Blogopolly: windows

So you have got a hard drive full of movies, videos, music and all that good stuff and can’t really decided what you want to watch or listen to because there is simply too much stuff available on that drive? Instead of browsing the folders manually for some time until you find something that sounds interesting enough to watch, listen to, view or read, you can alternatively use Pick Me, a free program for the Windows operating system for the decision making process.

All you need to do is download the program from the Donation Coder forum, unpack it on your computer once the 60K file has been downloaded and start it afterwards. There is only four steps here that you need to complete.

Select the source directory. Keep in mind that all subfolders are automatically processed as well.Select the file extensions that you want the program to include in the selection process. The program supports music, video, text, compressed and image file formats. You can even add your own to the list or remove some that you do not want included.Change the number of results if you do not want ten results to be displayed to you. You can for instance change it to 1 to get only one result.Click on the pick me button to create the list of random results.

pick me

The program scans all matching files in the folder and displays a list of results on the next page. A double-click opens Windows Explorer with the file selected automatically, so that you can start it with a tap on return or another double-click.

play random media

An option to automatically play the file directly on the system would have been nice, but is unfortunately missing. The purpose of the select all button is not really clear as well, as it does not seem possible to do something with multiple selected items. A double-click for instance opens only the selected file, and there is no right-click option or button to load all files in a playlist.

The program is ideal for media that you do not need to watch in a certain order. It is not really working for tv series or audiobooks because of that, but works really well for movies, music, images and documents.

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Thursday September 20, 2012 -
Tags:media, mp3, portable software, videos, windows software
Categories: Software, Windows

You are here: Home » Software » Can’t decide what to watch? Try Pick Me for Windows

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Software Catalogs appear in Windows Store

Up until now Windows Store offered a straightforward experience. The store front displays a number of categories that you could click on to be taken to app listings. Here you’d then see desktop and Windows Store apps offered in the store. While Windows Store has its issues, it works reasonably well most of the time.

If you have browsed the new apps listing recently you may have noticed that software catalogs, or store inside a store apps, have made their appearance on Windows Store.

Intel’s AppUP Center is an an app that makes available the same functionality as the website and desktop program the service has been offered on for the last couple of years. The Windows Store app lists free and paid programs that Windows 8 users can download to their PC. You will find several identical offerings in Windows Store, with games like Fruit Ninja being offered both in the Intel sub-store and the main Windows Store. There is a difference though; the Intel store redirects you to the Intel AppUp website where the apps are downloaded as program executables.

intel app-up store

Why that is important? Windows Store apps get installed automatically, and when updates become available, the updates too. The programs offered in the Intel store app on the other hand are desktop programs that work on all recent versions of Windows. Payments too are not handled via Windows Store but using Intel’s own payment system integrated into the apps.

Intel is not the only company that has added a sub-store of sorts to Windows Store. The major software download portal Softonic too has added its own app to the store that uses a very similar system. The app highlights applications when installed and launched, some with reviews, others without, that all lead to the Softonic website where the programs can be purchased or downloaded, depending on whether they are commercial or freely available.

softonic store

Both catalog apps highlight desktop apps exclusively. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely confusing at first, especially if you stumble onto dupes here. Users need to be aware that these store fronts act more or less independent from Windows Store. While they are available and installed in the store, that’s really the only connection there is.

It is likely that other download portals will push their apps to the store as well, and Microsoft should consider adding a separate category for these kind of apps to avoid confusion and intermixing with regular store apps.

The main question though is if anyone needs those store in a store apps. Only time will tell, but considering that they do not use the store ecosystem at all for downloading, updating and payments, and the fact that these stores are only a click away on the web, one has to ask whether there will be demand for these kind of apps.

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Friday September 21, 2012 -
Tags:downloads, intel, Software, windows store
Categories: Windows

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Monday, 24 September 2012

Windows Secrets Newsletter website hacked

Windows Secrets is known by many for its newsletter that gets sound out regularly to free and paid subscribers of the site. At its core, it is a news site that is publishing its stories on its website and the newsletter, with some articles released exclusively to paid subscribers of the service. Articles are written by professionals and experts making this one of the few newsletters around the web that is worth subscribing to.

It recently became known that the Windows Secrets Newsletter website got hacked. The attacker managed to brute force an administrator account to gain access to the site. Using the account, the hacker planted malicious code on the site to get access to the site’s database and information. When subscribers and editors started to receive spam that appeared to come from Windows Secrets, site administrators began an investigation to find out what was going on.

They discovered the hacked administrator account and malicious code on the website, and removed all traces of the code and attack from the site. A full audit of the website, servers and sites on the same network is still undergoing.

windows secrets hacked

Windows Secret users need to know what has been compromised. According to site operators, the following information could have been exposed:

subscriber name, e-mail address, reader number, ZIP code (if applicable), geographic region, and hashed password — all the entries on your profile page.

It seems fairly certain that email addresses have been exposed, considering that users have received spam in the last days. Payment information are not kept on site, and credit card processing is handled by a third party service exclusively. There is no indication at the time of writing that financial information were compromised in the attack.

It is recommended to change the account password at the earliest convenience on this page to protect the account from third party access. Subscribers who have used the same password on other sites should change it on those sites as well as it is likely that the attacker will try to use the email and password combination to log in on popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Google (provided that the brute-forcing of hashed passwords is successful of course). (thanks Ilev)

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Thursday September 20, 2012 -
Tags:Hacking, newsletter
Categories: Security

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Saturday, 22 September 2012

Kirara Encoder, Free Portable Video Encoder For Windows

If you download a lot of videos from the Internet, you probably end up with them being in different video formats, unless you happen to download them all from one source. Even then, you may sometimes feel the need to change the video format, for instance to make it compatible with a smartphone or mobile device, or a standalone media player that is connected to your television.

Kirara Encoder is a free portable multimedia encoder for the Windows operating system. It uses the ffmpeg library for the encoding of video files which ensures compatibility with the majority of popular media formats. Compatibility includes avi, flv, mkv, mpeg, divx and xvid, as well as H.263/264 and all popular audio formats.

When you start the program you are presented with a great looking interface. A click on the Add button lets you add supported videos to it right away. You can preview videos with a double-click, or right-click individual videos to select the audio and video track you want converted. The popular MPlayer is used for the previewing, so that all supported video formats should play just fine. A click on Preset opens a selection of output formats. The majority are mobile presets, for various Android and Apple smartphones and devices, as well as other mobile phones and a handful of desktop formats. Once you have made that selection, you may first want to click on the settings button in the lower right corner of the screen to configure the output format exactly the way you want them to be.

kirara encoder

This also lets you change the output type, which is handy if the desired type was not available as a preset. You can use the menu to add your own presets to the program. Here you configure video quality settings, audio settings, subtitles and a bunch of other parameters that advanced users will like. To throw some features into the room, how do changing the bitrate, framerate and passes, video filters, custom resolutions, flipping and rotation, subtitle positioning or file size limitations sound?

encoding settings

The program displays information about the video output in the main interface. Once you are satisfied with your selection, you can click on the start button to start the encoding process. A preview is shown during the encoding process.

encoding

Many of the program’s features are hidden in the interface. You can right-click a video for instance and select Segment / Crop from the context menu to crop the video or segment it. This is done directly in Kirara Encoder.

Verdict

A great program for all versions of Windows from Windows XP to Windows 8, supporting both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. If you are looking for a versatile video converter that is easy to use but with advanced features for experienced users, I suggest you give it a try.

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WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe Free

About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Wednesday March 21, 2012 -
Tags:portable software, video converter, windows software

You are here: Home » Software » Kirara Encoder, Free Portable Video Encoder For Windows

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