I am Zachariah

Bit Torrent RSS-a-riffic!

I stumbled across this post one day, about using Gmail to browse Torrent RSS feeds. This idea just blew my mind! imagine only seeing the torrents you're interested in, never again having to wade through pages and pages of irrelevant torrent files. This idea really got me going, so I kind of adapted it, making it more suitable to my own personal needs. if you've got a minute, read on, and I'll show you how to download smarter.

Getting Started
First of all, the original concept relied on Gmail, but I don't really think it's necessary, or practical, for the process. I want all my RSS feeds in one place, and since I use an excellent program called Newsfire (developed by David Watanabe) for that purpose, I'm going to use it instead. I imagine that many other news aggregators will have the same funtionality and features as Newsfire, but I really recomend trying it out either way, even if only for this tutorial. The other program I'm going to be using is Bits on Wheels (BoW), a Bit Torrent app. Again, any torrent downloader will work, but try out BoW anyways.

Step 1: Torrent Hunting
For this tutorial, I'm using a feed each from Mininova.org, Rokanova.com, and NewTorrents.info, but you can, again, substitute any Torrent site with an RSS feed if you want. To find out if the torrent site has an RSS Feed, open it up in Safari, then open Newsfire. With the webpage open in the background, select "FEEDS" from the menybar in Newsfire, then "DISCOVER FEEDS FOR CURRENT SITE IN SAFARI...." The keyboard shortcut is Shift+Apple+D. Repeat for as many torrent sites as you'd like.



Step 2: Get Organamazized
Once you've added in all the feeds from the torrent sites, create a New Group in Newsfire by clicking the + button in the bottom left hand corner, and selecting "Group." We'll name the group "Torrents." Next, simply drag the feeds into the new "Torrents" group.



Next, simply drag the feeds into the new "Torrents" group. Your Newsfire window should look something like this, though can ignore the "Blogs" and "Tech" groups - those are just my other feeds I'm subscribed to.



Step 3: Specifically Speaking
I'd like to be able to distinguish between torrents for Movies, Music, and TV shows, so I'm going to create a group for each category that I'd like to keep an eye on. Of course, you can make a group for anime, games, or anything else you're interested in.



Step 4: Crank it up a notch
Now this is where things get a little complicated. If you've never heard of "Smart Folders" before, then I'm actually pretty impressed you've managed to turn on your computer. Congratulations. Smart folders first debuted in iTunes, and were immediately seen as the best way to organize data that update or changed frequently. Think of it as conditional sorting; IF a file as this attribute, then collect it here. Smart folders immediately caught on, and have started popping up everywhere from the Finder to the Address Book, and even to - you guessed it - Newsfire.
In Newsfire they're called "Smart Feeds," but they're still basically the same thing. Smart Feeds collect any particular item or entry from an RSS Feed based on criteria that you specify.
We're gonna make a bunch of Smart Feeds today, base on each category we've just made, starting with Music. Click the + button again, and this time, select Smart Feed. Name the feed music. Match the rest of the criteria to the image below.



Repeat this step twice more, changing the "TITLE OR DESCRIPTION" field to CD, and then MP3. Drag all three smart feeds into that group you created called "Music" (remember it?) By having these multiple smart feed searching for different but similar criteria, you're sure to find all the music torrents you need. HINT: Click the triangle beside "Music" in the group header, compressing the list. Click on the group name, and suddenly all three smart feeds are displayed in one window. Handy, eh?

Keep doing this for movies and TV shows, adding a Smart feed for each criteria ("movies," "video," "AVI," DVD" etc, etc...) untill you're satisfied you're gonna get the most thorough results. You're feed list should now look something like this:



Step 5: Get to the Good Stuff Already!
OK, OK. So you've done all this work, and you're anxious to see it payoff. Well, lets get to it. With all your torrent feed groups compressed (or collapsed), pick a category, say, Televison, for instance, and select a show you'd like to download.


Click on the link again.


Depending on the source feed of the file, this will either automatically download the torrent file through Safari, or direct you to the source website's page for the file, where there will be a link to download the torrent file from there. Either way, you're on you're way.

Once the file is finished downloading it will be placed in Safari's download destination forlder, most likely your deskop. The file will be small - around 28 KBs in size - and have the extension ".torrent:" Open Bits on Wheels, and drag the torrent file onto the Bits on Wheels icon in the dock. This will open the torrent file. Chose a download destination.

Et voila! You're in business! downloading custom content, right to your desktop!

Let me know how it goes, and thanks for reading.

posted by Zach Forrester @ 10:49 PM