Geek speak...

[miditek]

Here's a new one that could be used as a sort of generic technology type of thread.

For our first post, here are a couple of cool toys that you can download for free- and are actually quite nice-and we actually use both of these at work from time to time for various tasks.

AVIDemux
http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/

A freeware video editor that is used for simple cutting, filtering, and encoding tasks- as the info page says. It comes in a variety of OS flavors, and to paraphrase Jens, this package should (based on your operating system preference) satisfy most any fascist, Marxist, or Nihilist out there.


Video Lan Client (VLC)
http://www.videolan.org/vlc

A very cool open source media player, much better than Windows Media Player for sure, and it also supports a variety of OS platforms.

Enjoy!

[dirge]

Going to check out the video editor. Thanks Miditek.

[browneyedgirl]

Thanks, miditek!

In a few weeks hopefully my new computer will be set up and I can use some of these tools.
Hope they are compatible with Windows XP 2000 Professional? I have heard so many bad things about Vista I don't think I want any part of it.

That lady looks like Sarah Palin without lipstick!

[miditek]

Thanks, miditek!

In a few weeks hopefully my new computer will be set up and I can use some of these tools.

Hope they are compatible with Windows XP 2000 Professional? I have heard so many bad things about Vista I don't think I want any part of it.

You're welcome!

Yep, AVIDemux and VLC will both run under Windows XP for sure- and as I mentioned, various versions of MacOS and Linux/Unix.

[Shurik]

VLC is the best video-player ever.

[miditek]

Going to check out the video editor. Thanks Miditek.

You're welcome! There are other cools applets that will work with AVI-D, such as sub-title software. AVI-D also has some extremely cool audio and video filters as well!

@Shurik- I heartily agree with you on VLC.


And here's another tip- I've been using OpenOffice on my office laptop for quite a few things as of late. While it's not perfect, I sort hve to use it since MS Office will not run on Linux- although MS Office is running on my office desktop PC. OpenOffice does have some really cool features, one of which that I really like is the ability to save files in PDF format- something that you can't do out of the box with MS Office.

OpenOffice download
http://download.openoffice.org/index.html

One last cool thing that I've found- (Jens you make like this one) It's called DIA it's a network/electrical/engineering type of diagramming application. You could use it to diagram your project studios and rack gear and their associated connections/cable routing, for instance.

It's a clone of MS Visio if you will. It also has some cool scripting support via Python. Runs on either Unix/Linux or Windows.

DIA Project
http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/

(Tip: Linux users- you don't have to be running the GNOME version of the X Windows desktop- this application will run just fine under KDE 3.5 although I have not yet tested it on KDE 4.0 - yet.

[Equinox]

I've been using VLC and OpenOffice since fall '06.

Great apps, can't complain besides the fact that those 2 are the apps that freeze on me the most.

even though I would like them to go "Aqua" on Mac.

[black death]

VLC is the best video-player ever.

Agreed. It plays most of "problematic" files which are usually not supported by other programs...

[stratoplayer]

I've been using VLC and OpenOffice since fall '06.

Great apps, can't complain besides the fact that those 2 are the apps that freeze on me the most.

even though I would like them to go "Aqua" on Mac.

I use OpenOffice aqua. It`s much much faster than the regular one running on X11.

And VLC is the best multi os media player, it`s the one I use on my Mac. The only one I think is better is the windows media player classic, extremely streamlined, fast and can support 95% of the encodings I`ve found

[Equinox]

I've been using VLC and OpenOffice since fall '06.

Great apps, can't complain besides the fact that those 2 are the apps that freeze on me the most.

even though I would like them to go "Aqua" on Mac.

I use OpenOffice aqua. It`s much much faster than the regular one running on X11.

And VLC is the best multi os media player, it`s the one I use on my Mac. The only one I think is better is the windows media player classic, extremely streamlined, fast and can support 95% of the encodings I`ve found

Well, I got the OO Aqua, but it's way to buggy, since it's just a beta, and I don't wanna loose info and time just for looks, so I went back to same ol' OO with X11. And I recently got the last update to VLC, couple of days ago, and I just watched a HD anime and the CPU went to the 100s. Strange since the one 'fore the update didn't do that. Now the fan inside the computer is working over time.