Recently in Cool Video Category

In OpenBSD, Flash support isn't exactly something to crow about. Flash Player 7 is all that works due to subsequent Linux Flash players needing ALSA sound support, a feature none of the BSD projects possess. And that player only works in the Opera Web browser — and only on i386.

But it turns out that you can watch Flash video in OpenBSD on any platform that runs Mplayer. And this clever hack is something that even Linux, Windows and Mac users can benefit from.

Here's how to do it: While perusing the OpenBSD mailing lists, I saw this post about KeepVid.

Basically what you do is enter the URL of the video in the proper box at http://keepvid.com, and then you get an MP4 video to download. Then you can play that video with Mplayer.

YouTube videos do play in OpenBSD's Opera with Flash, since they don't require Flash 9 or 10, but again, if you have a non-i386 machine (or don't want to run Opera) and want to watch them, this is a great way to do it.

Three things:

1) Not all Flash content has an easily grabbable URL, so I'm not sure http://keepvid.com will work in those instances.

2) Turning a Flash video into an MP4 means you now have a copy on your local machine that you can keep and watch at your leisure and archive as you see fit.

3) http://keepvid.com can be mighty useful even if you don't run a BSD, even if you don't run Linux. If you have no trouble viewing Flash video on your Linux, Windows or Mac OS box, http://keepvid.com still offers you a way to save a Flash movie in MP4 format on your local drive to watch at will with your favorite video player.

For me, anything that knocks Flash off its proprietary pedestal is A-OK.

In case you've never seen George Carlin's groundbreaking "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine, YouTube is here to help you with this 1978 rendition:

And a more recent video, George Carlin on Language:

George Carlin: "We Like War:"

George Carlin on The American Dream:

George Carlin on Natural Disasters:

Since I'm in a pop-culture vacuum, even though I edit an entertainment section, I only heard about comedian and actress Sarah Silverman's "I'm %&$#-ing Matt Damon video when Ilene told me about it. And now longtime boyfriend (and talk show host, if for some reason you didn't know) Jimmy Kimmel has come up with his music-video answer: "I'm ^&%$-ing Ben Affleck." The sheer number of cameos is astounding -- and extremely funny.

If you've been under the same sort of rock as I have, here's Kimmel's video, which I just saw a link to at Out in Hollywood:

And if you want to see Silverman's, here it is:

At least two people have been seriously injured when hit by lightning while listening to the iPod.

The first, a Canadian jogger who was wearing his iPod while exercising in the rain, suffered a broken jaw, ruptured ear drums, dislocated ear bones and minor burns when lightning hit a nearby tree and then him.

The second is the case of Jason Bunch, a Colorado teen who was listening to Metallica on his iPod while mowing the grass at his home. According to Bunch, it wasn't even raining when he got struck, but there was a storm brewing in the distance which resulted in him Riding the Lightning (pun shamelessly intended for all of you Metallica fans out there.)

A spokesman for Apple Inc. declined to comment, but the iPod packaging warns against using it in the rain.

Rumour has it that Apple Inc. is planning on introducing a cheaper, smaller version of the iPhone later this year. The rumour gained momentum last Thursday when it was made public that Apple Inc. filed a patent application last November describing "a multifunctional handheld device with a circular touch pad displaying illuminated symbols that could change depending on the mode in use," which Apple enthusiasts are interpreting as an "iPhone Nano."

The beta version of RealPlayer 11 is out and it's free.

Among the new features, RealPlayer 11 allows users to burn videos
to CDs in the VCD format. (You will need to buy the $29.99 RealPlayer Plus to burn to DVDs).

RealPlayer 11 is also capable of recognizing video content protected by DRM (digital rights management) and blocking it from being recorded.

RealNetworks is also planning additional features - such as allowing video content to be downloaded to iPods and other portable devices.

I first heard about Welsh cell-phone salesman-turned-opera-singing sensation Paul Potts a couple of days ago on NPR's "Day to Day," (here, too) and even though he's on a British reality show that doesn't even air over here, his YouTube videos are causing a sensation all around the freakin' world. Here he is wowing Simon Cowell and the other judges:

here's another Paul Potts video:

And as if there was any doubt, Potts did win the competition:

When I did my Xubuntu install (the same is true for Ubuntu), I immediately started Firefox and went to my first Web page with embedded Flash.

And then it happened.

Firefox asked me if I wanted to download and install the Flash plugin. Why say no? So I said yes.

Problem: Dailynews.com -- the Web site from the newspaper I work for -- is covered in Flash Addsads, content come-ons, etc., and it was dragging my old systems to a crawl. On a modern 3 GHz system, it's OK to run a ton of flash. Not so on a 1 GHz converted thin client with questionable video and audio throughput.

But how to get rid of Flash? It's not so easy. Mozilla's help pages offer instructions on how to expunge Flash from Windows and Mac OS X, but nothing on getting rid of it in Linux. It's not an installed package, so Synaptic doesn't even know it's there. Apt-get also knows nothing. Why? Because it's hidden.

Finally, after a few sessions of Googling for an answer, this Adobe page provides the answer:

Removal instructions

Manual removal (for users who installed the plug-in via Install script):

Delete libflashplayer.so binary and flashplayer.xpt file in directory /home//.mozilla/plugins/

And for those with RPM package systems:

RPM removal:

As root, enter in terminal: # rpm -e flash-plugin Click Enter and follow prompts

On a related note, a commenter said I should try the Firefox extension Stop Autoplay. It didn't work.

But the other method does. I'm Flash-less -- and on my low-powered system, that's the way it's going to stay.

Update: After a half-hour, I can say definitively that my system is running much, much better. Flash is one of those things that's great if you've got the power but a CPU-hogging nightmare if you don't.

Bottom line, choosing applications that match your hardware (and needs) is the way to go. No matter the window manager (or "desktop environment"), some apps just need a lot of juice.

Sorry about the long title, but some things just piss me off so much. In this case, I want to make it clear that Microsoft isn't 100 percent to blame -- maybe 80 percent, since half the times that Microsoft tries to add value to their operating system, software companies that make money downstream by selling you stuff that would be made obsolete by that added value start bitching about it -- and the feds tell MS to back off.

And while I'm no Microsoft apologist, the consumer often gets screwed in the process. But that doesn't have to happen. There are some excellent free antivirus programs out there (I prefer Avast), and just about everybody knows that Open Office can replace MS Office, GIMP can replace Photoshop, Firefox subs for Internet Explorer, Thunderbird and Evolution (not to mention Yahoo! Mail, Gmail and the like) replace Outlook ... (and, of course, Linux can replace Windows, if you're so inclined).

So now on to my point -- and I do have one. The state of multimedia -- audio and video -- on the Internet is a big hot mess. Microsoft controls the Windows Media format. The MP3 format, which can get you a swift summons from the Recording Industry Association of America, has recently led to lawsuits over royalties for use of the format itself -- and besides that it's lossy and sounds compressed. Apple's AAC is somewhat more accessible, but there still is licensing and proprietary technology involved, and Apple Lossless is another proprietary format.

But there is an alternative: the Ogg Vorbis standard for audio and Theora for video are free, open-source alternatives, and Ogg is the primary multimedia format being used by Wikipedia. For true audiophiles, Ogg's FLAC codec -- used by the Philadelphia Orchestra for its online muslc offerings -- allows for compression but is lossless, unlike MP3 and AAC.

But can your computer play them. (Go to the Ogg Vorbis site for setup info, or keep reading). If you have a Linux box, you're in luck -- just about all the players on that platform can handle the audio Oggs, and many (including mplayer, xine, helix and VideoLAN) support the Theora video format as well.

But what if you have a Windows box? Windows Media Player handles MS's own audio/video format and will play MP3s, but it won't play Ogg files without a helper app. Luckily you can play OGGs on a Web page (as Wikipedia does on this C.P.E. Bach excerpt) if your browser uses Java.

Or you can download an application that will make your Windows Media Player (or other player) able to handle Ogg files. So if you are running Windows Media Player (which I do -- I happen to like it), download and run the program, and then download an Ogg file (like this version of "Giant Steps" by John Coltrate from Wikipedia), right-click on the file, then left-click on Open With and then navigate to Choose Program and choose Windows Media Player as the default app for Ogg files. Then when you click on an Ogg link on Wikipedia or elsewhere, the file will download and play in your Windows Media Player

For Mac OS X users, there are some players available that will handle Oggs (again, check the Ogg Vorbis page), but if you use iTunes (and what Mac user doesn't?), there's a plug-in to enable it to play Oggs.

And for all of these platforms, the Democracy Player is open source and handles just about every video format on the Web, including Theora.

Bottom line: In this case, Microsoft and Apple should add Ogg support to their players straight out of the box. Nobody would complain, sue or petition the government if they did. Users should not be steered toward and forced to use restricted file formats when free, quality open-source alternatives are available. Luckily there are work-arounds for this problem, as I have described above, and I encourage all of you to implement them on your own boxes, tell others about them and help your fellow users do the same.

That's the word, according to Apple and via Information Week:

It's not just Apple's iTunes software that won't work properly with Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system.

According to a document that Apple has posted on its Web site, none of the software that it's made available for the Windows environment has been updated for Vista compatibility.

That includes not only iTunes but QuickTime, Airport For Windows, Bonjour For Windows, iDisk utility, and AppleWorks for Windows. All of those applications or utilities are listed by Apple as compatible with Windows XP and earlier versions of Windows, but not Vista.

A Vista patch for iTunes is on the way, but for now, iTunes users are advised to NOT USE VISTA.

QuickTime is another Apple app that doesn't play well with Vista. Earth to Apple: QuickTime stinks in XP, too.