Windows | Nerdlets

Free Media Players and Media Tools

Nov 102008

Some time ago I posted this introduction to free software, promising a series of articles about good free products available for all your computing needs. The promised posts have been slow in coming, but the next in the series is ready for release! You can find other posts in this series here.

This post will lost a couple of free alternatives to popular media players, such as Windows Media Player and iTunes.

Free vs. Free

Of course, WMP and iTunes are both free, aren’t they. Yes they are in the sense you don’t have to pay for them. But both are tightly controlled by companies that want to sell you there products, and there is therefore a cost attached. WMP, for example, requires you to buy a license for DVD playback. You probably didn’t know this since the cost of the license is embedded in your Windows installation, but it’s true. If you’ve ever had to re-install Windows, only to find that DVDs no longer play, you propbably had occasion to learn this. iTunes also has its problems (what software doesn’t), but prime among them is DRM. When you buy Music off of iTunes it is protected in such a way that it only plays on products you own. This is fine, most of the time, but what if the store in question stops supporting your music? Or what if you want to play your music on another product? Bottom line: it’s still their music!

Really Free Media Players

So here are a couple of selections if you want alternatives to iTunes or WMP.

VLC Media Player. This little guy plays every media type imaginable: DVDs (out-of-the-box), mpegs, windows media, mp3s, etc. Let’s put it this way: I never encountered a format that it can’t play. This should be on your computer, if only to be able to play anything you want to. But in addition, VLC offers powerful conversion tools and other handy features, making it an all-in-one media management solution. Want to play a file that a friend sent you that’s in same weird format? Try VLC. Want to convert a DVD so it will run on your iPod? VLC can do that too! Want to setup a server to stream music to your friends on your own personal internet radio station? Well, you get the idea. One disadvantage: VLC lacks a good media library, so it won’t be your default music player.
Songbird (get the 1.0 release here). Songbird can be your all around iTunes replacement. Simple, pretty, with lots of plugins to help you get it running just the way you want. I’ve been using it for awhile, and since it is now out of Beta it is ready for the masses. It’s based off of Firefox, with all the advantages of a built-in web browser, infinite plugins, and open-source code. Great for the iTunes user, and it runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Interested? Check out this review.
Foobar2000. An excellent Music player and media manager, especially for the advanced user who knows what words like FLAC, ogg, and bit-perfect mean. It has plugins for almost everything, including your ipod. It’s not the prettiest (though recent versions are much improved), but it does everything, including rip your CDs with double-check for accuracy and automatic replay-gain scanning! It is a Windows app, but runs on Linux perfectly using WINE.
Others: There are a couple of other media players that those comfortable with experimenting can take a look at. First, Amarok, which runs on Linux and apparently on Windows (though I have not gotten the latter to work). Winamp is also popular, though I haven’t used it in years.

Other Free Media Tools

The software above is great for playing videos or music, but you might also need tools to manage your files. Here are some that I use.

Handbrake. All-in-one video converter. Allows you to convert one video format to another, with a special emphasis on easily turning DVDs into iPod videos. You can find other media converters, including some that circumvent copy protection, here.
Orb. Share your music with your friends.
CDBurnerXP. An all-in-one CD, DVD, and Blu-Ray burner. A simple tool for what should be an easy job.
Other video tools: check out this post for more converters.

A Little Love for our Mac Friends

Software No Responses »

Nov 022008

Open source software isn’t just for Windows and Linux. Most of the best and the brightest run on Macs too. Check out this list of 25 useful free software programs for you Apple.

Linux Users Take Note: Free Crossover Software Tuesday Only!

Linux 1 Response »

Oct 272008

If you are a Linux user then Tuesday October 27 is your day. The premium software company CodeWeavers lost a bet and, as a result, are giving away their software on Tuesday for free. From their press release:

On Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008, any one visiting the CodeWeavers’ Web site (www.codeweavers.com) will be given a deal code that will entitle them to one free copy of CodeWeavers’ award-winning CrossOver software. Each copy comes complete with support.

“I realize that by giving away all my software, I’ve caused horrific damage to my company’s bottom line,” White said. “In fact, our vice president of sales wretched Starbucks all over his shirt when he learned the news. But, I figure, the way the economy is going, in a few months everyone might be out on the streets, wearing potato sacks and standing in line for squirrel soup, so why not?”

The CrossOver software (CrossOver Office and CrossOver Games) is a enhanced commercialed version of WINE, which allows Linux users to run many Windows progams. It is based off of WINE, only friendlier, fancier, and optimized for MS Office and Windows Games respectively. This is serious software, and free on Tuesday only (usually between $40-$70), so take advantage.

Curious about the nature of the bet? Well, let’s just say George Bush gets the credit on this one. Read about that here.

How to Type in Greek Part IV: Polytonic Greek, Linux Edition (Ubuntu)

Biblical Greek, Software 8 Responses »

Oct 252008

The “How to Type in Greek” series of posts is designed to help you set-up your computer to type Ancient (Polytonic) Greek using a Unicode Font. Be sure to check out Part I (on Unicode), II (on setting up Windows), and III (on recommended Fonts).

Introduction

This post is designed to show Linux users how to set-up a Polytonic Greek keyboard, with particular attention to Ubuntu. The goal is that our keyboard will function identically regardless of Desktop Environment or application—QT and GTK should each work flawlessly, and both KOffice and OpenOffice.org (as well as any other native Linux applications) should generate identical Greek characters. Once your keyboard is setup you will be able to dynamically switch between Greek and English in any application.

Before getting started you may want to read two previous posts in this series. (1) This post explains the advantages of Unicode and its usefulness (and necessity) for typing in Greek. (2) Once you have your keyboard setup, you will need to read through this post to find an open-source Greek font that implements all the necessary bells and whistles for typing in Ancient Greek (all the fonts listed are compatible with Linux).

A Guide by Vern Poythress

The most important resource for Polytonic Greek in Linux is this guide by Vern Poythress of Westminster Seminary. This is an excellent guide, complete with links and special files that will help you get the perfect setup. The only difficulty is that it is not distribution specific. In general this is a good thing, but I ran into problems with Ubuntu due to their default input method under 8.04, and the setup is much easier in 8.10. If you have problems with the steps below, follow Poythress’s guide.

Ubuntu 8.10

Polytonic Greek works out of the box in Ubuntu 8.10, much to my surprise (see the comments to this post; thanks Simos). To get it working, right click on your panel and add the keyboard indicator. Next, right click on your new keyboard indicator and choose “Keyboard preferences.” This will bring up a dialog. Choose the layouts tab, then the Plus button. You choose your layout by Country then by Variant. You want “Greece” and the “Polytonic.”

That’s it. Everything should be working, though you may want to follow Poythress’s guide to tweak your keyboard layout a bit. If your would prefer to use SCIM, which is a different Input Method particularly useful for complex characters (and which might solve problems with compatibility issues), follow the guide below on Ubuntu 8.04.

Ubuntu 8.04: How to Set Up SCIM

Ubuntu, and several other GNOME-heavy distributions (like Fedora), do not use SCIM by default, which is the preferred input method for complex characters (accents and the like). You will therefore have to set it up manually, which is not difficult. Here are the steps I used for Ubuntu:

The latest versions of Ubuntu provide a pretty simple way of doing this. You just need to set a couple of language options. You need to allow for complex character creation. System –> Administration –> Language Support. Check the box for “Enable support to Enter Complex Characters.” This tells X.org that you want to use SCIM, rather than the default input method. You do NOT need to install anything else, so ignore any notices that tells you otherwise, and don’t select any languages. You are only concerned about characters and keyboards. Now you will need to restart.

When GNOME boots up again, there will be a little keyboard icon in your taskbar. Right-click on this icon and select SCIM Setup. Go to “Global Setup.” You should see a list of various Input Methods. You need “Other – English/European” . Check that box, Apply, then close out of the dialog. You may need to restart again, but it shouldn’t be necessary. You will now be able to use the keyboard icon to select the preferred Input Method. I have English/European set as default, but you can always move between different methods if you like. Just click on the Keyboard icon, and select what you want to use. Whenever you type in Greek you will need to be using “English/European” in order to get all the accents.

Moving to SCIM as the defult input manager may result in a couple of problems

(1) You may loose some shortcut features in Nautilus as a result of certain SCIM implementations. Nautilus allows you to type to select folders and files, and with SCIM this might no longer work. There is an easy fix, however. At the command line, type: im-switch -c . Select scim-immodule. Restart your x-server and you should be good to go.

(2) Regardless of distribution, you will need to install extra software if you use Virtualization technology, such as VirtualBox or VMWare.

For Ubuntu (or other Debian-based distributions) search for and install scim-bridge-client-qt and scim-bridge-client-qt4 in Synaptic, or just type the following in a Terminal:

sudo apt-get install scim-bridge-client-qt scim-bridge-client-qt4

All Distrubutions: Setting up your Keyboard

Now that you have SCIM set up and everything else working, you can install your Greek keyboard. Right click on the gnome panel and select “Add to Panel.” Select “Keyboard Indicator” and close out of the dialog. Right click on your new panel item (which probably says something like “USA”) and select the “Preferences” option. Click the “Layout” tab, then add a new layout. You need to add the “Greece” keyboard and the “Polytonic” variant. You can now switch to the Greek Keyboard layout by clicking on this panel dialog, or you can set a keyboard shortcut for alternating between keyboard layouts (I have keyboard-switching set to the Caps Lock key).

These steps provide you with all the necessary fundamentals for enabling Polytonic Greek in Ubuntu (or other distributions). But this is Linux, so the customization options are endless. You can, for example, remap certain keys so that they are more intuitive (such as the breathing marks). For this, and other hand tricks, follow Poythress’s guide, start with the section on “Adding Keymaps.” You can skip the section about the “Compose” file, which is unnecesary once you have SCIM working.

Enjoy all the polytonic goodness!

Free Office Software: OpenOffice 3.0 Released!

Linux, Software 4 Responses »

Oct 132008

In honor of the release of OpenOffice 3.0 I thought I would make it my first post in the Don’t Pay for Software Series.

What is OpenOffice.org?

It is an office document suite, similar to (but better and free-er than) Microsoft Office or (for those of you who still use it) WordPerfect. Now don’t be nervous because it is free; there are good reasons to choose free software. It’s not free because it sucks, its free because it’s managed by a community of dedicated enthusiasts. The company that finances these enthusiasts makes money selling services and hardware, not software; the software is merely a means to an end, which means you get to have all the benefits of a professional grade office suite without all the cost.

Why OpenOffice.org?

What if you already have Microsoft Office? Are there any benefits to OpenOffice not available from the mainstream flagship office suite? I’m glad you asked. There are several. First, it’s free. Now this may not matter to you now, since you already have shelled out the money for MS Office, but what about when it comes time to upgrade? That time will come, you know, and before you know it. Then you will have to shell out that money all over again for what usually amounts to only a slight improvement over the original.

There are other advantages as well. Ever try to send a document to someone only to find they could not read it? Maybe they were not willing to pay all that money for Word, and now you have to convert it for them. This is all because Microsoft has a history of not supporting standards. That is changing, but it has not changed yet, so all your data is saved in a format that only Microsoft’s products can read. OpenOffice.org, by contrast, can read all your old MS Office files, but by default saves all of its information in “OpenDocument” formats. The code for these formats is made public, so any program can theoretically access them. Also, OpenOffice can automatically export all your documents as PDFs.

This is the main advantage that OpenOffice has over MS, but I would like to reiterate: in addition to this advantage, OpenOffice does almost everything else MS Office can do, and much of it can be done more easily!

What’s New in OpenOffice 3.0

Well, lots of things. Read about all of them here.

There are four features that I am especially excited about.

First, the new Welcome Screen. Aesthetics matter, and here MS Office has us beat hands down. But the Welcome Screen helps, and it also allows for easier document creation and template management. And with Windows at least, you also get a handy little quick-launch button in your taskbar.

Second, better document editing and commenting in Writer. This feature really helps OpenOffice compete with MS Word. Previously these features were pretty primitive, but now OpenOffice supports multiple editors (each editor gets a different color) and true comment display in the sidebar. This is really a plus in my book.

Third: a new, intuitive, and hugely important extension manager, similar to that implemented by Firefox. Extensions are were Open Source software really shines. Because the code is not secret, anybody can look at it and, if they’re good enough, improve upon it. Rather than add all these improvements into the original program, it is much easier, much faster (the powers that be have to approve any code changes to the base system), and much safer to provide those improvements through easily managed extensions. OpenOffice.org makes this process easy, with a dedicated extension manager that allows the user to easily search for, add, and remove functionality at will. My favorite extension so far is Zotero Integration, which allows you to automatically generate formatted citations and bibliographies in your documents. Another handy extension is the PDF Import Extension, which allows you to directly edit PDF files.

Finally, OpenOffice Impress (the equivalent of PowerPoint) is now ready for prime time. With dedicated table creation and other new features, this component of the suite is finally competitive. There is also a new extension available that allows you to use Impress with two screens, one for them, the other with notes and other helps specifically for your. Read about that here.

For a full review of OpenOffice.org, with some attention given to the Mac version, check out this post.

Alternatives

There are several Web based alternatives to OpenOffice. Google docs is the most obvious, but also check at the Zoho suite of products. These are both free. The best thing about these products is that they offer you access to your documents anywhere in the world. All you need is an internet connection; no software required. Also, both offer real-time collaboration, so you and a colleague can work on the same document at the same time and both see what the other is doing; all changes are saved and completely undo-able. Nice. Aside from these features, though, they are not yet as feature-rich as their desktop alternatives.

The other alternative I will mention is IBM’s Lotus Symphony. This Office Suite is based off of OpenOffice, actually, but an older version (the 1.0 series). It bundles that older version with a set of IBM tools for document management and collaboration. In general, however, I have found it less stable and feature-full than the “vanilla” OpenOffice, and it does not import Microsoft documents as accurately.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantage with OpenOffice is the lack of any email/productivity manager, such as Microsoft’s Outlook. This is actually not a huge problem since Mozilla’s Thunderbird will do the job quite nicely. Add the Calendar Extension and you have everything Outlook has to offer (combine it with Gmail and Remember the Milk, and you have an always-in-sync online version as well). A full post on this is coming soon.

Conclusion

So I would suggest giving OpenOffice.org a try. You have nothing to loose. Their main page is here. Versions are available for every operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux).

FlashWorks Helps you Learn Greek Vocabulary

Biblical Greek, Software No Responses »

Sep 192008

I have had past experience with Mounce’s Flashworks software, a free Windows and Mac program designed to help you learn Greek, but it has gotten a serious upgrade since the last time I checked. Here’s the description on Mounce’s Website:

FlashWorks is a vocabulary drilling program. Each word is tagged for difficulty, type (noun, verb, etc.), chapter, and frequency in the Biblical text. You can then ask for any cross section you wish, such as “all verbs occurring more than 30 times in the New Testament that occur in chapters 16 through 24 in the text and which I have tagged with a difficulty rating of three through five” (five being the most difficult for you). FlashWorks remembers words as you get them right and/or wrong and can automatically set the difficulty rating.

The download is a paltry 6mb, which is a good thing. Databases for the language (i.e., the actual vocab) are downloaded separately (though Greek is included). This, again, is a good thing; it allows the program to be modular, which means the same basic program can be used to learn any language. Databases are currently available for Greek, Hebrew, French, German, and Spanish. And you can always create your own.

You will need to download and install special fonts for Greek and Hebrew (links are available on the site), although it appears that Greek is included in the install. The software uses TekniaGreek and TekniaHebrew, which points up one big disadvantage to FlashWorks and the Teknia fonts: they are not Unicode fonts. If you don’t know what this means, or don’t know why unicode is important, check out my previous introduction to Unicode. The lack of unicode support is why I did not include the Teknia fonts in my list of Great Greek Fonts.

Installers are available for Windows and Mac, and it works beautifully in Wine on Linux (on Ubuntu). And did I mention it is free?

I do have a few qualms. The interface is terribly ugly, and the whole thing could use a usability overhall. Making your own word lists could be easier. I would love to be able to select/tag words in order to create a chapter-specific Machen vocab list, for example, but as it is that would be too time consuming. But it gets the job done, and that’s the important thing with Greek: memorize the vocab, then you can move on to more important matters!

Dropbox: Part Sync, Part Backup, All Good

Software, Webapps and Websites 4 Responses »

Sep 112008

Backup is important. You never know when your hard drive will give out (and it will, someday), or when some killer virus is going to wipe your data, or when you are going to be a bonehead and accidentally delete that all-important file.

Backup is important, but an online backup offers further advantages. It can be slow, to be sure, but it protects you in ways that other backups can’t (fire, theft, etc.). It’s a good idea to have your vital information, your most valuable pictures, etc. in a safe and secure location. Services like Mozy Home provide a wonderful and feature-rich online backup solution (and its free). But it has its drawbacks (Windows only, slow, does not sync between computers).

Introducing Dropbox

There is a new site, however, that offers something more, and holds great promise for the futre. Check out the folks over at Dropbox. I have been playing around with their services for a while now and have been very impressed, and today marks the release of their services to the public (still beta, but public beta).

Backup

What is Dropbox? At the minimum it is an automatic online backup of your important data. Dropbox creates a folder on your hard drive. Whatever you put in this folder is automatically synced with your account online. In short, anything you put in the dropbox on your computer is automatically mirrored to a secure, private, and encrypted location online, accessible to you for anywhere in the world.

Sync

The beauty of dropbox is that it offers more than this.

In the first place, you can link multiple computers to the same account. So, for example, let’s say I have both my home and office computers linked to the same online Dropbox. If I add or change a file in the Dropbox on my home computer, it will be automatically uploaded to the online Dropbox, and in turn automatically downloaded by my work computer. All my data is in sync between multiple computers.

Furthermore, Dropbox knows when I modify files and acts accordingly. Let’s say a have an article that I am writing in my dropbox. Whenever I make even the slightest modification to the file on my home computer, that modification is immediately uploaded to the web. This is what is called “real-time” backup. The Dropbox software can sense anytime a file has changed, and mirrors that change online.

And here is the real cool bit: it also keeps a record of the modification in case you do something stupid. Say you accidentally deleted a couple of important paragraphs of your article and could not recover the original? Well, those changes will be reflected in your online dropbox, but the original will be there too, so in just a couple of clicks you can recover you old data. The Dropbox FAQ puts it well:

All your files are not only backed up but all prior versions are preserved. So if you delete something or even just save a bad change you can restore a file in a few clicks via the web interface.

The web interface (which looks a lot like Facebook) gives you a running commentary of all the changes that have been made, and is both good-looking and intuitive.

You can also mark certain folders as shared, allowing you to distribute files, as well as back them up. This could be particularly useful for photos, for example. Just mark your photo folder as shared, distribute the web address to your friends and family, and suddenly you have a private Flickr alternative.

More Advantages

Another important feature of Dropbox is that it only uploads the data that has changed, not entire files. Here, again, is the description provided by the FAQ:

Does Dropbox always upload/download the entire file any time a change is made? Nope, Dropbox tries its best to be smart about how much gets uploaded to our servers for the best possible performance. Before transfer, we compare the new file to the previous version and only send the (binary) diff.

What does this mean? It means that if you only changed one letter of that article, Dropbox only uploads that one letter to your online Dropbox. That saves an enormous amount of bandwidth, which means that once your original upload is complete, you can expect Dropbox to use minimal system resources. It won’t slow down your computer, and it won’t tie down you internet. Still worried? The Dropbox preferences dialog allows you to cap the speed at which it uploads data, allowing you to have it running at all times, even if you’re streaming movies from the internet or downloading email.

Security is also not an issue. All your data is password-protected and encrypted on Amazon’s excellent S3 storage servers.

Linux Users

There are a couple of added advantages available to you if you run a Linux-based operating system. These advantages are available because of the way Linux handles links. In short: Dropbox follows all sym-links. Don’t know what that means? Well, in Linux you can link to a file and the Operating System treats that link as if it was the file itself. Clicking on a link to a folder is as good as clicking on the folder itself. Long story short, you can place links to folders into your Desktop Dropbox and they will be backed-up and synced just like regular files. IThe rub is that if you run Linux you don’t have to change how your files are organized in order to use Dropbox, and that makes things a lot easier. Just drag links to your important folders and they will be automatically synced just like a regular folder.

How I Roll

I have two dropbox accounts, one is tied to my Laptop, on which I do all my work for school, write articles, prepare lessons for class, and, of course, hack at my dissertation. I now sleep peacefully at night knowing that all this, and especially my dissertation, is automatically backed-up in a secure location. If our house catches fire, I no longer have to run back for my laptop after heroically saving my wife, child, and dog. If my laptop gets stolen, drowned, shot at, etc. I still have access to all my data, and without any trouble whatsoever. As a cherry on top, I have my work desktop linked to this account, so I can access my files at school even without my laptop, and know everything will get synced up in the end.

I also have Dropbox installed on our home Desktop. I don’t really need syncing or anything here; really I just want our important files backuped-up online. So I have my backup software (Cobian 9) run a separate backup into my Dropbox folder. It filters out any large files (pictures, mp3s, etc) and sends the rest to the Dropbox, which is then in turn backed-up online—two simultaneous backups, one local, the other remote. Very nice.

Conclusions

Dropbox is really great Software/Webware. They provide clients for Windows, Linux, and Mac, and all are interoperable with the others (i.e. you can sync between different systems). There is currently a 2GB limit, but the storage and service is perfectly free. The company has promised that they will always offer this free storage, and that they will additionally allow you to upgrade to more storage (for a fee) in the future.

If you want more information, check out their FAQ here. For the latest news, their blog is here. You can also take a tour. And if you’re ready to download, go here.

Online Document Syncing for Linux

Linux, Software, Webapps and Websites No Responses »

Sep 112008

Services like Mozy Home offer a free online backup solution for Windows and Mac users. But what about Linux? As usual, no Love for Linux.

Enter Dropbo x. While still in closed Beta (for Windows and Mac), Dropbox has enormous promise. It will offer 2gb of online storage space, syncs in the background, and according to this article by Lifehacker, now offers clients for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Give the Linux client a try here.

Some Free Alternatives for Popular Software

Software No Responses »

Sep 092008

Here is a list of some good alternatives to popular software for windows.

Page 3 of 5«1 234 5 »

Free Media Players and Media Tools

A Little Love for our Mac Friends

Linux Users Take Note: Free Crossover Software Tuesday Only!

How to Type in Greek Part IV: Polytonic Greek, Linux Edition (Ubuntu)

Free Office Software: OpenOffice 3.0 Released!

FlashWorks Helps you Learn Greek Vocabulary

Dropbox: Part Sync, Part Backup, All Good

Online Document Syncing for Linux

Some Free Alternatives for Popular Software

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