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Monday, September 17, 2012

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The Onion Daily Dispatch - September 17, 2012

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Newborn Loses Faith In Humanity After Record 6 Days 09.17.12

SCHAUMBURG, IL—In a turn of events that has stunned the worldwide medical community, local infant Nathan Jameson, born just six days ago, has become the youngest person ever to permanently and irrevocably lose all faith in humanity. “This shat...

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How to Automatically Download Virtually Anything as Soon as It's Available

September 17th, 2012Top Story

How to Automatically Download Virtually Anything as Soon as It's Available

By Adam Dachis

How to Automatically Download Virtually Anything as Soon as It's AvailableThe internet really does have everything, and it's all available for download without lifting a finger. A series of helpful scripts, all installable in a few minutes, can transform your computer into an automatic media downloading machine.

We've featured all sorts of automatic downloaders that grab TV shows after they air and movies as soon as they're released, but you don't have to stop there. You can schedule music, comic books, video games, and practically anything else as a download with minimal effort. In this post, we'll look at how to set up existing scripts to acquire all kinds of media and use a tool called FlexGet to handle the rest.

Before You Get Started

How to Automatically Download Virtually Anything as Soon as It's AvailableAll the tools in this guide work with BitTorrent, which you should set up securely before you do anything else. If you want to use Usenet instead, however, you'll need to set up SABnzbd+ for everything to work properly.

If you choose the Usenet and SABnzbd+ route, you'll need a few things:

  • Your SABnzbd+ username and password, which you'll choose when you set it up (presuming you choose to set a username and password, that is).
  • Your SABnzbd+ API key, which you can find in the Config section in the General tab. It'll look something like 5ape87035c49c4b8f461e55f0z9z4z02.
  • A location to hold your downloaded files. Make individual folders for each type of media (e.g. television, movies, music, ebooks, etc.).
  • NZB search provider information, such as your username and password and/or API key. Each provider is a little different, so what information you need will vary. Consult our Usenet guide for more information.
  • If you're on a Mac, download and install Python (if it isn't installed already).

With all of that ready to go, it's time to get started.

Television

How to Automatically Download Virtually Anything as Soon as It's AvailableYour computer can act like an internet personal video recorder, downloading TV episodes as soon as they air, thanks to the assistance of an app called Sick Beard. You simply install it, tell it the shows you want to track, how you want to download those shows (via either BitTorrent or Usenet), and let it do the rest. Follow these steps to install it:

On a Windows PC...

  1. Download Sick Beard.
  2. Unzip Sick Beard into a folder and place that folder wherever you want it to live. Run it and you're done with the installation.

On a Mac...

  1. Download the latest versions of Git and Cheetah. (Don't worry that Cheetah's old. I've been using the same version since Snow Leopard. It works great on Lion and Mountain Lion.)
  2. Install Git via the included installer. When finished, open Terminal (in Hard Drive → Applications → Utilities) to install Cheetah. Type
      cd  

    into the terminal window, a space, and drag the unzipped Cheeat download folder onto the terminal window. Your final chommand should look something like

      cd /Downloads/Cheetah-2.4.4  

    . Press enter. Next, paste in

      sudo python setup.py install  

    and press enter again. Cheetah will install in about a minute's time.

  3. Enter
      cd /Applications  

    in your terminal window to change to your computer's Applications folder, then enter

      git clone git://github.com/midgetspy/Sick-Beard.git  

    to grab the latest Sick Beard source from GitHub.

  4. When Sick Beard completes the installation, run it by entering this command in your terminal window:
      python /Applications/Sick-Beard/sickbeard.py  
  5. If you want to run Sick Beard like an application, just open Automator or AppleScript Editor, create a workflow/script that runs that terminal command, and save it as an application.

Once Sick Beard is up and running, point your web browser of choice to localhost:8081 to get started. Sick Beard is a powerful tool and it requires some configuration. Before you start adding your favorite shows, hop into the config section and set up the following:

  • Search Settings - If you're using Sick Beard to find NZB files to download with Usenet, you'll need to enter your SABnzbd+ username, password, and API key in this section. If you want to download torrents, you'll just need to enable that option and tell Sick Beard where your torrent watch folder is.
  • Search Providers - If you're downloading shows via Usenet, you'll need to configure search providers in this section. Tick the boxes next to the ones you want to use, then select their names in the following section to enter any necessary credentials. For example, NZBMatrix requires a username and API key. If you followed the instructions at the beginning of the post, you should have this information ready-to-go.
  • Post Processing - SABnzbd+ users won't have to configure much here, as it'll handle post-processing for you. You can, however, ask Sick Beard to do some of the work. BitTorrent users will want to configure this to their liking, however, as most torrent clients won't do much in the way of post-processing.
  • Notifications - Unlike the other tools we'll cover in this guide, you probably want to know as soon as your favorite shows have finished downloading. Sick Beard provides hooks for a ton of notification services so you can find out right away, using pretty much whatever tool you like. Set up is very easy, so just find your notification app of preference and enter the required information in this section.

After completing the initial setup, add the TV shows you want to track from Sick Beard's interface. If you need help adding shows, as the process is a little confusing the first time around, consult our complete Sick Beard guide.

Movies

How to Automatically Download Virtually Anything as Soon as It's AvailableCouch Potato keeps track of all the films you want to watch, and downloads them, too. Installation is easy on both Windows and OS X:

  1. Download Couch Potato.
  2. Launch Couch Potato and visit localhost:5000 to get started.

With Couch Potato open in your web browser, click the Cog icon up top to get it set up. Here's an overview of each tab and what you can set up:

  • General - Set the IP address and port of Couch Potato's web interface, your username and password, and other general settings.
  • Downloaders - Set up SABnzbd+ and/or your BitTorrent Black Hole directory (i.e. the folder your BitTorrent client is watching) in this section.
  • Providers - Configure the NZB and torrent file search providers you want to use to download movies. (You'll need the relevant credentials you gathered at the beginning of this post to make Couch Potato work with Usenet.)
  • Quality - Enable and disable the various quality options for downloaded movies (e.g. 720p, BR-Rip, Screener, etc.).
  • Renaming - Set any renaming rules you want applied after a movie finished downloading.

The other sections are not required, but feel free to explore to discover more of Couch Potato's features. Once you're done with the configuration, use the toolbar up top to search for a movie, select the desired quality (e.g. 720p, DVD-Rip, etc.), and add it to your watch list. Repeat this process for any movie you want to track (and download). Couch Potato will take care of the rest.

Music

How to Automatically Download Virtually Anything as Soon as It's AvailableTracking new releases of your favorite music, automatically downloading songs, and converting those songs into your format of preference is really easy with a tool called Headphones. It can even pull lyrics and album art for the songs it downloads. Follow these steps to install it:

  1. Download the Headphones source files from GitHub.
  2. Unzip the source and place it wherever you want. (OS X users should keep it in thier Applications folder.)
  3. Launch Headphones. Windows users can launch it by right clicking on the Headphones.py file and choosing Open With → Python. Mac users need to open up the Terminal (in Hard Drive → Applications → Utilities) and enter this command:
      python /Applications/Headphones.py  
  4. If you're setting up other services mentioned in this post, Headphones will likely have a conflicting port of 8081. Upon running the Headphones.py script you'll be informed of the conflict and asked to choose a new port. You can choose whatever you like, but I opted for 8181.

Headphones is very feature rich and comprehensive, but you only need to configure a few settings to get started. Click the cog icon up top and set up the following sections:

  • Web interface - Set your IP address, port, username, and password in this section. You can also set other general settings, like how often Headphones looks for new files.
  • Download settings - Enter your SABnzbd+ user information and API key in this section to download via Usenet. To use BitTorrent, just specify your Black Hole directory (i.e. the folder your BitTorrent client is watching).
  • Search providers - Set up NZB search providers if you're using Usenet. You'll need the relevant credentials gathered at the beginning of this post. For BitTorrent, just select the trackers you want to use.
  • Quality & Post Processing - Choose the quality of the files you want to download by default and enable any post-processing functions (e.g. adding lyrics and album art).
  • Advanced Settings - Set renaming rules, format conversion, and more. (You don't need to set up anything in this section, but there are a lot of cool features in it that you should explore.)

Once you've finished configuring Headphones, just search for the band you want to track using the toolbar up top. When you find what you want, add the band to your watch list and Headphones will track them. Repeat this process for all the bands you like.

Everything Else

How to Automatically Download Virtually Anything as Soon as It's AvailableYou don't have to stop with television, movies, and music. A few other downloaders are at your disposal:

  • Omniverse automatically downloads comic books.
  • LazyLibrarian automatically downloads ebooks.
  • Gamez automatically downloads video games.

If that list doesn't cover everything you need, FlexGet provides a way to make your own, custom downloaders. It reads RSS feeds, CSV files, and HTML pages to find torrents, NZBs, podcasts, or whatever you're looking for, and feeds them to any downloaders that have watch directory support. This includes rTorrent, uTorrent, Transmission, sabNZBD+, nzbget, pyLoad, and more. All you're required to do is install it, tell it where to look, what to look for, and what to do with the files it finds. The installation process varies, so follow the instructions for your operating system.

On a Windows PC...

  1. Install Python (if you haven't already).
  2. Install easy_install.
  3. Press Windows+R and run this command:
      easy_install flexget  
  4. When prompted, run the following command to verify the installation:
      flexget -V  

On a Mac (OS X 10.6 and higher)...

  1. Open up Terminal (in Hard Drive → Applications → Utilties) and run this command:
      sudo easy_install flexget  

    . (Yes, you really just need to run that and OS X will know what to do.)

  2. You may also need to use easy_install to install some plug-ins, such as one for Transmission (if that's what you're using as your downloader). Here's an example:
      sudo easy_install transmissionrpc  
  3. Create a plain text file called
      com.flexget.plist  

    in ~/Library/LaunchAgents. (That's Your Home Folder → Library → Launch Agents.) Paste the following into the file (or just download this):

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
    <plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.flexget</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
    <string>/usr/local/bin/flexget</string>
    <string>—cron</string>
    </array>
    <key>Nice</key>
    <integer>1</integer>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>900</integer>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    </dict>
    </plist>
  4. Back in Terminal, run this command:
      launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.flexget.plist  

FlexGet isn't useful unless you give it something to do. The app works with specific tasks written in YAML, which is a very simple, human-readable data format. Let's take a look at a sample FlexGet config file written in YAML (config.yml) to help you understand how it works:

  tasks:
test task:
rss: http://mysite.com/myfeed.rss
series:
- My Favorite Show
- Another Good Show:
quality: 720p
download: /home/me/watchdir/

The first line says "test task:" to identify that this is a task called "test." The second line identifies an RSS feed for FlexGet to monitor. Next, a list of series tells FlexGet what to look for inside of that RSS feed. In the case of "Another Good Show," you'll notice that "quality: 720p" is designated to tell FlexGet to only look for 720p files for that show. Finally, a download directory on the local machine is specified. Any files that match the criteria specified in this task will be placed in that directory, which is watched by a downloader (such as SABnzbd+ or uTorrent).

The format is pretty simple to follow, but it will vary based on what you want to create. We can't get into every little option without writing an entire manual, and the creators of FlexGet already made one. Be sure to consult those configuration instructions for more help on creating your own config.yml file for FlexGet to use.

After completing your task file, save it as config.yml file in

  C:\Users\YOURUSER\flexget\  

in Windows 7,

  C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSER\flexget\  

in Windows XP, or

  ~/.flexget/  

in OS X. To run any of the specified tasks, open up the command line in your operating system of choice and run the following command:

  flexget —nameOfTask  

You will, of course, want to replace "nameOfTask" with the name of a task in your config.yml file. If you set up everything properly, that task will run and you'll have your own, custom automatic downloader!

Extra bonus: Want to get all of this on your NAS? We've got a guide for that, too!

Icons by Katsiaryna (Shutterstock).

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Candy Corn Oreos and Pumpkin Spice Kisses: It's the Snacktaku Halloween Variety Spooktacular!

September 17th, 2012Top Story

Candy Corn Oreos and Pumpkin Spice Kisses: It's the Snacktaku Halloween Variety Spooktacular!

By Mike Fahey
Candy Corn Oreos and Pumpkin Spice Kisses: It's the Snacktaku Halloween Variety Spooktacular!For the children and children-at-heart that don fancy costumes for a night of fun and frolicking, Halloween is October 31. For the certified snack professional, the spooky festivities begin in September, when Cadbury, Mars, Hershey and Nabisco roll out their holiday-themed candy. Hold out your bags, boys and girls.

Some snack manufacturers play it safe during the holidays, releasing the same old product in themed packaging. Sometimes, if they're feeling adventurous, they'll change the color of their confections, or re-mold them into holiday appropriate shapes. People buy them and eat them with nary a thought, safe in the knowledge that beneath the dark and twisted exterior lies the same taste and texture they're used to.

For the brave men and women of Hershey, Mars, Nabisco and Cadbury, that's just not good enough. Capturing the look of Halloween is something a young child can do with little effort. Evoking the holiday through taste — that's a real accomplishment, and it's one that several of these products achieve.

Candy Corn Oreos and Pumpkin Spice Kisses: It's the Snacktaku Halloween Variety Spooktacular!

Kicking my meal plan in the ass for the sake of my work, I purchased these goodies at my local Target store, brought them home, and then ate a fairly good amount of them, just so I can tell you if it's worth doing. Let's go down the list in reverse-scrambled alphabetical order.

M&M's White Chocolate Candy Corn

Candy Corn Oreos and Pumpkin Spice Kisses: It's the Snacktaku Halloween Variety Spooktacular!

Having lived nearly 40 years with milk chocolate M&M's, I have a hard time accepting a white chocolate variety regardless of its seasonal flavor.

What is Candy Corn? It tastes almost like a maple butterscotch, but candy corn is really just sugar, corn syrup, wax and food coloring, with some binding agents thrown in for good measure. Yum!

I have nothing against white chocolate, known among snackology circles as "not actually chocolate at all". During the process that normally results in the dark, antioxidant-rich chocolate the fatty parts — cocoa butter — are separated from the darker solids. In actual chocolate, these two are recombined later in the process. White chocolate is just the butter portion without the dark bits, so, not chocolate.

And not what I look for on the inside of an M&M. The favor, tinged with a hint of what tastes like maple in order to evoke a candy corn taste, is not unpleasant. It's rich, lovely and milky. It's just not the flavor my mouth is expecting beneath a colorful candy shell. Every buy a strawberry jelly doughnut and have the people behind the counter accidentally give you lemon-filled? It's the same phenomenon. It's still a fine taste, but your mouth was not prepared.

Milky Way Caramel Apple

Candy Corn Oreos and Pumpkin Spice Kisses: It's the Snacktaku Halloween Variety Spooktacular!My favorite sweet flavor combination used to be chocolate and raspberry. In fact, a container of chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream was instrumental in the wooing of the woman that would eventually become the mother of my children, so that particular combo will always hold a special place in my heart.

Now that I'm older, however, my tastes have mellowed. Now I'm more of a caramel apple man, savoring the marriage of burnt sweetness and tartness that you get when you pour melted sugar over the fibrous fruit of the apple tree. Milky Way's Halloween offering harnesses that flavor, but adds an element that ruins the overall effect.

Candy Corn Oreos and Pumpkin Spice Kisses: It's the Snacktaku Halloween Variety Spooktacular!

The caramel is perfect. The apple-flavored nougat has a sublime flavor, hinting at the fruit rather than shoving it down your throat.

And then they drenched it in chocolate, completely killing the effect. Mars' snack scientists crafted an amazing piece of caramel apple candy, and then shit on it.

It's fine chocolate, of course. If it weren't stabbing me in the heart I'd probably really enjoy it.

Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses

Candy Corn Oreos and Pumpkin Spice Kisses: It's the Snacktaku Halloween Variety Spooktacular!

By far the most successful creation of the bunch, Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses continues the company's fine tradition of using white chocolate as the snack gods intended: as a conduit for favor, rather than a flavor unto itself.

You may have seen the Strawberry Cream Kisses that pop up from time to time, or the Peppermint ones that should be back on store shelves in time for Christmas. These creations elevate white chocolate. They are transcendent.

The same goes for Pumpkin Spice Kisses. Pumpkin is a taste I've acquired over the past decade. Previously my over-active imagination would take me back to the first time I reached inside one of those majestic orange gourds to scoop out a handful of stringy innards — those wet and lumpy plant intestines, stringy and cold.

Candy Corn Oreos and Pumpkin Spice Kisses: It's the Snacktaku Halloween Variety Spooktacular!

Now I know pumpkin spice for the warm and comforting experience it is, one captured masterfully here by the masterful folks at Hershey. These are a lover's sweet lips on a chilly October evening.

Candy Corn Oreos

Candy Corn Oreos and Pumpkin Spice Kisses: It's the Snacktaku Halloween Variety Spooktacular!

Snacktaku followers will know that I am not exactly a fan of the vanilla-cookie Oreo varieties. Like the M&M conundrum above, anything less than the classic chocolate-and-creme sandwich cookie is just that — something less.

The irony is that these Candy Corn Oreos, which have received more than their fair share of press attention, are slightly more than slightly less. They are, essentially a Golden Oreo double-stuffed with two-toned creme with just a hint of butterscotch flavor added to give it that candy corn taste.

It's odd — I like these. I should not like these, being pretty much more of the cookie I disliked earlier, but there's something about these that makes them irresistible. As crazy as it sounds, I think it might be the food coloring — the double sweet of vanilla cookie and creme is tempered by the appearance of the Candy Corn Oreo. My mouth expects it, and by extension accepts it.

My wife and I have gone through two bags. My god have mercy on our souls.

Cadbury Scream Eggs

Candy Corn Oreos and Pumpkin Spice Kisses: It's the Snacktaku Halloween Variety Spooktacular!

The Cadbury Creme Egg was once the most powerful chocolate candy in the world.

Rising once a year like some sort of resurrected god (only tastier), the whimsical bunny-laid construction of chocolate and sweet goop is more important to candy connoisseurs than whatever it is Easter is all about.

Or it was. Now we've got Scream Eggs, the same candy, only instead of simulated yolk it's filled with simulated rotting flesh. This is what happens when a piece of zombie flesh is encased in a chocolate prison.

It still tastes just the same, which means Cadbury is not one of those daring candy companies — not in this case, at least. Instead, they are willing to give up a portion of their power so that people like me don't have to fill their freezer with discount post-Easter Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Candy Corn Oreos and Pumpkin Spice Kisses: It's the Snacktaku Halloween Variety Spooktacular!


And thus ends Snacktaku's first annual look at the cookies and candies the kids will be screaming for this Halloween. Maybe I'll let them out of the trunk in December long enough for them to help me with the Christmas edition.

Candy Corn Oreos and Pumpkin Spice Kisses: It's the Snacktaku Halloween Variety Spooktacular! Number of comments