Useful Tidbits

Useful, bitesized information for you, my beloved readers, so that you can stay up-to-date and tech-saavy:

The New Macs
Every new Mac now ships out with Intel Inside.

Macintosh has recently accomplished its transition from its older chips, supplied by IBM, to its new processors from Intel. The newer chips, DuoCore and Xeon, function at vastly greater speeds (up to four times faster than their old counterparts) and use less power (yay). The main problem is that change is painful. Older programs are not automatically readable by the Intel processors, since they were created for the IBM PowerPC chip family. Enter Rosetta, the new OS which "emulates" many of the programs which are native dwellers of OSX, a previous Mac OS which is not compatible with Intel. Programs native to Intel such as OSX 10.4, and all its built-in programs, work superbly with the new Intel processors.
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Torrentado!
BitTorrent is a widely popular, open source method of sharing files online. So you don't get left behind, here is what you need to know:

Bittorrent works by connecting you to a tracker, which manages the transferring of data from peer to peer. The data is transferred in a way that maximizes the bandwidth of every user. You will simultaneously be downloading little pieces of the file you want, and uploading pieces you have to other users.

With the bittorrent system, everyone chips in to make sure everyone gets the entire file faster. Users that supply full copies of the file are called "seeds." Users who are copying and uploading at the same time are called "peers." To begin downloading with bittorent, you will need the following:

1. An installed bittorrent program (like bitcomet, which I recommend).
2. Enough space for your desired file(s) - some torrents are associated with a collection of files.

You can find torrent files on websites such as isohunt.com. Mind copyright rules, folks. Not everything out there is in the public domain, hehehehe. Note that the torrent file is NOT YET the file you desire to have. It is the file that will allow you to contact the tracker and begin acquiring the goods.

Download the torrent file associated with your target file(s), open the torrent file, and your torrent application will allow you to begin downloading the target file(s) you want.
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Calorie Counters Online
Wondering about how much damage a fastfood meal will do to your diet? Google McDonalds, and visit the site. It has a calorie calculator that shows you the caloric equivalent of every single McDonald's food out there!

Off the op of my head, my favorite meal has this many calories:

Quarter pounder - 570 calories
Large Fries - 500 calories
Large Coke - around 300.
Yumyumyum!

Have a great week, everyone!