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)

How to backup DVD movies to DVD for free

This is a tutorial that explains the process of backing up a DVD on a PC using DVD Shrink. While there are many software solutions for backing up DVDs, the one on Windows I like is DVD Shrink. On Mac OS X, I like this DVD Copy for Mac.

that can copy DVD movie (D9 to D9, D5 to D5) with the entire movie in 1:1 ratio perfectly. This tutorial will be a concise explanation of how to backup DVD movie to DVD for free. There are many reasons to make a backup copy of DVDs one has purchased, keep reading to learn how to improve the quality of your re-encoded backups.

Step 1, download DVD Shrink
You can download DVD Shrink from: http://www.DVDshrink.org/.
For Mac users, you can download the DVD copy for Mac from here.

Step 2, Run DVD Shrink and insert yoDVD Copy ur DVD movie into the DVD drive
The first thing you will need to do is open the disc. Click on "Open Disk" at the top-left of the program window. A small window will pop up. There is a drop down menu - select the drive and disk that you are going to backup. Then click OK. When you click OK, the DVD will be “analyzed”–this process will last for 1-3 minutes, then DVD Shrink will “suggest” a level of compression.



If you receive an error while trying to rip the DVD (like the one shown in the screenshot above), you will need to use another program such as DVD Decrypter to copy the DVD files off of the disc on to your hard drive. You need to minus the copy protections first. Click here to read how to use DVD decypher to minus the copy protections of DVD.



Step 3. Adjust compression for individual Titles (optional).
DVD Shrink will automatically select the highest possible quality settings that will fit on your disc. You could accept the settings that DVD Shrink chooses. You can also increase the quality of the main movie file by reducing or eliminating other video and audio files on the DVD.
Many modern DVDs will contain bonus footage, trailers, multiple surround sound modes, and other settings that one can reduce or eliminate to improve the quality of the main movie feature.
The main movie quality setting is reported to the left of a slider bar in the top right of the screen. In the screenshot below we see that the default setting requires that the main movie be compressed to 48.2% of its original level to fit on the disc. You can increase this percentage to improve the final quality of the backed-up DVD. But the output file will be larger.



The way in which one goes about improving the quality of the main movie will be different depending on your specific needs. For example, when “Dolby Digital” and “DTS” 5.1 audio tracks are available, you can remove “DTS” (to save hundreds of megabytes), you can also choose to preserve “DTS” and reduce or eliminate other items from the DVD.
Some of the settings I made to this particular DVD were:
--Removed “5.1-ch French” audio track (went from 48.2% to 55.4% compression for main movie).
--Replaced certain Titles with “Still Image” (keep reading for more on this).
To improve the quality of the main movie, you'll need to reduce or eliminate other DVD features, each called a “Title” in DVD Shrink. Click the “plus sign” next to “Extras” in the menu to view the other titles.



The Title I've selected below was 72MB. In this case the video was a “behind the scenes” feature that I did not wish to keep. Since one cannot completely remove any of the “Titles,” the next best thing is to replace them with a still image. In order to do this, select the title you want to replace, and choose “Still Image” from the drop-down menu in the top right. In this case the file went from 72MB to 66MB. The still image is configurable, simply drop an image of your own into the aptly named Still Images directory found under Program Files > DVD Shrink.

Step 4, Burn the re-encoded files to disc.



Click “Backup DVD” and Now select the folder where your temporary files will be saved. DVD Shrink needs to save a bunch of files on your computer (that actually compose your movie) so that it can burn that movie back onto another DVD. This is why you had to clear 5 gigs of space on your hard drive. Once the DVD backup has been burned, you can go ahead and delete these temporary files (the program does not do this itself).
You may as well select “Region Free” (default) under the DVD Region tab.
on the Burn Settings tab make sure “Maximum” burn speed is selected in the drop-down menu.
Once you have the settings the way you like them, begin the burn process. You'll see the “Encoding” happening first. There is a video preview that will show you where you are, but I believe that the encoding process goes slower with this setting enabled.



Once the files have been copied to your hard drive, your original DVD movie will eject from your computer.
You will also have a pop up asking you to put a blank DVD into the DVD burning drive of your computer that you previously selected.
Exchange the original DVD movie for a blank, burnable DVD. Push the blank DVD into the drive. DVD Shrink will begin burning the new DVD automatically in a few seconds. Now you will get a pop up that shows the progress while the program burns your new DVD movie. Once the new DVD has been burned, you will get a window that tells you that it's done. Click OK, close the program, and take your new DVD movie backup. All Done!

Note: DVD Shrink is only for PC users. If you are a Mac user, Please download DVD copy for Mac .

Some problems the new iPod touch users may meet

1. How to change iTunes to recognize the new iPod touch
Some New iPod users may meet the situation that your iTunes can not detect your new iPod nano, iPod touch, or iPod Classic. It should recognize it immediately. If it doesn't, download the latest version of iTunes. The problem will be solved:
1) Re-launch iTunes, with and without your iPod plugged in.
2) With iTunes open, reset your iPod Touch
(here:http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305743 ) Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time for at least ten seconds until the Apple logo appears.
3) Restart your computer leaving your iPod touch plugged in
Note: If you uninstall iTunes from a computer, it will be uninstalled for all the users. But it will show up again for all users once you re-install it again. Before uninstalling each user should backup his/her playlists so they can bring them back when the re-install is completed.No music for any of the users will be removed by iTunes. It will remain intact where it is saved.

2．'I can't turn on my iPod'
I have a 1st or 2nd generation video iPod (80 gig).
My computer is windows 2000 so I downloaded the windows 2000 iTunes. So I decided to update my iPod, it was updated and it was fine. It ran out of power. Then it won't turn on? I tried to charge it but it just keeps saying please wait such and such. I left it there for like 2 hours already, and still it didn't charge up... Is the problem because I updated my iPod or something else? And when I opened my computer, iTunes asked me if I can format my iPod into windows. I put yes, it didnt do anything.So I have to problems, its not charging.. and its not turning on.
by Ashley :'My friend had this same problem a few years ago.She just left it plugged in to her computer for a few days, waited it out... eventually the problem fixed itself on its own. I'd say just wait it out for a day or two, and if it's still having problems, take it in to your nearest Circuit City or something.”
by Karat :'its the most popular iPod problem. If you drain the battery fully, you're screwed. Basically the battery is down, but the darn thing wont charge unless you connect it to the usb and the usb wont detect it unless it has charge! So please take it to your nearest apple outlet.”
by Kylla :'The one thing you never want to do with an iPod is let it run out of power, not good for it at all :P I've done it a few times but try to avoid it. What you want to do is hold the menu button and the play/pause button at the SAME time and just wait for it. It should restart it. Thats how my iPod works, yours could be different so experiment with the buttons. Try holding perhaps the center button and the play/pause button? or center button and the menu button? Try to see which two buttons will restart it, its bound to work. But hold BOTH of them down at the SAME time with one hand..and be patient, wait for about 10-15 seconds or so. :)”

3. Why does my 30G iPod video always die quickly?
Even when I am just listening to music. It shuts off after about 45 min. And that is a problem because I am going on a plane trip soon and I plan to watch a movie on my iPod, but movies eat your batttery. Does this happen to anyone else???? How can I make the battery life last longer. btw, it is only like a year old.
by dipin :'In an iPod the battery life is different.
it doesnt depend on how old it is rather it depends on how many times you have charged and discharged it.
for increasing the battery life you should fully charge the battery every time you are charging it . and secondly you should never let it discharge completely . put it on charging just before it shows the red signal and disconnect it only when it is fully charged.
sorry to say but now u'll have to get the battery replaced from apple reseller if you want to watch complete movie the battery life as said by apple is 500 complete cycles of charging and discharging”
by sugadoll :'The same thing happened to me. The problem is that your computer can't detect a completly dead iPod, but you need the computer to charge it so your screwed. j/k I solved it by pluging it into my ihome dock that plugs into the wall. So if you have a wall iPod dock or a car one you can charge it enough so that the computer can detect it. Problem solved.

Recommended Products For you:
DVD Ripper for Mac
Convert DVD to any video or audio formats on Mac OS X. Aiseesoft DVD Ripper for Mac is a professional Mac DVD ripper software.
Video Converter for Mac
Convert all video formats from one to another on Mac OS X. Aiseesoft Video Converter for Mac is a specially designed Mac video converter.

Ex-Apple Exec Papermaster Surfaces at Cisco

Mark Papermaster, the exec who joined Apple’s iPhone team from IBM in 2009 after a non-compete controversy and left Apple in August after the “antennagate” controversy, has signed on with Cisco. As of this week, Papermaster is serving as the VP of Cisco’s Silicon Switching Technology Group, responsible for the chips in its Nexus 7000 and Catalyst switching lines.

Why Boxee’s Box Doesn’t Matter–And Why It Does

I’ve seen lots of oohing and aahing about the new Boxee Box that rolled out Wednesday. I haven’t played with it yet, but for now I’ll assume it’s as cool as the gadget press says it is.

But let’s be clear about what the Boxee Box is, and what it’s not:

• It’s not going to generate any significant revenue for the Web video company.
• It’s not the way that Boxee imagines most people will end up using its software.
• It is a starting point for the company.

Boxee’s real plan is both clear and a bit undefined: It wants to get its software on as many devices as possible–not just the Boxee Box but everything from Sony’s TVs to Microsoft’s Xbox 360s to Samsung’s Blu-ray players. And then it wants to build some kind of business based on advertising, consumer payments or both.

So Boxee isn’t trying to make money by licensing its software to hardware companies, any more than Netflix or Pandora is when they get their apps installed on different gadgets. It’s giving D-Link, the company that’s actually making the Boxee Box, its software for free. And it will do the same for other hardware companies.

Or put another way: Boxee competitor Roku is all about selling the Roku box. Boxee is all about getting its software in between video owners/distributors and video viewers, just like Google TV wants to do. The Boxee Box is important because, if it works, it will help Boxee convince other hardware companies that they need its software, too. (It might also help the company close its funding round, though I get the feeling it has investors ready to cut checks right now.)

For whatever reason, some of Boxee’s legion of fans–this is a company that packs concert halls for product rollouts–seem unclear about what the company is trying to do. So do some non-fans outside the company, like über-blogger Om Malik.

So yesterday, after Twittering about the topic with Malik, and then with Boxee investor Bijan Sabet, I got Boxee CEO Avner Ronen to stand in front of a Flip cam so he could explain the plan to all of you at the same time. We also touched briefly on Boxee’s relationship with Hulu. Ronen confirmed what I’d reported on Wednesday: Hulu Plus will come to the Boxee Box, but the free Hulu service won’t be available.

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab Is iPad’s First Real Rival

After seven months of unchallenged prominence, Apple’s hot-selling iPad now has its first credible competitor in the nascent market for multitouch consumer tablet computers: the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

The Tab is being introduced over the next week by three major U.S. wireless phone carriers at $400 with a cellular data contract, or at $600 with cellular capability but no contract. The iPad starts at $499 for a Wi-Fi model with no cellular-data capability or contract, and is $629 for the least expensive model with cellular data capability but no contract.

Like the iPad, the Tab, which uses Google’s Android operating system, is a good-looking slate with a vivid color screen that can handle many of the tasks typically performed on a laptop. These include email, social networking, Web browsing, photo viewing, and music and video playback. It also can run a wide variety of third-party apps. But it has major differences, most notably in size.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab has less than half the screen real estate than that of the iPad.

The Tab has a 7-inch screen versus the 9.7-inch display on the iPad. That may seem like a small difference, but the numbers are deceptive, because screen sizes are always described using diagonal measurements. In fact, the actual screen real estate on the Tab is less than half of the iPad’s. That’s a disadvantage, but it allows the overall unit to be much smaller and lighter, and thus more easily used in one hand, something some users will welcome.

The new tablet will be introduced in coming days by Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, with a variety of cellular data plans. AT&T also will carry the Tab during the holiday season but hasn’t announced its timing or data-plan pricing. Although it is being sold by cellular carriers, the Tab, like the iPad (which offers optional month-to-month cellular data through AT&T) can’t make cellular voice calls.

I’ve been testing the Tab for a couple of weeks and I like it. It’s a serious alternative to the iPad and one that will be preferred by some folks. It includes the three most-requested features missing in the iPad: a camera (two in fact); the ability to run Web videos and applications written in Adobe’s Flash software; and multitasking, though, to be fair, the latter feature is coming to the iPad imminently via a software update. Another strong point is that like Apple, Samsung has rewritten some of the standard apps, such as the email and calendar programs, to make them look more like PC programs and less like smartphone apps.

On balance, however, I still prefer the iPad. For one thing, I like getting twice the screen size for a little more money up front—as little as $29 for the no-contract model with cellular capability. For another, the iPad has vastly more apps specifically designed for a tablet versus a smartphone—about 40,000 according to Apple, compared with just a handful for the Tab. And it can run about triple the apps overall, if you count smartphone apps that aren’t optimized for tablets.

Also, in my tests, the iPad’s battery life was about five hours better than the Tab’s, its maximum storage capacity is higher, and its aluminum body is more rugged than the Tab’s plastic casing. Finally, the iPad can be bought in a Wi-Fi-only model that frees you from any entanglement with cellphone carriers. The Tab also has Wi-Fi, but, so far, no Wi-Fi-only version, though Samsung is promising one next year.

Still, the Tab is a very attractive product and I enjoyed using it. For buyers who want to spend less up front, don’t mind the smaller screen, prefer the more compact dimensions and one-handed usability, and place high value on the cameras and on Flash, it may well be a better choice.

Hardware

The Tab is a rectangular slate about two inches shorter and three inches narrower than the iPad. It is also a tad thinner. It weighs less than a pound, compared with 1.5 pounds for the iPad. While its screen is smaller, it has almost the same resolution as the iPad, so almost as much material can be displayed on it.

The screen is sharp and generally responsive to touch, though, in my tests, a bit slower than the iPad’s screen. The Tab comes with 16 gigabytes of flash storage, the same as the base iPad. But with some carriers, this storage is internal and in others, it’s on a removable memory card. The card slot comes on all models and can hold up to 32 gigabytes at extra cost. The iPad, also at extra cost, comes in versions that go up to 64 gigabytes, all internal.

With its lighter weight and smaller size, I found the Tab easy to use while standing and moving. It easily fit in one hand, though for many tasks you’ll still need two hands.

Battery Life

Samsung and its partners make wildly varying battery claims for the Tab. The former says it can last up to 13 hours on a single charge, while T-Mobile claims just eight hours. I gave the Tab the same test I used for my iPad review: I put the screen on nearly full brightness, left the Wi-Fi on to collect email and played back-to-back videos until the unit died. My test Tab lasted six hours, 50 minutes, though at six hours, 10 minutes the screen dimmed irrevocably to a darkness level that made it useless. In the same test last spring, the iPad logged 11 hours, 28 minutes.

Cameras

The Tab has a 3-megapixel rear camera with flash and a 1.3-megapixel front camera mainly for video calls. Still-photographs and videos I took were of average quality, but videos taken with the front camera were fuzzy.

I tested video calling using a pre-release, tablet-optimized version of Qik, the software being preinstalled for this purpose on the Tab. Results were mixed. It will work over either cellular or Wi-Fi connections, but the version I tried wasn’t tuned for cellular, so we used Wi-Fi. In my conversation with a Qik executive, the call at first failed to go through. When it did go through, it worked fine for awhile, and then failed when I tried a feature designed to hide my image. Later, the audio dropped altogether. Qik says it is fixing the problems.

Software

The Tab uses the latest version of Android, and it generally worked very smoothly, even though Google has warned that Android isn’t yet ready for tablets. I was especially impressed with Samsung’s attractive and usable rewrites of the calendar, email and contacts apps, which, like their iPad cousins, use multiple panels to make them more computer-like, while still remaining touch-friendly.

I found the Web browser to be a bit jerky in zooming into text and scrolling through long pages. I tested several Adobe Flash videos and websites written in Flash. Sometimes they played and sometimes they didn’t. In all cases, they slowed the browser down. On one site written in Flash, I got a warning saying I might want to “abort” lest the computer become “unresponsive.” In another case, the Tab crashed. So I conclude that while the Tab does play Flash, it needs work on that score.

I downloaded a few third-party apps. I couldn’t find any that were rewritten with extra features for tablets, nor any way to discover these in the Android Market. Some of my downloaded apps scaled fine to tablet size. Others were surrounded by large black bars.

Cellular pricing

On an iPad, if you opt for cellular-data service, there is no contract and only two monthly prices—$14.99 for 250 megabytes and $25 for 2 gigabytes. On the Tab, it’s much more complicated. Verizon, which is selling only the $600 no-contract model, says its pricing will start at $20 a month for 1 gigabyte of data. Sprint charges $29.99 monthly for 2 gigabytes and $59.99 for 5 gigabytes. T-Mobile has different prices for no-contract and contract models, and different rates for new and existing customers. Just two examples: a new customer under contract on a Tab can pay $30 monthly for 200 megabytes or $50 for 5 gigabytes.

So, I urge Tab buyers to do the math carefully on the overall cost of the device under various carriers and plans.

Bottom Line

The Tab is attractive, versatile and competitively priced, though monthly cell fees can add up. It’s different enough from the iPad, yet good enough, to give consumers a real choice.

How to import music from iPod to iPod without iTunes

Ever since iPod was released, millions of people have been crazy about it. There appeared some assistant tools to manage iPod without iTunes:
1. Aiseesoft iPod Manager for Mac is one of the best Mac tools that can transfer Mac to iPod Shuffle, iPod backup for Mac. It is the best for iPod iTunes Mac software.
2. Aiseesoft iPod Transfer is another Windows all-in-one tool including iPod to iPod Transfer, computer to iPod Transfer and iPod to computer transfer.

Part One: How to manage iPod without iTunes on Mac. (Transfer Mac to iPod Shuffle, iPod Backup for Mac)
1. Download and install Aiseesoft iPod Manager for Mac.
For Intel:http://www.aiseesoft.com/downloads/mac/ipod-manager-for-mac.dmg
For Power PC: http://www.aiseesoft.com/downloads/mac/ipod-manager-for-mac.dmg
2. Connect iPod to Mac via USB.

Transfer Mac to iPod Shuffle:



Select “Music”, “Video” or “Picture”. Then click “Mac to iPod” to choose the files you want to transfer to iPod. Click “Open” to finish the transfer.

iPod Backup for Mac:



Select files you want to backup. Click “iPod to Mac” and find the place where you want to transfer your iPod files to your Mac and click “Open”.

Part Two: Computer to iPod Transfer, iPod to iPod Transfer, iPod to Computer Transfer for Windows users
1. Download and install Aiseesoft iPod Transfer.
2. Connect iPod/iPhone to computer.

Computer to iPod Transfer
Click “computer to iPod” button to seek the files or folders that you want to import to iPod and click OK.

iPod to iPod Transfer
Pick the files that you need to transfer. Just click “iPod to iPod” button and it will show you the folder of another iPod that you want to transfer to. Click OK. The transfer can be finished automatically.

iPod to Computer Transfer
Check the file(s) you want to export in the file list. Click “iPod to computer” button to select the destination of the exporting files and start exporting files.

Hope it helps you!

How to upload videos to YouTube from iMovie

Making movies on your Mac is fun and easy, but how do you share them with the world? Many people choose to upload videos to YouTube from iMovie.
Part 1, How to upload videos to YouTube from iMovie HD
Part 2, How to upload videos to YouTube from iMovie

Part 1, How to upload videos to YouTube from iMovie HD
1. Make sure your video is the one you want to upload, then click the share button in the menu bar.
2. Select the QuickTime option.



3. Click on the menu for your compression options and select web.



4. Save your movie to the desktop or somewhere else. Find your movie and click it once then press apple+I to get its information. Make sure it is less than 100 megabytes or YouTube will not accept it.
5. Log in to YouTube and click on the “upload” button at the top of the page.
6. Enter the name, category, tags and any other information you want for your video.
7. Next click on “upload a video” once you have finished entering your videos information.
8. Click on the “Choose File” button and choose your video file from were you saved it. Make sure its your compressed QuickTime video and not the iMovie file.
9. Lastly click on the “Upload Video” button, it may take a few minutes for your video to upload and it may take several hours for it to show up on YouTube.
I also recommend CD quality. You can save the movie to CD-ROM and then you can upload movie from iMovie HD to YouTube!

Part 2, How to upload videos to YouTube from iMovie
1. Make sure your video is the one you want to share, then click the share button in the menu bar and select YouTube.
2. Choose your YouTube account or create a new one
3. Confirm your sign in.
4. Select the category, name, description, and tags for your video.
5. Select your publish size and click Next
6. Now click the publish button.
7. Your video will be ready to watch on YouTube in 2-120 minutes.

Google has released basic software called Vidnik which is the quickest, simplest way to make movies using the built - in camera on your Macintosh and upload those movies to your YouTube account. You must first sign up for a free YouTube membership to upload videos.
Learn more: How to upload videos to YouTube easily and quickly on Mac?

How to sync and put cusomized ringtone on iPhone

Previous part: How to convert DVD, Movie, Music to iPhone ringtone and put ringtone on iPhone/iPhone 3G?

There are also some other ways to convert audio to iPhone ringtone and sync it to iPhone with iTunes, but I think these are a little complicated and users may be at a loss with such ways.

Here I recommend iPhone PC Suite, an almighty iPhone manager that can let you manage phone book, software, media and other files between iPhone and computer without iTunes easily.

But before using this tool, make sure your iTunes installed and has been connected with iPhone once before (Then you will never need not run iTunes when you use iPhone PC Suite to manage your iPhone).And when the first time you connecting iPhone, it will install PhoneDaemon on your iPhone, don’t worry it is green software and will do nothing harm.

Now I will show you how to sync the converted iPhone ringtone to iPhone without iTunes. Connect you iPhone to computer, double click” iPhone PC Suite” to start iPhone PC Suite, the program will scan you iPhone automatically for a short while. Then click button “Personal” on the main menu, select ”ringtone”.



Click “New Ringtone” to locate the converted iPhone ringtone.

Select your target iPhone ringtone, then it will upload the ringtone to iPhone automatically.



Then you can select your favorite audio file and set it as your iPhone ringtone on iPhone. Click “setting”->”Sound”->”Ringtone”, the converted ringtone is listed on column “Customize”. Now you can enjoy the fun of your unique iPhone ringtone!
This free iPhone PC Suite also has other powerful functions, we will share them later.

Previous part: How to convert DVD, Movie, Music to iPhone ringtone and put ringtone on iPhone?

HP Ex-Contractor Alleged Mark Hurd Shared Inside Info With Her

A former Hewlett-Packard Co. contractor alleged in June that Mark Hurd, then the company’s chief executive, leaked to her details of the company’s plan to acquire Electronic Data Systems Corp. more than a month before the $13.9 billion deal was made public, according to people familiar with the situation.
The claim came in a letter to Mr. Hurd in which the contractor, Jodie Fisher, accused the CEO of sexually harassing her at HP events between 2007 and 2009, these people said.
An HP investigation into Ms. Fisher’s various allegations led to Mr. Hurd’s resignation from the Palo Alto, Calif., company in August.
HP disclosed the sexual-harassment allegation in the press release announcing Mr. Hurd’s resignation. HP hasn’t disclosed publicly the allegation that Mr. Hurd leaked plans of the EDS deal.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

A Beat for Sirius, But No Stern Deal–Yet

Another strong set of financials for Sirius XM Radio. Posting third-quarter earnings this morning, the company reported a profit of 2 cents a share, besting analyst estimates for a break-even quarter. Revenue rose to $717.5 million from $618.7 million. Sirius ended the quarter with 19.8 million subscribers, thanks to the net addition of 334,727 subscribers, more than triple the 102,295 it gained in the quarter a year earlier. “Today, we are stronger than ever,” CEO Mel Karmazin said during a call with analysts. “We are in a position to soon surpass 20 million subscribers.”

That should be an easy thing to pull off, particularly if the company manages to renew its deal with Howard Stern, whose contract expires at the end of the year. But it hasn’t done that yet, according to Karmazin. “We had hoped that prior to this call we would have an update on the status of Howard Stern with Sirius XM,” he said this morning. “We do not have any update today, other than to say discussions continue.”

SAP’s Tab in Oracle Case: $120 Million and Counting

Whatever illusions SAP harbored that it could get out of its TomorrowNow copyright mess with Oracle for under $100 million are long gone. According to a court filing, SAP, which is acknowledging complicity in its unit’s infringement, has already agreed to pay Oracle $120 million just for attorneys’ fees. And that’s before Oracle makes its case to the jury for $2 billion-plus in damages.

Under an agreement filed Monday, SAP said it is willing to pay Oracle for “past and future reasonable attorneys fees and costs” as part of a deal in which TomorrowNow would stipulate “to entry of judgment on Oracle’s claims for violations of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California’s Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, breach of contract, intentional interference, negligent interference, unfair competition, trespass to chattels, unjust enrichment/restitution and an accounting.” In exchange for the admission, Oracle would not seek additional punitive damages. The joint stipulation would need judicial approval.

Still, the real damages here are those related to copyright infringement. So while ducking punitive damages will certainly reduce SAP’s ultimate bill, it’s not likely to bring it that much closer to the “tens of millions” it contends Oracle is legitimately owed. Indeed, Oracle still has its sights firmly set on that $2 billion figure, which to be clear is copyright only. In opening arguments today, Oracle attorney Geoffrey Howard said the company will produce evidence to show SAP “expected the benefit to them and the harm to Oracle to be in the billions of dollars.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• 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 convert videos such as MP4, WMV, MOV and AVI to DVD for Free

DVD Flick is a free DVD authoring program that allows you to take a video file saved on your computer and converts it into a DVD that can play back in a DVD player, your computer, or Home Cinema set. The software allows you to add audio tracks and subtitles to your DVD. Your original video files may be in any of the following container formats: AVI, MOV, MPG, WMV, ASF, FLV (Flash video), Matroska and MPG. Supported codecs include MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, XVid, DivX, WMA and WMV (Windows Media Audio and Video), MP3, OGG Vorbis, H264 and On2 VP5/6. The program is open source.

DVD Flick is the all-in-one tool that can convert:
AVI to DVD, FLV to DVD, HDMOV to DVD, MKV to DVD, MJPG to DVD, MPG to DVD, M2V to DVD, MP4 to DVD, M4V to DVD, NSV to DVD, NUT to DVD, QT to DVD, MOV to DVD, RM to DVD, SMK to DVD, OGM to DVD, WMV to DVD, ASF to DVD, 3GP to DVD, 3G2 to DVD for free.
DVD Flick supports DVD Authoring, ISO image creating, DVD burning also in one tool.
System requirements:

• A Pentium or AMD K-6 processor. Pentium 3 or later recommended, the faster the better.
• 64 MB of free physical RAM, 128 MB or more is recommended.
• Windows 2000, Windows XP , Windows Vista (If you are Mac user, use this Mac dvd creator)

Download the latest version of the DVD Flick website
If you are using Mac, Please click here to download the Mac DVD Creator

1. Download and run DVD Flick



2. Click "New project” button to create a new project.
3. Browse your hard drives to select path to the folder, where the resulting DVD folders
(AUDIO_TS, VIDEO_TS) will be saved. It is highly recommended to use NTFS file system in your OS, cause the temporary m2v files in most cases exceeds 4GB limit for FAT32 file system. Additionally, don't use non-English letters to the browsing path, because the errors could occur during DVD authoring process.
4. Add your title - select the video file or files for the project. DVD Flick supports these video file types: AVI, FLV, HDMOV, MKV, MJPG, MPG, M2V, MP4, M4V, NSV, NUT, QT, MOV, RM, SMK, OGM, WMV, ASF, 3GP, 3G2.
5. Title added. Left bar indicates how many bytes is used on the blank DVD disc with the default preferences. The percentage depends on the video file size which you have added in the previous guide step.



6. Edit title.
(1) General settings for the "Title".
reate chapters every: Purpose of the chapters usage is forward/back skipping forward during the DVD viewing. It is recommended to use this option.
You can also use fixed numbers of chapters - check "Create" button.
Aspect ratio is an auto detected value received from video file's frame dimension.


(2) Video sources for the "Title" - this tab informs us about video codec, frame size, Aspect ratio value, frame rate - Frames Per Second.


Frame rate. Check the bottom listing:

• 23,976 FPS - NTSC Film Format
• 25 FPS - PAL Format
• 29,97 FPS - NTSC Format
• 30 FPS - NTSC Format Reccomendations for the non-standard
• 12,5 FPS - PAL Format
• 15 FPS - NTSC Format Warning! Remember the format for your file - it will be the same "Target format" in "Project settings" .

Add a file to a title: This option allow to you to add new file or files to the "Title". It could be additional videos for this DVD, cutted scenes for examples, etc. Important thing is the same FPS for the main video file and the additional file.
Remove a file to a title: You can also remove a file to a title.
(3) Audio tracks tab.
Remove an audio track: Press "Edit" button, then remove from the "Audio track sources" additional audio track.
Add an audio track: Press "Add" button on the ”Audio track sources" tab, select the audio file from hard drive, check in the new "select audio track(s)" window track(s) you wish to add. Press "Accept" button. DVD Flick could extract audio tracks from all supported video files (AVI, FLV, HDMOV, MKV, MJPG, MPG, M2V, MP4, M4V, NSV, NUT, QT, MOV, RM, SMK, OGM, WMV, ASF, 3GP, 3G2), and also native audio file formats: AAC, AC3, Flac, MKA, MP3, MP2, MPA, OGG, WAV, WMA
Select language for the additional audio track. Select the audio track, and then select from the”Track language" list box.
(4). Subtitles tab.
Add subtitles. Press "Add" button on the "Subtitles" tab, and then select from disk file with subtitles. DVD Flick supports these subtitles formats: AQT, JS, RT, SMI, ASS, SRT, SSA, TXT. Subtitle settings. Press "Edit" button to change subtitles settings. Select the language you need. Other settings are for the Font, Font size, and placement of the subtitles. As usually, press "Accept" button to save setting. "Force display" option will force subtitle displaying during playback, even they were not selected in menu.



If everything was made rightly, we will see this window with the changed settings for subtitles. There are no more editing tabs for "Title properties". Press "Accept" button to save preferences.
7. Project settings. At the DVD Flick main window press "Project settings" button.
General tab.
Select a "Target size" for your DVD from list box. The default value is "DVD (4,3 GB)", default values could be changed by pressing "Use as defaults" button. If you need to select custom DVD size just scroll up the list box to the "Custom" value and the bottom "Custom size" option will be enabled for editing.
"Encoder priority" allows to you to use "DVD Flick" with high priority in your operating system to decrease full encoding time.



Video tab.
Set your DVD "Target Format".
"Encoding profile" for better encoding performance is highly recommended to select as "Normal" or "Best". "Fastest" and "Fast" mode decrease full encoding time, but with the lower quality results.
"Target bitrate" is more easy to use as "Auto fit". This option will calculate bitrate for encoding automatically depends on DVD "Target size" and will be set as maximum possible value. If you have some advanced experience with DVD encoding, you can set "Custom bitrate".
Set up advanced video options - press "Advanced" button.
Check "Second encoding pass" to improve output encoding results. It is highly recommended to use this option, but it wills increase full encoding time.
Check "Half horizontal resolution" to enable Half D1 DVD Mode - one of the standard for DVD, decreases frame size to 352x576 for PAL and to 352x480 for NTSC (instead of 720x576 (PAL) and 720x480 (NTSC)). Could be used as a possibility to decrease encoding bitrate, for more video length on one DVD disc.
Check "Add overscan borders" to make your DVD with black left and right borders to view all the source video on your TV.
Deinterlace option is not recommended to use.
Check "Force MPEG-2 recompression" to recompress your mpeg-2 video source files, do not check option if m2v files were encoded with Cam Video Tool 4 DVD Flick.



Burning tab.
If the "Create ISO image" is set, the ISO image file will be created on your disk, in the "Project destination folder". ISO image could be useful, if you prefer to burn DVD using another application, supporting ISO images. "MDS" (Media decriptor) file will be created also. If you want to burn your DVD with DVD Flick, check "Burn project to disc" (red arrow). if you are using DVD+RW, DVD-RW disc, check "Automatically erase disc if it is rewritable". If quick erase will be not possible, ImgBurn (included in DVD Flick installation package) will make full erase for rewritable discs.
Accept all "Project settings" using "Accept" button. Now we are ready to burn our DVD.

8. Create DVD.
Press "Create DVD" button at the main window.
DVD Flick will ask for confirmation to proceed - press "Yes".
Additional warning about "Project destination folder" - Press "Yes".
"DVD Flick Progress" window shows to user all executed steps.
When the DVD burning will be done, we will see this window. Press "Close" to return to the DVD Flick main window. In the main window you can save DVD Flick project to your hard drive.

DVD Flick is only for Windows PC users. If you are Mac user, you can use this best DVD creator for Mac. It is a professional Mac DVD Burner program that converts almost all popular video formats such as FLV, MPEG1, MPEG2, MP4, DAT, 3GP, 3G2, MOV, AVI to DVD on Mac. And it can burn DVD movie playable on portable or home DVD player on Mac.

If you want to convert iTunes videos to DVD, you need to get the videos from iTunes to computer .
And then use DVD flick to convert iTunes videos to DVD for free.

If you want to burn YouTube videos on DVD, you can download the youtube videos to your computer.
And then using DVD flick to burn YouTube videos on DVD for free. If you are a Mac user, use this best dvd creator for Mac to help you. You can also copy videos form other video sites such as veoh, google video, iFlim, vidilife, blip.tv, music.com, zippyvideos, dailymotion, devilducky, etc and then burn them to DVD using this methods.

Here are some other DVD burner.
DVD Styler
DVD Styler is an open source DVD authoring system for Windows and Linux. It converts MPEG files, which you can drag and drop into its window, create NTSC/PAL DVD menus which are highly customizable (you can set image backgrounds, put text and images anywhere, change the font and colors, etc), set chapters for the movie, etc.
DivXtoDVD Perl Script
DivXtoDVD is a Perl script for Linux and other Posix systems (like BSD, Unix, Unix-like operating systems) that converts a DivX movie to DVD compliant files (AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS directories and files). It uses transcode, ffmpeg, mjpeg and dvdauthor to do the job in one step. The software is open source. Note that this is different from the commercial ConvertXtoDVD software which was also formerly named DivXtoDVD. If you're looking for the latter, a trial download is available.
ImgBurn
ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit! It has several 'Modes', each one for performing a different task:
Read - Read a disc to an image file
Build - Create an image file from files on your computer or network - or you can write the files directly to a disc
Write - Write an image file to a disc
Verify - Check a disc is 100% readable. Optionally, you can also have ImgBurn compare it against a given image file to ensure the actual data is correct
Discovery - Put your drive / media to the test! Used in combination with DVDInfoPro, you can check the quality of the burns your drive is producing
Q DVD-Author
Q DVD-Author is essentially a GUI front-end for dvdauthor and other related tools found on a Linux system. You can create DVD menus, convert your projects between PAL and NTSC (and vice versa), create sub-menus, add subtitles, transcode your input videos from other formats, apply multiple audio streams to the videos, give menus multiple soundtracks, create a DVD slideshow, create animated menus, etc. This is an open source program that works under Linux and other Posix OSes.
KDE DVD Authoring Wizard
The KDE DVD Authoring Wizard allows you to create a DVD from a DVD-compatible MPEG-2 file (that is, it doesn't do the conversion from other formats for you). You can add multiple files and create a menu of the playlist if you wish. Your DVD menu can have multiple pages, a soundtrack from OGG or MP3, animated thumbnails and be in the NTSC or PAL format, be in 16:9 widescreen or 4:3 full screen, etc. This DVD authoring tool works under Linux. It is open source.

How to download torrent video and put torrent video to iPod, iPhone, etc

This article includes four parts:
Part 1. What is torrent?
Part 2. How to download torrent files to computer?
Part 3. How to put the torrent videos to iPod, iPhone, PSP, etc
Part 4. Top torrent sites and iPod torrent sites

Part 1. What is torrent?
Torrent is a small file with the suffix .torrent, which contains all the information needed to download a file the torrent was made for. That means it contains file names, their sizes, where to download from and so on. You can get torrents for almost anything on lots of web sites and torrent search engines.
Torrent is the most popular way of downloading large files, including movies and games (remember legality of downloading). Downloading with a torrent is advantageous especially when downloading files, which are momentarily very popular and which lots of people are downloading. Because the more people download the file, the higher speed for everyone.

Part 2. How to download torrent files to computer?
Downloading with a torrent is actually very simple. You just need a rightly set torrent client (setting your connection speed is usually all you need to set). Then you open the torrent file inside your client, set a place where you want to download desired files and then just wait till it's downloaded. Downloading with a torrent is no more complicated than using any other p2p application, but even simpler.
Here are some free torrent clients:
1. A BitTorrent client is a program that manages torrent downloads and uploads using the BitTorrent protocol. BitTorrent is the global standard for accessing rich media over the Internet. It supports Windows, Mac, and Linux.


BitTorrent Ports Tip to Speed Up Clients

2. µTorrent (uTorrent) is a free BitTorrent client for Microsoft Windows written in C++ and localized for many different languages. It is designed to use minimal computer resources while offering functionality comparable to larger BitTorrent clients such as Azureus or BitComet. The program has received consistently good reviews for its feature set, performance, stability, and support for older hardware and versions of Windows (For Wine, Windows 95 (Winsock2), 98/ME, NT/2000, XP, 2003, and Vista).
3. BitLet: this is a web-based Torrent client that can download a Torrent file for you if you provide it with the Torrent URL. The obvious benefits of doing this are:
(1) If you are using a computer that doesn't have a Torrent client installed
(2) You can point Torrent-challenged friends who can never figure out how to download torrents to this web service and it just may be the solution to their rare Torrent-downloading needs
(3) You can use it to download torrents in places (work, school) where p2p and/or Torrent clients are blocked.
Bitlet requires that your browsers has the JAVA VM plugin installed.
You can get more free Torrent clients from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_client

Part 3. How to put the torrent videos to iPod, iPhone, PSP, etc
After you finish downloading the torrent (Video, Song what ever it is) you might need to use winrar or winzip if it is compressed then put it on your iPod. The torrent videos that you download from iPod torrent sites do not need to convert. You can transfer them to iPod using iTunes.
But if they are not in a format the iPod, iPod, iPhone, Zune and other players can play, you might have to convert them. You need to download this best video converter (Mac/Windows PC) which works perfectly for almost all popular video players like iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod nano, iPhone, Apple TV, PSP, PS3, Youtube (web), Creative Zen, iRiver PMP, Archos, various video mobile phones and many other digital video and audio players. Install and use it to convert the torrent videos. After conversion, you can put the torrent videos to iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod nano, iPhone, Apple TV, PSP, PS3, Youtube (web), etc.

Part 4. Top torrent sites and iPod torrent sites
The Top Torrent Sites:
Torrentportal.com
Bitsoup
BiteNova
Torrentscan.com
LegalTorrents.com
Isohunt.com
Torrentspy.com
Torrentz.com
Torrents.to
Snarf It!
Torrentmatrix.com
Mininova.org
FileMP3.org
TorrentBytes.net
Torrentreactor.to
Torrentbox.com.
BTjunkie
TorrentTyphoon.com
Yotoshi.com
The Pirate Bay
TopTorrents
Scrapetorrent.com
Meganova.org
Torrent-damage.net
ByTorrents Meta Search
FullDLS.com
Thinktorrent.com
FileList.org
Torrentlocomotive
bittorrent.com
Fenopy (formerly Bitoogle.com)
BTbot.com
Special mention: Torrents.co.uk
Special mention: LokiTorrent.com
Special mention: Commonbits.com

iPod torrent sites:
http://podtropolis.com/
http://www.iPodnova.com/
http://www.elroyonline.com/