Description: Automen is a free GUI for Mencoder that can perform video conversions across multiple formats and encoders. It supports XviD (for AVI encoding), FLV, X264 (MP4 for Ipod/PSP/PS3), WMV, MPEG4, MPEG2, and Huffyuv and is designed to be simple and straightforward for quick video conversion.

I will not mince words: this little program has unexpectedly come out of nowhere to become one of my favorite video conversion program hands down. The primary reason for this is in it’s user interface: the design is simple and makes sense, yet delivers a high degree of control and advanced functionality. Here are the top 8 reasons why this program rocks:

1. Set output width, not output resolution: you can tell Automen, for example, that you want your output video to be 640 pixels in width and it will determine what the height should be based on the input video aspect ratio. This is a good thing, as one thing I do NOT understand in most video converters is their insistence on the user defining the full, fixed output video resolution (e.g. 630×480), which is totally needless and in many situations results in converted movies with aspect ratios that are out of whack. You will not have to worry about wrong aspect ratios with Automen.
2. Encode by desired file size, not bitrate: how many people know what bitrate is? Not many, yet many video conversion programs insist on asking the user for their desired video bitrate. Instead these programs can do what Automen does and ask the user for the desired video size in megs, something which everyone can understand (the larger the video the more bitrate it can give you and the higher the quality). If you must adjust the bitrate manually, however, you can do so in the “advanced settings” tab.
3. Supports multithreaded processing: i.e. will take advantage of multiple core CPUs for faster conversion (check the box in the lower left corner of the ’basic settings’ tab to turn this on).
4. Offers multiple encoding quality settings: aside from setting the output size, which will greatly influence the output quality, you can select from a number of encoding presets (e.g. single pass or two pass, slow or fast, etc). In this case the tradeoff is between quality on the one hand and how quickly you want the conversion to be completed on the other.
5. Process only video, only audio, or both: simply check the appropriate box in the “advanced settings” tab. You can extract (demux) audio tracks from video files by checking the audio tab and unchecking the video tab.
6. Split output videos into multiple files: simply set the size in megs for each desired chunk to split into.
7. Normalize audio: for your audio track, whether as part of a video or when demuxing. Check the appropriate box in the “advanced settings” tab for this.
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Description: DVDnextCOPY iTurns Manager is a free program that can convert iTunes DRMS protected tracks to normal unprotected MP3s. It installs a virtual CD-writer driver and takes advantage of the option to burn tracks to CD in iTunes in order to capture and re-encode protected audio files to normal MP3s.

I’ve always had an interest in the various software that can remove DRM protection from MP3s, and with iTunes becoming the biggest music retailer in the US I am sure that a lot of people out there would love to find a solution for stripping DRMS protection from their purchases. If this applies to you I present the very strangely named yet rather brilliant “DVDnextCOPY iTurns Manager” (and yes it actually is iTurns, not iTunes, no typo there!). I tested this program on DRMS protected MP3s downloaded from the iTunes store and it worked brilliantly. Here’s more info on this program:

• How it works: it takes advantage of the option in iTunes to burn DRMS protected audio files to CD. It will install a virtual CD-writer driver on your machine that you burn to instead of your actual CD writer, and subsequently captures the data then re-encodes it as a normal MP3 (without the need for an actual physical medium).
• Tags/metadata: are fully preserved in the resulting MP3, including album art.
• Requirements: iTunes has to be installed, and it has to cooperate; (i.e. it has to play the DRMS protected songs). You cannot simply remove the DRMS protection of a track that, say, is copied from a friend’s computer as your iTunes will not play those to begin with.
• Re-encoding: be aware that your music will be re-encoded rather simply being stripped of the DRMS (output file format supported is MP3 only in the free version). The good news is that all information is digitally transferred rather than re-recorded, as the case would be in a straight recording program like Mp3MyMp3. If you like to get as close a copy of the original as possible you can make the re-encoding settings as close to the original audio file as possible.
• Legality: according to the developer’s site, this program is actually perfectly legal and does not violate copyright law. This is because DVDnextCOPY iTurns Manager does not actually alter or strip the DRMS protected files from their protection, but rather uses them to encode new files. The tracks also need to be legally yours in the first place as confirmed by the fact that your iTunes will actually play them.
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As you may have noticed, my site has been going offline frequently these days. Apparently this is because for some reason it is consuming too much of the shared hosting server’s CPU power.

This is not due, say, to a sudden increase in traffic (my traffic has more or less been pretty stable over some time now), no’r does it seem to be caused by any newly implemented changes in the site code itself (as far as I know there aren’t any). I am thus somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed in terms of getting this problem fixed. The people at my hosting company, Webuilders, have actually been rather patient and flexible in terms of communicating with me and managing this issue, but I still don’t know what to do…

I’ll figure out some sort of solution sooner or later I’m sure; I just wanted to let everybody know that this situation will hopefully be dealt with soon and in the meantime I apologize for the inconvenience.

Description: The Underside is a free action adventure platform game. It offers a low-res retro-graphics look, an explorable world, and fast-paced story-driven gameplay interspersed with humorous and whimsical commentary.

I downloaded and started playing this and quickly realized that it is so much fun that I had to post it (it also has a certain dry sense or humor that also adds to the game experience). This game is similar to the classic free platformer "Cave Story" in its look and feel as well as basic concepts and gameplay

This game by and large aims to be "plot driven", which is why I have to mention the storyline, which goes something like this: in the beginning "the Universal King" made a flat world that was initially good but then became bad so he wasn’t happy with it, "flipped it over" and started another world which became known as the "overside" (conversely, the world below became known as the "underside"). This arrangement worked out fine for a while but then that world in turn became "bad" and the Universal King, apparently running out of ideas, decided to wipe out the whole thing. Before doing so, however, he decided that if a single person proved to him that they can be good, he might forgo his destructive impulse. That person would be your character, destined to travel into the underworld and perform some good deed whose nature I am somewhat unclear on. Here are more notes on this game:

• Game dynamics: you start off being able to run and jump but soon find weapons and other useful objects that add to your abilities (e.g. extend your maximum health points, give you a bouncier jump, etc). Other collectibles are various food items to replenish health and coins that remain after killing baddies that you can collect for points.
• Graphics and sound: the game offers original "chunky" retro graphics and an original console-style soundtrack, both of which work really well to add to the game experience.
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Description: Snapact is a free, stylish image viewing and management software that offers a good range of image manipulation and management functions, including tag and metadata editing, a drop basket, and the creation of virtual albums which can be uploaded and shared using the free online Snapact photo sharing service.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while then you know that I am always on the lookout for “stylish” image viewing software (e.g. Twins Visions, Pictomio). What’s different about Snapact is that while these programs previously sited tend on average to be resource hungry or have high 3D requirements, Snapact does not (uses around 23 megs in memory when running). On the other hand what Snapact manages to do is to retain a pleasing “coolness factor” while offering a lot of nice features both for image manipulation and image management (but especially the latter).

What also needs to be said about Snapact is that it is very much a desktop front-end to the free Snapact image sharing service; which is to say that it is designed for seamless integration with your online Snapact account. Having said that, I also have to note that you can use this program as a local viewer and image management program without signing up or using the online component. I had been using this program as a local image viewer for a week, in fact, before I decided to review it and only then did I sign up for a Snapact online account for the purposes of writing about it. More notes on this program as follows:

• Carousel-style browsing: similar to the famous iTunes carousel, this is not only fashionable these days but rather cool, and the implementation here is a very good one (fast, efficient). When viewing an image all of the other images in the same folder are displayed as thumbnails in the bottom part of the screen and will enlarge in turn as you mouse over them. Or you can simply use the left/right arrow keys to browse back and forth, as you would with any image viewer.
• Image editing functions: rotate, crop, blur, sharpen, brighten/contrast, redeye, adjust tint/color, and negative and black and white image filters.
• Image managent functions: edit or add tags to your images, edit other metadata (including rating, title, description, etc), view metadata (simply hover over any image thumbnail), add to album (an album is a kind of virtual folder or category), synchronize album(s) to your Snapact online account (this is optional), add to mini-basket (a handy work area where you can drag images or other files you would like to work with).
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Description: Tiny Watcher is a program that can create “snapshots” of your system that it uses to identify changes to your system including changes/additions to the registry, drivers, as well as programs or processes running for the first time on your machine.

I started looking for a program like this one after a recent posting of a program that downloads streaming media and which was billed as “portable edition” on it’s home page (”installation: none”). As such I assumed that it was precisely that - portable - and that therefore like any truly portable program it did not write to the registry - which didn’t turn out to be the case. What did turn out to be the case was that (a) it did indeed write to the registry, but, more problematic, (b) it installed two drives on my machine without notification and (c) it did not provide an uninstaller that removed these.

Hence I started looking for a tool that I could use to detect and/or reverse this sort of thing in the future, and Tiny Watcher is what I found. Here are more notes on this program:

• How it works: Tiny Watcher will create a “snapshot” of your system the first time it is run and from that point it can perform comparisons with that snapshot every time that you restart your computer or whenever it is run. It does not run in the background at all times consuming resources. Although it will not intervene or block anything being modified or taking place on your system it can tell you about these changes after the fact and give you the option to remove them. Note, however, that you as the user will need to recognize/identify problematic changes and remove them; Tiny Watcher will not provide information on changes or a magical “Fix It” option.
• What it monitors: to quote the their website “running process (including at logon time), startup registry keys, services registry keys, other sensitive registry keys, sensitive directories (c:’, Windows directory, “system32″ directory, etc), other sensitive files, scheduled tasks”. It will tell you which application performed the change or created the file, which is very useful. Read more »
  

Description: Split Browser is a Firefox plugin that can"split" your browser into multiple panels, enabling you to view multiple web pages simultaneously in the same Firefox window. It is useful in situations where you would like to be able to surf the internet using a part of the screen while maintaining another site, web mail service, or web app etc. visible in another part of the screen at the same time.

I first saw this plugin being used by a colleague at work who was using it to keep a page on display at all times in the lower part of the screen that displayed his "tickets" (we use a "ticketing" system in our office to assign tasks), while doing his normal browsing in the upper part of the screen.

Which of course prompted me to start thinking about other pages that someone might want to be able to see alongside their normal surfing activity, e.g: web-based email, streaming internet radio or music services such as Pandora, online to-do and productivity software like GTDAgena or Vitalist, online instant messaging services such as Meebo, online note-taking services, and, naturally, the various social networking sites, etc.

Of course it is possible to have something quite similar to what Split Browser does by arranging sperate Firefox windows around your screen (for example using a program such as WinSplit Revolution), but Split Browser does the job elegantly and seamlessly inside Firefox. Here are more notes on this program:

• Number of split browsers: You can add as many split browsers as you like and place them anywhere on screen (top/bottom/left/right). I had 6 sections going on at once at one point.
• How to create a split browser: right click on the tab or anywhere on the page and find the "split tab to" context menu. Or otherwise hover ove r the edge of the frame and a little arrow will appear on the side that will create a split browser window for you in that side of the screen.
• Synchronized scrolling: makes scrolling actions in any one window apply to all other split browsers which have this option enabled. Although this option appear in the main "split menu" I found that you have to enable it individually for each desired window for it to work.
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Description: GTD-Free is a multiplatform, free task management program that is based on the “Getting Things Done” (GTD) methodology. It aims to be lightweight and simple while offering a wide range of features such as editable lists, projects, priorities, etc.

This program will appeal to both (a) users who are knowledgeable about and/or use GTD to get organized, as well as (b) users who do not know much about GTD but are looking for a good task-management tool to help them get better organized. I would classify myself as being more the latter than the former or perhaps somewhere in the middle. For the purposes of this review I will pitch GTD-Free as an organizing tool for everyone and explain some of the GTD principles employed in it.

More notes on this program:

• GTD-Free in practice: I would actually say that as far as task-management programs go GTD concepts make it easier to interact with and use this program as compared with other to-do programs. The reason for this, I think, is that GTD seems to really be a note-taking or idea-recording method that then expands on these thoughts and notes in order to create actions out of them; which is to say it “eases” you into creating actions while encouraging you to put everything down in writing as a precursor, making it more likely that you will actually use the program.
• The learning curve: is much shorter than you would expect even if you are new to GTD. I would advise on importing the example template and starting there (and it includes a list of GTD related tips and info). Also looking at the descriptions of the various pre-defined lists will give you a very good idea as to what these are and why they are there. The program also employs tooltips that appear whenever you hover over an element that tell you what it is.
• Installation: GTD-Free is a single executable that you can place anywhere and run. It is not really portable as it creates and writes data into a “.gtd-free” folder on your root drive. It also requires JAVA 1.6.
• The user interface: is brilliantly conceived, IMHO. GTD-Free is structured around five tabs (Overview, Collect, Process, Organize/Review, and Execute), which both represents GTD very well but also in my opinion is a very practical structure from a user’s point of view.

Here are more notes on each of these five aforementioned tabs:
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Description: ComiX is free comic strip browser that downloads and displays more than 150 comic strips browsable by their publication date.

An interesting little gem that puts many of your favorite comic strips at your fingertips for quick browsing. Here are some notes on this program:

• Available comics: the version I tested supported 156 comics including well known entries such as Garfield, Doonesbury, Fox Trot, Ziggy, Andy Capp, Dick Tracy, Gil Thorp, etc; however, some of my favorites were conspicuously absent, such as Dilbert, The Far Side, Peanuts, and Calvin and Hobbes. A quick peek into the INI file seems to suggest that the source for these comics may be http://www.ucomics.com/.
• How to use: select your desired strip from the dropdown, then click on the "back" or "next" buttons to scroll backwards and forward in time (the button in the middle is "today’s comic"). Alternately you can select the date you want from the date dropdown and zoom straight into the comic strip for that particular date (note: not all comics have a daily edition, and if you choose a day for which no strip exists there will be a bit of a lag as the software tries to download a nonexistent entry before it finally gives up).
• Slide show: this one is a bit easy to miss. Click on the little "slide show" icon in the bottom right and then set the direction for the slideshow (backwards or forward in time, using the "back" or "next" buttons).
• History: what is truly amazing is that you can go back in history to the very beginning for these comics (although I’m not sure if this applies to all of them). For example I was able to view the first Garfield strips dating back to 1978.
• No install: simply unzip this program and run. All comics will be downloaded and stored locally inside the program folder.
• Offline browser: when offline, ComiX can still browse any strips that you were viewed previously that it saved locally.

Wish list (or how this program can be even better)
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Description: Mp3splt-gtk is a free multi-platform tool that can split large MP3 or OGG files without re-encoding. It offers a number of different ways to do this, including autodetecting silences, using a a local CDDB or CUE file, and downloading album and track length info from freedb.org . Other options include splitting by fixed time segments and unwrapping Albumwrap or MP3wrap files.

If you need a program that can split large MP3 or OGG files, look no further than Mp3splt-gtk. What makes this program noteworthy is the number of different ways that it offers to determine split points inside your audio file. Here are more notes on this program:

• Split by autodetecting silences: you will need to provide the parameters for this such as the threshold level to mark a "silence", the cutpoint offset (0 is the beginning of the silence, 1 is the end), minimum silence length to detect, how many silences to process, and whether to remove the silences between tracks. It actually is quite easy and intuitive; you’ll be on your way the first time you use this method.
• Downloading album info from the internet: (my favorite feature) if what you are splitting is a commercially available recording you can simply search for the audio/album you want to split in the "FreeDB" tab and select the correct match from the list of results. Mp3splt-gtk will use the downloaded track length information to determine the split points, which you can then audit and/or modify if needed in the "splitpoints" tab. This is also a great way to import tag info into your split files.
• Create, view, and edit splitpoints: you can do this visually from the "player" tab (press the play button to get your audio file to load and play your file using the internal player; can also use SnackAmp as an external player). Or you can click on the "Splitpoints" tab and create or edit split points there by typing in or editing time values (by minutes, seconds, and hundred fractions).
• Split by CDDB or CUE files: if you have access to these Mp3splt-gtk is able to use this information for quick audio file splitting.
• Wrapped files: can process files created with Albumwrap or the open source MP3Wrap (these programs can convert multiple audio files into a single file while enabling playing the components individually and maintaining tag information).
• Split by fixed time segments: also supported.

Wish list (or how this program can be even better)
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