Using VLC to convert audio files or extract audio to mp3

Using VLC to convert in Windows is mostly self guiding, however using the VLC on OSX can get a bit tricky, especially when you only want to convert/extract to an audio file like mp3.

From the VLC File menu select Streaming/Exporting Wizard

A new window will be opened and select Transcode/Save to file

 

From the next screen select the file you want to have converted and in the final screen select the transcoding options as follows:

(video to dummy and audio transcode to MP3). Next, you have to select the output format, just select RAW.

Finally select the output file. You cannot set it to mp3 and will need to use the raw extension.

Once it is converted, you can rename it from .raw to .mp3

For the advanced users under us you can also use the terminal:

/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC -I dummy "/Users/yourname/Music/Input File.mp4" --sout='#transcode{acodec=mp3,vcodec=dummy}:standard{access=file,mux=raw,dst="/Users/yourname/Music/Output File.mp3"}' vlc://quit

If you want to convert multiple files:

for file in /Users/$USER/Music/*.mp4; do /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC -I dummy "$file" --sout="#transcode{acodec=mp3,vcodec=dummy}:standard{access=file,mux=raw,dst=\"$(echo "$file" | sed 's/\.[^\.]*$/.mp3/')\"}" vlc://quit; done

Recovering files

This happens to everyone at some point… a hard disk crashes and now you want to restore some files from it.

One utility I use is Recuva.

Even if you've formatted a drive so that it looks blank, Recuva can still find your files on it.

Keep in mind that restoring files is always a bit of luck and sometimes you are just out of luck.

For more recovery tools see also:

http://www.raymond.cc/blog/top-10-free-data-recovery-software/

For the real professionals among us, I would advice Testdisk. This is more for recovering lost partitions and if you are really interesting in getting deeper into data recovery check out http://lifehacker.com/5525534/recover-data-like-a-forensics-expert-using-an-ubuntu-live-cd

I hope you will be able to recover what you were looking for.

Good luck!

Windows 8 Shortcut keys

Continuing my experience with Win8, here are the shortcut keys available in Win8 which would make your experience with Win8 better:

• Win : switch between the Start screen and the last-running Windows 8 app
• Win + C : displays the Charms: the Settings, Devices, Share and Search options
• Win + D : launches the desktop
• Win + E : launches Explorer
• Win + F : opens the File Search pane
• Win + H : opens the Share pane
• Win + I : opens Settings
• Win + K : opens the Devices pane
• Win + L : locks your PC
• Win + M : minimises the current Explorer or Internet Explorer window (works in the full-screen IE, too)
• Win + O : toggles device orientation lock on and off
• Win + P : switch your display to a second display or projector
• Win + Q : open the App Search pane
• Win + R : opens the Run box
• Win + U : open the Ease of Access Centre
• Win + V : cycle through toasts (notifications)
• Win + W : search your system settings (type POWER for links to all power-related options, say)
• Win + X : displays a text menu of useful Windows tools and applets
• Win + Z : displays the right-click context menu when in a full-screen app
• Win + + : launch Magnifier and zoom in
• Win + - : zoom out
• Win + , : Aero peek at the desktop
• Win + Enter : launch Narrator
• Win + PgUp : move the current screen to the left-hand monitor
• Win + PgDn : move the current screen to the right-hand monitor
• Win + PrtSc : capture the current screen and save it to your Pictures folder
• Win + Tab : switch between running apps

Windows 8 Tips and Tricks

Despite of other people advising me not to do, I have chosen to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8. To be honest, it was not optimal.

First thing encountered which I really did not expect was getting the hardware to work with Windows 8. I succeeded in this only 90%. In my Chronos 7 laptop, I still cannot get the Fn-Keys for keyboard backlit to work.For some reason the Samsung does not see my keyboard and brightness settings:

Anyway, I manage to live with that and will later in time try to fix that issue.

Second point of irritation is of course the new interface: Metro. I have clicked so many times accidently on the IE icon, presuming it was the start button. After a few days, I now I have become familiar with the new Interface and actually it is not that bad. I do miss the Aero glass/transparent look of Windows 7.

Here are some shortcuts I have learned to use in the past few days:

Windows-X: Quick access menu giving quick access to commonly used settings

Windows-Q: My favorite shortcuts; similar to Windows 7 Start menu text input. Allows to search for applications while you type

Windows-C: Default charms, similar to moving to the mouse to the right/left top of your main screen.

Windows-I: Shows the settings charm. Very useful to reboot or shutdown your computer. You can also use the ALT-F4 on the desktop to come up with the shutdown dialog.

Windows-Tab: Switch between the metro apps

As always Ctrl-Shift-Esc for Task manager

Metro related tips:

App groups: In the metro interface you can zoom out (ctrl-mousescroll) and right click on the group to rename it.

Closing (metro) applications: If you have to believe Microsoft, there is no need to close the application as they are suspended. If you would to do anyway, ALT-F4 works but also you can move your mouse to the top (pointer becomes a hand) and drag all the way to the bottom.

Running applications side by side, which is called immersive.This can be done by swiping however when you don’t have a touchscreen, you can use the mouse by moving to the top (just like closing) and move the app to the right or left. Opening a new metro app will now fill the rest of the screen.

 

To be continued…

Windows Media Player not responding

After the last update from Microsoft (september 2012), my Windows Media Player stopped responding… actually it starts up but it is just blank and nothing responds. The strange thing is that it does not also use CPU (0% utilization).

If this happens, best way is to use the MS Fixit tool located at:
http://support.microsoft.com/mats/windows_media_player_diagnostic/

 

Other options:

1) Reset Media Library manually

Close WMP12.

Type in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft in the search field, and press Enter Key.

Open the Microsoft Folder and locate Media Player and rename the Media Player folder to something like Media Player old.

2) Reinstall

via Turn Windows features on or off under the Control Panel.Uncheck Windows Media Player (under Media Features),follow on-screen instructions and reboot

Putting images and videos to your photo stream / camera roll

I recently started experimenting with Keynote on my iPad. I have a custom video which I required to be shown in the presentation, however Keynote on the iPad only allows to import images or videos from your Photo Stream or Camera Roll. This means that you either need iTunes to synch the movie to your iPad or get creative. The latter is my choice, as I don’t have iTunes installed.

In order to be creative, your iPad needs to be Jailbroken and you need the excellent iFile app from Cydia. By using iFile, you can upload your video/image to the iPad using the web interface. After upload, navigate to your file and view it.

Press the button in the viewer to add it your Camera Roll.

And voila, it is now available on Keynote. Happy presentations.

See also: http://iphone.heinelt.eu/?Applications:iFile:File_Viewers

MS Outlook 2010 Search order

Since I have been using Outlook 2010, search is slow and it always starts finding older items first, which is really frustrating and it seems I am not the only person having this issue.

After investigating on this matter, I realized I had turned of Microsoft (Desktop) Search to look into my email (and contacts). This due to the fact that every time I did a search in the start menu, my outlook items were showing up. This however seems to crippled the search from Outlook itself.

The solution is to enable the Microsoft Search via Outlook options:

In the Indexing options, make sure your Outlook account is added to list of items to be indexed.

After all items are indexed, things should work better now and with an additional bonus that the search is much much faster. Coming back to the reason why disabled this in the first place: showing outlook items in the start menu. Well this can be disabled by setting a registry value:

Path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\
Key: NoSearchCommInStartMenu (DWORD)

After setting this key to 1, your outlook items will no longer be shown in the start menu search results.

Codeslot uitzetten voor iPhone

Soms lijken zaken ingewikkelder dan ze zijn... zoals het uitzetten van de codeslot op de iPhone. Gewoon naar Instellingen-Algemeen-Codeslot, je voert dan je code in en is de Zet code uit is dan beschikbaar. Je moet nog een keer je code invullen waarna de codeslot wordt uitgezet. (iOS 5).

Het is mogelijk dat in sommige gevallen dit niet mogelijk is omdat de iPhone gekoppeld is aan een corporate email (Exchange) met een policy waarbij code niet uitgezet kan worden.

In response for the Font Hipsters

Today I read the article “Font Hipsters” by Daring Fireball and have to comment on the last 3 sentences:

We criticize Android for being poorly designed because it’s poorly designed. We favor iOS because it’s better designed. That’s it.

My reaction is:

We criticize iOS for being totally controlled by Apple because you will need to jailbreak your device to run your own apps. We favor Android because it’s open. It’s you who controls your device.

Anyway, the article was actually about the new Android system font Roboto. Personally I really like the font.

Click here to download it.

Batch converting with ffmpeg in Windows

 

As mentioned in my earlier post, ffmpeg is the best tool to convert media files. However sometimes you need to convert a collection files in one go. Of course you can use various gui tools for ffmpeg, but I like to  keep things simple (or complicated, depending on the context).

Basically ffmpeg can only process 1 file at a time from the command line. Linux/Mac users have powerful bash script at their disposal, but do not underestimate Windows

You probably already have a batch file to convert a single file (which contains all the required parameters for ffmpeg). What we need to do is add an additional batch file which will call “converting” batch file.

So, say you want to convert all .mov files in a folder to .mp3. Let’s start by our converting batch file.

convert-to-mp3.bat

IF EXIST "%1.mp3" GOTO exit

@echo Conversion for %1 started on %DATE% %TIME%
ffmpeg -b 128k -i %1 %1.mp3

:exit
@echo %1.mp3 already exists

What does it do: Checks if output exists, if not then converts the input file to .mp3 using ffmpeg.

Next step is to create the batch file which will call the above batch file.

Startconvert.bat

for %%i IN (*.mov) DO (convert-to-mp3.bat "%%i")
pause

As you can see this is a simple for loop calling your converting batch file.

To just convert all the .mov files to mp3, start startconvert.bat and you will be fine.

Lessons which can be learned by playing Angry Birds

Playing angry birds is actually a lot of fun and besides being fun, without even realizing, we train ourselves in the daily business practices as:

Planning
Before you start playing the game, you look how the pigs are located and protected to determine the best strategy would be to beat the level as you should so do in real life: doing an inventory on the obstacles and the possibilities.

Efficiency
As you have limited birds with different abilities having their strengths and weaknesses, you have to be efficient with your resources to beat the level or as in business: get the job done with the resources you have.

Minimum effort, maximum output
The game gives you bonuses for the birds you have not used. By doing a good planning and by being efficient you can achieve the goal with the minimum effort.The game actually somehow forces you to be smart. Same applies in business.

Patience and Perseverance
As you progress in the game the levels get harder and mostly you will not succeed the first time you try. However by trying again and re-evaluating your tactic, you will succeed. By having patience and retrying each time you will be successful.

Experience
As you get more and more experienced the game becomes easier. You will start to see the patterns and develop tactics which you can use to achieve the goal. Your tactics will become more complex as you know how your resources act and even at some point be able to use your resources in a way you initially would not have thought of.

Luck factor
Sometimes you are just plain lucky. Your tactic did not work as you had thought but still you were able to achieve the goal. This is the same in business, sometimes you get lucky and sometimes not. Combined with experience you can even predict if you are going to be lucky and it can be even be integrated in your tactics with a backup plan if you were not lucky as expected.

I believe the success of Angry Birds is due to the fact that the game involves what we do daily (even some of us do without knowing) in a fun way.

Installous download folder

Been experimenting with old 2G iPhone (iOS update, jailbreak, etc). Just a quick note: If you ever wanted to know where the downloaded IPA’s are on your phone/pad, check the /private/var/mobile/Installous/Downloads folder. You can use a tool like DiskAid to connect to your device and store them locally.

I am currently doing the other way around.I am in principle against iTunes and avoid as much as I can, so I will try to see if I can install downloaded IPA from Installous. I think it should work.

PS. Coming back from Android to iOS, I realize how good Android is and how restricted iOS is.

Connecting KIES to the Samsung Galaxy S

 

I have waited until today to update my SGS to Froyo and installed KIES finally. After reading the horror stories about KIES, you can imagine my expectations. It was actually not that horrifying. However I did keep having an issue connecting the phone to the KIES. The Galaxy MTP application says it is connected, but in KIES it states it is trying to connect.

To keep a long story short, while your phone is connected, right click on My Computer, select Device Manager and you will probably see an entry called GT-I900 with a warning sign.

Right click, select uninstall and then disconnect.

Connect the phone again, and Windows will install the drivers again, and you should be able to connect with KIES.

Multiple rundll32.exe instances

 

Recently I have been encountering multiple run32dll.exe instances in my taskmanager (windows 7). Of course I was alarmed and googling indicated a probable virus. I was almost sure that this was not the case on my machine, but better safe then sorry. Scans resulted nothing, which was as I expected.

It was time now to actually investigate what triggered the rundll32.exe. With process explorer I found out it was Chrome…. Aahaa… now I had more context for googling. It turns out that the current Chrome Canary version 9.0.583.0 (Official Build 66097) had this issue.

It seems it has already been fixed in the latest development build, see http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=64006

So if you are using Chrome Canary build and see a lot of rundll32.exe, then you know

Windows 7 Printer not printing

 

Sometimes Windows is not really helping when you never reboot. I like my Windows 7 Sony Vaio laptop, especially the hibernation function. Quick start everytime, but sometimes Windows need to be rebooted, especially when things are becoming slow or stop functioning. This week I had a problem during printing: I was unable to print, each time it failed. My guess was that the printer spooler got lost somewhere.

So a quick tip:

Open command prompt (with Administrative priviledges: right click on shortcut, select Run as Administrator):

Issue the following command:

net stop spooler

and then

net start spooler

Your printing issues will be gone (unless something is really messed up)

(for more info see this link)

Android development continued

Sometimes this Eclipse is killing me After I added a menu.xml, it kept giving strange errors like, XML cannot be parsed, size 0, bla bla. I double checked the xml and couldn’t find any problems. So maybe it could have been an Eclipse issue, so I restarted it.

After restarting Eclipse, this time I got the message:

Unparsed aapt error(s)! Check the console for output. <ProjectName> Unknown Android Packaging Problem.

Checking the console, revealed no errors What to do now. Again Google Fu learned me how to resolve this issue as follows:

Right-click on the error message in the Problems view, and deleting the error. Modify the xml for forcing a build and magically it worked.

Android development

After a long time not using Eclipse, I recently started it again to experiment further with Android development. 3 things came up, which I would like to share with you and what the fix is.

 

After creating a test Android project, the following error showed up:

ERROR: Unable to open class file <path>\gen\com\example\test\R.java: No such file or directory.

It seems that the java compiler cannot create this R.java. In order to fix this, do the following:

1. Open Eclipse
2. Open Window/Preferences
3. Expand JAVA option
4. Select Build Path
5. Check the option "Project" and uncheck "folder" options
6. Click on OK
7. Restart eclipse IDE

These steps fixed my problems regarding this issue.

 

 

When trying to run the application, the following error came up:

An internal error occurred during: "Launching test".com/android/ddmlib/ShellCommandUnresponsiveException

The fix for this was to update the Android DDMS by going to Help -> Software Updates select the Android DDMS and press Update button.

I had updated the Android Development tools, but had forgotten to update the Android DDMS.

 

 

Unable to view manifest files from within Eclipse, when you open the main.xml

When you try to open an application's manifest file from within Eclipse, you might get an error such as this one:

An error has occurred. See error log for more details.
org.eclipse.wst.sse.ui.StructuredTextEditor.isBlockSelectionModeEnabled()Z

Try reverting to the 3.0 version of the Eclipse XML Editors and Tools. If this does not work, remove the 3.1 version of the tool. To do this in Eclipse 3.4:

1. Select Help > Software Updates...
2. Select the Installed Software tab.
3. Select Eclipse XML Editors and Tools.
4. Click Uninstall.
5. Click Finish.
6. When you restart Eclipse, you should be able to view the manifest files.

In my case, I just uninstalled them and it magically worked

 

Hope these were useful for you if you encounter the same issue.

Samsung Galaxy S Tips

I was just surfing and encountered some tips on the usage of the Samsung Galaxy S which will help me/you to get the most of this excellent phone.

1. Contact screen: Swipe to left to create a text/SMS message to the contact
2. Contact screen: Swipe to right to call the contact immediately
3. Contact screen: Move your finger in the alphabet to quickly navigate to a contact starting with the letter, then while pressing move to left to move within that letter, eg. after D you can navigate in everything starting with D by moving to the left
4. Press and hold HOME key to get a list of recently used apps, which can be used to switch between applications (not specific to SGS)
5. Press menu and Edit in the home screen to delete and/or reorder the home pages. In order to reorder: touch and hold the screen which will allow to drag them
6. If your brightness is not set to auto, you can swipe from left to right in the notification bar to set brightness to maximum and the right to left to set brightness to minimum.
7. You can have the SGS announce the title/artist of a song from the Music player by pressing and holding the Up Volume button while a song is playing
8. You can "lock screen" while watching video by pressing Power Button while a video is playing. This is great at preventing unintended clicks while holding the phone watching a video
9. In the browser: Access to the bookmark button and address bar by tapping the Menu button (no need to scroll all the way up)
10. Open soft D-Pad by tap-and-hold the "?123" key on the standard Samsung Keyboard or swipe from the Swype button to the SYM button in the Swype Keyboard
11. Pressing and holding the Power button (keep pressing it after you get the shutdown/airplane dialog) will perform a reset.
12. Holding the Menu key for a second, will bring up the search dialog (emulating the search button available in other Android phones)
13. You lock the camera screen to only take a shot, by pressing the Power button for a very short time. This will show a paddock on screen.
14. When receiving a call press the volume down button to mute the ringer
15. Use the volume +/- in camera mode to zoom in and out

For more technical tips see the also the XDA forum and see also a list of cool apps to use with the SGS.

Samsung Galaxy MTP keeps repeating “Initializing” when connected to USB

I have been using a Samsung Galaxy for a few weeks now and it has been the best phone ever. I think Samsung has really got a phone which can blow away the iPhone (4) without any problems. After installing the voodoo fix for the lag issue, it has been extremely fast. Just now waiting for the Froyo (Android 2.2) release and my life will be complete :)

Anyway, today I connected my Galaxy to my PC, and for the first time something strange happened. The MTP application for KIES on the phone kept initializing. It tries to initialize but for some reason it dies and then the whole process starts all over again, actually funny to see. However this meant I was unable to access my phone from my PC. I needed some Google-fu. After a while I found the solution, it seems that if you have any files with an extension longer then 16 characters, the MTP application just looses it.

For me the solution was to start up my favorite file manager (ES File Explorer) and remove the TunnyBrowser folder. This folder is used by the Dolphin browser I have been using for a while now. If the issue still exists and you are using Soundhound try also removing the SoundHound cache folder. If this does not help, get your SD card out and search for files with long extensions.

Hope this helps if you have the similar issue

FFMpeg and WMV conversion

Just a quick blog entry. When converting video files (avi, mpg, etc) to WMV to play on Windows or XBOX, you will need to make sure that the correct audio encoding (wmav2) is used. If not the video file will not play and you will probably get an error.

 

You can use the –acodec wmav2 switch in ffmpeg command parameter to enforce to correct audio encoding for WMV files.