How-To: Get Full Multimedia Support in Ubuntu and Unlock FFmpeg
This is probably the most important guide to any Desktop Linux user who wants to work with and playback a variety of multimedia files on their system. As you know, most of the popular codecs/formats (i.e. MP3, AAC, DVD, H.264, Flash, etc.) are not included in Ubuntu or other Linux distributions because they’re proprietary and require licensing. Fortunately, however, the Ubuntu community has gone through great strides to make acquiring them a lot easier – although still technically illegal if you live in the United States (my 2-cents: playback codecs should be free to acquire for personal use, especially those that become industry standards). MORE »
Popularity: 100% [?]
Tips for Rendering NTSC 640×480 Video from Kdenlive with No Borders and at 29.97 fps
For some reason Kdenlive has a major rendering bug when it comes to handling NTSC video (as confirmed buy other frustrated users in the Kdenlive forums here and here), which is really a shame because at the moment Kdenlive is probably the closet thing to Apple’s iMovie that’s a free open-source non-linear video editor under Linux. But as the saying goes, “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” And thankfully, yes, I have found a way around this issue. MORE »
Popularity: 44% [?]
How-To: Use Ekiga VoIP Client for Handling Your Gizmo SIP Account
Out of curiosity I wanted to see how easy it would be to setup Ekiga (installed by default on Ubuntu and many other Linux distros) to manage my Gizmo account/service. As it turns out, it’s quite easy. So, if you’re into using free/libre software over closed source software, this guide is for you.
Instructions:
1. Open Ekiga and go to Edit > Accounts
2. Now in the Account window click +Add
3. Enter the following settings into the Account Information pane:
Account Name: Gizmo
Registrar: proxy01.sipphone.com:5060
User: 1747169XXXX (your 11-digit SIP number — find it in Gizmo by clicking Account > My Profile)
Password: YOURPASSWORD
Authentication Login: 1747169XXXX (your 11-digit SIP number)
Registration Timeout: 3600
To make pc-to-phone calls, just enter the full phone number, MORE »
Popularity: 61% [?]
Woohoo! GNOME Nautilus Has Received a Huge Speed Boost Improvement
I’m not quite sure when it happened (this morning or a couple days ago), but the Ubuntu team pushed out a new update to Gutsy 7.10/GNOME 2.20.1 that drastically increased the speed of Nautilus’ file seek functionality – a big bugaboo of mine. Here’s what I mean: Previously it took Nautilus a good 5-10 seconds on my 3Ghz PC with 1GB of RAM to display my listing of 1,400 images (and growing) every time I wanted to upload an image to my website or view contents from that particular folder. Well, guess what? It now takes one second (or a matter of milliseconds) for the upload listing and a second or two for the thumbnail view when first opening the folder.
I can’t even begin to tell you how pleased I am about this update, but I can say that my productivity is going to shoot through the roof because of it. Great work Nautilus developers!
Side note: I also noticed, when in list mode for uploads (as in the above pic), that one can now toggle on/off hidden files through the right-click menu (interesting), but one still can’t right-click or double-click a file to rename or delete it like in Windows.
Popularity: 25% [?]
Richard M. Stallman Free Software Speech + Church of Emacs Skit @ University of San Francisco
If you have a few minutes, have a look at the following videos I recorded of Richard M. Stallman speaking to the students, teachers, and guests of the Computer Science Department at the University of San Francisco (event link). The talk covered the principals of Free Software and what it means to the world at large (photoset). Richard M. Stallman, as you will see, is a very animated speaker who believes wholeheartedly in the GNU philosophy/project, which he founded, and travels tirelessly around the world (sponsored by the supporters of the Free Software Froundation) to spread his message of freedom computing to all. MORE »
Popularity: 26% [?]
Tips for Transcoding Cinelerra Compatible Video with FFmpeg, MEncoder
I just wanted to post the fruits of my labor so others could benefit. A little background first… for the past couple days I’ve been banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to take the video produced from my digital camera (Casio Exilim EX-S500) and convert it to a format that Cinelerra (project page) would be able to work with – the following also applies to any video downloaded from the Internet. Yeah, yeah… I know I should buy a REAL camcorder. MORE »
Popularity: 84% [?]
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About
Alexander Grundner is a San Francisco Peninsula based web publisher who spends most of his time tracking down news stories for eHomeUprade, attending technology events, or working on his next big project.
For fun he likes to stay active outdoors, take photographs, shoot video, hack together PHP/Python code, play with Linux, and test new technologies.
