Wednesday, January 31, 2007

HydraCoach, The Intelligent Water Bottle with LCD

Hydracoach - Hydration MonitorThe HydraCoach is the first water bottle I’ve ever seen that incorporates an LCD screen, the purpose of which is give feedback on your personal hydration needs (or in laymen’s terms have you drank enough water).

It does seem some what OTT but if you really need to know this stuff I guess this is the only bottle to do it. Features include:

  • Calculates Your Personal Hydration Needs
  • Tracks Your Fluid Consumption Throughout The Day
  • Paces You to Ensure Hydration Goals Are Met
  • Motivates You to Stay Properly Hydrated

Availability and more serious info over on the Hydracoach site, found via Book of Joe.

Read it Here

DVD Player region free hack list

Don't Believe it? Its true. Just see this link of videohelp.com and you will be shocked. Total 4783 DVD Hacks are listed for 7821 DVD Players / Recorders in the list. This list is based on user reviews and submitted by users. I can't paste the whole list here. Just get it...

What are region codes, country codes, or zone locks? Read the DVD Demystified FAQ section 1.10.

Read Whole List @ videoHelp.com

Convert video to iPod MP4 using MPEG StreamClip

This guide will show you the basic step how to convert video(MOV, AVI, MPG, TS, VOB, DV) to iPod mp4 format using free tools.

Tools required:
QuickTime Pro($30) or Quicktime Alternative(free)

MPEG StreamClip

Guide:
First install Quicktime Pro or Quicktime Alternative.
Download MPEG StreamClip (Windows version), extract the MPEG_StreamClip.exe from the zip archive and double click to run it.

Read Full Tutorial @ videoHelp.com

How to use PgcEdit?

PgcEdit version 8.0 sees the completion of its very advanced DVD remapping and restoring tools.

You can remap (reorder):

  • PGCs (new in 8.0)

  • TTNs within a VTS (new in 8.0)

  • Titlesets on the DVD

  • Title numbers

  • VOB-Cell IDs
You can also remove uncalled(unreferenced) PGCs while preserving the structure and navigation of the DVD.

And PgcEdit now enables you easily to restore backups, irrespective of how much you have edited your DVD, whilst preserving structure (see important notes at the end of this guide).

Read Full Tutorial @ Digital-Digest.com

tunebite

Tired of DRM-protected file formats like WMA, M4P, AA, M4B, MP4, M4V and WMV getting in your way? Tunebite screen records your copy-protected music, audio book and video files as they are being played and saves the recordings as unprotected audio (MP3, OGG and WMA) and video (WMV and MP4) files you can use anywhere.

More @ videoHelp.com

IceTea

IceTea allows you to convert your old PSX CD's for use in the Sony PSP system with the OE firmwares present. It is also capable of creating the corresponding ingame manuals as well as customizing the menu appearance. You may also re-extract the ISO from your converted games. IceTea was built in mind to incorporate all the good features regarding the PSX<->PSP converters into one single package. By using wxWidgets as the graphical output it also enables Linux/Mac OS X users to experience IceTea. IceTea is open source released under the GPL.

Home Page

CounterSpy

CounterSpy is an antispyware tool that detects, deletes, and protects your personal computer from a broad range of malicious software. CounterSpy searches and destroys existing spyware on your computer, but it also has sophisticated protection against recurring spyware threats, reducing the chances of getting new spyware. CounterSpy is antispyware that gets its updated spyware definitions from three sources, including our own research team, Microsoft's own spyware research group, and directly from users, like you. In December of 2004, Microsoft purchased Giant Company Software, a company that made antispam and antispyware tools. Giant Company was previously a close partner of Sunbelt Software. Giant had granted co-ownership rights to Sunbelt for a previous version of Giant's anti-spyware product. As part of that agreement, Sunbelt has the exclusive right to innovate its own product. The new Microsoft Antispyware beta is based on the Giant Antispyware product. Microsoft fully owns its anti-spyware product that it acquired from Giant Company. In turn, Sunbelt fully owns its own anti-spyware technology, currently marketed as CounterSpy and CounterSpy Enterprise.

CounterSpy V2 includes the following new features or improvements:

* Smaller Memory Footprint — V2 now uses 75% less memory!
* Re-designed/re-coded scan & removal engine — Faster full scan times
* New heuristics engine for improved detections — Better removal of polymorphic threats
* Improved remove-on-boot capability — Remove locked processes at boot time before Windows boots
* New scan-on-boot technology — Scans known locations at boot time to remove Rootkits in our definitions
* Windows Vista — CounterSpy V2 now also supports the upgrade from WinXP to Vista 32 and more...

CounterSpy Beta Home Page

Http File Server (HFS)

Http File Server (HFS) is an easy to use drag and drop file server for personal file sharing. It runs as a standalone executable and does not require any installation. The program is very easy to use, just drag a file into it to share it with the world. You can customize the port it is running on, specify the IP address and monitor connections from the tray icon. HFS presents the shared files on a simple HTML page, that includes the file name and size. With some HTML knowledge, you can completely customize the HTML template to meet your preference. HFS can also integrate into Windows Explorer, allowing you to easily share files from the right-click menu.

News From: Snap Files

Sylpheed 2.4.0 beta 1

Sylpheed is a simple, lightweight but featureful, and easy-to-use e-mail client (mailer, MUA). Sylpheed runs on Unix-like systems such as Linux, BSD, and Mac OS X. It also supports Windows. Sylpheed uses GTK+ GUI toolkit. The newest version of Sylpheed works with GTK+ 2.4 or later (2.6 or later is recommended). Sylpheed is a free software distributed under the GNU GPL (the library part is GNU LGPL). You can freely use, modify and redistribute it under the license.

Sylpheed has the following features:

* Simple, beautiful, and well-polished user interface
* Comfortable operationality which is built in detail
* Well-organized, easy-to-understand configuration
* Lightweight operation
* High reliability
* Internationalization and Multilingualization support
* High-level Japanese processing
* Various protocols support
* Security features (GnuPG, SSL/TLSv1)
* Powerful filtering and search
* Junk mail control
* Flexible cooperation with external commands

Sylpheed Home Page

Infra Recorder 0.41

Infra Recorder is a free open source CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration.

Main Features

- Create custom data, music and mixed-mode projects and record them to physical compact discs or disc images.
- Create and record disc images.
- Create direct disc copies, on the fly or by using a temporary disc image.
- Erase (blank) rewritable discs using four different methods.
- Import session data from multi-session discs and append more sessions to that kind of discs.
- Fixate discs (write lead-out information to prevent further data from beeing added to the disc).
- Scan the SCSI/IDE bus for devices and collect detailed information about their capabilities.
- Display detailed disc information.
- Read and save audio and data tracks to files (wav. and .iso)
- Scan selected tracks for errors.

Infra Recorder Home Page

DVD Flick 1.2.1.1

DVD Flick is a simple but at the same time powerful DVD Authoring tool. It can take several video files stored on your computer and turn them into a DVD that will play back on your DVD player, Media Center or Home Cinema Set. DVD Flick is Open Source, meaning that anyone can download and view or modify the program's source code. It also means that it is absolutely free of charge. Several external programs are used by DVD Flick to do the dirty work like encoding and combining of video material. All of these programs are free, some are Open Source too. Supported file container formats are, amongst others, AVI, MPG, MOV, WMV, ASF, FLV, Matroska and MP4. Supported codecs are amongst others, MPEG-124 (XVid, DivX, etc.), Windows Media AudioVideo. MP3, OGG Vorbis, H264, and On2 VP56. For a full list of supported container, audio and video formats, see http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg-doc.html#SEC20

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Shanghai stages 4G telephony rollout, claims a world first

China has launched a trial run of home-grown fourth-generation mobile technology in Shanghai. 4G technology provides wireless services at much faster speeds, sharply improving high-quality images and data services, and potentially allowing for such features as multi-channel high-definition TV broadcasting. Third-generation (3G) telephony is still not available in China due to repeated government delays and therefore engineers have moved directly to developing the ultra-fast 4G technology.

The 4G trial in Shanghai cost 150 million yuan (19 million dollars) and was billed by the government as the world's first rollout of the technology. However, South Korea's high-tech giant Samsung Electronics last August unveiled the world's first fourth-generation (4G) mobile technology with a demonstration on a moving bus and expects to put it into commercial use by 2010. After more field tests of the 4G system, China aims to put the technology into trial commercial sometime before 2010.

Read More @ Physorg

Symantec To Acquire Altiris

After acquiring Veritas Software in July 2005, Symantec aims to buy network client management vendor Altiris for $830 million by paying company shareholders approximately $33 per share. Cupertino, California-based Symantec expects the acquisition to close in the second quarter. With the acquisition of Lindon, Utah-based Altiris, Symantec will have the tools to further diversify into a broad, IT network management vendor with products that address security plus storage, client management and remote managed services.

Read More @ CRN

Adobe announces Pricing, Availability for Lightroom

Adobe's first major RAW-oriented photography workflow app is set to hit the shelves on February 19 for $299 and is already available for pre-ordering. A free trial will be available on that day along with an introductory price of $199 until April 30. The Windows and Universal Mac versions of Lightroom are coming simultaneously, with the recommended system requirements being either a Mac with Mac OS X 10.4.3, 1GHz PowerPC G4 processor or a Windows machine with Windows XP SP2, an Intel Pentium 4 processor, 768MB RAM and a 1024 x 768 resolution display. While Lightroom will run fine on Vista, users will need to wait for a free update for full disc-burning support to work.

The public beta version will not expire until February 28 and existing libraries will be updated for use by the 1.0 app. The final version includes full cross-compatibility with Photoshop Camera RAW 3.7, which will be a downloadable upgrade released at the same time. This will add support for Lightroom’s advanced edits as well as RAW support for the Nikon D40, Nikon D80, Canon EOS 400D Rebel XTi, EOS Kiss Digital X and the Pentax K10D.

Changes from the last public beta version of Lightroom also include:

* Snapshots and multiple settings for same RAW file
* Improvements to Develop, Slideshow, Printing and Web output
* New Key Metadata Browser for quick tagging and rating
* Beefed-up labeling and rating
* Curves show more range information for selected areas
* More connection between actual disk structure and what you see within the application
* Clone and heal nondestructively

Read More @
Ars Technica

Samsung Introduces First 60GB 1.8-Inch Single Platter HDD

Samsung Electronics has introduced the world’s first 1.8-inch hard drive with a 60GB per disk capacity and a 5mm tall form factor as a part of its N-series (which also features 20GB, 30GB and 40GB per disk capacities). The series features a 4,200 RPM spindle speed, a 7.14ms average seek time, a 2MB data buffer and a sound intensity of 1.8 bel – Samsung claims they are among the current quietest 1.8-inch hard drives available. Samsung has achieved 60GB on a single platter via perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology. PMR technology places the data bits perpendicular to the disc, unlike traditional longitudinal recording technology, which can offer a greater storage capacity but reduce the corruption factor as well.

Read More @ DailyTech

eBay bans Online Auctions of Virtual Game Booty

The San Jose, California-based Internet auction site has decided to bar sales of virtual goods in video games due to "legal complexities" regarding ownership. The policy has been in place for the past few weeks: the company frequently removes virtual game related auctions. Enterprising young gamers have earned livings playing games like WoW and selling their weaponry, armor and other items. eBay has decided, however, not to ban the auctioning of items from virtual societies. ebay spokesman Hani Durzy compared this ban to the firm's decisions to bar sales of alcohol or tobacco, which are lawful products controlled by complex governmental regulations.

Read More @ physorg

Google beefs up its Mini Appliance

Google Mini. Google? Yes. Mini? No. Search giant Google has upped the size and scope of its document warehousing systems, which originally hit the market in 2005. The system also includes new security software, which allows administrators to limit access to information on either a user or document level, as well as OneBox, a Google application that unlocks information from enterprise applications including Oracle, SAP or Salesforce.

The Google Mini system offers a preinstalled rack-mount search appliance that allows companies to catalogue and search large collections of documents inside their network (starting at $1995 for 50,000 docs up to $10,000 for 300,000 docs). More like Google Huge. The name of course refers to the fact that these systems are low-end alternatives to Google’s enterprise systems which start at $30,000 and can hold anywhere from 500,000 to 30 million documents.

"As search becomes more critical to businesses of all sizes, we continue to add even more sophisticated search features that, until now, had only been available to large businesses," Girouard said.

Read @ vnunet.com

64 Studio - For digital content creation

64 Studio develops a distribution of native free software for digital content creation on x86_64 hardware (that's AMD's 64-bit CPUs and Intel's EM64T chips). It's based on the pure 64 port of Debian GNU/Linux, but with a specialised package selection and lots of other customisations. We also produce custom versions for our OEM partners, and a 32-bit edition for legacy PC hardware.

Read More @ 64Studio.com

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

CrypTool

The initial concern of Cryptography was to provide secrecy for written messages.

Today, cryptography is an active research area and is part of many applications where it mostly goes unnoticed. Examples include ignition lock-out systems for cars, mobile phone transmissions, SSL connections between web browser and web server, secure e-mail, and many other everyday applications.

Many children have tried to encrypt messages using simple methods. But most of them never gained any deeper appreciation of modern cryptography.

The open source project CrypTool, run since 1998 by Bernhard Esslinger, has been developing the freeware program CrypTool in order to spread this knowledge. CrypTool makes it fun and easy to learn about cryptography and cryptanalysis. It is used at universities and schools as well as in national and international companies and agencies for educational purposes.

The Windows program CrypTool is eLearning software with which you can apply and analyse cryptographic mechanisms. It contains exhaustive online help with tutorials/scenarios and a script with more detailed information e.g. about primes, hash functions and digital signatures.

More @ CrypTool

Gizmo - Free Phone for Your Computer

An internet telephone. As simple as an instant messenger. Now you're talking. Make all your calls from the comfort of your desktop. With Gizmo, it's point, click, talk. For free. Say goodbye to high price calling, and say 'hello' to anyone online, anywhere on earth. Why use Gizmo?

It's free!

Free calls to all Gizmo users.

Free Voicemail and Conference Calls.

Super clear call quality.

Inexpensive add-ons that let you make and receive calls from any mobile phone or landline.

More @ Gizmo.com

What is TWiki?

TWiki Release 4.0.1

Welcome to TWiki, a flexible, powerful, and easy to use enterprise collaboration platform and knowledge management system. It is a Structured Wiki, typically used to run a project development space, a document management system, a knowledge base, or any other groupware tool, on an intranet or on the internet. Web content can be created collaboratively by using just a browser. Users without programming skills can create web applications. Developers can extend the functionality of TWiki with Plugins. Tell a Friend

"We use TWiki internally to manage documentation and project planning for our products." said Eric Baldeschwieler, Director of Software Development of Yahoo! "Our development team includes hundreds of people in various locations all over the world, so web collaboration is VERY important to us. TWiki has changed the way we run meetings, plan releases, document our product and generally communicate with each other. We're great fans of your work!"

Compare TWiki, Confluence and XWiki, and see TWiki details on the WikiMatrix web site.

Another list of Freeware/Open source tools for programmers...

1.Eclipse

Eclipse is an open source community whose projects are focused on building an open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle. A large and vibrant ecosystem of major technology vendors, innovative start-ups, universities, research institutions and individuals extend, complement and support the Eclipse platform.

2.Altova XMLspy Home Edition

XMLSpy is the industry-leading XML editor for modeling, editing, transforming, and debugging XML technologies.

update :
3rd march 2008
XML spy is now not free. They removed the home edition. :(

3.cooktop

Cooktop is an editor and development environment for XML, DTD, and XSLT documents
Cooktop is a Windows application
Best of all, it's free!

4.cygwin

Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows. It consists of two parts:
A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux API emulation layer providing substantial Linux API functionality.
A collection of tools which provide Linux look and feel.

5.FreeMind

FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool. We are proud that the operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster than that of MindManager because of one-click "fold / unfold" and "follow link" operations.

6.spark

Spark is an Open Source, cross-platform IM client optimized for businesses and organizations of all sizes. It includes enterprise-class features such as built-in support for group chat, telephony integration, and strong security. It also offers an exceptional experience with user-friendly features like in-line spell checking, group chat room bookmarks, and tabbed conversations.

7.Apache

The Apache Software Foundation provides support for the Apache community of open-source software projects. The Apache projects are characterized by a collaborative, consensus based development process, an open and pragmatic software license, and a desire to create high quality software that leads the way in its field. We consider ourselves not simply a group of projects sharing a server, but rather a community of developers and users.

8.jboss

JBoss Application Server is the #1 most widely used Java application server on the market. A J2EE certified platform for developing and deploying enterprise Java applications, Web applications, and Portals, JBoss Application Server provides the full range of J2EE 1.4 features as well as extended enterprise services including clustering, caching, and persistence.

What to Buy? PC or MAC?

PC
----------
:) cheaper then MAC.
:) Completely starts in 28 minutes.
:) All of its parts are easily available in you local areas.
:) Speed is better than MAC.
:) Application support is better than MAC.(easily available.)
:) Easy to Fix.seen the test. thrown it from 1st Floor and then amazingly got that only Motherboard is affected.so got MB and some
other small parts in very less time and money.we fixed it in 3 hours...!great!

MAC
----------
:( More Price.
:)) starts in 17 minutes!amazing.
:( for some applications,speed is lower than PC.
:) Best graphics and all related to GUI(graphical user interface).
:( Low Application support then PC.
:( parts are not available due to license problems.
:( difficult to fix. seen the same test.Thrown its CPU from 1st floor and asked apple help line.They told that due to license problems, cant provide its parts directly.need to take the cpu and they fix it.All these takes 3 days around.!


So, if you want to buy for speed,easy repair and all then go for PC.
if you want to buy for style,looks,Graphics then go for MAC.

Note:Tests written here are seen on TV (Travell and leaving discovery,Gadgets of guys).And all information is according to the tests shown.

DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) Radio Vs Analog Radio

DAB Radio
------
:) In this radio, you can get more stations (a lot more, we can not count it actually).
:( Quality of audio is not like CD as providers has reduced it.
:( And also u can not catch it while on travell in speedy car/train etc. or in some country side area.
:( Price is also more than analog one.

Analog Radio
------
:( Not more stations.(limited to 10 to 20)
:) In FM,good quality you can get.(upto CD)
:) You can catch it in most of areas and also while travelling.
:) Price is no matter here!

So,If you want to listen outside your home and anywhere you go, you should take analog one.
And if are at home, then you can listen DAB radio plugged in your home and many more options!

Choose Proper Audio Format for DivX Video

Basically, most people use default mp3 128/96 kbps constant bitrate for Divx movie files.It is good in quality but of big size.
What i mean is, suppose your video is only some speech in the file then you need higher kbps enough to hear.when it is music or say some fast sequence in film then you need better quality andperfect sound.In CBR (Constant Bit Rate), it is constant at all the moments of file. In VBR (Variable Bit Rate), the algoritham decides what to do and what should be the quality for specific sequence.It lowers somewhat which is not needed in higher music which doen't affect you and it highers the audio when it needs to be hear perfect sound in speech.

And if you don't want to use mp3 then you can use ogg as yur audio format.It is free as well as good quality and less size.
Tools needed for video/audio conversion

1.VirtualDub/FlaskMpeg
2.lamecodec(mp3)/ogg codec
3.oggmux(To mix mute video and ogg file to make .ogm)

All these can be found on http://www.doom9.org

Alcohol - How to makeburn images using alcohol?

By:Parth Barot

Now a days, most of the people are using CD Burning softwares.But see many doesn't have CD writers.so, what to do for making CDs of games and other softwares which can not be run without CD in the drive?

Simple!Make image file of the CD in your Hard Disk Drive.It means make a same data file as CD,Load the file in virtual CD/DVD software and fool the operating system and the software/game itself that you are using the original CD!

Which software to use?ok we have some choices here.
1.Slysoft's Clone CD
2.Alcohol 120%
3.Nero

And many more available free/paid but these 3 are the most used for burning and etc.

1.Clone CD(.ccd) is good for bad CDs.make images in large sizes but you can use them.Supports most of image file formats.

2.Alcohol is the best one among these three.Because it suports all kind of image formats and also make images in Clone CD(.ccd) and Nero(.nrg) formats.It is fast and better as it scans the CD and tells you that can't make image and can't burn it!small size also. (I suggest this one as i am using it.)

3.Nero...The big one(New Nero 7 is about 100 MB setup size!Too big!)it has many other features but i think no need to use it if you only want to use for making images.

Here i am giving small tutorial for use of Alcohol

Making CD image-----------------------------
1.Install Alcohol 120% and let the PC restart if it wants it.Because it installs drivers for virtual CD drive.

2.Start Alcohol and click File-->Image Making Wizard.Wizard popups as shown below.
Alcohol Make image Wizard

3.As shown in image above,choose your source CD drive from which you want to make image file.(Shown with Red A)

4.Then from 'DataType' combo box select Data format.If data cd then select what ever you want.If very bad and scratched cd then select 'video cd with bad sectors' as shown in Red B.

5.For skipping reading errors and scanning the disc, use the checkboxes given.

6.Click on next and then choose the location on your HDD to save image.

7.In file formats, select MDS (alcohol's own format)for best reduced size.If you think its a bad CD then you can select CCD(clone cd format) but it takes more size.

8.Then make the image by finishing the wizard.

9.Your image is in you drive.Load it in Alcohol's virtual drive and use it as you are using CD.

same like this you cam burn CD images to CDs directly by selecting the image files.And copy dics to dics also.

AVI to VCD with Xing MPEG Encoder

By:Parth Barot

Download, install and register these applications:
DivX Operational Player
Xing MPEG Encoder
VCD Cutter

1) Open DivX Operational Player first. Load your divx movie. Select with BEGIN/END buttons maximal range. In Operational Wizard press Audio Fragment button.

2) Type filename of WAV file: for example, "MYAUDIO". Press Next. Select NO COMPRESSION. Press Extract.

3) Converting your newly created wav file into the right format for MPEG is quite simple.. Download and install Xing MPEG Encoder. Open Xing MPEG Encoder, Click on NEW. You will see a list of profiles for use chose the following: STREAM PROFILES/VIDEO CD/PAL, click NEXT. Chose the checkbox labeled AUDIO ONLY. Chosing this option will then grey out the video box. Chose the BROWSE button under AUDIO FILENAME and locate your AUDIO wav file ("MYAUDIO.WAV"), then click BROWSE again under TARGET FILENAME to chose where you wish to save your encoded audio file. Then click FINISH. Press the ENCODE BUTTON to start encoding your wav file.

4) Now we have an AVI file which is your divx movie and a .wav file and an .MPA audio file. You may wish to test your MPA file to see if the sound came out correctly. After you are happy with the new audio source you can now delete the huge wav file that is taking up valuable room on your hard drive

5) Again open Xing MPEG Encoder and click NEW. Once again click on VIDEO CD/PAL, click next. Chose the checkbox labeled SYSTEM this time because we are going to glue the audio with the video for the final conversion to MPEG. Chose the BROWSE button under VIDEO FILENAME you will have to copy your divx movie to your hard drive if you haven’t already done so, locate your divx movie on your hard drive. Chose the BROWSE button under AUDIO FILENAME and locate your AUDIO MPA file, then click BROWSE again under TARGET FILENAME to chose where you wish to save your encoded MPEG file. Then click FINISH. Press the ENCODE BUTTON to start encoding your MPEG file.

6) Download and install VCDCutter. Open VCDCutter and click on FILE/OPEN MOVIES or CTRL + O, chose your newly created MPEG. Move the slider bar to the start of the movie, go to the top tool bar and choose EDIT/CLIP MARK IN or F5. Now move the slider bar to roughly the center of the movie and chose a good spot to mark the out section example a fade to black transition or cut scene.

7) Once this is done go once again to the top tool bar and choose EDIT/CLIP MARK OUT or F6. once this is done press F7 to add the first selection to your CLIP LIST. Now where you have just chosen your mark out position this becomes your MARK IN position so again press F5. Once you have done this move the slider bar to the end of the movie and press F6 again for the MARK OUT position of clip two, now press F7 to add this selection to your CLIP LIST.

8) Now you should be looking at your CLIP LIST tab and see the two selections that you have made. Right click on the first clip and chose SAVE THIS CLIP to save it to your chosen location. (NOTE: the clips will save to the default save location unless you manually change the location by pressing F3, once you have pressed F3 go to the SETTINGS tab then BROWSE for the WORKING DIRECTORY of your choice, it’s a good idea to have a folder on a secondary partition on your hard drive for doing this. You should now have two MPEG files that can now be transferred directly into NERO Burning Rom. Download the latest from http://www.nero.com/

8) This step is perhaps the easiest step of the VCD creation. Open up Nero Burning Rom and go to FILE/NEW or CTRL + N. Select VIDEO CD, check the the boxes CREATE STANDARD COMPLIANT CD and USE CD-I APPLICATION. Next we go to the LABEL tab and name the fist disc under VOLUME LABEL. Now click the NEW button. In the FILE BROWSER, locate your two MPEG files. Drag and drop the first part of the movie to the VIDEO Window. The file you have just put in this window will then be analyzed for compatibility with VIDEO CD, once this part is complete (it doesn’t take too long) simply open the WRITE DIALOG box. Make sure that the two boxes WRITE and FINALISE CD are checked and then continue on to press the WRITE button. Repeat all of these steps for the second part of the movie.

You now have yourself a PAL encoded VIDEO CD that you can play on your home dvd player.

How to play video files in Winamp

By:Parth Barot

Now a days many players are there for playing video files but not any one is as good as winamp.
Winamp 5 has support for all kind of video files,but it requires more memory of your total memory of PC.So why not use older version for video?

Yes i am using Winamp 2.91 which is very older than winamp 5 and not taking more resources also.playin well all the files.ofcourse you need to install all codecs for that.This version is the first version of winamp which suuports video.We just need to change defalult file type extension for that.

Steps:
1.Start Winamp 2.91.

2.Press Ctrl+P.

3.Then Click on "Options" in treeview as shown below.



4.As shown in the image,change the value for "Default
extension for unknown file types" to mpg,avi,wmv etc.Usually it is set to mp3 for audio files.

5.Done!

Now if you load .DAT file inwinamp then also it will play it.It will also play wmv,mpg,avi etc..For .RM you need to install real player alternative which is avaialble on Free-Codecs.

Links:
Winamp 2.91

Computer Security - Its Bigger Than Spyware And Viruses

Computer security, in basic terms means keeping your computer and the data thats in it safe and secure. More of our personal data is stored in or accessed from our computer, now more than ever before. Yet most people lack even the basic understanding of how to keep their computers safe and secure. By following just a few simple rules you can dramatically improve the overall security of your computer. The first thing to understand is what exactly it means to be connected to the internet. Your computer connected to the internet is similar to your house in many ways. There are many ways into your house. Windows, doors, etc. The more windows and doors you have, the more ways someone has into your house. An open door doesnt necessarily mean you are going to be robbed, but it does improve the chances. Complicating matters, the ones that you think are locked, may not be because the lock is faulty or even the door itself may have an as of yet undiscovered flaw that would allow an intruder easy access to your home. Your computer has many windows and doors, not all of which are locked. New flaws are being found everyday, often with the fix not coming until days after. Just like you wouldnt leave your front door unlocked, you shouldnt leave your computer wide open either. The first two things we will discuss to help with this task are installation of a quality firewall and regularly updating your installed software. Updating your software is becoming easier these days, especially your Operating System. We dont have the time here to go into detail about the many ways to update the many software packages you may have or use, but generally speaking the software manufacturer will provide you a way to do this automatically via the internet. A good example of this is the Microsoft Windows Update feature. Be sure to get the updates for everything installed on your computer, nothing is too trivial. There are two basic types of firewalls and both perform the same functions. One is hardware the other is software. A hardware firewall is probably included in your router if you are using one, while you may or may not have a software firewall installed. To continue our house analogy, a firewall is like building a wall and gate around your home and giving the guard at the gate instructions on who to let in and out. While this does give a great deal of protection, it is not all that is required. Someone may know a way around or under your wall, or even be able to coerce the guard into letting them in. You yourself may unwittingly allow someone in. This could happen by simply opening an email or even simply surfing the net. Spyware, viruses, trojans and the like are ever more adept in their methods of fooling you and your guards. Emails may come from a trusted friend containing a dangerous virus without them even knowing it. This is where the next layer of protection comes in, anti-virus software. Anti-virus software is a large category these days. Often these packages come as Å“suites including a firewall and Spyware scanner. While most of these programs are very effective in their promised tasks, it is not wise to be lulled into a false sense of security by them. They are simply one layer in what should be a multi tiered protection plan for you and your computer. One last important note about anti virus software is to be sure that it updates on a regular basis. New threats come out daily so check its updates manually to be sure they have happened. Back to our house analogy, we now have all of our windows, doors and other entry ways locked and fully updated. We have a wall around our house with a guard at the gate and we have software scanning everything that comes in past the gate. Sounds pretty good, but theres one last security hole we need to address, you. A large percentage of infections are caused by the computer user themselves. The internet is an ever changing place that requires its users to be educated about its use. Im not suggesting that you need to be a computer expert to simply read your email. I am however suggesting that you take some time to educate yourself on some of the dangers that pop up everyday, and the precautions to take in order to avoid them. In summary, your computer is a powerful machine connected to one of the greatest things ever invented, the internet. This vast resource can be a dangerous place if you are not properly prepared and informed. Regular software updates, a good firewall, anti virus software and a little education are the basics in computer security. Having and understanding these basics will make your computer safer, more secure and more enjoyable.

Spyware What Is It? Why Should You Care?

Not many disagree that the expansion of the internet and technology related to advances with the various aspects of interacting on the internet continues to accelerate at a dizzying pace. As with most advances, with the good side, also comes a not so good dark side. More than ever, the criminal element continues to make great strides in finding ways to perpetrate mischief, mayhem, and mal-intended scams. One of the latest growing ways criminals have employed to profit at the expense of unsuspecting internet users is the spread of spyware viruses. Spyware and adware quickly are becoming all too prevalent for anyone. It has become vitally important that everyone take precautions to protect themselves from the malicious effects through the use of virus protection software.

Spyware: What Is It?

By definition, a spyware virus includes a wide variety of virus, some of which are the good kind; some are relatively harmless in nature. For example some spyware programs are Å“documenters, or scribes if you will. Their primary purpose is to keep a record of basic information on users activities. This can include such things as what websites and other actions you have taken over a period of time. This allows the program to target your IP address with advertisements (many of which are popups) that are related to the theme of the sites you frequent. Giving you what you want, based on where you visit on the internet is the general method for this type of spyware. Again, being a nuisance is the primary offense of this type of virus.

Spyware: Why Should I Care?

Spywares Å“evil cousin is not so virtuous and clearly much more harmful. These types seek to target financial related information (all personal and private information of course), using the information for criminal purposes. Identity theft is the more common example of this type of spyware virus. The sheer number of attacks, severity of the attacks is growing at alarming rates. And just when we thought identity theft was bad enough, another type of spyware virus is growing with even more damaging effects. These are essentially key logger programs. This type of spyware is designed to capture highly sensitive data (account numbers and passwords to online banking, financial records, etc.) by recording actual keystrokes by a user on the keyboard. This data is collected and reported back to the author who in turn uses the information or gives the information to others to undertake criminal actions to steal all they can using this information. What Can I Do? By far, the best protection one can use against these kinds of spyware viruses is to obtain (and maintain) a reputable anti virus software program, combined with a good anti spyware program and spyware removal tool. More and more anti virus programs are incorporating spyware detection and removal into their products. However, many still feel that to be 100% safe, it is best to install several different products at once. Of course the best way to keep those spyware viruses off your computer is to run your anti virus software and spyware removal programs:

1) with the option of Å“real time coverage whenever possible, and
2) run on a daily basis. Each program will then report back on problems it has found giving users the option of how to handle anything found. It does not take much thought when you hear the horror stories of unsuspecting internet users who have Å“lost everything because of the effects of spyware in its various forms to realize you must be proactive. To ignore the warnings of internet security experts and reports of the damage caused by spyware is truly a formula for disaster. Dont let yourself be the next victim.

Simple things to remember when design a website

by Parth Barot

As i am not any master webdeveloper, i am not sure this helps yoy people or not. But i think we should atleast keep these things in mind.
1.If database is needed, then always use small like .mdb in access,or use mysql.Don't use SQL SERVER as it will create permission related issues on hosted servers.
2.Always starts with database design.Then do template design and css etc.
3.For connection (Database connections and drivers),header,footer and menus Use seperate files.And include those files as you need them.you just have to include them in pages.Don't need to write whole code.
4.Use php,asp,perl,python,jsp like simple languages.So you can code easily while designing.Use Frontpage like tool for it.I think PHP/ASP is best one.
5.Don't use .net like heavy things as it is having activex controls and so it eats your memory.(My personal openion).
6.Use open source languages and tools if you can.
7.Design accordingly but don't use high graphics and flash tools.Keep simple but must have strong features without bugs.(Like google we can say :)).
8.Don't use session variables except for user login data and etc.As it eats memory and degrades speed of site.
9.Use cookies if possible so no need to login for users for some time.
10.Try to clear all memory, as it is needed in website :).
11.Keep maximum security in login and logout. 12.Use tables in design as it looks good and simple.

I think its enough...

VCD/DAT/MPG to DivX/Xvid

by Parth Barot

These days Divx/Xvid format is very famous as compared to others.It is based on populor MP4 format.For converting, You must have following things.
1. Xvid/DivX Codec [Must use Xvid as it is free and better then divx.]
2. Virtual Dub [Because it suports .dat files+dvd also from vcd.]
or
3. FlaskMpeg [It is good tool.supports all except .dat]
4. Audio codecs [Mp3,ogg,AC3 etc. whatever you like, you can use. But mp3 or ogg is better.For more see Doom9]

Steps:
1.Then just copy your VCD to Your Disk Using VCDCutter or VCDGEAR.
2.Open Your File in VirtualDub(if using dat then must otherwise you can use Flaskmpeg.).
3.goto video--->click on 'Full Processing Mode'.
4.goto Audio--->click on 'Full Processing Mode'.
5.goto Audio--->'compression'.
6.Select audio stream type like mp3,ogg etc. and then select bitrate about 96kbps to 128 kbps for movies.If you can use 'Lame codec', then you can use VBR(Variable bitrate mode) of encoding. which is better in quality and less in size.
7.goto Video--->Filters, and add 'resize' filter from list.Resize the video if it not seems ok to you. Resize it using calculator found on Doom9, which gives you perfect size dividable by 4.
8.Crop your video as you wish to cut black parts from it.
9.goto video--->compression, and select 'Xvid' codec.Then configure it.
10.Select 2-Pass Encoding fot Xvid.
11.First, select 2 pass 1st pass, and use settings.Load all defalut settings.
12.in 'quality preset', click on 'more' and select '6-ultra high' and '3 medium search'. Check 'chroma motion'.On 'quantization' tab,select 'trellis quantization' and type 2 for all frame's 'min quantization'. leave the max at 31.
13.in main,select profile level @L5.Click on more.select quantization type 'MPEG'.check all checkboxes except 'interlaced encoding'.
14.in main, in encoding type select 2pass-1st pass. and click on more and check 'discard first pass'.
15.Then add the job in job control.For that,at time of save, check 'add this in job control'.
16.Then again goto video compression settings and in xvid settings, select '2pass-2nd pass'.
17.Type output size you want or type bitrate in kbps.For that calculate using calculator.
18.Add job in job control.
19.Then using job control,start jobs.It will take about 1 hour to complete 700 MB file.
20.Enjoy!

Your File is ready. In calculator, you can calculate it according to the audio bitrate, file length.You enter details of file lenght,and size you want in output and audio file size or bitrate then it will give you the target bitrate.Use it to use according the size you want.

LG and PRADA have unveiled a mobile phone controlled entirely by a touch-screen which is sure to draw comparisons with Apple’s recently announced iPhone. LG and PRADA have apparently worked closely together on every aspect of the product, from handset development to marketing, first announcing their intentions in December, but no doubt sensing the opportunity presented by the worldwide iPhone publicity and the possibilities of an iPhone delay given that Cisco is in litigation with Apple over the name. The PRADA Phone by LG (KE850) has a touch interface which eliminates the conventional keypad making the overall usage experience a highly tactile one. An extra wide LCD screen maximizes visual impact, allowing the user to benefit from several key features of the phone, including the 2 megapixel camera featuring Schneider-Kreuznach lens, video player and document viewer capacity. The PRADA Phone will be available with prices starting from 600 Euros in mobile dealerships and PRADA stores in the UK, France, Germany and Italy as of late February, 2007, followed by countries in Asia such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore from late March, 2007. The Korean version of the phone is scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2007

Read more

Samsung's Ultra Edition 10.9


Samsung, keen to unseat Creative and Apple in the MP3 player stakes, has released the K3 its latest MP3 player launched as a direct competitor to the iPod nano.
Pocket-lint was given the opportunity to play with the new player before its launch in the UK at CES 2007 in Las Vegas. So can the K3 beat the nano?
0.27-inches silm, but not as slim as the nano (its thicker by a couple of millimetres) the K3 features the same funky looking interface as the company's K5 MP3 player launched last year. In fact, the K3 is virtually identical to the K5 in every respect just without speaker

Read more



 

Monday, January 29, 2007

List of Freeware Applications you must have for windows...

1.VLC

VideoLAN is a software project, which produces free software for video, released under the GNU General Public License.

2.Notepad++

Notepad++ is a free source code editor (and Notepad replacement), which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment.

3.PSPad

The universal freeware editor, useful for people who:
work with plain text - the editor has a wealth of formatting functions, including a spell checker
create web pages - as a web authoring editor, PSPad contains many unique tools that save your time
want to use a good IDE for their compiler - PSPad catches and parses compiler output, integrates external help files, compares versions and much more...

4.Winamp

As you all knows, free audio video player which is alltime hit!

5.FireFox

The award-winning Web browser is now faster, more secure, and fully customizable to your online life. With Firefox 2, we’ve added powerful new features that make your online experience even better.

6.Opera

It's a fast, fun and easy way to browse the Web. Opera 9 comes loaded with the tools to keep you productive and safe. Try it today, it's absolutely free!

7.KeyNote

Tabbed notebook and personal information manager, with tree structure and strong encryption. Open source.

8.WordWeb

WordWeb is a free cut-down version of the WordWeb Pro software. It includes a comprehensive English thesaurus and dictionary, and can be used to look up words from within most programs.

9.Google Desktop Search

Quickly search your computer for emails, web history, and files
View news, photos and more anywhere on your desktop
Add Google Gadgets to customize your desktop and Sidebar

10.7-Zip

High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
Supported formats:
Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
For ZIP and GZIP formats 7-Zip provides compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
Self-extracting capability for 7z format
Integration with Windows Shell
Powerful File Manager
Powerful command line version
Plugin for FAR Manager
Localizations for 63 languages

11.Foxit PDF Reader

Foxit Reader 2.0 is a free PDF document viewer and printer, with incredible small size (only 1.5 M download size), breezing-fast launch speed and amazingly rich feature set. Foxit Reader 2.0 supports Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003. Its core function is compatible with PDF Standard 1.6.

12.Spyware Blaster

Prevent the installation of ActiveX-based spyware, adware, browser hijackers, dialers, and other potentially unwanted software.
Block spyware/tracking cookies in Internet Explorer and Mozilla/Firefox.
Restrict the actions of potentially unwanted sites in Internet Explorer.

13.AdAware Personal

It remains the most popular choice for home computer users around the world today, with nearly one million downloads every week.After using Ad-Aware, annoying pop-up ads, hijacked homepages and sluggish computer performance will be things of the past.And you can rest easy knowing that your personal information like bank details, passwords and credit card account numbers will be safe from sneaky spyware and hackers.

More to come...

memcached

memcached is a high-performance, distributed memory object caching system, generic in nature, but intended for use in speeding up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load.

Danga Interactive developed memcached to enhance the speed of LiveJournal.com, a site which was already doing 20 million+ dynamic page views per day for 1 million users with a bunch of webservers and a bunch of database servers. memcached dropped the database load to almost nothing, yielding faster page load times for users, better resource utilization, and faster access to the databases on a memcache miss.

Read More @ Danga.com

Windows installer for ubuntu

The installation of ubuntu is a major barrier to its spread and use. This project aims to solve this problem by allowing installation from within Windows using an install.exe file, and eliminating the need to partition the hard drive or burn a CD to install. It will allow a faster and more user-friendly installation for Windows users, the ability to install without the risk of data loss through repartitioning, and the ability to install on ultra-portable laptops without CD drives.

Read More @ Here

HTTP Conditional Get for RSS Hackers

What is a conditional get?

A full-length RSS feed is above 24,000 bytes long. It probably gets updated on average twice a day, but given the current tools, people still download the whole thing every hour to see if it's changed yet. This is obviously a waste of bandwidth. What they really should do, is first ask whether it's changed or not, and only download it if it has.

The people who invented HTTP came up with something even better. HTTP allows you to say to a server in a single query: “If this document has changed since I last looked at it, give me the new version. If it hasn't just tell me it hasn't changed and give me nothing.” This mechanism is called “Conditional GET”, and it would reduce 90% of those significant 24,000 byte queries into really trivial 200 byte queries.
Client implementation

The mechanism for performing a conditional get has changed slightly between HTTP versions 1.0 and 1.1. Like many things that changed between 1.0 and 1.1, you really have to do both to make sure you're satisfying everybody.

When you receive the RSS file from the webserver, check the response header for two fields: Last-Modified and ETag. You don't have to care what is in these headers, you just have to store them somewhere with the RSS file.

Next time you request the RSS file, include two headers in your request.. Your If-Modified-Since header should contain the value you snagged from the Last-Modified header earlier. The If-None-Match header should contain the value you snagged from the ETag header.

Read Whole Tutorial @ fishBowl

OpenWrt

OpenWrt is described as a Linux distribution for embedded devices.
Instead of trying to create a single, static firmware, OpenWrt provides a fully writable filesystem with package management. This frees you from the application selection and configuration provided by the vendor and allows you to customize the device through the use of packages to suit any application. For developer, OpenWrt is the framework to build an application without having to build a complete firmware around it; for users this means the ability for full customization, to use the device in ways never envisioned.

Read More @ openWrt.org

ChRoMicro - Cheap Robotic Microhelicopter HOWTO


RC model helicopter prices have reached a point where all sorts of challenging (i.e. crash-prone) robotics projects become affordable. This document explains how to build a 300 g helicopter with embedded Linux and Bluetooth datalink from off-the shelf components for less than 500 EUR.

Read Whole Tutorial @ Here

DllZ.net - Best Source For Dll files...

What is DLL?

A dynamic link library (DLL) is a collection of small programs, any of which can be called when needed by a larger program that is running in the computer. The small program that lets the larger program communicate with a specific device such as a printer or scanner is often packaged as a DLL program (usually referred to as a DLL file). DLL files that support specific device operation are known as device drivers.

The advantage of DLL files is that, because they don't get loaded into random access memory (RAM) together with the main program, space is saved in RAM. When and if a DLL file is needed, then it is loaded and run. For example, as long as a user of Microsoft Word is editing a document, the printer DLL file does not need to be loaded into RAM. If the user decides to print the document, then the Word application causes the printer DLL file to be loaded and run.

A DLL file is often given a ".dll" file name suffix. DLL files are dynamically linked with the program that uses them during program execution rather than being compiled with the main program. The set of such files (or the DLL) is somewhat comparable to the library routines provided with programming languages such as C and C++.

Tcpdump Recipes

Tcpdump is the premier network analysis tool for information security and networking enthusiasts and/or professionals. In my own primer I cover tcpdump basics; if you're interested in becoming familiar with the application via an introduction, I suggest you check it out first.

Here I'm simply going to give a number of recipes that you're likely to find useful during your day to day activities. They will range from common, general captures to complex filters designed to look for a number of unique traffic types.

Basics

Below are a few options you can use when invoking tcpdump in order to control the output. The examples given will be in the basic form of tcpdump $recipe, so remember to add your own options as needed.

* Basic communication // see the basics without many options
# tcpdump -nS

* Basic communication (very verbose) // see a good amount of traffic, with verbosity and no name help
# tcpdump -nnvvS

* A deeper look at the traffic // adds -X for payload but doesn't grab any more of the packet
# tcpdump -nnvvXS

* Heavy packet viewing // the final "s" increases the snaplength, grabbing the whole packet
# tcpdump -nnvvXSs 1514


Recipes

1. host // look for traffic based on IP address (also works with hostname if you're not using -n)
# tcpdump host 1.2.3.4

2. src, dst // find traffic from only a source or destination (eliminates one side of a host conversation)
# tcpdump src 2.3.4.5
# tcpdump dst 3.4.5.6

3. net // capture an entire network using CIDR notation
# tcpdump net 1.2.3.0/24

4. proto // works for tcp, udp, and icmp. Note that you don't have to type proto
# tcpdump icmp

5. port // see only traffic to or from a certain port
# tcpdump port 3389

6. src, dst port // filter based on the source or destination port
# tcpdump src port 1025
# tcpdump dst port 3389


Combinations

TCP traffic from 10.5.2.3 destined for port 3389:
# tcpdump tcp and src 10.5.2.3 and dst port 3389

Traffic originating from the 192.168 network headed for the 10 or 172.16 networks:
# tcpdump src net 192.168.0.0/16 and dst net 10.0.0.0/8 or 172.16.0.0/16

Non-ICMP traffic destined for 192.168.0.2 from the 172.16 network:
# tcpdump dst 192.168.0.2 and src net 172.16.0.0/16 and not icmp

Traffic originating from Mars or Pluto that isn't to the SSH port:
# tcpdump -vv src mars or pluto and not dst port 22

Traffic that's from 10.0.2.4 AND destined for ports 3389 or 22:
# tcpdump 'src 10.0.2.4 and \(dst port 3389 or 22\)'

Read More @ Here

Rapidshare.de hack...

hi,
you all have been using rapidshare for some data. And have to wait to download?
now don't worry... i have trie this and i succeeded..may be it not works all the times.

but give it a try...After going to rapidshare page of your download and countdown timer has started..
do these.

1.goto addressbar of IE
2.type 'javascript:void(c=0);' without single quotes in address bar of IE
3.press Enter

done!the counter is stopped...

Gpg4win..

Gpg4win is a installer package for Windows (95/98/ME/2000/XP/2003) with computer programs and handbooks for EMail and file encryption. Gpg4win and the software included with Gpg4win are Free Software. 

More @ Gpg4Win.org

Crazy-cheap DVD player to be sold in England for under $18

ASDA, the Wal-Mart-owned supermarket chain in the UK, plans to start selling the Durabrand DVD player for just £9, or around $18. While DVD players have shown up during sales for under $30 in the past, often creating mini shopping crazes, this is the cheapest one we've ever seen. Durabrand has even offered dual-screen portable players for under $300. This one looks to be sold at supermarkets as a last-minute purchase item alongside gum and gossip rags, maybe bringing DVD technology to the final 80,000 (the number they plan to make) people in England who don't already have them. We have to imagine that there will be DVDs for sale right next to the units, most likely the real purpose of the cheap player. It's not the prettiest things, but -- hey -- did we mention it's cheap?

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RocketDock 1.3.0 Final

RocketDock is a smoothly animated, alpha-blended application launcher that is similar to ObjectDock. RocketDock renders quickly like MobyDock, has the visual sharpness of Y'z Dock, and the stability that neither seem to possess. It is compatible with every dock skin format we are aware of. In fact, if you have a skin that doesn't load properly, send it to us, along with a screenshot of what it should look like and we'll see what we can do about integrating the format...

Features:

* Compatible with MobyDock, ObjectDock, RK Launcher, and Y'z Dock skins
* ObjectDock Docklet support
* Unicode compliant
* Simple drag-n-drop interface
* True multi-monitor support
* Supports alpha-blended ICO and PNG icons
* Icons zoom and transition smoothly
* Auto-hide
* Popup on mouse over
* Layering options
* Horizontal and Vertical offsets
* Fully customizable
* Runs great on slower computers
* Supports many languages and can easily be translated
* And best of all...its FREE

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How to install ANYTHING in Ubuntu!

Having problems installing something on your new Ubuntu operating system? "Where's the EXE?", "Where do I need to extract this to?", "How do I run it?", "Where did it go?" - have you been thinking questions like these? Don't worry, installing software, themes and other things on Ubuntu is actually very easy! This guide will help you understand with screenshots, instructional videos and to-the-point language. 

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Youtube to Start Sharing Revenue with You

Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube said at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland that Youtube will start sharing revenue with users starting in the next couple of month.  

iRiver X20 Widescreen Video Player

CNet Asia has a pre-release sample of the iRiver X20, a widescreen portable media player that holds up the tradition of fine iRiver products. The screen on this baby is 2.2-inches and sharp as a rusty tack in your foot.
The scrollwheel, however, is a little small. But the microSD card (why not just SD?), MPEG4/WMV support, FM radio, and great sound quality make up for its shortcomings. Although it's too late to fix the scrollwheel for its February launch, everything else seems to be in order. It's no (theoretical) widescreen iPod, or even Creative Zen Vision W, since 4GB of memory won't be holding many videos
 

AviPreview/VideoLan/DivFix - For incomplete video files…

 I am very fond of downloading avi movies from net using p2p (peer to peer) softwares like Kazaa Lite k++,BitTorrent etc.I am using this for downloading new movies which are of full DVD quality and in very less size than the original DVD.They are comressed with Divx/Xvid codec in AVI file which is MPEG4 video compression format.And for Audio, different formats like mp3,ogg,AC3 can be used.Due to this, its size decreases in a big ratio of Bitrate per Second of both Audio-Video.So these files are of “MAX QUALITY MIN SIZE” we can say.

What the main problem here is we don’t know about the quality of movies until we can see some part of it.I mean to say if we are downloading and say 15 MB downloaded then how you will see it?You have to see to know the quality of video and Audio.So here is the answer.

You can use AviPreview for viewing incomplete AVIs.Yes it is good tool because it is very small in size and no need to install.You just have to load the file in it.Before,you must stop downloading the file and then load it in AviPreview.And you are done!it will show you the movie upto it can.And you can decide what to do.

Now say AviPreview is not able to play the file at some point( At certain Frame in video if some error is there then it will stop playing file after that frame.).then what to do?I have the solution.

It is called DivFix.Yes,This tool is used for Re-Indexing of the AVI file.Don’t need to install it.Just load the file and it will make new AVI file for you.Then you can see it and decide to stop download or not.

Another good player is VideoLan player.Setup of this player is about 10 to 19 MB.Yes too big but it is very useful.It contains all the codecs for Video-Audio and can play any file(Except .RM - real media files. May be newer version has inculded .RM support.).It can even play any file if it is incomplete. Yes you heard it right.it is avi/mpg/dat/wmv don’t worry.VLC can play the file which is incomplete also.And it also plays direct streams from Internet URLs if your net connection speed is enough to take load of streaming!.

Links:
www.videolan.org
DivFix
Avipreview

SUPER, AutoGK And VLC — Great Tools For Video Encoding…

 SUPER
———————————————————————————————————
SUPER © Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer.
A GUI to ffmpeg, mencoder, mplayer, x264, mppenc,
ffmpeg2theora & the theora/vorbis RealProducer plugIn.

If you need a simple, yet very efficient tool to convert (encode) or play any Multimedia file,
without reading manuals or spending long hours training, then SUPER © is all you need.
It is a Multimedia Encoder and a Multimedia Player, easy-to-use with 1 simple click.

SUPER © is totally FREE to download and to use.
It plays & converts very fast full length movies
to any other format with NO time limitation.

SUPER © can also play and save Internet Media Streams
with different protocols ( mms:// rtsp:// http://)

Supported input source file formats are:
- Video format: 3gp/3g2(Nokia,Siemens,Sony,Ericsson) asf, avi (DivX,H263,H263+,H264,XviD,MPEG4,MSmpeg4 etc..), dat,
fli, flc, flv (used in Flash), mkv, mpg (Mpeg I,Mpeg II), mov(H263,H263+,H264,MPEG4 etc..), mp4(H263,H263+,H264,MPEG4), ogg,
qt, rm, ram, rmvb, str (Play Station), swf (Flash), ts (HDTV), viv, vob, wmv
- Audio format: ac3, amr, mp2, mp3, mp4, mpc, ogg, ra, wav, wma
- AviSynth Script Files: avs. Let you specify advanced encoding commands using AviSynth scripts!

SUPER HomePage

———————————————————————————————————
AutoGK
———————————————————————————————————

Program features support of:
- DVD/VOBs(unencrypted from hdd), MPEG2, MPEG1, transport streams (including multi-program ones) and AVI/DV input sources
- XviD or DivX(5/6) output formats
- AC3, DTS, PCM, MPA input audio tracks
- AC3, DTS, MPA, CBR/VBR MP3 output audio tracks
- two audio tracks in AVI
- external (vobsub) or internal (burnt-in) subtitles (with support of forced subs)
- HDTV input/output resolutions(upto 1920x***) and frame rates (50/60fps)
- automatic crop and resize based on compressibility of the source to achieve best results
- automatic detection of input source: PAL, NTSC, FILM, HYBRID
- automatic deinterlacer and IVTC
- automatic split into CD-sized chunks for main video and external subs.

AutoGK HomePage

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I have used both to encode MPEG1 (DAT VCD file).

-SUPER is great tool. No need to configure complex tools for it.Just click and your video is generated…
-AutoGK version 2.27 now supports MPEG1 (DAT/VCD) files to encode. It takes time to encode and generates too much temp files but does good.It uses VDUBMOD to encode.It is also good.

Finally…
I love VLC player. It’s ‘Save and Encode’ wizard does good encoding for you.It even takes bad files(corrupted i mean )and encodes it in MPEG1,MPEG2,MP4,DIVX,H26x,WMVx etc…And also supports audio encoding.great tool which is free and takes lesser time to encode.

VLC HomePage

Send unlimited free sms online…

yes, its true..

you can send unlimited free sms to your friends online.

just goto www.mobik.com and register.

Done!

What is Spring Framework for java?

Spring is a Light weight Open Source Framework for java which uses POJO (Plain Old Java Objects).

It can be used for any kind of application,services etc.
Its better then EJB as it takes less resources.

So when you think that EJB is not properly utilized for your bussiness logic or its too heavy and you can do it with some other things then you can give a try to Spring.No need to use its classes. you can use any of you class in spring.

i am new to spring but using it since last 3 to 5 months. What i got through it is..

-Easy to configure through the xml file.
-Easy to use. You can use any class with spring. You just need to define it as a bean in the xml context of the spring.
-Main thing - IoC (Inversion Of control) means “To give the inputs”. We can load the class through the xml and can pass input params in constuctors or property setter methods.
-And the best thing is - database Transactions and SPs. we just need to make seperate class for SP and Spring will handle all the things related to opening,closing connections,handling synchronization etc. we just need to declare SP, its parameters and resultsets.And you are done!
-very simple to implment.Basically i have only used it for JDBC conections.I made Interfaces and then DAO class implements it accordingly.Then just define the DAO class in xml file as a bean. You can take it as a target element of ‘TransactionProxyFactoryBean’ provided by Spring framework.

i will write more on this when updated myself.

btw, you can find more on it on google. just search spring and you will get lots of links.