Arista Transcoder - Video conversion tool for Ubuntu

Every now and then, you find it necessary to convert your video format to some other format to fit it into your mobile device, ipod or any other video player. If you're on windows you may use Videora, or Total Video converter. But when you're on Ubuntu, you may find it very difficult to find the right package. But here's one which's too good, very simple and very intuitive.

Arista Transcoder.

As its website says, it is the easiest way to convert your media. Arista comes with a whole lot of features.

Video formats it supports are : H.264, MPEG2, MPEG4/DivX, VP8, Theora, Flash Video.

And some of the audio formats are : AA3, Vorbis, OGG, FLAC, Speex and WAV.

If you're not sure of the format you want to convert it to, you can just right away select the device to which you're converting the file to. Just select any of the following device from the list: Android, Computer, DVD Player, iPhone/iPod/iPad, Nokia N Series or Web.

In addition to all this, you can create a video using your webcam directly and store it in any of the formats as said above. You can also create presets and store them and share them with others. You can visit the preset page of arista transcoder for more information. 

Screenshots: http://www.transcoder.org/screenshots/

Installation Instruction

Arista Transcoder being Open-source, you can download the code from their website and compile it.

Or you can straight away download it from your Ubuntu Software Center.

Or in your terminal, you can just type in

sudo apt-get install arista

Hope that saves a lot of time for you.

gtalX - a gtalk for ubuntu

gtalkx

Its still in the version 0.0.5. And its still not something that's very friendly.

What's good?

Its simple.

You can make voice calls. (was a hard thing just a few days back).

What's bad?

You can't log out unless you quit.

You can't change your status message or icon.

What's buggy?

Don't know whether its a bug or a super power - you can see invisible people. They are shown in the list of people who are online. Though you cannot make any contact with them. :)

Download the debian package from the link here: http://sites.google.com/site/jozsefbekes/Home/gtalx

Install it by running the following commands in command line.

sudo dpkg -i gtalx_0.0.5_i386.deb

or if you have 64-bit Ubuntu then

sudo dpkg -i gtalx_0.0.5_amd64.deb

Once it is done, run

sudo apt-get -f install

To remove gtalx just type

sudo apt-get remove gtalx

Google Gears - Offline Gmail

I always love Google for its extreme ideas. That is why my blog has lot of posts on Google stuff. Google gears is an offline way of handling Web sites. The best one is the Google mail. Gmail.

Now you can access your Gmail inbox while you are offline. Here is an how-to guide for that.

Step 1: Go to gears.google.com and install Google gears.

Step 2: Open your Gmail inbox with any browser. And go to the labs section. To go to the labs section, click on the green conical flask shown on the top-right of your screen along with options like 'Settings' and 'Sign out'.

Step 3: Enable the 'Offline Gmail' option here. And then save changes.

Now your account will be reloaded with one more new option called 'Offline' near the labs 'settings' option. Clicking on that will take you to the Offline mode. When you do this for the first time,  all your mails, attachments photos and everything will be copied on to the system. So don't enable this option if you are using public computers.

Now you will have a shortcut to Gmail on your desktop. Click that. Login. Then go Online and your new mails will be downloaded to your system. You can then go back offline and check your new mails.

If you have lot of mails in your inbox, the first time download is a painful task. Try it! :)

Google Gears is not just confined for GMail. There are lot other websites that can be handled with Gears.

Google Earth 5 - What's New?

I hadn't been using Google earth for a long time. But after considering the lot of fuss being made on twitter and other communities, I thought of trying it out myself. It was, as always, nice.

The new features added to this are

Oceans - Earlier versions of Google Earth of course had oceans but not clear enough. With the new Google earth 5.0, nooks and crannies on the surface of the earth inside the oceans can be viewed. That makes it so good. Now you can dive into the ocean and check out some deeps!

History Imagery - The earlier versions of Google Earth showed pictures of locations which were taken sometime back. Now, Google Earth can take you back in history and show you how the locations looked like.

Recording Tour - Sharing your tour route has always been troublesome while explaining it to others. But not anymore with your Google Earth 5.0. You can now record your tour with a click of button. Click on the record button and fly through the destinations you went by. Click stop and then you can save the tour route. Upload it to YouTube and share it with the world. Simple! Isn't it?

3D Mars - Now this is my favourite. Google Earth had already released the sky view in its previous versions. The clarity was just quite lousy. Now, Google in collaboration with 'NASA' has released this new feature - 3D Mars. By selecting Mars from the Toolbar,  the surface of the Mars can be viewed with clarity and resolution high enough. You can see Mons Olympus, the biggest Volcano in the solar system. All those things you read in General Knowledge books can be experienced now. Isn't that Cool?
Check out this video released by Google through its blog.

Windows Live Writer

Microsoft has answers to almost everything. This is one among the several thousand software released by Microsoft. Windows Live writer is a must have for a professional blogger. I must say.

Live writer is a blogging Client. Not just for Live Spaces, but for all. Just download this software from here and zoom into the software to see what magic this software can do. Posting was never so easy.

Install Windows Live writer. Type in the username, password and your blog URL when asked. The Writer automatically detects what kind of template you use and downloads the template. If you are using a custom template, then the writer writes a post by itself to detect what kind of formatting your blogger needs, and soon after that the temporary post created post will be deleted. Since the template is downloaded onto your computer, working offline is so easy and user friendly. Inserting Pictures, Tables, videos and tags is easier than ever. Extra plug-ins can be added. Check out!

Software can be downloaded from this page.
http://download.live.com/writer

Don't miss this.

BS Player - Audio Video Player

For all the music lovers and who love keeping lot of music players in their stash, then they shouldn't miss this player.

BSplayer.


Its new and its versions are already on the net :) Only thing that sucks is their website which loads and loads and keeps loading. You'll feel that it'd keep loading forever. The free version is just no more than a simple player but the full version is lot better. One feature that its website largely claims to is the capability of the software to play and download youtube videos directly. I'm not sure if they know that its no big deal to download youtube videos for free.

I rate the free version 4 out of 10.

Download the software from their site www.bsplayer.com or www.bsplayer.org.

gAlwaysIdle - Be idle on google talk

Google Talk does not allow users to decide when their status changes to 'idle' and back. The result is that others can tell whether or not you're at your computer.

gAlwaysIdle adds two new options to Google Talk, allowing you to change your status to be 'always idle' or 'never idle'. When your status is set to 'always idle', you'll appear idle to your Google Talk buddies, even if you're sitting at your computer typing e-mails and sending IMs.

System Requirements:

• Google Talk Client
• Windows XP/Vista (no 64 bit operating system)

Screenshot:














Download Link:
http://www.4shared.com/file/79037493/5b12cef9/gAlwaysIdleSetup.html

eBoostr - Use Flash drive as RAM - Speed up your PC!

You might have heard of this Readyboost if you are a windows vista user. This is one technique by which you can use your pen drive as an extra random access memory (RAM) for your computer. When you insert a Pen drive into your Vista OS machine, you'll be given an option to boost your computer memory with USB along with other options like "Play media files", "Open folder to view files" and et cetera. This is one real helpful software. But people with windows xp need not worry.
Coz eboostr is here.
Yes, this new software is similar to ReadyBoost in Vista. It works in XP. And now you can boost up your XP OS computer's memory without much work.
You can boost up your computer using memory card reader also. Same application. Eboostr.

Requirements:

• Microsoft Windows XP
• USB 2.0 port version or external card-reader
• USB flash drive or flash card with at least 64 MB free space

Download Link:
http://www.4shared.com/file/79035850/cdbde1a0/eBoostr.html


If you want to buy the full version of eboostr($29) check their site.
Site link: http://www.eboostr.com

Switch - Audio Conversion Software

Switch
Converting audio formats becomes often necessary. This is when this software comes in handy.
Its easy. Just drag and drop. Select the output format. And click Convert! Thats it.

Features:

• Automatically normalise audio while converting.
• Import multiple file formats at the same time and convert to one output format.
• Ability to play tracks prior to conversion.
• Import and convert a playlist (m3u and pls).
• Import video files and extract audio (avi, mov, mpeg)
• MP3 encoder supports constant or variable bit rates from 8 to 320kbps with optional error correction and stereo modes.
• WAV encoder supports sample rates between 6000 and 196000Hz in PCM as well as a number of other audio codecs.
• Allows up to 32000 files to be converted in one batch.
• Can be run from the command line for automation with other applications.
• Optimized CPU usage and efficient code allows for fastest conversion times.

Typical Applications

• Convert wav to mp3 files to save hard drive space.
• Convert mp3 to amr to load your own ringtones on your cell phone.
• To open or convert strange or audio file formats not supported by other audio software you use.
• Extract audio from video files (favorite sound bites) for your phone or other audio player.
• Convert multiple format audio files to mp3 for your iPod, PSP or phone.
• In professional audio studios to open formats not supported by your sound editor.
• As a command line plugin for other software to convert or compress audio files.

For more information visit their website brought to you by NCH Softwares.
Link to their website: http://www.nch.com.au/switch/

Download the free version here:
http://www.4shared.com/file/79030755/8155a220/switchsetup.html

Must download these things for your computer

There are certain softwares without which your computer is no more than a dead machine.

When you first finish installing Windows XP and the drivers, your machine will be like a new born baby. You got to pamper it to grow it up!
Just download these things. Your computer will grow into one cool gadget machine.

Open Office
If you don't have Microsoft Office and you badly want to use your documents and excel sheets, then there is an alternate thing for Microsoft Office. Its Open Office. Open office being an open source is free to use and distribute and also to change its code. This is a real cool software which gives you all the features that are in MS Office and more than all that, it gives you peace. There can be no legal issues with the licensing and all that. This is free to use. You'll never have this guilt of using something pirated.
Link given below. Link directs you to their site. Open Office is brought to you by Sun Microsystems. Say thanks while leaving the site.
Download page:
http://www.openoffice.org/
http://openoffice.bouncer.osuosl.org/?&product=OpenOffice.org&os=winwjre&lang=en-US&version=3.0.0

Adobe flash Player
Flash animations are as common as texts in dictionary. With youtube.com growing into such a huge site, its impossible to stay on internet without a flash player. Adobe's flash player is a must download for every internet surfer. Download it here.
For latest updates on adobe flash player, check their official website.
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

Download link:
http://www.4shared.com/file/79028740/10f066b1/install_flash_player.html

Adobe reader
No computer is complete without an adobe reader. Everything now comes in PDF formats. Be it your timetables or documents from some government site. Everything is in PDF formats. You need adobe reader to it. Download this from here. Do read the adobe's Terms of Service before downloading. There are certain restrictions on it. PDF's are meant only to be read. You are not supposed to manipulate any text in a PDF file. You can only read them. So don't expect text manipulating stuff from this Adobe reader.
For latest updates and their ToS, check their official webpage. Click on the link below.
http://get.adobe.com/reader/
Download from the same above site>

VLC media player
I guess there's no person who's not aware of this software. VLC media player just rocks. Its simple interface and extensive features make it more reliable than any other player listed below. This is in no doubt a best player i've ever seen. Download it from here.
Download Link:
http://www.4shared.com/file/79035050/c3aeb018/vlc-098a-win32.html



GOM Player
This one helluva player. For all the people who have sticked to VLC media player, check this player for a change. Its one easy looking software with some coolest tools. Program the player to switch off after playing or shut down the computer after playing, full screen stretched, full screen normal, change the size, add external subtitles are some features of it. It opens up pretty quickly and interface is cool. Download it from here.
Download Link:
http://www.4shared.com/file/79029269/e56d1919/GOMPLAYERENSETUP.html


KM player
This is yet another player that I love a lot. Its winamp like interface may look a bit eery. But its features baffled me. Got all the features that GOM player has got. So i give this also a "Must download" rating.
Download Link:
http://www.4shared.com/file/79037123/be2dd5d9/The_KMPlayer_1434.html


AVG Free
There was a time when parents used to tell their children "God is everywhere". But now, its the age when people say "Viruses are everywhere". Its very important to safeguard your computer. But no antivirus softwares come for free. But here is one. AVG has got its Free version out. Its cool. It heals pretty good. My personal best. No need to pirate. Gets updated by itself. No worries of getting black-listed. :)Download it from here and enjoy. Happy surfing.
Download it from http://free.avg.com/

Google Picasa 3
Coolest Picture editting and managing software. Make posters, collage, video or anything. Enhance the quality of pictures. Fill light. Give effects like sepia, black and whie, saturation, tint and many more. I love this "I'm feeling lucky." feature provided by this software that almost brings life to some pics. "Retouch" is a mind-blowing picture editting tool. So easy to operate. Upload pics directly to your Picasa web album with no much difficulty. Must download if you have lot of pics on your computer. Can't match Photoshop. But more than enough for medium users.
Download Link:
http://www.4shared.com/file/79033149/87c00c16/picasa3-setup.html


Free Download manager
As the name itself says, its free. If you are crazy downloading lot of things from net, then this software is for you. Pause, resume , stop. Do anything. Just drag and drop the links to its drop box which will be present on your screen always in the fore. Queue as many as you want. Download starts automatically when your computer starts. and pauses automatically when you shut the computer down. And the best part is, it supports torrents too. So no need to download seperate torrent clients for it. But keep in mind that its just a download manager and not a download accelerator and gives you considerably best rate your connection can. Its free to use. Download it from here.
Download Link:
http://www.4shared.com/file/79029911/a8a2e80d/fdminst3.html



Mozilla 3
If you are a browser junkie, then you should have Mozilla3.
Its free. Its available in their website. Download link given below also. This is an open source and you can get its source code if you want to customize it. This is an easy to use web browser with built in download manager. Yet its not so good when handling files of sizes greater than 20 or 30 mb and when your download speed is below 30kbps. It sometimes fails to resume paused downloads. But browsing is faster than anything else.
Click on the link to download.
Download Link:
http://www.4shared.com/file/79026032/542ff0ec/Firefox_Setup_305.html
If link's broken, go to http://www.mozilla.org/download.html