[Joe90]

Okay,

I'm getting a fair number of questions on how I find my 'True Find' pics. Figured I'd write a somewhat comprehensive 'how to' so I don't have to keep answering the same question over and over.

Maybe a mod will sticky this....apologies if I'm posting this in the wrong place.

Anyone who has seen my posts should have a pretty good idea to what I consider a true find.

I search the gnutella network exclusively using Bearshare.

Bearshare is the only way to go (yes it has some adware). Same gnutella network as limewire, but much better search filtering capabilities....a must for filtering out all the spam files.

Here are some things to do as soon as you get started:

Create and save various searches. Then run these searches over and over. Things change even minute to minute. When creating searches, do the following.

- Think of key words that people might put in the name their files. Nude, naked, private, etc.

You can also search for generic digital camera file names like IMG_, 100_, etc. This requires a bit more hunting and pecking.

Search for names.

If you happen across a pic of a naked guy that looks like it could be a true find, investigate further, maybe he also has pics of his naked girlfriend/wife.

- filter your searches (this is what makes Bearshare so powerful).

- set the Size at least to 200kb to help eliminate spam

- Hide Files with more than 5 words in the file name (huge for eliminating spam).

- Set up global key word filters (you can also filter key words per a search, i don't really use this) to filter out celebrity names and words like ****, etc. (unless you want these files, though they aren't typically a true find type file)

- if the files returned have multiple hosts, they aren't what I consider a true find and I ignore them (note: some of these files will look like true finds, and at one point probably were, but since they are now on multiple machines, I don't consider them a true find, your opinion may differ).

Once you find some files that look like they could be what you are looking for, right click on the file and Browse Host to see all the files on that computer. If the browse host fails or only returns a few files, try Browse Host again and again (note: sometimes you simply will not be able to browse the host).

Once you get comfortable with doing things and figure things out, you will start to get a pretty good feel if you've got a true find or not. For example, you come across a file you think is a true find, you do a browse host only to find a whole bunch of spam type files with 15+ words in the file name. I stop and move on at this point, maybe you won't. All depends what you are looking for.

Now for the advanced stuff, which I only recently discovered.

In the options menu under the searching tab, there is a checkbox labeled "Hide non-matching results". UNCHECK this.

You will now notice that your search results do not always contain the search term you searched on. For example, you search for 'nude', but some of the results do not contain the word nude in it.

Check these files out!!! I've had tremendous luck since I started using this method. As far as I can tell Bearshare has partially implemented searching based on the folder name vs. the file name, but it only works when "Hide non-matching results" is unchecked.

Now to make things even better, you can add the 'path' as one of the columns displayed in the result set. Right click on one of the columns to add it. Now, nothing will display in the path, but that's okay.

When you find a file described above and do a browse host, hight light the file you've download and click the path column to search by path. Now,if I'm correct, you've just sorted by the path on the host computer and chances are good that all the files in and around the highlighted file are what you will be looking for. Again, this has worked very well for me

Whew, that is it for now. Good luck and let's see those results here.