Vorbis Theora

I remember the ogg vorbis player from way back when which also happened to be the best player at the time.  So coming across the video codec release Theora 1.0, i unhesitatingly and unashamedly, had to copy and past this plug.

"Are you tired of constantly being prompted to download proprietary software and plugins to play the videos and listen to the music you want?

Are you fed up with seeing new gadgets that only use incompatible and restrictive audio and video formats?

Did you know that it's not a lack of technological know-how that causes this, but software patents and other legal restrictions?

Increasingly proprietary software companies like Microsoft, Apple and Adobe are pushing video and audio formats that restrict access and restrict software developers, but there is an alternative that can be played on all computers without restriction—Ogg.

Ogg provides professional grade multimedia formats. Ogg is used extensively by free software projects, artists and a growing number of music and video distributors.

Soon over a million children and their families will be receiving the One Laptop per Child XO computer designed to play and create Ogg files. By advocating now for Ogg we can help ensure that those children will gain access to, and not be unnecessarily restricted from thousands of educational resources and materials on the web.

Join us in advocating for Ogg right now by taking 4 Easy Steps:

1. Install VLC multimedia player,
2. sign-up for the PlayOgg advocate mailing list,
3. find and share Ogg friendly sites, and
4. put PlayOgg Buttons on your web site or blog.

After all that, if you are still looking for more to do, consider encouraging others to do the same."

Opensource and freeware picks - august 2008

Well it's the year of the iphone with people in countries who don't have 3g networks still buying the iphone, because of the kudos. Sweet!

For this month my top ten open source picks, that have kept me happily tickled are:

1. audacity - audio
2. inkscape - vector drawing software
3. gimp - photo/paint software
4. camstudio - excellent bit of opensource software allowing you to record/capture any part of your screen vidcast
5. openoffice 3.0 - fully fledged office suite of programs
6. winmd5sum - cute little freeware utility that checks downloaded program checksums simply by right clicking and sending
7. Blender 2.47 - animation 3d and game designing software which gives many of the bigger boys an excellent run for their vastly overpriced sums. Don't believe me? Check out the award it's just won
8. firefox - a browser with so many helpful plug-ins and extensions, a browsing experience on any other computer, just isn't the same
9. vlc media player - plays most video's, dvd formats without a hiccup
10. cutepdf - create a pdf from any program without any hassle

That is just a quick snap shot of my current pick of favourites.  The list could go on and on.  But as each month goes by the open source and freeware developer communities, continue to spring remarkable surprises.

I might consider an iphone, once they have one that incorporates radio. Oh yes and a replaceable battery.  But who knows, it might turn out that i'll be far happier with an android.