Software | Technology Blog

Video Converter

January 6th, 2009

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Windows users definitely do not have a shortage of video converters at their disposal. That’s great on the one hand but it could make the selection process difficulty. The video converter applications differ greatly in complexity, some require minimal user input and knowledge of video terminology while others do require advanced knowledge about bitrates, codecs and framerates.

XMedia Recode falls into both categories. The video convert comes with several pre-configured profiles that can be used to convert videos with just a few clicks and no background knowledge at all.

Profiles exist for gaming systems like Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s Playstation 3 and for mobile devices like Apple’s iPod and iPhone series, dozens of Nokia cell phones and other devices. Way more than 100 profiles are available to select and there is the option to select custom settings as well in case the device is not in the list.

35 New Donation Coder Applications

January 6th, 2009

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New Apps for the New Year (NANY) is the motto of the Nany Challenge over at Donation Coder. It’s already the second year of the challenge and lots of new software programs have been released during that challenge. To be precise: 35 new and free software programs have been released which more than doubled the count of last year. Each application can be downloaded right away from the Donation Coder website and works without registration or other inconveniences.

We have already covered two of the applications and would like to recommend a few more that might be interesting to try out. Comparer is a file comparison tool that can compare (among other things) all file properties. File Replicator is another interesting program. It can search for a certain file in a selected folder and replace that file with another one. Think of updating files that reside in multiple locations on the computer’s hard drive.

WebHopper Internet Traceroute Tool

January 6th, 2009

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The traceroute command lists the servers - which are also called hops - that the connection uses to reach the destination. There is basically never a direct connection to a regular website, it will always use a number of servers before it reaches the destination. Windows users can use the tracert destination command to display the list of servers that the current connection uses to reach the destination. This can change depending on the routing and begins with the local IP and usually ends with the destination IP.

Ubuntu Privacy Remix

January 4th, 2009

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Ubuntu Privacy Remix is a live CD that is based on Ubuntu 8.04 currently. The sole purpose of this Ubuntu spin off is to create a secure working environment for private data. This is achieved by several measures that distinguish the Ubuntu Privacy Remix distribution from any other.

The operating system will only boot from CD which means that its data cannot be altered by malware or other forms of malicious software. It furthermore ignores local hard drives completely so that no data can be read or written to those storage devices.

A modified system kernel ensures that no network hardware can be activated which means that there is no possibility for connections to the Internet, local area network or other types of external connections. The only way to work with data is by using extended True-Crypt volumes which can be used to save system configurations and user data. (read working with extended True-Crypt volumes for additional information)

Panic Button

January 3rd, 2009

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A Panic Button or Boss Key is a software program that will hide certain visible elements on the computer screen when it is pressed. The software applications usually hide windows and programs that are running at the moment the panic button is pressed.

Dad’s Around is a panic button software that was created as a contribution to the Donation Coder NANY 2009 programming challenge. The software program is supplied in 7z format which means that a unpacker supporting that format is needed. The software itself is portable and can be run from any location without installation.

It provides access to four options that can be activated with the [Windows Z] key by default. The options can be configured by right-clicking the system tray icon after execution. The possibilities are to silence WAVE audio, kill the actual foreground process, minimize all windows and show a black screen. Each option can be activated or deactivated separately.

Remap Keyboard

January 2nd, 2009

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If you look at your computer’s keyboard you see keys that you use a lot, keys that you use seldom and keys that you have not used once in your life. Unless pressing the key accidentally would count. Keys that fall in the last category are the Shift-Lock key and probably keys like Sleep, Scroll Lock or End. It is safe to say that many users do not even have a clue about the function of these keys.

Remapping keys on the computer keyboard describes the process of changing the behavior of a key permanently. Sharp Keys is a light weight portable software that writes the remapped keys to the Windows Registry which essentially means that the changes are active after the next reboot or log out.

Sharp Keys supports 104 keys that can be remapped on the computer keyboard. This includes all the lesser used keys like the ones mentioned above but also all general keys like the letters and digits. The software was able to identify several of the multimedia keys on a Logitech keyboard as well.