Hi Yvette

As you are inexperienced in computer matters I will try and make my answers to your questions as simple as possible without (hopefully) coming across as being big headed or insulting.

Question 1:Most music files are stored on computers as MP3 files so any computer with an media player, such as WinAmp, WMP or VLC will play them. However, unless you convert these MP3files to WAV files, with DVD/CD burning software (like NERO), before actually burning them onto a blank CD you run the risk of older CD players not being able to play them. Most modern CD players can now play MP3 files, as well as other computer file formats, but it seems that your mom's player can't.

Q2: When that happens the PC that you are downloading from has been switched off (I'm sure you know that P2P basically means sharing files on others users PCs). The only thing you can do is try another search, to see if other hosts with the same file are now online, or wait and try and catch this particular user when he switches his PC on again.

Q3: No, just other P2P users looking for stuff.

Q4: As mentioned earlier, when you access the P2P network you are downloading from (and uploading to) other P2P users PCs. Now the P2P network is worldwide and has a variety of PCs and servers connected to it from all corners of the world. And, like you, they are connected via their ISPs at different connection speeds (broadband, dial up, cable, etc.) and using different infrastructures, e.g. networks in the US are likely to be more advanced than the ones used in Russia. Plus you have distance, i.e. where is your download coming from, e.g. I live in the UK and if I download a file from Germany and a similar one from Japan I am 99% certain that the one from Germany will download faster than the one from Japan. There are also other things that can slow down your download speed, such as conjestion (like a traffic jam) and how many times your PC has to ask for a piece of data to be resent.

So, distance, upload speed from a user's PC, state of local and national networks, conjestion, etc. are all things that can affect your download speed.

Hope this helps.



UK Bob