FlashGot - a beginners guide to easy downloading with Firefox

FlashGot is the best Firefox download manager integration around. That is their words and they may very well be true. FlashGot ( http://flashgot.net/ ) is a tool to integrate the website with a download manager of your choice.

In regard to download managers then we are in business with tools like DownThemAll ( http://www.downthemall.net/ ), which is free and the commercial tool ReGet ( http://www.reget.com/en/ ). I will demonstrate both here in this micro tutorial. We will also have a quick look into some of the configuration possibilities of FlashGot.

Quote: "Spend less time downloading and more time on organizing". 

The image screenshot below shows the Preferences for FlashGot. From the red marked circles you can see that I have a possibility to choose the default download manager as either DTA (Down Them All), ReGet or the build in browser download capability. I am most familiar with ReGet as it gives me the most information and control, but the choice matters little as both tools manage to download properly.

FlashGot supports a wide range of download managers whereas the most popular probably is DownThemAll, FlashGet, GetRight, jDownloader and ReGet.

FlashGot basically has two modes, either you choose to download 1 link or you choose to download the entire page, and everything that is linked to from the page, one level deep. Let's see how things looks using DownThemAll and choosing 'FlashGot All'.

If we switch the default download manager to ReGet then we get a slightly different picture although they are quite similar. With DTA some files are checked as which to download. With ReGet all files are picked as to be downloaded. Both tools require you to hand pick which, because in this case you may want only the default size video and the HD largest quality video.

With both DTA and ReGet the next step is to click OK and let the downloading begin. If you right click a link and choose 'FlashGot Link' which is the single file download mode then you get thrown directly into the single file download mode of the download manager you have set the preference too. Again it is the OK button and your download starts.

The force of download managers like DTA and ReGet are their ability to stop and resume huge downloads with multiple threads. Downloading a 2.18Gb file may take a little while and the best way is to use a tool like DTA or ReGet. Give it a try.

CSV (Final) - stages of evolution

This is a followup to the article "CSV files - an introduction"

CSV files or ecsv files to be specific follow specific steps of evolution. These steps are to complete the csv file so that it ultimately holds a number of files which consume the maximum amount of space on a storing media as a CD or DVD etc. Furthermore the stages have the goal of keeping some kind of chronological order.

Ongoing
The stages are set by the csv maintainer, more about that role in another article. The maintainer starts off by having an ongoing csv. Sometimes this is explicitly  shown when a part of the file name being (ongoing). Most often there is no explicit naming convention to an ongoing csv. This is the case with ongoing csvs from TVG (The Vixen Grimoire) and the former ET (El-Toro).

Pre-Final
When the maintainer has collected enough files to fill a CD or DVD then the maintainer sets the csv to the stage (Pre-Final). This is to signal people using the ongoing csv that it is almost complete and they should expect that a new ongoing csv will soon emerge. According to community rules the maintainer must keep the csv as Pre-Final for a short while to allow other to check the csv and report errors. If there is an error in the csv, ie. wrong set or wrong naming or missing sets then then maintainer will fix the problem (hopefully) and create a new (Pre-Final-1) csv. This can go on for a long time, but it is seldom seen that Pre-Final's go beyond (Pre-Final-4). Once a csv reaches the Pre-Final stage it will NEVER go back as ongoing. This is breaking the rules, and big no-no.

Final
If the maintainer has not had any reports of errors in the csv and feels that the csv is ready to be burned to a CD or DVD then the maitainer will start the next stage, which is (Final). The (Final) means that it is now safe to burn the contents of the csv to a DVD and the user should not expect any further changes to the csv. If the world was perfect then nothing more happends. Everyone using the csv, burn it to CD or DVD and is able to clear up some space on those HDD's.

Re-Burn
But this is not always the case. Sometimes the maintainer is too fast to go from (Pre-Final) to (Final), sometimes people notice errors too late. This is where things get fuzzy, so sharpen your senses. If the change to the (Final) csv is structural only, ie. new layout or new naming or some corrupt picture was removed for good then the maintainer can issue a (Re-Burn). A (Re-Burn) means that the contents of the previous csv is just to be burned to a new CD or DVD. People having the previous version has not lost anything. (Re-Burn)'s can also go into stages like (Re-Burn-1) and so forth.

Final-X
If the change after the (Final) stage is of non structural nature, then maintainer has to issue a (Final-1) and provided there are more changes later it goes to (Final-2) etc. It is seldom seen that anything go beyond (Final-4).

In rare cases the maintainer will choose to use (Re-Burn) as a final exit for the csv if it has reached (Final-4), because it is flat out embarrassing that the maintainer cannot manage make a proper. This last exit is seen, but it is not the way to do it.

There is no stage beyond Re-Burn-10. Pre-Finals never become ongoing. Final's never go back to Pre-Final stages and Re-Burn's never go back to Final's.

It is a common misunderstanding that the use of Final-1, Final-2 etc is whenever the website in question revamps or redesigns itself. This is NOT the purpose of the Final stages. If a website redesigns and introduces all new resolutions of old contents HD images and HD movies then the new revamped site will most likely get a csv set entirely. See with CrushPhoto and CrushPhoto-New as example.

CSV files - an introduction

Recently I was brought to my attention that a simple entry introduction to CSV files in our context was lacking. This article will try to provide you with an introduction to what it is all about.

Facts

• A csv file is a ASCII text file you can read in NotePad or similar
• The extension for csv files is .csv
• CSV means: comma seperated values
• The format used on Vixen Grimoire, El-Toro, WSC etc is not csv, but actually ecsv
• ECSV means extended csv
• The purpose of an ecsv file is to be able to organize your files
• You organize you files according to an ecsv file with a program
• Programs for organizing is called Collection Managers (click the link for an intro to those)
• ECSV files have 1 strict format
• ECSV files has the file extension .csv
• ECSV files are commonly referred to as just csv files
• ECSV files are maintained updated by 1 person at the time
• It is not allowed to tamper or change the ecsv file made by someone else unless there has been given permission to do so. If you get permission, then YOU become the maintainer.

 A csv file (common name) has 1 file listed on every line in the file. Each file has some values to it. The values are in the following order (inside the csv file)

FILENAME, FILESIZE, CRC32 HEX VALUE, PATH, OPTIONAL COMMENT

An example could be:

img_0750.jpg,438648,A2DF81D5,\2008-11\2008-11-27 - Kelly M\,

The line above tell the following. There is a file, which should have the file name img_0750.jpg. This file has the file size of 438648 bytes and the calculated CRC32 checksum value must be A2DF81D5 (hexadecimal presentation) for the file to be the right file. The file should be located in a folder structure which must be \2008-11\2008-11-28 - Kelly M\. There is no comment to this file.

This means that there is only 1 file which actually matches to be the correct file for that line in that ecsv file. In general the uniqueness is assured by the use of the CRC32 checksum calculation  which is almost perfect for distinguising files from each other.

If you have a picture and you calculated the CRC32 value for the picture it may turn up to be (as example) 52AC2E11. If you then change just 1 pixel and save the file again then the file will NOT have the CRC32 value of 52AC2E11. So the two files do NOT match. Same goes if you change the resolution or scale the file.

The files listed inside the ecsv files on El-Toro, Vixen Grimoire and such places have the CRC32 value of the original files from the websites. NOTHING has been changed, not even a meta EXIF piece of information.

Every csv file itself has a CRC32 value, so it is not possible to change an existing csv file and then claim it is original if the CRC32 values of your file does not match the CRC32 value of the file on the csv sites. Here is an example:

The csv file has the name ErroticaArchives-DVD35(Pre-Final)_1872.csv. 1872 lines with file descriptions is listed inside the csv file, of which 88% is pictures. If you add up the file sizes of all 1872 lines the it amounts to 4,439,771,784 bytes, which is ~94% of a single sided DVD. The csv itself has the CRC32 value of 017C2744 to be original. The trigger name is ERRARDVD35 and it belongs to the group Fine Art Erotica, with sub grouping of Errotica Archives. The type for the csv file is regular (there are other types, like asian, wsc and such).

To use a csv file, you must have a program. Such programs are called Collection Managers. The earliest useful collection manager is ScanSort, followed by Hunter and PicCheck. The current tools of choice are PServeCheck or PSProVerify. These two latter tools can be hard to come by, but know a friend who knows somebody, who's connected and may know where to ask for directions OR ask on your favorite csv site *hint*.