Bookmarks thread [Archive] - slackercentral.com messageboard

Kermit

03-17-03, 09:08 PM

Here ya go... my BIG FATTY list of links. Not all of them may be tech related... but a good number are. Hope they serve a purpose for some of you.

They are catagorized.

I am posting this per request. See Thread http://boards.slackercentral.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36079&highlight=scumware for details.

GENERAL
http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/modboot/ MODBOOT is modular boot disk. All
programs and files are placed in modules. Adding functionally to your disk
is as simple as copying one file (module) to the correct folder.
http://www.bovistech.com/index.htm Boot disk site
http://www.driverscollection.com/ Drivers
http://packetderm.cotse.com/tools/ Tools
http://www.xe.com/ucc/ Currency converter
http://www.etplanet.com/ Collection of all sorts of goodies
http://www.bootdisk.com/ Great site for creating all sorts of boot disks,
virus scanning floppies, and many other tools.
http://www.theopencd.org/about.php The OpenCD is a collection of
high-quality Open Source Software. All of the programs on the disc run under
Windows; the disc is intended to be an Open Source showcase.
http://etext.virginia.edu/ebooks/ebooklist.html 1,800 publicly-available
e-books including classic British and American fiction, major authors,
children's literature, the Bible, Shakespeare, American history,
African-American documents, and much more
http://www.arstechnica.com/ tech website
http://www.wimsbios.com/ Looking for a bios for your motherboard? Try this
site.
http://www.netcraft.com/ Find out what server environment a site is running.

WEB SITE DEVELOPMENT
http://mimerdesk.org/community/engine.html?page=9 MimerDesk is a web-based
groupware environment designed for a wide variety of uses such as personal
management, computer-supported collaborative learning, carrying out
projects, and setting up communities.
http://www.w3.org/Amaya/Amaya.html Amaya is a complete web browsing and
authoring environment and comes equipped with a WYSIWYG style of interface,
similar to that of the most popular commercial browsers.
http://developer.ez.no/article/articlestatic/7/1/42/ eZ publish 2.2.x is a
professional open source content management system (CMS) made to give easy
access to internet sites through a user-friendly and reliable program.
http://www.groupit.org/ This novel content management system is free for
personal use, and commercial use is as much as 50x cheaper than comparable
alternatives.
http://phplens.com/ PhpLens is a PHP application server that allows PHP
developers to quickly create database-driven web applications.
http://www.webgenerator-x.com/ This software is a Content Management System
totally written in PHP.
http://sellwincrm.sourceforge.net/ SellWin is an open source CRM Sales
application that is ready for your enterprise.
http://bookmark4u.sourceforge.net/ web-based personal bookmarking
environment
http://cvw.sourceforge.net/ CVW is a collaboration software environment that
provides a "virtual building" where teams can communicate, collaborate, and
share information, regardless of their geographic location.
http://zorum.phpoutsourcing.com/ Zorum is a message board software which may
be used with equal success on both intra- and internet sites.
http://www.mamboserver.com/ Mambo SiteServer is the finest open source Web
Content Management System (WCM) available today.
http://mysource.squiz.net/welcome MySource is a powerful, open source
website and intranet content publishing and management system.
http://www.perldesk.com/ PerlDesk, is a fully featured help desk system, it
is an ideal solution for companies with more than one technician who are
required to support many users.
http://www.phpgroupware.org/ PHP based websire and content publishing
system.
http://manhattan.sourceforge.net/index.php?menu=1 The Manhattan Virtual
Classroom is a password protected, web-based virtual classroom system that
includes a variety of discussion groups, live chat, areas for the teacher to
post the syllabus and other handouts and notices, a module for organizing
online assignments, a grades module, and a unique, web-based email system
open only to students in the class.

LINUX
http://www.webmin.com/ Webmin is a web-based interface for system
administration for Unix.
http://www.openna.com/ OpenNA Linux is a full, professional quality Unix OS
with rock-solid stability and industrial-strength networking.
http://firestarter.sourceforge.net/ Firestarter is a free firewall tool for
Linux machines.
http://www.fwbuilder.org/index.html Firewall Builder is multi-platform
firewall configuration and management tool.
http://www.linux-laptop.net/ This is an index of information and
documentation of interest to those who now use or are considering using the
Linux operating system on a notebook or laptop computer.
http://www.vocpsystem.com/index.php Much more than an answering machine,
VOCP transforms your computer into a full-featured call answering and voice
messaging system.
http://www.clarkconnect.org/ ClarkConnect is a software package that
transforms standard PC hardware into a dedicated broadband gateway and
easy-to-use server.
http://www.wavesec.org/ Build a secure wireless gateway with Linux.
http://lbt.linuxcare.com/index.epl The LBT is a fully usable miniature Linux
distribution which can be placed on a credit-card sized CD media.
http://rfhs8012.fh-regensburg.de/~feyrer/g4u/ g4u ("ghost for Unix") is a
NetBSD-based boot floppy/CD-ROM that allows easy cloning of PC hard disks to
deploy a common setup on a number of PCs using FTP.
http://www.schoolforge.net/ Schoolforge's mission is to unify independent
organizations that advocate, use, and develop open resources for primary and
secondary education.
http://richtech.ca/seul/ Educational Application Index
http://www.dadabik.org/ DaDaBIK is a PHP application that allows you to
easily create a highly customizable Web interface for a MySQL database in
order to search, insert, update, and delete records; all you need do is
specify a few configuration parameters.
http://freevo.sourceforge.net/about.html#About Freevo is an open-source
digital video jukebox (PVR, DVR) based on Linux in addition to a number of
open-source audio/video tools.
http://www.consultingtimes.com/ Linux news
http://www.yolinux.com/ Linux portal
http://www.linuxlinks.com/ fine link repository for Linux
http://linux-newbie.sunsite.dk/ for Linux beginners
http://www.ugu.com/ Unix Guru Universe
http://www.claroline.net/ Claroline is a free software package working with
PHP and MySQL. It is a course-based educational tool allowing the teacher
to create, administer and add to his/her courses through the web.
http://rhems.sourceforge.net/ The RH Server Development Project aims to make
this easier by providing set-ups for the Open Source equivalent to popular
applications.

WINDOWS
http://winfingerprint.sourceforge.net/ Winfingerprint is a Win32
Host/Network Enumeration Scanner. Winfingerprint is capable of performing
SMB, TCP, UDP, ICMP, RPC, and SNMP scans. Using SMB, Winfingerprint can
enumerate OS, users, groups, SIDs, password policies, services, service
packs and hotfixes, NetBIOS shares, transports, sessions, disks, security
event log, and time of day in either an NT Domain or Active Directory
environment.
http://www.activewin.com/tips/reg/index.shtml Registry tips
http://www.jsiinc.com/reghack.htm Registry hacks
http://www.easydesksoftware.com/regdrill.htm Registry tool
http://www.winguides.com/registry/ The Registry Guide for Windows, formerly
RegEdit.com, provides an extensive range of registry tweaks, tricks & hacks
for optimizing, enhancing and securing the Windows operating system.
http://is-it-true.org/nt/atips/atips33.shtml If you have administrative
rights, you can shutdown remote NT workstations or NT servers using the
Windows NT Resource Kit utility shutgui.exe or its command-line version,
shutdown.exe .
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pstools.shtml Windows tools
http://808hi.com/56k/tshoot.asp?sc=10%3A43%3A36+AM Interactive Modem
Troubleshooter
http://modemsite.com/56k/index.asp Modemsite has extensive information on
dial-up modems, and can help you troubleshoot and correct problems from
installation to disconnections.
http://www.astalavista.com/library/misc/tricks/XP-P-K-M.shtml This
application automates the task of changing your Windows XP product key.
http://www.generation.net/~hleboeuf/fatlexer.htm Fatal Exception Errors
http://home.mweb.co.za/pl/plenum/dun/dun_codes.html DUN Error Codes
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ This is a utility to (re)set the
password of any user that has a valid (local) account on your NT system, by
modifying the crypted password in the registry's SAM file.

NETWORKING

http://www.opennms.org/ If your looking for a network management system,
well here it is.
http://www.babinszki.com/Networking/Max-Ethernet-and-TCP-Throughput.html I
found this article when searching the net for some data about tcp throughput
and how it is affected by latency.
http://www.mrtd.net/ The MRT project is researching new routing software
architectures, protocols and tools
http://jffnms.sourceforge.net/ JFF NMS is a NMS (Network Management System)
designed to maintain a IP SNMP / Syslog / Tacacs+ Network.
http://www.routergod.com/ networking humor site
http://cheops-ng.sourceforge.net/index.php Cheops-ng is a Network management
tool for mapping and monitoring your network.
http://www.arin.net/whois/ ARIN's WHOIS service provides a mechanism for
finding contact and registration information for resources registered with
ARIN. ARIN's database contains IP addresses, autonomous system (AS) numbers,
organizations or customers that are associated with these resources, and
related Points of Contact (POC).
http://www.coffer.com/mac_find/ Vendor/Ethernet MAC Address Lookup
http://www.wown.com/ World of Windows Networking
http://www.sockets.com/services.htm#WellKnownPorts The Well Known Ports are
controlled and assigned by the IANA and on most systems can only be used by
system (or root) processes or by programs executed by privileged users.
http://www.inetcat.org/software/nbtscan.html NBTscan is a program for
scanning IP networks for NetBIOS name information.
http://www.learntosubnet.com/ IP Addressing and Subnetting
http://www.homenethelp.com/ Home computer networking and Internet connection
sharing
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/63/nimda.shtml How to Protect Your Network
Against the Nimda Virus

SECURITY

http://www.demarc.com/ Intrusion Detection Systems for Windows and Linux.
They have a free version available for download.
http://ossr.phpwebhosting.com/index.php Security news portal with a lot of
information.
http://www.securitynewsportal.com Another security news portal with humorous
commentary.
http://www.insecure.org/tools.html Top 50 Security Tools
http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,56742,00.html The Department of
Homeland Security sees wireless networking technology as a terrorist threat.
Scary Article.
http://www.cisecurity.org/ The Security Auditor's Research Assistant (SARA)
is a third generation Unix-based security analysis tool.
http://www.pcflank.com/index.htm various security tools
http://www.securityfocus.com/ Security news portal
http://www.honeynet.org/ Trap those Crackers in a fictitious network, and
see what they know.
http://www.nsi.org/compsec.html security information
http://www.blackalchemy.to/project/fakeap/ Really screw with wardrivers
(wireless hackers)
http://www.scaramanga.co.uk/firestorm/index.html Firestorm is an extremely
high performance network intrusion detection system (NIDS).

HACKING
http://airsnort.shmoo.com/ Wireless hacking tool
http://www.kismetwireless.net/ Kismet is a 802.11b wireless network
sniffer.
http://www.netstumbler.com/ Wireless canning tool for windows.
http://www.pwcrack.com/index.shtml PASSWORD Crackers
http://www.hackerthreads.org/ This site is dedicated to helping people learn
about programming, networking and general computer usage.
http://www.hackerwhacker.com/ hacking info
http://www.dachb0den.com/projects/bsd-airtools.html bsd-airtools is a
package that provides a complete toolset for wireless 802.11b auditing.
http://ettercap.sourceforge.net/index.php?s=home Ettercap is a multipurpose
sniffer/interceptor/logger for switched LAN.
It supports active and passive dissection of many protocols (even ciphered
ones) and includes many feature for network and host analysis.

Babel-17

03-17-03, 09:32 PM

:bigthumb:

:cool:

:rock:

:)

Jack_Tripper

03-17-03, 09:33 PM

http://www.kazaalite.nl/en/
Kazaa-Lite
:)

Jack

Dr. Feelgood

03-17-03, 09:54 PM

http://www.gamewinners.com/

Awesome cheats and hints site.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/

Game faqs

Kermit

03-17-03, 11:13 PM

Originally posted by Babel-17
:bigthumb:

:cool:

:rock:

:)

Hope ya like em. I considered posting the Linux ones over in the Linux forum as well... but I figure they probably got all the stuff they need... plus I'm kinda busy. :)

MjSwooosh

03-18-03, 08:40 AM

Cynical Post of the Day:

www.fuckthatjob.com

:D

opus512

03-18-03, 03:08 PM

Heheh, I got way too many to go through, maybe later tonight when I got nothing else to do :D

Babel-17

03-27-03, 12:03 AM

http://geektools.com/

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/stephenperrone/iviewcapture_date_27_03_2003_time_00_56_43.jpg

Ronhel

03-30-03, 02:31 PM

For broadband uses a few fun sites. :)

http://www.heavytv.ca/LAUNCH.html
free streaming movies

http://istreamcast.com/
another streamin site ,movies/radio/games/and much more

Babel-17

04-05-03, 12:27 PM

http://www.globalsecurity.org/

Contains a pile of "neat" links for modern warfare buffs. For example: http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030403-iraq07.htm

".... The crew of that plane, we are told, dropped what looked like a fairly standard 1,000-pound bomb. But this particular one, dubbed the CBU-105, is seeing its first action ever in combat, and according to the U.S. Air Force, it is especially deadly.

"It's a fearsome weapon," said John Pike, the head of globalsecurity.org and an ABC NEWS consultant. "If an armored convoy is moving down a road, an attack by this cluster bomb unit would basically stop that armored assault in its tracks."

Dividing and Dividing Again

As the bomb falls, it splits open in midair — and releases 10 smaller units, each of which descends under a small white parachute.

As they approach the ground, those units split as well, each one ejecting four armor-piercing explosives.

The result, say sources: one bomb drop causes 40 explosions, spread out over 15 acres or more.

The CBU-105 is a heat-seeking weapon. Its sensors look for engines of tanks, personnel carriers and other sources of high temperature. As the bombs descend, they can be steered by small fins, to get closer to their targets, and to counteract the force of the wind. The bombs are less sophisticated than weapons guided by satellites or lasers, but analysts say they can do a lot more damage.

"With a cluster bomb like this," says Pike, "a single B-52 can destroy an entire armored division, whereas in the past you had to send out dozens of airplanes that might have to drop hundreds of bombs to achieve the same effect." ...."

Babel-17

05-03-03, 09:03 PM

Hehe, I just now swiped this link from the thread over at Beyond3D.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5636

The following link takes you to Microsoft's ClearType tuning page. IE is needed as it uses an ActiveX plugin you'll be prompted to install.

Fairly cool imo. :)

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/1.htm?fname=%20&fsize=

Dr. Feelgood

05-03-03, 09:26 PM

Originally posted by Babel-17
http://www.globalsecurity.org/

Contains a pile of "neat" links for modern warfare buffs. For example: http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030403-iraq07.htm

Awesome :) I love military hardware. Tanx for teh link.

Babel-17

05-04-03, 08:50 AM

My pleasure.

Btw, (regarding the clear type link) I'm a tad surprised at the noticeable improvement in contrast/clarity I got by turning it on even with my CRT monitor.

Ronhel

05-04-03, 09:27 AM

Originally posted by Babel-17
My pleasure.

Btw, (regarding the clear type link) I'm a tad surprised at the noticeable improvement in contrast/clarity I got by turning it on even with my CRT monitor.

I 'd like to thank you for that link. :headbang:
Turned it on this morning and what a difference. :D

Babel-17

05-04-03, 10:58 AM

Cool! :)

I felt we owed a "thank you" so I posted one in the Beyond3D thread I found the link/info.

Ronhel

05-04-03, 11:14 AM

Originally posted by Babel-17
Cool! :)

I felt we owed a "thank you" so I posted one in the Beyond3D thread I found the link/info.

Well I know my old eyes thanks you.:D

Wow what a difference

Dr. Feelgood

05-04-03, 12:12 PM

only thing, I found that it blurred the text in the address bar too much. Other than that, really nice :)

Simian

05-04-03, 12:36 PM

Enabling clear type add's this overall blur to text that I just can't get used to. I end up getting a headache after using it too long.

Babel-17

05-04-03, 02:05 PM

Huh, not noticing that here. Fwiw, I chose what appeared to me the most "bold" option. IIRC it was the first one, on the top and all the way to the left.

To each his own though of course. "De gustibus non disputatum est" or however that goes.

Ailuros

05-07-03, 08:06 PM

ArsTechnica released an advanced XP tweak guide:

http://arstechnica.com/tweak/win2k/xp/sgp-tweaks-1.html

I don´t recommend any of it if you don´t know what you´re doing.

Babel-17

05-24-03, 09:19 AM

http://www.jsiinc.com/reghack.htm

Windows NT / 2000 / XP Tips, Tricks, Registry Hacks and more...

Babel-17

05-25-03, 03:17 PM

Interesting broadband site.

http://www.dslreports.com

I have Optimum Online so (just started) I'm browsing here. Interesting thread on upload caps etc.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/cable,opt

If you have the Motorola Surfboard cable modem try this page. Hehe, meaningless techno-jive to me but it seems I'm "ok". :)

http://192.168.100.1/startupdata.html

Babel-17

05-27-03, 05:48 PM

Serendipity knocked on Babel-17's door yesterday, well actually it was more like serendipity was sapped behind the ear and dragged in kicking and screaming but the effect is the same. I recently became interested in reading some books I came across that are in various formats like text, html etc.

CliffNotes: The text file ones aren't too pleasant to read in, say, Notepad. Some browsing led me to a reader for such files ........... it's awesome, the difference is night and day.

Lots of info in general on this subject below. I also include the specific FAQ on readers. Btw, I'm using uBook07c_pc for this chore. I love how all I had to do was extract the program to its own folder from which I can run it. No installation as such needed and it appears to keep all its records within that folder.

http://ebook.23ae.com/

http://ebook.23ae.com/documents/readers.html

Welcome to alt.binaries.e-book and the other e-book* related groups!

ABEB is one of the world's largest electronic book evaluation, and preservation libraries and is dedicated to the preservation of e-books for everyone. In the interest of education, and to help those who might be new to the entire Usenet experience, the e-book community is bringing you these Frequently Asked Questions and guidelines for acceptable conduct within these groups, that is- within the e-book.* hierarchy. We wish to recognize the contributions of the members of ABEB to this constantly changing and evolving document.

Q: Why should I read this lengthy FAQ?

A: Because these e-book groups involve the transfer of binary postings, they tend to be much more complicated than most other newsgroups that you may have seen. Therefore, there are more procedures to know and guidelines to observe in order to preserve the quality of Usenet as a whole. This FAQ is your guide to survival in the e-book community on Usenet. Even more important is the fact that incorrect postings hurt everyone who uses Usenet. The Usenet is a very big place. Posts which are faulty or which do not belong in a group simply increase the traffic. They also increase the requests for reposts and the actual reposts from those people who try to be helpful. All of this can cause the proverbial forest to get lost in the trees. If you wish to be a responsible Usenet netizen, and you would like the usefulness of these groups to continue, you can only profit from following these simple guidelines.

Confused already? Unsure what this whole "Usenet" thing is, or what it's all about? Check out our primers on ABEB and Usenet here.

If you're looking for quick answers to a question you might have, check-out the "Lite" version of this FAQ here.

This entire web site is released under the BSD license

Babel-17

05-31-03, 04:10 PM

http://wordweb.info/

NEW: Version 2.2 now available
--- Now with pronunciations, use with almost any Windows program, expanded database, and more!

WordWeb Pro is a quick and powerful English thesaurus and dictionary for Windows. It can be used to lookup words from almost any Windows program, showing definitions, synonyms and related words. You can search for words matching a pattern, find and solve anagrams, and optionally search a large number of extra word lists.

Unlike any paper dictionary or thesaurus WordWeb is truly a Word Web - each set of synonyms is linked to other related sets. Lookup "tree", click on the "Types" tab and you'll have a list of different types of tree. Click on "Part of" and WordWeb will tell you that a tree can be part of a "forest" or "wood".

Order online and download immediately!

Summary
Definitions and synonyms, including many proper nouns
Word relations: find antonyms, parts or types, less specific words, etc.
Find straight and multi-word anagrams
Edit and add to the database
Look up words in almost any program, including MS Word, etc.
Cross-reference to other installed dictionaries and web search engines
Search for words in a large number of optional extra word lists
Copy synonyms or definitions into other programs
New: Pronunciations for many words
New: Maintains viewable list of words looked up
Expanded: Over 117 000 synonym sets and 142 000 root words
Expanded: Pattern matching word search in supplied 210 000 word list
WordWeb Pro runs under Windows NT/95/98/2000/Me/XP. Sorry, there is no Mac version. You do not need to be online to use WordWeb.
Word finding
Enter a pattern as the search word and it will find words that match, e.g.

T???SH finds thrash, thresh and thrush
*GRY finds angry, hungry and unangry
?*Q*P finds acquaintanceship, equip, liquid soap, re-equip, and square up
Use * to stand for any number of letters, and ? for one unknown letter. You can also do powerful advanced searches for vowel/consonant patterns, punctuation specific word forms, and groups of letters.

You can also search sets of additional word lists (see the ordering page for details), including place names, specialized word lists and other languages.

Anagrams
Enter a word and you can find all straight and multiple word anagrams, e.g.

protest finds potters, spotter, to strep, pert sot, etc.
begin finds being, binge, in beg, and gin be
WordWeb Pro finds powder brow + many others.
You can also find partial anagrams. How many words can you make using the letters in "constitutional"? WordWeb Pro's answer: 726!

And more...
For further details and another screen shot click here.
You can download a free version to try out. The free version does not have the word list, search, anagram, or customization features.

Babel-17

05-31-03, 09:16 PM

http://www.slyck.com/ng.php?page=1

Slyck's Guide to The Newsgroups - Home

The Newsgroups are a special part of the internet that pre-dates the World Wide Web. Once upon a time when the internet was still young there were special interest groups that shared information and kept in touch by using a bulletin board type system. This system was designed to take advantage of the internet in a way an old BBS couldn't : each location had a machine (news server) that would store all the messages of the newsgroups that were desired by it's users. Periodically these servers connect to each other and exchange all messages that are missing on either server. In this manner, a message sent by any user would eventually get distributed to every server that carried that newsgroup. Newsgroups

A short time passed and the users of certain newsgroups thought that this system would be ideal to share files with each other. However, the newsgroups were not designed to transfer binary files - they can only transfer text files. Stuck!! NO. How about this: Take a binary file and convert it (encode it) so that it is now a text message. Distribute that text message through the newsgroup and then whoever wants the file can download that message and convert it back (decode it) into the original binary file.

And there began file sharing using the newsgroups. The newsgroups still operate in almost the same way. Luckily, there have been great improvements in the software used to download the messages from the news server to your computer that makes getting files from the newsgroups today 1000 times easier than it was when this system first appeared.

Unless you are familiar with them, navigating and downloading files from the newsgroups takes a good deal more effort than connecting to KaZaA, searching for something, and clicking on the result. A typical download from the newsgroups will require more steps than other methods because a large file is usually split into many pieces in the following way:

The reason this is all necessary is that many news servers will not accept messages that are longer than 10,000 lines, many even less than that. A 700 MB movie would take around 15 Million lines if it were encoded into one message -- way too much for any news server to accept. The reason for the first split into rar files is a matter of the nature of the newsgroups : some messages don't make it. For one reason or another messages don't always get to every server. A large file is split up to minimize the time/bandwidth needed to recover from a missing/bad message. So in our example above, if a message doesn't make it for part movie.r08 it would only be necessary to find and download that piece rather than the whole thing if it were all one file. PAR files have emerged making the argument for splitting into rar files even stronger. Luckily for music fans, most mp3's are not split the first time, so downloading them is easy as pie!

Additional newsgroup confusion arises from the listing of groups that can be hard to distinguish which messages are the files you need amongst all the other messages that are not files but actual text messages.

So is it worth it? You better believe it! The newsgroups are an awesome resource. If you're not using them and are ready to kick it up a level check them out. You won't believe your eyes!

NEXT

http://www.slyck.com/ng.php?page=2

Babel-17

05-31-03, 09:32 PM

http://www.publicproxyservers.com/index.html

I just tested one of the "high anonymity" proxy sites using the ad muncher IP scramble test page, it seems to work. Should work with The Proxomotron too of course.

http://www.admuncher.com/ips-test.shtml

The Public Proxy Server I tested was 199.240.145.98

Bit of a pain in the butt to use frankly, the servers one uses tend to come and go and some will slow down browsing (but not downloads afaik). Useful for 10 foot pole sites when you still have to touch them lol. :)

Ad Muncher's own list is still quite adequate of course, I just thought some might find this useful.

Proxy Servers

A proxy server is a kind of buffer between your computer and the Internet resources you are accessing. They accumulate and save files that are most often requested by thousands of Internet users in a special database, called “cache”. Therefore, proxy servers are able to increase the speed of your connection to the Internet. The cache of a proxy server may already contain information you need by the time of your request, making it possible for the proxy to deliver it immediately. The overall increase in performance may be very high. Also, proxy servers can help in cases when some owners of the Internet resources impose some restrictions on users from certain countries or geographical regions. In addition to that, among proxy servers there are so called anonymous proxy servers that hide your IP address thereby saving you from vulnerabilities concerned with it.

Anonymous Proxy Servers

Anonymous proxy servers hide your IP address and thereby prevent your from unauthorized access to your computer through the Internet. They do not provide anyone with your IP address and effectively hide any information about you and your reading interests. Besides that, they don’t even let anyone know that you are surfing through a proxy server. Anonymous proxy servers can be used for all kinds of Web-services, such as Web-Mail (MSN Hot Mail, Yahoo mail), web-chat rooms, FTP archives, etc. ProxySite.com - a place where the huge list of public proxies is compiled. In a database you always can find the most modern lists, the Proxy are checked every minute, and the list is updated daily from various sources. The system uses the latest algorithm for set and sortings of servers by proxy, servers for anonymous access are checked. Results of Search always can be kept in file Excel.

Why Should You Use Anonymous Proxy Servers?

Any web resource you access can gather personal information about you through your unique IP address – your ID in the Internet. They can monitor your reading interests, spy upon you and, according to some policies of the Internet resources, deny accessing any information you might need. You might become a target for many marketers and advertising agencies who, having information about your interests and knowing your IP address as well as your e-mail, will be able to send you regularly their spam and junk e-mails.

A web site can automatically exploit security holes in your system using not-very-complex, ready-made, free hacking programs. Some of such programs may just hang your machine, making you reboot it, but other, more powerful ones, can get access to the content of your hard drive or RAM. Everything a web site may need for that is only your IP address and some information about your operating system.

The Solution

Using an anonymous proxy server you don’t give anybody chance to find out your IP address to use it in their own interests. We can offer you two ways to solve your IP problem:

1. Anonymizer - a pay proxy server with plenty of features. Effective for personal use, when your Internet activities are not involved in very active surfing, web site development, mass form submitting, etc. In short, Anonymizer is the best solution for most of Internet users. Ultimate protection of privacy - nobody can find out where you are engaged in surfing. Blocks all methods of tracking. URL Encryption protects you from your own ISP. Web Based - does not require any program installation or a configuration on your computer.

2. Our own small proxy list is also a good place to start with if you are a novice.

Kermit

06-03-03, 03:37 PM

http://linuxshop.ru/linuxbegin/win-lin-soft-en/

Full list of Windows/Linux equivelents.

Have a progy in Windows and you need a comparable one for Linux? Or vice versa.... This is your site. It includes links to DL software for Linux.

Babel-17

06-09-03, 07:51 PM

FILESOUP’S CENTRAL FAQ ON BT AND BT RELATED TOPICS (v 1.11)

This is a central FAQ about the Bit Torrent protocol, the Filesoup Bit Torrent community, and BTs various components. It is a collective knowledge derived from people all over the world.

http://www.filesoup.com/faq.html

(small sample)

GENERAL BIT TORRENT QUESTIONS

Q1. What is Bit Torrent [BT]?
Bit Torrent (or BT) is a file transfer protocol developed by Bram Cohen and implemented in a client/server package of the same name. Using his software it is possible to distribute files over unreliable networks. These transfers are coordinated by special text files called torrent files, which help the BitTorrent clients coordinate the peer-based transfers. This means that by connecting to others using BT you can give and receive a common file using the combined bandwidth of all users.

Q2. Why should I use BT?
BT is a great tool for distributing large, popular files because it has inherit load-reducing capabilities. It's designed for sharing all sorts of files with other people all over the world. You can also access BT sites located on the web [e.g. www.Filesoup.com ], where you can browse through various files for download, discuss them with others, and on some even post your own torrents. The more users seeding a file the faster it is distributed, and best of all…there’s never any line up or queue.

Q3. What tools do I need to use BT?
Windows users should get kRYPT’s latest BT Client “Burst!”at http://krypt.dyndns.org:81/torrent/. Another good utility is TorrentSpy [http://bittorrent.bounceme.net/info.php?name=torrentspy0.2.2.20win32.torrent]. Non-windows users will need to get the Experimental BT client from [http://ei.kefro.st/projects/btclient/] or the Official BT client [http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/download.html]. For creating/uploading torrents, Windows users should use kRYPT’s MakeTorrent [http://krypt.dyndns.org:81/torrent/]. Non-windows users will need to see the readme documentation with the Official BT client for how to make torrents using the command line.

Q4. Where are the torrents I can use?
To find torrents to use with BitTorrent, you can check out the Links section for the Torrent Lists sites. If you’re still struggling get on the Filesoup forums for more information.

Q5. Is BT legal?
The technology itself is legal. Torrent files, the files posted on BT websites like File Soup, are also legal as they are only text files. The files distributed with BT may not always be because there is no inherit copyright-protection technology or usage tracking technology built into BT. Since all of this legality stuff also depends on your country and its laws, the onus is upon the BT user to check and verify what exactly you’re distributing, and to be aware of the laws in your area. The actual users of BT can be held accountable for violations if laws apply in your area.

Q6. What ports does BT use on my firewall/router?
BT uses ports 6881 through 6889 by default trying each port until one binds/works. The various BT clients can be configured to connect on higher ports, this is important as Filesoup’s tracker listens for connections on port 6969, as do many other public trackers.

Babel-17

06-13-03, 06:51 AM

Very much related to the above.

http://www.bytemonsoon.com/

http://efibt.sytes.net/torrents.php

http://www.lickmytaint.com/bt/outlook.html

http://turbobricks.ath.cx/torrents/list/

http://www.packeting.tk/

http://www.icpnet.pl/~xgrey/btlinks/

http://www.torrentlinks.com/

http://www.watchen.tv/

http://episodes-first.dnsalias.com/

http://www.monduna.com/bt/faq.html

http://www.bstark.pp.se/bittorrent/

http://torrents.chilledcore.com/

Ronhel

06-13-03, 09:53 AM

Hey Bable lets not forget one of the best places to get torrents.
http://www.digital-update.com/forums/index.php?s=
Reg in the forums to download and upload everythind and anything.

This is one of the few sites that hasn't gone down yet.

( me knocks on wood )

Babel-17

06-13-03, 10:00 AM

Thanks, I hadn't heard of that one!

I'm still quite the newbie to this. I love being able to get all my favorite old tv shows I never bothered taping. The newsgroups are good for that too of course.

Babel-17

06-13-03, 10:03 AM

"( me knocks on wood )"

Hehe, I can't connect at this moment ........ mesa hopes it's related to whatever is causing some other sites to not come up right now (e.g. google).

Ronhel

06-13-03, 10:05 AM

Gee it works for me just now. Try there home page.
http://www.digital-update.com/

Babel-17

06-13-03, 10:12 AM

I think it's my IP, optonline, that's causing the problem, it could be DNS caching related. Even my optonline homepage can't serve up my mail lol.

Oops, btw, fellow optonline users BE SURE TO READ THIS ABOUT UPLOADS GETTING CAPPED!

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,6885144~root=cable,opt~mode=flat

optonline WILL cap your uploads if you exceed their ill/non defined limit of reasonable upload useage.

Babel-17

06-13-03, 10:54 AM

Link is working for me now Ronhel. :)

I'll check it out tonight hopefully.

Ronhel

06-13-03, 11:00 AM

Originally posted by Babel-17
Link is working for me now Ronhel. :)

I'll check it out tonight hopefully.

Just be careful you don't fill up your hardrive too fast. :D

Babel-17

06-13-03, 12:44 PM

Hehe, I got started earlier than I figured .......... and I see what you mean! :)

Babel-17

06-13-03, 12:50 PM

One of the best is back up.

http://www.suprnova.org

Babel-17

06-14-03, 03:42 PM

http://bittorrent.kicks-ass.net/torrentsdvdr.htm

Ronhel

06-14-03, 04:11 PM

:mecry: linky no worky

Ronhel

06-14-03, 05:31 PM

Search engine for torrents.
http://episodes-first.dnsalias.com/

Babel-17

06-14-03, 06:00 PM

Try copying and pasting the link in your browser. Clicking the link I supplied didn't work for me either but it comes up from my bookmarks folder. Pasting it in IE worked, ditto for mozilla. :)

Lol, I'll give it a rest now. ;)

Babel-17

06-20-03, 09:52 PM

Mission
smr-usenet is dedicated to the advancement of usenet, the education of current and future usenet users, to providing resources for the usenet community, and helping users determine which usenet provider would best fit their needs.

http://www.smr-usenet.com

Ronhel

06-21-03, 01:23 PM

I know it happen to all of us gamers at one time or another.
Lost the damn serial number for your favorite game.
You just might find it here. :evil:

http://www.thaigaming.com/tradezone/pcgame/serialnumber.htm

Babel-17

07-05-03, 07:44 AM

http://www.methlabs.org/releases.htm

"BTW, anyone dl'ing movies should definitely be running PeerGuardian. http://www.methlabs.org/methlabs.htm

It blocks the ip addresses of the major studios and their henchmen. So if they try to dl from you, they'll be rejected. Cause if you share enough movies and you're in the states, you'll get a nastygram from your ISP, or worse."

"If you're talking about PeerGuardian, that's the link to the actual software developer's site.

I run it and it does seem to block a lot of connections from the powers that be. No spyware or any crap, but you "do" need to update the IP database pretty freqently. That file is not even included in the download, so the program won't block anything until you go and get the most recent IP database file.

But it's pretty easy to do, when you install the program, just pull down the "support" menu and click on "Visit the PG2 IP Database". It will take you to a web page, click on "FullUpdate" then download the first file in the list to your PeerGuardian directory. Oh, you have to rename the file to "Guarding.p2p" and then quit and restart the program. That's it."

http://methlab.tech.nu

http://www.simplyclick.org/uploadertest/pgupdates.asp

Babel-17

07-14-03, 08:40 PM

http://sourceforge.net/

Home of MediaPlayer Classic, a non-MS freeware alternative.

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303

A 703k zip file.

Ailuros

07-18-03, 06:06 PM

OT: I just clicked on the thread again, because it stated 666 views. It's :evil: I tell you :)

Babel-17

08-05-03, 08:29 PM

Configuring your system for Media Playback

http://www.inmatrix.com/articles/mediasetup.shtml

Interesting article which I wish I had read months ago. I can laugh now but "codec conflict hell" can be an annoying place to be if you're the least bit obsessive. ;)

The final words of the article I'll post here.

The Last Resort:
If your system is completely screwed up and you're thinking of reinstalling the operating system from scratch to fix your media playback problems, here is a last resort action you can take prior to doing this. Notice, this action may damage media playback on your system, but if you follow it carefully, you should be ok. Just make sure to read all the instructions carefully and don't skip any steps.

Here is the series of actions you need to take to reset your media playback settings to their default values (As they should be after a fresh OS install).

1. You will first need to obtain Zoom Player v3.10 or newer.
2. Run Zoom Player and open the "Options / Filter Control / Management" tab and click on the "Registered Filter Manager" button.
3. Select all the filters in the list (highlight the first filter, hold shift and press the End button on the keyboard).
4. Press on the "Unregister Filters" Button.
5. Close Zoom Player.
6. You will now need to re-register the filters that come with the system on a fresh install. To do this, run this batch file.
7. To restore DVD Playback capabilities without reinstalling the DVD Player, you may also need to register the DVD Filters that came with your player. You should be able to do that using Zoom Player's Customized DVD Playback interface by selecting the decoders you use and pressing the "Register" button.
8. Now go back to the start of this article and configure media playback accordingly.

Final Words:
Make sure you have the "Overlay Mixer" or "Video Mixer Renderer 9" enabled in Zoom Player (Options / Filter Controls), without it under Windows XP, the VMR7 renderer is used and can conflict with certain media playback (makes it choppy or desynced). Don't be tempted for the quick fix, installing codec packs can cause multiple issues, so make sure you know what gets installed.

There is a filter called "mmswitch". This filter is used to provide old media players with the ability to play AVI files with multiple audio tracks. It is not required when Zoom Player is used and can actually cause instability and other odd behavior. Make sure you unregister it (easily done on the Manual Filters options dialog).

If you had the "smart" idea of unregistering every single filter within the Registered Filter Manager and suddenly found that media playback no longer works, read "That Last Resort" section of this article as it explains how to do this properly and restore default media playback conditions.

If you have any other questions, refer them to the Zoom Player section of the forum.

Babel-17

08-09-03, 11:59 AM

http://www.mobygames.com/home/

Design Goals and Manifesto

What is MobyGames?

MobyGames is the working name of an extremely ambitious project: To meticulously catalog all relevant information about electronic games (computer, console, and arcade) on a game-by-game basis, and then offer up that information through flexible queries and "data mining". In layman's terms, it's a huge game database.

In addition to documenting much game information for historical posterity, anyone can contribute a rating or a review to voice their opinion about a particular game. Every rating and review in MobyGames was contributed by a real person who plays games just like you do. If a game is rated high or low in MobyGames, it is because the voting public put it there.

What might not be obvious from the above is the concept of a completely cross-referenced database, allowing practically anything you see on-screen to be a link or query to more information. From any game "rap sheet" (a comprehensive summary of that game's information), you can mine further into (and out of) the data.

How about an example of MobyGames? Using the rap sheet for "Civilization" as an example, let's say you want to play more games by the person who wrote Civilization. Just click on the designer (Sid Meier) from the full list of development credits and a new sheet comes up with all of Sid's games on it, from his early duds like Spitfire Ace (1984) to his latest masterpieces like Alpha Centauri (1999). You can then click any of those games, and their sheets come up, and the cycle continues. Exploring backward, you click on one of his older titles and see that it supports "Tandy" graphics in addition to CGA. "Tandy graphics? What the hell is that?" Click on Tandy, and a glossary entry on Tandy/PCjr graphics is displayed, along with all the games that support it. And so on.

The above is just a simple example, and doesn't even scratch the surface of MobyGames' capabilities, but I think you get the idea. If you like the music in a certain game, you can search for all of that composer's games. If you want to search for all games that specifically support 3D/FX Voodoo hardware accelerators in DOS mode, you can do it. If you have an older machine and want to find a list of good games (as rated by our users) for it to give to the nephew, you can do it. If you just want to get a description of all the baseball games ever created for the PC, you can do it. If you want to search for games with an unlikely combination of interests (searching for realtime+interactive fiction+role-playing games brings up "Zyll", or searching for Racing+Arcade+Coin-Op conversions brings up "Pole Position" and "OutRun"), you can do it.

MobyGames is the world's largest and most flexible electronic game documentation project in existence. And best of all, it's added to, rated, and reviewed by you--the gaming public. MobyGames is, literally, built by gamers.

What are MobyGames' main design goals?

MobyGames' main design goals are:

* To record all relevant information about a game, including (but not limited to): system requirements; sound/video/input devices supported; game creators (programmers, graphic artists, musicians, etc.); publisher; and so on
* To rate (and optionally review at greater length) each game in the database by several factors, and allow multiple ratings by different people for accuracy
* To allow anyone to easily retrieve the information--including complex queries that can span multiple genres, time periods, system requirements, etc.
* To open up the database to multiple contributors

I'll expand on each of the above bullet points:

Recording all relevant information: As previous examples have illustrated, the following will be documented and recorded into the database: Graphics modes, sound cards, minimum requirements, input devices, game developers (programmers, designers, musicians, graphic artists, etc.), publisher, screenshots, package materials (front/back box art, advertising blurbs, etc.), etc.

Ratings: MobyGames wouldn't be too useful if it didn't have ratings so you could separate the good, the bad, and the ugly. Ratings consist of a number value from 0 to 5 in different areas that are averaged together for a final score, and can optionally include short notes from each reviewer. This results in a fair and accurate rating through quantity averaging. (We believe that games are best rated by the players themselves.) And if you've got more to say, spend a few minutes and review the game, writing what you like and dislike about it. The gaming community will thank you for it.

Contributors: In addition to both anonymous and non-anonymous ratings, people are strongly encouraged to submit their own database entries into MobyGames. We can't do it all ourselves, and we certainly can't keep up with all the new releases. Anyone, from collectors keeping history alive to game company representatives ensuring their games are properly cataloged, can become a contributor. Through multiple contributions, MobyGames can become a valuable historical public resource. You can even maintain your own on-line list of software to display to others!

What gaming platforms and time periods are covered by MobyGames?

During our first two years of operation, MobyGames concentrated on PC platforms exclusively (booters, DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 9x/NT/2000, and Linux). This was an effort to get the MobyGames database populated as quickly as possible. But on our 2nd birthday, we officially implemented a multi-platform codebase and added modern console platforms as proof of concept (Playstation, Playstation 2, Dreamcast, and Nintendo 64). As MobyGames matures and grows, we will add additional platforms both modern and classic, such as Amiga, Commodore 64, Apple, Atari, MacIntosh, Spectrum, TRS-80, BBC, coin-ops, Intellivision, and any other electronic gaming platform that you can think of. (Note that there is no current release schedule for these additional platforms, so please don't ask.)

Please keep in mind that although MobyGames will be able to hold all non-PC information, there is no way that we could populate it since we don't own the hardware and software to do so. We will need your help--collectors, enthusiasts, etc.--in populating the databases for non-PC platforms.

What isn't MobyGames?

MobyGames has a very focused direction--to record computer game information for posterity, historical research, and user-contributed ratings. We are not interested in re-inventing the wheel, nor are we interested in competing with professional gaming magazines. As such, you will not find the following on MobyGames:

* The games themselves (offering commercial games for free is illegal, so we don't do it)
* Game demos (we don't have the space, and it's best to get the demo from the game company anyway in case there are new patches, etc.)
* Patches or bug-fixes (no space and/or time to maintain this; the game companies themselves are the best places to get patches anyway)
* Up-to-the-minute gaming news (there are tons of other web sites dedicated to gaming news)

By keeping our direction focused, we can concentrate on giving you the best possible service.

Babel-17

09-21-03, 04:48 PM

This thread still here? :)

http://www.p2pnet.net/

"KEEP THE INTERNET FREE
person-to-person, people-to-people, peer-to-peer, 'puter-to-'puter"

Edit: http://www.p2pnet.net/article/8028

PeerGuardian related

Babel-17

09-23-03, 06:56 AM

http://www.imagestation.com/

It's run by Sony so I guess it's legit.

They want your e-mail addy but the option to opt-out from any and all mailings is right there.

"Why join? Because ImageStation is all about sharing. It's where you can store, edit, and share digital images, and it's all FREE.

Joining ImageStation only takes a minute and all your personal information is kept confidential (plus we won't send you email if you don't want to hear about our great offers and photography tips). To join, just click the button below and complete the six quick fields. Then we'll take you to the images you came to see.

[Join ImageStation ]

If you are already a member, click here to sign in.

Free Unlimited Digital Picture Storage

15 Minutes of Free Online Video Storage

Free Online Photo Albums

Free eCards

Free Image Editing Tools"

Babel-17

09-23-03, 10:26 AM

I also posted the above in The Water Cooler forum, more additional posts there.

http://www.slackercentral.net/forums/showthread.php?t=46378

Babel-17

09-27-03, 05:12 PM

DVD backup guide

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72022

Babel-17

10-05-03, 12:45 AM

Ah, relating to the bittorrent program and high bandwidth providers like optonline: Hehe, found out the hard way, even though in a very belated fashion, that I was correct about there being a real risk of getting ones' upload bandwidth capped.

Mesa was all "honorable tech-support person pleaseuh helpuh ignorant noob using evil program beyond my understanding" and they were all "go forth my repentant cash cow customer and sin no more, thy cappeth has been lifteth."

More seriously: No one but no one can say what the policy on upload limits is. Taking frequent pauses with an upload/uploading is about the only guideline everyone agrees on.

What defines frequent is yet another grey area.

While less convenient, the newsgroups are an acceptable alternative for my needs. (TV shows mostly)

Bittorrent is still useful but I'll be severely modifying my previous style of useage.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,7854796~root=cable,opt~mode=flat

Babel-17

10-05-03, 10:25 AM

http://www.uploadit.org/

free image hosting

Doesn't get much easier to make an upload

BUT!!!!

There is no option at this time to remove ones' uploads.

Still, a useful resource imo.

Babel-17

10-05-03, 10:56 AM

http://www.uploadit.org/files/051003-hosts.rar

(right click, "save as")

Huh, it seems that if you limit the upload to 600k or less other types of uploads are allowed.

The above is a "hosts" file from a Proxomitron related forum.

http://asp.flaaten.dk/proxo/default.asp

Here's the thread that clued me in to this uploading feature.

http://uploadit.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=59&

Babel-17

10-12-03, 01:11 PM

http://www.tvtome.com/

"A whole new TV reference guide for the shows you love."

Been using this for a while, but I think it's never been posted here.

Great resource with episode guides and info.

Kermit

10-15-03, 11:12 AM

20 great google tips - http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1306756,00.asp

PC Magazine Top 100 Websites - http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,4148,7488,00.asp

Babel-17

10-15-03, 05:20 PM

Wow, great stuff Kermit, thanks!

Hehe, using one of the google tips: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Link+slackercentral&btnG=Google+Search

Cool! :)

Babel-17

10-19-03, 04:33 PM

Lol, site has been updated.

http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html

Tachyon

11-14-03, 07:49 PM

Overclocking Sites/Forums
www.overclockers.com / www.forum.oc-forums.com
www.xtremesystems.org / www.xtremesystems.org/forums
www.muropaketti.com

Babel-17

11-22-03, 11:09 AM

Wow

http://www.freebyte.com/

Utilities, webspace, webpages ........

Babel-17

12-08-03, 08:20 AM

Lol, I "lost" a bookmark in the rats nest I currently am using but as serendipity would have it clicking on some links in this thread turned up another free web hosting/uploading spot.

Bizarre layout and I used IE to navigate it rather than reconfigure my armorplated mozilla browser. ;) :)

http://couchpotato.no-ip.com/root/sides/hosting.htm

Seems promising for video uploads, anyone care to test?

I'll give it a whirl later if no one else bites.

Uhhh, let's not do anything :iw: that gets us a :rtm:

Babel-17

12-08-03, 08:25 AM

Hehehe, updated yet again:

http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame82.html

Babel-17

12-08-03, 08:56 AM

http://couchpotato.no-ip.com/stored/This%20Thread%20Is%20Worthless%20Without%20Pics.gi f

Lol, I couldn't resist.

:)

Still deciding what to upload (assuming it works).

Would a brief sample of some B5 music be ok? Maybe not ....... pauses to think.

Babel-17

12-21-03, 12:53 PM

So, can we get some feedback please?

What bookmarks if any would you like to see more of and updated? Have any of them helped? Which areas of interest have we missed?

I'm hoping to post some updates over the holidays. <insert fingers crossed smiley here> :)

Babel-17

12-22-03, 11:10 PM

Not related to my above post but I just now found I needed Money Audio 3.98 to play a file. Turns out the dl link to it is a bit hidden.

Here's the link to the directory for all Monkey Audio dl's.

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/

.ape compression is fairly popular, it's very easy, lossless, and free. Comes with plugins for Nero and Winamp.

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/index.html

Babel-17

01-07-04, 12:39 AM

First installment on my promise to post some DVD related links.

Doom9.net - The Definitive DVD Backup Resource

http://www.doom9.org/

Add permanent subtitles to S/VCD,DVD,AVI with ffdshow/vobsub

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/userguides/153058.php

Digital Video Forums - DVD Shrink

http://forum.digital-digest.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=48

Digital Video Forums - Authoring/Conversion/Encoding

Afonic DVD Rip Guides

http://www.polarhome.com:793/~afonic/tmpegenc.htm

www.kvcd.net :: Index

http://www.kvcd.net/forum/

DVD Player Compatibility List

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers

Techseekers.net Beginners guide to backing up a DVD movie

http://www.techseekers.net/modules.php?name=Reviews&file=index&rop=showcontent&id=68

DVD2one - How to use

http://www.dvd2one.com/howtouse.php

DVDRhelp.com / VCDhelp.com

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

VideoLAN - Free Software and Open Source video streaming solution for every OS!

http://www.videolan.org/

Babel-17

01-07-04, 12:01 PM

http://www.dvdshrink.info/index.php

Btw, a new version should be out soon.

v3.1 comes out at the end of the week.

http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?threadid=25207&perpage=15&pagenumber=7

I'm surprised frankly. "Word on the street" was this chap was now working for Ahead (Nero) and was the reason their DVD reauthoring interface looked so familiar. Anyways, here's a features list.

Hi all.

Here is a list of features dvdshrink will try to implement in the next release (beginning of January at the latest).

quote:
Redesign re-author mode
Probably go back to version 2.3 style GUI, with video preview window on the left and allow multiple sources to be opened in the "Titles" window.

Buttons
Allow user-selectable button bitmaps (PNG or GIF)

"Cannot Decrypt VOBS" error
This occurs when DVD is opened in file mode, but whichever software ripped the VOBS forgot to remove the copy protection flag. Maybe DVD Shrink should continue, read the data anyway and hope for the best.

"Shutdown when finished" option
This option should also be present in the encoding window, so user can change his mind

"Analysis before backup" option
DVD Shrink should check that video compression is set to "Automatic" before allowing this option. Otherwise, output may be over/under-sized.

Closed Captions
Should not be stripped from the video output

CPU Overheating
Should be fixed by offering a thread priority option in backup window

Non-DeCSS version
Should always distribute a non-deCSS build of the current version so magazines etc can safely review.

Audio Preview, AC3 playback
This could be offered by replacing the preview engine with a DirectShow based source filter: AC3 preview would then be OK if user already has AC3 decoder filters installed (as come with PowerDVD etc, so everyone should have them).

Selection Color
Seems that the choice of gray selection color should be user-configurable.

Win98/2000 problems
I think most of these problems are related to fact that DVD Shrink is compiled with Microsoft Visual C++ .NET version. I may go back to using Visual C++ 6.0 (which was used to compile DVD Shrink 1.03). DVD Shrink does require ASPI drivers (wnaspi32.dll) installed if running on Win95/98.

Audio/Subpicture stream remapping
It may be possible to do this properly (i.e. completely remove disabled streams from the IFO files) in some circumstances: for instance if the stream has been completely disabled over the entire DVD, and not just in one title.

Layer Break
Should be a removal option in preferences.

PGC Command Table in re-author mode
Seems that the current set of commands generated by DVD Shrink (which ensure sequential playback of re-authored titles) cause problems on some players. I'll look into some alternative commands which do the same thing.

*****Edited*****

The following feature will be available in v3.1:

quote:
- Removal of the layer-break.
- Preview of the audio streams (DTS via S/PDIF output).
- The "Deep analysis" button is greyed-out when no compression is required for a backup.
- Display time lenght of each title.
- Analysis and transcoding in a low priority (aka idle mode).
- Option to automatically create the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders.
- Countdown to automatic shutdown, with "Cancel" button.
- Ability to use "custom" buttons in DVD Shrink toolbar.

- Disabled audio/subpicture streams are correctly remapped and removed from IFO files (if they are disabled in every title which contain a reference to those streams).

This is not a definitive list, and other features will probably be implemented.

Happy drooling.

__________________
Happy Shrinking!! ~ddlooping~
For guides and downloads, please visit DVDShrink.info.

Last edited by ddlooping on 12-28-2003 at 11:42 AM

Babel-17

01-08-04, 03:08 PM

http://xvalex.hotbox.ru/programs/ac3filter/ac3filter_eng.html

The AC3 codec. Often that's what you need if you can't play/hear Dolby stereo.

Babel-17

01-22-04, 12:20 AM

Time to archive this puppy and start a new sticky thread?

I was really pleased Slacker thought well of this thread but I don't want it to hold back a more worthy candidate ....... maybe a driver installation guide or such.

Anywho, I'll endeavor to put a few last ones up here this weekend if the thread is still here. If no substitute thread can be found I'll still drop some links from time to time of course. I like this thread but I know I'm not doing it justice.

Huh, maybe we can "Last Hurrah" this and anyone interested can scour their bookmarks for the gems I know are there.

We can always use a laugh so post all of those sites. Even the obvious ones, over time they become less obvious especially to newcomers.

Sites always come and go so let's update all the usual suspects ......... overclocking, mobo's, sites that have good deals, Linux, Opera, mozilla, how-to guides, and sites that provide unique content.

Found a site that just excels at what it does? Post it here.

Found a place that always draws you back? Post it here.

Found a site that saved your ass even if just once? You know the drill. :)

TIA and best wishes to whatever sticky replaces this or maybe just gets top billing over it. (I forgot about that possibility)

Babel-17

02-08-04, 09:03 PM

Sorry for the lack of updates.

By way of an apology here's a useful bookmark for when you're, ahhh, "researching" movie actresses.

Non-pron and afaik worksafe.

http://www.atpictures.com/actress/

incandescent

02-08-04, 09:20 PM

babel-17 :hail:

I am not worthy!

Babel-17

02-08-04, 09:24 PM

Thanks! :)

Half the fun is in the sharing. :D

Ailuros

02-23-04, 09:04 PM

Lollan

02-23-04, 09:06 PM

Babel,l i love thee..

Babel-17

02-24-04, 10:09 PM

Here's a fix for the dumbest issue I ever had and broke my balls for weeks to find a sollution:

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/MicrosoftMediaPlayer/wwwboard/messages/3493.html

Something must have screwed up the registry values during the last winMP installation and neither WMP nor any other playback program would playback audio CD's or more specifically .cda files. All I got was an error 0xC00D1197 code.

Link isn't working for me.

Hmm, did you try downloading the registry file that resets the system back to the defaults for media playback? The Zoom Player link I posted has some interesting info and a fix too.

Here it is again.

http://www.inmatrix.com/articles/mediasetup.shtml

Here's the "last resort" page.

http://www.inmatrix.com/articles/mediasetup3.shtml

The Last Resort:
If your system is completely screwed up and you're thinking of reinstalling the operating system from scratch to fix your media playback problems, here is a last resort action you can take prior to doing this. Notice, this action may damage media playback on your system, but if you follow it carefully, you should be ok. Just make sure to read all the instructions carefully and don't skip any steps.

Here are the series of actions you will need to take in order to reset your media playback settings to their default values (As they should be after a fresh OS install).

You will first need to obtain Zoom Player v3.10 or newer.
Run Zoom Player and open the "Options / Filter Control / Management" tab and click on the "Registered Filter Manager" button.
Select all the filters in the list (highlight the first filter, hold shift and press the End button on the keyboard).
Press on the "Unregister Filters" Button.
Close Zoom Player.
You will now need to re-register the filters that come with the system on a fresh install. To do this, run this batch file.
To restore DVD Playback capabilities without reinstalling the DVD Player, you may also need to register the DVD Filters that came with your player. You should be able to do that using Zoom Player's Customized DVD Playback interface by selecting the decoders you use and pressing the "Register" button.
Now go back to the start of this article and configure media playback accordingly.
Final Words:
Make sure you have either the "Overlay Mixer" or "Video Mixer Renderer 9" enabled in Zoom Player (Options / Filter Controls), without it under Windows XP, the VMR7 renderer is used and can conflict with certain media playback (makes it choppy or desynced). Don't be tempted for the quick fix, installing codec packs can cause multiple negative issues, so make sure you know what gets installed.

There is a filter called "mmswitch". This filter is used to provide old media players with the ability to play AVI files with multiple audio tracks. It is not required when Zoom Player is used and can actually cause instability and other odd behavior. Make sure you unregister it (easily done on the Filter Control options dialog).

If you had the "smart" idea of unregistering every single filter within the Registered Filter Manager and suddenly found that media playback no longer works, read "That Last Resort" section of this article as it explains how to do this properly and restore default media playback conditions.

If you have any other questions, refer them to the Zoom Player section of the forum.

Babel-17

02-24-04, 10:10 PM

Babel,l i love thee..

Lol, I'm afraid to ask what links you found useful. :D

Lollan

02-24-04, 10:32 PM

Lol, I'm afraid to ask what links you found useful. :D

The actress ones, lol..

I have a question, if i want to edit a DVD into smaller segments.. i rip it to my HDD then convert it into a editable format, right?? I cant ever seem to do this right.. ideas?

Babel-17

02-25-04, 02:32 AM

The actress ones, lol..

I have a question, if i want to edit a DVD into smaller segments.. i rip it to my HDD then convert it into a editable format, right?? I cant ever seem to do this right.. ideas?

That's a huge topic. What format would you be converting to? Would you be seeking to burn it to disk and would you want to be able to play it back on a standalone home DVD player and/or stream it to your TV from your computer.

For maximum compatability you'll want to use the mpeg format. MPEG-1 or MPEG-2. DVD's are MPEG-2.

DivX can compress the file smaller though.

Assuming you've ripped the VOB files to your drive open Dr. DivX and navigate from within it to where the VOB's are. It will ask you which ones do you want to keep. What settings to use is a whole other story. :)

Many mpeg encoders allow you to load VOB files for encoding. The biatch is that they are usually set to grab whatever audio is set as the primary. If it's not the audio track you wanted your out of luck. Usually but far from always it will be the Dolby 5:1 track with 2:0 and/or the director's commentary coming as secondary or higher. Language tracks are the same way.

Another biatch is that unless they licensed the AC3 codec they won't encode it for you, they'll re-encode it as MP-2 audio. Which is good quality, it's just less compressed.

DivX uses MP3 audio while XviD's seem to be able to use AC3 and even Ogg.

To maintain DVD standards check that the audio bitrate is set to 384 kb/s.

There are several advanced options you should look at when encoding mpegs depending on what you are trying to do ....... and some even more advanced you won't want to go near.

I'm guessing you want to make a video using some selected samples, yes?

If so you're in luck as you should be able to skip a lot of the arduous steps that other re-authoring projects entail.

DVD Shrink is freeware and you can use it to rip all/most of the stuff you don't need from the VOB's.

I'll have to get back to you on this. I was on my way to bed.

I'm no expert btw, I've just read some guides and done a few, a very few, projects for my amusement.

Mmm, hopefully we can start this up again in The Watercooler?

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

http://www.dvd-guides.com/index.php

http://www.doom9.net/

Lollan

02-25-04, 06:31 AM

Hopefully, im trying to do my "Matrix Best-Of" series. I ripped all of the files to my comp and could open the VOB files in vegas but when id preview they were extremely choppy.. couldnt find a decent free converter anywhere.. most of them would work fine and id leave it converting overnight but in the morning id find out that it only converted like 10 minutes of the file..

Babel-17

02-25-04, 12:26 PM

Wrong information, sorry. Still looking for a free encoder for you.

Lollan

02-25-04, 07:09 PM

Rotfl, u = da man.

czorhanz

03-05-04, 03:19 AM

Kermit I love the www.activewin.com (http://www.activewin.com/) site. its totally :D awsome thanks

I friggin stayed up all nite screwin around with that shit

Babel-17

03-15-04, 07:57 AM

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/

A very comprehensive and organized site. It contains most eveything one needs to configure or repair the settings of Windows XP.

An awesome site to browse even for very experienced users. One can almost not help leaving the site a little bit better informed.

Lollan

03-15-04, 05:06 PM

Wrong information, sorry. Still looking for a free encoder for you.

Any luck?

Babel-17

03-15-04, 05:50 PM

Any luck?

Not yet. I'll try to make another determined effort in a few days. To be honest, I've only tried off and on over the last week.

Lollan

03-16-04, 11:45 AM

lol, i dont expect you to go on a mad search or anything.
But i do greatly appreciate your assistance.

Babel-17

03-25-04, 11:18 AM

Test ......

http://207.137.168.225/This Thread Is Worthless Without Pics.gif

Image Upload Page

The following restrictions apply:

* File extension must be .gif .jpg .jpeg .png .swf
* Maximum file size is 102400 bytes (100 KB)
* No spaces in the filename
* No Porno or tasteless stuff
* KEEP your Images Small 250x250 is a good size
* READ THE INSTRUCTIONS !!!!! AFTER you hit
* Filename cannot contain illegal characters (\ / : * ? " ' < > |)

http://207.137.168.225/

Babel-17

03-25-04, 11:28 AM

http://www.photobucket.com/

Untested for now. Hopefully I'll be able to try it out soon.

I don't see it as staying free forever though. Might be useful for posting stuff in threads that just come and go. I wouldn't count on this as being even semi-permanent. Hope I'm wrong about that. :)

Image hosting and Online photo albums
( serving over 35 million pictures per day )

Goto Album
Sign Up Free | Sample Album

Photobucket.com is a leading image hosting company for ebay, live journals, message boards, online auctions and online photo albums. Photobucket is reliable, fast and very simple to use. With more digital cameras and photo editors being used everyday, users need a place to store and display images online. You can easily upload, link, categorize, add titles to images and add more albums as needed. Your pictures are safe and will not be deleted. Best of all, direct linking is allowed. Currently this site is free and has minimal limitations, however donations are appreciated!

Three simple steps to link to your pictures from anywhere on the web:

* Register and activate your account
* Upload or transfer your pictures to photobucket.com
* Copy and paste the links below the thumbnail

Common uses include:

* Picture linking for Ebay, auctions and classifieds
* Direct linking to message boards and live journals
* Customize your album for an online photo album
* WebTV video capture and uploads

CrashNBurN

04-14-04, 07:15 PM

wow, amazing links my friend......just amazing....

CrashNBurN

04-15-04, 12:20 PM

babel-17

do you know of any screen capture programs that do it in a pretty straight forward mannar. Hoping to take some ingame footage for use in a few different projects.

Preferably free.

Babel-17

04-16-04, 08:20 PM

babel-17

do you know of any screen capture programs that do it in a pretty straight forward mannar. Hoping to take some ingame footage for use in a few different projects.

Preferably free.

Are you looking for software to do screen captures or is it video recording you want?

If it's screen captures your timing is amazing. :) Lol, one of the best freeware proggies ever just got updated.

Version 3.90 ( - CURRENT VERSION - ) (Release date: 09.04.2004)

http://www.irfanview.com/main_history.htm

IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003.

It is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals.

IrfanView was the first Windows graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple (animated) GIF support.
One of the first graphic viewers WORLDWIDE with Multipage TIFF support.
The first graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple ICO support.

Some IrfanView features:
Many supported file formats (click here the list of formats)
Multi language support
Thumbnail/preview option
Slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD)
Show EXIF/IPTC/Comment text in Slideshow/Fullscreen etc.
Support for Adobe Photoshop Filters
Drag & drop support
Fast directory view (moving through directory)
Batch conversion (with image processing)
Email option
Multimedia player
Print option
Change color depth
Scan (batch scan) support
Cut/crop
IPTC editing
Effects (Sharpen, Blur, Adobe 8BF, Filter Factory, Filters Unlimited, etc.)
Capturing
Extract icons from EXE/DLL/ICLs
Lossless JPG rotation
Many hotkeys
Many command line options
Many PlugIns
Only one EXE-File, no DLLs, no Shareware messages like "I Agree" or "Evaluation expired"
No registry changes without user action/permission!
and many more

http://www.irfanview.com/main_what_is_engl.htm

Most PlugIns are changed/updated, please install the newest versions
http://www.irfanview.com/plugins.htm

Look at fraps for video recording of in game action. Does screenshots too.

http://www.fraps.com/

Fraps Real-Time Video Capture

Welcome to the Fraps website! If this is your first visit to our site please take your time to read about our unique utility below.

Fraps is designed as a generic tool for DirectX and OpenGL games. In its current form Fraps performs many tasks and can best be described as:

Benchmarking Software - See how many Frames Per Second (FPS) you are getting onscreen while running your games. You can even perform custom benchmarks and measure the frame rate between any two points. Save the statistics out to disk and use them for your own applications.

Screen Capture Software - Take a screenshot with the press of a key! There's no need to paste into a paint program every time you want to capture the screen. Your screen captures are also automatically named and timestamped.

Realtime Video Capture Software - Have you ever wanted to record video while playing your favourite game? Well now you can! Fraps can capture audio and video up to 1024x768 at 30 frames per second!

All movies are recorded in outstanding quality. If you have Windows Media Player please sample some of the movies captured with Fraps below:

Painkiller Demo Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo

Only the old version is free.

Fraps FREE Downloads

Fraps 2.1.0 demo

This demo has the frame rate, benchmarking, and screen capture functions fully operational. The video capture is restricted to saving movies at half-size, and having a maximum duration of 15 seconds for each movie.
# Requires Direct X 9.0b
# Requires Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows 2003
# Requires Pentium 3, Pentium 4, Athlon, or Duron processor
# Works best with an Nvidia Geforce 2/3/4/FX, or an ATI Radeon 9xxx graphics card.
# Must be installed under an Administrator account.
Download FRAPS210DEMO.EXE (623k)

Fraps 1.9D

The last free version of Fraps with no limitations. It may not look pretty but it gets the job done. Can capture videos up to 640x480 without sound.
# Requires a Pentium 2 or later processor
# Supports Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2K/XP
# Supports most graphics cards
Download FRAPS19D.EXE (72k)

http://www.fraps.com/downloads.htm

Babel-17

04-16-04, 08:24 PM

wow, amazing links my friend......just amazing....

Thanks! And thank you on behalf of all the other submitters.

Many of the links are overdue for being updated. I'm such a slacker ...........

CrashNBurN

04-17-04, 07:49 AM

Thanks for the links! I'm basically looking for video programs if that's possible.

Babel-17

04-17-04, 05:24 PM

Thanks for the links! I'm basically looking for video programs if that's possible.

Then Fraps is what you want.

I just remembered and found another. 30 day fully functional free trial.

http://www.techsmith.com

SnagIt Free Trial

We encourage you to try SnagIt FREE for 30 days. During this time, SnagIt is fully functional so you can enjoy all the latest features. To try SnagIt now, simply click on the download link below.

http://www.techsmith.com/download/snagitfreetrial.asp

* Image Capture
* Text Capture
* Web Capture
* Video Capture
* Printer Capture
* Image Editing
* Image Browsing
* Batch Conversion
* Free Technical Support
* Free Upgrades**

Babel-17

04-19-04, 05:47 PM

Beginners Guides: Setting up a FTP Server in WinXP

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1491

CrashNBurN

04-19-04, 07:14 PM

Do you have anymore on my topic? hehe, thanks for the links, huge files.

Love'em!

You're the best!

Babel-17

04-20-04, 05:08 AM

Do you have anymore on my topic? hehe, thanks for the links, huge files.

Love'em!

You're the best!

Thanks for the compliment!

I'm keeping my eyes peeled for any others as well as free mpeg encoders.

Babel-17

04-24-04, 06:02 PM

An utterly shameless swipe: :D

Thanks goes to Vincent_HRD for the link. This (http://boards.slackercentral.com/showthread.php?t=56013) was the thread.

A really good link for dah slackas
lots of utils of any kind, "very usefull" bookmark

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?bo...y;threadid=1509
__________________

The Shadow, right behind you, no matter where you go, I'll be always there...:evil:

Babel-17

04-25-04, 07:25 AM

Oops, here's the correct link. My bad with the copy and paste, sorry.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=1509

Babel-17

04-26-04, 06:08 AM

Wow. :)

http://www.howstuffworks.com/

Babel-17

04-26-04, 11:22 AM

The Comprehensive Windows Media 9 HDTV Encoding Guide

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=227837

Babel-17

04-26-04, 11:47 AM

http://www.heise.de/ct/ftp/spezial.shtml

Some HDTV samples on the page. Warning: Massive cpu hit when playing them.

With maximal quality HDTV clips a P4 running at 3GHz and better is required. High end vidcard too.

The clips on the above link aren't max quality but even a 2.4GHz P4 might stumble on some.

Let me know if HDTV related links are of interest.

Babel-17

05-02-04, 03:26 PM

http://www.all-nettools.com/toolbox

Babel-17

05-02-04, 04:32 PM

www.arin.net
www.apnic.net
www.iana.org
www.ripe.net
www.betterwhois.com
www.traceroute.org

Babel-17

05-02-04, 08:07 PM

The ExtremeTech Guide to Buying HDTV

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1573866,00.asp

Shamelessly swiped from Beyond3D's forums.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12023

Babel-17

05-09-04, 07:46 AM

LegalTorrents - Your source for legal BitTorrent files:

http://www.legaltorrents.com/

INDEX » Welcome!
This is a collection of legally downloadable, freely distributable files, both net.label electronic MP3s and other media items, which we've made available via BitTorrent - we're also hosting a 'guaranteed' high speed seed for them. Everyone that grabs the BitTorrent client and downloads helps contribute more bandwidth, because BitTorrent utilizes your unused upload bandwidth. Please note that all of the current torrents are made available under a Creative Commons license with the full permission of the rights holder.

[A quick style guide for the current music-based Torrents - if you like super-bleepy '80s videogame music, you'll like 8BitPeoples, if you like melodic idm/electronic music, you'll like Monotonik and Kikapu, if you like minimal house, you'll appreciate Thinner, if you like nuanced indielectronic music, you'll like Observatory Online and Please Do Something, if you like dark ambient and slightly glitchier work, you'll like Enough Records. You can try individual releases by going to each label's homepage, or streaming/downloading from the Netlabels collection at the Internet Archive.]

[UPDATE - 05/08 - Put up the freely spreadable Baen 'Hell's Faire' eBook CD-ROM - thanks to Zan Lynx for providing the image, and Baen for allowing redistribution. 2.88TB transferred. 04/20 - Freshly added, the Free Culture collaborative audiobook, thanks to Noa Resare for assembling the Torrent. NB - we're intending to offer dirs, not ZIPs, for newer torrents. 2.65TB transferred. 04/05 - Thanks to Dan Gillmor and John Paczkowski at the San Jose Mercury News for helping spread the word. 2.30TB transferred. 03/28 - Thanks to USAToday.com for its mention of us as a 'Hot Site'. There are now individual RSS feeds for each media type, but the RSS for all items still exists too. 03/19 - Site mentioned on Slashdot, 1.34TB transferred, wow. 03/15 - the RSS/BitTorrent synergy has been covered by Wired News and big German-language site Heise.de, both of whom reference LegalTorrents. There's also commentary from myself (the site creator) via an O'Reilly.net weblog post. 1.03TB and counting transferred. 03/11 - Many thanks to Andrew Grumet for helping us with RSS+BitTorrent integration - here's the RSS feed, and here's some instructions on getting automated BitTorrent downloads using RSS - this is a first, I believe. 871GB so far. 12/15 - Many thanks to the Creative Commons weblog, Lawrence Lessig, and everyone else who's linked to us - 123GB transferred so far!]

PS: Holy Cow! I'm getting a dl of over 500k kB/s of Baen 'Hell's Faire' eBook CD-ROM.

Edit: Check this one out.

This creator-approved, Creative Commons licensed pack includes 3 FPS videogame-related docs created by Simon Bysshe - Modern Day Gamer 1, 2, and Intel Extreme 2. Movies are in DIVX and WMV formats, sorry for mixed formatting.

http://www.legaltorrents.com/index.php?fuse=29

I'll comment on the content later assuming the dl goes ok.

Babel-17

05-09-04, 08:12 AM

A link I got from the first dl.

Baen Free Library

(Hmmm, only renders all the links in IE for some reason.)

http://www.baen.com/library/home.htm

Introducing the Baen Free Library
by Eric Flint
Baen Books is now making available — for free — a number of its titles in electronic format. We're calling it the Baen Free Library. Anyone who wishes can read these titles online — no conditions, no strings attached. (Later we may ask for an extremely simple, name & email only, registration. ) Or, if you prefer, you can download the books in one of several formats. Again, with no conditions or strings attached. (URLs to sites which offer the readers for these format are also listed. )

Why are we doing this? Well, for two reasons.

The first is what you might call a "matter of principle." This all started as a byproduct of an online "virtual brawl" I got into with a number of people, some of them professional SF authors, over the issue of online piracy of copyrighted works and what to do about it.

There was a school of thought, which seemed to be picking up steam, that the way to handle the problem was with handcuffs and brass knucks. Enforcement! Regulation! New regulations! Tighter regulations! All out for the campaign against piracy! No quarter! Build more prisons! Harsher sentences!

Alles in ordnung!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I, ah, disagreed. Rather vociferously and belligerently, in fact. And I can be a vociferous and belligerent fellow. My own opinion, summarized briefly, is as follows:

1. Online piracy — while it is definitely illegal and immoral — is, as a practical problem, nothing more than (at most) a nuisance. We're talking brats stealing chewing gum, here, not the Barbary Pirates.

2. Losses any author suffers from piracy are almost certainly offset by the additional publicity which, in practice, any kind of free copies of a book usually engender. Whatever the moral difference, which certainly exists, the practical effect of online piracy is no different from that of any existing method by which readers may obtain books for free or at reduced cost: public libraries, friends borrowing and loaning each other books, used book stores, promotional copies, etc.

3. Any cure which relies on tighter regulation of the market — especially the kind of extreme measures being advocated by some people — is far worse than the disease. As a widespread phenomenon rather than a nuisance, piracy occurs when artificial restrictions in the market jack up prices beyond what people think are reasonable. The "regulation-enforcement-more regulation" strategy is a bottomless pit which continually recreates (on a larger scale) the problem it supposedly solves. And that commercial effect is often compounded by the more general damage done to social and political freedom.

In the course of this debate, I mentioned it to my publisher Jim Baen. He more or less virtually snorted and expressed the opinion that if one of his authors — how about you, Eric? — were willing to put up a book for free online that the resulting publicity would more than offset any losses the author might suffer.

The minute he made the proposal, I realized he was right. After all, Dave Weber's On Basilisk Station has been available for free as a "loss leader" for Baen's for-pay experiment "Webscriptions" for months now. And — hey, whaddaya know? — over that time it's become Baen's most popular backlist title in paper!

And so I volunteered my first novel, Mother of Demons, to prove the case. And the next day Mother of Demons went up online, offered to the public for free.

Sure enough, within a day, I received at least half a dozen messages (some posted in public forums, others by private email) from people who told me that, based on hearing about the episode and checking out Mother of Demons, they either had or intended to buy the book. In one or two cases, this was a "gesture of solidarity. "But in most instances, it was because people preferred to read something they liked in a print version and weren't worried about the small cost — once they saw, through sampling it online, that it was a novel they enjoyed. (Mother of Demons is a $5.99 paperback, available in most bookstores. Yes, that a plug. )

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then, after thinking the whole issue through a bit more, I realized that by posting Mother of Demons I was just making a gesture. Gestures are fine, but policies are better.

So, the next day, I discussed the matter with Jim again and it turned out he felt exactly the same way. So I proposed turning the Mother of Demons tour-de-force into an ongoing project. Immediately, David Drake was brought into the discussion and the three of us refined the idea and modified it here and there. And then Dave Weber heard about it, and Dave Freer, and. . . voila.

The Baen Free Library was born.

This will be a place where any author can, at their own personal discretion, put up online for free any book published by Baen that they so desire. There is absolutely no "pressure" involved. The choice is entirely up to the authors, and that is true on all levels:

— participate, or not, as they choose;

— put up whatever book they choose;

— for as long as they choose.

Babel-17

05-09-04, 08:31 AM

LegalTorrents - Your source for legal BitTorrent files:

http://www.legaltorrents.com/

PS: Holy Cow! I'm getting a dl of over 500k kB/s of Baen 'Hell's Faire' eBook CD-ROM.

Edit: Check this one out.

http://www.legaltorrents.com/index.php?fuse=29

I'll comment on the content later assuming the dl goes ok.

Excellent quality given the file sizes. Not really my cup of tea but worth a look. The dl averaged over 700 kB/s.

Here's from the accompanying document.

Videogame Documentary 3-Pack (Modern Day Gamer 1, 2, Intel Extreme 2)

This pack includes 3 videogame-related documentaries produced by UK filmmaker
Simon Bysshe, all at least partially related to team-based competitive first
person shooter gaming. We asked Simon to pick his three favorite movies from
the works he's done over the past couple of years, and he ended up picking these
ones, which span from his first, 'Modern Day Gamer', through the sequel and
the latest, more professional Intel-sponsored LAN game coverage.

Please note that these films are either in DIVX format (please download the
latest version of DIVX to check them out), or WMV format (grab the latest
Windows Media Player to guarantee they'll play properly) - apologies for the
diverse range of formats.

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
[SPECIFIC INFO?]

--

'Modern Day Gamer' - http://www.esreality.com/documentary - 75MB DIVX AVI

The main purpose of this documentary is to address the main pre-conceptions
people have about gamers, ie: is it really anti-social? is it only for geeks? is
it a non-productive use of time?

--

'Modern Day Gamer 2' - http://www.esreality.com/mdg2 - 163MB WMV

The main purpose of this documentary is to ask whether we will ever see gaming
become a mainstream spectator sport.

The film features the Four Kings Wolfenstein squad as they compete at Quakecon
2003. We follow the team as they progress through the event & talk exclusively
with them about tactics before their games.

Featuring interviews with:

* John Romero
* Sujoy Roy (iGamesUK)
* Paul 'Locki' Wedgwood (Splash Damage)
* David Mitchell (Intel UK)
* Toby Aldridge (4K^Zommy)
& many other 4K players.

This is the sequel to my original documentary which focused on the growth of
gaming as a sociable hobby & received over 50,000 downloads worldwide.

--

'Intel Extreme Edition Challenge 2' - http://gotfrag.com/extremeedition2 - 234MB
WMV

This film showcases how gaming can become a mainstream spectator sport.

The Intel Extreme Edition Challenge 2 features a match between Four Kings &
Counter-Strike champions Schroet Kommando. This is the second film conceived &
funded by Intel where the famous film-maker Simon Bysshe (4K^simonb) was hired
in as director.

TSN shoutcasters ‘WarWitch’ & ‘MarshallX’ host the show bringing you the action
both on and off the stage. Their interviews include:

# In-depth tactical analysis of map de_nuke
# A gaming tutorial with SK|fisker
# Live shoutcasting from TsN's Warwitch and MarshallX
# A post-match analysis with SK|ahl
# Interviews with Potti, HeatoN, Mangiacapra & more!

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
[LICENSE?]

Please note that the Videogame Documentary 3-Pack is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial 1.0 license:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0/

Thus, you are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work under
the following conditions:

- Attribution. You must give the original author credit.
- Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
- No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms
of this work.

Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the author.

Babel-17

06-05-04, 09:13 PM

http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php

Free antivirus software

CrashNBurN

06-06-04, 08:17 PM

woohoo keep'em coming!

Vermillion

06-07-04, 04:31 PM

When you want to e-mail a file that's too large (just make sure that the item is legit, since they do police this).

http://www.yousendit.com

Babel-17

06-15-04, 06:53 PM

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/list.php?reviewType=DVD+Video

http://www.dv-depot.com/xiga/index.php?subclass=

http://www.imdb.com/

Good sites for movie/DVD info.

Babel-17

06-27-04, 06:02 PM

Some more free e-books. Site appears legit.

http://www.click-now.net/ebooks.htm

Edit: Don't forget to toggle the alphabetical thingy in the upper right hand corner to see more e-books.

Icoop

07-06-04, 09:45 PM

omg sum1 shoulda refered me to this pg 4 hrs ago :lol:

Lollan

07-09-04, 02:24 PM

Not hard to miss stickys, :grrf:

CrashNBurN

07-09-04, 09:05 PM

More More!!! :)

Babel-17

07-11-04, 11:41 AM

Lol, not sure if this link will help anyone here but if it does it could help a real lot.

Optimizing cpu load while playing TS (Transport Stream) (HDTV) files.

Lowered my cpu load by 40-55 percent when using Zoom Player Professional (which is mandatory for the fix). The download of Zoom Player Professional is free, you just get a three second countdown while it is unregistered.

Here's the thread for the fix.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=395039

For some reason it didn't work for me right away. A second try with a reinstall of the mpeg splitter somehow did the trick though. Ummm, I also did the optional steps.

Babel-17

07-11-04, 11:59 AM

Too late to edit my post above. Here's an addendum.

I'm using the AC3 filter version 0.70b

http://ac3filter.sourceforge.net/

I'm also using the options for AC3 filter playback available from the "Big Fix" program available from the DivX messageboards. I use only the AC3 filter option for Dr.DivX from that proggie. Afaik you don't need DivX or Dr. DivX to use that portion of the fix. The settings it uses could easily be set manually but I'm spoiled. :)

The Big Fix adjusts the volume a bit louder and sets the filter to run using maximal compatability settings (2 channel stereo among other things). Nice, if you've messed up your AC3 settings really bad somehow. DivX forums seem to be down at the moment so no link for now. :(

Babel-17

07-11-04, 12:11 PM

I think I might have posted this link before but from the above forum I see they keep their bookmarks thread updated. :)

Yowzah, what a list!

Keep up the good work, it's already turning out to be a gold mine of free killer HTPC apps (and links) - thanks again for all your contributions and enjoy! Now all links are "hyperlinked" & this thread better streamlined. Also contributing AVS Members names have been alphabetized, makes it easier to organize & find...

***** Since the moderator and I both agree this thread should be kept "lean & clean" and to still keep new links, suggestions, contributions coming in all members should post at the original thread - Free killer apps for your HTPC...

This thread is "locked" by the Moderator(s) and kept updated (thanks!), yet is kept simple & short with new posts going to the other “older” thread. The difference in titles is this new thread has an additional 2 periods at the end. It seems to be working out very well! *****

Last edited by Bob Sorel on 07-06-04 at 01:38 PM

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=399319

A "sticky".

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=355128&perpage=20&pagenumber=8

The current latest page for the above thread.

CrashNBurN

07-12-04, 02:01 PM

Do we have any links up yet possibly, for uploading music files? I've been using the UpLoad It for putting pics up for my site or friends sites to link pictures from, but I have yet to find a free audio host.

Know Any?

Zen Masta

Babel-17

07-17-04, 03:39 AM

Another free, full featured, piece of anti-virus software.

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

Free avast! 4 Home Edition

avast! 4 Home Edition is a full-featured antivirus package designed exclusively for home users, non-commercial users. Both conditions should be met! Our company offers Home Edition free of charge, since in our opinion, it is possible to avoid global virus spreading by efficient prevention; however, many user are not able or do not want to pay for antivirus software. This page will show you the most important features of this program.

There is available full line of avast! antivirus products for non-profit and charity institution with special discount. See our price list.

The latest version of this program is 4.1. To find out what's new, please refer to this page

Features overview
Antivirus kernel
Simple User Interface
Resident protection

Automatic updates
Virus Chest
System integration

Antivirus kernel

New version of avast! antivirus kernel features outstanding detection abilities, together with high performance. You can expect 100% detection of In-the-Wild viruses (the ones what are really spreading amongst people) and very good detection of Trojan horses, all that with only a minimum number of false alarms.

The kernel was certified by ICSA; it frequently takes part in the tests of Virus Bulletin magazine, often yielding the VB100 award.

Simple User Interface

Simple User Interface is used to start on-demand scanning, work with the results, change various options etc. Basic resident protection settings can be modified here.

Simple User Interface is the main application of avast! 4 Home Edition. You can start additional avast! modules from here, such as the Virus Chest, Updater or Log Viewer.

The appearance of Simple User Interface is very flexible. It supports so called skins, i.e. changeable appearances, so there are many possibilities the interface can look like. The main package contains three skins, additional ones can be downloaded from our web pages.

Standard resident protection

Resident protection, i.e. the real-time protection of the computer, is one of the most important parts of an antivirus program today. avast! features a powerful resident module that is able to detect the virus before it has any chance to infect your computer.

avast! Home Edition contains resident protection of the computer file system and resident module for e-mails.

The file system protection ensures that no virus will be started on the computer. It offers a wide range of settings - e.g. it is possible to specify that files will be scanned during copying, or that the scanning will include files with given set of extensions only.

E-mail protection consists of two independent modules; first, there is a generic scanner working on the SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 protocol level. It is capable of protecting any existing e-mail client that uses these protocols. Second, there is a special plugin for MS Outlook only; it is completely transparent, requiring no special settings.

New feature of version 4 is heuristic analysis of e-mail scanners. It is extremely useful in protecting against new, unknown viruses and worms that are not possible to detect by the usual means. The heuristic module performs a thorough investigation of every e-mail message and watches for suspicious signs that might announce virus presence. When the number of those signs exceeds the user-defined level, the message is considered dangerous and the user is warned.

Automatic updates

Automatic updates are another key point in virus protection. Both the virus database and the program itself can be updated automatically. The updates are incremental, i.e. only the new or missing data are downloaded, thus reducing the transfer heavily. The typical size of a virus database update are tens of KB, the program update usually has hundreds of KB.

If your Internet connection is persistent, the updates are performed completely automatically in fixed time intervals. If you connect to the Internet only occasionally, avast! watches your connection and tries to perform the update when you are online.

Having the up-to-date virus database and antivirus program all the time - it is the most certain way to protect your computer.

Virus Chest

The Chest can be thought of as a folder on your disk having special properties that make it a safe, isolated place suitable for storing certain files. You can work with the files in the Chest, even though with some security restrictions.

The main properties of the Virus Chest are complete isolation from the rest of the operating system (no outside process, i.e. no virus either, may access the files inside) and the fact that the files inside the Chest may not be run (i.e. there is no danger in storing viruses there).

System Integration

avast! antivirus features outstanding integration into your system. The scanning can be started directly from Windows Explorer, by clicking a folder or a file with your right mouse button and selecting the corresponding choice from the menu.

Another interesting feature is a special screen-saver that performs scanning for viruses during its run-time. avast! antivirus works together with your favorite screen-saver, so you don't have to change to anything you wouldn't like.

Another new option is the boot-time scan (Windows NT/2000/XP/.NET only). It is important in the case that a virus is suspected to be active on your computer. The boot-time scan is performed before the virus may get activated, so the virus cannot influence the scanning in any way.

Main features
ANTIVIRUS KERNEL
- Almost 100% detection
- Outstanding performance
- Reasonable memory requirements
- ICSA certified
USER INTERFACE
- Memory test during the program startup
- Very intuitive Simple User Interface
- Testing whole disks or selected folders
- Working with the scan results - actions with infected files
- Virus encyclopedia
- Log Viewer
- Various appearances - skin support
- Running from Explorer context menu
- Antivirus screen-saver
UPDATES
- The system of incremental updates guarantees low traffic
- The updates can be completely automatic

RESIDENT PROTECTION
- Standard Shield protects the file system
- Generic SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
- Specific MS Outlook plugin
- Heuristic analysis in e-mail modules
REPAIRING
- Limited capability of direct repair (especially macroviruses)
- Repairing files using automatically generated Virus Recovery Database (VRDB)
PLATFORMS
- Windows 95
- Windows 98
- Windows Me
- Windows NT 4
- Windows 2000
- Windows XP

avast! 4 Home Download
avast! Home is now free of charge for HOME users for NON-COMMERCIAL use. You can find more info here. If you are not a home user or you use your computer for profit, you should buy the commercial version here.

Babel-17

07-18-04, 10:08 PM

Welcome to Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity, the world's first home theater audio/video magazine to be published only in electronic format on the Internet, available since 1994.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/about.html

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/main.html

I'm currently reading up on progressive scan DVD players.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_7_4/dvd-benchmark-part-5-progressive-10-2000.html

<small snip>

Introduction

It has long been our feeling that one can learn much more about the quality of a DVD player by watching lousy DVD movie material than you can learn by watching great material. Great material tends to look fine on just about every player, and we find ourselves squinting and striving to tease out the tiny differences in sharpness and resolution. But, as you will see from this article, there are really substantial differences in how well players handle badly encoded DVDs. There are plenty of DVD player reviews that will tell you how terrific a player looks when playing The Fifth Element or Starship Troopers, but really, that’s like testing a car by only driving it on a perfectly smooth, level road. We’re here to change all that. We’re going off-road and showing you how well these players handle the rocks and potholes. This article is all about problems you might encounter with progressive DVD players, when you will encounter them, and what those problems look like. We took most of the currently available mass-market progressive DVD players, and a few expensive boutique players, along with some PC DVD software, and tested them with the most difficult DVDs we could find. Few players came through the gauntlet unscathed.

It almost goes without saying that all of these players will deliver a very nice image when fed good material (with a few exceptions, which we’ll cover later). There are differences between the players’ basic image quality, but for the most part, you’re going to notice very minor video quality differences when the players are firing on all cylinders. When the players are dealing with a crummy DVD, though, that’s when things get interesting.

Many people wonder how important these hiccups and glitches really are, and why we spend so much time and energy testing for them. This is a difficult issue, and depending on how you ask the question, you can get several different answers. When we first wrote about progressive scan players, we said that, "Probably 90%, maybe 95%, of major Hollywood releases are going to play back basically fine on most of these players." Note all the caveats - probably 90%, major Hollywood releases, basically fine, most...players. That represented our best guess as to how often these glitches intruded, based on our experiences watching a lot of movies. Since then, we've done a lot more research and discovered that nearly all movies have at least some glitches. Sometimes the glitches are very minor, and will trip up only a few DVD players, and then only for a couple of frames. Sometimes they last longer, and extensive sections will be messed up on many DVD players. Sometimes a section has glitches, but is not a particularly revealing scene for deinterlacing problems, so most viewers will never notice that their player isn't giving them the correct picture. Other times the scene is messed up in really obvious ways.

The biggest problem is that most people don't know that it's the DVD player. People assume their DVD player "just works" and thus when they see a deinterlacing glitch or other problem, they are most likely to assume it's just the DVD transfer (the movie disc). Without a reference to compare with, the consumer has no way of knowing if the image is messed up because of the people at the encoding company, or because their player actually doesn't "just work." In other cases, the user doesn't know that the player isn't doing a good job because there are no obvious glitches. Many current progressive players fall back into a very watchable but very soft video mode when they aren't sure whether the source is film or not. In the worst case, the entire film will look excessively soft, which means they're getting exactly no benefit at all from their progressive player. They're being sold a bill of goods, because their player isn't delivering the crisp film image they were promised.

<end small snip>

Babel-17

07-18-04, 10:26 PM

Made me laugh ..... not quite a repost. :)

http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame92.html

Babel-17

07-18-04, 10:39 PM

Update of an old link: Free web hosting of files.

http://couchpotato.no-ip.com/fs/

http://couchpotato.no-ip.com/fs/join.htm

Signup Now Its FREE!!!*
Sample Accounts/Login

Account Type: Size: Bandwidth/mo: Users Can: Price:
Regular 200 MB 3500 MB Store, Delete, View (all modes), Shared Directory, Account Options, WAP Access, Comments $0.00
Groups 300 MB 4000 MB Store, View (all modes), WAP Access, Comments, Simple URL Access $0.00
Donated 350 MB 6000 MB Store, Delete, View (all modes), Email Files, Shared Directory, Account Options, WAP Access, Comments $5.00/mo

SPECIAL: Group accounts get 300 MB!!! Previous accounts also get this free upgrade!

Regular Accounts are useful for a regular user. Upload any type of file, and use them conveniently online with our browser integrated features. A donation is not required, but always recommended!

Group Accounts are grate for those who want to share a specific file genre with others. Delete, Email Files, Shared Directory and Account Options are all disabled, in the benefit of your Group Account. You will still gain from the integrated browser features, and an increased bandwidth allowance. Group Accounts are perfect for those wanting to share a certain interest, rock music, rap music and random images are all perfect examples.

Donated Accounts would be the PERFECT way to use our services. You would benefit with the most account features, size, and bandwidth allowance. Also, you would be giving back to the great service you use!

To begin, please enter the following information:
Note: We recommend you use your EMAIL ADDRESS as your Cp.Id unless you are creating a Group Account!
Cp.Id
Account Type: Regular: Groups: Donated:
Cp.Password Not required for GROUP accounts

*All services may not be free

Babel-17

07-24-04, 02:59 PM

nLite
- Windows Installation Customizer -

Have you ever wanted to remove some Windows components like Media Player, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, Messenger...

How about not to install them with Windows ?

Well I have. Certainly not the only one, people all over are doing it even manually.

nLite is a GUI for permanent Windows component removal by your choice. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines. So that means that with nLite you will be able to have Windows installation cd which on installation doesn't install, or even contain on cd, unwanted components.

Maybe you won't believe it at first but it's not easy to not install what you don't want when it comes to Windows. It involves many setup files to be edited carefully without interfering with basic Windows components.

After some thinking I decided to make generic removal tool with a GUI, for an easy removal in order to run Windows faster and more reliable (I sound like Windows setup). So that means nLite should work on every Windows version.Now it supports Windows 2000, XP amd 2003, Longhorn will be added when it's released.

You need Framework in order to run it... Check if you have it already in Add/Remove programs, or on your CDs before downloading it.

There, i hope you like it and have in mind it's still in beta phase so report any bugs found, don't freak out.

http://nuhi.msfn.org/files/nlite_screen.png

http://nuhi.msfn.org/index.html

forum

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=89

Totally Off Topic: I thought I had a lead on a free mpeg/mpeg2 encoder today but it was a false lead, it was shareware. A freeware fully featured mpeg/mpeg2 encoder is sought by several slackers so if anyone has a link ....... thanks in advance.

Babel-17

07-25-04, 01:06 PM

How Cable Modems work

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d.h.walker/cmtips/index.html

http://www.cable-modems.org/tutorial/index.htm#TOC

CrashNBurN

08-18-04, 08:22 AM

SLACKER!!

Lollan

08-18-04, 08:47 AM

Should've put this in here a long time ago...

Disable F Lock at boot (http://www.mvps.org/jtsang/flock.html)

Lollan

08-18-04, 09:08 AM

Good article on explaining memory timings (http://pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=873)

Babel-17

08-18-04, 06:19 PM

Display Technologies Guide
The Differences between LCD, Plasma, DLP, LCOS, D-ILA, and CRT Televisions and Displays

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/specsformats/displays_LCD_DLP_plasma1.html

comparison chart of each display-type (http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/specsformats/displays_LCD_DLP_plasma8.html)

Lollan

08-18-04, 09:15 PM

See (http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/tutorials/jsexamples/brotest/) what your browser supports.

Babel-17

08-29-04, 10:01 AM

As crossposted in refugees normal threads.

ftp://ftp.cmf.nrl.navy.mil/pub/iHDTV/

I'm currently grabbing "dreamtime".

According to my sources it's:

Filesize.........: 1,3 Gigabytes
# of files.......: 28 rars
Running Time.....: 10 Minutes
Video Codec......: wm9
Frame Size.......: 1280x720p

NASA Dreamtime contains HDTV clips from different locations, like earth from above, space launches etc.. in really awesome PQ!

Strangely though, the download comes through as a .mpg and WMP can't render it.

Ah, a decent rig is needed for playback. I don't have problems with a P4 2.4 gigger and a R9700 Pro.

Btw, this might be one of my fastest downloads ever, I'm currently getting a meg per sec.

I'm going to crosspost this in both 'refugees and the bookmarks thread thereof.

Lol, here's one review. :)

Holy Mother Fu"#%&# Very Happy
this one deserves one more post!

i have just watched this and i have never seen this quality on HDTV!!.
this is what HDTV is about.
forgett crappy TS movies(there is alot of them) when you have checked this one out you see how it should look like.

Rottbert!
if you have more from Nasa with this quality post it!!!
to bad that the launch of the shuttle was mixed with music,you missed the sound from the rockets.

score:
10 out of 10

Apoch, thanks for the rep and the comment. :)

P.S. I haven't downloaded all the content. If some of it is in TS (transport stream) format I suppose I'll have to point out some posts in the bookmarks thread regarding Zoom Player, the VLC player, Media Player Classic and WinDVD 6.

If playback is a bit hesitant due to a rig of borderline ability I advise trying the VLC player or Zoom Player (both free).

I like Zoom Player due to its near total ability to control aspect ratios (among many other features).

A tiny bit OT: HDTV files like this play great on computer monitors (like my 19" Sony Trinitron CRT) but I very recently splurged on a smallish (23") LCD HDTV/computer monitor. I'm using the DVI out of my ATI card for computer output. Lol, I'm procrastinating (slacking) on getting HDTV from cable provider.

OK, my dl just completed, going to check the IQ now.

I'm back.

Bollocks :O :mecry: :mad:

I get only get WinDVD 6 and VLC media player to play the file so far. My system settings are a tad tweaked for speeding up HDTV display using Zoom Player while WinDVD has been registry tweaked for HDTV TS IQ so I suppose there might be a connection. I doubt it though.

Task Manager reports CPU load at mostly between 70 and 80 percent.

Media Player Classic renders it also for me but at a higher CPU load, mostly 90 percent and more.

Well, I'm glad I finished downloading and testing before posting. If you have the right player these files should be a rewarding experience.

Index of ftp://ftp.cmf.nrl.navy.mil/pub/iHDTV/
Up to higher level directory
File: ATIDec 2459 KB 5/1/2002 12:00:00 AM
File: ATIDec.sit 614 KB 5/1/2002 12:00:00 AM
Directory: PROTECTED 2/18/2004 12:00:00 AM
File: abc.mpg 332793 KB 4/16/2002 12:00:00 AM
File: andrews_18.mpg 583264 KB 4/16/2002 12:00:00 AM
File: dreamtime.mpg 1345897 KB 4/16/2002 12:00:00 AM
File: endevour.mpg 813433 KB 4/16/2002 12:00:00 AM
File: iHDTV.sit.hqx 3208 KB 4/16/2002 12:00:00 AM
Directory: incoming 4/16/2002 12:00:00 AM
File: nrl.mpg 1053030 KB 4/16/2002 12:00:00 AM

Here's a VLC media player link.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

ohbeardedone

09-07-04, 12:20 PM

Any and every DVD Cover and Label you could ever imagine here, at your fingertips....enjoy :bigthumb:

http://daprogger.mine.nu/

Babel-17

09-18-04, 05:56 PM

Software upconversion of DVD's nearer towards HDTV quality

http://boards.slackercentral.com/showthread.php?t=61668

Babel-17

09-18-04, 08:57 PM

Widescreen Gaming Forum
Dedicated to gaming in the widescreen

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/phpBB2/

CrashNBurN

09-23-04, 05:37 AM

Can you suggest a freeware program that would be useful for me to make a sig out of ? Preferably something that is not too advanced relative to my inexperience. Thanks !

Ps. I know how to search for programs like that - it's just that there seem to be so many possibilities - would be nice to hear what the experts (you) use

Babel-17

09-23-04, 05:51 PM

Can you be a bit more specific, please?

In case you are referring to the images that some of us use: I'm not the least bit experienced with image editing or graphics but I find the freeware program IrfanView both very easy to use and more robust and feature rich as an application than I've ever needed it to be.

Good stuff IMO.

CrashNBurN

09-23-04, 06:45 PM

Exactly what I was after, thanks!

onebyside

09-26-04, 04:51 AM

some new sat image prog from NASA

http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/worldwind/features.html

found this private mirror from their forum

http://www.twobeds.com/worldwind-1_2.zip

onebyside

09-26-04, 04:56 AM

some new sat image prog from NASA

http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/worldwind/features.html

found this private mirror from their forum

http://www.twobeds.com/worldwind-1_2.zip

some torrents

http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/worldwind/forums/index.php?showtopic=45

Babel-17

09-29-04, 06:30 AM

Experimental build of GrabIt 1.5.0

http://www.shemes.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=4919&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

*******BETA*********BETA**********BETA**********

Absolutely, postively only for those who will follow directions and know how to back up data. Additionally, having a sense of humor for when hours (days?) of (irreplaceable?) data become lost is a must.

A fresh install is a must. (E.g.: Trying to use the beta and the stable releases in the same folder will trash the cache).

The new "Search" feature rocks. (No more missing The Daily Show or other TV faves)

Expect the occasional glitch if you import NZB files, it's a known (now) bug.

Browse http://www.shemes.com/community/index.php for more info and support, I can't/won't provide it.

Loading large groups is still problematic, search http://www.shemes.com/community/index.php for some work-arounds.

Still freeware.

Please, no product support in this thread and definitely no warez talk.

Babel-17

10-12-04, 04:37 PM

http://www.dvdloc8.com/

Welcome...

Welcome to the first public version of dvdloc8.com. dvdloc8.com has been created by DVD lovers for DVD lovers everywhere around the world, and with your help, aims to become a website that DVD lovers will find useful. This is the first public version of the website, so there are still many features that have not been implemented. We hope you will bear with us while we try to improve this website to meet your satisfaction.
Who are we?

dvdloc8.com is produced by New Age Web, a company based in Australia that specialises in web design and development. One of the founders of New Age Web is also the webmaster and owner of Digital Digest, one of the first and largest DVD and digital video websites on the net.
Our Goals!

dvdloc8.com was created in the hope that it can one day become the largest and most accurate DVD database on the Internet. To achieve this goal, we will need a collabrative efford from DVD enthusiasts all over the world, and this is why we have setup a system whereby you will get rewarded for your efforts.

Our secondary goal is to make this website the best place to look for all your DVD needs, including price comparison, reviews, easter eggs and more, without having to look at dozens of different websites.

We also want DVD lovers from all over the world to be able to use and enjoy this website, and that's why our website has been setup to accomondate DVDs from all regions of the world. Right now, our database has a good selection of US/Canadian (region 1), UK (region 2) and Australian/NZ (region 4) DVDs, and in time, we will have more DVDs from more regions of the world.

Babel-17

10-19-04, 06:13 PM

....... newer is not always better just like Oldversion (http://www.oldversion.com/) has been saying for years now.

About OldVersion.com

Sometimes upgrading to a newer version can be a good thing. Other times, your computer may not be compatible with the new version, the new version is bloated, or all the good options are no longer available. OldVersion.com has been supplying the online community with old versions of various programs since 2001. The service is utilized by thousands of users every day and has been featured in newspapers and magazines as well as on radio and television.

OldVersion.com has several objectives. One is to discourage the use of spyware by software companies. Also known as adware, these hidden programs come bundled with certain applications and secretly transmit user information via the Internet to advertisers. A possible way to avoid spyware is to download an old version of a program. By using OldVersion.com, you can get the clean old versions of programs as well as show the industry your dissatisfaction with these types of business practices.

Another goal is to assist computer users who are unable to continually upgrade their computer. Those who find that their machine is not able to run the latest version of a certain application have no choice but to use to an old version of the program. Unfortunately, the vast majority of software companies do not offer this opportunity to their clients. We are doing our small part to help bridge the digital divide by allowing everyone to enjoy the same software regardless of their hardware.

In a similar fashion, the service also promotes freedom of choice. Every computer user has the right to use a version of the product that he or she is most comfortable with. To allow the software developer to dictate which version of their product one can use is to give up one's rights. OldVersion.com provides access to files that are no longer obtainable.

Lastly, there is a need to archive cultural artifacts. If software is allowed to disappear into the past, a piece of our history will be lost. People must be have access to this data in order to understand the direction the computer industry and civilization as a whole is heading.

OldVersion.com was founded by Igor Dolgalev and Alex Levin. For more information, feel free to contact us.

Communication
AOL Instant Messenger
Eudora
ICQ
ICQ Lite
mIRC
MSN Messenger
Ventrilo
Yahoo Messenger
Graphics
ACDSee
Express WebPictures
IrfanView
Swish
Terragen
Multimedia
DivX
iTunes
MusicMatch Jukebox
QuickTime
RealJukebox
RealPlayer
VirtualDub
Winamp
Windows Media Player

Internet
America Online
BulletProof FTP
CompuServe
GetRight
GoZilla
Internet Explorer
Juno
Opera
File Sharing
CuteMX
DC++
Kazaa
Kazaa Lite
LimeWire
Morpheus
Napster
Scour Exchange
WinMX
Utilities
Acrobat Reader
Ad-aware
CloneCD
DeadAIM
DirectX
jv16 PowerTools
Nero
PowerArchiver
WinAce
WinRAR
WinZip
ZoneAlarm

489 versions of 51 programs

Most Popular Files
DeadAIM 3.2.8
AOL Instant Messenger 5.5.3595
AOL Instant Messenger 5.2.3292
Winamp 2.95
MSN Messenger 6.0

Recently Added Files
AOL Instant Messenger 5.5.3595
WinMX 3.31
WinRAR 3.11
Winamp 5.02
IrfanView 3.85

Babel-17

11-13-04, 04:38 PM

Could use some input. :)

Babel-17

11-13-04, 04:41 PM

Here's some vey nicely done comparison shots that demonstrate some of the qualitative advantages of High Definition video formats.

The movie FOTR is used.

Mouse over is used for the comparisons and clicking on the images opens up a full screen.

http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/

Babel-17

11-13-04, 04:43 PM

From the home page of the above site I swiped an interesting link to a site devoted to TV episodes. A very nice resource imo.

http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/

Babel-17

11-23-04, 08:45 PM

Just an update to an older link I posted regarding GrabIt, the binary usenet downloader. It's kind of late for me to really test this new release but I hope to put it through its paces by this weekend.

http://www.shemes.com/

GrabIt 1.5.1 ßeta released. - 21/11/2004
Changes:

Progress indicators work again for group updates;
The Grab button in the Search tab will now use the last profile used to grab from a search result;
If an ArticleID is available it will now be used instead of the MessageID.

GrabIt 1.5.0 ßeta released. - 21/11/2004
Finally! After waiting for almost 1.5 years, a new release of GrabIt is available for download! This release is not exactly how it was planned, but it seems very stable and I just couldn't keep the new search feature away from the public anymore!

Go to the download section to Grab your copy of GrabIt now!

Changes in this release:

New cache format to incorporate Message-IDs (Note: Cache files are NOT compatible with previous releases!);
Tightened the filename filter a bit to solve some illegal file/foldername issues;
Improved error feedback in Read article form;
New date format conversion routine can also convert dates with short year notation (eg. 03 for 2003);
Solved the exception errors that some people reported while closing GrabIt;
Batch Import button in Batch screen allows the import of NZB files directly into the batch;
Batch Import button in Batch screen allows the import of BNS (binnews.com) files directly into the batch;
Auto shutdown feature now waits until all items are decoded / processed before shutting down the system;
Tweaked the compression of the cache file to optimize for speed instead of size;
New 'Download Folder' button in the batch tab will open your download folder;
Some general optimizations;
Changed the main font of the controls in the application to Arial;
Added the possibility to change the font of the views (Groups, Articles, Batch, All Groups);
Added "Grab to folder first" and "Grab with prefix first";
Added a new option in the batch popup menu to download a batch item from a different server;
Incomplete items are now saved with .(Incomplete Grab). in the filename. Peter B. Clements added support for this into Quickpar 0.9 so these files will be recognized;
GrabIt Search makes it possible to search Usenet without downloading headers or using XPAT;
The connection to a server is no longer closed after a minor error (eg. article not on server).

http://www.shemes.com/download_latest_release.php

Babel-17

11-26-04, 02:00 AM

Ok, so want to hook your brand new High Definition TV up to your computer but you don’t have a clue where to start. You have come to the right place!

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=469093&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

Babel-17

11-30-04, 07:06 PM

http://www.clockerz.org/

Seems to be a good site that is run and populated by nice friendly peeps.

Babel-17

12-01-04, 11:01 AM

http://www.movietome.com/

Seems to be affiliated with that indispensable TV resource, www.tvtome.com.

Quantity of reviews is limited at the moment but I suspect that will improve.

Has a very nice and clean interface. Excellent if you are on a low-bandwidth connection.

Here's a good example, it's their take on Christmas with the Kranks.

http://www.movietome.com/movietome/servlet/MovieMain/movieid-119037/

Babel-17

12-01-04, 01:22 PM

The silver lining to the spot of bother I detailed in this (http://boards.slackercentral.com/showthread.php?t=64375) thread are the following links to some free online anti-virus scanners. :D

http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml

And this very interesting one for scanning of individual files.

http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml

Babel-17

12-11-04, 11:26 PM

Holy Cow!

Lol, I'm excited ....... something that works as advertised (mostly).

How to record via 1394/Firewire to WindowsXP - AVS Forum:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=403695&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

I'm getting sweet, sweet digital from my Sony cable box. It records to my hardrive. The best of my other options was s-video.

Btw, this is legal and afaik the option to use IEEE must be present according to FCC reg's.

I'm paying for the channels I'm getting, I'm just using my rig as a digital VCR.

Can't get VLC to display a clean stream as yet. The files are very playable though.

And no, lol, the channels I'm not supposed to get I don't get.

Fwiw, I've been slackin' on getting the HDTV box, it's the same price but the cable dude visiting is a mandatory step for the installation. I've asked several times.

Ironically, the HDTV box delivers an analog signal via component cables. That's the only option right now, no DVI or DHMI.

Hmmm, now that I think about it IEEE might be an unadvertised feature.

Laterz! :)

Babel-17

12-12-04, 12:23 AM

I forgot to mention, this only seems to work with digital signals.

Babel-17

12-12-04, 04:08 AM

Huh, when they speak of using VLC 7.2 they really mean version 7.2! Lol :)

I thought using the latest version would work but reality won out over my stubborn streak. I still had the older version, although it can also be downloaded, and by installing it in another folder it seems to be co-existing with the latest version. Had to copy back the shortcut that got overwritten and I remembered to make sure the target for the shortcut was expressed like the following.

"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" --intf wxwin

Ah, here's an observation/tip.

For deinterlacing with VLC try "Mean". And remember it has to be reset upon every restart.

So far I've been able to either save to hardrive or view the live feed with VLC but not both at the same time.

Supposedly VLC can perform both functions, we'll see.

This is fun but I expect I'll soon just get a normal HDTV box ...... My provider is rolling out boxes that offer built in recorders. Such simplicity is hard to resist.

Edit: If I post more on this I'll do it in another thread. Hehehe, this one is for bookmarks, or so the title says. :)

Babel-17

12-12-04, 09:43 PM

http://vthr.via.ecp.fr/~videolan/build/win32/

That link, for the moment, should get you to the nightly build page for the VLC media player.

That's nightly as in often being of "alpha" quality.

Babel-17

12-14-04, 08:31 PM

http://www.videolan.org/doc/

New: VLC Play HOWTO (2004-12-1212 December 2004) VLC's documentation rewrite is nearing completion. We are proud to bring you the VLC Play HOWTO, a complete guide to VLC's use as a client. Translations and the VLC streaming HOWTO will follow shortly.

Babel-17

12-28-04, 08:55 PM

http://www.index.hr/fun/galerije/category.aspx?kategorija=349

Swiped (with permission) from the post by silence at the Beyond3D boards.

Similar to thread favorite http://www.atpictures.com/actress/

:)

Comparison: http://www.atpictures.com/jolene/

http://www.index.hr/fun/galerije/subkat.aspx?kategorija=815

Here's the Beyond3D thread.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19241

Babel-17

01-06-05, 12:31 AM

A link from Ailuros to a massively sized clearing house of useful and essential information for the Windows user. I like the layout, it's very clean and it's quick and easy to scan the pages. See if you don't go "phew" at the amount of relevant content.

http://www.theeldergeek.com/index.htm

Frequently Asked Questions [FAQ] About The Elder Geek

I have tried to answer the most common questions visitors to this Web site have asked. If you find that your question is not answered on this page, please email me at The Elder Geek and I'll either provide a factual answer if I know it, or make one up if I don't. The previous seven words were sarcasm.

Q: Why is the site called The Elder Geek?
A: I'm old. I'm a geek. I thought it sounded better than The Old Geek or The Elderly Geek. Vanity, thy name is geek.

Q: Do I use Windows XP on a regular basis, or as one person asked, do I even own a copy of Windows XP?
A: Yes, I use XP Professional daily as well as Windows 2000. I own XP Professional and Home Editions.

Q: Why did I use Front Page to build this site?
A: I'd never used it before and the number of calls for support of Office XP, including Front Page 2002, justified giving it a try.

Q: I tried one of the [tips, registry edits, etc] on your site and it [didn't work, hosed my system, etc]. What now?
A: Every situation is different. Whenever you make a change to any aspect of an operating system be aware that it may not have the desired outcome. Before you make any changes have a backup, restore points, hardware, software, knowledge, and time to reverse any negative result.

Q: Do I handle individual help requests?
A: At one time I did try and accommodate individual help requests. Time constraints have made it impossible to continue that service. In lieu of individual replies, I added the TEG XP Forum where members may post questions and receive help. There is no charge to be a member of the forum and there are many knowledgeable individuals that are willing to help. Individual requests for computer support cannot be accommodated.

Q: Do I pay for submissions to The Elder Geek?
A: No, but feel free to send anything you find of interest along with your name and e-mail address. If I use it, you'll be acknowledged as the contributor.

Q: Am I a shill for Microsoft?
A: Absolutely not. I have no connection with Microsoft nor any other technology related organization. I might shill for Pepsi since Coca-Cola screwed up with that New Coke incident a couple of decades ago, but they haven't asked so I assume my Q index is still in negative numbers.

Q: Am I really as big a jerk and opinionated as my writing here and in the Commentary section would indicate?
A: Probably, but we can't all be Mr. Nice Guy or there wouldn't be any contrast.

Babel-17

01-22-05, 05:31 AM

http://www.tuner2.com/

Sweet, sweet streaming music using WinAmp 5.08.

It may change but for now the site is a breeze to use. No jumping through hoops, no bombardment of ads. Pretty much one stop shopping, click and go.

It came recommended in a review of the relatively new aacPlus/HE-AAC codec in Slate's online magazine.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2112548/

It took me a while to figure out but to get WinAmp to playback the stations I followed the sites advice and went into WinAmps "Options" - "Preferences" - "Input" - "Plug-ins" and after choosing - "Configure" for it unchecked "enable" for the Thompson mp3Pro plugin option to playback all mp3 files.

That did the trick.

Prior to that I had set Nullsoft MPEG AAC Decoder 3.08 as the default under "Options" - "Preferences" - "Input" - "Plug-ins" (click on - "Configure" after selecting it) but that may not be a needed step.

Oh, I also did have to tell Mozilla to use WinAmp the first time I clicked on a stream.

<snip>

AacPlus has been around for a while—it's what XM satellite radio has used from the outset—but recently it's been gaining ground. Future digital music players will support the format just as surely as they do MP3, but you don't have to wait—you can listen to it right now. Install the free Winamp player, which added aacPlus support a few months ago. Then click through the channels on the Tuner2 Web site, which all stream aacPlus sound at 48 kbps or less. I've spent a week comparing them to the higher bandwidth stations served by the big three of Net radio—Yahoo, AOL, and MSN—and only Yahoo's 96 kbps premium subscription channels sound as good. For a tour, skip Tuner2's glut of techno stations and instead try Groove Salad for laid-back electro-lounge music, Radio Paradise for classic rock, and Sky.FM's Mostly Classical channel. (If you're on a Mac or other non-Windows computer, install the free VLC player instead of Winamp.)

It seems crazy until you try it, but Mostly Classical proves that aacPlus can sound great at 24 kpbs. At 48 kbps, it's almost as crisp as a CD. At 128 kbps, it can deliver 5.1 channel surround sound. AacPlus works by combining three technologies, each of which shrinks the size of an audio signal. The first is AAC, the Advanced Audio Coding technique that Apple licensed from Dolby for iTunes. AAC analyzes the sound and throws away any data it knows human ears won't be able to hear, which is a lot. Then, aacPlus adds Spectral Band Replication, which strips out all of the music's high frequencies and replaces them with a tiny bit of analytical data. AacPlus players reconstruct the highs as a mathematical function of what's left. As a final space-saving trick, aacPlus tracks are recorded in parametric stereo. Instead of a left and a right channel, one channel is the sum of the left and right signals (L+R), and the other is their difference (L-R). This takes up less bandwidth, and the player can easily flip the two channels back to the original left and right. (Bonus trivia: This is how FM stereo broadcasts work.)

Continue Article

<snip>

Blighter

02-01-05, 09:09 AM

omg. u r on a streak man :bigthumb:

Babel-17

02-02-05, 12:13 AM

Thanks Blighter!

What kind of links would you like to see?

1) General assortment

2) Movies and TV

3) Uber geeky <give details>

4) Gaming, general

5) Game news

6) Electronics <give details>

7) More pics of female celebs! lol :)

__________________________________________________ _______

I realize that we all have our own bookmarks and though one might be intensely interested in a subject no need is felt to add new ones.

Hopefully other people will be spurred to add their bookmarks or say what subjects interest them.

Btw, a lot of the older bookmarks are obsolete, sorry.

Where applicable I'll post replacements as time goes on.

No bittorrent ones though. Times have changed and imo there's an issue of tempation and risk there that I won't get involved in. Even the most inoccuous use could get another slacker in trouble and I don't want to feel responsible.

My understanding is that the employees of the companies involved in monitoring the situation now use their own (dynamic) home ISP's so it has become a crapshoot.

So as to not create a problem for me or the mod's, please, no links to sites or software relating to filesharing. Thanks.

Lol, and let's remember that a lot of slackers aren't of age to legally view pron.

Blighter

02-02-05, 10:52 AM

np Babel :)

I'd say that number 2, 4, 5 and 7 would suit my needs ;) (plus music stuff) Anyhoo, most of the stuff you post about is interesting anyway, keep on going man :) :)

cheers :grouphug:

Lol, and let's remember that a lot of slackers aren't of age to legally view pron. lol you've gotta be kidding :D :D :D

msan_msw

02-06-05, 11:09 PM

Babel-17

02-06-05, 11:55 PM

Well, I sent my "favorites" to Hotmail to download after a format. Unfortunately it seems that Hotmail found something in there that it believes is a virus. I guess it was my link to "hot sheep lovin' extreme!" Now I can't download the file or even send it to another email address.... The point. Thanks for the page Babel, it gave me back about 1/3 of my favorite bookmarks. :)

That stinks Bear. :(

Ah, one thing you might double-check.

Are you aware that by default Hotmail blocks some content?

Try looking uptop near the right of the e-mail in queston and select "enable all content". Not exactly sure of the wording.

Also, have you ever done a backup using imaging software?

If so you might be in luck if you have a recent image.

Most imaging software has a "browser" of sorts that lets you navigate your backups.

Sort of like WinRAR as image backups are little more than a compressed version of your drive plus bit by bit accurate information of the exact layout.

I've extracted and replaced files on several occasions using this method.

If you have such an image let me know.

I can probably help you navigate to where the folder you need is.

msan_msw

02-07-05, 12:30 AM

lol, I tossed all my images and cd backups today. Over the last week I downloaded everything again, update versions, etc., and put them on my external hd. I had so many backups I wanted a clean start and everything went smoothly except.... I forgot to backup my favorites. :D

Something is up with Hotmail now but I'll check out your idea in a bit. :)

msan_msw

02-07-05, 12:42 AM

ROFL!!! I was thinking... Ok, I'm on the Hotmail site and it won't allow me to get my attachment because it says it contains virii. What to do... What to do.... How do you get a "virus message" from Hotmail??? OH.. I KNOW... I'll use Outlook! Yup, it downloaded absolutely fine with Outlook Express :D

Babel-17

02-07-05, 02:33 AM

Cool! :bigthumb:

Babel-17

02-07-05, 11:33 AM

Ah, so as to keep the ball rolling here's a link to a great site dedicated to the sequel of The Longest Journey, namely, Dreamfall.

http://black-house.clan-ka.net/Images/index.htm

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/stephenperrone/iviewcapture_date_07_02_2005_time_12_23_54.jpg

Blighter

02-08-05, 01:32 AM

oh nice....:eek:

ChaoticKitty

03-24-05, 07:35 AM

Humping alot

Babel-17

03-24-05, 02:18 PM

Humping alot

Lol, give me a link and I'll bookmark it. :)

Gee, this thread does need some freshening. I've been in a familiar groove lately and while I've been hitting some useful links they aren't really likely to interest anyone.

I'll try to make an effort over the next few days.

Everyone is welcome to pitch in. :)

I guess something much more compact and up to date will make it to Slacker's wikka thingy.

It would probably be best if someone more in tune with what most Slackers are interested in handled that. But I'll eventually jump in with some links of my own, one way or the other.

I'm going to try to categorize them this time.

Babel-17

05-08-05, 02:58 PM

DCT6412 Firewire capture and HD/SD to DVD guide

http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/dct6412/index.html

I'm giving this new hack a try. It forces Windows into acting as if you have a capture deck installed. Cable box with IEEE out is mandatory. I posted regarding this a while back in this thread but these are new drivers and the above link has some other useful utilities too. DGIndex.exe with its ability to demux the AC3 audio and getting the delay listed as part of the filename is pretty nifty.

Babel-17

05-22-05, 09:42 PM

http://www.doom9.org/ivtc-tut.htm

Force Film, IVTC, and Deinterlacing - what is DVD2AVI trying to tell you and what can you do about it.

Explains, among many other things, why you'll have issues if you're not careful when you re-encode TV captures.

Cliff Notes: TV captures can incorporate both film and NTSC sequences.

It's enough of a pain in the butt that I'm seriously considering not re-encoding for the time being.

The bright side is that I found out that forcing deinterlacing in my software players deals with a re-encode that used "force film" when there were NTSC sequences.

I use "always de-interlace" in PowerDVD 6 and "force bob" in ZoomPlayer.

Film decode is much faster than using telicide and decimate.

Bottom line, I've got a lot to learn.

Babel-17

05-30-05, 02:22 PM

Well, I'm still playing around with AviSynth scripts and filters.

It's an amazing field and there isn't anything like a final word on how one should go about doing a project. There are however tons of resources to draw upon which helps immensely.

It gets a bid maddening wading through thread after thread trying to pick the expert's brains but after a while I found that I was able to more quickly zoom in on likely prospects for worthwhile information. There are several people who are the "Sharkfoods" of the field and I've learned to pay attention when they speak. :)

A lot of the best gurus have seemingly moved on to bigger and better things ..... often commercial projects.

As outside limitations (cost of DVD disks vs. CD disks, processing speed, etc.) become less of a factor more enthusiasm is going into doing very high quality encodes.

Not that a balance between cost and time vs. quality isn't still a big factor .... far from it. It's just that much of the methodology used has either changed a lot or seriously evolved.

There are some amazing filters and scripts out there and many of them are ongoing projects that are being seriously developed and have quite a devoted following.

I haven't posted any links lately, here's something to get the ball rolling.

http://www.samek.neostrada.pl/hdtv/hdtv2xvid.htm

That proved to be a useful starting point for me. But for now I'm sticking to mpeg2 as the encoding format.

http://ffdshow.sourceforge.net/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php

Decent starting point regarding ffdshow. Site loads its pages a bit slow at times.

CelticDruid is a name to watch for when it comes to ffdshow and media player classic btw. I don't have a link to him handy at the moment.

I'll post the links to some doom9 threads as I come across them.

Here's a couple.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=94184

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=84196&highlight=limitedsharpen

It's really been irking me that I've so far had only limited success at high definition encoding and re-encoding so I'm pushing myself to get one last job done with that before moving on to something a bit different.

Assuming the project completes I'll upload some before and after snips to the newsgroups if anyone requests it.

Babel-17

05-30-05, 03:13 PM

AviSynth Filter Collection

This is only a collection of filters with no guaranty of completeness or maintenance of the latest version.
For more details and discussions visit Doom9's AviSynth Forums and AviSynth Homepage.

You can download a SNAPSHOT of the homepage (2005-04-08, unpack to a directory using pathnames).

Scroll down to some files that are no filters but quite useful when working with AviSynth.

The naming scheme for the files is:
dllname_20_dll_20030102.zip: version is for AviSynth 2.0x, contains DLL and maybe sourcecode and docu
dllname_25_src_20030102.zip: version is for AviSynth 2.5, contains only source code

The date is either the date of the DLL or of the most recent source file.
The links in the WWW-column are intentionally only text, as they are not checked, sometimes only the homepage of the author, etc.

http://www.avisynth.org/warpenterprises/

Babel-17

06-04-05, 07:22 PM

Ha, and I thought PC Gaming was a compulsive obsessive hobby ....... :)

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=89941

Video encoding filters using DX 9 GPU's are now starting to show their stuff.

I've added the above one to a string of other filters I'm toying with on an extremely difficult encode of an acquaintance.

Hehehe, the more things change the more they stay the same. Unsurprisingly I find myself always looking to reduce the noise while maintaining IQ.

And the best image sharpening tool I can lay my hands on uses .......... wait for it ........... supersampling to minimize negative impact on edges. I kid you not, I'm this close to registering at the Doom 9 boards so I can ask the gurus if there is a way to use RGSS instead. :D

And yeah, the "hit" from using Super Sampling in conjunction with image sharpening gets pretty steep, pretty fast.

I had the idea of seeing if anyone had experimented with using that filter as a noise reducer and, yup, the creator of it has and it looks like he'll be incorporating that into his mother of all AviSynth Scripts. More on that as his eagerly awaited project progresses.

I cringe at the thought of how much I need to learn. Ah well, I'm slowly picking up the basic lingo at least so I can now read the Doom 9 threads with a reasonable hope of sussing out the likely suspects for my collection of filters.

I can't wait to move on to working on a video that was decently encoded.

By "work on" I mean launching a script and watching the software slowly do its stuff. I am a slacker.

Babel-17

06-04-05, 08:55 PM

http://neuron2.net/msmooth/msmooth.html

An amazingly strong and yet highly configurable filter.

Check the screenies of how he cleaned up an anime film.

If you try it out you'll love the feature that allows you to see what isn't being filtered. MSmooth(threshold=120,strength=3,mask=true) "mask=true" turns this on.

The file I mentioned previously sadly requires me to use "threshold=120" to get rid of some really hideous edge aliasing. I'm not annoyed as this is the only filter or setting that remotely works with this problem child of a video I'm working on.

File size isn't important here but if it was this filter would get a big thumbs up for what it can do in that regard.

It has a big hit on encoding speed though and I'd love to see an optimized version.

Babel-17

07-10-05, 12:44 PM

"Every now and then I know it's kind of hard to tell, but I'm still alive and well."

:)

http://www.movieweb.com/

(You need to have javascript enabled or the links don't work/will crash your browser.)

Check the following out, suhweet!

http://www.movieweb.com/movies/galleries.php?film=456&id=348

Test link below (783k):

http://www.movieweb.com/movies/hi_res.php?i=galleries/456/348/hi/coil.jpg#

Babel-17

09-07-05, 05:33 AM

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/Default.htm

DVDBeaver offers a variety of DVD information for the discerning cinema fan. Foreign, Independent and classic films - reviews, articles, comparisons covering all DVD Regions.

Sample pages: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews17/sin_city_dvd_review.htm

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews4/tunlolartun.htm

Master list: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/masterlist.htm

Babel-17

09-13-05, 05:33 PM

Currently getting "slashdotted" but it looks promising.

http://tviv.info/wiki/Main_Page

Welcome to The TV IV Wiki, which seeks to give you current, up-to-date information on your favorite shows, both new and old. This is an open encyclopedia of television shows, which means that anyone can edit the information at will. We urge you to go to your favorite television show and help contribute, as this website can only grow with your contributions. Even though the focus of this site is to eventually house full episode guides, don't be afraid to write up more in-depth information about your favorite television show. Articles related to television on a tangent is also encouraged; our primary aim to make this a one-stop shop for all your television needs.

Notice: Please be aware that, since this is primarily a television website, spoilers are prevalent and you read at your own risk. As a general suggestion, only look at episode pages after you've seen the episode. Although users will do their best to ensure that nothing is spoiled for the viewer, please be aware that looking at character and episode pages before you have a full understanding of the show can lead you to be spoiled.

The TV IV Wiki launched on July 27, 2005, and currently has 1546 articles in the database.

http://slashdot.org/articles/05/09/12/2321222.shtml?tid=129&tid=1

Randall311 writes to tell us about, what the creators hope will be, a new replacement for the old TV Tome website, the TV IV Wiki. The once popular TV Tome website was absorbed by CNET in April of this year and most of the content was added to their TV.com website. Many users dislike the new format with vast amounts of flash, obnoxious ads, and missing content. So, if you liked the old TV Tome website perhaps this will allow the community to rebuild what it has lost.

Babel-17

09-30-05, 05:09 AM

http://www.johntabin.com/neverpayretail/

How This Works
Each day, today's regular New York Times op-ed columns will be noted, each with a post title indicating the name of the columnist and the Times's title for the column. As they become available-- usually within a few days-- at least one link will be added in the body of each post to a syndicated copy of the column from a news source that doesn't charge for access.

Babel-17

10-21-05, 07:41 PM

:)

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html

:)

Just went up today.

Office of the Deputy Attorney General Washington, D.C. 20530
December 30, 2003
The Honorable Patrick J. Fitzgerald
United States Attorney
219 S. Dearborn Street
Chicago, IL 60604
Dear Patrick,
By the authority vested in the Attorney General by law, including 28 U. S .C. §§ 509, 510, and 515, and in my capacity as Acting Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 508, I hereby delegate to you all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the Department's investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity, and I direct you to exercise that authority as Special Counsel independent of the supervision or control of any officer of the Department.
/s/ James B. Comey James B. Comey Acting Attorney General

Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn minimized the significance of the Web launch in an interview this morning.

"I would strongly caution, Dan, against reading anything into it substantive, one way or the other," he said. "It's really a long overdue effort to get something on the Internet to answer a lot of questions that we get . . . and to put up some of the documents that we have had ongoing and continued interest in having the public be able to access."

OK, OK. But will the Web site be used for future documents as well?

"The possibility exists," Samborn said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html

Babel-17

11-26-05, 12:04 PM

http://www.ofdb.de/view.php?page=start

http://www.ofdb.de/view.php?page=info#intro

Was ist die Online-Filmdatenbank?

In dieser Datenbank befindet sich eine stetig wachsende Anzahl von Filmen. Obwohl der Schwerpunkt in der Anfangszeit weniger bei den allgemeinen Filminformationen, sondern überwiegend im Bereich der unterschiedlichen Fassungen bzw. Versionen eines Films lag, ist die OFDb inzwischen erheblich gewachsen und bietet nun auch viele andere Informationen über die unterschiedlichsten Spielfilme.

Für Ihre Recherchen stehen umfangreiche Suchfunktionen zur Verfügung. Außerdem haben Sie selber die Möglichkeit, einen Film zur Datenbank hinzuzufügen bzw. neue Daten für einen bestehenden Eintrag zu ergänzen. Sie sind herzlich zur Mitarbeit eingeladen!

Ihr Team der Online-Filmdatenbank

Zurück

Babel-17

12-19-05, 11:28 PM

http://technorati.com/

About Technorati

Currently tracking 23.4 million sites and 1.8 billion links.

Technorati is the authority on what's going on in the world of weblogs.

What is a weblog? A weblog, or blog, is a personal journal on the web. Weblogs express as many different subjects and opinions as there are people writing them. Some blogs are highly influential and have enormous readership while others are primarily intended for a close circle of family and friends.

The power of weblogs is that they allow millions of people to easily publish their ideas, and millions more to comment on them. Blogs are a fluid, dynamic medium, more akin to a 'conversation' than to a library — which is how the Web has often been described in the past. With an increasing number of people reading, writing, and commenting on blogs, the way we use the Web is shifting in a fundamental way. Instead of being passive consumers of information, more and more Internet users are becoming active participants. Weblogs let everyone have a voice.

Technorati is a real-time search engine that keeps track of what is going on in the blogosphere — the world of weblogs.

A few years ago, Web search was revolutionized by a simple but profound idea — that the relevance of a site can be determined by the number of other sites that link to it, and thus consider it 'important.' In the world of blogs, hyperlinks are even more significant, since bloggers frequently link to and comment on other blogs, which creates the sense of timeliness and connectedness one would have in a conversation. So Technorati tracks the number of links, and the perceived relevance of blogs, as well as the real-time nature of blogging. Because Technorati automatically receives notification from weblogs as soon as they are updated, it can track the thousands of updates per hour that occur in the blogosphere, and monitor the communities (who's linking to whom) underlying these conversations.

The Pew Internet study estimates that about 11%, or about 50 million, of Internet users are regular blog readers. According to Technorati data, there are about 70,000 new blogs a day. Bloggers — people who write weblogs — update their weblogs regularly; there are about 700,000 posts daily, or about 29,100 blog updates an hour.

Technorati displays what's important in the blogosphere — which bloggers are commanding attention, what ideas are rising in prominence, and the speed at which these conversations are taking place. Technorati makes it possible for you to find out what people on the Internet are saying about you, your company, your products, your competitors, your politics, or other areas of interest — all in real-time. All this activity is monitored and indexed within minutes of posting. Technorati provides a live view of the global conversation of the web.

Here's my "tagged" bookmark

http://technorati.com/tag/Maureen+Dowd