Boxee on PC, MAC, Ubuntu To Get Fall Update

http://www.technobuffalo.com/home-entertainment/boxee-on-pc-mac-ubuntu-to-get-fall-update/

 | TechnoBuffalo

Finally — Boxee software users will be getting some love. It seemed for awhile there that all the attention was being showered on people who owned the actual Boxee Box hardware.

The online content streaming program offered an extremely novel and fresh interface back in 2007, when Boxee debuted. It allowed users to navigate and access their different streams and subscriptions via keyboard or remote control. At first available as a software download for Mac,PC and Linux users, the company eventually moved on to focus all of its attention on the D-linkBoxee Box (no doubt, to keep its stature as new competitors surfaced, like Google TV, Apple TVand Roku).

In his blog post, top Boxee boss Avner Ronan explains that the Box (which was rewritten on a totally new platform) needed extreme focus at first — which, admittedly, could have made software users feel a little left out. But now, the company will be picking the software-only version back up for development, and a new long-awaited update is scheduled for the fall. Says Ronan:

We are going to release an update for the downloadable version this fall, and hope to keep it more up to speed with the CE version going forward. We also hope to make the open source version of the downloadable version easier to use for people who want to build out their own versions of Boxee.

Unfortunately, Ronan also says that the downloadable software will lag behind the functionality in the Boxee Box version. Even so, long-time software fans should be thrilled about this.

Given what they've gone through with so little attention and the on-again, off-again Hulu access, this will be welcome news. Not as much as striking a deal so Hulu (or even Hulu Plus) will work reliably on there someday, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

For more info on the Boxee Box, hit up TechnoBuffalo's full review.

[via Boxee Team Blog]

Tags: boxee, boxee box, Boxee software, Home Entertainment, hulu, internet videos, streaming content

Adriana Lee

Adriana's fascination with tech started in childhood. After winning a Radio Shack TRS-80 in a raffle, her brother pushed her away from the proto-computer, taunting "Tech's not for girls. Go play with your Barbie." Yeah, right. She grew up to become a writer covering small business technology, as well as trending smartphones, tablets, apps and accessories. She has also written about cooking, fashion, pop culture, newsmakers and the arts, with clips appearing in Time Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other titles. All of this gives her a unique view on her two great passions, modern lifestyle and tech culture, plus some personal satisfaction — her brother now calls her whenever he has 

Top MP3 Players to Look At

http://www.windows7news.com/2011/04/18/top-mp3-players/

| Windows 7 News

MP3 players allow users to play music. It is a means of compressing a sound sequence into a very small file, used as a way of downloading audio files from the Internet. It was developed in the 1980′s and brought to the Internet in 1997. The developers were Fraunhoffer-Gessellshaft and Thompson Multimedia. MP3 was developed to compress WAV files which were typically very large. A file in MP3 format will be 10 to 12 times smaller. MP3 is very popular because it can make your PC into a juke Box to play many different songs.

1by1

Here is a small but handy audio player which provides a smart and versatile environment to handle your file collection and listen to your tracks ; you don't need for playlists or databases. Here are some of its features: With the Directory Player, you directly play your folder contents. With Full Resume play the program remembers the last track and position. The supported decoders are ACM (mp3), mpglib (mp2, mp3) and it has Winamp 2.x input plugin support. Listeners will also appreciate gapless play · simple crossfading and an Audio enhancer plus many more options. But most importantly, or not to be left out is the fact that it has a very small size · so it has a low resource usage.

[Download Link]

K-Lite Codec Pack

Here"s a situation that you may have run into. You download a file but the version you have won't play on your existing codecs. Well, that is where K-lite codec pack comes in. This pack has about 99% of all the audio and video codecs you will ever need. Just install this pack, and you will be able to play just about any media file out there. It includes DivX, Xvid, x264, MPEG 1/2,MP3, Monkey`s Audio,Media Player Classic, On2 V6/V7 and many others. You can even select which codecs to install or let the default profile install all of them for you.

[Download Link]

Media Jukebox

Two things you want from an mp3 player, and one obviously is the ability to play music and the other is to have it organized in a way that is easy to find the music you want. Media Jukebox is a music player and organizer that offers many options for playing, managing, or creating digital music on your PC. For example, it offers file organization, helping you find, store and play music and video, as well as CD ripping, CD burning, visual displays, CD-quality encoding to MP3, WMA, OGG and APE.

[Download Link]

Summary

These freeware programs can bring a new musical experience to listeners. 1BY1 lets you listen to your tracks with out a playlist. The K-Lite Code pack provides a large number of codec's to play almost any format. And Media Jukebox can help you organize yor music library.

Top Free Graphics Management Tools To Look At

http://www.windows7news.com/2011/04/17/top-free-graphics-management-tools/

| Windows 7 News

Today's computers have access to numerous pictures, videos, and graphics. Keeping track of them can be a chore, so here are some Graphics Management Tools that will help you manage your pictures.

FotoBounce

Fotobounce is a FREE photo organizer that utilizes advanced face recognition technology to speed up the tagging and organizing of your photos. It also enables private peer networks for sharing. When you create an album, you can easily share that with your friends and family including all people tags. Email photos from your cell phone to Fotobounce directly via Fotomail. Two-way connections with Facebook, Flickr and AirSet. Remote browsing from smartphone via Fotomobile. Here are some of the other things that you can do. Create private photo sharing networks. Transfer full resolution photo images. Identify and tag family & friends. Organize your photos by People and view photos from your mobile device.

[Download Link]

Duplicate Finder

This is a free powerful program, that helps you to find and remove duplicate photos on your PC. With this program you can easily clean up your photo collection from duplicates or even similar images. This program is easy to use. Using just a couple of mouse clicks you can do all you need to fine duplicate photos. This program is able to compare pictures that was resized or pictures with corrected colors (black and white photos etc.). It supports all major image types: JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG.

[Download Link]

FrameSize

There are many different ways to format digital photos. But they often come in widescreen (16:9) sizes, which is ideal for movies, but not so much for digital photos which are commonly taken by digital cameras in a non-widescreen format (usually 4:3). This results in the photo frame having to display the image matted with ugly black bars down the sides, or cropped by losing the top and bottom of the picture. So is there a fix to this problem? Yes. FrameSize is an application that allows you to quickly deal with these limitations and produce high quality images from your digital photographs that are formatted properly and perfectly optimized for your digital photo frame.

[Download Link]

Summary

By looking at these Graphics Management Tools you can add new perspective to the picture sources and modify or edit the pictures to meet your picture standards or requirements.

How to Import iTunes Podcasts in Rhythmbox

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/06/how-to-import-itunes-podcasts-in-rhythmbox/

By Joey Sneddon, Published June 15, 2010

For better or worse iTunes has near-total domination of the podcast sector; it's how most people I know – that don't use Linux – get their podcast fix. You subscribe in iTunes, it downloads, it's on your iPod. Easy as pie. Due to the ubiquity of iTunes many podcasts, foolishly, choose only to distribute their episodes via it.

Wouldn't it be great if you could get iTunes podcast feeds in your favourite Ubuntu desktop music player? It's actually a snap!

Flip out!

To do this we're going to use a web utility called 'FeedFlipper'. Feed Flipper is, in layman's terms an €œiTunes podcast to RSS converter€. Using FeedFlipper, the resulting URL is then available to be subscribed to directly in Rhythmbox/RSS feed reader/podcast catcher/other music player of your choice.

FeedFlipper even offers up a bevy of options to customize the feed to your liking: -

Getting iTunes Podcast URLs – without iTunes!

Surprisingly you don't need access to iTunes in order to get the podcast URLs. Juts hit up the following link, browse and right-click > copy link on the Podcast name that takes your fancy. Paste it into FeedFlipper, configure and then use the resulting RSS feed in Rhythmbox (or podcast reader of choice)

• http://itunes.apple.com/us/genre/podcasts/id26

There we have it! Feedflipper is a dandy way to get iTunes podcasts in Rhythmbox without having to be tied to a dual-boot. Those all-new episodes of 'Dan And Mindy's Cookery Podcast' are now yours to listen to whenever.

Thanks to Icek

Related posts:

1. Share Your Rhythmbox Library with Empathy Contacts
2. Rhythmbox 0.12.5 Released
3. 5 Rhythmbox Plugins You Should Install

Play back your audio files at a different speed or pitch

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/play-it-slowly-play-back-your-audio-files-at-a-different-speed-or-pitch.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=play-it-slowly-play-back-your-audio-files-at-a-different-speed-or-pitch

Play it slowly is a software to play back audio files at a different speed or pitch. It does also allow you to loop over a certain part of a file. It's intended to help you learn or transcribe songs. It can also play videos thanks to gstreamer. Play it slowly is intended to be used on a GNU/Linux system like Ubuntu.

Features

* Plays every file gstreamer does (mp3, ogg vorbis, midi, even flv!)
* Can use alsa and jack
* Change speed and pitch
* Loop over certain parts
* Export to wav

Install Play it slowly in ubuntu

Download deb packge from here once you have deb package you can install by double clicking on it.

Or run the following command from correct location

sudo dpkg -i playitslowly_1.3.1_all.deb

Google TV is coming

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/10/04/google-tv-site-launches-answers-a-lot-of-questions/

Google TV is coming -- and judging by the new Google TV website, it's coming soon. Via the medium of shiny, black, stylish imagery, the site goes a long way to answering any and all questions you might have about the service. For sitting-in-the-living-room TV watchers it soundsreally cool. If you sit at your computer all day, however, the feature list feels a little mundane. If you want to get in on the Google TV goodness, you will either need to pick up an incredibly expensive Sony Internet TV, or grab the standalone Logitech Revue (which will probably cost $200-$300). Neither device is currently available, but the Revue will probably launch after the Logitech event on Wednesday. Incidentally, if you're poking around the Google TV site, there's a link to a 'Google TV blog' at the bottom of the page -- but it's invite-only... just a temporary issue, I'm sure!

Google Maps for Android gets GPS navigation for walking routes

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/09/09/google-maps-for-android-gets-gps-navigation-for-walking-routes/

Pedestrians might get exercise or save on gas, but they don't get the fancy turn-by-turn GPS directions that drivers do. Or, they didn't until Google decided to release Walking Navigation in Google Maps 4.5 for Android. Android users can now use GPS navigation in walking mode, getting suggestions for the best pedestrian routes Google knows about. This navigation mode isn't just a copy of driving mode, either. It's got pedestrian-friendly features like vibrating when you need to make a turn, and a map that turns as you do. Walking navigation also uses satellite imagery by default, to give you a better idea of where you are. You can also use the Street View smart navigation feature in the Google Maps search bar to decide which way to walk. This is a fantastic idea, although I'm sure there are still some kinks to work out. If you've got an Android device, we suggest you, well ... waaaalk this waaay!

Command Line Audio: Simple as mpg123

http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7838

Your mileage may vary with mpg123 but your MP3 listening enjoyment never will.

Ken Hess

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

Did you ever want a little background music with your daily grind but either you didn't want to (or couldn't) fire up something graphical to use? That's where mpg123 comes to your rescue. Mpg123 is a fast console MPEG audio player and decoder library. If you're about to click on to another story because you think that a command line music playing application is devoid of features or functions, you're going to miss out on one of the coolest and most versatile MP3 applications you've ever seen.

Those of you who work most of your 50-hour plus weeks at the command line deserve the same multimedia enjoyment that your GUI-tethered coworkers enjoy. Applications such as mpg123 give you the opportunity to get real work done and have a little fun while you do.

The Basics

It's simple to install mpg123. You only need simple typing skills to install this command line gem.

 $ sudo apt-get install mpg123

or,

 $ sudo yum install mpg123

For purists or those less fortunates who have no packaged mpg123 version, you can download the source code is at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpg123/.

Taking mpg123 for a Test Drive

Though mpg123 is small in stature, it could take 30 minutes or more to install it. It takes so long because, during the installation and setup process, the program automatically downloads sample podcasts into your home directory under a new directory named POD. Under that directory you'll see the following directories: Linux, LINUX and Privacy. In each of those directories, you have directories that are home to three specific podcasts: The Privacy Podcast, The Linux Link and LUG Radio. For the purposes of this article, I chose the Privacy Podcast, by Aaron Titus, titled "When Breaches Go Unreported" due to its excellent and serious content. You should definitely listen to this one for your own edification.

To play one of the downloaded podcasts or a music file that you've purchased legally, summon mpg123 at the command line and use the -C switch to invoke mpg123's full control complement.

 $ mpg123 -vC POD/Privacy/Privacy Podcast/privacy-2007-10-22-56442.mp3  High Performance MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 Audio Player for Layers 1, 2 and 3         version 1.12.1; written and copyright by Michael Hipp and others         free software (LGPL/GPL) without any warranty but with best wishes Decoder: SSE  Terminal control enabled, press 'h' for listing of keys and functions.  Playing MPEG stream 1 of 1: privacy-2007-10-22-56442.mp3 ... Title:   When Breaches Go Unreported     Artist: Aaron Titus Comment: Join Aaron Titus and explore common threats to your identity, and practical advice on how to make your identity more secure. www.aarontitus.net/privacy/ Album:   The Privacy Podcast Year:    2007                            Genre:  Privacy MPEG 1.0, Layer: III, Freq: 44100, mode: Stereo, modext: 0, BPF : 418 Channels: 2, copyright: No, original: No, CRC: No, emphasis: 0. Bitrate: 128 kbit/s Extension value: 0 Frame#   768 [15040], Time: 00:20.06 [06:32.88], RVA:   off, Vol: 100(100) 

The podcast begins to play for you. This one is just under seven minutes in length. The '-v' switch provides a verbose output that shows you the Channel information, bitrate, counter and volume settings. To see mpg123's controls, type 'h' during playback. Doing so will show the menu of available controls displayed below.

  -= terminal control keys =- [s]     or [ ] interrupt/restart playback (i.e. '(un)pause') [f]     next track [d]     previous track [b]     back to beginning of track [p]     loop around current position (like a damaged audio CD;-) [.]     forward [,]     rewind [:]     fast forward [;]     fast rewind [>]     fine forward [<]     fine rewind [+]     volume up [-]     volume down [r]     RVA switch [v]     verbose switch [l]     list current playlist, indicating current track there [t]     display tag info (again) [m]     print MPEG header info (again) [h]     this help [q]     quit [c]     or [C] pitch up (small step, big step) [x]     or [X] pitch down (small step, big step) [w]     reset pitch to zero 

If you have a directory that contains your favorite songs, you can play them all by issuing the mpg123 command with a wildcard setting.

 $ mpg123 -vC *.mp3 

Remote Access

If you must connect to your MP3 library remotely, don't despair; you can listen as if you had direct access to the system console. From your local system, ssh to the remote system and issue the mpg123 command to enjoy your audio gold just as you would from the console. This feature comes in handy for those of you who can connect remotely to a home-based Linux system that has all your MP3s, leaving your work computer untouched by any "foreign" files that could score you a

reprimand (or worse) from those who dispense your paycheck.

The mpg123 project maintainers provide regular updates though the documentation could use some help. Your best source for information on it is through its man page. You can get a lot of mileage out of mpg123 but beyond the basics, you're on your own. For those of you so inclined, contact the developers to enhance and expand the documentation for this incredibly simple, fast and flexible utility.

Kenneth Hess is a Linux evangelist and freelance technical writer on a variety of open source topics including Linux, SQL, databases, and web services. Ken can be reached via his website at http://www.kenhess.com. Practical Virtualization Solutions by Kenneth Hess and Amy Newman is available now.