I've probably been using BitTorrent since 2003, at least. I'm not sure which version I started with, but I can tell you that it had some pretty serious memory issues. I could be downloading a fan-subtitled episode of Naruto (back before it was licensed and the English voice actors killed the dialogue by putting the emphasis on the wrong syllables) and literally watch the process eat up all of my physical memory and even start page faulting. Which resulted in me seeing more blue screens of death than with every other application I used, combined.

Anyway, I held off of switching to a different client for almost three years. Friends of mine swore by Azureus, which had me interested because it was written in Java, but still I stuck with the original. Today however, I installed µTorrent, and after using it for about 5 minutes to start downloading the torrent for Windows Vista Beta 2 I had uninstalled the vanilla BitTorrent client. µTorrent is just incredibly slick.

The interface is amazingly minimalistic, with excellent iconography, well designed menus, and tons of information about the status of your torrents. And the kicker is that even downloading the 3.7GB(!!!) ISO image of Vista, it only is using about 3MB of memory... How freaking awesome is that? So long-story-short, if you have the need to take advantage of a torrent client, I would highly recommend (read micro) µTorrent.

Also, on Saturday I finished up Ratchet & Clank, which is really a spectacular game. I've always been a huge fan of the platformer though, so I'm immediately biased towards anything in the genre. Although, R&C is decidedly more action-oriented than most (and much better at it than Jak II). Look for a review in the next couple of days. I'm not sure what I'm going to start next. But it may very well be New Super Mario Bros., because the DS Lite is calling my name. Plus Best Buy is giving away (pdf) copies of Brain Age with every DS Lite purchased. Bonus!