We're happy to announce the latest version of BinTube Usenet Reader. In this update we've integrated features from BinTube Accelerator directly into the newsreader. This means that you no longer need to have both programs running to use the flexible download speed limiting and scheduling features provided by BinTube Accelerator.
BinTube Accelerator is still useful for users of third-party Usenet clients, especially header based clients. But if BinTube Usenet Reader is the only client you use, you should uninstall BinTube Accelerator.
Another small feature that was added is the option to disable automatic display of text files which can sometimes get in the way of your searching activities.
The latest versions and change logs of the software are available the downloads page.
Many of you have requested that we port BinTube Usenet Reader to iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) and Android devices or provide a way to remotely control the reader. We just tested an impressive application that makes this possible: Splashtop Remote, a remote desktop application for iOS and Android devices, brings the full BinTube experience to your phone/tablet device icluding video and audio streaming. That's right, full-screen video and audio streaming work perfectly even when accessing your computer away from home. Access from outside your network does require proper configuration of your router to allow port forwarding and the use of DynDNS or similar if your IP address is not static. The iOS version is currently the better of the two and provides smoother video streaming and support for switching monitors if your PC is connected to multiple monitors.
Free trials of Splashtop Remote are available on the App Store and Android Marketplace. The regular price is $4.99, but there is currently a promotion: The iPad version is currently just $1.99 and the Android version $0.99. The app is well worth the full price if not more!
If you have a tablet device you should definitely give Spalshtop Remote a try!
Ever wanted to download a full Ubuntu ISO in less than 10 seconds? We'll show you how you can setup a test environment to achieve the same performance shown in the video for less than $15!
Step 1. Get a free Amazon AWS account and start an EC2 instance. We used the biggest and baddest High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large Instance running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Base (AMI Id: ami-ee926087) in the US-WEST region. Cost: $2.76 per hour
Step 2. Even the High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large Instance's disk performance is still not enough to handle the 70 MB/s download speed. So you'll need to setup a RAM disk to receive the download. We used the excellent VSuite Ramdisk Server Edition. A free trial version can be downloaded here.
Step 3. Download BinTube Usenet Reader Pro and set it up with your BinTube username and password. If you don't have an account you can get one here. Then set the connection settings to 20 connections, No SSL and point it to the closest servers. If your EC2 instance is in US-WEST that would be us.bintube.com. Finally set your download and temp folders to two separate folders on the RAM disk you created in step 2. Cost: $10.99 per month
That's all there is to it. You should now be able to see download speeds of 500+ Mbps. Just keep in mind that AWS charges $0.10 per GB for data transfer in and $0.15 per GB for data transfer out.
Total cost for the test as performed in the video $10.99 + $2.76 + $.10 = $13.85. All mentioned prices are valid as of 05/03/2011.
BinTube Usenet Reader 3.6 is now available for download. This version adds multi-tabbed search and browsing, improved memory usage and several GUI and internal tweaks. This is also the first version powered by Mozilla instead of IE which should make an eventual port to non-Windows platforms easier.
In light of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, BinTube has refunded the last 2 months of service to all our members based in Japan. Our thoughts are with all of those impacted by this tragedy.
BinTube Accelerator 1.0.3.0 was released with a bug that prevents update notifications from working. If you are currenly using version 1.0.3.0 or less you should download version 1.0.4.0 from the downloads page and install it.
You can check the version installed on your computer by selecting HELP > About BinTube Accelerator.
BinTube Accelerator has been released and is available for download. Features include compressed header downloads, a flexible download scheduler, download stats and more. The initial plan was to implement these features in BinTube Usenet Reader, but since all newsreaders could benefit from the features we build a separate Usenet proxy. With BinTube Accelerator, You could use different newsreaders and still get accurate usage stats and set speed limits in one place. Take it for a spin and let us get some feedback.
BinTube Usenet Reader has also been updated and you should notice a reduction in startup time. A nasty corruption causing bug has also been fixed, so updating to version 3.2 is highly recommended.
Finally, as you might have noticed, the Usenet search engine results have been greatly improved with 100% completion almost across the board.
As you may have noticed by now, BinTube's Usenet Search engine is no longer accessible for non members. This was not an easy decision for us, but it was a necessary action due to the proliferation of websites that specialize in linking to Usenet posts of questionable legality. Filtering out the questionable content based on post subjects being technically impossible, we had no other option.