protected static void prepareConnection(HttpURLConnection conn) throws ProtocolException {
    conn.setRequestMethod("GET");

    Settings s = Settings.getInstance();
    conn.setConnectTimeout(1000 * s.httpConnectionTimeout);
    conn.setReadTimeout(1000 * s.httpReadTimeout);
    if (conn.getRequestProperty("User-agent") == null)
      conn.setRequestProperty("User-agent", s.getUserAgent());
    conn.setRequestProperty("Accept", ACCEPT);
  }