One of my regular readers CC send me a link to SMPlayer about a week ago and I was testing the frontend for mplayer since. SMPlayer is a video player that is supporting the most important video formats out of the box including avi, mpg, mov, wmv and vob plus numerous other formats.

It is also possible to play DVDs and Internet streams with the video player that is available for Windows and Linux. Several ways of displaying subtitles and various subtitle formats are supported including srt, sub and DVD subtitles. I personally think that SMPlayer is a great alternative to the VLC player.

This could be useful for everyone who is having troubles with VLC for example. The only real difference that I was able to spot was that the SMPlayer is Open Source and that it remembers where the playback of the video stopped. Make sure you download the full SMPlayer plus the update.

continue reading "A VLC alternative called SMPlayer"

Bebo is one of the many social networking websites that is extremely popular in the United Kingdom. It has a large music category that hosts band profiles including several songs that can be played on the site in an embedded player.

The music category lists a multitude of genres to choose from starting with Rock over several kinds of electronic music like Trance and Hardcore to Comedy and Christian music. I honestly do not know most of the bands that have a profile on Bebo making it ideal to find new unknown bands.

There is no obvious way to download the songs. All you can do is click on the play button next to the song name which starts the playback.

continue reading "Download songs from Bebo"

Many users were quite happy when Apple announced that they would be selling drm free music at their iTunes online store. It would finally be possible to make one purchase and be able to play the music in your car, mp3 player, computer and other devices. Prices for the drm free music were set higher than for music with drm which did not get the bad feedback that I expected it to get.

The possibility to download drm free music is live and several websites examined the new files that were downloaded after a purchase has been made. As Arstechica puts it: “We started examining the files this morning and noticed our names and e-mail addresses in the files”. This information is however stored in all songs that are downloaded from the iTunes store, not only in the drm free songs.

While it has not been a real concern before it could become one now. I don’t think that a lot of users will purchase music at the iTunes store and then add it to their p2p folder to share it with the world. The professional groups that release mp3 albums get their albums before store release and spread it world wide in a matter of minutes which means that they will not use the iTunes store to get hold of the music.

continue reading "DRM Free Music from iTunes hides account info"

Screencasts are an efficient way of showing someone else how you are performing tasks in your operating system. They are mainly used for educational purposes such as recording step by step instructions on how to use a certain program by capturing a certain region of your screen and commenting the actions using a microphone.

The service Screencast-O-Matic offers a free and reliable way of creating screencasts using just your browser and Java. It is not necessary to register an account to create a screencast. This is only necessary if you want to publish the screencast later on the website of the developer.

It is furthermore possible to export the screencast into Apple Quicktime format without registration as well. You probably would like to know more about the process of screencasting itself.

continue reading "Create, Publish and Export Screencasts"

CD-Wow is a online CD, DVD and games shop that operates from Hong Kong. They ship free of charge worldwide and offer some of the lowest prices in the business. They achieve this by (legally) buying the media in countries like Hong Kong and selling them to Europeans and Americans who are happy to pay a lower price for the media while still being able to enjoy the English version of a CD, DVD or game.

CD-Wow for instance was the third largest online CD retailer in Great Britain in 2005 after Amazon and Play. The companies that produce the media sure love globalisation when it means that they can produce their goods in a country like China for a fraction of the costs that it would cost them in a European country or in America.

The High-Court has now ordered Hong Kong-based CD-Wow to pay £37m plus interest to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

continue reading "CD-Wow to pay £41m to British record companies"