was in high school or in elementary. However, I have made more friends; I have become a more holistic person; and I can sincerely say that I have reached out more to other people and have become a better person. Grades help with the improvement of one’s status and state in life. This, however, should not be our judge for the person. A person is much, much more than the grades he has gotten, and I have fully realized this only now.
A Fool’s Inebriation
I was, in a sense, born and raised to be an academic by my parents because they sincerely believed I was gifted. As early as five years old, I was tasked to find out the meanings of words that a lot of university students do not even know until now. I was also taught how to spell words like ‘inquisitive.’ In a sense, I did not act or think my age. The only toy I ever treasured in that age of mine was a cheaply-made plastic truck, and compared to my peers I wasn’t as active or as playful. (I was still a child, though, so even then, my hyperactivity must have had irritated quite a few people.)
I was raised to excel academically. There was no such thing for my parents as number two. There was only the apotheosis, the perfect example: there was only number one. Because I wanted to be a good child and I wanted to please my parents, I had done so, and done so consistently. Although not the number one student in all of the batch, I was always the number one student in my class. This was without fail for the whole of my elementary years. My parents remained discontented, however. They believed that I could be the number one in the whole batch. Being number two wasn’t enough. That frustrated me. As early as that time, I was already doubting whether my parents could be sated at all.
I still excelled during my high school days. I never forgot my studies; I did well in sciences; and, to a degree, I was still the best student when it came to the sciences. It was never enough for my parents, though. Why couldn’t I be the number one? Why couldn’t I also excel in the arts? I remain uncertain, but I firmly believe that their plodding and pushing were among the reasons why I have lost faith in the academe as well as the supposed meaning within it.
I now belong to a university located far from my hometown (and consequently, my parents). I have also firmly stood my ground with regard to their prodding. I have told them that I could no longer excel as I did before because I no longer wanted to excel. In a sense, also, my estrangement from them taught me that there are infinitely, infinitely more things to life than excellence in the academe.
I have met people who have regretted burning the midnight oil only to discover that their academic excellence has not benefited them much when faced with real life problems. Frankly, I would agree with them. Real life throws a hardball. The four corners of the classroom teach us the actions of catching. More often than not, however, the classroom does not teach us how to catch, when catching life’s marrow is more important than simply knowing how to do it. I have realized that sucking out life’s marrow is done with a certain personal finesse that can never, ever be taught within the classroom: examinations cannot present it: on the contrary, to an extent, examinations obscure us from what is really needed to be known.
This blog may fail to last long. Whenever, however, ideas regarding how life is supposed to be lived comes to mind, I will try to share what I have realized with the people who will hopefully participate and allow this blog to flourish. That is the reason why I have dubbed this blog a fool’s inebriation.
