eBoostr – ReadyBoost for Windows XP

Two of the best features I found in Windows Vista were ReadyBoost and SuperFetch. For those who don't know much about these features, ReadyBoost converts your spare pen-drive in to a large system-cache effectively speeding up your system. Some people like to describe it as a means of making pen-drive act as a system RAM. Anyway, I really wanted this feature on Windows XP. After lots of searching, I found eBoostr.

eBoostr is not just a replica of the ReadyBoost features for Windows XP. It has several extra features like the ability to make use of a portion of your system RAM as a system-cache, effectively making it superior to the ReadyBoost feature. It also supports Windows Vista and helps you replace the ReadyBoost feature on Windows Vista too.

eBoostr also comes with a "Power Saving Mode". If you are using a notebook computer and the "Power Saving Mode" is activated, as soon as your notebook switches to using battery, eBoostr starts caching more actively, thus making less use of the hard disk, which in-turn increases the battery life.

Related Links

• eBoostr Home Page

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MediaCoder - The universal audio/video transcoder

Here is a great tool for all you multimedia lovers out there. MediaCoder is an open-source application capable of transcoding audio/video files between several well known formats. It is also capable of doing some basic set of video editing, which include splitting and joining videos, resize, crop, rotate, etc. It also comes with in-build extension to help convert to popular video formats supported by various Mobile Phones, Digital Media Players, Game Consoles, Home Players, PDA etc. Various extensions are available to convert to specific models of these equipments. For example, it has pre-build extension to convert to iPhone, Nokia N70, PSP, Apple TV etc.

Interface

The interface looks quiet simple and easy to use. But, within a few seconds of its use, you can find how much complicated the interface gets. It might take some time to get used to the multi-tab based interface that it sports.

All you have to understand with the interface is that, when you change the tabs in the left section, the tabs in the right-section completely change to indicate all the options related to the topic you had chosen from the left tab. For example, if you choose Audio from the left tab, the right tab will show tabs for the audio formats that it supports transcoding to.

Also a bit confusing is the way the labels of various controls in these tab act. For example, if you choose the Audio tab, the Source, Encoder, Resample, Channel, etc. which are to left side of the various drop-down boxes, MediaCoder brings up advanced features related to these options.

Audio Conversion

MediaCoder features one of the best audio conversion system. It supports a wide range of formats to convert to: MP3, Vorbis, AAC, eAAC/AAC+, WMA, AMR, FLAC, APE, etc. It doesn't actually have its own convertors for any of these formats, but instead use the various freely available converts to do the job (e.g. MP3 can be encoded using LAME, Helix or Fraunhofer encoders).

One thing to remember when encoding audio only, is that you should go to the Video tab and unselect "Enable Video".

Video Conversion

First step to enable Video conversion is to go to the Video tab and select the "Enable Video" checkbox. For basic format conversion, this tab has option to choose the video format and the encoder. One thing to be very careful after this is that you should go to the audio tab and set a correct audio type that can be supported by the video type. For example, if you are converting to MPEG or XviD, you should choose LAME Mp3 from the audio tab.

Most of the other tabs within the interface are also related to Video Conversion. One important section is the Picture tab. It has options to resize, crop, change frame rate, aspect ratio etc. You can even use the Cropper button to play the movie in an in-build player and crop it interactively.

The Time tab is a very useful section if you want to cut a part of the video. It is specified by providing the Start Position and Stop Position times. If these seems difficult, you can use the "Select" button to interactively choose the section you want to cut.

Summary

Although its interface might seem a bit complicated for some people, it is one feature rich audio/video converter. Just play around a bit with the interface and you could get used with it.

Related Links

• MediaCoder Official Website

Windows Live Writer

My search for Software Tools that could help me blog better, brought me to this neat little piece of software from Microsoft. I had certainly not expected a blogging tool from Microsoft. It also turns out that Windows Live Writer is a free software. It is part of the Windows Live.

My first hunch was that it might only be compatible with Microsoft's own blogging service, Windows Live Spaces. But, it really turns out that Windows Live Writer is also compatible with SharePoint, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, Community Server, and many other services.

Anyone with basic usage knowledge of a word processing software can quickly start using the software. The interface resembles a word processing software with basic formatting functions.

Managing Blogs

To begin with, the first thing to do would be managing the blog account by associating it with the writer. This is quiet easy. Just choose Add Weblog Account from the Weblog menu and a wizard appears. If you are going to manage a Windows Live Spaces or Sharepoint weblog, the options are available in the main screen. But when it comes to other Blogs such as Blogger, WordPress or other services, simply choose Another weblog service from the screen and in the next screen provide the URL of the blog, the username and password. Windows Live Writer will automatically try to detect the type of blog and setup the parameters.

Views & Usage

All the basic formatting options are available in neatly organized menus and toolbars. Inserting images are quiet simple. Just paste them into the window. Windows Live Writer will automatically upload the picture to the blog if your blog service supports it. Simply clicking an image brings up several options on the sidebar to layout and optimize the image.

Related Links

• Official Website

Free Download Manager

These days almost all decent managers have turned to being shareware. One of the remaining few download managers is Free Download Manager. It recently became fully open-source, which means it will remain free forever. Being free doesn't mean it has very few features. In fact, it is one of the most feature-rich download managers available. With features such as Pause/Resume downloads, Segmented Download, Audio/Video Preview during download, Flash video download (from sites like YouTube, Google Video, Blennus, MySpace etc.), BitTorrent support, Scheduler, Site Explorer, Site Password Manager, HTML Spider etc.

Interface

The interface can't be simpler than this. Just the simple set of buttons. The left side tree structure contains ways to filter out the downloads you want to see. It can be based on type, status, etc. The right side, on the other hand, is a split view between the list of downloads (on the top) and the details of the download in the bottom. The details section is further categorized into tabs to show the Log, Progress, Media Preview, and Community Comments (Extra tab might appear for Torrent downloads).

Flash video download

The Flash video download section is a relative new section to Free Download Manager. It allows you to download video files from some online video sites such as Google Video, YouTube, Blennus, MySpace, Dailymotion, LiveDigital etc. This section also has the option to convert the downloaded file between avi, wmv, mpg, mp4 and mp3 files.

Torrents

Torrents have become the hottest way to download stuff on the Internet. Torrent support is a brand new addition to Free Download Manager and you shouldn't expect much from it. But still, it does a quiet descent job with torrents. Please note that the "Torrents" section might only be available in the latest beta release. The latest version has support to select the files with a torrent files that you would like to download. You can also prioritize the files you want to download. Options are also available to restrict the Seeding of the file.

Scheduler

Free Download Manager comes with a very advanced scheduler which can do tasks such as Launch Program, Start/Stop download, Establish/Hang-up dial-up connection, Change traffic usage mode, Shutdown/Hibernate/Sleep system, etc. It can also be triggered on various events such as A given date/time, Certain days of every week, Every few intervals, At start-up, download completed etc. Tasks can also be deleted/disabled after completion.

Site Explorer

The Site Explorer is a unique part of Free Download Manager which allows you to view web sites in a folder structure. This allows you to download files more easily. It also facilitates in the browsing of FTP sites.

Site Manager

A section that stores the User Name/Password related to a web site. The user name and passwords are stored from the different sections of the application.

HTML Spider

Ever wanted to download a complete website or a part of the website. HTML Spider helps you download an entire section of a given website to your hard disk by following the links in the given page and the links within those pages and so-on.

Summary

Free Download Manager is one of the best download manager you can come up with. It has almost all the features you can expect from a download manager and more. It is also highly customizable using the Options available. Although, I have to admit it, the Options section might get a bit confusing for starters. Anyway, the free download manager can be downloaded from the Official Site.

Related Links

• Free Download Manager at SourceForge.net

Media Player Classic

Many people mistake Media Player Classic for an older version Windows Media Player and simply tend to ignore it. This confusion is because the interface looks very much like Windows Media Player 6.4 . This open source media player for Windows was created by a programmer called "Gabest".

Installation of Media Player Classic is quiet simple because it does not have an installation. It is just a single EXE file and can be run without any installation. Media Player Classic can be downloaded from SourceForge.net . The only issue here is that the original product is not under active development since 2006. A separate group had been working in fixing major issue found in the Player and adding new features. This modified version can be found at a separate website Guliverkli2.

You must note that although it can read most of the popular audio formats, it is only able to read most video formats if the correct codec is present on the system. It appears to have built-in support for VCD, SVCD and DVD formats. It also has support for DVD menus and sub-titles. But apart from that, the function as a complete Media Player suite, it is recommended that you install it with some of the popular Codec Packs such as K-Lite Codec Pack and Codec Pack All.

Interface and Speed

One thing you would love about this media player is it's speed and simplicity. The startup speed is quiet quick and the interface is quiet responsive. You wouldn't have any problem to start using this media player because the interface is quiet common. The plain old seek bar and the standard player button with the standard volume control. The volume can also be controlled using the wheel of a mouse. Most other keyboard shortcuts are similar to that of Windows Media Player. For eg. Space can be Used to Play/Pause and Alt+Enter can be used to toggle the Full Screen Mode.

The palyer interface comes in 3 modes. Minimal, Compact, and Normal mode. It can be changed from the View->Presets sub-menu.

Options

Media Player Classic are extensively customizable.

•  Player - This section has the basic options such as the Single/Multi Media Player window mode, Show/Hide Taskbar icon, Format association, Autoplay configuration, Keyboard configuration, Logo to be used when the player is idle, and the Web Interface (The web interface module appears to be a work in progress and wouldn't work)
• Playback - All basic playback options are available in this section. This includes the playback repeat rate, default zoom level, DVD/OGM advanced settings, Video rendering mode and Audio Output device.
• Internal Filters - Various settings related to Internal Filters are done here. The Audio Switcher sub-section can be used to filter out the audio output.
• External Filters
• Subtitles - All settings related to how sub-titles are rendered.
• Tweaks - Some basic tweaks like disabling XP-themes, Free Window Resizing etc.

Finally

Media Player Classic is a great add-on player that can be installed along with any other Media Player you might be using. For one thing, it doesn't use much space. Hope you have a great video watching experience.

Further Reading

• Media Player Classic on WikiPedia
• Media Player Classic Homecinema Home Page

Sandboxie - Try-out new software without messing-up your System

If you love to download, install and try out lots of Software, then this software is for you. The basic problem when installing and trying out lots of Software is that, the software tend to leave behind several additional files. It also makes lots of modification to the system, which might sometimes be undesirable.

What is Sandboxie?

Sandboxie is a software that helps you run an application in a Sandbox type isolated environment. To be more plain, you can install and try-out new software without affecting other parts of your system.

How does it work?

At the base level, any file operation done by an application run within the Sandboxie program will be intercepted by the program. The modification of the file (no matter which file it is) will not be allowed and instead a new file is created in a private folder of Sandboxie. Usually, the Sandboxie files are stored in C:\Sandboxie directory. Any future access to the file from within the Sandbox is re-routed to the file within the Sandboxie directory.

Application Usage

The application usage is apparently quiet simple. It has a very simple interface with a list of available Sanboxes. To run an application in the Sandbox, simply right-click the Sandbox and from the "Run Sandboxed" sub-menu, choose the application you would like to start. When an application starts running, you can see its process in the main list view window of Sandboxie.

When an application is started using the Sandboxie program, it's title bar will contain [#] symbol in the beginning and end.

Limitation / Problems

Not all programs are compatible with Sandboxie. You should take special care when running system level applications like anti-virus from within the Sandbox. Also, most Games would probably never work in Sandbox.

Another issue would be with speed. All these application intercepting can really slow down the application. You shouldn't be using an application within a Sandbox if you intend to use it quiet often. It would really slow the application as time goes.

Conclusion

Sandboxie is a great program if you like testing out the different applications available on the net. The most important thing it provides is security. Even if a virus is run from within the Sandbox environment, it can never affect the system.

Related Links

• Sandboxie Homepage
• Sandboxie on Wikipedia

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