1. Kazza that happens often now adays since RIAA is has been on its witch hunts. Less people are sharing.

2. It would be nice to get a snap shot of whats running in the background with ctrl-alt-del and see processes. Just to make sure your not running a firewall software.
External ip: this is the ip that your dsl provider gives you.
Internal ip: this is the ip that is configured using firewall, router, hub, or switch. The ip address ususally starts with 198.162.xxx.xxx

To match your external and internal ip with your dsl provider use this software.
http://www.fasttrackhelp.com/development/ftfakes/
download kaNat software. After using this you should be able to download more since other people will have "direct" access to your computer instead of your firewall (if you have one running) blocking the download.

3. eMule now has a rating system. The more you upload the higher your ratings go. So now the people who share the most files get higher priority in the download sequecne, then those who don't.