I downloaded two of the VFC shows and want to have them available to others. Seeing a frowny face for my share rate is a strong motivation for me. Any advice as to what I can do? I have opened my ports, 6881-6889, but it doesn't seem to change my smiley face status. I read something about needing to adjust the IP address, but I don't really want to get into that, since I a few days ago I had to call my internet provider and readjust the IP address to get my internet service working again. I also read about getting the file from the tracker, opening my client, and pointing the client to the directory, but none of this makes sense to me.

Any suggestions from here? And no answer can be too simple for me. I am new to all of this.

Thanks!

What is your upload speed? If you're getting any sort of upload speed, all you have to do is leave it open until the ratio goes to 1.0 or higher.

Test

My upload speed is anywhere from 0kb - 6kb on the bittorrent downloading window and reads 66.78 under the upload column on easytree. My share rate is .620 on the bittorrent window, which doesn't quite get me the frowny face, but it definitely isn't smiling. (I am downloading a Jack Johnson torrent now, which, by the way, has a cover of Soon Forget.)

How can I open up my boston and asheville show that are complete for others to connect to? Does it sound like I am doing it already without knowing?

You just click on the boston and asheville torrents, as if you were going to download them. The torrent windows will open and the program will then verify that you have the complete files and you will be listed on the tracker of the site as a seed. This is assuming its an active torrent though (meaning the show is listed in the tracker).

You will most likely be limited in your total upload speed though, by your ISP. For example my upload speed is capped at about 40kbps.

what bt-client do you use?

basically, you have to
- allow the client to have outgoing connections (desktop firewall, such as sygate, zone alarm, kerio, etc.)
- allow the client to accept incoming connections on ports 6881-6889 (desktop firewall) and
- in case that you are behind a router forward the ports 6881-6889 (TCP and UDP) to your machines ip (router feature, mostly called virtual server)

for port forwarding to be effective, you'll have to specify a fixed ip for your machine (otherwise the router wont know where to forward packets to). some routers allow to forward to the unique hardware-adress (MAC-adress), but most need an ip.
DHCP is the feature of the router, that gives your machine an IP. but if the network adapter of your computer has it's own static ip, this will override the dhcp-funcionality.

in windows, you can set the ip in the properties of your LAN connection. you may have to adjust the ip-setting in the router-config, too.

see this howto for further details => http://www.portforward.com/networking/staticip.htm

you may find more info on the issue there, too.

a simplified explanation of the whole thing you'll find here => http://www.homenethelp.com/web/explain/ ... ng-dmz.asp

thank you for sharing!