 Hi and welcome back to the Geeks corner.
This month I thought I would concentrate on some problems I recently had. I am fairly new to all things Apple, so have been enjoying using my shiny new iPad, however being a lifelong PC user I had already built up a substantial collection of films and music video’s which I now needed import into iTunes to sync into the iPad. Music turned out to be not so hard, as iTunes will attempt to convert various formats to it’s own proprietary format, however films appeared to be installed (i.e. showing in my iTunes Library) but were never syncing.
The problem was caused because iTunes likes films or movies to be either in an mp4 or .mov format and my films had all been created in .avi. Files (movies / videos) which have a .mov extension and are the default multimedia format often used for saving movies and other video files; using a compression algorithm developed by Apple Computer; compatible with both Macintosh and Windows platforms.
In short I needed a solution, I searched and found lots of ways to convert my films but the software was usually a trial version or left advertising marks on the converted films.
Enter “Handbrake” it’s open source which basically means it’s free, and has a really simple to use interface or GUI (Graphical User Interface). It will convert films for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. Once downloaded and running you simply select “Source” and point it to the file or folder the films are in, wait whilst it analyses the file, on the right you then select the required device / format (in my case iPad), ensure you remember the output destination, then click on “Go”.
Whenever you convert a file it always takes a bit of time, and you can monitor this in “Handbrake” on the bottom of the program window bottom left hand side. Once it’s completed converting you simply import your new iPad friendly file into iTunes to sync at your leisure.
“Handbrake” has a host of features, to numerous to go into in this article, and can be downloaded here at http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php .
I am often asked to rebuild computers with an upgraded or preferred operating system. The install does not take so long, but after you include operating system updates, it can add a substantial amount of time (a new build of Windows 7 Pro currently has over 85 updates on a fresh install!).
Having completed these you are left with personalising your new operating system, by this I mean what browser Firefox, Opera, Chrome etc, messaging services like Skype, Yahoo, Messenger and of course security services like AVG, Avast or Spybot let’s not forget about document viewers, file sharers plus more. There has to be an easier way! I use a program called Ninite it’s available for download at http://ninite.com .
Basically you select from the website the programs you want installing (from their list on the website) download the installer (I keep mine on a memory stick) and then install. So what are the advantages? Ninite does not install toolbars and if you already have the software installed it will simply update them to the latest version for you. It can also run in silent mode and installs your applications without asking you to register every 5 minutes.
Ninite does not store the programs inside itself but has links to download the software, its also compatible with Windows or Linux and installs the applications in the language of your computer.
Well, that’s it for this month! See you next time at the Geeks corner.
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