I found a really cool FREE iPhone app today called DateCam S. I needed to take some photo’s and I wanted to have today’s date actually burned into the pic, so anyone looking at it would know exactly when it was taken. A quick search of the app store revealed this jewel, which is now a permanent addition to my app collection. You can check it out on HERE on the Apple App Store.
Now I can look back to a time when there weren’t any houses on the hill across the road, and know when it was. Somehow, I get the feeling that hill won’t be house-free for too much longer!
If you have a Windows based computer, and someone sends you a Quicktime video, or if you have a Mac, and you want to watch an AVI or a WMV video, your computer just isn’t going to play it for you without some additional software. Over the years I have experimented with a lot of different programs, but there really is only one program users of all platforms require – Videolans VLC Media Player. It will play just about everything (including DVD’s and Audio Cd’s), regardless of your operating system and installed codecs, it supports playlists for audio and video, supports sending and receiving streams, and has tons of tweaks to allow you to adjust everything from brightness and contrast, to Digital Audio pass-thru for those of us using Dolby Digital/DTS enabled audio cards with Digital Coax or Fibre Optical SPDIF audio outputs. Below are the supported video playback formats:
And the supported audio playback formats:
These are the supported Audio/Video outputs:
There are also some filters that you can apply to the playback.
The main one I find useful is the de-interlace filter, which stops you getting the “stripped” effect when watch fast moving scenes in a interlaced video (like shown below)
VLC Media Player also supports many formats of subtitles:
But the best part about VLC Media Player, it is ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Mac users, Have you ever wondered how you can ad video’s to iTunes and have them show up under the “TV Shows” headings? This is done via the files meta tags. To make adjusting the tags easy, download the free program Lostify from Major Geeks, and as you will see from the screen capture below, there are plenty of options that you can easily adjust to make your files appear where you want them.
The programs official description is:
Lostify is a metadata tagger for MP4 videos. It runs on Mac OS X, and the tags it produces aim to be compatible with iTunes, the iPod video (5G), and Front Row. This means that after you tag a video using Lostify, it will show up in iTunes, iPod and Front Row appropriately as a TV Show, Music Video, etc., with all the episode information, season information, etc. intact.
Windows Users, The best I can find for you is a program called Atomic Parsley. It’s a command line tool, and free, but I don’t think you will be very happy with it. I Will keep searching for an equivalent and post here if/when I find one.
My Friend Jena has a pretty funny blog called “Mothballs don’t cover stink“, in which she shares stories of her adventures in “HR”. Jena also has a very popular blog for her Siberian Husky “Turbo” called “World Of Turbo“, which is also well worth a look at. Today Jena sent me a button that she made for The Webernets, that she intends to display on her cool blogs. If you would like to display it on your blog, please save it, or hot link from the image below.
You’ve been a great and loyal friend over the years Jena! Thank you! I would also love you to review that Roku box on this site, and any other tech stuff you feel strongly about! If you feel like you would like write an article or two here let me know, and I will send you a log in.
I have been extremely caught up in “Apple Magic” lately, and I was all set to buy the new Apple TV 2. Upon digging deeper, I found that Sir Stevie doesn’t want us watching those crude .avi files on his gorgeous looking, ultra small box with an insanely slick user interface. BOO! Trouble is, EVERY video I have on my FreeBSD FREENAS server (200+) is in an AVI container encoded with the open source XVID codec, or in the case of my HD Vids, MKV format. In other words, the basic free open source standard formats that everybody is using when sharing video on the internet. All the TV shows and video’s I converted from VHS video cassettes, the home movies from the many video cameras we have had, and a swag of other video’s we have accumulated over the last 20 years, have all ended up in AVI format. When I have wanted to send a video to somebody, I have found that pretty much everybody who can receive a video to watch on their computer, can watch an AVI, so that has become my standard format when creating/saving video. The problem is though, Sir Stevie wants you to convert all of those videos to his Quicktime based formats, and if you don’t comply, you can’t watch your videos on his device….DOUBLE BOO!
Today, I set out to look at the D-Link Boxee as I learned it was capable of plaving AVI’s, and along the way I discovered Western Digital’s WD LIVE TV HUB. After 5-10 minutes on the iPhone researching, we left Office Works with one!
Within 5 minutes of un-boxing it, it was up and running. All I had to connect was the power cord, a HDMI cable to the TV, and a Ethernet cable to my network/internet connection. It updated its own firmware quickly and automatically, and before long I was watching my videos from my FreeBSD FREENAS server on my Samsung LCD TV via the WD TV Live Hub
I am VERY Impressed with this device, and will post updates as they arise.
Two years ago I was telling everybody how I thought Twitters days were numbered, and I expected it to be swallowed up by the Facebook Juggernaut, but today it seems to me like it has justified itself, and holds steady as a platform of its own (Watch the bird fall off it’s perch tomorrow now I have said that). I am noticing more and more now sites that are feeding updates to Twitter, and I have created a Twitter account for The Webernets as a result.
My Question now, is, what is the best plugin/method to pipe your WordPress posts to Twitter?
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
