Using ImTOO DVD Ripper

Just tested using one of the popular software for DVD ripper from ImTOO Software Studio, DVD Ripper Platinum. Never try to convert one of my favorites DVD movies to my Google Android-based mobile phone. Hopefully can accompany me in a trip by watching movies using my phone next weekend.

After a quick installation, the software is ready to begin ripping from DVD to AVI. Conversion feature are extensive, can convert to different type of format such as AVI, MPEG, WMV, XviD and many more to mostly existing portable players.

Although the software has a lot of options, the interface and layout are quite nice and makes me feel easy to use for a beginner. The default setting is using high quality version, remember to change it to different optimization that suit your needs.

For more details you can visit their site here and mac version here.

Joomla at a glance

Joomla is an open source content management system referred by tens of thousands as the best CMS (Content Management System) in the world.

After being installed, we can set up sections, categories, content items and much more add-ons to our new website. Forget the HTML, PHP, Ajax and any other languages for coding the websites, because using Joomla means create a website using friendly menus. With just point and click interface, it will be much easier.

Sounds interesting right?

The fact is, you must really get used to the menus and the terms in Joomla. The terms "easier" means everything are much easier than coding it entirely from the first place!

So, the first thing you can do is find the best source in the internet to learn it or for me I have my own “Joomla! For Dummies” book as guidance.

Next step you have to download the latest version of Joomla (you can download it here for the latest version). And remember to download the database component (I'm using XAMPP it means linuX, Ajax, Mysql, PHP, Perl). You can download XAMPP from this link.

The hard part (for me) is selecting the best template that suits you.
I prefer some FREE templates you can choose:
- Joomla24
- JoomlaShack
- SiteGround

Now you will begin sweating and swearing, it is not that easy as it says huh?

If you are a serious user and want to design it more professional you must find website professionals or get some help from ecommerce web services if you want to get the best of your internet business.

Not to worry if you are just starting new business and using website as your media, because generally web services can help you in the retail business.

Microsoft Office 2007 File Converters

Still stick to your current Microsoft Office 2003 and can not open the latest Office 2007 files? Do not waste your time by searching some freeware or utility to convert it. Microsoft already has that tool for you.

By installing this File Format Converters all the Office 2007 files can be directly open with Office 2000, Office XP or Office 2003 such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. But remember to save it again with your current Office version.

I'm already patching my Office 2003 with Service Pack 2 while installing this tool. It's written in Microsoft System Requirements. So, remember to download the latest Office Service Pack first before installing this tool.

You can download it here.

Easy Animated Banners with Easy GIF Animator

A few weeks ago I really need a small software that can create banner quickly and hustle free. After searching the internet, I decided to try Easy GIF Animator to a temporary solution in my urgent needs. This software let you try 20 times. So I give it a try.

Installment only takes a few minutes away and learning to use it was an easy task. In a short time I had already created my first animated banner. Looks great and nice!

I use a couple time after that for some quick modifications. And I realize that Easy GIF Animator is a powerful and really easy to use program for design and edit GIF files. And not only banner, it also can create animated pictures and buttons with great visual effects. Convert the animated banner to SWF file is a bonus!

I'm downloading Easy GIF Animator version 4 when trying it. Sorry guys, but this is not a free software. But it can help you while you're in a hurry.

You can visit their website on Bluementals Software for more information and screenshots.

> Operating Systems: Windows Vista, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000
> Additional Requirements: Windows Me/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista
> Limitations: 20-use trial

Quick Media Converter

Quick Media Converter is a powerful and completely free tool for audio and video conversion.

For me I call it all in one converter tool because Quick Media Converter can converts from different formats such as flv, avi, divx, xvid, mpeg4, ipod, iphone, psp, 3GP, 3G2, AVI, DIVX, XVID, TS, DVD, VCD, MPEG, MPEG2, MP3, WAV, amr, m4a, mp4, vob, mov, h264, h263, wmv, wma.

Also support multiple files (in different formats) with a single process and have the Easy and Expert mode options. In easy mode everything are using the standard conversions settings. You don't have to change everthing, just select the file and the conversion type. Everything is good to go. But if you are a skilled user just try expert mode to more enhanced conversions setting such as bitrates, aspect, sizes and many more codes that require more knowledge of video and audio conversion.

For bonus, Quick Media Converter includes CamStudio which can capture your desktop activity to video.

I try this Quick Media Converter for a few times by convert mp4 iPod and VOB files to avi. The results are great.

You can download it here.

Auslogics Disk Defrag

I just received a brand new hard drive for my notebook. My previous hard drive was crashed due to bad sectors. After a couple hours of installing and set up some default software, I try to find a better defragmenter tools that are available to use from the internet.

So, after spending two more hours searching and comparing, at last I choose this Auslogics Disk Defrag that was more recommended by the users. And it's absolutely FREE.

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a good utility for fast hard drive optimization. After optimizing it will speed up your hard drive start up and shutdown time, also increase the bottleneck of the system performance. As you know, hard drive is the slowest component in our computer. CPU and memory work faster because they don not have moving parts.

Auslogics Disk Defrag supports FAT 16, FAT 32, and NTFS volumes.

I already try this utility a few times and it works out great.

You can download it from their website here

MP3 bitrates converter using CDex

I've just downloaded one of my long time favourite mp3. The huge file size about 13 MB really took me by surprised. What the heck?! 13 MB for one mp3 file?

It's sure big because of the sound quality is marvelous, near CD Audio quality!

Below are the common bitrates for mp3:

96kbs: The sound clearly lacks definition: as an example, hall's noises are perceived as some breath. The result is comparable to a good FM radio.

112kbs: The sound seems less present and less natural than the original. The definition is a bit less good, the voice is less clear. Attacks are less spontaneous. The spatialization is different from the original recording: the sound seems to be located more far and more lower. There is however a very noticeable improvement compared to 96kbs.

128kbs: Hall's noises are slightly less defined than the original. The violin is a bit less present and the piano attacks a bit less sharp. The voice is nearly identical to the original recording but sibilants are less pronounced. We can notice the same spatialization problem as with the 112kbs's one although there is again a good improvement compared to the 112kbs rate.

160kbs: The sound is more natural than 128kbs but the improvement is less spectacular than during the two preceding stages. The sound is different from the original, without however being possible to tell in what. I think that the difference resides more in what we feel rather than in what we hear.

192kbs: The sound is not felt as the original recording. It is however totally impossible to tell in what.

320kbs/256kbs: The sound is indiscernible from the original. It is impossible to make the difference with the original recording.

After understanding the bitrates quality stuff, I wanted to convert that 13MB file for standard listening in computers. That is 128kbs. I don't want to waste my hard drive space for only one song.

So, I found this great software, called CDex (it's FREE!).

CDex is a tool to do all sorts of things audio related. Mainly focused on ripping and converting, things like turning your home Compact Disc collection into an mp3 collection on your hard drive become extremely easy.

I try to convert the 13 MB file using 128kbs and the size had been change to 5MB. Whew, that's really save my space a lot!

But remember not to improve your sound quality from lower bitrates to higher bitrates, because whenever mp3 file has been compressed to lower bitrates, it is certain that part of the volatile sound which can not be compressed has been lost. So the result after the conversion is the same quality!

Ever try to convert mp3 before? Drop your comments to share your experiences.

You can download CDex here.

Email notifier for multiple email accounts

I'm very sure that all you guys out there were having more than one email accounts.
There are lots of free email services available and it might be weird to have only one email account on these days.

On the other side, it's really waste a lot of time to directly log in to every email account you have. And I had found three email notifiers to make life easier.

1. Gmail Notifier
The original notifier for Gmail. Supports checking multiple accounts as well as Gmail Hosted accounts. Allows you to monitor multiple Gmail accounts right inside your browser's UI.

2. Gmail Manager
Allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts and receive new mail notifications. Displays your account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new mail snippets.

3. WebMail Notifier
WebMail Notifier checks your webmail accounts and notifies the number of unread emails.
You can use multiple accounts in a same host. Currently supports Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail/MSN/Live and many more.

I personally prefer WebMail Notifier, because it support different email service.

Do you have other email notifier better than my list?
Just drop your comments...

SpeedConnect Internet Accelerator

SpeedConnect Internet Accelerator is a powerful Windows application designed to optimize existing Dial-Up Modem, DSL, Cable, Wireless, LAN, High-speed internet connections.

This Web Accelerator adjust certain settings on your Windows TCP/IP settings, to result faster Web browsing, faster e-mail, quicker downloads, and improved overall Internet performance.

SpeedConnect prevents fragmentation in data transfer using the TCP/IP protocols used on the Internet, greatly increasing modem throughput and download-upload speed.

The installation steps :
1. After installing SpeedConnect, you can try the Connection Tester by downloading certain files. The default is Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. You can change it with other file. Below is my Telkomsel Flash internet connection result: POOR.


2. In the main menu, select Tools & Wizards tab and click next
3. Connection Type : Using Broadband connection that is always on
4, Connection Details : LAN / Cable/xDSL connection
5. Network adapter : WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
6. Maximum Bandwith : 4000 Kbps (Telkomsel Flash maximum bandwith is 3600 Kbps)
7. Optimization mode : Automatic
8. Click Optimize and Apply Changes
9. Restart windows

For Windows Vista, XP.
Note: Requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 to run.
You can visit their official homepage here.

Do you have any comments after using this utlity? The connection getting better or still the same as usual? Want to suggest better utlity? Just leave your comments ...

ColorfulTabs

Want to change the looks of the current FireFox tabs differently?

You can try the ColurfulTabs add-on. This customizable add-on can display a different color in each tabs and make it easier to distinguish from each other. Still have other color options to play with, such as random tabs color, background tabs visibility or colorize tabs by individual tabs.

Works with: Firefox: 3.0b2 – 3.0

You can install it from here.

Or you can try to visit the author's site from here.

Internet Download Manager

Internet Download Manager is a tool to increase download speeds, resume and schedule downloads. The program features an adaptive download logic accelerator, dynamic file segmentation and multi-part downloading technology, and it reuses available connections without additional connect and login stages.

It dynamically adopts all settings to your particular connection type in order to maximize your download speed. It integrates seamlessly into Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, MSN Explorer, Opera and Mozilla to automatically handle your downloads.

Other Internet Download Manager features:
- YouTube grabber.
- Automatic Antivirus checking on download completion.
- Zip preview
- Full support for Windows Vista

It is a very very fast download tool I had ever tried before. Although with a slow wireless internet connection, IDM can really boost the speed to the maximum limit.

It's a Free Trial Software, that means you have to buy it to get a full or nolimited version of Internet Download Manager.

You can visit the site here.

Video DownloadHelper

This is another great add on from FireFox that allow you to download videos from YouTube-like sites to local hard drive.

Video Downloadhelper can also download audio clips and images.

All you have to do is just click on the Video DownloadHelper icon everytime the icon get animated.

This tool have a nice option to automatically convert the video files to preferred video format.


Works with: Firefox: 1.5 – 3.0

You can try to visit the FireFox add on here.

Or visit their homepage directly here.

Chromifox: Google Chrome in Firefox 3

Inspired by the latest Google web browser Chrome, the Camifox developers had release Chromifox add on theme for FireFox 3.

It is a bright and soft blue with clean lines, slick layout and compact style of Chromium were the points of inspiration for this theme

Works with Firefox 3.0 – 3.1b1pre

You can download it here.

Faster FireFox with FasterFox

Fasterfox is a firefox plugin that can increase your browsing performance.

There are four different settings you can choose :
1. Courteous preset performs rendering tweaks only and does not increase web server load.
2. Optimized preset increases browser performance by performing network optimization within RFC specifications.
3. Turbo Charged preset is active by default and exceeds RFC specs by increasing web server load for maximum performance.
4. Custom preset lets you modify browser cache capacity as well as DNS cache expiration and entries.

Some other features that are included in custom option:

* Prefetch Links
Dynamic speed increases can be obtained with Fasterfox's unique prefetching mechanism, which recycles idle bandwidth by silently loading and caching all of the links on the page you are browsing.

* Tweak Network
Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay.

* Page Load Timer
A millisecond accurate page load timer tests the effectiveness of your settings.

* Block Popups
A popup blocker for popups initiated by Flash plug-ins is also included.

You can download the latest FasterFox for FireFox 2.x from here.

UPDATE :
For FireFox 3.x you can find it here.

Speed up Firefox browser with FireTune

Instead of tweaking the firefox browser manually, you can try FireTune. FireTune is design to optimize the performance of the firefox browser according to your computer speed and internet connection speed.

This free application from TotalIdea Software does not make any changes to the firefox executables or any other internal file. And can be undone easily.

Next, how to tell whether Firefox is faster after optimizing it:

1. Clear the cache of Firefox from the Firefox settings dialog - this is very important!

From the Firefox menu options, choose Tools and then Clear Private Data
Uncheck all checkboxes except for the Cache checkbox.
Click on the Clear Private Data Now button.

2. Before you optimize Firefox, navigate to http://www.numion.com/stopwatch/ and does a speed test on http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

3. The time needed to load the site completely will be displayed to you in the browser window. Write down the time

4. Clear the cache of Firefox from the Firefox settings dialog again - this is very important!

5. Now, close Firefox, and optimize it with FireTune

6. Start Firefox again, and repeat the speed test on http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

7. Compare the displayed result with the result from the test before the optimization. Or you can repeat these steps for the average results.

To run FireTune on your system, you need:
- Mozilla Firefox v1.x / 2.x / 3.x
- Windows 98, Me, 2000, Windows 2003, Windows XP SP1 (or higher), Windows Vista
- The regular hardware requirements for your operating system
- 3 MB free space on your harddrive

You can download it here.