How to Live » free stuff

Convert a Video for Copying into Creative Zen Devices

admin — Fri, 23 May 2008 09:27:00 +0000

I recently bought a Creative Zen multi-media player which is as small as a credit card, with a screen as much as the same size. I hate Apple’s iPods because of the annoying iTunes software. With Creative Zen, you can just plug in and directly copy the files. If the copied file is compatible with Creative Zen (such as .mp3, .mp4, .jpeg), you will be able to see the media otherwise, it will be stored just like that.

I tried to convert a DVD video and copy into Creative Zen, but the default Zen Media Explorer that comes with the product could not do the job.

Step 1: Ripping the DVD to your PC.
There are many softwares available to do this job, but my personal favourite is DVD Shrink. You can download a free copy from After Dawn DVD Shrink page.

For Vista owners:
My friends have said there are some issues with Vista (yea, Vista!) and DVD Decrypter – another free tool does a better job.

You can either of the software to rip any DVD into your Hard disk. You can re-author those movie files or directly burn them into a region-free DVD for your personal use.

Step 2: Convert DVD movie into XviD format.
Download AutoGK (yet another free tool) to convert the ripped .VOB files to XviD video format. Now, you would be able to copy these XviD (open source equivalent of divX format) to your Creative Zen with the help of Media Explorer.

If you are struck and would like to see a detailed tutorial proceed to Zen Vision :M DVD Ripping Guide

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Cute Hanging Toys for your Desk PC (PICS)

admin — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 03:37:00 +0000

These small toys can help to relive the work stress. I dont know where you can find them. Stick them around to fuel some fun into your workplace environment.

Superman takes over!

SUPERMAN can do anything.

Don’t touch

A cat’s tail can be used as CD holder

Hello, is anyone speaking any secrets out there?

A pig that is trying to bite off.

A cute Honeybee hovering on the Escape Key

Yellow dog hangs over Mouse wire.

Yo yo…!

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Want some free Schwags – Stickers, Buttons and T-shirts?

admin — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:40:00 +0000

Schwags are buttons, stickers and t-shirts that companies give to people to publicize their brands. As most of the web 2.0 companies do not spend much money in advertising, they are generous in promoting their brand by giving away ‘branded schwags’ to the users.

How do you get hold of such free schwags. If you happen to visit the web conferences, tech fests and seminars, you will get a loads of such stuff.

If not, you can email them using their contact page and ask them. Not all the web companies encourage the users openly as the following few.

Flickr Schwags: FREE
For example, Flickr says in its blog page that if you need stickers, buttons, balloons – you could send an email to them. I did and got a pack of goodies which are really cool.

“When you are organising a flickr meer, if you let us know in addition to adding your event to the Upcoming Flickr group — we can send you some Flickr schwag: stickers, buttons and name tags. Please include your postal address and let us know as soon as you can, ideally, at least a month before the event.” – Flickr blog

Visit http://www.flickr.com/help/contact to let them know you want some flickr goodies. Within few weeks, the parcel should arrive you.

Feedburner Stickers: FREE

Taking a cue from Flickr, now Feedburner provides stickers, but you need to send them some pre-paid, self-addressed envelopes to their address.

Read this announcement on the Feedburner official blog.

Startup Schwag:
There is much an easy way, if you can shell some out some money ($25-$30), startupschwag will collect all such cool schwags (with one T-shirt guaranteed) every month to your address.

There was a startup named ValleySchwag which got shut down earlier because, they could not cope with the users demand. Now, the home page link leads to a 404 page.

Other FREE Stickers:

You can get a free 2007 Ferrari Stickers given away by Shell.

Have you requested such goodies from companies? Whats your experience?

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7 Creative ideas for shooting Youtube videos (14 samples)

admin — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 21:46:00 +0000

Videos are sweet only when they are short and crisp. I would NOT sit in front of my PC to watch your 1 hour video that drags on and on endlessly without any point. How do you shoot such short, yet captivating videos? Here are some cool ideas to unleash your creative power. I have given some sample video links (from youtube, all work-safe) for each idea to inspire you. The world is getting ready to watch your videos, Savvy?

Before we begin some basic video tutorial links. Tips on using Windows Movie Maker for editing movies.

Windows Movie Maker Video Editing Tutorial

How To Make Videos Using MSPaint and Windows Movie Maker

YouTube Video Tutorial #2 – Windows Movie Maker tips

1. Time lapse video
Time lapse videos are easy to make – you keep your camera mounted on a place (a street corner or at your office) and start recording. After certain duration, stop recording and bring to the editing room. In your favourite video editing software, fast-forward the video to at least 100 times fast. Then add a background score, thats it.

How do I make a time lapse video – A good tutorial for starters.

Sample videos:
All 4 seasons of an year at one place – This video is amazing – seasons change right before your eyes within seconds.

Time lapse street race with Toy cars – You can even shoot a video in your bedroom.

2. Interviewing someone
Prepare 10 questions to interview someone (if the person is a girl, you will get lot of views), and do a timed 1-minute interview. You can make the questions such that the respondent can answer with just a “Yes” or “No”. Or ask a question to many people, say, ‘Who would you like to see as the next president of USA?’ – ask people answer this question with videos (video replies).

Sample videos:
Interview with PARIS HILTON (That’s how my friend calls herself)

A student interviews his teacher

3. Provide your own tips
Start recording your camera and go in front and give some tips to the world. Yes, you can provide funny tips on a specific area of your expertise. Choose a wild topic such as, “10 ways to save yourself when a hungry Rhinoceros chases you”, “Things to do when you are stuck in 10,000 BC”, “10 things that you want to know about Australia” or “Tips for organizing a bachelor party”. Be creative and think of some wild topic, it should inspire your viewers to post replies and comments.

Sample videos:
Teen Tips: How To Buy Alcohol – If you are under 18, how do you buy alcohol. Here’s how.

Trick Tips: How to Look Like a Good Skater – when you are, actually, NOT.

4. Playing with texts
Use MS powerpoint slides to make compelling statements. Print them and show them in front of the camera and remove one page at a time (give enough time to readers to read the print), end with a final punch line. Add background music to the video and upload it.

Sample videos:
I’m a PayPerPost Blogger – Simple printed slides make a movie

Playing with texts – A cute, 30 sec animation done by a student

5. Screen capture your Desktop activities
Install good screen capture software, first. Start the screen capture software to record any screen activities you do on your PC. Paint a drawing or doodle in Photoshop. Or just simply browse as you normally do. Or just type something – a letter, or a blog post. Stop the screen capture recording, edit the movie (use fast-forward technique) and add some peppy music as the background score. That’s it you have made a very cool movie for Youtube.

Sample videos:
A month in the life of geek desktop – Just snapshots of desktop for a month, then a creative movie.

Latest Desktop Wars – If you have not heard this animation series, it is worth a watch.

6. Make an Advert
Shoot an advert or a television commercial for McDonalds, KFC or for the poor Microsoft. Write your own script, draw a storyboard – use existing videos and your own voice and music. When you are making and advert on a well-known global brand, you are bound to get lot of viewers (and criticisms). Who knows, the MNCs would make a way to your door to sign you up (ok, I was kidding!).

Sample videos:
McDonalds ad – Done by students as a school project

Coca Cola Commercial – Watch this 30 second animation

7. Dub for someone
Get some videos where political leaders make a speech or famous celebrity giving an interview to someone. Now, strip off the celebrity speaker’s voice (use volume mute in your video editing software) and add your own voice and a funny one-line. Mix different questions and use some funny one-liners from stripped from old James Bond movies.

Sample videos:
LOL Bush & Condi Comedy Spoof - Who is the president of China? Very funny.

Bill Gates is retiring – From a TV show, but it can inspire you.

What are you waiting for? Go out there, shoot some movies and upload them in YouTube.

Got any idea? Share it with us!

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Boost your Blog’s Popularity with Romlet

admin — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 06:15:00 +0000

Romlet is a simple, lovely widget that boasts your “best site stats” and incentives for visitors to boost your popularity. This simple but powerful widget is a brag badge, bookmarking tool and stats counter all rolled into one. Romlet is continually updated to display current on-site information to you and your readers.

Here’s an interview with the founder of Romlet:

Why you Boast and Boost Blog Popularity with Romlet

Halil: What is Romlet and what´s the difference opposite to other widgets?

ROMlet: Romlet is a widget designed to boast and boost a blog’s popularity. It is a stats badge, bookmarking tool and analytics counter all rolled into one.

It is similar to but different from other currently poplar blog widgets. Like AddThis, it displays buttons that allow readers to bookmark blog posts. Unlike AddThis, however, Romlet automatically provides buttons that are up-to-date and relevant each time a visitor sees it.

Like a FeedBurner readership badge, Romlet shows information about incoming visitors. However, a FeedBurner badge only shows one kind of statistic: number of feed readers. This isn’t always a helpful number for newer bloggers to display. Romlet shows off the best statistics by displaying top referers at any given time.

Like a MyBlogLog widget, Romlet gives information about current visitors. However Romlet encourages people to link to your blog in order to appear as a top referer. This brings in both traffic and PageRank to a site. Romlet is, in a way, a complementary widget to the MyBlogLog recent refers one: MBL displays recent visitors, and Romlet displays recent traffic sources.

Halil: How did you come up with the idea for the Romlet widget?

ROMlet: To be honest, this is something that arose out of a personal desire to have a widget like Romlet on our own sites. We have all had mixed experiences with adding tons of blog widgets. Too many widgets mean clutter, and clutter seems unprofessional and confuses visitors. Also, there were simply things that other widgets didn’t do that we wanted to have. The best part so far, to be honest, has been getting to use Romlet on our own pages! Of course, it has also been exciting to see pre-beta users create custom Romlets for their sites as well!

Halil: Who are the people behind romlet?

ROMlet: There are currently four primary contributors to Romlet. Two are brothers, one of whom has worked for successful startups like Orbitz and Neoglyphics, while the other is a preofessional blogger with a masters degree in architecture. We also have an veteran blogger with extensive web development experience and an internet marketing expert on board who provide valuable industry expertise. We all know one another, and are all in this for the joy of developing something new and interesting that we each plan to use ourselves.

Halil: All around the web are a lot of people who are building widgets, why did you guys plan to run into this market and what do you think about the future of this market?

ROMlet: Again, this comes down to what multiple people saw as a common problem – a gaping void in the existing capability of available widgets. There are plenty of widgets that do different things, but few are as versatile, customizable and ideally suited to blogs of all kinds as Romlet. As to the future of widgets: it is our belief that those widgets which perform the most diverse and useful functions all-in-one will survive any collapse in the overall widget market.

Halil: Why should people use Romlet?

ROMlet: Romlet is useful to both a blogger and their blog readers in multiple ways, despite the deceptive simplicity of the widget itself. Romlet helps a blogger quickly assess their own daily statistics and see their refering sources without logging into an analytics account. In turn, Romlet shows a blog’s reader the best buttons for bookmarking and supporting a blog. It also encourages readers to return to a site, out of curiosity bout refering sources.

Moreover, the Romlet widget is just the start. Romlet.com will have additional community features that will spotlight and link to active community members and send them even more referal traffic. What is starting as a widget will become the bais for much more – with the feedback of users like you!

ROMlet’s Page

Authors Page: Halil

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FREE:Ten Must-Read Self-help Books

admin — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 06:56:00 +0000

I was browsing through this new web service – scribd – where users share their best ebooks. You can get almost anything for free. You can save a book as a .pdf, .doc, .txt or even .mp3 file (I have not listened to any one yet).

I found 10 books that are really helpful for anyone who is interested in improving their life. Here they are..all yours – Best of Scribd – FREE to download.

10. 10 Small Steps to Real Self-Knowledge – How to improve your self-knowledge with these very simple steps to adjust in your everyday life.

09. Self Improvement The Top 101 Experts That Help Us Improve Our Lives – The Top 101 Experts That Help Us Improve Our Lives – by David Riklan Published by Self Improvement Online, Inc.

08. The Lemonade Principle – When Life Hands You Lemons Make Lemonade! – A terrific book to make you feel happier and healthier.

07. Getting Things Done by David Allen – I must-read this one immediately.

06. The Best Advice I Ever Got-Warren Buffett & others – Warren Buffett, Richard Branson, Meg Whitman, A.G. Lafley, and 24 other luminaries on the people who most influenced their business lives.

05. Communicate to Win – A clever and simple recipe to gain communication skills in order to be successful.

04. Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends and influence people – You must be kidding if you think I would leave out this book. In case, if you have n’t read this classic, go ahead now.

03. Peoplemaking by Virginia Satir – A classic book dealing with the importance of ‘family therapy’.

02. Masters of Body Language – If you are good at observing this language, you wont get into trouble again. Also, you may look at the classic Allan Pease’s – Body Language.

01. David DeAngelo – One Default Thing To Do In Any Situation

If you like this blog post, you might consider subscribing to this blog (two inspiring updates per week!).

BONUS: Advice to Young Men from an Old Man – A list from the “best of craiglist”. 2-minute read.

Extra BONUS: Steve Jobs’s Commencement Speech at Stanford – CEO, Apple Inc. Even if you aren’t a huge Steve Jobs fan, you will like this speech.

Originally, I published this post in my other blog.

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Design your Dream House without spending a penny for the architect

admin — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 02:51:00 +0000

Floorplanner (link via 365questions ) lets you to design your dream house with simple drag and drop features for free.

Like you, I have been chasing my architect friends to explain my dream house in words, until I found this great web service that lets you do / change / re-do your house plan.

You can design the floor, drag and drop furnitures (over 300+ to choose from), then once you completed the design either you can save it as .jpg file or directly publish over your blog.

The floor plan will have accurate measurements so in case, if you want to talk to building professionals, shoot them an email with the image of a dream house.

How cool is that?

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Find "Happy Hour Beer" on a Map

admin — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 06:21:00 +0000

Getting thirsty? Now, you can find which bar in your neighbourhood offers drinks (beer) at their bets price – you can browse pubs that offer “Happy Hour” plans.

This MappyHour application is built on top of Google maps and you can add your own favourite bars and pubs on it with a simple click and edit.

You can chat with your friends, organize a pub crawl and share links with your friends if you sign up to the service.

Enjoy drinking.

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Now, you can download Alexa Toolbar for Firefox

admin — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 06:14:00 +0000

In a previous blog post, I mentioned about Alexa Pagerank and how you can improve your site’s rankings.

Earlier, the firefox users did not have an exclusive alexa toolbar. Now, we can download the official toolbar named, Sparky – the alexa toolbar for firefox.

When you visit a site, you can automatically see the alexa parameters such as..

Related Links: Find sites that are similar to the one you are currently visiting.
Traffic Trend: A sparkline showing the traffic trend from the last four months.
Reach Meter: A neat little indicator that shows the site’s Reach.
Traffic Rank: Shows the current site’s Alexa Traffic Rank.

What a cool tool.

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How to submit your blog post to 40 social networks all-at-once

admin — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 23:14:00 +0000

The social news web services are growing day by day. Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Blogmarks, Netscape and many more exist and each one follows a different set of title, link and tags for successful submission.

How do you post to these social sites all-at-once?

Social Poster will help you to do just that. You can enter the title, url and description and tags once for your blog post and then hit the “Generate” button, it’s ready for submission to 40 sites.

The 40 social sites include Digg,Netscape,Reddit,Del.icio.us,Stumbleupon,Google,Bookmarks,Myweb2.search.yahoo,Technorati,Indianpad,Socialogs,Furl.net,Diigo,Wirefan,Bibsonomy.org,Looklater,Blinklist,Blogmemes.net,Bluedot.us,Myjeeves.ask,Simpy,Backflip,Spurl.net,Newsvine,Netvouz,Folkd,Grupl,Blinkbits,Bmaccess.net,Shadows,Ma.gnolia,Scuttle.org,Smarking,Blogmarks.net,Plugim,Linkagogo,Dotnetkicks,Mister-wong.de,Favorites.live,Wdclub and Yigg.de.

For instance, this following link will help to you post my article to those 40 social news sites.

10 Common Mistakes Made by web 2.0 start-ups:How to avoid them

Submit to Social Websites

How cool is that?

Link via TechBharat

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