Monday, March 27, 2006

Top 20 Apple TV Plugins And Hacks

Leopard is coming soon, and some reports claim that the new Front Row is going to borrow its look from New-Digital-TV-Boxes Mar-08. In the meantime, Apple TVs themselves are cheaper then ever, but Apple is strangely quiet about it. Is Apple TV the future of home entertainment or is it Apple’s blunder which will probably disappear from the market in the years to come? You decide. In the meantime, we’ve created a toolbox with over 25 plugins and hacks to make all you AppleTV owners smile.

Plugins

Apple TV RSS Plugin – Configure and read various RSS feeds right on your Apple TV.

ATVLoader – Install many plugins from a large database. This one is great for those that want a simplified and easy way of installing plugins without a lot of hassle.

nitoTV – The biggest and best plugin of them all. Network and USB mounting, mplayer, and DVD playback with VIDEO_TS files or ISO files.

Road Trip – GPS plugin that works with any USB GPS adapter, fetches maps from MapQuest.

Sapphire – Best way to manage TV Shows and Movies.

Sports Scores – This plugin allows you to check sports scores.

Streamer – Stream internet radio through your Apple TV.

MPDControl – Control your MPD server easily from your Apple TV.

ATVTorrents – Finds torrents in your Home directory and automatically starts downloading them with rTorrent.

Firefly – Allows the streaming of music on your Apple TV to iTunes.

Omelette – A fun puzzle game designed to run on your Apple TV.

Perian – Although not truly a plugin, Perian allows playback of many file types.

JamanTV – Download movies from the JamanTV service onto your Apple TV.

ATVWakeOnLan – Wakes up remote media servers nearby.

Applications Menu – Run applications on your Apple TV easily with this launcher.

Hacks

Firefox – This hack shows you how to get Firefox up and running on an Apple TV, step by step.

Component to RGB – How to convert from component to RGB for TVs that don’t have component ports.

How to Play DivX From a NAS – Explains how to play DivX files on your AppleTV from a network storage device.

Color Output – How to easily get color output from the AppleTV’s component ports.

Asterisk – How to get Asterisk running on an AppleTV.

Keyboard/Mouse – How to get a USB keyboard and mouse working on an Apple TV.

Mouse Pointer – This tutorial explains how to enable the mouse pointer.

OS X – Install OS X on an Apple TV.

USB Drive – A tutorial that tells you how to boot your Apple TV from an external USB drive.

Enable VNC – Tutorial explaining how to enable Remote Desktop/VNC.

SSH and AFP – Explains how to enable SSH and AFP on Apple TV. (via)

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Top 20 Database Tools & Resources

It’s never too late to start learning about databases, because they’re pretty much ubiquitous and you’re bound to bump into them sooner or later. We’ve gathered 20+ tools to help you get started working with them.

Cacti.net – Works with RRDtool to provide more graphing options, advanced templating, and more.

Database Administration and SQL Scripts – A large collection of database scripts and articles.

dbForums.com – A very active forum for database developers of all types.

Dev Shed – A large collection of tutorials on working with MySQL.

FirebirdSQL.org – An open source relational database with SQL standard features and cross-platform compatible.

FlameRobin.org – A database management tool for use with FlamebirdSQL.

Ganglia – A scalable distributed monitoring system that works with RRDtools.

How To Forge – A collection of articles on how to do some “out of the norm” tasks with MySQL.

ibWebAdmin.net – An administration front end for Firebird and InterBase databases.

MySQLQuickAdmin.com – A free graphical user interface for use with MySQL.

Oracle FAQs – A collection of FAQs about Oracle database administration.

pgAdmin.org – An open source project for administrating and developing PostgreSQL projects.

phpMyAdmin.net – Probably the best known database manager out there today for SQL.

phpPgAdmin – A we-based admin tool for PostgreSQL.

PostgreSQL.org – An open source, object orientated SQL database system.

RRDTool – A “round robin” database that keeps the data footprint a constant size.

SQLite Aministrator – A tool to help create, design, and administer databases.

SS64.com – A collection of commands for Oracle and SQL.

ToadSoft.com – A database development tool for Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 and more.

TurboDbAdmin – An AJAX powered Database management solution.

Zmanda – An open source backup solution for your MySQL projects. (via)

Monday, March 13, 2006

Top 40 Media Players That Are Not iTunes

iTunes is arguably the most popular media player for Mac & Windows, with a recent update for the iPhone…but is it the best? Check out the competition: 40 other popular media players.

Cross-Platform

Amarok – Amarok is a cross-platform intuitive music player for Linux, UNIX and the Mac operating system. Its features include lyrics support, Wikipedia integration, music statistics and a contextual browser.

BHplayer – BHplayer doubles as a media player & DVD player with its support for many audio and video formats.

BMP – A compact, open source multimedia player for Ubuntu using skinnable interface based on Winamp skins.

GLM FLV Player – GLM is a feature rich standalone application to view FLV files without any codec.

JW Media Player – JW Media player supports media playback of files which are compatible with Adobe Flash player. Examples of files are MP3, FLV and SWF etc.

Kaffeine – Kaffeine is a power packed multimedia player for systems runnning the KDE (K Desktop Environment).

Kplayer – Kplayer is an open-source multi media player for the KDE desktop environment.

MediaFrame – An open-source Java based streaming media platform offering support for playing Mpeg formats.

Mplayer – Mplayer is an open source cross-platform media player and is compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac etc.
Ogle – Ogle is an open source DVD player for Linux, UNIX and similar operating systems.

RealPlayer – A cross-platform media player with support for playing MP3, MPEG, Windows Media, QuickTime & Real media file formats.

Rhythmbox – An iTunes inspired music management application, designed to work with GNOME desktop.

Songbird – Songbird is a Firefox-based new age cross platform media player and web-browser jukebox built by the ex-team of Winamp and the Yahoo music engine.

Totem – An open source media player for GNOME desktop environment with added functionality like webcam utility, video thumbnailer and Firefox plugin.

VLC media player – VLC is an extremely portable multimedia player capable of supporting many audio, video codecs and DVDs, CDs and streaming protocols.

Xine – Xine is an open source cross-platform multimedia engine having API for video processing and playback. Xine offers support for Linux, Mac and Solaris.

XMMS – XMMS called as X Multimedia system is a multimedia player for UNIX systems. Its features include support for files like MP3, WAV and MOD etc.

Zoom Player – Zoom player is a customizable DVD media player that offers support for the latest media formats.

Windows

Ace Media Player – A single player to watch QuickTime, Real, DivX and Windows Media files.

ALShow Media Player – ALShow provides inbuilt codes which offer support for playing FLV and MP4 files.

BS.Player – BS.Player is one of the most popular video players and has very low CPU and RAM requirements. BS.Player has over 60 million users worldwide and is available in more than 90 languages.

Core Media Player – A DVD media player for Microsoft Windows.

Crystal Reality – CrystalPlayer features video playback for all types of sources for various versions of Windows operating systems.

FLV Player – FLV player is a media player for playback of Flash video from your computer and websites such as YouTube, Google Video etc.

GOM Player – GOM, expanded as Gretech Media player offers support for playing .flv and other files without obtaining a codec.

jetAudio – A software multimedia player with advanced features like the ability to rip CDs, encode audio & video files and recording capabilities.

Kantaris – Kantaris is based on Videolan client (VLC) source code and can play almost all types of files, audio & video CDs and DVDs. Kantaris is compatible with all versions of Windows and is open-source.

LAVA FLV Player – Lava FLV player is used to play flash video files used in Google video, Youtube, Metacafe etc.

Media Center – Media Center is a Jukebox style media player. It has an interface similar to iTunes and enables users to organize and play various types of media files.

MPC – Media Player Classic (MPC) is a handy media player for Microsoft Windows and uses the look and feel of the earliest Windows Media Player.
PowerDVD – PowerDVD doubles as a video and music player for the Windows operating system. Users can play DVD movies or movies stored on their computer. It also offers support for Blu-Ray and HD DVD.

Quintessential Player – A media player for Windows featuring support for popular audio formats. It comes with advanced features like streaming internet radio and CD ripping.

RadLight – RadLight is billed as the first type of an all-in-one multimedia solution which allows users to experience DivX, DVD and MP4 audio. Apart from the free version it also has a pro version with special features like subtitles, double resolution etc.

The KMPlayer – A dynamic media player capable of playing all audio & video formats. Its special features include subtitle handling & media capturing and screenshots.

TrayPlayer – TrayPlayer is a customisable media player and embeds easily into the Windows taskbar.

Winamp – An immensely popular media player written by Nullsoft. Users can enjoy free music, play around with its cool skins and synchronize it with the iPod.

WinDVD – WinDVD is a video and music player enabling users to watch their favorite DVD movies without any interruption.

VidLizard – A DVD, video and audio player for Windows with easy-to-use interface and optional control panel for screen play.

Others

CorePlayer – CorePlayer is an advanced multimedia platform allowing users to manipulate multimedia content on their mobile phone, PDA, GPS or convergence devices.

NicePlayer – A Mac OS media player using Quicktime library and providing support for any codes available with Quicktime. Its special feature is the open-ended plugin system which allows anyone to write a plugin.

Xbox Media Center (XBMC) – XMBC is a media player for the Xbox gaming console. Its features include music, image and video playback. (via)

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Top 10 Free E-books For Bloggers

E-books aren’t as great to read as old school hard-bound books that you can cuddle up with in your bed. But, with some topics, like blogging, you’ll find more useful e-books than regular books. That’s why we checked out all the e-books for bloggers and handpicked ten contemporary ones that we think are the best of the lot.

Authority Black Book

Authority Black Book – What is an authority presence on the web? Why is it important to have an authority and how can you attain authority? What are the web 2.0 tools that you can use? Authority Black Book is a 64-page ebook by Jake Humphrey explaining how to get the best out of web 2.0 technology including blogging, RSS marketing, social bookmarking sites, social media marketing sites, and video marketing in order to attract more traffic to your site. There is also a list of web 2.0 resource sites.

You would already be aware of what is written about in the ebook if you have been blogging for quite some time. But the ebook is a good resource with plenty of links of the top sites and services in different categories related to blogging, and you can take it as a starting point if you are newly starting out in the blogosphere.

Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization

Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization – For many a blogger, search engine optimization is the next thing they want to understand once they set up their blog and are couple of weeks into blogging. If that’s the case, this is the ebook that they should get their hands on. Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization is a good newbie’s guide to SEO practices from SEOmoz explaining how search engines operate, how to conduct keyword research, building a traffic-worthy site, and growing a site’s popularity.

The ebook can be downloaded in MS Word or Open Office Text Document format. There are single page and 9-page versions of the ebook as well that you can read online.

BlogBash: Deep Secrets of Successful Blogging – learn from 30 experts

BlogBash: Deep Secrets of Successful Blogging – learn from 30 experts – What can you say when you get 30 of the top bloggers from across the globe writing down their secrets in one free ebook? This ebook is a must-read for every blogger.

Some of the articles include – Synergy between SEO and traditional marketing by Aaron Wall of SEOBook, Driving traffic using Delicious by Neil Patel of ProNetAdvertising, 7 ways to make your content search engine friendly by Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips, Staying Connected-the secret to keeping those loyal readers by Liz Strauss of Successful-Blog, Help me – my mom is my blog’s only reader by Darren Rowse of Problogger, Advertising in the blogosphere by Chris Batty of Gizmodo, among others. This ebook is a product of BlogBash – the 30 day event featuring expert bloggers from across the blogosphere.

Blog Profits Blueprint

Blog Profits Blueprint – Starting off with how he discovered blogging, Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur’s Journey explains in this 54 page ebook the strategies and tactics you require to start blogging successfully. Some of the subjects he talks about include key ingredients of attracting attraction to your blog, how to choose your blog traffic – passions vs profits, creating pillar posts, marketing your blog, etc.

Yaro also details blog monetization methods including Google AdSense and other alternatives. There is a section on RSS and blog advertising too. The writing is easy to comprehend and Yaro has included some genuine experiences that you can learn from.

Dive Into Web 2.0

Dive Into Web 2.0 – This is a comprehensive guide to Web 2.0 sites and technologies including search engines, SEO, wikis, blogging, social networking, social bookmarking, social media, tagging, web monetization, APIs, mashups, widgets, gadgets, RSS, web 2.0 business models, and rich media applications like AJAX, Silverlight, Google Gears, and many more.

Maybe you can say Wikipedia is there for all these terminologies. But what this ebook brings you is the entire set of web 2.0 technologies in one go, exposing many tools that you might not have heard about before.

Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber Dissidents

Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber Dissidents – Reporters Without Borders is an international organization that works for press freedom. In this ebook, the organization provides tips to blog anonymously and get round censorship for free expression in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. In their own words, bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Sometimes, only bloggers provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest. Plenty of bloggers have been thrown in prison for their writing.
One unique tidbit that you won’t find anywhere else is the chapter on Blogging ethics that talks about thoroughness, accuracy, fairness, transparency, and independence. There are also personal accounts of bloggers who have been writing from Internet-censored countries.

The ebook also dedicates the final chapter to the countries that censor the Internet including China, Vietnam, Tunisia, Iran, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia. This is truly one read that reminds us that blogging is not all about keeping a personal diary or being just a business tool. It can play serious socio-political roles in different parts of the world.

Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com

Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com is a comprehensive ebook on everything you need to start a blog and maintain it successfully. Written by John Chow, one of the most outspoken bloggers on blogging, the ebook explains blogging tips for beginners and then goes into blog monetization tips with examples of various affiliate links, blog promotion tips, and Google Optimization. There is a chapter on WordPress as well.

The ebook has 9 chapters spread across 59 pages. A must read for beginners and something that even a veteran blogger might find useful.

Unleashing the Idea Virus

Unleashing the Idea Virus – This is a mega 197-page viral marketing ebook by marketing guru Seth Godin. He explains why ideas matter, and reveals the secrets on how to unleash an ideavirus. He also presented many case studies to prove his point.

The book answers tricky questions like why is it foolish to launch a new business with millions of dollars in TV ads, why the market leaders in every industry are more vulnerable to sudden successes by the competition than ever before, what’s the single most important asset a company can create—and what is the simple thing that can kill it, does the Net create a dynamic that fundamentally changes the way everything is marketed, and how can any big or small business use ideavirus marketing to succeed, among others.

Although the book is aimed at marketing professionals, it is also a must-read for professional bloggers, webmasters, and those who are out in the blogospshere to create a successful brand/product for themselves.

Web Style Guide

Web Style Guide – This is a newbie webmaster’s guide to page design, typography, editorial style, graphics, and multimedia. There are sections on web site accessibility, CSS, and flexible page design, information architecture, and site maintenance, coupled with illustrations and examples.

Who’s There

Who’s there – Seth Godin again in his unconventional style reveals a few truths about blogging, and defines three types of blogs – cat blogs, boss blogs, and viral blogs. He also lists down the four laws of blogs and the five components of a great blog.

This is one of those books that’ll make you stop and think. A must-read. (via)

Thursday, March 2, 2006

Top 50 Great Widgets For Your Blog

Widgets are a handy, easy and simple way to add some flare to your blog. Whether you’d like to display the number of currently online visitors to your site or simply the weather report for Los Angeles, you can do it with widgets. We’ve assembled a list of 50 useful or simply cool widgets for your pleasure. And remember, the first rule of widgetizing your blog is – don’t overdo it!

MyBlogLog’s Recent Readers – this widget can easily be called a hit amongst blog owners; its popularity even managed to convince Yahoo into buying MyBlogLog. The widget lets you see the avatars of recent visitors to your blog, provided they’re also members of MyBlogLog.

Mashable – get the latest social networking news from this very site.

Flickr Flash Photo Stream Badge – display images from your Flickr profile with a handy Flash photo stream.

Preview Anywhere – see a live preview of outgoing links in a small popup which activates on mouseover. Some find this annoying, while others might find it useful.

Twitter Badge – if your life is so interesting that everyone must know what you’re up to all the time, then a Twitter badge is the ideal counterpart to your blog. It’ll proudly displays your recent tweets.

Digg News – display the latest Digg links on your blog. Themeable and fully customizable.

FEEDJIT – real time traffic data directly in your blog’s sidebar.

LineBuzz – inline comments for your blog. Very handy for blogs with frequent lively discussions.

Flixn – display a stream directly from your webcam, so your blog visitors can always see what you’re up to.

3Jam – lets your visitors send messages to your mobile phone, without them knowing your phone number.

Jaxtr – with Jaxtr, your visitors can actually call you to your mobile phone; again, your number stays private.

LinkedInABox – show off your LinkedIn profile. Perfect for personal blogs.

Box Widget – enable visitors to use box.net’s online storage directly on your web site.

Price of gas – displaying gas prices on your blog might seem unnecessary to some, but it’s cool if you have a traffic/travel related blog.

iBegin Weather Widget – Display weather information in your sidebar. Just like with Price of Gas, works great with travel-related blogs.

ClockLink – display time in various time zones with these nifty Flash clocks.

Film Loops – display the latest loops from your FilmLoops account.

Daily Painters – display paintings from famous painters on your blog.

WhoLinked – show your visitors which sites have recently linked to your web site. Works with all major blog platforms.

Criteo AutoRoll – displays links to blogs similar to your blog.

Bitty Browser – embed a cute, fully functional mini web browser to your blog.

Leafletter – create a mini website and embed it into your blog.

WikiSeek – search Wikipedia with this simple widget.

FeedCount – show off the number of visitors to your blog with this handy little button.

Technorati Link Count – display the number of links your website has from one of the biggest blog authorities – Technorati.

MyPageRank – another good way to show how “big” your blog is is to show off your Google PageRank.

CheckPageRank – in addition to showing your PageRank, this widget also shows your Alexa ranking.

BlinkxIt – embed a link to related videos directly into your website.

Skype button – display your Skype online/offline status on your blog.

RockYou Horoscope – not something I would personally use, but some people are into horoscope. Hell, most people are into horoscope. Anyway, this widget shows horoscope (doh!) and does it in a nicely designed colorful box.

del.icio.us Tagometer – display how many times have del.icio.us users saved your page.

del.icio.us Linkrolls – this badge shows your latest bookmarks from del.icio.us.

Timelines – need to create a timeline? Seek no further. This widget makes it really easy.

PollDaddy – PollDaddy lets you create beautiful polls in no time, and display them at your blog.

Vizu – another poll-making widget, compatible with all major blog platforms.

AnswerTips – display definitions from Answers.com for various terms on your blog. The definitions are shown in bubbles which are activated on doubleclick.

AnswerBoxes – give your visitors a chance to enter a term themselves, and get a definition from Answers.com

Now Playing – if you got to share your current playlist contents with the world, Sigamp will do the trick. Works with most popular music players, including Foobar, Winamp, iTunes and others.

BuzzBoost – display headlines from your RSS feed on any website.

LibraryThing – show off the latest books you’ve been reading.

Plaxo Address Book – let your most faithful visitors access their address books direclty from your site.

AuctionAds – a widget that displays auctioned items on eBay, and gives you a percentage of the price paid when sometimes buys an item.

aStore – similar to AuctionAds, only for Amazon. Create a mini-store on your site and receive profit when someone buys an item through your store.

Plazes – show your current location on a Plazes map.

Stockalicious – track your portfolio with this widget, and share it with others. Let everyone know how much money you’ve lost.

Yahoo! For Good – create a charity badge and ask for donations for a worthy cause.

Giftspace – your friends never know what to buy you for birthday? Let them know what you really want with this nifty widget.

MixMap – see where are the visitors to your MySpace profile from on a map.

Google Map Widget – display a searchable Google Map on your website.

Google Video Search – add a video search form and selected videos to your web site.

Odeo player – display an Odeo player for and podcast right there in your sidebar. (via)