If you want to play a particular video or audio you have to implement the suitable codec. If you did not have the right codec then you will not be able to play it. Most players like Windows Media Player, Winamp etc can play different multimedia formats for you. But many times these players cannot be able to play some audio or video files and will ask you to install the codec needed to play that file. I will tell you about some free and very useful players that you can use to play any multimedia format in your computer. You can use these players not because the above mentioned players did not have the capability to play them. Instead there are free and light weight alternatives for these players which you can use to play any audio or video format. QuickTime Alternative QuickTime is the most popular streaming video and audio format on the internet. You have to install the QuickTime player in order to view QuickTime (.MOV) videos. The QuickTime player is free to use, but there are some restrictions and you can only view the file and cannot be able to download it. You can use QuickTime alternative to play and download .MOV files and it is free to use and light weight. Real Alternative Real video format (.RA and .RAM) is also one of the most popular media formats. You have to install Real Player to watch these videos online. There is an alternative that you can use to play this format without installing Real Player and it is called Real Alternative. SMPlayer For a long time I am looking for a player that can play any format. Unfortunately, I need a different player for playing some other formats like .flv files. I am looking for a player that can play these kind of video and audio files too and I found one. That is called SMPlayer. SMPlayer, in my experience can play virtually any format I want. It can play .mov, .ra, .ram, .flv, and lot of other formats. This is the best player I ever know that can play these many different formats. This is functionally the best player that I have used. So if you are looking for a free and light weight player for playing any files then you can use this without installing any codec.
Note: Still you cannot play some formats then try installing codec packs like KLite Mega Codec Pack.
Search engines are experimenting with new technologies to provide users with precise results. Searching the web is like finding new ways to easily access what you are searching for. We as users explore and experiment using keywords. So for a user using the right keywords is the way to find what he is searching for. A user generally searches for accessing or concentrating on a particular topic. He generally wants to find answers to his questions. So he wants more choices. A search engine provides users with relevant results, but it is possible that there may be at least a few irrelevant search results. As we navigate through results for a particular keyword from one page to other we become more and more distant from the topic we are searching for. That is the number of irrelevant search results increases. A new kind of search engines are emerging that will try to provide users with more relevant and related search results as possible as they can and they are known as discovery search engines. A discovery search engine is not like an ordinary search engine. It did not try to provide users with pages that are related to a particular keyword; instead they will provide users with results based on the web pages they are currently visiting. So it can be called as a "real time" search result generation engine. In order to get a web page as a result you either have to enter the URL of the web page or type a keyword related to that page in a search engine. Then only you can use a discovery search engine to discover new pages similar to that web page. So a discovery search engine cannot be used as a "primary search engine". It is a "secondary search engine" because you have to start your search with a keyword typed in a search engine like Google or Yahoo etc. When you get a relevant result from these search engines, and you click on that link to land on that page, from there on you can use a discovery search engine to discover and explore more pages like the web page you are currently visiting. Ambiently Ambiently is a discovery search engine in its beta. It is considered as the first discovery search engine in the world, but anyway it is the most popular discovery search engine now. Getting started with Ambiently is very easy. First point your browser to Ambiently website. There you will see a small button on the left side at the top. You have to drag and drop this link button into the navigation bar of your browser or bookmark it. Now like what I have said before start your search with Google or other search engine and when you land on a web page just click on the Ambient Page button to get an Ambient page similar to that web page. There is a small Jump button that you will see on the right side of links generated by Ambient. When you click on this button you can get results similar to a web page link without directly landing on that page. This will help you find what you are searching for more easily. Benefits of Ambiently What is the use of a discovery search engine like Ambiently? The web has a complex structure. The information we want did not reside on a single page. It is scattered among different pages on different websites. A search engine cannot index all these pages. The probability of these pages appearing in a search result depends on the keyword used to describe that page, page rank, and lot of other features. So if the page is not optimized to be crawled by search engines the possibility of that link appearing in a search engine is nil. Most importantly it depends on the keywords you use. If the keywords you used to search a term is similar to the page containing the information you want, then only you got that page as search result.
There remains lot of Web Pages that are not properly indexed or unknown by search engines because of these. This is where discovery search engines come into play. A discovery search engine tries to break the "right keyword" barrier between a search engine and a user there by providing them with more relevant search results. What Ambiently do? According to the creators of Ambienlty:"Most obviously, Ambiently is simpler than a search engine. On a search engine, you need to think of a good query and type it into a search box. Using Ambiently, all these steps are unnecessary. With Ambiently, all you need to do is to click a button. That action leads to a list of web links related to the current web page. In other words, every web page now is an automated "search engine" for a special topic, i.e., the topic of the page.
One of the biggest problems with today’s search experience is that we often know roughly what we want but cannot easily think of the right query. Sometimes our need is broader than a simple query can describe. With Ambiently, this action is not necessary. You get relevant web information by one click.
Using a search engine, you get web links related to your query. However, you also get web links related to the Web Pages you are reading, viewing, or enjoying. As the noted author Peter Morville said, the future of search will be "a future where search and browsing work together." Ambiently is doing just that."
A home music studio helps you edit and create music at your own home like a pro. Here is how to setup convert your computer into music engine. You need the following components to get started. 1. A computer with decent configuration. 2. Sound card 3. Speaker 4. MIDI Keyboard 5. Adobe Audition 6. Head Phone
The computer system not only has a good configuration but also has addition features like CD/DVD writer and a 240GB hard disk is recommended. The sound cards and speakers should be of good quality. The quality of these two components are very important because they play an important role in deciding the Input and Output sound quality. A sound card inbuilt in your PC is not suitable for music editing. You can opt for some other sound cards like . Most of them are really cheap and if you the money you can opt for high end sound cards.
Speakers output sound and you need a good speaker to determine the output sound quality. A MIDI keyboard is a must for music creation. Most modern keyboards support MIDI and if your keyboard did not support MIDI then you can get one easily. With a MIDI keyboard you can play keyboard, guitar, drums, flute, and lot of other music devices just using your keyboard.
To record sound you need a good headphone. Try to select the best quality headphones always. They are not just listening devices, but also recording devices. If the headphones are of poor quality hence will the quality of music.
Another very important thing you need is a music recording and editing software. There are lot of software tools available out there. If you are a beginner or professional, I recommend Adobe Audition, which is the best music recording tool I ever know. It is fun and easy to use. No prior training is needed to record and create music with Adobe Audition. If you are a podcaster then this tool will be the most indispensable part of your life.
Finally, you need a clean and lonely room to get started. The room should be without any background noises or disturbing sounds. This is very important if you want to setup a home music studio. If you have all the above components then you can easily start your own home music studio.
Panda is one of the most popular and widely used security suite in the world. Now you have got a chance to get Panda Internet Security free for 3 months. Microsoft currently is running a "Protect your PC" campaign to make PC users aware of the security issues their operating system faces and take them seriously. It is a known fact that because Microsoft operating systems are used all around the world, they are always susceptible to malicious attacks. Microsoft as a result is partnering with Panda to provide free antivirus protection to its users there by encouraging them to protect their system. Anyway this is a great oppurtunity for you to act! Download a free copy of your Panda Internet Security Suite today. Features of Panda Internet Security Suite 2009 *Anti-Phishing Filter *Anti-Malware Protection *Anti-Banking Trojan Engine *Anti-Spam protection *Advanced Proactive Protection *Anti-Rootkit *Automatic Backup and Restore *Web Filter *Firewall *Parental Control
Online applications can be used to convert your files to different formats . The benefit of using such services is that you did not have to pay for using many of these services. There are some incredibly useful sites that will help you convert your file online. Here I will mention some of the most popular file conversion tools online. Zamzar: Zamzar is the most popular file conversion tool online. Zamzar is not a completely free file conversion site, but the basic service is free. You can convert 5 files of 100MB size at a time. It allows you to convert your files to lot of popular formats. It also supports video conversion. You can also become a paid user by paying a monthly fee. This will help you do unlimited file conversion and access to online storage space for storing your files.
Mediaconvertor: Mediaconverter is a one stop solution for your audio and video file conversion needs. It allows you to convert your videos and audios to almost every popular format. You just have to upload your file and select the format to which you want to convert your file. The service is bit slow, but still does a good job considering the fact it is completely free. You can also convert videos from YouTube, Metacafe, and other popular video sharing sites by providing their URL and pressing the convert button. It also allows sharing of converted files. Freefileconvert: Freefileconvert is another great tool you can use to convert your files online. It supports about 30 different file formats and the file upload limit is 100MB. It also supports video file conversion. So you can upload a video file up to 100 MB and convert it to your preferred format. Freefilecovert is the best video converter I ever know. The features it offer is simply stunning. You can not only upload large video files but also decide the quality of your file by specifying whether the file is to be compressed or not. If you allow compression the file size can be reduced. You can also use it as an online downloader for YouTube. You simply have to enter the URL of a YouTube video in order to convert it. Primopdf: PrimoPdf is an online tool to convert your documents to PDF. PDF is the most popular document format on the web. So it is the best format for sharing your files online. You can use Primopdf to convert any type of document to PDF using this online service. In order to convert a file you have to either upload the file or provide a URL of the file. After successful completion of conversion of the file it will be sent to you as e-mail. Since Primopdf allows document conversion only, the file upload limit is 5 MB which I think is pretty good. Vixy: Vixy is an online file converter with a difference. Vixy allows you to convert .flv videos to be played in portable devices like iPhone, and other portable devices. In order to convert a file online you just have to enter the direct URL of the flv file and select the format to which you want to convert your file. The conversion tool is free to use and there are no restrictions. Youconvertit: Youconvertit is your ultimate destination for converting files into different formats. This is an online tool which allows you to convert files to virtually any format. So if you did not find the format to which you want to convert your file anywhere, then just visit Youconvertit. It also allows you to send the converted files as e-mail.
"Google Wave is a new communication service which is previewed at Google I/O. A wave is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."
There are lot of download managers that offer you the facility to download files from Rapidshare. If you are a premium member you can use any download manager to download your files. If you are a free user you cannot use a download manager to download files. Even if you download the file there is no guarantee that the file works because the file hosters are making constant modifications to prevent these kind of downloads. So if one download manager works for a day then it is unsure that it may work for any longer. My quest for the best, free, and most importantly a working download manager for free is almost in vain. It is recently that I heard about JDownloader, which is a free download manager with lot of features and that supports not just Rapidshare, but over 100 different other file sharing services. So I decided to try JDownloader to download some files from Rapidshare. Downloading files with JDownloader is easy and it also offers you a lot of benefits. First you can copy the DDL link to a Rapidshare and paste it in JDownloader to download it. You can also drag and drop the link into JDownloader. You can paste as many links as you can and each file will be downloaded one after the other. Another great benefit is that you did not have to fill captchas or remain in queue to download a file. JDownloader will automatically do this task for you. Amazing features of JDownloader. JDownloader has so many features that you cannot expect from a free Rapidshare download manager. The first and the foremost thing is that it is free and open source. It can auto complete captchas in about 26 different file hosting services and it supports more than 100 one-click filehosters. It allows you to create a list of files by copying and pasting the file into JDowloader or you can make it automatically do this by allowing it to monitor your clipboard. It also allows you to download multiple files from multiple filehosters simultaneously. It has a reconnect feature which will be configured so that DSL users can automatically obtain an IP. It has lot of other features like a file upacker, a password list manager, plugin support, and even allows you to select a preferred server from a particular filehoster. After you have downloaded JDownloader you have to run the file named "JDownloader.jar” to start the installation process. Then you have to select the download location for all your files. Before installing JDownlaoder make sure that you have installed the latest JRE in your computer.
Now you can start downloading files with Rapidshare. It is pretty cool and easy. Before you start downloading files you have to accept the Terms of Services for all file hosting services. It may take some time before a download starts because if you are a free user then waiting time cannot be bypassed. But you did not have to intervene in the download process. The files will be downloaded automatically once the waiting time is over. A very important thing you have to do is, whenever JDownloader prompts you to update it, then do it because otherwise it may not work. These updates are patches for different new features and modifications to bypass JDownloader included to a file hosting service. You have to update JDownloader frequently to continue downloading files for free. JDownloader is the best Rapidshare downloader you can get and it is completely free and open source. You can download this handy application here. Linux users can visit this link to download JDownlaoder.
Graphic designing is a very lucrative carrier. It provides a lot of opportunities. The benefit of learning graphic designing is that you can work as a freelancer or in reputed companies. The amount of money you can make is also immense. Moreover, the satisfaction of doing what you like and earning from it is amazing and this is also one of the reasons why lot of people want to learn Graphic designing. A online crash course that will give you basics ideas about graphic designing, its challenges, and opportunities, and provide you with detailed descriptions, insights, and online resources which is easy to follow is published in PSD TUTS. I find these tutorials simply amazing and going through these basic lessons will help you estimate your talent and plan a successful carrier in Graphic designing. I truly recommend this basic course in graphic designing for those want to know about graphic designing and those who want to jump into the world of Graphic designing. Follow this link to get a great insight about Professional Graphic Designing.
SnagIt is the most popular screen capture software you can get. It is a professional screen capture tool that provides you with all you need to create stunning screen shots within just a few clicks. Professionals and non professionals, bloggers, and students will find this tool very useful. But even it is a very useful tool it is not free. SnagIt is a shareware, so you have to pay for it. Now you can download a legitimate version of SnagIt for free online. An old version of SnagIt, SnagIt 7.2.5 is available for free now. If you do not want to miss this wonderful opportunity then visit this link. You can register yourself with your email address and name here. You will be sent the key for unlocking SnagIt 7.2.5 version. Note:You will be sent the registration key only. You have to manually download the trial version of SnagIt 7.2.5. To download the trial version of SnagIt 7.2.5 click here.
Online Armor is one of the best firewalls in the market now. Online Armor is available as a free download just for today and it is not another give away of the day offer. You will get Online Armor with a 1-year license. So you will be entitled to get full support and updates until the license period expires. Developers description of Online Armor. "Online Armor - is a Personal Firewall to protect your money, identity and your Data. Whether you’re browsing, Transacting or receiving Email; Online Armor can protect you. This award winning software is easy to use right of the box.
The powerful “HIPS” functions, which is designed to stop all unrecognized programs from running on your computer, makes it possible to protect yourself against new threats and attacks.
In standard mode, most decisions are made completely automatically based on Online Armor’s whitelist - users never need answer a complex firewall prompt again.
Online Armor protects your passwords and private information from being stolen by blocking keyloggers as they try to activate. Online Armors behavior detection ensures that even specially created or new keyloggers are detected and prevented." In order to learn more about this offer and download your free copy of Online Armor click here.
Searching is a online activity we do the most than anything! Because we have to search hard in order to find what we exactly need. The way we now search are using keywords. Using keywords may affect the quality of our search because most people search online because they have a doubt in mind. We always think in terms of What, How, When, and Why rather than this and that. In that sense even if the search engines are doing a good job providing us with results they are not actually providing us with "factual" data. These results are based on keywords. We have to use the right keywords in order to get the right results. So search engines today are not providing the data with meaning, but with keywords. The need for a factual search engine arises from this thought. Wolfram Alpha is the brain child of Dr. Wolfram at Harvard University. Wolfram Alpha allows us to type our queries as questions and it will provide us with meaningful answers with relevant and useful data. The first thing I typed in to Wolfram Alpha is "Who is Mahatma Gandhi?” The answer I got is quite surprising and satisfying. It identifies that Mahatma Gandhi is an Activist and provide me with basic information about him like his full name, date of birth, place of birth, date of death, and place of death. It also provides me with a timeline of Gandhi's life. I type few other questions like "Who is Abraham Lincoln"? etc. But when I type "What is a firewall?" it provide me with the result of a movie named Firewall and its box office collection etc. So if you want to know the box office collection of a movie then this is the best way. Type in the name of the movie and you will get it. The search engine or COMPUTATIONAL KNOWLEDGE ENGINE, which is the name with which the creator of Wolfram Alpha like to call it; provides lot of other features too. That is why it is called as a computational knowledge engine rather than a search engine. It basically, I think is not intended to provide you with search results, but to interpret your natural queries into a machine understandable form and provide you with the right answers. So it is more of an "answer to question computational engine" than a search engine. In other words, it is the marriage between knowledge and intelligence blended with search technology. So if something like Wolfram Alpha will become popular then knowledge will become more accessible and the internet will become more valuable. Wolfram Alpha provides additional features like Comparison of stocks. One example given in the Wolfram Alpha website is that of the comparison between Apple's and IBM's stocks. The results you got are stunning and detailed. It will immediately provide you with the correlation coefficients, annual return, average daily return, and annual volatility like an expert with great precision. So you can use Wolfram Alpha to compare and analyze stocks too. Another cool feature I noted in Wolfram Alpha is that when you enter the name of a town you get the details like the population, current time, weather forecast etc all in a single page and that is very useful. Then it can answer your mathematical queries. If you select the Mathematics section you can use Wolfram Alpha to provide you with solutions to the even the most difficult problems in mathematics. The date and time section provides you with detailed reports of a particular date, its features, most important happenings in history at that day etc. It also can provide you with information and answers related to lot of other categories like Statistics and Data, Physics, Chemistry, Materials, Engineering, Astronomy, Earth science, Life Science, Technological world, and lot more. Wolfram Alpha is available as a add-on for Firefox3 and you can also download Wolfram Alpha plug-in for IE. IE8 users can download the Accelerator for Wolfram Alpha. It is also available as a widget for Widows Vista, and a gadget for iGoogle. Windows (XP/Vista) users can download a deskband version of Wolfram Alpha. You can even download Wolfram Alpha to your iPhone. To learn more about downloads you can click here. The computational engine is I do not think related to the so called search engine war in any way because when search engines try to take you from websites to websites Wolfram Alpha tries to find solutions for your problems by analyzing, processing, and retrieving data from the internet and other database sources. So it will be more helpful to academics and researchers than ordinary surfers. But it is just a beginning and Wolfram Alpha is still in its early stages, so we did not know what is going to be the future of this great computational engine, but it will defenitely the way people search. Dr. Wolfram, the founder of Wolfram Alpha has lot of plans for his new and amazing web tool. In the near future we may see Wolfram Alpha partnering with some big names on the internet. The future is, I think going to be bright for Wolfram Alpha which is considered one of the greatest inventions in computing by many experts. The only drawback that we may consider about Wolfram Alpha is that most people did not use natural language or questions regularly, they still like to use keywords because of the fact that they are quite accosted to it. But who knows, it may the invention that will change the way we search and use search engines forever.
YouTube Embed Magic Tool is an amazing widget from blogger-templates.blogspot.com that will generate embed codes for YouTube videos without annotations or search bar. You simply have to enter the URL of the video you want to embed in a webpage and press the OK button. You will get the embed code for the video in the textarea just to the bottom of the input box. You can access YouTube Embed Magic Tool here
Yahoo Sideline is a great twitter tool, but it is not just another Twitter tool. It will not show your followers or tweets. You can use Sideline to search twitter by using keywords. When you open Sideline it will display a list of most popular topics in twitter. You can expand each tab by clicking on the small plus icon. This will display three latest tweet related to that topic. You can also create your own favorite tabs by using your own search terms. You can include multiple search queries to topics you create. This will help you find all the latest tweets about the topics that are of your interest. For example, you can create a topic named cricket and then track tweets related to it using multiple keywords like IPL, Preity Sinta, Knight Riders, and Rajasthan Royals. You can also narrow down your search results to a particular keyword or phrase, tweets by particualr person etc.Sideline allows you to favorite tweets and you can reply them by clicking on the Reply option. Yahoo Sideline is a great twitter tool, especially if you are interested in a particular topic. Moreover you can use it to track down your favorite tweeters, reply to them, and all within a nice cool interface. To know more about Yahoo Sideline click here.
You might have noticed the balloon tips that appears in the desktop notification area. These tips are useful at times, while they are annoying at some other times. We can remove this option from Windows XP using a simple registry editing. 1. Type "regedit" in the Run dialog box. 2. Navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced". 3. Find the option that says "EnableBallonTips". 4. Double click on it and change its value to 0. Note:If you cannot find this option simply create a new DWORD Value named EnableBallonTips and then change its value to 0. To re-enable the option change the value to 1.
