LAN in hostels.... Whats the use....

Most reading are aware of the slow speeds one achieves while surfing on the net in the hostel on campus…. Snug in your beds during the winter, the cold air filling ur room, the rasais covering ur body, how does one kill time… sleep is the best option for many followed by books and then if you’re a total computer freak, some games…. The summers another story altogether…..

LAN in the hostel offers just more than beat-the-snail pace surfing comfort as well as the gmail log in which might take ages(you might grow white hair till then just so you didn’t know).. well here are some things which can b done on a hostel LAN….

1. Well Counterstrike… yes arguably the most famous FPS game in the world played for the sheer adrenaline coursing through your body or the sick and well addictive feeling of being a cold blooded terrorist or CT killing off bots or ur fellow buddies in the world(yes the law does exist outside your computers guys don’t try that knife move on your buddy in the real world….) Other games to consider include Warcraft, Age Of Empires, NFS etc etc etc….

2. Another amazing idea which popped up Is the use of DC++. Though it hasn’t caught up with the present crowd as much, it’s a great way to share stuff in the hostel as well as across all hostels.. eliminating the need to pester your best friend for a vehicle to drop off or pick up some stuff in another hostel… really cant comment much on this cause the author hasn’t well used It too much so(oops… sorry)

3. Another use of a lesser known software is Utorrent or other bittorrent clients… (for those who don’t know www.utorrent.com) if u do visit a cyber café at mata mandir… download torrents from sites such as (www.mininova.org , www.torrentz.com) or pop over to a dayscholars place just to download these files into your portable hard drive. Load the torrents onto your desktop Utorrent software… and download away since your downloading speed although horribly slow(5-6kbps is not good) u just might catch that hindi movie u put for download a week later if speeds permit movies can get done faster also ebooks are a valuable resource online… BUT PLEASE BE AWARE OF THE STUFF YOU DOWNLOAD…. DOWNLOADING COPYRIGHTED STUFF MIGHT GET YOU INTO TROUBLE… CONFIRM THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE TORRENT AND THE TORRENT SITE BEFORE DOWNLOADING… Other download managers are Kazaa and ofcourse Limewire and Ares...(personally a torrent user so cant speak much about their use)

4. Share your personal media such as event pictures or a picnic or even a reunion pics as well as videos with your close group of friends..(chase away that nosy next door neighbor before you do this if its really private)

5. Another use which I found useful was the transfer of Operating Software as well as Laptop drivers as well since most of our hostellers love catching viruses for the heck of it and then love reformatting it… So some computers in the hostel might have your drivers… so check them out

6. Lastly its better than DVD transfer for the reason that DVD has the added issue of responsibility and safety not many will like to take that and if your friend has all the FRIENDS series and you lose a single DVD, your in big trouble buddy… bigtime

So, the LAN is not a useless thing folks… though the main ORKUTTING cannot be done… well the above can be tried out… do let me know if there are more uses(will be eager to know if there are..)