100+ Open Source Apps

TOP 100+ best Free Opensource Software for windows XP and Vista

Here are a few Great open source apps i am using and most which i would definitely recommend to anybody, even if your not particularly skillful with software, these applications have such an easy user interface utilizing should be a breeze. I put them in a list so it is easily browsable .

Web Browsing

Mozilla Firefox

The premier free, open-source browser. Tabs, pop-up blocking, themes, and extensions. Considered by many to be the world's best browser.

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Video Player / Video Podcasting

Miro

Beautiful interface. Plays any video type (much more than windows media player). Subscribe to video RSS, download, and watch all in one. Torrent support. Search and download from YouTube and others.
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IM - Instant Messaging

Pidgin

Connect to multiple IM accounts simultaneously in a single app, including: AOL IM, MSN, and Jabber.

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Email

Mozilla Thunderbird

Powerful spam filtering, solid interface, and all the features you need.

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RSS

FeedReader

Simple, lightweight aggregator.

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RSSOwl

Solid cross-platform RSS client.

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Peer-to-Peer Filesharing

Cabos

A simple, easy to use filesharing program. Gnutella network.

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Gnucleus

A very good Gnutella search and download filesharing program.
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Azureus

A powerful, but complicated BitTorrent client. So many features you'll lose your mind.

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Video Playback

VLC

Plays more video files than most players: Quicktime, AVI, DIVX, OGG, and more. Pretty good interface.

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MPlayer

Similar to VLC– plays loads of video formats.

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Media Player Classic

Compact, but powerful media player. Plays anything under the sun. No install necessary.

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DVD Ripping / Video Conversion

Media Coder

Great tool for ripping CDs, DVDs, etc and converting between tons of video formats.
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Word Processing / Office Suites

OpenOffice.org

Big, full featured suite of tools for word processing and spreadsheets. Compatible with and a free replacement for Microsoft Word documents. Also supports OpenDocument Format.
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AbiWord

A word processor. Leaner and quicker than OpenOffice. Compatible with Microsoft Word documents and OpenDocument Format.

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Podcasting

Juice

Solid podcasting client.

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DVD Ripping

Handbrake

DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter.

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Sound Recording

Audacity

Simple sound recording tool.

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Graphics / Photo Editing

GIMPShop

Photo editing application that rivals Photoshop in features.

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Paint.net

Graphics editor with a very nice interface.
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Inkscape

Vector graphics application.

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FTP / SFTP

Filezilla

Excellent FTP program.

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IRC

X-Chat 2

IRC client.

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Freemind

An innovative application for note taking and outlining. Takes time to get used to, but some people swear by it.

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Jarnal

Open Source note taking application written in Java

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Keynote

Open Source note taking application, very good. I use this myself extensively

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Personal Finance

TurboCASH

Simple, easy to use application for managing personal finances.
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Quasar

Easy to use Accounting package

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Chat Clients

AMSN

MSN Messenger client written in TCL/TK
AMSN Messenger

X-Chat

IRC Client
X-Chat

More Web Browsing

KMeleon

Fast, nice web browser.

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Amaya Browser for Windows

W3C developed web browser and editor for multiple platforms

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Screensaver

Electric Sheep

Immersive, trippy screensaver.

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More Filesharing

Frostwire

GNUTella client based on the Limewire codebase.
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Also see: Poisoned - Azureus

3D Graphics and Modeling

Blender

Powerful 3D Modeling software.

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Also see: Kerkythea (illumination engine) - Persistence of Vision Raytracer - Quesa

Stars and Outer Space

Celestia

Open-source 3D planetarium software. Akin to traveling through space (outer space).

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Stellarium

"Renders realistic skys in realtime." See what you would see if your city wasn't so light-polluted. Used in real planetariums.

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Also see: macORSA - Orbit Reconstruction, Simulation, and Analysis

Games

Marathon: Aleph One

Engine for Bungie's free FPS series Marathon. Play online, solo play with rich original story, many total conversions and thousands of maps.

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Zombies

3D zombie strategy game.
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Armagetron Advanced

3D Tron game.

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BZFlag

First-person tank game.

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Battle for Wesnoth

Fantasy / Strategy Game
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Also see: Snes9X (SNES emulator), Frozen Bubble

Free File Hosting

CC Publisher

Host Creative Commons video or audio files for free on archive.org with this easy uploader.

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Security Tools

NMap

Easy to use port scanner for Windows

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Wireshark

Network Protocol Analyzer, formerly called Ethereal

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TrueCrypt

Creates encrypted virtual hard drives for extra security

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ClamWin

Open Source Anti-Virus. Very good at detecting viruses. Can be plugged into hMailServer for e-mail protection
LIMITATION: Real Time scanning not implemented yet
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Eraser

Delete files securely off your hard drive utilizing DoD standards

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MP3 and Audio Tools

MP3 Gain

Easy to use MP3 manipulation tool for Windows. adjusts sound levels on MP3's so they are all the same

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MP3 Book Helper

This program provides rapid Mp3 (ID3v1, ID3v2) and Ogg/Speex/Flac Vorbis tags editing and file renaming functions. Mass Tag editing is done using special variables and Regular Expressions.
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musikCube

Open Source MP3 Player, ripper and organizer written using the .NET Framework

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Utilities

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7zip

File archiver.

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Developer tools

SharpDevelop

Open Source IDE for the .NET Framework. Utilizes the multiple programming languages and Windows forms

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Notepad ++

Open Source programmers notepad for Windows

ScITE

Source code Editor for Windows and X

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Web Developer Server Suite

Very good WAMP Stack (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP) Very thouroughly tested on Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Server (preliminary testing on Longhorn Server underway). Highly Recommended.

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Mapping Tools

Nasa World Wind

Mapping tool similar to Google Earth for Windows. Must have the .NET Framework installed.

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Address Book

• Corvalis - is a free, open source address management system .Export to/import from other popular e-mail programs such as Outlook and free e-mail service. Improved search features and group management .
• Rubrica - is an address book manager for the GNOME Environment. It allows you to add personal data (name, surname, address, etc.), web links, irc and email addresses, telephone numbers, job information (company where contact works, company infos, contact's assigment, etc.) and notes.

 

Audio Tools

• MediaCoder - is a free universal batch media transcoder, which nicely integrates most popular audio/video codecs and tools into an all-in-one solution. It converts file formats, giving you a great deal of control over the output. It can also save you plenty of hard disk space by shrinking media files. There are also lots of extensions you can download that expand the programs' capabilities, such as make it easy to transcode files for specific media players.
• Audacity - is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. It allows users to record live audio, convert tapes and records to digital formats, or mix pre-existing digital audio tracks. Supported formats include Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files. Operating system: Windows, Linux/Unix, OS X, Classic Mac.
• HandBrake - is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It grabs video from a variety of sources, including a DVD and a DVD image, and grabs audio from sources as well, including MPEG audio tracks. You'll then be able to output a digital file in a variety of formats, including MPEG-4, AVI, OGM for video, or AAC, MP3, and Ogg Vorbis for audio.
• LAME -is one of the best MP3 encoders in the world, producing excellent quality MP3s. It is used by many CD rippers, combopacks and so on and its popularity is increasing almost daily. Also, in great quality DivX encoding, people tend to use LAME over other MP3 encoders.
• AC3Filter - is an open source AC3 decoding filter that allows you to watch videos with AC3-encoded surround audio. After you install the filter, all video players, including Microsoft's Windows Media Player, that use DirectShow, should be able to play AC3 audio correctly. Filter also supports ProLogicII audio as well.
• MP3Gain -analyzes and adjusts mp3 files so that they have the same volume. It does not just do peak normalization, as many normalizers do. Instead, it does some statistical analysis to determine how loud the file actually sounds to the human ear. With MP3Gain you can adjust your songs per file, which makes them all play at the same loudness (radio gain), or per album, which keeps the volume differences within an album but makes the albums play at similar loudness.
• Moosic - is a music player for Unix systems. It focuses on convenient and powerful playlist management. The key feature of this music player is its playlist management/queuing abilities. By default, Moosic supports MP3, Ogg, MIDI, MOD, and WAV files, but it can be configured to support other file formats as well. Operating system: Unix.
• StreamRipper - allows you to record and save Shoutcast streams and other Internet audio. Its key feature is the ability to find silences and mark them as possible points of track separation. Operating system: Windows, Linux/Unix.
• EasyTAG - is a utility for viewing and editing tags for MP3, MP2, MP4/AAC, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, MusePack, Monkey's Audio and WavPack files. Its simple and nice GTK+ interface makes tagging easier under GNU/Linux or Windows.

 

Bulletin Board

• phpBB -is a high powered, fully scalable, and highly customizable open-source bulletin board package. phpBB has a user-friendly interface, simple and straightforward administration panel, and helpful FAQ. Based on the powerful PHP server language and your choice of MySQL, MS-SQL, PostgreSQL or Access/ODBC database servers, phpBB is the ideal free community solution for all web sites. Features include: Unlimited forums and posts; Multiple language interface; Private or public forums; Powerful search utility; Private messaging system; Templates.

 

Databases

• Firebird -is a relational database offering many ANSI SQL standard features that runs on Linux, Windows, and a variety of Unix platforms.
• PostgreSQL -is an advanced PostgreSQL-based search engine that provides online indexing of data and relevance ranking for database searching. Close integration with database allows use of metadata to restrict search results. Operating system: Windows, Linux/Unix, OS X, Solaris.

 

Content Managers

• Joomla! - is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems on the planet. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable.
• Drupal - an open source content management platform. Equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal supports a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites.
• Wordpress - is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.
• Plone - Content Management System built on top of the open source application server Zope and the accompanying Content Management Framework
• XOOPS -is an extensible, OO (Object Oriented), easy to use dynamic web content management system written in PHP. XOOPS is the ideal tool for developing small to large dynamic community websites, intra company portals, corporate portals, weblogs and much more. Read the All about XOOPS page for more details.
• Opencms - is a professional, easy to use website content management system. It is based on Java and XML technology. It can be deployed in an open source environment (e.g. Linux, Apache, Tomcat, MySQL) as well as on commercial components (e.g. Windows NT, IIS, BEA Weblogic, Oracle).
• WebGUI - is a web application framework and web content management system that puts the publishing power in the hands of the people who create the content, rather than the IT staff. Join the thousands of businesses, universities, and schools that have found out just how easy web can be.
• PHP-Nuke -is a powerful Open Source portal application. It can be used as a weblog or as a CMS. PhpNuke allows webmasters and editors to easily post new content and comment existing articles. PHPNuke is much for game clan and guild sites. It is free software, released under the GNU License.

 

Developer Tools

• phpMyAdmin - handles the administration of MySQL over the Web. phpMyAdmin performs many database administration tasks like running SQL statements, adding and dropping databases, and adding, editing or deleting tables or fields. Operating system: OS Independent.
• Dev-C++ gives you a full-featured Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the C/C++ programming language. It uses Mingw port of GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) as it's compiler. Dev-C++ can also be used in combination with Cygwin or any other GCC based compiler.
• EasyPHP - is a complete software package allowing to use all the power and the flexibility that offers the dynamic language PHP and the efficient use of databases under Windows. Package includes an Apache server, a MySQL database, a fully PHP execution, as well as easy development tools for your web site or your applications.
• XAMPP - is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use - just download, extract and start. Operating system:Windows, Linux, OS/X, Solaris.
• Notepad++ is a free source code editor which supports several programming languages running under the M$ Windows environment. Notepad++ is designed to be a freeware replacement for Notepad. Supported languages : C, C++,Java, C#, XML, HTML, PHP, Javascript, RC resource file, make file, ASCII art file(extension .nfo, doxygen, ini file, batch file, ASP, VB/VBS source files, SQL, Objective-C, CSS, Pascal, Perl, Python and Lua.
• jEdit - is a text editor written in Java. It supports auto indent and syntax highlighting for 130 different coding languages, as well as dozens of independently developed plug-ins and macros that make programming easier. Operating system: OS Independent.
• TortoiseSVN - is a really easy to use Revision control / version control / source control software for Windows. It works directly from Windows Explorer and you can use it with virtually anydevelopment tools. Operating system: Windows.
• DotNetNuke - is a powerful open source framework that creates and deploys robust modules on the ASP.NET platform. Written by its core team of developers, this book will provide youwith the tools and insight you'll need to install, configure, and develop your own stunning
• AppServ - is an Apache/PHP/MySQL distribution designed to be completely installed and configured in less than one minute. While it works on Windows, the developers recommend Linux for Web ordatabase servers that will be used heavily. Operating system: Windows, Linux/Unix.
• SharpDevelop -is a free IDE for C#, VB.NET and Boo projects on Microsoft's. It includes a forms designer, code completer, an integrated debugger, and many other features. Operating system: Windows.
• wxWidgets - lets developers create applications for Win32, Mac OS X, GTK+, X11, Motif, WinCE, and more using one codebase. It can be used from languages such as C++, Python, Perl, and C#/.NET.
• Hibernate - is a powerful, high-performance object/relational persistence and query service. Hibernate allows you to express queries in its own portable SQL extension (HQL), as well as in native SQL, or with an object-oriented Criteria and Example API.
• Ultimate++ is a C++ cross-platform rapid application development suite focused on programmers productivity. It includes a set of libraries (GUI, SQL, etc..), and an integrated development environment.
• DeskWeb - applies the iconography and usability of a common Windows desktop system to Web applications. It is familiar and user-friendly and lets users easily learn how-to exploit all of the software's features. It can be used in various ways, such as a content management system, a company groupware, a wiki, or more. Operating system: OS Independent.
• Zile - is a small Emacs clone. Zile is a customizable, self-documenting real-time open-source display editor. Zile was written to be as similar as possible to Emacs; every Emacs user should feel at home. Operating system: Linux/Unix.
• WAMP5 - installs automatically Apache, PHP, MySQL, PHPmyadmin and SQLite manager on any Windows system. It was created in order to make it easy to use the latest version of PHP?PHP5Operating system: Windows.
• MiKTeX - is an up-to-date TeX implementation for the Windows operating system. It is a typesetting program with a complete set of fonts, utilities, and macros.
• TEA - is a GTK+-based text editor that supports a number of different coding languages, but it is especially helpful for writing HTML. It?s very small but includes a file manager, spellchecker, search function, and more. Operating system: Linux/Unix, OS X, Solaris.
• SiSU -is an information structuring, transforming, publishing and search framework. Supported formats include plain-text, HTML, XHTML, XML, ODF, LaTeX, and PDF. Operating system: Linux/Unix.
• PDFCreator -is a free tool to create PDF files from nearly any Windows application. It allows users to create PDF files from any printable Windows document. As an added bonus, it can also create PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS, or EPS files. Operating system: Windows.
• Ghostscript -allows users to convert, view, and print PostScript and PDF files. Different versions of the software are available either as open-source or as commercial distributions. Operating system: Windows, Linux/Unix, OS X, Classic Mac.

 

Emulators

• DOSBox - isa long gone from Windows–the command prompt inside Windows isn't truly DOS anymore. Many old games simply won't run from the Windows command prompt. They need true blue DOS. You can get the free DOSBox, which does a great job of emulating it. Install and run the program, then run any DOS game–or DOS application, for that matter–inside it. When you run DOSBox, it automatically sets any sound-system related variables, so that your sound system will work properly with your old games.
• ZNES - is a Super Nintendo emulator programmed by zsKnight and _Demo_. It lets you play your Super Nintendo games on your PC. Some games work better than others, and it?s very much a workin progress. Operating system: Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and DOS.
• eMule -is one of the biggest and most reliable peer-to-peer file sharing clients around the world. Many developers contribute to the project, so the network gets more and more efficient withevery new version. Operating system: Windows.
• Ares - is a P2P file-sharing program. It's easier to figure out how to search for files and download them, and it also will download files using BitTorrent, which is probably the most popular file-sharing protocol today. Also useful is that the program includes a built-in media player, as well as chat capabilities and a built-in Web browser.
• Wine - is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X, OpenGL, and Unix. It lets you run Windows programs on x86-based Unix systems. Operating system: Linux/Unix, OS X, Solaris.

 

P2P

• BitTorrent - is the global standard for delivering high-quality files over the Internet. BitTorrent enables you to publish your own content. If you are a filmmaker, musician, or even a comedian, it?s the perfect place to showcase your work to worldwide audience. Operating system: Windows, Linux/Unix.
• DC++ is an open source client for Windows for the Direct Connect network. Direct Connect allows you to share files over the Internet without restrictions or limits. The client is completely free of advertisements and has a nice, easy to use interface. Firewall and router support is integrated and it is easy and convenient to use functionality like multi-hub connections, auto-connections and resuming of downloads.
• BBurst! - is the BitTorrent client that uses less memory and other resources than the original client. Key features include a torrents manager and super-seeding mode. Operating system: Windows.
• BT++ is an improved client for the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file distribution solution. It is written, like the official BitTorrent client, in Python and wxPython for maximum cross-platform compatibility. It should work on any platform that wxPython is available for.
• Shareaza P2P - is known by its support for numerous P2P networks, including Gnutella2, Gnutella1, eDonkey2000/eMule, and BitTorrent. And its "Collections" feature allows users to preview albumcovers, song lists, and descriptions from a single screen. Operating system: Windows.
• ABC - is an improved client for the Bittorrent peer-to-peer file distribution solution. ABC is based on BitTornado which extended from from Original Bittorrent Core System , coded by Bram Cohen. It offers some unique customization options. With this app, you can customize which information is displayed, prioritize the queuing system, and download multiple files simultaneously in the same window. Operating system: Windows.
• RevConnect - is a file sharing program based on DC++. It is fully compatible with the Direct Connect network. RevConnect is an free open-source, ad and spyware-free client, written in C++ for the Direct Connect protocol that allows you to share files over the internet with other users. Operating system: Windows.

 

File Transfer

• WinSCP - allows users to transfer files securely via FTP and SFTP. It incorporates Secure Shell (SSH) technology. Operating system: Windows.
• cURL - is a command line tool for transferring files with URL syntax, supporting FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SCP, SFTP,TFTP, TELNET, DICT, FILE and LDAP. curl supports SSL certificates, HTTP POST,HTTP PUT, FTP uploading, HTTP form based upload, proxies, cookies, user+password authentication (Basic, Digest, NTLM, Negotiate, Kerberos…), file transfer resume, proxy tunneling and a busload of other useful tricks. Operating system: Windows, Linux/Unix, OS X, Solaris.

 

Games

• ScummVM - allows you to port many classic point-and-click adventure games to nearly any platform you like. Supported games include Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Beneath A Steel Sky, Day of the Tentacle, Broken Sword 1 and Broken Sword 2, Monkey Island, Samand Max, and dozens of others. Operating system: OS Portable.
• StepMania - can be played using the keyboard or a sensor-laden "dance pad". StepMania has game modes similar to Konami's Dance Dance Revolution and Andamiro's Pump It Up, Amuseworld'sEZ2Dancer, and Konami's Para Para Paradise. Operating system: Windows, Linux/Unix, OS X, Xbox.

 

Mobility Tools

• BitPim - is a program that allows you to view and manipulate data on many CDMA phones from LG, Samsung, Sanyo and other manufacturers. This includes the Phone Book, Calendar, WallPapers, RingTones(functionality varies by phone) and the File system for most Qualcomm CDMA chipset based phones. Operating system: Windows, Linux/Unix, OS X.
• PortableApps - aims to make all of your applications portable. It makes it easy to transfer software and data from your PC to a USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, or other device. Operating system: Windows.

 

Photo Tools

• Gallery - is an open source project with the goal to develop and support leading photo sharing web application solutions. It allow some basic photo manipulation, such as resizing, rotating, and altering image quality, but does not include advanced photo editing. Operating system: OS Independent.
• Coppermine Photo Gallery - is a multi-purpose fully-featured and integrated web picture gallery script written in PHP using GD or ImageMagick as image library with a MySQL backend. It offersa huge lineup of features including multiple languages, e-card creation, thumbnails, and many more. In order to use it, you need a Web server running Apache, PHP, MySQL, and either GD or ImageMagick. Operating system: OS Independent.

 

Instant Messaging

• aMSN - is an open source MSN Messenger clone. It allows you to communicate with users on multiple networks. a MSN also allows you to display pictures and emoticons and add skins to yourchat window. Operating system: Windows, Linux/Unix, OS X.
• Miranda - is a small, fast and easy instant messenger with support for multiple protocols. Miranda IM is designed to be resource efficient and easy to use while still providing many features including support for AIM, Jabber, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo, and more. Operating system: Windows.
• Pidgin - is a multi-platform instant messaging client that allows you to connect with all your buddies from a single messenger, even if they are using different networks. It supports MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, IRC, GroupWise, QQ, SILC, SIMPLE, Same time and XMPP. You can login to multiple messenger accounts at one, allowing you to chat with your buddies onYahoo, ICQ and MSN (for example) at the same time.

 

Security

• PeerGuardian - protects your privacy while you?re using P2P file sharing networks. It supports multiple lists, list editing, automatic updates, and IPv4 blocking. Operating system: Windows, Linux, OS X.
• Eraser - is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Works with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Windows 2003 Server and DOS.
• ClamWin Free Antivirus - is a Free Antivirus for Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP and 2003. With Clam Win you can scan individual files manually or you can use the Microsoft Outlook add-in to find and remove infected attachments automatically.
• IPCop Firewall - provides a good option for home users and small offices. It?s stable, secure, and easy to configure and maintain. Operating system: Linux.

 

Remote Desktop

• UltraVNC- is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. The program allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control the other PC remotely. Key features app include File Transfer, Video Driver, optional Encryption Plugins, MS Logon, Text Chat, Viewer Toolbar, and others. Although it?s designed primarily for Windows, the Embedded Java Viewer allows you to transfer files to and from other operating systems as well. Operating system: Windows.
• TightVNC - is a free remote control software package derived from the popular VNC software. With TightVNC, you can see the desktop of a remote machine and control it with your local mouse and keyboard, just like you would do it sitting in the front of that computer. TightVNC offers additional features like file transfers, video mirror drive support, scaling of the remote desktop, support for two passwords, and more.

 

System Administration Tools

• Webmin - is a web-based interface for system administration for Unix. Using any modern web browser, you can setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing and much more. Webmin removes the need to manually edit Unix configuration files like /etc/passwd, and lets you manage system from the console or remotely.
• Wireshark - is the world's foremost network protocol analyzer. It supports hundreds of different protocols, multiple platforms, and can analyze VoIP traffic. Operating system: Windows, Linux/Unix, OS X, Solaris, All BSD Platforms.
• Nmap -is a free open source utility for network exploration or security auditing. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, although it works fine against single hosts. Nmap uses raw IPpackets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics.
• TrueCrypt - is an open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP/2000 and Linux. It is a software system for establishing and maintaining anon-the-fly-encrypted volume (data storage device). On-the-fly encryption means that data are automatically encrypted or decrypted right before they are loaded or saved, without any user intervention.
• GLPI - is the Information Resource-Manager with an additional Administration- Interface. You can use it to build up a database with an inventory for your company (computer, software, printers…) Operating system: OS Independent.
• ClameWin - is a Free Antivirus for Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP and 2003. ClamWin Free Antivirus comes with an easy installer and open source code. You may download and use it absolutely freeof charge

 

Video/Multi-Media Tools

• VirtualDub -is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP).It?s useful for basic trimming and cleaning up footage, and also has batchprocessing capabilities.
• MediaCoder - is a free universal batch media trans coder, which integrates most popular audio/video codecs and tools into an all-in-one solution.
• FFDShow - is a DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DivX, XviD, H.264, FLV1, WMV,MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, MPEG-4 movies.
• Xine - is a free multimedia player. It playsback CDs, DVDs, and VCDs. It also decodes multimedia files like AVI, MOV, WMV, and MP3 from local disk drives, and displays multimedia streamed over the Internet.
• MPlayer OS X - is binary distribution of MPlayer (The Movie Player for Linux) and comes with native GUIin MacOSX. After installation you can simply (by Drag&Drop) play almost all3ivx, DivX 3,4,5 and other codecs files in the window or full screen mode. Rendering of very nice antialiased text-based subtitles is also supported.
• WDM - is a Video Capture driver for Bt848, Bt849, Bt878 and Bt879 based video capture boards. It tries to take the most of the hardware, using all the features the chipset has to offer. It is also implemented as a WDM driver, so the same driver works under Win2000,Win98SE, WinXP and WinMe without modifications.
• MediaPortal - is an Open Source application ideal for turning your PC / TV into a very advanced Media Center. Media Portal allows you to listen to your favorite music & radio, watch and storeyour videos and DVDs, view, schedule and record live TV as a digital video recorder and much much more.
• LiVES - is a very flexible tool which can be used by both VJ's and video editors - mix and switch clips from the keyboard, trim and edit your clips, and bring them together using the multi track timeline.
• VLC Media Player - is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2,MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

10 Tips for a Killer Presentation

Presentations are something that we're all familiar with. Whether you are watching a presentation or giving a presentation, chances are you know what sucks and what doesn't. However, in case you don't know the suck from the not, here are ten tips to help insure you are giving a good presentation:

1. Don't abuse your visuals - Usually your visuals are posters, charts, or even a PowerPoint presentation. Whatever your visuals may be, keep them simple and don't put too many words on them. The audience isn't there to read your slides, they are there to listen to you present.
2. Look at the audience - If you ever wondered where you should be looking when presenting, the answer is right in front of you. Don't just single out one person, but instead try to make eye contact with numerous people throughout the room. If you don't do this then you aren't engaging the audience, you are just talking to yourself. This can result in an utter lack of attention from your audience.
3. Show your personality - It doesn't matter if you are presenting to a corporate crowd or to senior citizens, you need to show some character when presenting. If you don't do this you'll probably sound like Agent Smith from the Matrix. Nobody wants to hear him present. (If you do, you are probably an agent yourself and we will find you)
4. Make them laugh - Although you want to educate your audience, you need to make them laugh as well. I learned this from Guy Kawasaki and if you ever hear any of his speeches you'll understand why. In essence, it keeps the audience alert and they'll learn more from you than someone who just educates.
5. Talk to your audience, not at them - People hate it when they get talked at, so don't do it. You need to interact with your audience and create a conversation. An easy way to do this is to ask them questions as well as letting them ask you questions.
6. Be honest - A lot of people present to the audience what they want to hear, instead of what they need to hear. Make sure you tell the truth even if they don't want to hear it because they will respect you for that and it will make you more human.
7. Don't over prepare - If you rehearse your presentation too much it will sound like it (in a bad way). Granted, you need to be prepared enough to know what you are going to talk about but make sure your presentation flows naturally instead of sounding memorized. Usually if you ask experienced speakers what you shouldn't do, they'll tell you not to rehearse your presentation too much because then it won't sound natural.
8. Show some movement - You probably know that you need to show some movement when speaking, but naturally you may forget to do so. Make sure you show some gestures or pace around a bit (not too much) on the stage when speaking. Remember, no one likes watching a stiff. People are more engaged with an animated speaker.
9. Watch what you say - You usually don't notice when you say "uhm", "ah", or any other useless word frequently, but the audience does. It gets quite irritating; so much that some members of the audience will probably count how many times you say these useless words.
10. Differentiate yourself - If you don't do something unique compared to all the other presenters the audience has heard, they won't remember you. You are branding yourself when you speak, so make sure you do something unique and memorable.

Oil map

Who Has the Oil & who uses it?

This little image shows the reason for so many things in this world…

Meizu M8 vs. Apple iPhone

by Aaron Wright
Mar 21, 2007

Since the iPhone's announcement back at the Macworld Expo in January this year, there have been a number of following announcements from various manufacturers of their own iPhones, thereafter labeled as "iPhone Killers" by the media. It's always flattering for Apple to have its own products listed as the standard for that area of the market, but is it necessarily true? In the case of the iPod it certainly is, as it's currently the single most popular MP3 player in the world, dominating the music scene with its partner in crime, iTunes. But the iPod has been out for 6 years and the facts and figures are there to prove its dominance and title of "the one to beat," so how can a phone not yet given an exact release date be given the same title?

A number of manufacturers that have submitted their own entries into the iPhone-killing-market include Samsung, with its F700 touch screen SmartPhone, LG and its KE850 Prada mobile phone (also touch-screen), and the Neonode's N2.

However, one phone that has caught my attention out of all of the ones announced is the Meizu M8 MiniOne, which certainly gives the iPhone a run for its money.

Today I'm going to compare the two phones and show you how the iPhone is given a beating by the M8, but isn't quite knocked out just yet—here's to hoping Steve Jobs can convince enough people that Apple's phone is more worthwhile than the Chinese company's M8.

The Look

One thing many people will notice upon first glancing at the M8 is the similarity to the iPhone, both in terms of hardware and software aesthetics.

Meizu M8 (left) compared to Apple iPhone

In terms of hardware, apart from the 0.3 megapixel camera on the front of the M8, both phones have a similar style with a neat little slot for the headphone at the top and a single "home" button at the bottom of the face of the phone. Although the M8 is slightly smaller in height than the iPhone, and thus has a smaller screen, the overall widths and depths are virtually identical, with the M8 coming in at 105 (h) x 57 (w) x 11.5 (d) mm to the iPhone's 115 (h) x 61 (w) x 11.6 (d) mm.

As far as software is concerned it's a little hard to compare right now, as neither phone has actually been released for testing, but with the screenshots below you'll see that the layouts are rather similar, despite Windows CE 6.0 running on the M8 where the iPhone is running the almighty OS X.

The Specs Comparison

Dimensions:
iPhone = 115 (h) x 61 (w) x 11.6 (d) mm
M8 = 105 (h) x 57 (w) x 11.5 (d) mm

Screen Size:
iPhone = 3.5 inches
M8 = 3.3 inches

Screen Resolution:
iPhone = 320 x 480
M8 = 720 x 480

Input Method:
iPhone = Apple patented Multi-touch
M8 = Standard touchscreen

Storage:
iPhone = 2 models at 4GB and 8GB non-removable flash memory
M8 = 2 models at 4GB and 8GB non-removable flash memory

Camera:
iPhone = 2.0 megapixels
M8 = 3.0 megapixels plus one 0.3-mega pixels on front for video calling

GSM:
iPhone = Quad-band 2.5G
M8 = Unknown but 3G capable

Wireless Data:
iPhone = Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), EDGE, Bluetooth 2.0
M8 = Bluetooth 2.0 + TV-Out

Operating System:
iPhone = Mac OS X Mobile
M8 = Windows CE 6.0

At this point it's unfair to compare battery life as we don't know for sure what type of battery is being used on the M8 and how long it will last during normal use, but we do know that the iPhone has a pretty poor battery life of 5 hours talk time (compared to a basic 7 hours on most other phones) and up to 16 hours audio playback (or a combination of the two). The iPhone does, however, contain a few more features (listed below) that clearly beat the M8, but some of the features available (sensors) aren't 100% necessary, unless the battery life on the iPhone really is that bad, in which case they are.

One thing that does bother me about the iPhone is its poor camera. Okay, as one user had commented on AM earlier this week, anyone serious about photography wouldn't be using a mobile phone to take pictures, but by the time Apple gets around to releasing the iPhone the 2 megapixel camera will already be out of date.

As far as its 2.5G standard, I honestly don't see this selling well in Europe, where any top of the range phone without 3G is not heard. Video calling, high speed internet, and fast MMS is what it's all about over here and 2.5G standards just aren't good enough. Apple should seriously consider giving the iPhone 3G standards before releasing it over in Europe.

The Price and Options

While you can take the above specs "war" with a pinch or two of salt, the pricing and options available for each phone are pretty eye-opening, considering what you're being given. I think it's also important to say at this point that the iPhone's higher price tag can be somewhat justified given the iPod integration (better speakers), motion and proximity sensors, and the fact that we're being given a tried, tested, and reliable operating system to use.

The iPhone comes in two versions, one with 4GB of memory and one with 8GB of memory, the price coming in at $499 and $599 respectively. However, the M8 has four options available.

As with the iPhone there are two memory models available at 4GB and 8GB, with those prices coming in considerably cheaper than the iPhone at $307 and $398 respectively, but there are also two other versions available without a built-in camera, knocking the price down even further. The 4GB model here comes in at $193 and $284 for the 8GB version. As you can see, price- and options-wise there is one clear winner here.

Summary

All in all in the phones are pretty similar, but while the iPhone raises an eyebrow or two with its fancy spec sheet, the same can be said for its rather high price tag. The M8 is almost a "Windows" clone of the iPhone that comes in at a much cheaper cost, also giving you more options (camera or not) allowing you to adjust the cost accordingly. If you're after the iPhone but just can't afford it, the M8 appears to be there to clean up.

If it's music you're after the iPhone is clearly the better option, but with a higher resolution screen and better camera, videos and photos will be more suited to the M8, so perhaps that is something to take into consideration before making a purchase of either. Once again, details are still unclear on the M8 so it's probably not fair to compare the software side of things right now, but I have no doubt Apple Matters will bring them to you the moment they arrive.

So what do the readers of AM think? Is the M8 virtually a cheaper but equally competent version of the iPhone, or is it literally a cheap ripoff? For those that seriously considered buying the iPhone, could you now see yourself changing your mind and opting for the M8 instead?

Rolling Stone: The Real Liberal: John Edwards

The Real Liberal: John Edwards is Third in the Polls, But Don't Count Him Out

Tim Dickinson Posted Aug 10, 2007 1:03 PM

John Edwards may rank third in the polls, but his progressive agenda and old-school campaign have given him the edge in the states that count.

If he weren't rich, handsome and so well married, you might feel a little sorry for John Edwards. Never before in the 231-year history of our republic have the inalienable traits that Edwards possesses -- his fair skin and a Y chromosome -- been anything but a prerequisite for presidential politics. Today, his race and gender stand a chance of derailing his campaign altogether. "There's a lot of democrats who would like to make history," says Markos Moulitsas, founder of the influential online forum Daily Kos. "The party is anxious to nominate a black or a woman," agrees Dick Morris, the former adviser to Bill Clinton. "You have to sign off on either of those two options before you even get to voting for Edwards." Indeed, Edwards has been all but eclipsed by the celebrity candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama: He ranks a distant third in national polls, and his $12 million cash on hand is barely a third of Hillary's and Obama's hauls.

But counting Edwards out would be a big mistake. Flying below the radar, the former vice-presidential candidate is pulling off a feat that Democratic consultants have long considered impossible: staking out the most progressive platform among the viable candidates while preserving an aura of electability. In head-to-head polling against the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, Clinton and Obama have managed to post only modest leads. Edwards, by contrast, not only bests every Republican candidate in the race, he trounces them -- by an average of twelve points.

"Edwards' message is more left than it was in '04, and it's attracting the right kind of people for the primaries," says Bill Carrick, a veteran party strategist. "But the general electorate still sees him as mainstream. He's doing a good job of threading that needle."

While Clinton and Obama are running media-age campaigns that focus on big ad buys in delegate-rich states, Edwards is taking a decidedly old-school approach. In a strategy reminiscent of the way Jimmy Carter captured New Hampshire in 1976, Edwards has focused on building grass-roots support in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina -- the first four Democratic contests, all of which will be held in January. Working out of the national spotlight, he has established a sizable lead in the state where a victory in 2004 effectively clinched John Kerry's nomination. "Edwards could well win Iowa," says James Carville, the former adviser to Bill Clinton. Thanks to his Southern roots and a deep relationship with organized labor, Edwards would then become the candidate to beat in both South Carolina and Nevada -- victories that would establish him as the front-runner a week before the huge "national primary" scheduled for twenty states on February 5th. "If he wins Iowa and New Hampshire," says Chris Lehane, a top strategist for both Kerry and Al Gore, "He'll have such a head of steam he'll be unstoppable."

It's a smoggy Monday in late June, and Edwards is padding down a backstage hallway at NBC Studios in Burbank wearing purple jogging shorts and a blue T-shirt soaked with sweat. His grin, away from the cameras, is easy and unguarded, the weight of the campaign swept aside by the buzz of endorphins from a three-mile run. Stripped of his trademark chinos and blue blazer, Edwards is built like a point guard, taller and leaner than you'd expect. His goal this afternoon is to break down the defenses of his TV nemesis: Jay Leno, who has spent months skewering the candidate for his $400 haircut. John Edwards "said it was a mistake," goes one Leno line -- "especially in the back, where they didn't feather enough."

The Tonight Show offers Edwards a rare opportunity to move beyond the beauty-shop jokes and lay out something that has received only glancing national attention: his agenda. If you last tuned in to Edwards during the son-of-a-mill-worker days of 2004, the difference in his vision will surprise you. Gone is the cautious centrist groomed by uberconsultant Bob Shrum as a sort of Bill Clinton Lite. For 2008, he has been replaced by what the campaign hopes will play as the Real John Edwards, a shoot-from-the-hip progressive who won't scare away moderates. "Incremental steps don't work," Edwards says today. "We are not in that place in America anymore. We need huge changes. And it's going to require a president and a people who are willing to do some things that may feel dangerous in the short term."

Take global warming: While Clinton spouts happy talk about ethanol and "clean coal," and Obama focuses on a technocratic proposal to lower the "carbon intensity" of auto fuel, Edwards has a plan that would make the Union of Concerned Scientists proud. "We need an eighty percent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2050," the candidate told Rolling Stone in a wide-ranging interview. "You start by capping carbon emissions in America. Beneath the cap, you auction off the right to emit any greenhouse gases. And you use that money --$30 to $40 billion -- to transform the way we use energy."

Or poverty. Ending deprivation at home -- by making it easier for workers to unionize, raising the minimum wage to $9.50, cracking down on predatory lending, and providing matching funds to help low-income Americans save -- remains the hallmark of his candidacy. But informed by his travels in Africa, Edwards now proposes spending $5 billion a year to educate 100 million children worldwide, improve drinking water and sanitation in developing countries, and slow the ravages of HIV and AIDS.

When he's not echoing Bono and Al Gore, Edwards sounds a bit like Michael Moore. He was the first contender with a plan for universal medical coverage, and his proposal goes further than Obama's by mandating that every American be provided a health plan. And where Clinton would leave a significant troop presence in Iraq indefinitely, Edwards calls for a complete withdrawal. He has issued the most forceful repudiation of Bush's "war" on terror, and in July he proposed a tax hike for wealthy investors.

"Edwards is swinging for the fences," says Peter Leyden, director of the New Politics Institute, a progressive think tank. "He's got strategy reasons for doing that -- he's got to get on the board differently. But given where we are as a country right now, his transformative rhetoric is right on the money."

Such unabashed progressive stances have made Edwards a hit among the party's Netroots activists. His climate-change plan was the runaway favorite in a MoveOn.org straw poll that followed the Live Earth concerts. And in a recent survey of more than 16,000 Democrats on Daily Kos, Edwards emerged as the top choice, registering forty percent support to Obama's twenty-two percent. "Edwards' proposals go the furthest -- they're like the ideal," says Moulitsas of Daily Kos. "Everybody else is playing it so safe it's dreadful."

The Edwards campaign presents his progressive evolution as a return to his core beliefs. "In 2004 he was consultant-driven," says Moulitsas. "In his gut he was against the war, but Bob Shrum talked him into co-sponsoring the authorization." That line is echoed by the candidate's chief adviser: his wife, Elizabeth. Sitting in a stuffy dressing room at The Tonight Show, she tells Rolling Stone that her husband is no longer deferring to consultants. This time, she says, "He's reaching for the brass ring."

Elizabeth Edwards has emerged as the campaign's liaison to the activist base, reaching out to constituencies that the candidate can't court directly. In June, ignoring her husband's nuanced support for civil unions, she openly endorsed gay marriage at San Francisco's pride parade. She also serves as the campaign's chief attack dog. In our couch-side chat at The Tonight Show, she launches a broadside against Clinton, accusing the senator of "not addressing women's issues. Health care is a woman's issue; the face of poverty is a woman's face. Yet she's got nothing on these issues. Where are the programs? They're completely missing."

But the pivotal question is how the candidate's progressive stance will play in Iowa: Unlike Clinton and Obama, Edwards has no other options. "He's only got one strategy -- he's got to win Iowa," says Carrick, who was a key adviser to Dick Gephardt in 2004. "If you get that slingshot effect out of Iowa, you can really take off in New Hampshire." Win them both, history suggests, and you're a lock for the nomination. "Edwards has a game plan," says Lehane. "You can see how it can work if everything comes into alignment."

To solidify his support in Iowa, Edwards has been quietly crisscrossing the state for the past two years, cultivating local party leaders and dropping in at picnics and ice cream parlors in towns like Tama and Sac City. "He's been campaigning in Iowa ever since 2004," says Gordon Fischer, a stout, goateed Des Moines lawyer who served as the Democratic chair in Iowa in 2004. "He never left." Edwards was the first candidate, on either side of the aisle, with campaign chairs in each of Iowa's ninety-nine counties. The Clinton campaign, by contrast, produced an internal memo that floated the idea of bypassing Iowa altogether and focusing instead on "winning this new national primary" on February 5th.

Iowa plays to Edwards' gifts as a trial lawyer, speaking to small groups in the state's 1,800 precincts. "Coming from North Carolina, he's particularly effective communicating to conservative Democrats in rural Iowa," says Fischer. "He's leading in the polls, and he's got the most superior organization -- head and shoulders above the others." Much of that organization comes from those he calls his "brothers and sisters" in organized labor. Where the failed Gephardt campaign staked its political fortunes in Iowa to the declining industrial unions, Edwards has forged ties to the rapidly expanding unions that represent government and service workers.

Indeed, no Democrat has made a stronger play for union backing than -- Edwards: Since 2004, he has participated in more than 180 labor events -- including a hunger strike for immigrant janitors in Miami -- for twenty different unions. In 2006, while Clinton was burning through $30 million on her shoo-in re-election campaign in New York, Edwards was campaigning for initiatives to increase the minimum wage in six key states. While other candidates have little time for labor-hall rallies -- the PR firm of Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, has actually engaged in union busting -- Edwards has made labor a central element of his anti-poverty campaign. On the stump, he calls collective bargaining the key to "making work pay" and lifting low-wage Americans out of poverty.

"This is a true commitment on his part," says Anna Burger, chair of the labor federation Change to Win. "He was doing this when there were no cameras watching him. We needed a spotlight on workers, and anything he could do to raise their profile, he was willing to do that. His special relationship with labor is forcing the other candidates to play catch-up."

Union support could pay off big in Nevada, where the hotel and service workers in the casinos of Las Vegas and Reno offer Edwards the kind of organizational muscle money can't buy. "The unions are going to own the Nevada caucus," predicts Moulitsas. "It's all about organization. So there's a very strong possibility Edwards will take Iowa and then Nevada. That would give him real momentum going into New Hampshire."

Veteran strategists agree that Edwards will need every bit of it. "As good as his operation is in Iowa, Hillary is as good if not better in New Hampshire," says Lehane. But unlike 2004, when Edwards had only seven organizers on the ground in New Hampshire, he is now deploying forty. Nor is the Granite State a lock for anyone: The candidate who led one recent poll here isn't even a candidate -- it's Al Gore. It requires no great leap to imagine that many would-be Gore supporters will ultimately gravitate to the other white male Southerner with a serious plan for global warming.

Such considerations of race and gender can't be overlooked, says Leyden of the New Politics Institute. "Obama and Clinton are terrific candidates," he says, "but they each represent an untested threshold in American politics. You have to entertain the idea that when Democrats really think about who is going to ensure that the party wins in 2008, a lot of people might get nervous and say, 'Damn it, we need a good-looking, charismatic white guy.' I hate to be crass. But that's baldfaced politics."

Edwards himself takes pain not to play the race or gender cards directly, saying only that "we must nominate a candidate who will win the general election." The unstated implication is that, while racism and sexism would hurt Obama and Clinton in November 2008, Edwards could run strong in the South -- particularly against Northerners like Romney or Giuliani. "You get a Southerner against a former Massachusetts governor or former New York City mayor, and you've really got a cultural dichotomy that is tough on the GOP," says Carrick. "It's enough to make a Republican strategist suicidal." Edwards is also careful to temper his progressivism with more centrist positions. Speaking to Rolling Stone, Edwards refused to rule out recommitting U.S. forces to Iraq to halt a genocide, and he even demonized single-payer health care: "Do you think the American people want the same people who responded to Hurricane Katrina to run their health-care system?" On The Tonight Show, Edwards also played it down the center, soft-pedaling global warming and trumpeting his anti-poverty credentials.

The appearance didn't move the needle on his poll numbers, but it may have helped him turn the page on that disastrous haircut. Two weeks after the show aired, Edwards was still featured in Leno's monologue -- but now another politician was on the business end of the punch line. "Senator John Edwards began what he's calling his poverty tour today," Leno announced. "He's visiting people who have no money and no hope. His first stop: John McCain's campaign headquarters."

Rollingstone: The War Party

The War Party

Unrepentant over the GOP's disastrous invasion of Iraq, Republican candidates are determined to stay the course - and change the subject

Matt Taibbi Posted Sep 06, 2007 10:06 AM

Quietly and miserably, like an anxious mother tiptoeing away from an autistic child who has fallen asleep with his helmet on, the Republican Party continues its hopeless search for a viable nominee while backpedaling from its own disaster in Iraq. The candidates, all of them -- I exclude here Congressman Ron Paul, who is an uninvited guest to this ball -- are fourth-rate buffoons, not one of them qualified to hold down the last ten minutes of a weekday open-mike night in a Skokie comedy club. They are divided into two categories: those who try to avoid talking about Iraq by saying nothing at all, and those who try to avoid talking about Iraq by talking loudly about something else.

One Monday a few weeks back in Newark, New Jersey, I met one of the members of the latter group, Rep. Tom Tancredo. The vengeful Colorado midget's rap is immigration, i.e., convincing Middle America that the War on Terrorism is actually taking place in Mexico. But when he shows up in the ugliest city in America to gloat about three kids allegedly murdered by illegals from Latin America, he is greeted by a crowd of pro-immigrant protesters chanting, Tancredo! You liar! We'll set your ass on fire! They're yelling so loudly that no one can hear Tancredo speak from a distance beyond two feet.

The actor Paul Winfield was once asked what was the artistic key to his performance as Don King in a made-for-HBO movie about Mike Tyson. Winfield shrugged and held up his spiky Don King wig. His was a one-trick performance. Tancredo also has only one trick on the campaign trail. Whenever he mentions the words "illegal aliens," he follows them with the word "including." As in:

"Sanctuary cities," he says in Newark, "are safe havens for all illegal aliens, including gang members, drug dealers, rapists and murderers, further exposing the law-abiding citizens of such a city to greater crime." In other words, who cares about Iraq when you might get raped by a Mexican busboy?

In the face of the awesome political catastrophe that has befallen the Republican Party in the form of George W. Bush, the response of its new leaders has not been to re-examine their perverted values, their vicious tactics or even their position on Bush's singularly idiotic and supremely characteristic policy mistake, the Iraq War. Instead, the party is closing its eyes and trying, Dorothy-like, to wish its way back to Kansas, back to the good old days of mean-spirited, blame-the-darkies politics of Newt Gingrich, a time when electoral blowouts could be won by offering frightened Americans a chance to pull a lever against gays, atheists and the collective rest of onrushing modern reality.

If this were ten years ago, when America was safely suckling on the Internet bubble and restricting its overseas dabbling to military exhibition games like Kosovo, this back-to-the-good-old-days bullshit would be mere vileness. But thanks to the GOP's excellent leader, Mr. Bush, America is no longer in any position to hide from reality. We are now fully and catastrophically engaged in reality. And reality is kicking our ass, in Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere else in this world that hates us more and more with each and every passing day. The party's response is to blow that off, pretend it's not happening. Six years after 9/11, Bush's would-be replacements are still reading My Pet Goat. Their solution to the Iraq dilemma is to keep talking tough, as if our kids were not getting arms shot off from Basra to Tal Afar, as if bin Laden weren't still scoring record recruiting numbers in between bong hits on Al Jazeera.

Tancredo's idea for repairing America's relations with the Islamic Middle East is to threaten to nuke the innocent holy cities of Mecca and Medina. "That's the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they otherwise might do," he said recently. At the tail end of his Newark appearance, as a means of trying to get him to say something, anything, about the Middle East, I ask Tancredo about that comment.

"That's for a different press conference," he grumbles, and slithers away.

***

Polls may be the devil's currency, near the top of the list of campaign evils, but in this case they tell the whole story. A recent CBS News poll indicates that thirty-one percent of Americans want to begin pulling at least some troops out of Iraq right away. Another thirty percent want to completely withdraw from Iraq, right now. That's nearly two-thirds of the country that wants to start bringing troops home.

Among young people, the numbers are even more striking. According to another poll, voters ages eighteen to twenty-nine now trust the Democrats more than the Republicans on every single issue surveyed, including the War on Terror. A mind-boggling sixty-six percent of young people are against giving the president's Iraq War plan a chance. Even among young Republicans, nearly four in ten favor an immediate withdrawal.

Anyone with an IQ above ten can see what these polls mean; what they should tell the Republican Party is that it simply cannot win a general election unless it changes its tune on Iraq. Instead, after two decades of Reagan-esque macho campaigning, decades in which Republican electoral success so spooked both the national media and the Democratic Party that it became axiomatic that only the toughest-talking and most warmongering politicians had even the slightest chance at the presidency, the Republicans find themselves cornered by their own conventional wisdom. Indeed, they are experiencing a sort of mirror image of the electoral/ideological malaise that has stricken their opponents in recent years. Democratic candidates have generally refused to sell out on social issues like abortion and minority rights but have quickly surrendered on military spending, worker rights and deregulation in a desperate attempt to win swing voters and corporate contributions. Now, with doomed figures like Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain headlining this season's primary choices, the Republican Party offers the opposite: candidates willing to betray traditional party orthodoxies on abortion and gay rights but unwilling to budge on the toughness thing. After so many years of watching Democrats crucify themselves on the altar of missile envy -- saddling national tickets with pint-size fist-shakers like Joe Lieberman and turning the Kerry convention into a fatigue-clad orgy of Band of Brothers-style grunt-humping -- witnessing this sad procession of stay-the-course Republicans engaged in the political version of the Bataan Death March is a delicious comedy.

To wit: I checked in with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney outside Orlando, where he gave a speech to local Republicans before opening up the floor for his goofy-ass "Ask Mitt Anything" town-hall routine. Romney is an utter tool; he represents nothing so much as the very banality of our system of campaigning, a poll-chasing stuffed suit with a Max Headroom hairdo who will say (or won't say, for that matter) whatever the fuck it takes to get elected. The winner of the less-than-meaningless Iowa straw poll, he might end up the front-runner solely by virtue of the fact that he lacks the obvious hideous deformities of most of the rest of the field, in particular the human car wreck John McCain and the electoral incarnation of Tommy Lee Jones' acid-bath-surviving Two-Face character, Rudy Giuliani.

Romney's plan is clearly to wear a straight tie, call Hillary Clinton a commie (she's "out with Adam Smith and in with Karl Marx") and say almost nothing else. And it might work; that's what makes his stump shtick so interesting. In Orlando, he surfs through a nervous presentation that carefully avoids the Iraq thing, taking a shot at John Edwards' plan to create a $250 tax deduction for low-income Americans ("It wouldn't buy John Edwards a haircut," he cracks to pseudoapplause, trying not to touch his own perfectly sculpted hair helmet) and railing against those damned perverts the Democrats won't keep from raping our kids. "There are 29,000 convicted sex offenders on MySpace alone!" Romney cries. He's big on the whole protect-our-poor-innocent-children thing, blabbering about how we have to "clean up the water our kids are swimming in."

Not, of course, our kids in Iraq, who have some interesting water of their own to swim in lately, but our poor kids at home who have to brave the real dangers of the Internet, Hollywood movies and men holding hands. Nor, for that matter, Romney's own kids -- five sons who, rather than fighting in Iraq, he said recently, are "showing support for our nation" by working on their dad's campaign.

Of course, some of our kids are enemies themselves; one audience member picked by Romney's staff of breasty volunteer chicks to "Ask Mitt Anything" is a middle-aged white woman with a fine command of Rovian code words. Explaining that she is a teacher who works in a "socioeconomically low" area, she complains that her students are not motivated to get better test scores because, they tell her, "We don't have to work -- we'll get a check just like my mama does." Romney delivers a heartfelt solution to the lazy-Negro problem, saying you can predict which black kids will fail in school by seeing which ones have two parents come to parent-teacher night.

Romney is easy to make fun of, but he knows his business; in a world where bullshit rules the day, he does bullshit better than anyone. Hence, it is significant that this candidate -- who only a few months ago was gamely clutching his balls in a South Carolina debate and making macho pledges to "double Guantanamo" -- has suddenly abandoned his foreign-policy bluster. In Orlando, he doesn't touch Iraq until asked about it in Q&A -- and even then only mumbling something about how "the surge is, in my view, the right thing to be doing." Then it is quickly back to the usual stuff, commies and perverts and immigrants and lazy black people, the real sources of trouble in this country.

After the event, I actually find a few people who express muted enthusiasm for Romney's performance. Jim Broughton, an Orlando native who proudly describes himself as "to the right of Attila the Hun," is a Tancredo man who likes Romney as a second choice. He thinks we should "hurry up and end the war," but Iraq isn't his top concern. "Our culture and civilization, it's under . . . let's just say I don't want to learn Spanish," he says, frowning.

Another man at the event who appears to be mentally disturbed says he likes Romney because the candidate's slogan, "True Strength for America's Future," communicates to him that "the Space Center makes the United States a superpower." And a couple emerging after the speech say they now much prefer Romney to Giuliani; when I ask what they think the difference between the two is, they say they don't know, but that "Romney talks good."

***

There is a joke to be made here, but it's probably best left unmade. Suffice to say that this is not the year for any party to feel positive about relying on voters who are content with "talking good" or who worry more about dirty Mexicans than a bloody trillion-dollar war. But that is where the Republican Party is right now -- and there are signs that some of the candidates are finally collapsing under the weight of this painful equation.

Take rapidly decaying political rape victim John McCain, who has become the symbol of America's newfound impatience with the war. The one-time consensus front-runner was recently humiliated by a poll that shows him trailing Barack Obama among Iowa Republicans. (In fact, Obama outpolled McCain, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and U.S. senator/Christian lunatic Sam Brownback combined). Pilloried for his "principled" stand of refusing to give up on the war, McCain is now, hilariously, trying to reposition himself as a war critic. "I was the greatest critic of the initial four years," McCain claimed on CNN, failing to note that his "criticism" is that there are too few troops in Iraq.

McCain has taken the biggest beating in the press for his war stance, but really there is no meaningful difference on Iraq between any of the Republican candidates, who all waver along the same narrow spectrum of embarrassing self-delusion ("the surge is working") and blind idiocy ("taking the fight to the terrorists"). Brownback, a candidate of the Tancredo school who mostly avoids Iraq talk by yammering the loudest about dead fetuses, talks about needing a "political compromise" -- one that does not include withdrawal, that is. Rep. Duncan Hunter is trying to sell war-weary Americans on a really tall fence to keep rape-seeking Mexicans out of San Diego; his Iraq position is the same as everyone else's, except that he stresses the need for more training -- something, apparently, that the Bush administration hasn't thought to try in the past four years.

Huckabee offers the most novel explanation for why the candidates keep skirting the war. "The reason you don't hear a lot of Republicans bringing Iraq up in the front end of their stump speeches is that, frankly, we don't have to," he tells me at a fund-raiser in Great Falls, Virginia. "It seems to dominate so much of our interaction with the media, so therefore, that part's covered pretty well."

Wait, I think. Isn't that . . . bullshit?

"So you're saying," I ask Huckabee, "that if the poll numbers were different, if people approved of the war, you still wouldn't be talking about it in your stump speeches?"

"I think," Huckabee says cheerfully, "that we would be talking about it if there was no other forum in which we could be asked about it."

Yep, that's bullshit, all right. Like the Republican candidates wouldn't all be ramming it down our throats if Bush had turned Baghdad into Geneva, instead of Kinshasa. Like we wouldn't be listening to Rudy Giuliani propose sedition charges against the Dixie Chicks and Michael Moore to roaring crowds in Manchester and Des Moines.

Which brings us to Giuliani. His position, while not substantively different from the others, is certainly interesting from a stylistic perspective. While the other candidates avoid Iraq in their stumpery, Rudy proudly plunges into the issue from the start of his speeches, snarling at crowds like a wild, bald beast. He unabashedly talks about the need to "stay on offense" and howls at the mere suggestion of a pullout, insisting that any withdrawal would be a "terrible mistake" and "worse than Vietnam."

In a testament to the astonishingly low standards of the American voting populace, it appears that this approach is succeeding on the level of "charisma." Giuliani leads his nearest Republican competitor by twenty points and would only lose to Hillary Clinton by six measly points if the election were held now.

Oh, wait, he would still lose, even to a supposed Marxist witch like Hillary Clinton. That's the best-case scenario for the Republican Party at the moment. First they screwed up, sending thousands of Americans to their deaths. Then they refused to apologize. And now they're going to pay.

40+ FREE Windows Apps

Security:

1. Open Antivirus:
OpenAntiVirus is not another virus scanner to put on a computer! OpenAntiVirus is a platform for people seriously interested in anti-virus research, network security and computer security to communicate with each other, to develop solutions for various security problems, and to develop new security technologies.

2. Truecrypt:
Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP/2000 and Linux. Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk. Encrypts an entire hard disk partition or a storage device such as USB flash drive. Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.

3. ClamAV:
ClamAV application is primarily for unix based systems but now a windows version is available. This version needs a emulation layer like CygWin

4. RogueScanner:
RogueScanner is an open source vulnerability management tool that is used to gain greater network visibility. This enables you to quickly identify and remove rogue wireless devices that may provide back door access to your critical data and infrastructure.

5. Keepass:
KeePass is a free/open-source password manager or safe which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key-disk. So you only have to remember one single master password or insert the key-disk to unlock the whole database.

6. Clipperz:
Clipperz is a free and anonymous online password manager. Local encryption within the browser guarantees that no one except you can read your data. Nothing to install. (earlier review)

7. SoftPerfect Personal Firewall:
The SoftPerfect Personal Firewall is a free network firewall designed to protect your PC against attacks from the Internet or via a local area network. SoftPerfect Personal Firewall offers customizable security using user-defined rules for packet filtering. It works at a low level and also allows you to create rules based on non-IP protocols such as ARP.

File Transfer / Sharing:

1. WinSCP:
WinSCP is an open source free SFTP client and FTP client for Windows. Legacy SCP protocol is also supported. Its main function is safe copying of files between a local and a remote computer.

2. PuTTy:
PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator.

3. ShowMyPC:
ShowMyPC is now a Community for Remote Support providers. Providing tools for Instant Support to Service Providers and Users. It started as an open source Desktop Sharing and Remote PC access project, an alternative to subscription based sites like WebEx or Gotomypc.

4. Ares:
Ares is a free open source file sharing program that enables users to share any digital file including images, audio, video, software, documents, etc.

Multi Media

1. Media Player Classic:
Media Player Classic (MPC) is a compact free software media player for Microsoft Windows. The application has a similar look and feel to the old light-weight Windows Media Player 6.4. Underneath, however, it is a completely different application which has all the options and features one might expect from a modern media player.

2. Media Coder:
MediaCoder is a free universal batch media transcoder, which nicely integrates most popular audio/video codecs and tools into an all-in-one solution. (earlier review)

3. Hanbrake:
HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

4. musikCube:
musikCube can be an alternative to iTunes to manage your music collection.

5. popCorn:
popCorn is a desktop-oriented MPEG-1 audio (MP3) and video software capable of playing data streamed directly from the network. Compatibility with existing media servers is provided by the support of the industry standard RTSP protocol.

6. ImgBurn:
ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application. It supports all windows versions.

7. AVS Disc Creator:
Write your data to CD, DVD and Blu-ray Discs quickly and easily using FREE AVS Disc Creator.

8. DVDStyler:
DVDStyler is a cross-platform DVD authoring application that makes possible for video enthusiasts to create professional-looking DVDs.

9. mp3mymp3:
Record any audio playing on your computer as mp3 or wav file with mp3mymp3 recorder. It can record any sound originating from your computer, it works by recording all audio through your sound card. (earlier review)

10. Youtube Catcher:
Youtube Catcher can download videos from Youtube, Google Video, Myspace Video, Yahoo video Dailymotion Stage6 Veoh. The downloaded videos can be exported to various formats like MPG,AVI, MP4,3GP, 3G2, WMV, PSP, MOV, FLV with the quality you choose. (earlier review)

11. Media Portal:
MediaPortal is an Open Source application ideal for turning your PC / TV into a very advanced Media Center. MediaPortal allows you to listen to your favorite music & radio, watch and store your videos and DVDs, view, schedule and record live TV as a digital video recorder and much much more.

Video Editing Tools

1. Vivia-The Video Editor:
Vivia is a video editing program for Linux and Windows. It provides extremely easy editing of clips and transitions in real-time, along with multi-camera support for editing scenes that were recorded by more than one camera simultaneously.

2. MiNi Video Studio:
MiNI Video Studio is a program for non-linear video editing. It means this application allows creating of a movie from other movies in a way, that the elements of the final movie overlap, creating a series of layers, that can be rendered one by one, or all at once.

3. DVD Flick:
DVD Flick aims to be a simple but at the same time powerful DVD Authoring tool. It can take a number of video files stored on your computer and turn them into a DVD that will play back on your DVD player, Media Center or Home Cinema Set. You can add additional custom audio tracks as well as subtitles of your choice.

4. OpenVIP:
OpenVIP editor. It provides a user-friendly GUI to the core and is based on the timeline concept - you place multimedia files on the timeline, apply filters, transitions…

Image Viewing & manipulation

1. Irfanview:
IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.

2. Paint.net:
Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.

3. XnView:
XnView is a free software to view and convert graphic files, really simple to use. It Support of more than 400 graphics formats.

3D Graphics:

1. Art Of Illusion:
Art of Illusion is a free, open source 3D modelling and rendering studio. It is written entirely in Java, and should be usable on any Java Virtual Machine which is compatible with J2SE 1.4 or later.

2. OpenFX:
OpenFX is an Open-Source 3D modeling, animation and rendering suite. A powerful feature-set includes a full renderer and raytrace engine, NURBS support, kinematics-based animation, morphing, and an extensive plugin API.

Office / Productivity

1. AbiWord:
AbiWord is a open source and fully cross-platform word processor.

2. Launchy:
Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager. Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes! (earlier review)

3. Cygwin:
Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows. It consists of two parts: A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux API emulation layer providing substantial Linux API functionality. A collection of tools which provide Linux look and feel.

4. Pandora Recovery:
Pandora Recovery is a powerful free tool that provides its users an effective way to attempt recovery of permanently deleted files. (earlier review)

5. CCleaner:
CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history.

6. Wink:
You can create presentations or screencasts with Wink in just minutes, you can record mouse movements or take screenshots of your application and save them as flash files. (earlier review)

7. Freemind:
FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool.

8. jetToolbar:
Despite Microsoft's best intentions, the Start Menu isn't everybody's cup of tea. If you're looking for an alternative way to launch your programs, take a look at jetToolBar. During installation this well-done utility creates 14 default categories, registers shortcuts for many of your applications, and adds bookmarks for recommended Web pages.

9. MyUninstaller:
MyUninstaller is an alternative utility to the standard Add/Remove applet of Windows operating system. It displays the list of all installed application, and allows you to uninstall an application, delete an uninstall entry, and save the list of all installed applications into a text file or HTML file.

10. Flashget:
Flashget is a freeware for downloading files. It uses MHT(Multi-server Hyper-threading Transportation) technique, supports various protocols

11. ZScreen:
ZScreen is an open-source screen capture program that allows for region/window/full-screen screenshots. It can FTP screenshots and put the URL in your clipboard in a single keystroke. It supports automatic custom naming conventions with variables. It can also interface with image editing software.

Web / Development

1. PSPad:
PSPad is a freeware programmer's editor for Microsoft Windows operating systems, useful for people who:

2. HTTrack:
HTTrack is a free and easy-to-use offline browser utility. It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer.

3. NOTEPAD++:
Notepad++ is a free source code editor (and Notepad replacement), which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment.

Google Pack

I haven't listed any of the programs from Google Pack because most of the users are aware of these. Except one or two all the programs in this pack are must have for anybody, if you havn't downloaded google pack get it from here

Miscellaneous

Virtual Box:
VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product.

Tags:online security, open source, security, Software, technology, Tools , Video

How to Buy a New Car

How To: 13 Step Method For Buying A Car While Controlling The Sale And The Price

from .:Consumerist:. by Ben Popken

Commenter Keter posted a completely kick-ass 13 step guide to buying a car while maintaining total and absolute control over the sales process. It was so good we're lifting it and posting it to the front page.

1. Pick the exact make and model of car you want.

2. Call around first anonymously (such as calling from work on your lunch hour), and get prices. Tell them you are calling everybody, and the best deal wins. Write down the prices you are given, and note any difference in packages.

3. Pick the dealership you think you want to do business with based on the results of this phone call. Price should not be the decider -- demeanor and gut feel should be....

4. Go to the dealership you absolutely NEVER want to do business with . Nail down the details on the options -- go for "loaded," then whittle it down to find the approximate prices for each option. Make a detailed list with prices. Mark the options you must have and those can do without.

5. Do your research online and compare your pricing research with others and experts. Set an "ideal price" and an "I can live with it" price for the car you want with all the options you want, and again for the car you want with the minimum options you want. You now have a low and high figure for the car.

6. Go get cash or a a pre-approved car loan for something less than the upper amount. Put the cash or check in a blank sealed envelope. Find out ahead of time how to deal with the pre-approved loan if the negotiated amount is less than the amount on the bank check. You do not want to have to leave the dealership to get a new check for a smaller amount, so try to arrange something in advance for this contingency.

7. Call your insurance carrier and tell them you are buying a new car. Do as much of the paperwork ahead of time as possible and determine the hours they can service you so you can avoid delays or surprises at delivery time. (Any delays benefit the dealer.)

8. Go to the dealer you want to deal with -- on a weekday, in the morning. Get dropped off or, ideally, have a friend or significant other go with you. (It always helps to have a witness.) Bring a sack lunch and drinks with you. You're not leaving or letting your attention wander until you have a car.

9. Find the exact car you want. Use your list...this shows you've done your homework. Don't be surprised if your salesman suddenly has to handle an emergency and hands you off to someone else. This is a good sign that you have the upper hand already.

10. Show them the envelope. Tell them you have cash/a pre-approved loan check, and three chances to get it from you if you can drive out by an exact time (by 3 PM is usually good), all paperwork done, taxes paid, and every other fee under the sun taken care of for less than the amount in the envelope. Do not give any hints about the amount, make them name heir price. If it's way out of sight, don't say anything. Just laugh and head for the door. They'll chase you down and give you a much better number. If they don't, go elsewhere.

11. Read everything. Twice. Have your friend do the same. Line out anything you don't agree to or doesn't apply, initial and date this and have the dealer rep do the same. Do not leave any blank spaces. Count the papers and make sure you get copies of all of them. Ask if there are any programs you need to opt out of to avoid being automatically signed up for them. Do whatever is required to opt out.

12. If at any time they give you attitude or BS, walk out. They will chase you down. Tell them they have only one chance left because they gave you attitude. Now they will deal. If they don't, go elsewhere.

13. Try another city if yours is full of slime balls.

Good luck. I don't buy new, but I helped friends buy using this technique, and it really works...but it works only if you truly are willing to walk away...and then refuse to bend when they try to put you off or change the terms. Stay civil, do not let any emotion in. You are on a mission, Marine!

The same technique works for buying a used car, but tell them that you will not talk price until YOUR mechanic looks over the vehicle and gives you a report on it. Watch how much the squirm. I also learned the basics of car inspection, and perform my own pre-inspections right there on the lot -- 90% of used cars have a defect so serious they don't pass 5 minutes of my inspection! The best one (if any) goes to the mechanic.

Have the mechanic lined up for the time you will be needing the car checked out. I prefer to have my mechanic pick up the car from the dealer directly. The mechanic should be one you have had good experiences with previously. NEVER use a mechanic who is near the dealership. I tell my mechanic "check this car like you would if your 16 year old daughter was going to have to drive it to Alaska and back -- alone."

Go back to the dealer with a list of all defects and an estimate to fix them. Negotiate a price adjustment. In some cases, you may agree to let the dealer do the repairs, BUT specifically put in writing that these repairs will be accepted only after a re-inspection by your mechanic and no crappy used or after-market parts will be used.

Figure on devoting at least a month and looking at 200+ cars to find a good used car.

I've bought three truly excellent used cars this way -- all for less than $5000 -- all required minor repairs prior to delivery, and all lasted more than 100K miles with minimal repair costs afterward.

Celeb Mashups

Julia Roberts + Jessica Biel

Katherine Heigl + Milla Jovovich

Paris Hilton + Jessica Simpson

Natalie Portman + Keira Knightley