VideoLAN - VLC 1.0.0 has officially been released

VLC media player - A universal media player which plays video and audio files of any known format has reached the version 1.0 milestone. I especially have a liking for this media player because it is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, BeOS and BSDs. And, in my experience, I never ever had to hunt for media codecs once I installed VLC on my machine. Heck, it even plays Flash (.flv) video files.

VLC 1.0.0 comes with a whole lot of new features namely :

• Live recording
• Instant pausing and frame-by-frame support
• Finer speed controls
• New HD codecs (AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, Blu-Ray Linear PCM, Real Video 3.0 and 4.0, ...)
• Video scaling in full screen
• AirTunes streaming and much more....

For a full list of features in VLC media player version 1.0.0 and how it fares with its competition, check out the features page.

Download videolan VLC 1.0.0

Download full version of Codeweavers software for free - One day only

We all know that spiraling gas prices throughout the world has put a strain on the economy. But instead of becoming melancholic about the whole situation, we should look at the brighter side of things. After all some good samaritan out there would do something to bring some cheer into our lives.

Take for instance CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White, who was so put off with the state of affairs in his country (USA) that he placed a challenge to the outgoing US president George Bush. And what was the challenge ? Well Jeremy placed six goals (He calls them lame duck presidential goals) which included the goal of reducing the price of gasoline to below a particular amount. And if any one of his goals were met before George Bush finished his term at office, then Jermey will, for one day, give away his flag ship products Crossover Linux Pro (For Linux and Mac) and CrossOver Games (Linux and Mac) to anyone for free. Guess what, the price of gasoline has indeed fallen to the level set by Jermey and George Bush is still the American President.

So for one day, more specifically October 28, 2008 which happens to be today, you and I get to download the un-crippled full version of the above mentioned Crossover products and get a valid license for the same, with one year support thrown in for free.

So head over to Codeweavers website and download your legal copy of Crossover products. Once you download the products, visit this page to get your free serial number.

Those who are not aware of Crossover software, it is a fine tuned implementation of WINE software which allows you to install and run Windows software natively in Linux.

Note: Due to high volume of traffic to the main Codeweavers website, you may download the trial versions of the software for Linux and Mac platforms from here. The trial versions can be unlocked to full versions with registered accounts when the main site comes back online.

Reasons why schools should exclusively use Free software

Richard M Stallman who is the father of GNU and Free Software movement provides compelling reasons for schools to decide to embrace Free software over their proprietary counterparts.

To put in a nutshell ...

• Using Free software will save school's money. And we all know that a majority of schools are always short of money.
• Will help society as a whole escape from being dominated by mega corporations because todays school students who are trained to use Free software will continue to use the the same software when they are adults.
• Free software permits students to learn how software works because they have access to the source code of the software.
• At a deeper level, Free software encourage people to be good citizens and good neighbors — to cooperate with others who need their help. In the area of computers, this means teaching them to share software.