Gradual Panic!

I’ve been meaning to write about this utility for sometime especially considering how much I use it. If you’re like me and in the IT support game you’re constantly installing various Windows operating systems on all manner of weird and wonderful kit. Nowadays Windows 7 seems to take care of the drivers for lot of your on-board devices but not all and if you’re using XP good luck! Well now that stress can eased with the simple application of Driver Easy.

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Please note that the information in this post is for guide purposes only. All advice, links to external web sites are followed at your own risk. I do not accept any liability for your personal media centre building experience. Please also note that I am not trying to insult anyone’s intelligence with the basic nature of the guide but it is intended for absolute beginners.

One of the big things of 2010 was internet connected TV. We saw the release of Google TV, the relaunched Apple TV as well as a raft of others. As well as that you can access a number of TV services through you games console such as the PS3, XBox and Wii. But if you actually look at what each device actually offers you’ll find limitations. I’ve never been able to settle with a solution that suits me perfectly and none of the above fit the bill.

I’m after on-demand services such as BBC iPlayer, 4OD and YouTube as well as being able to surf the web and play online games but I don’t want to pay the earth. So if you want to follow my lead you’ll build your very own media centre and here’s how.

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Chrome

I’ve been a Firefox fan boy since day one, but then again compared to Internet Explorer there is no comparison, until now. I’ve been playing with Chrome on and off since it was released but only really to test my web sites but more and more I find myself using it for everyday browsing. The reason I find it so useful is that it’ so damn fast and clean. If you haven’t tried it then it’s time to give it a whirl.

Poladroid

I love old Polaroid pics. There’s just something so nostalgic about that washed out look and that stupidly big bezel. Well download this baby and import your pics, it instantly works wonders.

PDF Creator

Want to be able to create PDF files from any program (well some people want to)? Well this champion of open source allows you to simply click print and a portable document can be yours.

Security Essentials

This is to my mind the best anti-virus program out there without cash changing hands. On my home network it’s all I use and it’s a demon.

Format Factory

Convert anything to anything. Videos, audio, images it has it all. Simply select your conversion format, choose your output format and the factory does the rest. I use this nearly every day.

YouTube Downloader

The ability to download YouTube videos is a must. There are a lot of sites out there that can help but this app is the simplest to use. Just paste in the videos address and it does the rest. You can even use Format Factory to add even more magic.

Unreal Tournament 2004

Now the date on the aforementioned game may put you off but to my mind Unreal Tournament 2004 is one of the best online first person shooters I’ve ever played. This link is just for the demo but the best thing is once downloaded it never runs out. Fair enough it only gives you two maps bit you can still join in the killing with other players for free. It’s actually so good that I went out and bought the full version.

GIMP

I’m sure everyone knows this one by now? Want Photoshop style image editing but can’t afford to shell out for the full version? Then get GIMP. It basically has all the main Photoshop standards but you don’t have to pay a penny.

Dropbox

Want to share all your files in one place? Simply install Dropbox which shares a folder on your PC. Drag and drop files into that bad boy and then access them on another PC, online and even on your iPhone and iPad.

CD Burner XP

I know that your flashy new Windows 7 PC has its own CD/DVD burner but this is sooo much easier to use. Don’t be put off by the XP bit in the title either, it’ll work for you.

Recuva

Deleted that precious file? Well this is the best way to get your hands back on it without money changing hands. A must!

DVD Decrypter

This is a simple but effective DVD ripper. Its development has ceased but it’s still one of the best rippers out there.

Audacity

A complete home sound recording and editing suite. Simple as that.

Cobian Backup

Want to automate for PC backups? Well Cobian is an open-source solution that does just that. Just select what you want to back up, where you want to back it up to and when.

CCleaner

If that box of yours is running like a dog then download this to optimise its performance, fix the registry and clean up those nasty little startup programs.

Now I know that not everyone has a wad of cash burning a hole in their pocket but if you are one of those well paid peeps (or someone without kids) you may be looking to invest in some tech. So, what do buy right now. Well, here’s a start on a few things that I’ve tried and tested in 2010.

Laptops

The best laptop I’ve seen this year is the Toshiba Satellite Pro L500-1VX. The upgrade to my previous fave the L500-1D3 boasts a faster processor (2.10GHz Core 2 Duo), larger hard drive (500GB) and 4GB of RAM abd considering it’s a 15.6″ l5.6″ laptop it’s actually lighter than it looks at only 2.7 kg. It’s packed with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and comes in at £528.75 all in so what more could you ask for?

Desktops

Now this surely has to be the new 27″ Apple iMac. We got one of these beauties in the other week and I fell in love with it instantly. I always said that if I was going to buy an office computer then it was going to be a PC, but now I’m not so sure. Especially if I plumped for the 2.66GHz Intel Core i5 (Quad Core) version with 16GB of RAM, that would just be nerd pornography with tissues thrown in. It looks amazing, it sounds amazing and if they decide to bring out a 32″-er in the future with a Blu-Ray player then my TV is going in the skip!

Storage

Now there is one thing in the world I really, really hate. USB external hard drives. They really are the most pointless of all devices. Fair enough you can back up all your essential data but everywhere I go I see them constantly plugged into PCs. OK you have copies of your stuff on multiple devices but the amount of USB drives that have been brought to me because they’ve been dropped, trust me, it’s loads. It just isn’t safe keeping your backup copy that close to the original source. Then if your PC/Laptop gets stolen you can probably kiss goodbye to your drive too in the wagged collection. So how to prevent this? Get yourself a network hard drive, more specifically the My Book World Edition II. This enclosure contains 2 drives so everything you back up to is is duplicated, double protection. But the best thing is that it’s network connected so it can be located away from your PC but you can still read/write data to it. Add to this the ability that you can administer it via the web and hey presto you’re protected!

More coming soon…

I’ve been asked about this sooo many times over the last couple of months that I thought it was about time that I wrote this ‘how to’. There is no disagreement that YouTube is a fantastic media resource and great fun to watch. But what if you want to use that content elsewhere? How do you get hold of it? What do you do with? How? Here’s how…

1. First of all you need to decide which video you’d like to download so visit it’s page on YouTube. For this example I’ll be using a video I created for my MJ site a couple of months ago which you can view here.
2. To the left of the video please note the 2 sections labelled URL and Embed. Now in the URL is the link for the video, you need to copy this to paste in a sec. Please also note the Embed section though. This normally contains the code to post it in your own web site but authors can disable this. If it says ‘embedding disabled by request’ then this video will not work with this process.
3. Now open a new window or tab in your browser and visit KeepVid.com and paste your copied YouTube URL into the textbox at the top of the site and then press download.
4. You will then be presented with 3 links (FLV low and medium quality and a high quality MP4 video). Simply click on the one you fancy and it’s all yours.
5. So what to do with your video now? If you want to shove it in your PowerPoint presentation then FLV and MP4 video aint that friendly, so you’ll need to convert it. For that you’ll need FormatFactory, a free media converter that converts anything to anything.
6. So say you want to convert your video to WMV (the friendliest format for PC PowerPoint) simply open the program. Select the video option and then ‘all to WMV’.
7. Select the quality and size that you’d like to output to be, select the file you’d like to convert and it will be added to the queue (you can batch convert a number of files at once).
8. Once the files are in the queue simply press convert and hey presto your format friendly video is ready to use (by default the program places the video in a folder called FFoutput in your documents folder).

Please note that there are many other ways to do this but this is my tried and tested method. What could be simpler?