Standalone FLV Player

I recently downloaded an interesting FLV flash file only to discover that it would not run on any of my existing media players. A quick search of the Internet unearthed the standalone FLVPlayer which has proved to be just right for the job. It is extremely easy to use as you simply drag and drop the file into the player once it is running.

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Technorati Tags: flash, flvplayer

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Excellent PDF Tool

I have been using PDFCreator for some time now and have found it an excellent tool for creating PDF files from any Windows program. It is installed as a printer driver and is easily accessed from the 'Print' option in any program. Several image formats (png, jpg etc) may be created, as well as the standard PDF file. It also incorporates several security features.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to get it working with Windows Vista - despite reports that it will run on Vista in the server mode! Hopefully a 'Vista friendly' version is on the way.

It is not strickly needed when using Open Office which includes its own built in PDF export feature. However these resulting PDF files are much larger than those created with PDFCreator.

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Technorati Tags: image, openoffice, pdf, pdfcreator

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Award-winning Zip Utility

TUGZip is a powerful ZIP utility that provides support for a wide range of compressed, encoded and disc-image files. It also boasts some very powerful features. The interface is very easy to use and it has proved invaluable in unzipping different files especially those with the .tar and .gz extensions found at open source software site SourceForge.

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Technorati Tags: open source, sourceforce, tugzip, utility

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An affordable and reliable VLE

Last year we were able to start using a VLE thanks to the development of open source software Moodle. Products such as Blackboard and WebCT being well out our price range. We are using version 1.6 which is proving to be very useful. The new version 1.8.2 contains a number of improvements that make the application more flexible and stable.  The only main drawback is that I cannot get the email feature to work with Google Apps. We are using the standard edition which allows us to set up Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Talk accounts for all our students using our own domain name.

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Technorati Tags: google apps, moodle, vle

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Not forgetting enhanced and video podcasts

For graphics preparation (resizing, cropping and adding effects), Paint.NET does the job. If you are using Vista then the new Paint program enables cropping and resizing. Another useful program is Microsoft Office Picture Manager. However, this one is only free if you are using Microsoft Office 2003. Only discovered it after we changed over to OpenOffice!! The Draw program in OpenOffice is not really suitable for accurate resizing and cropping (but it has some easily applied filters and effects).

The enhanced podcast can be created using Microsoft Photo Story 3, which allows for easy addition of photos and sound. The resulting file can be converted to the required format using the Jodix iPod video converter.

Video podcasts can easily be created using Windows Movie Maker (comes with Windows XP and later). Again the resulting file can be easily converted using the Jodix iPod video converter.

Other encoders include Virtual Dub and Windows Media Encoder. Help and tutorials can be found on the Internet! This one shows how to compress a video using Virtual Dub.

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Technorati Tags: paint.net, photostory3, podcast, movie maker, virtual dub

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All you need to create the perfect Podcast

Standard podcasts are easily created using Audacity. There is even a portable version which can be run from a flash disk (no installation required on the PC). To export the audio files in mp3 format you will also need to install the Lame encoder.

ACID XPress is a handy program for creating your own original loop music that can be used in your podcasts. Another handy little tool is the Levelator which can be used to adjust the audio level within your podcast. Particularly useful if different voice recodings are used in the same podcast.

The final podcast can be played in any mp3 player (with iTunes being a good choice).

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Technorati Tags: audacity, audio, acid xpress, itunes, levelator, podcast

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Good substitute for Microsoft Office

Open Office compares well with Microsoft Office particularly for the basic tasks that most users would need. Wordprocessing, spreadsheet, database, presentation and graphics are all included.

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Technorati Tags: openoffice

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Handy Screen Capture Tool

PrintKey 2000 is a very useful screen capture tool. Once installed, you simply press the PrintScreen key (on the keyboard) to use it.

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Technorati Tags: screen capture, printkey2000

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