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.

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“.

Google Chrome Browser Screenshot

I opened my browser and there was a link on the main Google page with an announcement about Google’s new browser Chrome. I was like wow, I was looking for a new browser for a long time. I was feeling kind of bored with Firefox. I tried Safari for Windows and Opera but didn’t like them much. So I reacted quickly to the invitation and installed Chrome on my Windows XP. Unfortunately Chrome is not yet available for Linux.

BitTorrent is a peer to peer (P2P) file sharing protocol. BitTorrent protocol was designed to easily share large files over internet. What happens here is that the initial or the first person who wants to share the file creates a .torrent file. This torrent file contains metadata about the original file. The torrent file creator then uploads the file to a tracker. Now if someone wants to download the original file they first download the torrent file. This .torrent file when opened with a BitTorrent client contains the information about the tracker and peices of the original file. Now the bitTorrent client contacts the tracker. The tracker then communicates with the client and provides them information about the peices of the file hosted on other peer’s computer(s). The client then starts downloading peices of the original file from different peers.

Those that have the full file on their computers and are connected to the tracker are called seeders. All clients connected to the tracker (seeders and lurkers or leechers) are called peers.

BitTorrent or Torrent Trackers

A tracker (also called torrent trackers or bittorrent trackers) is kind of a bridge between peers. BitTorrent trackers are servers which provide communication platform to peers. When you attempt to download a file using BitTorrent protocol, it is the trackers job to tell your bitTorrent client about other peers that have different peices of files. It is said that a tracker is a must to initiate a download but once the client has the peer list you can download without tracker information. However, sometimes peer go offline or some peices are missing in this case your clients communicates with the tracker again to gather information about new peers. A torrent tracker is not a torrent search index. Torrent indexers are servers that contain, collect and maintain information about torrents tracked by a tracker. This list is then available to peers to see what is available for download. In order to download the file they needed they communicate with the tracker and not with the indexer.

BitTorrent Clients

A BitTorrent Client is a program that assists in creating, sharing, uploading and downloading of a .torrent file and data. There are many BitTorrent clients available for download and a great number of them are freeware. I would like to mention a few very best of them:

• Vuze (formerly called Azureus)
• BitTorrent
• µTorrent
• Transmission

I use µTorrent on Windows XP and Transmission on Ubuntu Linux.

Legal Issues and BitTorrent protocol

In most countries, it is illegal to download copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. Wikipedia has a great article about the legal issues and BitTorrent.

Torrent Search Engines

Downloading copyrighted material is illegal in most countries. Still there is a wealth of content available legally. For example many open source Linux distributions are shared using the BitTorrent protocol. Aspiring new artists share their content via BitTorrent protocol as they can not afford to distribute their content due to hosting and bandwidth issues. Among all the illegal content that is available on the internet there are lots of legal software and content that you are allowed to download. But how do you know what is available for download? For that purpose there are many torrent search engines. These search engines maintain their own index of torrent files that are tracked by trackers. Sometimes the tracker and indexer would be provided by the same group or sometimes you will be redirected to the tracker.

• Linux Tracker My personal favorite, it has helped download many Linux distributions.
  

Word of Caution

You would think that downloading illegal or pirated software via torrents would save you money and time. But this is certainly not the case. Popular software downloaded from these sources sometimes contain harmful viruses and trojans that could destroy your data. So please don’t download illegal/pirated software for your own safety. If you really want something desperately look around for open source solutions you will definitely find some open source or free software available to do the job.

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.