 One of the coolest
things about Road Runner is the speed of downloads. Computer and Web veterans can
stop here. We're going to go over the basics of downloading a file from the Internet
for those folks who are new to computers and the 'net. Downloading means
transferring a file from another computer somewhere out there on the 'net into your
computer right in front of you. That file could be a picture, a song, an article, a
screen saver, a game, a utility program. Anything you have on your computer can be
transferred to another computer on the 'net.
 The computer the
file is coming FROM is called the server. The computer the file is coming TO is
called the client. Most web downloads are going to start from a plain old web link.
Our
example today is the Tomb Raider 2 Gold game demo from Happy
Puppy. Happy Puppy offers game demos and has a very fast server. You click on
the link and suddenly the computer is asking you questions. I know new users hate
these kind of questions, because they're always afraid they're not going to know the
answer, but this one is pretty easy.
Normally you would choose "Save this
program to disk." if you choose "Run this program from it's current
location," it's going to come down to your computer anyway as a temporary file that
you probably would have trouble doing anything with. If you need to do something
with this file again, you'll just have to download it again, unless you've saved it to
your computer. Netscape users won't see a window like this. They're going to
go directly to the next step.
If you get a
message that goes something like "User Anonymous Access Denied," or some
variation of it, it means that there are just too many people trying to download files
from that particular server at that particular time. Just wait an hour and try
again. This frequently occurs when a hot new game demo is released, or a new version
of a popular browser comes out, or yet another new Star Wars trailer becomes available.
Now for the
really tricky part. You have to tell your computer where to put the downloaded
file. I can't tell you how many times someone has told me, "I downloaded this
file, and now I can't find it." Well make notes if you have to. Just
remember where that file is going. There are a couple of easy ways to do this.
You could download everything to your desktop. Or you could make a folder called
"download" and bring all your files into that. The advantage to either of
these schemes is that you don't have lost files with cryptic names laying all over your
hard drive, taking up room you could use for other cool things.
After you've told your computer where to put the
file sit back and see Road Runner do it's thing. You'll get a window that looks
something like this.
Normally the link you click on will tell you how
large a file is. You can watch the (Opened so far ___) number to get an idea how
long it's going to take for everything to be done. The key to the duration of the
download is the "transfer rate." Transfer can vary widely depending on the
connection and capabilities of the computer on the far end of the file transfer. This ten
megabyte file would take about an hour to download with a typical phone modem. On
Road Runner I got it in well under a minute.
One thing to be careful of when downloading is viruses. Downloading a file,
particularly a file with a .com or .exe extension. (extension = the three letters after
the .(dot) in a file name), is the perfect way to get a virus into your computer. You can
prevent this by downloading only from trusted sites. We also recommend you look into virus
protection software from McAfee or Symantec.
Now you have the
file what can you do with it? It depends on what kind of file it is.
Typically Windows software downloads end in one of two extensions, zip or exe. If your
downloading Mac software they might end in .sit, .hqx, or .sea. Let's stick to
Windows right now. If your file ends in .exe it is probably a self extracting
archive. That means all you have to do is click on it and it will decompress the
software, and give you instructions on how to install it. very neat and tidy. If it
ends in .zip you're going to need a utility to do anything with it. You can try Winzip, or Pkzip for
Windows. Both are available for download on the web as shareware. Both of these
programs come as a self extracting archive and contain directions for their use. Mac
users will want to try Stuffit, which performs
basically the same functions for Mac software.
My example is a
self extracting .exe, probably the simplest kind of file to deal with. I locate it
in the download folder where I sent it. Then I click on it and get this window.
At this point I've already clicked setup.
I follow the onscreen prompts and *Presto* I'm playing Tomb Raider. Not very well though.
This computer at work doesn't have a 3d card. I'm going to have to ask the
boss about that.
If you're looking
for cool stuff to download there's a ton available on the 'net. There are games,
screen savers, demonstration versions of commercial software, utilities to do nearly
anything you need to get done with your computer. We've included a few links below
to help you get started.
-cg
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