Playing Google Videos on iPod, another tool for your transcoding toolbox

Although Google bought and YouTube, the Google Video service is still up and running and there are still a number of videos out there that don't seem to be on YouTube, but are on Google Video. Well, good ol' Google recognizes that people like to put videos on their iPod's and PSP's and so, on the right, when on video.google.com watching a video, there is a dropdown list and a download link on the right of the video you're watching. Just choose "Video iPod/Sony PSP" from the list and click the download link and tada, it hands you a download window to download the video in a compatible format for your viewing pleasure.

Till next time ...

Vixy.net - A video iPod owners dream!

Hey there, long time no entry. I've had a request for a post about vixy.net so here it is.

Picture this, you're on YouTube or some other site with flash based videos and you find one that you really really want to be able to put on your iPod so you can watch it again and again while traveling or whatever. Well, vixy.net is your solution. Fast, simple and straight-forward.



Here's the steps, and there aren't many of them:

Step 1: Go to youtube and find the "URL" to the video and copy it. It looks like this:


Step 2: browse to http://vixy.net (don't put the www on that url!). Paste the URL you got from youtube into the URL box on vixy's site.

Step 3: Choose "MP4 for iPod/PSP (MPEG4 + AAC)" from the drop down list.

Step 4: Click Start and wait ...
Notes: Be sure to stay on the page and let it finish. It'll take a little bit of time. Basically what is happening is vixy.net, on your behalf, goes to youtube and get's the video, then re-codes the video to the type that you selected in the drop down list, and then, when all that is done, it'll give you a download of the newly encoded video.

Step 5: When the download box is presented to you, save the file to your hard drive and then add it to iTunes as you would any other mp3 or video.

Step 6: Sync your iPod with iTunes and you're done!

Have fun!

OpenDNS

OpenDNS.com

This is a company that provides fast DNS lookup services. 

"Why do I care?"  you ask ...  Well, you don't really need to care unless, on a regular basis, when you click a bookmark or favorite or type in a web site URL and it takes a long time for the site to start to show in your browser.  What the problem could be is, your ISP (internet service provider) has slow DNS servers.  If you change to OpenDNS they will provide you much faster DNS services and if you type in a URL incorrectly like google.cmo.  then they will automatically fix your spelling and take you to google.com.  also, if you type in domain that doesn't exist, then instead of getting an error, they automatically do a google search for what you typed in and show you the results.

Their site will tell you everything you need to know to make the change or answer any other questions you may have ... like "What is DNS and what does it do?"

Why I'm not a good blogger

It donned on me today why I'm not a good blogger. A good blogger reads a lot of blogs and likes to blog about what they read on those blogs and link to those blogs. Me? The only ones I frequent are Jenn's and, well, no others. There are a couple that I check when I think of it but for the most part that's it. I link to Jenn's but only if I'm talking about the blog itself, like now. I see a large number of funny, cool or interesting things every day on the internet and a good blogger would say, "I'm totally blogging that!". Me? I just don't usually think of blogging it and if I do, I sometimes think, "Meh, I'll blog it another time." Aw well. Here's a link for the likes of you bloggers out there since I'm writing this entry. No "Meh" this time. :)

The link is a blog entry that I found linked from a non-blog site and it's about 5 blog methods that work! Don't ask, just read it! :P

Till next time ...

Love Them Pipes!

In reading my many RSS feeds today, there were numerous mentions of this new Yahoo service called Pipes.  It's a feed manipulator/aggregator made for users to create more narrowed feeds to what they want to see.

For those of you who are thinking "uh ... feeding what?  manipulate who?  RSS means uh ...?", I'll give you an explanation.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a new-ish technology that is being used on news sites, blogs and the like, which allows the reader to subscribe to a syndication feed of the articles that are being published.  Think of subscribing to a couple newspapers and magazines.  Those newspapers and magazines are delivered daily, weekly or less, to your mailbox or front door.  Handy, wouldn't you say?  You don't have to go get one yourself, it's sent directly to you.  In comes RSS, it's a similar thing.  You use an application (there are many free ones out there to download if you search for "RSS feed reader") I use Google Reader, and subscribe to the url/address that is linked, typically with the icon .  From then on the feed reader application will automatically check for new articles and show them to you as unread.  Kind of like leaving your email application open all day where the new email is downloaded and waiting for you to be read. 

So what's the advantage to this?  Well, you get very very regular updates of news throughout the day (rather than waiting the day or week or month for that newspaper) and can subscribe to as many as you like.  Pretty much all of them are free! 
On a side note, for those of you who use iTunes, this is the basis to how podcasts are updated and downloaded.  iTunes checks an RSS feed for each podcast that you subscribe to.

Now where does this Pipes thing fit in?  Well, think of the ability to narrow the content that you receive through the feeds.  Maybe you only want local news from your city but the news site you want to subscribe to doesn't have a specific feed for where you live?  Or you want to merge a bunch of feeds together with filters?  Then use Pipes to narrow the original feed(s) and then you subscribe to the new narrowed/filtered one that Pipes provides you.  Pretty cool!

Till next time ...

Great Marriage Proposal

Thought this was great! She get's a little annoying but I can only imagine being in the situation.

Remember a simple word, have a strong password

Check this out ... What a great idea!  Read through the page for it to make sense.

http://www.passgen.org/

Till next time ...