The last years have seen a huge increase in websites that have added GPS information to provide their visitors with an additional service. The gps data offered on those websites usually comes in kml or gpx format. KML means Keyhole Markup Language, an international standard supported by many Google applications like Google Earth and Google Maps.

GPX on the other hand is the GPS exchange format, a light-weight XML data format which is more or less the standard gps transfer format on the Internet. While most web applications and software programs support those formats most gps devices have their own proprietary format that cannot read gpx or kml data.

That is where Route Converter comes into play. The multi-platform tool can convert gps data between various formats and provides a few extra options to adopt the data to the needs of the user.

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The RIAA, that is the Recording Industry Association of America, has claimed another victim in its fight against any form of music exchange that users and providers do not pay for. It hit Muxtape this time, a website that was reviewed not long ago here at Ghacks.

Muxtape provided a great way to upload mp3 songs to their website creating a mixtape like song collection on the website. It had some limits like a maximum song size of 10 Megabytes and only one mixtape per account but what made it great was the ability to share the mixtape with friends.

The music collection was publicly accessible which was probably the main reason the RIAA stepped in although I cannot find a difference between listening to music on a website and listening to music on Radio or Youtube.

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Every software installation ans system update has an impact on the computer’s file system and the Windows Registry. That’s most of the time intended and necessary to run the software program or operating system properly. Some tools however add data to the system that could be - at best - classified as spammy and at worst seen as malicious.

Adding an entry to the system startup items without asking the user for permission or adding a system icon to the list of devices is another. Monitoring those Registry and file changes can be helpful in analysing why something happened and where it’s source is located.

What Changed is a portable system application that can take system snapshots and compare those system snapshots with a system state at a later time. This can be highly useful during software installation. A system snapshot would be created before the installation and that snapshot could be compared to the state of the system after the installation.

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The file hosting website eSnips provides access to various communities that have been created for users with the same interests. You find communities about art and fun but also music. The music community is divided into communities for different music genres like rock, metal or rap.

Each music community offers a large amount of music tracks that can be played online in an embedded player. Some music tracks can be downloaded directly because the user who uploaded the track allowed that option. Other songs on the other hand can only be played in the embedded player.

There are however a few options to download those songs from eSnips as well. The first software that I try out for any kind of streaming service is Orbit Downloader and it’s grab++ link grabber.

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Online media converters have several advantages over their software counterparts: They do not bog down the system and do not require software to be installed on the local computer. They are usually also easily accessible and convert media rapidly due to servers in the background that are used for the process.

One of the best, or at least one with lots of options to choose from, is Media Converter. The music and video converter supports a wide range of file types like flv, avi, mp3 or pdf that can be uploaded and converted online. That’s only part of their service though. Instead of uploading files to Media Converter to convert them online it is possible to point the service to a supported website and convert the media files found on that site directly.

This has the advantage that the source file does not have to be downloaded or uploaded. Only the final product has to be downloaded to the local computer. The media can be converted in the process. Pointing Media Converter to a Youtube video makes it possible to convert the video to mp3, ogg or one of the supported video formats before downloading the converted product.

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