Monthly Archives: August 2010

My Stress Ball Search is Completed

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Although I love my job I do get quite stressed. As I am always on the go or in front of a computer I find that my stress levels rise quite quickly. My work partner had joked that I need a stress ball but as it was a joke I never thought anything more of it. Last week I was so stressed and I felt like I needed something to break or squeeze I had realised that my friend in fact was correct – I needed a stress ball.

I decided to go hunting for a stress ball on the high streets. I thought they would be everywhere as only a few years ago they were all the rage. Obviously that is not the case anymore as I couldn’t find them anywhere. I came home unsuccessful and very disappointed.

I was sat at home in front of the TV and it suddenly dawned on me that if I use my favourite search engine I could find just what I was looking for.

I would recommend to anyone looking for a desired object whether it is a fashion item, gadget or home improvement to think of other methods of getting your product if it is not on the high street. You can often order over the phone and get it delivered or use the internet. With technology the way it is today you shouldn’t be without your desired product.

I am now de-stressed as I have a stress-ball sat on my desk. I look geeky little gadgets and toys!

Joan Smith purchased her stress ball from Red5 Retail

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My Birthday Conundrum

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My brothers birthday is just around the corner and I always dread this time of year. My brother is one of those people who you just hate to buy for. He only likes ‘in stuff’ which is easier said than done! The weirdest things can be in fashion which most sane people would think of as a random naff item. I decided that the only way I would get anything that he would feel was ‘in’ and that I felt wasn’t a waste of money was looking on a gizmo website.

After searching the sites I got a few ideas which I thought would be cool ideas.

I found a wicked thing called a voodoo knife set which was designed by an Italian. To be honest, even I liked it which says something! It adds some style and uniqueness to your kitchen- well until everyone else buys one too! Not only is it funny but I will be buying him something that is quality as it comes with a good knife set.

The other thing I thought would be a great gift for him was a squeeze banana. With a constant flow of deadlines looming it’s a get stress relief. ‘squeeze a banana, don’t go banana’s!’ is a great fun little toy!

Whatever I get him I may be getting another one for me! Before I know it my brother may think I’m cool! Possibly….probably not!

If you have a similar problem with a loved one why not give the web a surf and get a cool gadget!

Link: My Birthday Conundrum

My Husband’s Birthday Treats

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Do you every find that all lads have a similar fascination when it comes to playing with toys? Whether it’s in regards to making things in DIY or whether it’s to do with gadgets and gizmos they just can’t stop playing. It’s slightly weird really. I find that not only is my husband terrible but my father and brother are very similar.

As I couldn’t decide what to get my husband for his birthday so I decided to get him a combination of DIY tools and projects to do and some gadgets and gizmos.

I went online and found some great tools at some very reasonable prices. Furthermore I was able to get them at a discounted rate with a voucher code and cash back option on a sight I had found. Even better was the fact that the site was a well known brand which meant I knew I was buying quality and if he did not like the presents he could return them easily.

I then went online again later in the day and purchased some great little gadgets for his computer desk for when he needs to occupy his mind with other thoughts. I must admit that some of the gadgets I loved so much that I fully intend to use them myself.

I hope he really enjoys his birthday and I cannot wait until he opens his presents. I’ve booked a table at his favourite restaurant as well so he will truly enjoy his birthday in style!

Continued here: My Husband’s Birthday Treats

Dedicated Servers For Users Like YouTube

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YouTube has to monitor the uploading of robots, spiders and offline readers which inflate the number of views of a video by automated systems and is against their policy and their terms of service. Tricks such as automated viewing will result in the video being removed or account closed. The YouTube dedicated streaming servers had to handle the streaming of two videos in August 2008 whose numbers had been inflated to 95 million views each.

There was a lawsuit by a company whose url is utube.com. Their site was crashing because millions of online searchers entered their url by mistake. In August of 2006 the site got 68 million hits in that month alone. On the reverse side of this, their customers are searching under YouTube and through impatience the company is receiving a loss of customers and credibility.

You Tube Copycats

Now there are YouTube clone scripts being used by adult video producers to set up a dedicated server environment for the porn industry amongst others. The scripts and instruction for installation is widely offered. You need to have a dedicated server or a string of servers and they provide the mplayer, mencoder, flvtool2 (flash), ffmpeg and ffmpeg-php. Or for a low fee they will install it all on your dedicated server. It is not recommended to try and run a clone script on a shared server or with shared hosting as it needs root SSH access, ffmpeg support and unmetered bandwidth.

YouTube has to have thousands of servers with fast processors. It has been reported that google spent 1.5 billion on data centers to house their dedicated servers alone and that YouTube spends several million dollars per month on bandwidth. Dedicated server clusters are also required to back up files.

A Growing Website

YouTube hosts over 6 million videos every month and that figure is still growing. It takes 45 terabytes of storage. Wizzard and TubeMogul are video distribution sites that use their dedicated servers to instantly distribute, upload and tag your video to YouTube, Google, Yahoo, Revver and many more. Included in their service is their stats package which is apparently easy to install. Wizzard’s revenues for their 2nd quarter of 2008 were up 3% from Q207 at 1.5 million. A total of 250 million shows were downloaded from their dedicated servers in just this quarter.

With an increased interest in online video from the mainstream advertising community the sales of Dedicated Servers is increasing as well. Stargate Holdings reported a 75% jump in sales in their first quarter last year.

The rest is here: Dedicated Servers For Users Like YouTube

Mpeg Encoders

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Movie viewing and editing has never been the same because of MPEG encoders. What exactly is it and how can you use it to make the quality of the movies you are watching better? Read on to satisfy your curiosity.

MPEG encoders defined

Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) encoders are software tools that work by taking individual ‘raster image files’ to produce an MPEG movie that is easier to manipulate using your computer.

MPEG has been setting international standards for video compression since the dawn of digital video. MPEG is very useful across industries. To the regular user, MPEG is very important – it is the technology that uses complicated compression systems to ‘compress’ audio and video, so that it can be burned on a DVD. MPEG encoders can either be purchased or downloaded for free.

Making movies with MPEG encoders (for advanced users)

You can change the performance of your MPEG encoder by simply changing the compression scheme settings on your computer. You typically need to adjust the number of I, P and B frames – the more B and P frames you activate, the higher the compression of your movie.

Bit rate is also very important. You can specify the bit rate using the -b function in ‘ffmpeg’ or the ‘bit line’”" found in the ‘mpeg_encode’ parameter file. To make life easier, try utilizing the ‘media convert’ function that can usually be found in the submenu labeled ‘video output parameters.’ You can easily reduce the size of your movie file, of increase it if you need to. Manipulation of the size of a movie is very important when playing movies transversely throughout the network.

Encoders provides detailed information on Encoders, MP3 Encoders, Mpeg Encoders, DVD Encoders and more. Encoders is affiliated with P2P Applications [http://www.P2P-Web.com].

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Video Tools for Linux

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Free tools for video manipulation and editing in Linux aren’t that hard to find if you know where to look.

Here are my favorites:

Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Interestingly, it’s available for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Windows under the GNU GPL license. I haven’t tested Mac OS X and Windows versions, but the program runs fine under Ubuntu Linux (Dapper Drake).

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

For file conversion, there’s FFMPEG, which is free–but you’ll have to learn to use it through the command line. Unfortunately, the MAN page for the program isn’t very clear.

To save some of you the trouble of figuring it out, here’s a quick tutorial.

Let’s say you want to convert a file called MYVIDEO.AVI to the mpg format, which is the format supported by the K3 CD burning program. After installing FFMPEG (you can use Synaptic Package Manager), fire up Terminal.

From the command line, navigate to the folder where the file is kept. So you might type:

cd /home/user/Converts

to go to the folder where the file is kept.

Then type the following at the command line:

ffmpeg -i MYVIDEO.avi -target ntsc-vcd MYVIDEO.mpg

and hit Enter. That should get the conversion program started, and you ought to see some text scroll by in the Terminal window. Don’t accidentally close the window, because that will stop the conversion. You can minimize it, however.

To convert an avi file to SVCD format, you would type:

ffmpeg -i MYVIDEO.avi -target ntsc-vcd MYVIDEO.mpg

There’s a GUI front-end for FFMPEG on Mac OS X, but I haven’t found one for Linux.

For ripping DVDs, I use AcidRip. Very simple but fast and efficient.

From Digital Life by Chin Wong

http://www.chinwong.com

Chin Wong has been covering the technology industry since the 1980s, starting as a reporter for Business Day, Southeast Asia’s first daily business newspaper. He is now a lecturer in journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and associate editor for the Manila Standard Today. Before that, he also served as technology editor of the Manila Times until October 2004.

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