Eye Candy Tools : i-can-d Tules : EyeCandy 2lz

I shopped for my first pair of glasses today. My frames are as phat as could be expected for bifocals. I was running out of arm to read beer cans, so I gave up the ghost. My vanity helped me to do so. And I really dig the metaphor of my seeing things much more clearly than before, going through this undeniable growth (rather, maturity) spurt. Besides, It's just another tool. Like Adderal.

My friends Deirdre & Susan (with whom I came as close to marriage as anyone... both of them... simultaneously... a long story... long ago... ahhh, youth) told me that Adderal was merely another tool at my disposal, and I can take it back, whenever I feel like it. That pretty much sealed it, although I've errrr, "felt like" being flighty and inattentive for the last several weeks (for the first time in several months). It's given me perspective on how good it is to be a citizen of the Adderal Nation. With Adderal, it still takes some work on my part, but I just don't get distracted so much, anymore... It's like side-stepping the time holes I can so easily fall into. My peeps regularly tap their watches saying, "You are *prompt*!?! Who are you and what have you done with dB?" Adderal is indeed, a very useful tool, but I digress (as I am prone to do during Adderal-free stints).

The purpose of this post is Knowledge Sharing. It's about tools... Specifically, Eye Candy Tools : i-can-d Tules : EyeCandy 2lz... The free ones... Preferably, open-source:

VLC (Video Lan Client) - It plays any and all digital media. Period. VLC is available on OSX and *NIX platforms, too. I am hard-pressed for a reason to use any other media player. Get VLC at http://www.videolan.org.

Sidebar: The exception might be WinAmp, with which we're experimenting as a presentation/live delivery tool. As soon as I can, I'll report the results, pros and cons of these experiments in a new post dedicated to Eye Candy : i-can-d : EyeCandy Delivery Systems.

Virtual Dub - As far as basic video editing goes, VDub does it better, faster and more easily than anything else I've seen. VDub does 75% of those common video tasks for which most folks think they need some $1000 program like Final Cut or Premiere. Better still, Virtual Dub does it *without* the steep learning curve or a clunky, buggy crash-prone interfaces, like you might find in many other tools. Best of all, it is FREE via http://www.virtualdub.org. After a while, you'll probably want to add Virtual Dub filters. I like some of these: http://neuron2.net/

Sidebar: Also known as "VirtualDub for Macs", Avidemux does pretty much all the same tasks as Virtual Dub. It is available for OSX and *NIX machines (as well as Windoze). It uses cool filters, too. PLUS, it natively handles MP4 files... Thanks for the heads-up, MediaDawg!

SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer): That's accurate. If I had to choose one single multimedia software tool (for Windows), this would be the one. It plays just about everything, converting to just about anything. Imagine a tool that will even grab proprietary streaming audio-video or rip a DVD to your HD, do your basic spartan edits/tweaks and convert it into a CD, DVD, or celly/iPod-friendly format in one fell swoop. That's SUPER. It is just as useful if you have audio-only conversion needs. Go ahead: Grab some (previously unattainable) streaming web audio. Burn it to CD. Blow it into you i-Pod. WOOT! Because it does so much, for so little (FREE!) I will easily forgive it's not-so-intuitive GUI: http://www.erightsoft.net/SUPER.html

NOTES:

S'Mo': Find a tool for any and all other digital video tasks via the Tools List at VideoHelp.com. In addition to the web's most comprehensive lists of it's kind, they have incredibly vast forums, and other resources.

It looks like G-Force will return to the fold. It's like a dear old friend that keeps improving with age. Look for it's own seperate post, sooner than later.

Originally posted on 10/09/07, this post has been "forward-dated" so that it'll remain at the top of the list.