I've settled on the free VirtualBox software for my virtualization needs. It runs using Windows, Linux or OS-X as host software although this article describes the installation of VirtualBox on Windows 7. Read the rest »
Mint Arrives On Android
Mint.com has release and Android version of their smartphone app. One of the two apps I really wanted on my phone has finally arrived. Read the rest »
The New Handbrake Rocks
I’ve been using Handbrake to encode video for a couple years and love it. The open source Handbrake works on Windows, OS X and Linux. I’ve always preferred and used the OS X version. It had been about a year without a new version of Handbrake but the drought was ended in November 2009 with the release of Handbrake 0.94. I was a bit slow to upgrade since the old version was working fine for me. Finally I upgraded. I had an issue (it wouldn’t encode) and kept using the [...] Read the rest »
Windows Home Server Add-Ins I Use
I was recently asked what Windows Home Server Add-Ins I us and figured it was a good topic for a blog post. So this morning I took a look and see that I have six loaded. I don’t use a lot of add-ins for two main reasons: In general I like my important systems to be as clean as possible. My Windows Home Server is no different. I don’t do a lot of hacks on any computer I use day in and day out. Adding a ton of WHS add-ins [...] Read the rest »
iPhoto vs. Windows Live Photo Gallery
I recently moved my photos from iPhoto on my iMac to Windows Live Photo Gallery (WLPG) on my Windows 7 PC so I figured I’d compare the two. The short version is that iPhoto is a mature application that has gone through many iterations of enhancements while WLPG is newer and less feature rich. I used iPhoto mainly as an organizing tool for any images I didn’t take – screenshots for my website, graphics for the website, pictures from others and from the web. I rarely edited those images and [...] Read the rest »
Windows 7
I hadn’t considered Windows 7 for my PC build. I started planning in December and had pretty much ignored the stories about when the beta would be available. I didn’t want to be running beta software on a PC I had just built and I didn’t want to have to worry about software compatibility and whether the problem was hardware or software. I just made a u-turn and did a fresh install of Windows 7 on my newly built PC. It was abrupt because I wanted to flatten the Vista [...] Read the rest »
The OS Quest Trail Log #33: Potpourri
It’s been a pretty dry couple of month for blog posts so far. But there’s still a few things worth mentioning and rather than a couple small posts I decided to put them all here to make them easier to ignore. WordPress 2.6.2 was released and I upgraded this site. It’s a security release so considered required although the developer blog indicates it’s mainly a concern if open registration is allowed. I decided to upgrade anyway. I have to admit, I’m getting a a bit lazy with these minor upgrades. [...] Read the rest »
Video Encoding: Handbrake
After ripping the DVDs I’ll be needing to encode them so I can watch them on my various devices. The premier software in this category is the open source Handbrake. There’s versions for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. I’ve been using Handbrake 0.9.2 for OS X. Handbrake can encode directly from DVD if they are unencrypted or encrypted with CSS encryption. But Handbrake isn’t a dedicated ripper and feeding Handbrake unencrypted video is recommended for best results. I took the approach of first ripping the DVDs to disk using [...] Read the rest »
DVD Ripping Software: Fairmount & SlySoft AnyDVD
I’ve been looking at two pieces of software to rip my DVDs as part of my Video on Demand project. They are pretty much polar opposites. One is free (open source/GPL license) while the other is commercial. One is for Windows and the other is for the Mac. Fairmount is Open Source for the Mac that is included in the download for DVDRemaster. DVDRemaster is a commercial product that does not have to be installed (and I haven’t installed it). Fairmount does require that the VLC Video Player is also [...] Read the rest »
iTunes Smart Playlists
When I bought my first iPod I was still on Windows and the software delivered with the Windows iPods (yup, Windows specific iPods back then) was a version of MusicMatch. The software was OK, but just OK. It was slow and a pain to build playlists. One of the reasons I bought the hard disk iPod over other flash MP3 players was so I could have all my music with me and not have to decide what I wanted to listed to while sitting at the computer. MusicMatch did that [...] Read the rest »