BinTube on iOS and Android devices.

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!

How to download 694 MB in less than 10 seconds!

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 Released

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.

Download BinTube Usenet Reader

In solidarity with our friends in Japan

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.

Donations / Emergency Relief

BinTube Accelerator Update

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.

Cheers.

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.

Cheers

BinTube Usenet Reader in German

For our fans in Germany, Austria and Switzerland: BinTube Usenet Reader is now available in Deutsch.



Download BinTube Usenet Reader

Special thanks to David P. for his help with this.

Cheers!

BinTube retention reaches 600 Days!

BinTube's binary newsgroup retention has reached 600 days. This milestone is also valid for our search engine which is available to all our members.

BinTube Usnet Search

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.

BinTube 2.9 New Feature Roundup

Since our last post, some cool and unique features were added to BinTube Usenet Reader. Starting with the most requested:

• It's now finally possible to control download priority by dragging items up and down in the download list which now also supports multi-selection. You can still download multiple items at the same time. To quickly start downloading a queued item, simply double-click it. Double clicking an item that's already downloading will start playback of the first media file belonging to it.
  
• New drag and drop functionality allows you to download any NZB file by simply dragging it into BinTube. You can also drag and drop any video, audio or picture file or folder for quick playback.
  
• BinTube now checks for missing parts and gives you the option to cancel before starting any download. This option is especially handy for users who stream media and hate interruptions during playback.
  
• Items smaller than 3 MB are not queued and download right away at the same time as any other downloads that may be taking place. If you think you need control over the 3 MB number please let us hear from you through the feedback forum.
  
• If you use the streaming capability of BinTube, you will notice that RAR files are analyzed and extracted on the fly, before the first RAR file is even fully downloaded.
  
• We have added fail-over support, so that if something goes wrong accessing one of our server farms, BinTube temporarily switches to an alternate server farm. This feature is only available to users with BinTube Usenet Access accounts.
  

As always, many thanks to all of you who contributed with their ideas and feedback.