Wrong Place

[Terry2030]

Hi, I'm a newbie and I have been reading your forums and I can tell you right now utorrent is not for me. I am sorry but I think I downloaded the wrong thing, thinking it was something else. For one thing you guys are waaay over my head when it comes to computers. Terminology...download = backup ? Download from where ? Download what kind of file, data ? See what I mean, I'm lost. Sorry I bothered you guys.

Have a nice day,

Terry

[schnurlos]

Perhaps you start with that: http://www.utorrent.com/guides.php

[Falcon4]

Ehhhh... it looks like someone could use a course in computer basics, not torrent basics. Don't know what files are? What downloading is? Jeez... I'm almost willing to bet the guy'll never even come back for replies or with a follow-up post because his cell phone didn't magically say "urr, there's a new post" or something...

(Terry = "he", right?)

Files are strings of data, and data is characters on a screen. In the perfect world, each letter off your keyboard is one "byte" of a proverbial "file". If you can use Windows Notepad (start, programs, accessories, notepad, I think), you can see the raw contents of files. Files have many different formats but nothing's special beyond that - they don't have any description or hard-set encoding beyond a name and extension (e.g. file.txt) - it's up to the program that reads it to interpret its data.

Downloading is just the act of moving files from one computer to another (e.g. server to your computer), whereas uploading is the opposite - to one computer from another (e.g. your computer to a server). In BitTorrent though, the terms get mixed and mashed because of the way the BitTorrent system works - always moving data in both directions. That's why a BitTorrent management window (like uTorrent's main view) are called "transfers" instead of downloads or uploads.

Backup is a whole different animal altogether, completely unrelated to anything mentioned before. Backing up is the act of making a duplicate copy of your computer's data for safe keeping. It might be a good idea for many newbies to do, in case they (e.g. you) think that "format c:" is a good idea, but for more advanced users, backup is just a waste of storage, and when it is needed (like important documents) we tend to use more advanced tools like WinRAR. So I can't really suggest any kind of good entry-level backup program for you to use, but someone else I'm sure can.

Now go have some random teenager give you 1-on-1 help with figuring out the basics of computers... then check out those Guides.