DESI NEWSWALA: January 2010

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text-decoration:none; } img {border:none;} MakeUseOf.com: “Cool
Websites and Tools [January 30th]” plus 4 more

- Cool Websites and Tools [January 30th]
- How To Convert The MOD Camcorder Video Format To MPG Instantly
- Quickly Search Documents For Words with DocFetcher
- 2 Excellent Media Syncing Applications For Your Android
- Jelli – Get Radio-Active On This Free Music Streaming Site
Cool Websites and Tools [January 30th]

Posted: 30 Jan 2010 06:07 PM PST

Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites
are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or
buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews
subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.

Submit Your Web App

Origami-Club – If you love the art of paper folding, then you will
definitely get hooked with this website. Origami Club is a free
comprehensive online resource for paper art lovers and origami
enthusiasts full of free and easy origami diagrams. With this website,
you can browse through various origami creations and find directions on
how to create them. Read more: Origami-Club: Free & Easy Origami
Diagrams Online.

ImHalal – There are plenty of search engines on the web that focus on
accuracy and relevancy even though that sometimes means displaying
inappropriate and explicit content. ImHalal is a search engine design
for the Muslim community that filters out all the 'explicit' content
when displaying the search results. This allows people to use the
internet in a clean and safe environment. Read more: ImHalal: A Search
Engine For Muslims.

Img4me – Despite the ton of spam everybody gets in their mailbox, it is
sometimes vital to post your email address online in blogs or forums.
An excellent way to prevent spammers from getting your email address is
to turn email address into image so the bots cannot detect it. Img4Me
is an internet tool that can help you with that. Read more: Img4me:
Turn Email Address into an Image.

MoveIdiot – Are you curious about the next country you are visiting or
simply interested in trivial facts of other countries? If so, then you
should bookmark Geognos. This educational website will tell you all the
key facts on country's around the world including the history,
geography, people, government, economy, communications and
transportation. Read more: MoveIdiot: Easily Manage & Plan Your Move
Online.

SnapSort – SnapSort does only one thing but does it very well. It lets
you compare specs for digital cameras side by side. Start by going to
SnapSort and typing in the name of any camera. As soon as you start
typing, the auto-suggest feature will make it super easy for you to
select the camera you want to compare. Once you have selected the two
desired cameras, SnapSort will compare them with each other and tell
you which one is the winner. Read more: SnapSort: Compare Digital
Cameras Side by Side.

Submit Your Web App

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last
couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool
websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS
feed.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments
section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.
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How To Convert The MOD Camcorder Video Format To MPG Instantly

Posted: 30 Jan 2010 05:30 PM PST

So your friendly neighborhood admin has been asked this question way
too many times and I have decided to share this information with you
here in the hopes that users will Google this issue before asking!

Camcorders such as the JVC Everio (pictured below) use a .MOD extension
to save their video files. This is very frustrating for a number or
reasons. The first reason being you cannot easily read .MOD files in
Windows Media Player or many other top tier video applications – many
people try hunting for a MOD file converter without success. The second
reason that this format infuriates me is that users also have a
horrible time trying to get their videos converted into DVD format.
Most DVD burning applications do not know what to do with a .MOD file.
And my final reason for hating this .MOD format is that this
proprietary format is not proprietary AT ALL!

Huh? What?

That's right. JVC and some other well know brands like Canon and
Panasonic have decided to just rename the extension of their files. Can
you believe that the files are actually standard MPEG2 sound files and
thus should be very easy to manipulate, convert and actually
watch?

The devices we have seen that use this horrible file format are:

- JVC GZ-MG30
- JVC GZ-MG70
- JVC GZ-MG37
- JVC GZ-MG77
- JVC GZ-MG50
- JVC GZ-MG130
- JVC GZ-MG155
- JVC GZ-MG255
- JVC GZ-MG555
- Panasonic SDR-S100
- Panasonic SDR-S150
- Panasonic SDR-S10
- Panasonic SDR-H18
- Panasonic SDR-H200
- Panasonic SDR-H40
- Panasonic SDR-H60
- Panasonic SDR-SW20
- Canon FS100
- Canon FS10
- Canon FS11
So now that you have acknowledged your issue, let's show you the
ridiculously simple way (not using a mod file converter) to solve your
problem. When you open Windows Explorer and look at your files, they
are either unrecognized or you have a program like VLC installed so you
can view them. We covered VLC's awesomeness many times on MakeUseOf
here.

This is what I see when looking at my file on my system after copying
it from my camcorder.

Now if I try to open it with Windows Media Player this is what I get:

Then you think that you would be able to click on Yes and view your
file in Windows Media player seeming that it is indeed a MPEG2 that
Windows Media Player would have no issue playing. But alas, this is
what we get after clicking Yes:

And if we examine the bottom of the Windows Media Player windows we see
this:

And then after some unsuccessful requests, we finally see this error
message:

But by deploying a little MakeUseOf magic, we do the following. First,
make sure you have your Windows Operating System set to show file
extensions. You can find this option under Folder Options in Windows
Explorer. Then you can rename the file's extension to be .MPG and make
it work. You heard me correctly — by simply renaming the file, you will
make it work in Windows Media Player or any DVD authoring or burning
software just like that! Let's see it in action:

Right click on the file and choose Rename like so:

Rename the extension from .MOD to .MPG and then you will see this
warning:

Click Yes and that is it! You have successfully converted your
camcorder's video file without any sort of MOD file converter, but
instead with a simple rename! Who knew it could be so easy!

Did this solve your problem? Have you ever encountered any other weird
file formats when using camcorders? Would you like to share your
solution with us? Hit us up in the comments!
Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments
section!

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(Part 1)

Quickly Search Documents For Words with DocFetcher

Posted: 30 Jan 2010 02:30 PM PST

With ample hard disk capacities at disposal, its only natural if one
gets complacent about deleting older documents. However, such a habit
requires efficient management so that you can find the file you are
looking for quickly and don’t have to go through pile of unneeded files
to find out what you were looking for.

It is very common to forget the file name of the document you require
but you almost always have a good idea about the contents.

Docfetcher is one such software that lets you peek and search documents
for words to find exactly what you are looking for.

You can get DocFetcher here. It works with Windows and Linux. DEB
packages are available for users on Debian or Debian-based distros. For
Windows users, there is a choice between installer and portable
versions of the software. Running DocFetcher the first time, you will
be presented with a screen that looks like this:

First off, you need to create an Index of files that you want to be
searchable. Click the file types that you want to be included in the
index, then right-click inside the search scope and choose Create
Index. Choose the folder you want to index and DocFetcher will create
an index for all the documents inside that folder.

Keep in mind that index creation may take some time depending upon the
number of files in the chosen folder and size of files. Index creation
is a necessary step as it allows DocFetcher to know the contents of the
files so that it can search documents for words and give you almost
instant results.

With the index ready, you can now search for text inside your files.
Just type the term in the search box and hit Enter; you will be
presented with the results instantaneously. The results section display
the relevance, file size and filename of each result returned. Clicking
on any results opens up a preview of the file with the search terms
highlighted. Double click on any result and the corresponding file is
launched for you to work with.

DocFetcher automatically keeps track of additions and modifications to
the folders you have configured it to watch. You don’t have to
create/rebuild index again, it will automatically update the index if
it is running or the next time it is run.

You can use operators in your search query to fine tune the results. An
important point to note about DocFetcher queries is that by default, a
search for “web development” will return documents that contain the
word “web” or documents that contain the word “development”. This is in
contrary to what you might expect (being used to Google search). So to
search for documents that have both the words you need to search for
“web AND development“. Frankly speaking, this requires a little getting
used to and could have easily been fixed by the developer.
Nevertheless, there are other operators that work as expected:

- You can use “-” to indicate a term that should not be present in the
document
- “+” indicates a required word.
- You can also search document metadata, eg “author:varun” will search
in documents created by me (as mentioned in properties)
- Last but not the least, you can also use the ubiquitous wildcards –
the “?” and the “*” (with their obvious meanings)
DocFetcher also lets you specify file extensions that you want to be
treated as plain text files. This can be especially useful if you do a
bit of coding. As an example, you can tell DocFetcher to treat .php
and .java files as text, this would make the source code inside these
files searchable via DocFetcher as well. This can be specified via the
preferences dialog, or while creating/rebuilding index.

DocFetcher is a great alternative to Google Desktop. Sure, it doesn’t
index image files and may lack Google Desktop’s bells and whistles, but
that is precisely what makes it worth trying. It’s lightweight, you can
invoke it on individual folders, intricately specify what to index,
share repositories and index, and has all the options you may need from
such a software.

What is your preferred desktop search tool to search documents for
words?
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2 Excellent Media Syncing Applications For Your Android

Posted: 30 Jan 2010 11:30 AM PST

When I got my Android device last Christmas, I received it with the
knowledge that it would be replacing several other devices. Truth be
told, most Android phones being released now have the capability to
adequately replace not only the old phone, but also things like
dedicated GPS devices, cameras, and MP3 players.

This article will focus mainly on Android media syncing software that
allows you to use your Android device as a media player for content you
already own without changing your lifestyle.

Given the fact that iPods and iPhones control the majority of the PMP
(Personal Media Player) market, it's likely that a fair amount of new
Android users are moving straight from an Apple device. This means that
when you plug in your Android device, iTunes will outright ignore it.
This wasn't an issue when you owned an iPod, but now that you've
migrated to Android you're going to have to say goodbye to iTunes.

Please note that while there are some hacks and mods to connect
non-Apple devices to iTunes, most if not all of them cease to function
correctly by the next iTunes update. While it's probably possible to
make this option work if you try enough options, it still won't be very
reliable or seamless. That said, try that stuff at your own risk, and
I'll offer a few iTunes alternatives here if you need them.
DoubleTwist
Whereas Salling Media Sync pretends to be a lightweight plugin for
iTunes, DoubleTwist strives to replace iTunes altogether–and in my
opinion it does a pretty good job. In their ‘about’ page, DoubleTwist
is slated as having the following mission:

We feel that just like you don’t use a different browser for every web
site you visit (Firefox to read the NY Times, IE to stream Hulu, Chrome
to browse YouTube, etc) you shouldn’t have to use iTunes for Apple
products, Nokia software for Nokia phones, Sony software for Sony
products, etc. The typical household today has many such devices and
there is a need for a simple and powerful software that connects them.

When I read that statement, I see a piece of software that will never
stop improving. Although DoubleTwist is still evolving, support for
numerous devices has already been added to the software. The layout
very much resembles iTunes except for the fact that it connects to the
Amazon music store and not the iTunes store. Luckily, DoubleTwist can
still import your iTunes music, so don’t worry about losing your
collection.

Luckily, DoubleTwist is relatively platform independent, supporting
both Windows and Mac (with some device exceptions). You will however
need to check the list of compatible devices and click on the link for
your device to attain the necessary plugin to support your Android
Device, making it a perfect Android media syncing app. Below you see a
screenshot of DoubleTwist sifting through the music on my Motorola
Droid in a very familiar itunes-like fashion.

Aside from just Android devices, DoubleTwist strives to support almost
anything that can play music and connect to a computer. If you have a
PSP, Blackberry, Kindle, Windows Mobile phone, digital camera, or other
media device, you may very well be supported. This makes DoubleTwist an
invaluable resource to anyone with a supported devices because it
connects content between all of your media devices and consolidates
that content in one familiar-looking, simple, effective music
management and synchronization program. It’s even got its own
detachable media player, much like iTunes!

Salling Media Sync (Mac Version)
The beauty of Salling Media Sync is that it works on Windows, Mac OS,
and Linux. This means that no matter what operating system you prefer,
you’ve still got an excellent Android media syncing solution. To use
Salling Media Sync correctly, you do need to have iTunes installed
(which is fine, since it works on all of the operating systems
mentioned as well). Once required software is installed, Salling Media
is relatively straightforward and easy to use.

It’s important to note that when you connect your Android device, you
need to click “mount” (on the device) to connect it as a mass storage
device –otherwise Salling Media Sync will not recognize it. From there,
open up the software, check off your favorite iTunes playlists you
would like to transfer and hit “Sync”. I would recommend that you
register for a Salling Media Sync account because as mentioned on the
website, once registered the software will intelligently update your
phone (which saves a lot of time and effort).

Note that video is not officially supported for Salling Media Sync, so
rely on it for music, pictures, and podcasts for now. The real beauty
of this software is that it’s easy to use, very lightweight,
cross-platform, and of course — free! Give Salling Media Sync a try if
you’re just looking to get your iTunes music onto your Android device.

In addition to Android phone support, Salling Media Sync supports a
wide variety of phones running many different operating systems for
both Windows and Mac, so it’s more than likely that the usefulness of
this software will expand to your other media devices as well. Here’s a
short video detailing how the program works on the Mac OS.

If you went and checked out the Salling website, you may have noticed
that a paid version of Media Sync is available as well, touting faster
transfer speeds. As a reference point, I used the free version to sync
about 8GB of music to my Motorola Droid, and the entire process took
less than 15 minutes. To me, that’s completely acceptable–but as the
consumer it’s always up to you.

Although the Android operating system is just beginning to latch on to
a considerable portion of the market, it seems that media content
synchronization is still not supported extremely well from an official
standpoint.

What software do you use to sync media to your Android device? Do you
prefer an iTunes replacement, or simply software that communicates with
iTunes for your device? Let me know in the comments section–I’d
appreciate it because I still haven’t decided between the two!
Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments
section!

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Jelli – Get Radio-Active On This Free Music Streaming Site

Posted: 30 Jan 2010 09:30 AM PST

Looking at some of the web apps out there, you will be tempted to think
that they have taken the 'community' bit a bit too far. But then, you
just might turn around and say that's a cool idea after all. I didn't
say any of these things when I first chanced upon Jelli.

I just said, “Hey, it looks kind of cool.” I didn't understand what
this free online radio music streaming site was all about at first. You
also might not. So, here's the curtain raiser.

Jelli is a user controlled online radio streaming service. User
controlled, did you say? Yes, Jelli gives its community of listeners
the decision power to decide what gets played. Moving an item up or
down a list through user votes is not novel. We see it every day in all
sorts of forums and in a variety of lists including music playlists.
Take Digg, for example. But Jelli takes this idea and turns online
radio broadcasting on its head. I believe there tagline – 100% user
controlled radio.
Power to the people I say! But how does Jelli work?
In a simple sequence of three steps. Once you login with your Facebook
account or with a new Jelli registration, the graphic below does all
the explaining. Let's take this 3-step map as the starting point and
move into Jelli.

The Station Tuner is where it starts. Right now, there are five Jelli
stations with more coming soon. Pick a station. You can see which five
songs which got played recently and the current trends in that station.
You can also see how active the station is (i.e. the number of
listeners it has right now) by looking at the green radioactivity
meter. Click on Tune In to get into the station.

Clicking on the Listen button starts the stream of songs in that
station. The songs may open up in a web player or it might start your
media player. Jelli supports music players in Windows, Mac and Linux.

Now it is up to you and the community to shape the playlist for the
free music streaming site. That happens through the online equivalent
of show of hands. Click on the green checkmark or the red cross to vote
the song up or down. The higher rated songs are played first. You can
also Rock the song that's on air, or Suck it down. That decides the
ultimate fate of the song depending on the number of yeas and nays.

There are other ways to influence what gets played on Jelli. Rockets
can power up a song up the chart in one swift move and give it the best
shot to being played. Bombs do the exact reverse. Each user has a
limited number of such power ups and he earns them the more he plays on
Jelli.

You can also keep your favorites and vote for all of them in one go. Or
check someone else's favorites and vote for theirs.

That's not all that you can do with the Jelli community. While you are
listening, you can chat live with fellow listeners. This one is like an
interactive chat board while the Message feature on every user's
profile page can be used for sending 500 character-limited one to one
messages.
Jellybeans for the ears
It's definitely a free online music streaming site with a difference.
The first thing that will strike you is the coolness. It really looks
like a cool place to hang out with its swank web design. It's a breeze
to navigate and I didn't get any glitches at all.

Of course, you don't have the ultimate control over any song but you
don't have it for any radio station, do you. Jelli does one better by
letting you play your way to your favorite song. Read the FAQ for all
there is to learn about the site.

Hey, Jelli just announced that they are going to play the song which I
had rocketed just a while back. So, while I listen to it…why don't you
too visit Jelli and tell us if it gets you all radio-active.
Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments
section!

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