Settlers of Catan (Mobilized’s Favorite Time-Waster) Is Coming to Android

Okay, so this may be bigger news for some than others, but a mobile version of Settlers of Catan is coming to Android.

The German board game is already available for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad; the Android version is coming this spring, the game’s makers announced on Thursday.

“After the big success in Apple’s App Store, Catan will also become available for Android this spring,” reads a posting on the Catan Web site. “Android players will be able to build and trade on the go, to compete for the most settlements, the Longest Road and the Largest Army–to become the Lord of Catan!”

The Android version will include the basic board game as well as an alternate Seafarers of Catan version.

Catan is very popular with the tech crowd and especially popular in the Mobilized household–so much so that my iPod Touch has the nickname “little Catan machine” and the demo iPad was known for a time as the “Big Catan Machine.” The game is also how the Mobilized family distracts itself while waiting in lines and is often pulled out even at allegedly romantic anniversary dinners.

On a reporting trip to Microsoft earlier this year, I even managed to crash a Catan tournament hosted by Seattle-area tech site TechFlash and come away as the winner.

Mobilized plans some, uh, extensive testing of this app when it is ready. Anyone else in Silicon Valley a big Catan fan and need some practice?

How to Convert FLV to iPhone

Tips 1: Aiseesoft iPhone Movie Converter provides various advanced editing features such as Effect, Crop, Trim, Snapshot, etc. for seniors.

Tips 2: As powerful iPhone Movie Converter, it can convert other video/audio files among almost all formats such as AVI, MPG, VOB, MP4, M4V, TS, HD video, WMA, AAC, OGG audio, etc.

Tips 3: The intuitive interface and simple to operate process makes it easy enough for everyone: both professionals and beginners.

Why not have a try, you will find more information at: how to convert FLV to iPhone

How to Convert FLV on Mac

FLV video is one special video format supported by some popular video sites like YouTube. However, FLV video can not be directly transferred to other mianstream video players on Mac. To solve this problem, you need a professional Mac FLV Converter--- Aiseesoft FLV Converter for Mac to convert FLV video to other video formats on Mac.

Major features of this Mac FLV Converter:

• This Mac FLV Converter supports extracting audio from the original videos.
• You can use it to select any time-length video to convert.
• This Mac FLV Converter supports cropping video to remove the video black edges.
• This Mac FLV Converter supports setting video effects: video brightness, contrast, saturation and volume, etc.
• This Mac FLV Converter provides the function of merging all added files and converting into a successive one.

Follow the next tips to learn how to convert FLV on Mac.

Step 1: Download and install the FLV Converter for Mac

Free download Aiseesoft Video Converter for Mac Intel Version or Power PC Version, install it to your computer and launch. Windows users can download the Windows version.

Step 2: Add FLV file

Click "Add File" to import the files you want to convert FLV file for Mac.

Step 3: Set some output format and output settings.

Step 4: Customize video effect

Edit video before start to convert FLV file for Mac, e.g. convert FLV to MP4 on Mac or convert FLV to AVI on Mac.

This Mac FLV Video Converter provides the function of cropping, trimming, adjusting effects and merging files.

Step 5: Click "Start" button to start to convert FLV file for Mac.

With Aiseesoft Video Converter for Mac, the whole conversion will be finish within several minutes. The friendly interface will make your conversion process especially convenient and easy. Get more information at: Convert FLV on Mac

How to Transfer iPhone Video

Take iPhone to Computer Transfer for example:

1 Connect your iPhone to your computer.

2 Open the library/playlist and check the file(s) you want to export in the file list.

3 Click to select the destination and start exporting iPhone files to computer.

You could also choose the Export to local option from the Actions menu, and then export the files from iPhone to actual device.

Tip: Click to use "Track Filter" function to help you quickly browse your library by genre, artist and album.

For iPhone to iPhone, computer to iPhone transfer or more, explore: iPhone Video File Transferring

Night-Table Reading: The FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules In Full

It’s now been two days since the Federal Communications Commission voted to pass its controversial network neutrality rules. The consensus view is clear–no one is terribly happy with this bit of government policy making, and even those who supported it did so with lots of reservations .

Now we have a full text of the actual rules, weighing in at a voluminous 194 heavily footnoted pages, which just became public on the FCC’s Web site. As with some of the other documents relating to this, I’ve uploaded this one to Scribd and embedded it below. This is the document that corporate lawyers, lawmakers and other policy wonks at think tanks and trade associations will be combing through in the coming weeks and months in hopes of either watering down or strengthening the rules, depending on your point of view. Others will be looking through this text for provisions they can challenge in court. And congressional Republicans have already promised to hold hearings next year and will probably try to find a way to legislate these rules out of existence.

YouTube Hands Out $500,000 to Video Makers, Prepares to Spend a Whole Lot More on Next New Networks

Here’s a cutesy press stunt from YouTube: It is handing out $500,000 to some of its semi-pro video makers.

The money, doled out via 500 $1,000 credits to photography mecca B&H Photo, is meant to reward some of YouTube’s most popular content providers. And it’s supposed to remind people how fruitful it can be to provide YouTube with good content.

Google’s video site usually does that by other means. For instance, it is happy to point out that members of its “Partner” program can now make real money–in some cases, a full-time living or even more–by supplying YouTube with popular clips.

But YouTube’s most public embrace of its partners will happen if the video site ends up acquiring Next New Networks, a Web video producer/distributor dedicated to putting out low-cost, high-view videos, like the ones featuring Obama Girl or the Bed Intruder. That is, exactly the kind of videos that YouTube is rewarding with today’s handouts.

News of the sale talks were first reported in the New York Times last week. And at the time, I’d assumed that YouTube was going to be able to buy Next New at a bargain basement price, in large part because the start-up is on its third CEO in three years.

But people familiar with the company tell me that if it does sell to Google, investors who have put in $26 million will get at least a decent return on their investment. So we’re looking at something in the $50 million range at a minimum, perhaps much more.

YouTube is Next New Networks’ primary distribution partner, which makes the proposed deal a bit of a head-scratcher for some: Why pay for stuff you’re already getting?

But YouTube apparently thinks it is worth its while to lock in that content pipeline. And it’s willing to spend a whole lot more than $500,000 to get it done.

The Full Interview Video of Flipboard’s Mike McCue

As promised, All Things Digital will be publishing the full videos of the interviews we did two weeks ago at our D: Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco.

The first extension of the event, it produced some very newsy sessions. We’ll be posting them all.

Here’s Flipboard CEO and co-founder Mike McCue, a longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose latest Apple iPad app is giving publishers and readers a glimpse of what digital reading could be.

The effort is not without some controversy, as how content is being delivered on the new devices is an ongoing debate.

(Full disclosure: ATD is part of Flipboard’s new publisher beta.)

Download limewire free music and video to iPod, iPhone, PSP, Zune

This guide is mainly about how to use limewire to download free music and video to computer, and then transfer the limewire free music and video to iPod, PSP, Zune and iPhone. If you think it's useful, please digg it to let more people know it. This guide will include five parts as follow:
How to download free limewire video and music to computer?
How to put limewire free movie to iPod?
How to transfer limewire free movie to Zune?
How to add limewire free movie to PSP?
How to import limewire free movie to iPhone?

You can download limewire software free from its official site: http://www.limewire.com If you want to download youtube video to iPod, Zune, PSP, you can refer to this step by step guide: http://www.aiseesoft.com/article/free-download-youtube-video.html

Part1. How to download free limewire video and music to computer?
1. Download Limewire software, it’s totally free. http://www.limewire.com/download/version.php.
2. Install and run the Limewire, Just type in some words that you may be interested in, choose the type, and press search, then you can get a lot of files to download.



Find the just file and click download to get it. You can also download multiple files in one time. After you download the file, then right-click on the download files and choose “explore”, then you can locate your download files on your computer. You can also click Option, then you can set the default downloaded directory. Click tool folder for saving your file.

Part2. How to put limewire free movie to iPod?
Because iPod can play only MP4 and H.264 video. If your download limewire videos are not compatible with iPod, you can use Aiseesoft iPod Video Converter to convert them to MP4 video for iPod Touch/Nano/Classic. (Don't use iTunes to convert limewire video, because most limewire videos are muxed video, muxed video converted by iTunes will lost sound, you can learn more info about this problem by referring Apple official document: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302588 )

Please follow these steps:
1. Download and install Aiseesoft iPod Movie Converter, you can Download the latest version for free from here: http://www.aiseesoft.com/ipod-movie-converter.html
2. Run Aiseesoft iPod Video Converter, click “Add” button to import your downloaded limewire videos, then click “Start” to start the conversion, the default setting works perfect.



3. After conversion finished, You can use iTunes to transfer the mp4 video to your iPod, here are the steps:
1). Open iTunes and click "File" to add your converted videos to iTunes library.
2). plug in your iPod to computer, then iTunes will detect your iPod as a device.
3). Select your iPod device on the left panel of iTunes, click "Movies" tab, check the videos you want to sync and click "Apply", done.



By the way, you can use another useful software – iPod to Computer Transfer, which is made by Aiseesoft. The best iPod to Computer Transfer to help you backup iPod video/audio files to computer, you don’t need to worry about losing anything. If you have any iPod/iPhone device, you can safely play your iPod/iPhone with this iPod Transfer software.
For More info, please visit: http://www.aiseesoft.com/ipod-to-computer-transfer.html

How to Make iPhone Ringtone

You bought an iPhone and love all its features, but wish you didn't have to pay for your songs twice to get a ringtone. (We know that iPhone, iPhone 3G Ringtones use the file extension .M4R. And the users must pay $2 for a piece of song through Apple iTunes store). There are plenty of songs in your music library, but no way to make ringtones from any of them. Rihgt?

Actually, with a little bit of trickery (nothing illegal) you can create ringtones from any one of your non-DRM songs.

This works on both Mac and Windows PCs.

Window Users

You can create free iPhone Ringtones by yourself with Aiseesoft iPhone Ringtone Maker.
You can take the following step-by-step instructions to start.
Step 0: Download and install Aiseesoft iPhone Ringtone Maker.
After a short while, you can see the following interface:

Step 1: Click "Browse" on the right side of "Input File" to import the file that you want to make ringtone from it.
Step 2: Play it and listen the music to find the segment that you want to use it as ringtone. Then drag and click the start & end slider to set your wanted segment, or type the start & end time in the corresponding text box directly to get the exact segment. You also can pre-listen the converted audio before generate.
Step 3: Click "Browse" on the right side of "Local Output Folder" to choose the output destination.
Step 4: Check "Export to iPhone" option, the converted ringtone will be load to your iPhone directly.
Step 5: After all the settings are finished, click "Generate" to begin making your own iPhone ringtone.

Key function
* Convert any video to iPhone ringtone M4R
* Create iPhone ringtone from any audio files
* Get any clips from video and audio
* Edit Added iPhone ringtones

Using Aiseesoft iPhone Ringtone Maker, you are free to edit the added iPhone ringtone by removing it or renaming it directly.

For Mac Users, please go to Aiseesoft iPhone Ringtone Maker for Mac.

How to Convert video and DVD to DV for DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, iMovie

This is a tutorial on how to convert video and DVD to DV for DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, iMovie.
Here are 2 parts:
Part 1, How to convert DVD to DV on Mac?
Part 2, How to convert videos such FLV to DVD on Mac?

Part 1, How to convert DVD to DV on Mac?
You need the following two software:
Aiseesoft DVD Ripper for Mac
MPEG Streamclip
Step 1, Rip DVD to formats that are compatible with MPEG Streamclip
Many free Mac DVD Rippers don't support ripping encrypted DVD. We recommend you Aiseesoft DVD Ripper for Mac (Intel Version, PPC Version) which can rip encrypted DVD to many other video formats such as MP4, FLV, MOV etc.
MPEG Streamclip Supports the following input formats: MPEG, VOB, PS, M2P, MOD, VRO, DAT, MOV, DV, AVI, MP4, TS, M2T, MMV, REC, VID, AUD, AVR, VDR, PVR, TP0, TOD, M2V, M1V, MPV, AIFF, M1A, MP2, MPA, AC3.
You need to use DVD Ripper for Mac to rip DVD to any video formats such as MP4, MOV compatible with MPEG Streamclip. After conversion, you can find the converted files in the output folder.
Tutorial on how to use DVD Ripper for Mac

Step 2, use MPEG Streamclip to convert videos to DV
Click 'File'>'Open Flies' to Open the converted files in the output folder.
Click 'File'>'Export to DV' to convert videos to DV.
That’s all.
Now you have converted DVD to DV on Mac. Then you can put the DV to DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, iMovie to edit.



Part 2, How to convert videos such as FLV to DV on Mac?
Software you need:
Aiseesoft Video Converter for Mac
MPEG Streamclip
Step 1, Convert videos to the formats compatible with MPEG Streamclip (Optional)
MPEG Streamclip Supports input formats: MPEG, VOB, PS, M2P, MOD, VRO, DAT, MOV, DV, AVI, MP4, TS, M2T, MMV, REC, VID, AUD, AVR, VDR, PVR, TP0, TOD, M2V, M1V, MPV, AIFF, M1A, MP2, MPA, AC3.
If your videos such as FLV, 3GP, 3G2, WMV, XVID are not the above formats, you need to use Video Converter for Mac to convert your videos to MPEG Streamclip format.
Here is a tutorial on how to use Video Converter for Mac.
If your videos are compatible with MPEG Streamclip, please go to step 2.

Step 2, use MPEG Streamclip to convert videos to DV on Mac
Click “File”>”Open Flies” to Open the converted files in the output folder.
Click “File”>”Export to DV” to convert videos to DV.
That’s all. Now you are succeed in convert DVD to DV on Mac.
Then you can put the DV to DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, iMovie to edit.

Mac App Store Opens for Business on Jan. 6

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the company’s Mac App Store at Apple’s Back to the Mac event last October he said it would go live within 90 days. And it will. This morning, Apple gave the Mac App Store a hard launch date and one that falls within Jobs’s promised date range. The service, which will peddle both paid and free apps for Mac OS X, goes live on January 6, 2011, in 90 countries. “The App Store revolutionized mobile apps,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a canned statement. “We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making finding and buying PC apps easy and fun. We can’t wait to get started on January 6.”

Incidentally, Jan. 6 is the first day of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas …

Facebook Is Best U.S. Place to Work (According to Its Employees)

Facebook employees think their company is a fantastic place to work. In fact, among users of the jobs site Glassdoor, Facebook was the top-ranked U.S. employer for 2010, scoring a rating of 4.6 out of 5.

Facebook-branded Vitaminwater

Those smug smarties from Palo Alto (disclosure: my husband works there part-time, so I can say that with certainty) say they love the openness and cooperativeness of internal Facebook culture, according to Glassdoor (also the free food and commuter shuttles).

This is the first time Facebook has made the Glassdoor list. In second place is Southwest Airlines (which was last year’s winner), followed by Bain & Company, General Mills and Edelman, respectively.

As for other tech companies, SAS Institute placed No. 7, Overstock.com was No. 9, and CareerBuilder No. 11. Apple was No. 20 and Google No. 30.

Meanwhile, in more surprising news, Glassdoor reports that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is actually more popular now than founder Jerry Yang when he was in the top spot. Bartz has an employee approval rating of 56 percent, compared to 34 percent for Yang when he left.

Other comparisons: HP CEO Léo Apotheker has 62 percent approval, compared to Mark Hurd’s 34 percent when he left, and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has 71 percent approval, compared to Randy Falco’s 13 percent approval when he left.

The most popular tech CEO is Apple’s Steve Jobs, with a 97 percent approval rating. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Eric Schmidt are both at 96 percent.

Apple Investing in Toshiba LCD Plant

Come 2011, Toshiba will begin construction of a new LCD panel factory in Ishikawa, one whose output is intended largely for the iPhone. Reportedly underwriting a portion of its $1.19 billion cost: Apple, which is evidently looking for a bit more control over its component sources as demand for LCD screens grows with the proliferation of touchscreen smartphones.

Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment.

How to make iPhone Ringtones on Mac and Windows for FREE

I have many iPhone Ringtones on my iPhone, and I change them once one day. But I don’t buy them online. I just make iPhone Ringtones myself by Ringtone Maker Shareware. Actually, iPhone Ringtone maker is m4r Ringtone Maker, such as mp3 Ringtone Converter, WMA Ringtone Converter and WAV Ringtone Converter. There are also iPhone Ringtone Converter for Mac or iPhone Ringtone Creator Mac.

Here I will share how to make iPhone ringtones on Windows and Mac.
For Windows:
Firstly, you need download iPhone Ringtone Maker.



Step 1: Load Music
Click “Browse” on the right side of “Input File” to find your music that you want to make as your iPhone ringtone and click “Open” to load it into iPhone Ringtone shareware.
Step 2: Choose iPhone Ringtones
1. Drag your “Start Slider” to the beginning of the “Slider Bar” and “End Slider” to the end, then to listen your whole audio file.>br/>2. a. Drag the “Start Slider” to find where is the beginning of your ringtone and Drag “End Slider” to make an End of it.
b. Type the exact “Start Time” and “End Time” in the box to choose your ringtone.
3. Clickto pre-listen your ringtone.
4. If you want to put your ringtone directly on your iPhone, just plug your iPhone to your computer and check “Export to iPhone” (4). If you just want to put it on your computer, click “Browse” on the right of “Local Output Folder” to find a place to put it.
Step 3: Generate iPhone Ringtones After you have done the 3 steps, just click “Generate” to make your iPhone ringtones.

For Mac:
If you are a Mac user, you need to find iPhone Ringtone Converter for Mac or iPhone Ringtone Maker for Mac.
Here I have one for you, just download this iPhone Ringtone Maker for Mac.


The process of making your own iPhone ringtone on Mac is the same as on Windows.
Hope you enjoy this DIY process.

MKV file, MLV player, Free MKV Converter and MKV Burner on Mac OS

What is MKV file?
.MKV is a container format developed by Matroska. Matroska file types are .MKV for video (with subtitles and audio), .MKA for audio-only files and .MKS for subtitles only. The most common use of .MKV files is to store HD video files.It can hold different types of video and audio. For example, there might be an .avi file contained within the .MKV file. High Definition movies in 720 or 1080 pixel width format are often encoded and packaged as a Matroska format video with a .MKV file extension.

How to play MKV file s on Mac?
I recommend trying either MPlayer OS X or VLC Media Player. They are all free.
These excellent and free multimedia players can tackle many of the video formats unknown to QuickTime. They contain a decoder to decode the .MKV files. They will also play many of the formats you will find inside the .MKV file.
How to convert MKV to DVD, MP4, AVI, etc on Mac for free?
I recommend VisualHub to convert MKV to MP4, AVI, etc on Mac. It can convert MKV to iPod Nano, convert MKV to iPod Classic, convert MKV to iPod touch , convert MKV to iPhone, convert MKV to Apple TV, convert MKV to Xbox 360, convert MKV to PSP, convert MKV to PS3, AVI, convert MKV to MP4, convert MKV to MPEG, convert MKV to Flash, convert MKV to WMV and convert MKV to DVD.
Techspanion (The developer of VisualHub) has closed shop and after an outcry from fans, VisualHub, the popular video converter on Mac OS X have now gone open source. It has got new name Film Redux. You can download its open source and built it by yourself. Here is a tutorial: How to build iSquint and VisualHub?



Step 1, Run Film Redux (VisualHub)
Step2, Load MKV videos
Insert your MKV files from your Mac .Click the Add files button to load your MKV videos.
Step3, Convert MKV to MP4, AVI, iPod, etc.
Here is the list of the formats that VisualHub can convert MKV
They are iPod Nano, iPod Classic, iPod touch , iPhone, Apple TV, Xbox 360, PSP, PS3, AVI, MP4, Quicktime, MPEG, Flash, WMV. Choose the format you want to convert MKV to and click Start.



That’s all. Now, we have converted MKV to iPod Nano, iPod Classic, iPod touch , iPhone, Apple TV, Xbox 360, PSP, PS3, AVI, MP4, Quicktime, MPEG, Flash, WMV.
How to convert DVD to MKV on Mac for free?
I recommend you use Handbrake to you to convert DVD to MKV on Mac . HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter. It can convert DVD to MKV on Mac eaisly and for free.
Step 1, Download and Install Handbake
Download the free program Handbrake. Check to see if your Mac has the system requirements; click on the apple icon in the top left corner and About this Mac. Then install HandBrake.



Step 2, Run it and insert DVD.
Select your favorite DVD disk and put it in the disk drive. Then run HandBrake and click Detected Volume to choose source. Click Open and you will be able to see many titles included in this DVD disk. Choose the longest title if this is a movie DVD, or choose your favorite chapter if this is an episode.
Step 3, Select Output setting
Select MKV files as output format and select other settings such as video quality, audio track, Audio Sample Rate, bitrate, Picture Settings, etc.

Step 4, Rip DVD to MKV on Mac
Check all settings and click Rip. A progress bar will show its ripping speed; depends on many factors like speed of Mac, filesize, etc.
That’s all. We have converted DVD to MKV for free now.
Note: Handbrake can not rip encrypted DVD movies. If you want to rip encrypted DVD movies, you can use this DVD Ripper for Mac. You can also use Mac the ripper which is free.

Using iMovie to edit videos on Mac for free

This is a tutorial which explains the process of editing videos on a PC using Windows Movie Maker and editing videos on Mac using iMovie. This tutorial will be a concise explanation of how to editing videos for free. Then share your movie via the Web, e-mail, or CD. Using dvd burner you can even take movies you've made and turn movies into DVDs.
You can also save your movie back to the video tape in your camera to play back on a TV or on the camera itself.

This tutorial includes three parts, this is part two:
Part 1. Using Windows Movie Maker to edit videos on PC for free
Part 2. Using iMovie to edit videos on Mac for free
Part 3. A table that compares free video editors.

iMovie '08 makes viewing and working with video as intuitive as enjoying your photos. A built-in library automatically organizes your video, so all the clips you've captured and movies you've created are just a click away. With its revolutionary interface, iMovie makes it quick and easy to browse your library and create new movies. And iMovie is built for sharing. In just a few steps, you can add movies to your website, publish them on YouTube, and create versions for iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV.



Step 1, Create an iMovie Project
Before doing anything in iMovie, you must create and title a new default folder as well as title and save our new project.
Step 2, Connect DV Camera
Make sure the camera is in PLAY (VCR) mode
Step 3, Add video
When your viewer says "Camera Connected," click the "Import" button. iMovie will play and import your digital video. When you wish to stop importing, click the "Import" button once more. Drag your imported clip(s) from the clips pane to the editable timeline along the bottom of the iMovie interface. iMovie treats deleted files differently that most other programs. If you delete a clip you CANNOT get it back.
iMovie will also allow you to import the following file formats:
3gp, AVI, DAT, MOV, MP4,MPG
If your videos are not the format that is compatible with iMove such as FLV and M4A, AIFF, AAC, you can use the video converter for Mac to convert the video first.
Step 4, Edit video
To Split a Clip: Place the cursor beneath the viewing window at the place in the movie where you want to split the clip into two. Go up to the "Edit" menu at the top, and select "Split Video Clip at Playhead."
To Crop a Clip: Drag the little triangles beneath the viewing window timeline to the desired in and out points. Go to the "Edit" menu at the top and select "Crop."
To add effect: Select "Effects" from the menu below the clips pane. Select a clip from the editing region to add an effect to it. Select an effect. Adjust the parameters of the effect beneath the preview window. The effect should automatically preview in the preview window. If you adjust the parameters of the effect, click "Preview" again to load the new effect settings. Click "Apply," and wait for the effect to render. You can monitor the effect rendering by the red progress bar that occurs within the clip the effect is being added to in the editing region. Save your work.
Step 5, Save your project
From the main menu, go to File > Save Project.
If you want to convert the movies made by iMovie to other video format, you can use this video converter for Mac. If you want to burn the movies made by iMovie to DVD, use DVD Creator for Mac.

Google’s Rubin: 300,000 Androids Activated Each Day

The fast-growing Android operating system has hit a new milestone, according to a tweet from the Google executive that heads the effort.

In only his second public post to Twitter, Andy Rubin said on Wednesday night that there are now 300,000 Android phones being activated each day. As a point of reference, there were about 60,000 Android activations per day as of February.

Android shipments have been rising fast as phone makers Motorola and Samsung have hitched their smartphone wagons to the operating system while other brands including HTC and LG also ship significant numbers of the phones, while also using rival operating systems.

On Monday, Google debuted Gingerbread, the next version of Android and announced the Samsung-built Nexus S would be the first phone to run the operating system. That evening, speaking at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference, Rubin showed off a prototype Motorola tablet running Honeycomb, a new version of Android built specifically for tablets.

Interestingly, Rubin said during his on-stage appearance that he still considers Android today as still geared primarily for early adopters.

Dennis Crowley Live at Dive Into Mobile

With only nine Foursquare members currently checked in to our D:Dive Into Mobile conference, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley may be a little out of his usual element of adoring fans. But fresh from modeling Gap’s new chunky cardigan in bus stop ads, Crowley is here to answer tough questions from All Things Digital chief Kara Swisher. Crowley’s Foursquare now has 4.5 million users, a whopping 35 employees and $20 million in funding, and it recently opened a San Francisco office.

9:15 am: Kara: I gave you a hard time earlier this year.

Dennis: I noticed.

Kara: I called you the Hamlet of Web 2.0, because you didn’t know what you wanted to do. When you were raising funding, what was happening in your mind?

Dennis: We were focused on the product.

9:16 am: We knew what we wanted the product to do, and I think we were figuring out what we wanted the company to be. We were choosing between funding and aligning with a bigger company.

Kara asks specifically about Yahoo and Facebook, and Dennis replies very non-specifically: “We talked to those company about hey, it would be interesting to work together.”

9:18 am: Dennis: Dodgeball was the perfect storm of bad timing. In the N.Y. Google office, right after the IPO. I think we’d be smarter about structuring the deal now.

Kara: What’s the difference between Dodgeball and Foursquare? Didn’t you just sell the same company to Google and are now starting it again?

Dennis: Dodgeball was just dots on a map. After Google I worked at a company called Area Code, and (Foursquare co-founder) Naveen (Selvadurai) was working at a company called Socialight, building social guides. We brought a little of both into Foursquare.

Kara: You should do it again, and the next one should be called Tetherball.

Dennis: Actually, I wanted to name Dodgeball “Foursquare” back in the day, but some guy owned the domain.

9:21 am: Dennis says Foursquare gets people to try new experiences and go to the gym more. “Our ultimate focus is about becoming the best social utility possible that overlaps with the real world. We’re not trying to build this amazing game.”

We didn’t think the mayor thing would blow up into what it is now. One of the things we’re most excited about tweaking is we’re getting really good at game mechanics and we want to overhaul them.

9:24 am: Kara asks about improving incentives, and Crowley replies he wants to build a couponing engine that’s like a rewards engine on top of the stats.

“Everyone’s gotten a buyback from a bartender”–Foursquare wants to bring that online. (Crowley always seems to be assuming his NYC party scene is the model for the rest of the world.)

9:26 am: Dennis, on making merchant relationships scalable: Foursquare now has a self-service system. Eventually all businesses will have TV screens that will integrate with Foursquare.

Also, developers are extending what Foursquare can do–for instance cab-sharing apps use Foursquare info to know who’s checked into nearby locations and may want to share a cab.

9:29 am: What about competition? Dennis: It’s all about evangelism. The check-in itself isn’t interesting; it’s all about after the check-in. What is on the screen that you show, the deals, learning about what friends are ordering. He is most excited about recommendations, games and incentives.

Dennis: We’re not raising money, though people have approached us. We have enough money to go through till the end of next year. The point is not to become profitable now, but to grow. When we figure out what is actually working on the local merchant front, then we’ll pull that lever. (Hmm…Groupon didn’t take quite so long to figure that one out!)

We don’t want to charge local merchants for a product that isn’t ready yet.

9:32 am: Our business model is to create and sell tools to local merchants. Along the way we figured out other ways to make money, like getting brands involved to help explore the world through their lens.

Some more rapid-fire topics:

Longer-term goals: We’re so focused on what happens before the end of the quarter.

Facebook: We knew Facebook was going to do location for a long time. The question for us is how do we make our product as special as possible.

Groupon: There are lessons we can learn from them and ways we can work together. We could easily pull Groupon deals into Foursquare and make them sweeter based on the stats behind them.

Valuations and frothiness: Ours was around $100 million. For us the goal is to build products, not an amazing company; hopefully that will come out of it.

All start-ups have the same problems: We want to move faster, hire faster, revise the road map faster.

9:38 am: Foursquare will have 40 people by Monday; we’re putting the pieces together. Crowley says he’s still focused on product and evangelism. I’m a lousy engineer, he says, but I’ve always been hands-on, and it’s been hard for me to delegate, but I am trying to do so with the team we have now.

Dennis: I have a solid idea of what the product will look like after two years. No idea if we’ll be sold or independent in five years. The most frustrating experience for me was having a lot of things we wanted to build with Dodgeball, and it was so frustrating not to be able to, and now we’re actually getting them done.

“I think location is underhyped. People don’t understand how the stuff that we’re building will help change the way people experience physical space.”

9:41 am: Audience question about passive check-ins. “Ultimately that’s the way this stuff goes. It just doesn’t work very well. GPS isn’t smart enough to snap you to the right place at the right time.”

It’s also a matter of battery life. GPS and batteries need to be fixed before we can do that stuff.

Audience question about “off-the-grid check-ins.” Crowley says they’re below 20 percent of all check-ins, though he doesn’t know the number. He personally does it to leave breadcrumbs at all the places he’s been to, but when he doesn’t want people to come up to him when he’s having dinner with his girlfriend, for instance.

Also, he adds, about 20 percent of check-ins go to other networks like Facebook or Twitter. The Foursquare social graph is “much much tighter” and gets the majority of check-ins.

Question about devices. We haven’t built for iPad yet. Crowley just bought an Android phone. Ultimately, wants to treat all devices the same.

“Everyone thinks we’re a 200-person company, but there’s just not enough engineers to do all the stuff we want to do.”

9:48 am: By the way, there are now 17 people checked in to D:Dive Into Mobile on Foursquare. Guess seeing Crowley in person was a good reminder!

Analyst: Verizon Wants Pseudo-Exclusive on iPhone

Here’s some news for the Verizon iPhone rumor mill. Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu says Verizon, which is expected to add the iPhone to its smartphone lineup early next year, doesn’t want to see it added to Sprint and T-Mobile’s lineups as well, and is willing to pay to ensure that doesn’t happen.

“We are hearing that Verizon…may be willing to pay for exclusivity to itself and AT&T. For these reasons, Verizon could be more willing to give in to Apple’s terms,” Wu said in a note to clients this morning, adding that the iPhone’s continued success has undoubtedly given Apple the upper hand in its negotiations with the carrier. “Apple is back in the driver’s seat with a record 14.1 million iPhone shipments in the September quarter helping AT&T gain share against Verizon over the last two quarters as Android starts to lose some of its luster (at least at Verizon). In addition, our sources indicate that Verizon does not believe the pending launch of BlackBerry 6 on its network is likely to have a material impact.”

An interesting bit of speculation. If Apple were to win concessions from Verizon and AT&T to keep the iPhone exclusive to those carriers, it might be able to drastically expand the device’s distribution in the States and keep its margins in line at the same time. As Wu writes, “This is important as many, including ourselves, have been concerned that Verzion iPhone economics could be less favorable given the strength of Android and higher cost of components, particularly those associated with CDMA.”

That said, with Google’s Android OS gaining market share so quickly it might be a better move strategically to sacrifice a bit of margin to bring the iPhone to more carriers and temper its rival’s growth.

Three Ways to Download Music To Your Zune Player

There are several ways you can download your Zune movies, Zune music videos, Zune MP3's and Zune software to your Zune player.
1) The first is from the Microsoft Zune Marketplace and other Pay-Per-Download Sites which have movie downloads, music downloads, music video downloads, and more. The problem with downloading Zune files from places like Microsoft Zune Marketplace is the cost. The Microsoft Zune Marketplace charges a monthly subscription service called the "Zune Pass" with unlimited downloads for $14.99 per month. The pay-per-download sites charge on the average about $1.00 per Zune download. So, with a Zune player that has a 30 gigabyte hard drive whic allows users to store up to 7,500 Zune MP3s, 2,500 pictures or 100 hours of Zune movies and Zune music videos, that is going to cost a fortune to fill up.

2) WiFi - Microsoft Zune players has a technology called WiFi which allows friends and family to share Zune music, Zune movies, Zune software, pictures and Zune music videos both effortlessly and wirelessly. If you have a cool picture or something you found on a zune download site you can share it easily. Anytime you come in close range of another Zune player you can connect to that Zune player via WiFi and share your Zune downloads. The only drawback is you can only play a shared song only 3 times before it is deleted although, pictures are saved and can be viewed many times. It's a nice feature but needs improvement.

3) The third way is by ripping your music CD's to your Zune player. The definition of ripping means converting CD music files to a file format usable by your Zune player which is either in MP3 or WMA file format. After doing this, all you need to do is plug your Microsoft Zune player into your computer with a USB cable and transfer the ripped music files to your Zune player using the provided Zune software.

1. Put the music CD that you want ripped into your PC.
2. After the media player opens. Select the song you would like to copy and click on RIP.
3. Save the song you just ripped to a folder of your choice.
4. Plug in your Zune Player to your PC using the USB Cable. The Zune Software will automatically search for music that you saved in the folder on your PC. Select the files you want and manually drag and drop them into your Zune player's music folder.

Related theme:
New Zune review part 2-1
New Zune review part 2-2
New Zune review part 2-3
New Zune review part 2-4

Recommended Products:
DVD to Zune Converter
This Zune Converter can convert or rip DVD to what you want video/audio formats.
Zune Movie Converter
It supports convert video to Zune supporting video and audio format.

Using Windows Movie Maker to edit videos on PC for free

This is a tutorial which explains the process of editing videos on a PC using Windows Movie Maker and editing videos on Mac using iMovie. This tutorial will be a concise explanation of how to editing videos for free. Then share your movie via the Web, e-mail, or CD. Using dvd burner you can even take movies you've made and turn movies into DVDs.
You can also save your movie back to the video tape in your camera to play back on a TV or on the camera itself.

This tutorial includes three parts, this is part one:
Part 1. Using Windows Movie Maker to edit videos on PC for free
Part 2. Using iMovie to edit videos on Mac for free
Part 3. A table that compares free video editors.

Windows Movie Maker 2.1 makes home movies amazingly fun. With Movie Maker 2.1, you can create, edit, and share your home movies right on your computer. Build your movie with a few simple drag-and-drops. Delete bad shots and include only the best scenes.



Step 1, Capture video
You can capture video from video device, import video, pictures, audio and music. MM2 will allow you to import the following file formats:
- Audio files: .aif, .aifc, .aiff .asf, .au, .mp2, .mp3, .mpa, .snd, .wav and .wma
- Picture files: .bmp, .dib, .emf, .gif, .jfif, .jpe, .jpeg, .jpg, .png, .tif, .tiff, and .wmf
- Video files: .asf, .avi, .m1v, .mp2, .mp2v, .mpe, .mpeg, .mpg, .mpv2, .wm, and .wmv
If your videos are not the formats compatible with Windows Movie Maker such as MP4/3GP, FLV and MOV, MIDI, AIFF, AAC, you can use the video converter to convert the video to the formats supported by MM2 first.

Step 2, Edit movie
-Add Video Transitions.
Open your Windows Movie Maker project file. If Movie Maker opens in Timeline view, return to Storyboard view by clicking on the Show Storyboard link. From the Movie Tasks pane, under Edit Movie, select View video transitions . Choose the desired transition, select and drag into storyboard between desired clips. After inserting transition, sample the change in the Monitor to determine if it works in the way you desire. To change a transition you can Undo the action, right click on the transition in the Storyboard and select delete, or simply drag a new transition over the old transition.
-Add Video Effects.
Choose "View video effects" under the Edit Movie section and drag the chosen effect to the star in the lower left corner of the picture. Preview your movie to see the effects. Continue to add effects to other pictures if desired. Save the file. A video effect applies to the picture itself rather than the change from one picture to another as in a transition.
-Add Titles and Credits.
Under the Edit Movie section, choose Make titles or credits. You have several options for where to place your Windows Movie Maker title and credits. They may precede or follow a picture or video clip, or be used as an overlay.
Here are tips for you to add special effects to your movies using Windows Movie Maker

Step 3, Finish movie
Now that your movie is complete, you may wish to save the project in a different format.
Saving the project and saving the movie are two different things. The movie project is the working file so that you may continue to edit until you have a final version of your work completed. The movie file is the final output of your movie.
Windows Movie Maker compresses all the parts of your movie into a single unit. The file size is much smaller so that it can be used on a web site or emailed.
You also have the option to create a CD or DVD of your movie. These options are all under the heading Finish Movie. If you want to convert the movie made by Windows Movies Maker to other video format such as YouTube video, AVI, MP4, 3GP, you can use this video converter. You can also use free third-party software to burn the movie made by Windows Movies Maker to DVD for free.

How to convert DVD, Movie, Music to iPhone ringtone and put ringtone on iPhone, iPhone 3G

Everyone wants his iPhone ringtone to be personalized,and sometimes want to make iPhone ringtone from a clip of their favorite DVD, movie or songs. Here I found a easy way to achieve this target for iPhone ringtone, hope it helpful.

The tools you need are Aiseesoft DVD to iPhone Suite and iPhone PC Suite (free), download links are as following:
Aiseesoft iPhone Converter Suite:
http://www.aiseesoft.com/downloads/dvd-to-iphone-suite.exe

iPhone PC Suite (Totally free)
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/iPhone_PC_Suite.htm

Note: iPhone PC Suite has to run under Microsoft .NET Framework, you can download it from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=333325fd-ae52-4e35-b531-508d977d32a6&DisplayLang=en

The iPhone ringtone guide is composed of 3 parts:
1. How to extract audio to ringtone from DVD?
2. How convert audio and video to iPhone ringtone?
3. How to sync/ put ringtone to iPhone without iTunes

Part 1 How to make iPhone ringtone from DVD?
Install Aiseesoft DVD to iPhone Suite and run it. For Windows Vista user, you may have to run this program as Administrator, right click the program shortcut and click “Run as Administrator”.
Run the DVD to iPhone Converter load your DVD by clicking “Load DVD” button, you also can load IFO file from your hard drive by clicking “Load IFO File” button.
Click drop down list and select iPhone supported format (AAC, MP3, WAV, etc.) you want:

You can also customize the sample rate, bit rate and other parameters of your iPhone ringtone by click “setting”



To extract a clip from DVD to iPhone ringtone, you can click button “trim”, set the start time and end time.



Then click “Start” to extract iPhone ringtone from you DVD, Done.

Part 2 How to make iPhone ringtone from videos and songs?
Start Aiseesoft iPhone Movie Converter, then click “Add” button to load video file which you want to extract iPhone ringtone from(You can also load audio file to convert music to iPhone ringtone).




Click drop down list and select iPhone supported format (AAC, MP3, WAV, etc.) you want:



The operation is similar as extracting iPhone audio from DVD with DVD to iPhone Converter, set sample rate, bit rate and other parameters of your iPhone ringtone by click “setting”

Most users’ iPhone ringtone are always short, so you may want to convert a clip from movie to set as ringtone. Click button “trim” to set the start and end point of your iPhone ringtone.

Then click “Start” to convert a clip to iPhone ringtone from your movies or songs.

Next part: How to sync/ put ringtone to iPhone/iPhone 3G without iTunes

Free Trial: Download Aiseesoft DVD to iPhone Suite

Time Inc.’s InStyle Sets Up Shop at StyleFind

Remember when magazines were excited about launching Web sites, not iPad apps?

Here’s a reminder of what that was like: Meet StyleFind.com, which is supposed to be live Tuesday morning. It’s a new shopping site from Time Inc.’s InStyle magazine, and you’ll figure it out as soon as you see it.

In case you don’t: The site helps shoppers pick through some 2,000 brands, from 150 retailers, and eventually sends them off to partner sites, which handle the actual purchase and fulfillment. InStyle will get affiliate fees for forwarding on customers, giving the title another revenue stream to complement circulation and advertising.

StyleFind sports the requisite Twitter and Facebook buttons, but this isn’t one of the new breed of social shopping sites that have cropped up in the past year, like Svpply.

Instead, StyleFind assumes that shoppers are interested in the sense and sensibility that InStyle exudes, translated here by a small team of dedicated editors who pick out clothes and accessories.

Pretty straightforward stuff, and you can find versions of it elsewhere on the Web, and from other publishers as well. The major difference here is that Time Inc. built and operates the site itself, based on technology it acquired when it bought Boston-based StyleFeeder nearly a year ago for a price reported as “well into eight figures.”

Following that deal, Time Warner’s publishing unit then hired Bluefly vet John Carles to head up e-commerce for its Style group. Assuming Stylefind pans out, Carles will be able to use the same model for other titles, including People and even Entertainment Weekly, the publisher says.

Acer CEO on Why He’s Waiting on Android Tablets

Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci thinks there’s plenty of room to take on the iPad with an Android tablet. Just not yet.

Although Lanci is talking tough about the opportunity to rival Apple’s hit, he’s also the one who announced–then delayed–an Android tablet originally slated to be released this year.

“We could have an Android tablet already with Froyo,” Lanci said during a sit-down chat with Mobilized in New York last week. “We took the decision to wait for Honeycomb when it is available….Now you can have Gingerbread on a tablet, but we are not convinced it is the right solution.”

That was one of many insights Lanci shared during the interview, held ahead of the company’s big press conference where it showed off, among other things, a new dual-screen tablet based on Windows 7. Lanci said that, when it comes to productivity, he still sees full-blown Windows as the best option, even on tablets.

Lanci also chatted about plans for a Windows Phone 7 device, why he sees room for so many mobile operating systems and the company’s plans to bring 3-D screens to the phone and other mobile devices.

Here’s an edited transcript of the conversation:

Mobillized: Acer has a broad range of mobile products globally, but in the U.S. you are mainly thought of as a PC company with Gateway, eMachines, etc. What’s Acer’s strategy when it comes to mobile devices?

Lanci: We have a very simple strategy. We look at mobile as the biggest opportunity in terms of growth. We introduced a smartphone 18 months ago. We are working on tablets. What we want to be is a global provider of mobile solutions–smartphone, tablet, netbook, notebook–any kind of mobile, going from content creation to content consumption.

Q: In particular, at least in America, I’m not sure Acer means something in phones. Do you plan to change that?

A: We started with smartphones and we mainly focused on Europe. But we started also with some U.S. operators and we started working with some Chinese operators. Smartphones–we want them to become big. Today we are mainly Android, but we are also working on Windows Phone 7

Q: You guys had done Windows Mobile devices in your first batch of phones?

A: At the beginning we were mainly Windows Mobile devices, yes.

Q: What prompted you guys at first to shift most of your energy to Android and then what is bringing you back to consider Windows Phone 7?

A: We saw a lot of limitations on Windows Phone a couple of years ago and we moved to Android because of user experience, and even the possibility to be a little more creative from a content offering and so forth is better than on the Windows phone. If we look at Windows Phone 7, today, I think we see the same opportunity you can see on Android in terms of customization.

Q: In terms of Android, you look at it for phones, but also for tablets. You showed an Android tablet in May and said originally that you would have one in the fourth quarter.

A: We could have an Android tablet already with Froyo. We took the decision to wait for Honeycomb when it is available. I think it is going to be probably in Q1 (before we have an Android tablet). Now you can have Gingerbread on a tablet, but we are not convinced it is the right solution.

Q: There are a lot of operating systems out there. How do you see Windows vs. Android vs. some of the others?

A: We are also working on Meego but this is going to be second half of next year. When you think about a Windows tablet and you think about productivity, I think that a Windows tablet is still the best solution. When you think about media content and so on, Android today is a great solution and we think Meego will also be a good solution in the future.

Q; You also said a while back that Acer would be first with a Chrome OS netbook and originally that was going to be later this year. It sounds like that’s also a 2011 thing?

A: We are still working on a Chrome OS netbook, but you know probably better than us there are some delays from Google. We need to wait and see.

Q: You wouldn’t even put a time on it at this point?

A: I think today it’s almost unpredictable.

Q: Was the problem mainly technical?

A: I think it is a combination of things–better user interface, better integration with other Google applications

Q: How much is the mobile market influenced these days by Apple and the iPad?

A: Apple for sure is influencing the market. I also believe that if I look at Apple, they influence the market on one side, but there is always room for improvement on the other side. Take iPad–when they came out it was without Flash and with certain limitations. With Android products we will fix that. Talking about screen resolution and even in terms of touch, view angles–there are a lot of things where you still have big room for differentiation or improvement compared to Apple.

We also believe that 10 inches is going to be one of the standard (tablet) screen sizes, but also seven inches can be a good offer for the user

Q: But you decided it is better to wait until next year for a new version of Android?

A: Yes, we decided to wait.

Q: How important is battery life?

A: We think battery life is one of the most important factors when you think about mobile devices. It is important on netbooks and notebooks, but also on tablets. A tablet without good battery life really doesn’t make any sense. I think we started to work on battery life almost three years ago. Now we have a full range of notebooks, even netbooks, with more than eight hours of battery life. We are already looking how we can reach 10, 12 hours. We believe 12 hours is probably the optimal solution from a user’s point of view

Q: What about some of the other technologies we hear about, like 3-D screens? You have brought that pretty aggressively to notebooks. How has that paid off and do you see bringing it to phones?

A: I think we are going to do the same on phone, even on tablets. If you think about gaming, 3-D gaming has becoming quite popular. If you think about a 3-D tablet, you can play games. We are working on 3-D on a lot of things.

Are you surprised that others haven’t gone more aggressively. You came out with a 3-D notebook a while ago and we haven’t heard a lot from your competitors?

A: Yes, more than one year ago. When I look at notebooks or hardware, the number of companies doing innovation are not too many. I think we are one of the few companies left focused on innovation. This is maybe the reason why you don’t see it.

A Media False Alarm Over the T.S.A.

If a squadron of mad scientists surrounded by supercomputers gathered in a laboratory to try to conjure a single news topic that would blow up large, they could not touch the T.S.A. pat-down story.

It began with a Drudge Report link to a video on Nov. 13 of an intrusive pat-down, and then leapt to social media and the rest of the Web.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

How to Play all Video Files on Xbox 360 with Mac

This is a step by step guide on how to play any video file on your Xbox 360 from your Apple Mac computer.
How to play any video file on your Xbox 360 with your Mac – Only $35.00 Video Converter for Mac can clear up all your problem.

Here Is What You Will Need:
Xbox 360 - Preferably the Elite version… just because its black. And has black controllers.
Apple Computer - iMac, MacBook Pro, Apple Air, etc.
Video Converter for Mac Only $35.00 - Has a Free Trial!

How to play any video file on your Xbox 360 with your Mac:
Step 1, Convert videos to mp4 format that compatible with Xbox 360.
Choose a small video to test for you first video, as encoding and conversion times can be lengthy if you choose a full movie. Try downloading a trailer for a movie in your favorite format that the Xbox 360 can’t read. Like: AVI, and a lot of other weird formats.
Open up Video Converter for Mac. Video Converter for Mac is a phenomenal video conversion tool, it can convert video formats from one to another with perfect output quality and high conversion speed for Mac OS X users. It supports all popular video formats including flv, MPEG1, MPEG2, MP4, 3GP, 3G2, AVI, M2TS, MPEG TS/TP (for HD Video), M4V, etc.
At the bottom of Video Converter, it shows the format we can convert to. Choose MP4. It is the best.
Choose output folder such as “Open Folder”.



At the bottom right, click on the “Start” button. Then wait… , And the conversion speed is out of your surprise.

Step 2, connect your Mac and Xbox 360
Before you start configuring, open up Terminal (in Applications -> Utilities) and type "ifconfig en0" (zero, not a capital-o). You're looking for the bit that says "inet xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx". In my case, the number I get here is 192.168.2.1 Second, note down the IP address of your wireless router, which in my case is 192.168.0.1

On your Mac
1. Connect your Mac to your wireless internet connection
2. Connect your Xbox 360 to your Mac via Ethernet
3. In System Preferences -> Sharing, enable Internet Sharing between your Airport and Ethernet connection

On your Xbox 360
1. Start up your Xbox and navigate to the Network settings menu
2. Under IP address, enter the number you got from the "ifconfig en0" command earlier on, but with the final number one place higher. In my case, I take the 192.168.2.1, and input 192.168.2.2 in the IP address box on my Xbox 360.
3. Under subnet, input 255.255.255.0
4. Under router/gateway, enter the number you got earlier from the "ifconfig en0" command. In my case, that's "192.168.2.1"
5. Move onto DNS. Enter the IP address of your wireless router (in my case, "192.168.0.1") in both the primary and secondary IP address fields
6. Leave PPPoE and advanced settings blank (i.e. OFF and Automatic)
7. You should now be able to connect to Xbox Live via your internet sharing Mac

Step 3, Play Video File on Xbox 360:
First, on your Mac, open up your new file in VLC and in QuickTime. Make sure it can play in both (Not necessarily at the same time). If you have done that, now it is time to move to your 360. Follow these instructions:
Turn on your Xbox 360



Navigate over to the “Media Tab”, and select the “Videos” option.



Note: Since the Xbox 360 Dashboard update of about 6 months ago, once you click on”Videos” it will just show you all of the videos on your Xbox 360 hard drive. So presses “X” to change the current source. Then browse down to your Apple / Mac computer. Mine is an iMac.

Click on the “Movies Folder”. That is where you should have saved the file there earlier.
Now browse through your video files and select your sweet, newly converted video file, and play it!

All the operations is just like pie. So you can watch any your favorite video on your Xbox 36o from your Mac easily Now. Watch and Enjoy it!

How to compress DVD-9 to DVD-5 for Mac

We often use DVD to store video and data file. Varieties of DVDs are sorted by the way data stored.

DVD-9 holds 8.5GB and is supported by the DVD+R and DVD-R formats. It is also known as Single-Sided Double Layer (sometimes called Dual Layer). The official names are DVD-R DL and DVD+R DL.

DVD-5 holds 4.7GB and is supported by the DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW formats. It is also known as Single-Sided Single Layer.

If you want to compress Double Layer DVD-9 to Single Layer DVD-5 on Mac, you must use one Mac DVD Copy software. Download this Mac DVD Copy to have a try;

Buy NowFree trial(Intel PPC)

How to compress DVD-9 to DVD-5 for Mac

Insert your DVD and select the copy DVD mode

Select souce: Choose DVD-video disc from the source pop up menu.

Select target: From the “Target” pop up menu, select the DVD disc, and on the type of DVD disc, please select the disc type “D5(4.7GB)”(there are three types of DVD discs: D5(4.7GB) Disc, D9(8.5GB) Disc and customized disc.)

Start to compress DVD:Click “Start Copy” button to begin your DVD compressing.

learn more on: how to edit DVD file with DVD Copy for Mac.

Put Limewire music, YouTube video on iPod

1. Put music and videos from Limewire to iPod
Limewire is a download tool I assume lot of us use. I often use it to download free music and videos and put them on my iPod. I also often visit Youtube to watch videos and sometimes I download videos from Youtube to put on my iPod.
Search and download songs from Limewire. You may get songs in all sorts of formats, but not all formats are supported by iPod. Usually I select three formats: MP3, AAC and M4A formats that are supported by iPod and can be directly transferred to iPod using iTunes. For the detailed specs info, you can visit http://www.apple.com/iPod/specs.html. After you download the songs, open your iTunes, click "File" from the upper left corner, select "Add file to library", browse your computer hard drive and find the songs downloaded by Limewire, select the songs you prefer, click OK and the songs will be put in your iTunes. Then you can just transfer the songs to your iPod from iTunes.

2.Youtube video to iPod
I often visit Youtube to watch videos and sometimes I download videos from Youtube to put on my iPod. Youtube videos are in FLV formats, so I use a free online FLV converter to do the conversion:
Firstly, go to Youtube and open the page of the video you want to put on your iPod. And you will find the Youtube URL of this video to the right of the playback window. Then copy this URL. See the highlighted area in the figure below:



Secondly, go to http://vixy.net/ , paste the copied URL into the URL field of this web page, and select "MP4 for iPod/PSP" from the "Converts to" drop-down list. Then click "Start" below this list to start the conversion. See the highlighted areas below:



Finally, after the conversion, this website will provide a download link for you to download the converted MP4 file. When you see the link, you can just download the final file from the link, save the downloaded MP4 file on your computer and use iTunes to sync it on to your iPod.

Recommended Products For you:
DVD to iPod Converter for Mac
It's a specially designed iPod conversion program to Convert DVD to iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod nano, convert DVD to iTunes on Leopard.
DVD to iPod Converter for Windows
It is one of the best conversion programs for PC that can put DVD on iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod nano and so on.

Paula Abdul Adds Web Entrepreneur To Hollywood Hats

Very few entertainers have a better understanding of the grueling and sometimes ruthless nature of the audition process than Paula Abdul.

During the early part of her career in the 1980s she shuttled from one unsuccessful casting call to the next, often waiting hours in line like she did in her first audition with “The Gong Show,” only to get rejected for being too short.

After later winning success in Hollywood as a choreographer, pop singer, dancer and actress, Abdul moved to the other side of the table – judging thousands of aspiring stars for music competition “American Idol,” and recently for her upcoming CBS show, “Live for Dance.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Gnip Becomes Twitter’s First Authorized Data Reseller

Twitter has given the start-up Gnip permission to sell its data feeds to developers, the two companies announced today. The arrangement fills in the gaps left by Twitter’s Streaming API pricing model, which doesn’t formally address the difference between emerging applications and giants like Microsoft, which is paying $10 million to get full real-time access to the status updates posted by Twitter users (what’s known as the Firehose). In practice, Twitter had been setting pricing in a way that seemed arbitrary, as I recently reported.

Boulder-based Gnip (the name is “ping” spelled backward) is a middleman between social media sites and social media monitoring companies. The company has raised about $5 million from Foundry Group, SoftTech VC and First Round Capital. Customers include Alterian, Next Big Sound and Attensity.

“The various levels from Twitter have always been confusing and scattered and unofficial, and it’s always been real shaky ground when you work with them,” said Gnip CEO Jud Valeski in a phone interview today. “Nothing against Twitter, it’s just the realities of growing a service that strong and that fast.”

To date, Twitter has offered a paid level (Firehose), a 10 percent sample level to approved developers (Gardenhose) and a 1 percent level to everybody (Spritzer). It doesn’t publicly disclose pricing for the Firehose, but charges different amounts based on how big a company is and what it’s doing with the data.

The new Gnip feeds are only for a certain type of data usage: Analytics and monitoring. Customers must not display the data publicly, but rather use it internally for their own customers–for example, to measure how social media users respond to a Coca-Cola advertising campaign.

Gnip will offer the Halfhose (50 percent of Tweets at a cost of $30,000 per month), the Decahose (10 percent of Tweets for $5,000 per month) and the Mentionhose (all mentions of a user including @replies and re-Tweets for $20,000 per month). All feeds are available in original JSON and Activity Streams JSON formats.

Analytics providers who were previously using Twitter’s Gardenhose for free will now have to start paying Gnip for the Decahose. Twitter has also said it’s planning its own free lightweight analytics product, but that’s not out yet.

Some more background from my previous story:

What does it cost to drink from the Firehose? That depends. Twitter’s pricing plans appear to vary wildly, from the big search companies on down to folks prototyping a brainstorm. Multiple Twitter developers told me they felt Twitter’s pricing seemed to be totally arbitrary, and based on whatever Twitter thought they’d be able to pay.

Twitter business development guy Doug Williams said it’s true that Twitter has no structured way to price access between the 10 percent of the Gardenhose and the 100 percent of the Firehose, though the company is likely to develop more levels of pricing.

“Twitter is focused on creating consumer products and we’re not built to license data,” Williams said, adding, “Twitter has always invested in the ecosystem and startups and we believe that a lot of innovation can happen on top of the data. Pricing and terms definitely vary by where you are from a corporate perspective.”

It’s not only how big you are, but what you do with the data. According to a developer, analytics players are asked to pay the most, because they take Twitter content but don’t contribute it or drive content to Twitter. Those who display and process content in a way that drives traffic pay less, and those who help generate content pay the least. As I understand it, some developers who make Twitter clients don’t pay anything at all for streaming API access.

Oracle Rests SAP Case, Slams HP CEO

Just a day or so left now before the jury in the Oracle-SAP trial begins its deliberations. Oracle called its last rebuttal witness early Friday and closing arguments will soon follow. In the end, Oracle opted not to show former SAP chief Léo Apotheker’s videotaped deposition following the advice of lead attorney David Boies, who last week suggested leaving the Hewlett-Packard CEO’s role in all this to jurors’ imaginations might be a better move strategically than showing them Apotheker’s now very dated testimony.

Indeed, speaking to reporters in the courtroom hallway this morning, Boies said that the evidence Oracle presented during the trial proved that Apotheker had knowledge of the copyright infringement scheme at issue in the case. “The testimony and evidence prove that Mr. Apotheker oversaw the copyright infringement scheme,” Boies said. “We did not show the 2 year old video deposition because it was taken before SAP stipulated to liability.”

Of course if Apotheker was as pivotal a figure as Boies maintains, one would think that there would at least be some content in his video deposition worth showing the jury. Certainly, that’s the view of SAP, which continues to maintain that Oracle’s repeated shots at Apotheker are more about the PR trial being conducted outside the courtroom than anything else.

“Today’s proceedings focused on the damages, and we remain confident that we have demonstrated a clear case for fair compensation to Oracle for the limited operations of TomorrowNow,” an SAP spokesperson said in a statement. “We trust now in the jury to bring this matter to an appropriate conclusion.”

HP has not yet commented on Boies’s remarks. The company reports earnings next week, and Oracle would obviously not be unhappy if any of this legal unpleasantness happened to lodge in investors’ minds.

UPDATE: Here’s HP’s official comment: “Oracle’s current stance is clear proof that they have been trying to harass Léo and interfere with his work at HP. As HP has said repeatedly, Oracle had ample opportunity to question Léo in the two years after he gave a full-day deposition. Léo was never asked to give an additional deposition. As HP and SAP have noted, Oracle chose not to include Leo as a live trial witness until after he was named CEO of HP. Léo had a limited role in the matter.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Plattner and White No-Shows at Oracle-SAP Trial
• Damages Expert to SAP: You Owe Me $14 Million and Oracle Four Times That
• Oracle, SAP and the Apotheker Sideshow
• Better Late: SAP Co-CEO Apologizes for Oracle IP Theft
• SAP Co-CEO Expected to Testify in Oracle Trial Today
• HP to Oracle: Leave Léo Alone
• Oracle Still Hoping to Snag HP’s Apotheker for SAP Trial
• HP CEO to Oracle: Here’s Looking at You, Kid–Suntory Time!
• Ellison to Self: Damn, Damn. I Knew I Should Have Said $4.5 Billion
• SAP Attorney: Board Knew TomorrowNow Was Infringing at Time of Acquisition
• Oracle Co-President on SAP’s Damages Offer: “It’s Crazy”
• Oracle Enlists Process Servers, Not PIs, to Find HP CEO
• Oracle-SAP Trial: Ellison Swaps Katana for Poison Darts
• Objection: Mr. Ellison Is Referring to the Defendant as “Choleric of Temper” Again
• Oracle Lands Early Shots in SAP Trial
• Your Honor, We Object to Mr. Ellison’s Repeated Use of the Term “Slimy Weasels”
• Oracle to HP CEO: Chicken!
• Oracle Vs. SAP: We Got a Right to Pick a Little Fight–Bonanza!
• SAP’s Tab in Oracle Case: $120 Million and Counting
• Gag Order Denied in Oracle, SAP Trial
• Ellison Taunts HP CEO a Second Time
• SAP to Ellison: Save the Drama for Your Mama
• Ellison to HP CEO: “Warrior, Come Out to Plaaeeay!
• SAP: Please Gag Oracle
• HP Scandal Sucks in New York Times Columnist Over Conflict of Interest
• Welch to HP Board: You Don’t Know Jack!
• Insiders Criticize Ellison For HP CEO Slam
• Was Apotheker HP’s First Choice of CEO?
• HP Names Ex-SAP Chief Apotheker as CEO

How to get songs, pictures and videos from iTunes, iPod, iPhone to computer and then to Zune

This is a step by step guide to tell you how to get all songs, pictures and videos from iPod, iPhone to computer (including windows PC and Mac OS X) for free. In the event that you accidentally delete your music from your computer, it is possible to recover your songs from your iPod as long as you follow this tutorial. And then you can put these songs, pictures and videos to Zune, PSP, Sandisk, Pocket PC, PowerPoint, Cell phone, Creative Zen, PDA, Archos, iRiver, Apple TV, Xbox 360, PS3 and other MP4 player. If you want to put the iTunes videos to Zune and other mp4 players, You can transfer iTunes videos to iPod touch, iPod classic, the latest iPod nano and iPhone(iPhone 3G) firstly.
This guide includes two parts:
Part 1, How to get songs, pictures and videos from iPod, iPhone to computer for free
Part 2, How to put iTunes videos, iPod and iPhone videos to Zune, PSP and other MP4 player.

Part 1, How to get songs, pictures and videos from iPod, iPhone(3G) to computer for free
1. How to get songs, pictures and videos from iPod, iPhone to Windows PC for free
ml_iPod is a Winamp plugin that enables music to be loaded onto and off of an Apple iPod without using iTunes via Winamp's Media Library. One of the main attractions of the plugin is being able to transfer files from the iPod to your computer which is not possible with Apple's iTunes software. Winamp's newest iPod plug-in can indeed copy files from iPhone in Windows without jailbreaking. It also supports Creative Zen and PlaysForSure certified devices.
Download and install Winamp if you haven't yet. And then use it to get songs, pictures and videos from iPod, iPhone to Windows PC.
2. How to get songs, pictures and videos from iPod, iPhone to Mac OS X for free
Step 1,Download Senuti.
The latest version only works on Mac OS X 10.4 or higher. For OS X 10.3.9 users download Senuti 0.33 from the link at the bottom of the page. It always copy music from regular iPods to your Mac, and a new version now supports the iPhone and iPod touch.
Step 2, Install Senuti. Drag the Seunti application to your Applications Folder. Drag Senuti into your dock or save a copy on your desktop if you wish. Eject the Senuti disk image and clear your download folder.
Step 3, Make sure you have iTunes. Open iTunes.
Step 4, Plug your iPod into your computer. Set your iPod to "Manually manage music and videos" in iTunes.
Step 5, Open Senuti. Songs with a note next to them are already in iTunes. However if you changed song information separately in your iTunes library or your iPod, it will think the same song is two different ones.
Step 6, Go to "Preferences" and then "Copying" in Senuti. Choose the iTunes Music Folder as the "Save Location" for copied music. Otherwise two copies will be created of each song and will fill up hard drive space.
Step 7, Highlight and drag songs from "Library" into "iTunes". You can also drag and drop playlists from your iPod into iTunes. Make sure all the songs look normal and that there are no double copies.

Part 2, How to put iTunes videos, iPod and iPhone videos to Zune
If you want to put iTunes videos to Zune, you can transfer the iTunes videos to iPod or iPhone at first and then get the videos from iPod and iPhone to Computer. Now we can put the videos that have got from iPod touch, iPod Classic, iPod Nano and iPhone to Zune.

Zune only supports the follow video formats:
Windows Media Video (.wmv)
MPEG4 video (m4v, .mp4, or .mov)
H.264 video (.m4v, .mp4, or .mov)

If the videos are the zune format files, you can transfer the videos to Zune using zune software.
Here is the steps:
1. install zune software, you can download it from here for free
2. plug in your zune player to computer
3. drag the wmv video to zune library
4. click "start sync" to sync your zune. OK.
If the videos are not the zune format, You need use Total video converter to convert the videos to Zune format so that you can put the iTunes videos to zune. And then you need to use zune software to transfer the videos to zune.
The total video converter can also convert videos for Apple TV, PSP, Pocket PC, Creative Zen, Archos, and a lot of MP3 players and audio players. So you can also put the iPod videos, iPhone videos and iTune videos to Apple TV, PSP, Pocket PC, Creative Zen, Archos, and a lot of MP3 players.
If you are a Mac user, use this video converter for Mac to put iTunes videos to Zune and other MP4 players.

There as also many other applications and methods for copying music from an iPod to your computer as there are iPod models themselves, which makes finding a sure-fire, free solution a matter of tedious trial and error. Whether you're a Windows user looking to yank tunes from an iPhone, a Mac fan backing up an iPod classic, or a Linux enthusiast trying to get into your new nano, we've got you covered. Follow along for a detailed look at the best ways to transfer songs from your iPod to your computer, no matter what hardware or operating system you're rocking.
1. Floola (Win, Mac, Linux) - portable iPod manager.
Features: (1) move audio and video to/from iPod, (2) manage and import/export playlists, (3) last.fm support, (4) multi-lingual, (5) lyrics and podcasts support, (6) search files, (7) iPod troubleshooting, (8) manage notes, (9) sync files between PC and iPod
2. YamiPod (Win, Mac, Linux) - yet another portable iPod manager.
Features: (1) playlists import/export (PLS,M3U), (2) PC to iPod autosync, (3) built-in music player, (4) last.fm support, (5) search, (6) song list export and more
3. Sharepod (Win) -
Features: (1) move files to/from iPod, (2) built-in music player, (3) search, (4) create winamp-style playlists, (5) network file sharing (office, college, etc.), (6) built-in music player and more
4. Ephpod (Win) - not as flexible as the ones above but has couple of cool
features: ultra-fast song transfer, powerful playlist creation features, one click sync, winamp support, bunch of extras (news, weather, movie listings, etc.)
5. Rockbox - open source replacement firmware for mp3 players.
Features: (1) dynamic playlist creation, (2) multiple themes, (3) gapless playback, (4) in-built clock, (5) tagging, (6) plugins and more
6. Amarok (Linux) - iTunes alternative.
Features: (1) manage, create playlists , (2) podcasts support, (3) last.fm support more
7. Rhythmbox (Linux) - integrated music management application (inspired by iTunes)