share

J.K. Rowling is probably not going to end up in a bread line as a result. Nonetheless, pirated copies of the author's latest book are cropping up online four days before the scheduled release.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final installment of the iconic Harry Potter series is due to go on sale Saturday morning.

A check of some of the BitTorrent search engines shows that the book is typically broken up into multiple parts. The copies appear to originate from photographs taken of leaked copies of the novel. One version found with the torrent-tracking site, … Read more

Today's discovery: SimplifyMedia, a very handy media-sharing service. It lets friends listen to your iTunes music library from their computers, no matter which network you or they are on. It's even useful if you have no friends: if you use more than one computer and want to be able to access your music on all of them, SimplifyMedia does it.

At the moment, the service works only with iTunes, and most iTunes users probably know that iTunes already allows streaming between computers. The hitch is that iTunes restricts sharing to a local network, so music can be shared … Read more

ZuneScene, a fan site devoted to Microsoft's portable music player, is reporting on a Microsoft patent filing that describes a system for compensating Zune users for sharing music wirelessly.

The idea: if I send you a song, it expires after 3 days or 3 plays, regardless of where I got it from (my own CD collection, a file-sharing network, a Zune Marketplace download). If you decide you like that song and buy it from the Zune Marketplace, I get a small commission--probably points good for buying other songs from the Marketplace.

This isn't news: Engadget reported on it … Read more

The guys at TechCrunch have been thinking the same thing we have been over here: With all these invitation-based Web 2.0 betas flying around, someone could do the world a service by building an exchange for them.

Hence, InviteShare, a site that does just that. If you want an invite to a service (such as the current darling of the digerati, Pownce), you can put your name on the list and someone with passes to spare might help you out.

Many sites, once you're invited, also give you invitations you yourself can give out. Thus InviteShare can keep … Read more

BitTorrent is the original torrent-downloading application, but it's been five years since it kicked file-sharing into high gear. In this First Look video, we'll show you how it works. See if it has kept up with the times, or if it's living life in the slow lane.

I've been a big fan of the free screen-sharing software CrossLoop ever since I originally tried it back in November 2006. Basically, CrossLoop lets any two users share a desktop. One PC "hosts" the CrossLoop session and the other "joins." The computer joined to the host can see and control everything on the host PC's desktop. CrossLoop is still in beta release, but I think it's an excellent no-hassle solution for low-budget tech support.

I recently gained access to a new private beta of CrossLoop 1.1, the first major update to the software since its initial release. The past year has seen CrossLoop mostly expanding its localized language support, so it's refreshing to see some improvements to the program's feature set. There are only a few new features, but they are rather essential additions.… Read more

A video posted to YouTube in April offers a primer on how to use Google to pilfer music and video files in less time than it takes to download them from a peer-to-peer service.

"I'll be teaching you how to use Google as your own peer-to-peer network," said Jimmy Ruska at the beginning of the clip. Ruska is the 21-year-old who posted the video, according to a report in The Financial Times.

The how-to video focuses on what is known as an "index of" search and shows users how to direct Google's search engine … Read more

From XML torrent options to IP filters, firewall tests to UPnP plug-ins, Azureus leads the way in making the torrent experience as customizable as possible. It's got enough flexibility to appeal to advanced users, but does it make it too hard for beginners to get in on the torrent action?

Watch this First Look at Azureus video to find out, and let us know your favorite torrent client in the comments below.

Each time I go shutter-happy, I'm reminded of digital photography's beautiful myth. Yes, impressive megapixel loads deliver in-your-face resolution that elevates photos from the usual point-and-shoot quality. However, there's that time-sucking task of cropping, editing, captioning, and distributing the sprawling photo collection, and those are things even the fanciest camera on the market won't do.

The time and effort it takes to process a large batch of photos can be off-putting, but here are a few media-organization tools from the CNET Download.com library to move along the sometimes-arduous process of getting photos from the desktop to your friends.… Read more