2010年11月29日星期一

Denis Leary Sells a Book Twitter-Style

Here is a very funny video trailer for a book by comic Denis Leary, with the best title ever:

“Suck on This Year: LYFAO@140 Characters or Less.”

The 112-page illustrated collection of tweets–yes, tweets–is coming out later this week.

2010年11月26日星期五

Using Software to Sift Digital Records

Companies in litigation pay lawyers handsome sums to pore over their vast archives of emails, documents and other electronic records. The goal of this sleuthing is to identify which records contain information relevant to a lawsuit.

The process, termed electronic discovery, has grown into one of the costliest, and most nettlesome, aspects of litigation. Large companies expect to spend about $1.3 billion, or 7.1 percent of their litigation spending, on it this year, according to BTI Consulting Group Inc. That is up from 5.2 percent five years ago, said BTI, which surveys lawyers at the 1000 biggest companies.

“In the old days, someone might keep notes on a piece of paper and then throw it away,” said Richard Baer, general counsel of Qwest Communications International Inc. “Now, data is captured, so there is a lot more information to go through.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

2010年11月25日星期四

China Mobile Competition Could Heat Up

China’s government has begun testing a policy allow mobile subscribers to switch carriers without changing their phone numbers in two locations, the eastern coastal metropolis of Tianjin and the southern island province of Hainan–-potentially bringing the long-anticipated move toward full number portability closer to reality and adding to mounting competition for telecommunications giant China Mobile.

State-owned China Mobile, which had about 570 million subscriber accounts as of September, has long been China’s preferred carrier. But the company’s subscriber growth has slowed as the government has rolled out efforts to restructure the industry and make it more competitive.

The most recent move may provide a boost for China’s two other carriers, which are also state-owned: China Unicom, which had about 160 million subscriber accounts as of September, and China Telecom, which had about 86 million mobile subscriber accounts as of October. China Unicom has been hoping to make the most of some competitive advantages, including its license to operate a mobile network using WCDMA third-generation technology, which is compatible with in-demand handsets like Apple’s iPhone.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

2010年11月24日星期三

How to change iPhone Wallpaper

Here are the easy steps you can take to change iPhone Wallpaper easily.

Make preparations:
Step 1: Find an image that you would like to use as wallpaper from iPhone Wallpaper.
Step 2: Right-click on a PC or control-click on an Apple computer and select "Save As" to save the image to your computer. Save it to your "My Pictures" folder or iPhoto library on a PC or Apple respectively, or wherever you prefer to store your images on your computer as long as you will be able to easily locate it.
Step 3: Connect the iPhone to your computer with the USB cable and wait for iTunes to launch itself automatically. Click on the "Photos" tab in the side panel.
Step 4: Click on the "Sync Photos From:" tab in the "Photos" menu on iTunes and locate the folder where your photos are stored. Select all of the images that you would like to transfer your to iPhone. Click on "Sync" in iTunes to transfer all of the photos to your iPhone.

Change iPhone Wallpaper
Step 1: Tap Settings on the iPhone’s home screen:

Change iPhone Wallpaper

Step 2: Tap the Wallpaper tab:

Wallpaper Tab in iPhone Settings

Several tabs should appear, including one that says Wallpaper. You can tap any of the tabs to select wallpaper for the iPhone. The Wallpaper tab features a collection of pictures supplied by Apple. The other tabs feature pictures you have added to the iPhone, including those taken with the iPhone’s camera.

Wallpaper Selections

Step 3: Tap any picture. A preview screen of the wallpaper will appear, along with the words Move and Scale at the top. You can pinch and reverse pinch the picture to resize. The transparent bars at the top and bottom simulate the bars for the clock and Slide to unlock that will eventually display on top of your wallpaper.
In the example below you can see that the heads of the two peoples will be partially covered by the top bar:

Resize iPhone Wallpaper

To fix, I will reverse pinch to expand the picture, then drag the picture so that their faces appear in the center:

Resize iPhone Wallpaper
Step 4:
Tap Set Wallpaper to finish.
To view your new iPhone wallpaper, put the iPhone to sleep by pressing the sleep button on the top of the iPhone. Then hit the home button to wake the iPhone, and you should see the wallpaper.
Note the position of the clock and Slide to unlock transparent bars. If you’re unhappy with the position of the wallpaper, repeat the steps above.

2010年11月22日星期一

How to use DVD decypher to rip DVD to iPod, PSP, PowerPoint etc on PC

1. Use DVD decypher to rip DVD to VOB files.
DVD Decrypter is a free DVD ripper that can create backup disc images of the DVD-Video structure of DVDs. It can be used to image any DVD, but controversially it is especially useful for decrypting copy-protected movies. The program can also burn images to disc. CSS decrypting software (such as DVD Decrypter, AnyDVD, Smartripper, and DVD Shrink) allows a region-specific DVD to be copied as an all-region DVD. It also removes Macrovision, Content Scrambling System (CSS), region codes, and user operation prohibition.
Step 1. Install DVD decypher
Download it from: http://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/. To install DVD decypher, simply mount the .exe archive by double-clicking it, and setp by step to click "next".
Step 2. Rip DVD using DVD decypher
After you insert a movie DVD into your DVD burner or player, launch DVD Decrypter. In the window to the right you will see all the files on that DVD.DVD decypher

NOTE: If the files are not shown in the right window pane, on the Task Bar, click on Mode and click on FILE F to place a checkmark beside it as shown in the picture above.
You can choose the output folder by:
Under "Destination", click on the Folder out to the right of the movie path, locate the folder you want to rip the DVD to, then double left click on folder to open it then click OK.

DVD Decrypter

You can select to rip the whole DVD or choose to rip a segment of the DVD.
Explanation:
.IFO = The IFO files includes information such as chapters, subtitle tracks and audio tracks.
.VOB = The VOB files contains the actual video, audio, subtitles and menus.
.BUP = Backup files of the IFO files.

DVD Decrypter - file explanation

Step 3. Finish conversion
Click on the Hard Drive Symbol to the right of the green arrow. After clicking on the Hard Drive Symbol, you will have the screen which shows the decryption in progress.
After conversion by this free DVD ripper, you can find the VOB files in the "Destination".

2. Convert the .VOB files to video formats compatible with iPod, iPhone, PSP, PowerPoint, etc.
Now you need to use Aiseesoft Total Video Converter to convert .VOB files to formats compatible with popular players such as iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, PSP, etc. You can also upload the converted files form DVD (.VOB) to YouTube, Myspace, and other video sharing site. YouTube accepts a wide range of video file formats such as .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG, etc. PowerPoint understands mpeg, asf, avi, wpl. wm, wmx, wmd, wmz, dvr-ms, mpv2, mp2v, mov, etc. If you want to put the VOB files on PowerPoint, you can choose .avi as output format.
Step 1. Download and install Aiseesoft Total Video Converter.
Step 2. Run Aiseesoft Total Video Converter, click "Load DVD" button to import the .VOB files, choose the output format, then click "Start" to start the conversion, the default setting works perfectly.

Total Video Converter

Step 3. After conversion finished, you can use transfer the converted files to the players.
For example :
use iTunes to transfer the mp4 video to your iPod, here are the steps:
1). Open iTunes and click "File" to add your converted videos to iTunes library.
2). plug in your iPod to computer, then iTunes will detect your iPod as a device.
3). Select your iPod device on the left panel of iTunes, click "Movies" tab, check the videos you want to sync and click "Apply", done.
Use Zune software to transfer wmv video to Zune player, here are the steps:
1). Install Zune software, you can download it from here for free: http://www.zune.net
2). Plug in your Zune player to computer
3). Drag the wmv video to Zune library
4). Click "start sync" to sync your Zune. OK.
Tips: Aiseesoft DVD Ripper can rip DVD to all popular video and audio formats directly. It can rip DVD to videos including MP4, AVI, M4V, 3GP, MPG, MPEG, FLV, etc; and it can convert DVD audio to MP3, M4A, AAC, AC3, etc. And it is more easy to use than Mac the ripper. You can have a try.

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How to convert MTS/M2TS video

MTS or M2TS format is the equivalent of h.264 or MPEG-4 AVC. It is a fairly new High Definition codec that provides greater compression than the regular MP4 and others. Those two High Definition format always be used on HD Camcorder, such as Sony, Canon or Panasonic.

As they are HD video, most of our video editor such as windows movie maker can not edit it directly. And also you can not upload it to youtube.com and share with your friends.

So you need to convert them into normal video format, such as wmv, mp4, avi and so on.

Here I know a really powerful MTS Converter and M2TS Converter
And the process of operation is really easy and fast.

Part 1: How to convert MTS video
Step 1: Load Video
Click "Add File" to load the video that you want.

MTS converter

Step 2: Choose Your Output Profile and Settings
From "Profile" drop-down list you can choose your output profile according to your need.
For example, if you have a iPod and you want to convert video for it, you need to choose "iPod" from the profile list and then it also provides the second chance to specify your iPod generation.
You can also click "setting" adjust the settings of your output video, such as "video/audio encoder", "Video/audio Bitrate", "Channels", "Resolution" and so on..

Step 3: Conversion
After you have done all the steps above you can click "Start" button to start your conversion.

Part 2: How to convert M2TS video

M2TS converter

Step 1: Add File
Load your M2TS video.

Step 2: Choose Profile and Settings
Select your output profile according your need and adjust the settings of your output video if you like.
(the default setting works well)

Step 3: Start Conversion
Click "Start" to begin your conversion.

Here I also recommend you a really nice HD Video Converter, which can convert HD TS, HD MTS, HD M2TS, HD MPEG, HD WMV, HD MPG, HD MP4, QuickTime HD MOV, HD H.264, HD RM video, etc

2010年11月21日星期日

Sports Illustrated Lets Its iPad App Stand Up Again

Earlier this fall Sports Illustrated made a counterintuitive move: It stopped letting people read its iPad app any way they liked.

Instead, the magazine pushed users to read its app in just the horizontal “landscape” mode, and essentially disabled the vertical “portrait” mode.

At the time, Time Inc. editor Josh Quittner said the publisher was doing so because:

  • Viewing the app horizontally was better for users;
  • Producing just one version of the app saved money;
  • And since Apple wasn’t cooperating with Sports Illustrated’s effort to sell subscriptions to the app, it didn’t make sense to throw more resources at the project.

That was back in September, and since then Time Inc. (like just about every other big publisher) has yet to reach an agreement with Apple about how to handle subscriptions in iTunes. But in the meantime, Sports Illustrated has apparently thought things over, because readers can once again view the app in landscape and portrait modes. Behold!

I only noticed the change today, but it turns out it has been in place since the magazine’s October 18 issue. What gives? Or what gave?

A statement from a Sports Illustrated rep doesn’t shed much light: “We are constantly exploring the iPad’s numerous functionalities for innovative ways to present Sports Illustrated to consumers. Each issue delivers something unique either in its design, functionality or content.”

So in the absence of better information, I’ll make a couple of guesses that aren’t mutually exclusive:

  • I think app users complained quite a bit about the change, because conventional wisdom is that people like access to both modes, and they particularly enjoy reading magazine apps in the vertical mode, because that’s the way they read the paper-and-ink versions.
  • Someone at Time Inc., or its parent company Time Warner, rethought the notion of negotiating with Apple by making its product look less attractive.

That said, it’s worth noting that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes himself has been quite vocal, in a corporatespeak sort of way, about his company’s eagerness to work with tablet makers beyond Apple. (This mirrors what the magazine industry’s Next Issue Media joint venture is saying, too, by launching with Google’s Android platform first.)

Bewkes made noises about it during his company’s earnings call earlier this month. And he got more forceful about it–again, by his standards–yesterday during an onstage interview with the New York Times’ David Carr.

If somebody that makes a tablet–you can nominate who it is–wants to not have app support for what we’re going to put over the internet, they will degrade the capability of the tablet that you bought.

So if you’ve got a tablet that whoever gave it to you, they don’t want it work well, that will be their actions not ours…

You’re the customer, you bought the device. Are you going to tolerate a device, that doesn’t let its app support give you the full range of capability that is offered by the publisher or the network?

Because we’re going to be very public about what we offer, and it’s going to be all free, for anybody who buys the magazine. And if some tech company stands between you and that experience, they should answer to you.

In fact, it’s worth watching Bewkes deliver this speech in real time, and it’s a hoot to watch him onstage with Carr. If you’re in a rush, the magazine/tablet stuff kicks in around the 26-minute mark.