(For Educational Purposes ONLY)
Mac Users:
1. Use Muthalode.com to find what you're looking for:
Search by app name, search by user name, search by tags, search by highest rated, etc. A good rule of thumb for whether or not a thread is worth your time is by how many people have left comments/thank yous/etc. You can also get the negative scoop on a thread too if you just take a few minutes to read through some of the previous posts. Over time certain users become trusted and can be counted on for good sh*t.
2. Subscribe to rapidshare: http://rapidshare.com/index.html (Admittedly the learning curve is steep, but nothing worth something is ever easy) - now there are raging debates about whether RS or hotfile or megaupload or whatever are better since RS changed its policies of 24hr bandwidth cap and such but in my experience most of what I want is in RS. So...you decide what works for you. Regardless who you go with a subscription is crucial and worth every penny.
3. Meet jDownloader: http://jdownloader.org:8080/home/index (READ!)
It's a download manager on steroids. Once you get it set up you'll wish you had a faster internet connection and a few pots of coffee.
4. Meet UnRarX: http://www.unrarx.com/
The majority of files you'll find here are split archives where each file in the archive ends with a .rar extension. These files require unpacking with a utility such as UnrarX. Once you have all the parts downloaded and in the same directory double-click the first file (e.g part1.rar). UnrarX will see all the other parts (part2.rar, part3.rar, etc) and piece them back together and place the desired file in the same folder. Use whatever you like that works but this is the one I like.
5. Find the .nfo file or the readme and READ IT:
90% of the time there are sufficiently clear instructions given. Once you do this 10 times you wont need instructions. Anyone with a brain and some want-to can figure out how to get the app, movie, book, game, etc. to do what they want it to do even without instructions. But yes thwe first few times might be a little tricky. So GOOGLE-it. Or ask politely in the "HELP!" forum.
FOR PC Users:
Somebody else has to finish this for me...I'm not sure of the PC equivalents cause i don't use PC for this kind of thing. If you have a good basic primer for total noobs and would like to see it added to this thread just post it below. If there are other Mac tools that work for you better than the ones I've suggested then post them below.
