Category: Geek Software of the Week

OK, so you have a collection of video files and want to make a DVD out of them. You have a DVD burner in your system, but no DVD burning software. What do you do? Enter free and Open Source, DVD Flick!

DVD Flick

“DVD Flick aims to be a simple but at the same time powerful DVD Authoring tool. It can take a number of video files stored on your computer and turn them into a DVD that will play back on your DVD player, Media Center or Home Cinema Set. You can add additional custom audio tracks as well as subtitles of your choice. Supported file container formats are, amongst others, AVI, MPG, MOV, WMV, ASF, FLV, Matroska and MP4. Supported codecs are amongst others, MPEG-1\2\4 (XVid, DivX, etc.), Windows Media Audio\Video. MP3, OGG Vorbis, H264, and On2 VP5\6. DVD Flick is Open Source, meaning that anyone can download and view or modify the program’s source code. It also means that it is absolutely free of charge. Several external programs are used by DVD Flick to do the dirty work like encoding and combining of video material. All of these programs are free, some are Open Source too.”

This is a neat, and of course, free and Open Source!

This is a nice, Open Source, package! If you want to “play” with video editing, this is a good way to get your foot “in the door” so to speak.

Avidemux Web Site

“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. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities. Avidemux is available for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows under the GNU GPL license. The program was written from scratch by Mean, but code from other people and projects has been used as well. Patches, translations and even bug reports are always welcome.”

Check it out! It is pretty nice!

I know, this is another one that is NOT free, but occasionally you have VERY specific needs that only a shareware program like this addresses. I wanted a program that would allow me to edit tags within files of all kinds of file types, like: mp3 (ID3v1, ID3v2.2, ID3v2.3 and ID3v2.4 tags), MusePack mpc/mp+ (APEv1, APEv2 and ID3v1 tags), Windows Media wma, asf and wmv files, Ogg Vorbis/Flac/Speex (vorbis comments), Apple iTunes and iPod aac (m4a) files including mp4, lossless m4a and protected m4p files, most popular lossless codecs including Monkey’s Audio, Flac, Wav Pack, Optim Frog, True Audio, Apple, Windows Media lossless and Wav! WOW! Plus, I wanted all file info on ONE screen, so I could see it and edit it all at once. Well, check it out!

Tag&Rename – easy to use tag editor

“Tag&Rename supports many additional tag fields including lyrics, cover art, rating, mood, disc #, part of a compilation, album artist, classical music fields (Composer, Conductor, etc.), file related URL’s and so on. With Tag&Rename, you can:

* manually edit music files tags
* automatically fix and complete file tags using online freedb database
* load titles and cover art from amazon.com server
* get tags data from file names and its folders structures
* rename your music files and folders according to its music information in a batch
* create play lists
* export files information to CSV, HTML, XML and text formats and more

Tag&Rename supports many files and tags standards in an easy and intuitive way, so you can work with music metadata and not have to think about files codecs and tags versions – Tag&Rename does it all.”

And, it supports Vista! All for only $29.95! Not bad at all! I bought it!

CPU-Z is a freeware that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system. Have you ever needed info on what motherboard you have, what CPU? Planning an upgrade, but don’t want to “crack the case” to find out exactly what you are running? Well, here you go!

CPU-Z Utility

“CPU-Z does not need to be installed. Just unzip the files in a directory and run the .exe. In order to remove the program, just delete the files, and that’s it. The program does not copy any file in any Windows directory, neither writes in the registry. CPU-Z uses a configuration file, cpuz.ini, that allows to set several parameters for the program. The cpuz.ini file must be in the same directory as cpuz.exe.”

Try it… you’ll like it!

This is a very unusual Geek Software of the Week, because it is not freeware, but rather is a purchased product. The reason? Well, the Microsoft Daylight Savings Time debacle has been a big deal for folks that are dealing with old NT boxes and Windows 2000 boxes. Instead of paying Microsoft $4000.00, why not buy IntelliAdmin for $199.00? It also does a lot more than fix the DST issue, and it allows you to do it from one system and “push it out” to your whole network! Very nice!

“IntelliAdmin Network Administrator will allow you to:

-Validate installation of 2007 Daylight Saving Patch. It can detect ours, and Microsoft’s patch
-Push out and apply 2007 Daylight Saving patch to Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003 machines
-Disable USB Drives
-Disable CD Rom Drives
-Disable Floppy drives
-Prevent the automatic install of IE 7
-Reboot Machines
-Shutdown Machines
-Logoff Machines
-Set the VNC password of remote machines
-Keep machines from automatically rebooting when automatic updates have finished
-Stop services
-Start services
-Disable services
-Set services to manual
-Set services to automatic start”

Check it out:

Intelliadmin Network Administrator 2.7

My understanding is that you can try it for free, but I strongly encourage you to buy it if you decide to use it… let’s support this guy’s efforts to help admins!

From the maker’s of one of my favorite utilities, CCleaner, we now have Recuva!

Recuva, Deleted File Restore

“Recuva (pronounced ‘recover’) is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!”

It is still in Beta, but as with CCleaner, it is FREEWARE! Enjoy!

I know, I know… ANOTHER MP3 and WMA to Ogg Vorbis converter!?! Yep! When I get on a crusade, I get rather focused, huh? This one is from Koyote Software, just go to the link below, then choose the option for the “Free Mp3 Wma Converter.”

Koyote Free Mp3 Wma Converter

“Free Mp3 Wma Converter can Convert all your mp3, Wma, Ogg, AAC, M4a, mp4, Ape, Flac, Wav files :

– Mp3 to Ogg, Mp3 to Wma, Mp3 to AAC, Mp3 to Wav …
– WAV to Mp3, Wav to Ogg, Wav to AAC, Wav to Wma …
– Wma to Mp3, Wma to Ogg, Wma to AAC, Wma to Wav …
– Ogg to Mp3, Ogg to Wma, Ogg to AAC, Ogg to Wav …
– AAC to Mp3, AAC to Wma, AAC to Ogg, AAC to Wav …
– Ape to Mp3, Ape to Wma, Ape to Ogg, Ape to Wav …
– Flac to Mp3, Flac to Wma, Flac to Ogg, Flac to Wav …
– M4a to Mp3, M4a to Wma, M4a to Ogg, M4a to Wav …

You will be able to convert you Itunes music library (m4a format) to mp3, wma, ogg, etc…

Free Mp3 Wma Converter can now rip CD Audio with Free CD Ripper !

Tag Editor (V1 and V2)
Simple, very fast and effective. FREEWARE“

Our Geek Software of the week is in line with our previous discussion of moving away from MP3 format to Ogg, or another open format for your sound encoding. winLAME allows you to convert your MP3 files to Ogg with a nice, clean interface. Check it out!

winLAME

“winLAME is an encoder for several audio formats, including mp3 (MPEG Layer 3), Ogg Vorbis and more. winLAME lets you set up the encoding process with an easy-to-use wizard-style user interface. winLAME supports many input audio formats, and uses the LAME mp3 encoding library for encoding and the MAD decoding library for decoding.”

Some time back I recommended VLC Player as the Geek Software of the Week. Now, some GSoTW’s are better than others… some are just interesting… but some actually quietly revolutionize your life. That is what has happened with VLC Player! I recently was “playing” with Xubuntu on a small, underpowered test box, and I was trying to see how useful it would be as an actual “web surfing” system to use to just surf the web, etc. I installed the Linux version of VLC Player by enabling the “universe” add-on in Synaptic and adding VLC using the Synaptic interface. It was smooth, and worked exactly the same as my Windows XP install of VLC… in terms of look and feel. It was fast, clean, and played anything I ran into on the net as I surfed. This was cool, simple, and actually AWESOME! No searching for various codecs, no special setups… it just plain worked.

I find myself using VLC Player for ALL my media on by Windows XP box too. Whether Divx, or Windows Media… whatever… VLC just plays in… fast, light… clean. I love it! It gets a HUGE “thumbs up” from me!

Here’s the link again to get it:

VLC Player Download

This is one of those mind-bogglingly useful software doohickeys that will help you in so many ways!

AutoHotKey Scripting Utility

“AutoHotkey is a free, open-source utility for Windows. With it, you can:

* Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder.

* Create hotkeys for keyboard, joystick, and mouse. Virtually any key, button, or combination can become a hotkey.

* Expand abbreviations as you type them. For example, typing “btw” can automatically produce ‘by the way.’

* Create custom data-entry forms, user interfaces, and menu bars. See GUI for details.
Remap keys and buttons on your keyboard, joystick, and mouse.

* Respond to signals from hand-held remote controls via the WinLIRC client script.

* Run existing AutoIt v2 scripts and enhance them with new capabilities.

* Convert any script into an EXE file that can be run on computers that don’t have AutoHotkey installed.”

Note that it works with AutoIt scripts (another GSotW from way back!) And, they can be compiled! DEWD!