Seperating audio from video

Ok i have done a wee bit looking around and I have found a fairly decent programme to seperate audio from video that ties up to the Youtube downloader I mentioned a few days back. As I was wanting this programme to convert video to audio for my son to put on his phone I have had to convert the file twice to achieve what I wanted. You might not need to do this if you only want to play the tracks on your PC/laptop

Click on the title of this blog to download a free programme called FormatFactory. I read a few reviews and this programme got the thumbs up as a good all round converter. If you want to check it out and a few other options here is the link to the review page I looked at Gizmo's Freeware. Once you have installed it open the programme and follow these instructions. Click on VIDEO on the left hand side and then select ALL TO AVI. Click ADD FILE to select the video from wherever you have it stored on your computer and click OPEN. Highlight your selected file on the next screen and click OPTION to select where you want the track to start and stop from. For a normal music track click 0.00 for START TIME and slide the bar along to the end of the track and click END TIME. It's a wee bit fiddly but you just need to be quick to start the track at 0.00. Now click OK. On the next screen click OK again. On the next screen highlight the track you want to convert and click START. I have found it takes just under a minute to convert a track. Now open OUTPUT FOLDER to view the track you just converted. The track is now converted to only audio but I found it wouldn't play in my son's phone so I had to convert it again to MP3. If you need to do this then first copy the track you converted to your desktop from the OUTPUT FOLDER and go back to the FormatFactory screen. This time click AUDIO and select ALL TO MP3. Again click ADD FILE and select the converted track from your desktop. This time click SELECT RANGE to set the start and stop times then click OK. On the next screen click OK again. Highlight the track you want to convert to MP3 and click START. Once done this track is now able to be put on phones or MP3 players.

It might sound a bit complicated but once you have done it a couple of times it takes only a few minutes to do the whole process. I got my 10 year old daughter to do it and she managed fine. Good luck!!

Easy Youtube Downloader

I'm gonna cheat slightly on this one cos I read about this on my friend's blog but having installed it on my own laptop and the 3 pc's for the kids and it's so good am also gonna share it with you.

About 4 years ago I used to spend a lot of time on Limewire but I got so sick fed up that almost every track contained a virus of some sort that I gave up. Nowadays I listen to music on Youtube if I dont have on disk or my laptop but it means keeping a web page open for Youtube. Now I can download the videos from Youtube without any software and then play them using VLC. It only works on Firefox and Google Chrome though not IE

It's this easy. Open your bookmark dropdown list and right click on it. Select New Bookmark. Call it whatever you want. I called mine Youtube Downloader and paste this URL in the location field

javascript:window.location.href="http://youtube.com/get_video?video_id=" + swfArgs['video_id']+ "&l=" + swfArgs['l'] + "&sk=" + swfArgs['sk'] + '&fmt_map' + swfArgs['fmt_map'] + '&t=' + swfArgs['t'];

then click add. Now open the Youtube video you want to watch, open your bookmarks and click on the link you just created. It should download the video and you can play it on VLC. I've noticed though it just calls the video ''Video'' so remember to press F2 and rename the video so you can find it at a later date.

Update: My son is now nagging me for a programme to seperate the sound from the video so he can put the music on his phone. Gonna do some research and hopefully find a good free programme to do this and I will get back to you when I have found something. If anyone know's one feel free to tell me :)

Resizing Pictures

My friend recently bought a new digital camera and was struggling to email me the pictures from our ''drunken nights'' as the pictures were too big. She is lucky enough to be running XP so I installed the handy image resizer from Microsoft for her and I thought I would share it with you as well for those who are unaware of it.

Click the title of this blog and you will go to the Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP site. Scroll down the right hand side and look for image resizer. It's a tiny download and it makes resizing pictures a doddle. Once installed just right click the picture or pictures you want to resize and click resize pictures. Pick large for normal computer use and click ok and it's as simple as that. It keeps the original and the resized picture keep the original name with (large) next to it.

I unfortunately run Vista as my laptop is a built for Vista machine which I found out to my disgust when I formatted it to put XP in. HP who makes my laptop provides no drivers for XP which I think is awful as I really don't like Vista. This image resizer is actually the thing I miss most from XP. I am looking for a programme to do the same thing without having to muck about with paint. If I find something I am happy with I will let you know. I just wish Microsoft would make PowerToys for Vista. Come on guys

Truecrypt

I know, if you are anything like me, you will have ''secrets'' on your laptop/pc that you dont want other people to see. I use Truecrypt for this. It's a great programme and completely free to download. There is full instructions on how to create the volume so just take it step by step and it's fairly straightforward. You assign a certain amount of space on your hard drive for the Truecrypt volume and that space is then passworded. It has the added bonus of having an inner layer and an outer layer to it. Each can be assigned a different password. I will give you a scenario of how that might work. You have secrets you might want to keep from your significant other. So you install truecrypt and make an inner and outer volume. In the outer volume you put things that you are happy for your significant other to see so if they insist in seeing what's in it there is no problem and they never need to know the secret inner volume is there. Genius!! The scenario they give on the website explains blackmail or extortion but come on guys how many of us are at danger of that?

What's also great about this programme is you can use it to encrypt part or all of your pen drives/memory sticks so you can carry about personal information and know that even if it's stolen no one can get into it.

This programme has saved my skin a few times so I donated some money as a thankyou. Just click on Truecrypt at the top to go to the website and protect your ''secrets''