Though there are many FFmpeg Frontend GUI applications available for free to be used with Windows OS. But I will review two most easy to use and very powerful tools. WinFF and Avanti.

WinFF – FFmpeg based Free Video Converter

WinFF is probably the most easy to use video conversion utility I have ever used on Windows. It is basically a simple FFmpeg GUI with a very simple but intutive user interface.

Usage:
Pressing the Add button you can add a file you want to convert. Then in the Output details you select the format you want to convert this file to, device preset and destination folder. Device preset allows you to set quality parameters for the converted video, you can define where you want to use this converted file for example you can choose web, iphone, mobile, etc. Not all device presets are available for all formats. For example if you want to convert a file to WMV you can not use iphone as the device preset. Clicking on the option button opens the advanced interface where you can set the advanced settings for the conversion.

Support:

WinFF comes with documentation and support forums where you can go to get help if something goes wrong. It is also an open source application released under GNU public license which means you can freely redistribute and share it. It also comes in many languages.

Avanti – FFmpeg frontend for Windows

Avanti is an advanced Audio Video Conversion utility, with a Graphic User Interface for FFmpeg and with the option to insert Avisynth as pre-processor. It gives you more control over selecting the codecs and different parameters of conversion. It has many advanced options and more features than other FFmpeg front-ends. Avanti’s interface might look a little confusing, the installation is also a little complicated and you may not be able to understand few features. But still it is a very powerful tool to convert different media files using FFmpeg.

Avanti Installation:

Once you download the .7z file you will need to download 7-zip compression utility to uncompress the file you just downloaded. Uncompress it to its own folder and then open that folder, there you will see another folder ffmpeg. Since Avanti does not come with FFmpeg you will have to download FFmpeg separately and copy paste the FFmpeg.exe file to this folder. After that go back to main Avanti folder and double click on the file Avanti-Gui. This will open the Avanti interface.

Usage:
In the source file section you can select the file you want to convert. In the Destination Audio Settings and Destination Video Settings you can define how you want to convert this file and into what format and container. For example in the video settings you can select the codec Xvid and container avi. Then click on the Start Process button, if it does not work then you need to press the Start process button again. Avanti also comes with its own help file located in the installation folder. Also you can get more help from videohelp forum’s Avanti thread.

Converting multimedia files into different formats is something that every home user comes across at some point. So your friends and family would really appreciate if you share this post with them on Facebook or twitter.

Due to some troubles with a few of my WordPress blogs. I have recently learned a lot about security and protecting my WordPress blogs from hacking. There is no way to be 100% sure that your website couldn’t get hacked. However, using the best practices described below, you can make it very hard for someone to crack into your WordPress installation. Taking these steps does not take much time but it saves you from a lot of trouble, even if your website get’s attacked you can fight back quickly and restore your website easily. Without these security precautions you not only make your WordPress installtion vulnerable, but you also make it difficult for yourself to recover from horrible accidents. So lets begin securing of your blog:

Back up often

You have heard this many times. Here it is once again, back up your website and database at least once a week if you update your website daily, or atleast once a month if you don’t update that often. But please back up. Do not trust your webhost when they tell you that they have back ups of your website created on a daily basis. It is very smart to have backups on hand just in case something goes terribly wrong with you or your webhost. There are many WordPress plugins to back up your database. I use WordPress database manager plugin called wp-dbmanager. Using this plugin you can schedual weekly backups to be sent to you via email.

Stay Updated

Whenever there is a new version of WordPress, upgrade your installation as soon as possible. Since 2.7 WordPress has automated the upgrade process or you can manually update to latest version. It only takes about ten minutes but it saves you from a lot of trouble. Older, outdated and upsupported installations often get hacked. Once hacked it is a very lengthy process to clean your blog and upgrade. So protect yourself now upgrade your WordPress.

Also keep your plugins updated to newest versions. If you notice that a plugin author has not released an updated version since a long time go to plugin’s home page and check its status. If the author has abandoned the plugin then stop using it right away.

Strong Passwords

If no one has ever stolen your password then it does not mean that no one ever will. There are some really bad people out there who randomly pick their victims and crack their passwords to take control of their websites. WordPress has strong password indicator which you can use to generate a strong password. A strong password contains atleast 8 characters a combination of alphabates and numbers and special characters. Avoid using words that can be found in a dictionary.

You should have strong passwords not only for your blog’s admin interface, but also for your site’s SSH shell and FTP access. Doing so you make it very difficult for hackers to crack your site and access your files via ftp. Try to use SSH or SFTP instead of plain FTP.

But strong passwords are difficult to remember. Well you should then read this wonder post from the blog herald that tells you how to create strong but memorable passwords. You can also generate a strong password using Aautomatic password generator tool.

File Permissions

One drawback of using WordPress or some of its plugins is that sometimes you need to make a few files writeable on your server. For security it is important that you keep file permissions as strict as possible. It is ideal to have your directories file permission set to 755 and your files 644. See WordPress Codex Changing File Permissions.

Default Username

At the first installation WordPress automatically creates a user account with the username admin. Now using the default username means that half of cracking is done without any guessing. Unfortunately it is not possible to change this username from the WordPress admin interface. However you can change it by running a simple mysql query.
Update tableprefix_users set user_login='newusername' where user_login='admin';

Replace tableprefix with the table prefix in your wp-config file. If you didn’t add a table prefix then it would the default one which is wp_ . You can run this query or manually edit table in phpMyAdmin or you can also run this query using wp-dbmanager plugin.

Other tips:

Remember, no website is 100% secure. But taking these precautions reduces the chances of your blog or website getting compromised easily. The following web pages has more tips on securing your WordPress even more.

Hardening WordPress
WordPress Security Tips and Hacks
WordPress Security Whitepaper

CamTrack 2.5 Free 30 days Trial and $14.95 to buy.

CamTrack 2.5 lets you add video effects, text and images to your webcam video chat. But the plus point of CamTrack 2.5 is not the cool animations but the feature of “Face Tracking”. Face tracking automatically locates your face in the video image and zooms in on it, keeping your face centered in the middle of the frame at an optimal size.

CamTrack also allows you to zoom in and out. Combine this feature with face tracking and you never need to adjust your webcam with your hands. you can do it with your keyboard and mouse.

ManyCam Free

A free software, ManyCam allows you to use your webcam with multiple programs which means that you can use your webcam with Yahoo, MSN, Skype and Google Talk simultaneously.

ManyCam allows you to add text to your webcam stream. You can use display images or create a slideshow of images from your computer and broadcast it to your webcam. You can play videos on your webcam. I have used this feature to share a birthday video with my aunt on yahoo. Using Manycam and yahoo voice chat it was fun to share the video with this new way. I mean of course I can upload the video to youtube but it was a huge file and I didn’t have time.

Using Manycam you can create many effects like change the color, brightness and contrast of your webcam. Add visual effects to your webcam there are some really cool effects built in and they are a lot of fun. You can rotate and zoom in or out of your webcam video.

If you know of someother cool software please let me know. I want to make my Yahoo chat more fun. I am also looking for software to change the voice make it girly, high pitched or childish.

Content Management System (CMS) is an application or a software used to create, edit, manage and publish content in a consistently organized fashion. We will be using one to manage our small business website. Those used to manage content on the web are called Web CMS. These are usually web applications. Which means that the software resides on your web server. It handles the appearance of your website, organizes your content and serves it in HTML when some one visits your website. Most open source and free CMS use PHP for scripting and MySQL database.

Why CMS?

You can create a web site by simply using a text editor to create your own HTML documents. Even for people with good HTML knowledge it is a lot of work to copy paste the same code on all pages to maintain consistency, check the website for broken links and manually update the navigational structure of the website. Why spend time on that? When you can spend the same time on creating the content.

• Using a CMS your site has the same look and feel and you manage site’s design with templates. So your pages have a consistent feel which is good for branding your website.
• Creating and publishing new content is easier as you will not have to worry about HTML and navigational structure of your website. Most CMS show your newest content on the main page and since they serve the pages dynamically so all your documents get updated with new content.
• You can add new users to work with you on the same site. You can set their roles and manage the content they add.
• Using a CMS allows you to give your site’s visitors a place to interact without breaking your site. Visitors can comment, join mailing list or take part in forums.

Which CMS is right for me?

There are many applications available and a great number of them are free open source CMS. You choose the one that meets your needs. What you should look when choosing the right CMS for your website:

• Does it have the features that help you publish your site the way you want. For example if you want to create an online store, wordpress which is a great CMS is porbably not the best choice in your case. But then if you want to create your main page with news and articles then wordpress is definitely a good choice.
• Does it have the ability to extend functionality using plugins or modules. Using plugins and modules you can add extra functionality and features to your website without breaking it.
• It has a template system that is easy for you to understand. Are there many free templates available on the web? This is important so that you can pick a well coded template that you can modify with your own branding.
• Support, does it have a well written manual available on the web? Is there a forum, mailing list, or a chatroom where you can go and ask questions.

There are many Free and Open Source CMS available on the web. They come with great community support, plugins, templates and themes. WordPress is probably the most popular example of an Open Source CMS. If you want a more e-commerce CMS then you can try Zen Cart or SilverStripe. You can also use more than one CMS on your site, for example you can use WordPress for your static pages and company blog, PHPbb for your web forum, and Zen Cart for your product gallery. Many web hosts offer one click installs for these popular open source CMS. You can also download and install them on your web server and play with them for a while before making your final decission.

Create Your Web Site

Now that you have decided to create your website with any CMS. Next step is to modify the default installation. First of all you need to change the logo, site’s name and title, design and layout to meet your needs. Most Open Source CMS has web forums, mailing lists, tutorials and Wikis on their websites with details about modifying your site. For example look at WordPress support pages, zen-cart tutorials, phpbb documentation and support, SilverStripe community support.

This is a great skill you are learning yourself and once you are familiar with the support system of open source community you will feel powerful and confident. Now lets say you want to change the header image of the default installation with your company’s logo, you go to your CMS website and look for tutorial to do that. If you don’t find a tutorial then simply ask in forums or mailing list. Some one will answer your question with in a couple of hours sometimes even in minutes.

Don’t rush to launch and announce your website until it is ready. Keep modifying your website, work on it, browse it, fill it with content, add plugins and try different layouts. Take your time, take a week atleast or a month if you are a perfectionist. Once you are satisfied with the look and functionality of your website launch it as “Beta” which means that product if polished but you are still testing it. After a while when you have enought users and you have resolved most issues with the website you can remove the Beta label.

In the next posts we will be discussing the content you should publish on your website and how you will be working to make your website popular.

This post is part of a series. To read more posts from this series go to “Creating a Small Business Website“.

Zekr is a Quranic software that makes it easier to read, recite and study the Holy Quran on your computer. Zekr is available for Windows XP and Vista, Linux and Mac. It is definitely the most popular and feature rich software currently available to study the holy Quran and above all it is free and open source. It helps you study Holy Quran with it’s built in search features. You can quickly go to Aya, sura aur page number, select from the menu, bookmark aya and sura for later reference. It also comes with many translations easily downloadable from Zekr website. You can also add audio recitation. This Ramadan they even released a special Ramadhan Edition.

Pray Times is a Firefox addon / plugin that tells you the prayers timings, time left to pay your salat, and you can set the location, timezone and daylight time saving settings aswell.

UK based Islamsoft offers Islamic applications for Nokia and Sony Ericson mobile phones. The Hadith Software and the Athan (Azan) software. They also offer a Daily Prayers application but it is still in beta. (Caution: I haven’t tried these mobile applications so download and install at your own risk). Nokia has also released a few Islamic applications built in on several devices and mobile phones. One of these applications is Emsakya.

Unfortunately my favorite online store Amazon.com does not have a Eid Special section for shopping. So its their loss if they ignore the huge Muslim population in the US and UK. You guys can look at Online Islamic Store for gift ideas and suggestions. They have software, books, DVDs, accessories, clothing and even toys.

If you know any other good and free Islamic software please add them in the comments

But then sometimes you buy a product that saves your pictures and videos in a format which is not supported by windows movie maker. In that case, or if you want to do something that windows movie maker can’t, then you will need some other free video editing tools.

DVDx is a free tool that allows you to copy DVD and convert it as VCD, SVCD, DivX, AVI or WMV in one step. DVDX is a free and open source software. It has a simple user interface, and there is support available for free. There is also a paid version of the software.

MediaCoder is a free and open source transcoder that can help you convert your audio and video files from one format to another. It supports many popular formats such as AVI, XviD, DivX, MP, CD, VCD, DVD, Windows Media audio and video, mpeg, Mp4, among many others. For support options it has a Wiki with conversion tutorials and other related information.

DVDStyler is a free and open source DVD authoring application based on dvdauthor. It allows you to create your own professional looking DVDs that can be played on almost any standalone DVD player and your computer. You can create menus, buttons, add pictures, music, chapters, etc. You can even add your own subtitles to the movies. It has a simple uncluttered interface. Support is available via mailing list, user forum and Wiki. While downloading make sure that you download win32 version for your windows computer. DVDstyler is a cross platform application so you would also see links to downloads for other operating systems aswell.

I love Videohelp Forum for all my video editing related questions. It already has many well written guides to do just about anything with your videos. They also have tools directory that lists hundereds of audio video editing tools categorized as freeware, adware and non-free labes. So if there is something you want to do with your movies but don’t know how to do it and don’t want to spend money on expansive video editing software then videohelp forums is the place for you.

My brothers have no such bias towards Microsoft. In fact, they love MS products. They think that Office 2000 is easier to use than Open Office. I do not argue them, Since I haven’t used either of these suites to a point where I could say that one of them is more difficult. I don’t blame my brothers for taking the MS side in this debate. In an environment where every one is using pirated Office XP every where, they think that Microsoft opens a world of opportunities to them. Who uses Open Office in Pakistan? They ask me and I can not answer this question.