Great! I thought. When I visited the creators website, I saw that they had other tracking software, one for movies in particular (All My Movies). Of course I wanted to see how well it worked, and wondered how they would pull off the same trick they did with the books. Well, thanks to sites like IMDB.com and Amazon, they have all the actors listed, screenshots, the movie synopsis, and way more that they simply pull into your program after you either enter the title, OR even better the barcode that gurantees you get the right information and don’t pull in the cartoon version of one of your favorite movies.

After playing around with movies that I actually own, I entered ones that I wanted when I realized they give you the option of creating a wishlist (finally!) of movies you want to get (or have people get you). They have multiple layouts you can use to view the information for each movie, and even better, if you like sharing what is in your collection with the rest of the world, they give you the ability to export the html code for the layout to simply paste into a webpage!

If you are more of a ‘don’t need the DVD’ type, the program can even search your hard drive for what you’ve copied off your legally bought DVDs (wink). I haven’t tried this portion of the program out yet since my laptop is the only place I do this at.

All I have to say is that if you finally want to get an idea of what you have and not have to thumb through hundreds of cases over and over when someone asks what you’ve got, check out All My Movies.

Movie Database Software

But the day is nearly here, the first release candidate for Wine 1.0 is in the wild and the code base has been frozen. From here on out Wine 1.0 is concerned only with bug fixes and regression tests. So far there’s no date for the final release of Wine 1.0, but look for it to happen sooner rather than later.

Of course, as regular users know, Wine has been reasonably stable and perfectly usable for some time now, which makes the 1.0 milestone perhaps less significant than in some open source projects. Still, it’s nice to see Wine progressing.

If you’d like to help out, Wine is looking for volunteers to to some regression testing and other bug finding missions. Head over to the WineHQ site for more details.

Wine still doesn’t support every Windows app, but for those who’ve made the switch to Linux (or FreeBSD or Solaris), yet still need one or two Windows apps, Wine is nice lightweight way to go. Not only to you not need to buy and install Windows (as you would for a virtual machine), it’s generally much faster than emulator-based solutions. Head over to the apps page on the Wine site to see if your favorite Windows application works in Wine.

Now if only someone would create a similar project for running Mac OS X apps on Linux…

[via Slashdot]

See Also:

• Installing Apple’s Safari Web Browser in Ubuntu Linux
• Rumor: Windows Apps Running Native on Your Mac

Google has turned Street Views, the virtual street level tours, from a fun diversion to a useful feature by combining them with driving directions. The new features mean that when you’re searching for driving directions in one of the 42 U.S. cities that have Street View images, you can now preview each intersection in your route.

As the Google Lat Long blog says, “it’s not always easy to find your way around an unfamiliar place.” To make it somewhat easier, you can now combine directions with images to “preview your route before hitting the road.”

When you search for directions in a city with Street Views, each segment of the suggested route will show a little camera icon off to the right. Just click the camera icon and the Street View bubble will come up showing each intersection in your route. From there just pan around to get an idea of what to expect.

Once you’re inside the Street View bubble you can actually “pre-drive” your entire route by click on the white arrows. As the video below points out, there’s a host of other useful stuff you can do by zooming in on the Street Views — check toll prices, find out where you can park and see road conditions (potholes, sharp turns etc, obviously not real-time weather or anything like that).

It’s even possible, using the Google Maps API, to create a movie of Street View images that you can embed in your site.

While Street Views have always been fun, it’s nice to see Google making them useful as well.

Also worth noting, CNet is reporting that a “Google Ocean” tool may be in the works. According to CNet (right now Google has refused to comment on an “Ocean” product) “people will be able to see the underwater topography, called bathymetry; search for particular spots or attractions; and navigate through the digital environment by zooming and panning.” Although it’s just a rumor, it certainly sounds plausible given that Google has already covered Earth and Sky.

[via Google Operating System]

See Also:

• Google Maps Street View Succeeds Where Other Giants Have Stumbled
• Google Street View Update Catches Knife Sharpening Van Outside OJ …
• Google Maps Street View Workers Stop For Big Macs
• Google Maps Takes To The Subways

The next version of Ubuntu Linux is set to arrive tomorrow, April 24. Ubuntu 8.04, Hardy Heron as it’s known, packs in a bunch of new features which we’ve covered in depth while watching the beta develop.

If you’ve been thinking of jumping on the Linux train, Hardy Heron makes a good place to hop aboard. With 8.04 Ubuntu’s features are generally user-friendly enough that the average person won’t need to dive into the command line very often, if at all.

However, switching OSes is never without some confusion, which is why I wanted to point out the handy Ubuntu Cheat sheet that the good folks over at FOSSwire released earlier today. The sheet is a great at-a-glance reference for new users and, unlike general *nix cheat sheets, all the tools and paths are specific to Ubuntu (if it’s a generic *nix cheat sheet you’re after, FOSSwire has one of those as well).

If you’re thinking of making the switch to Ubuntu, grab a copy of the cheat sheet and when the final release of 8.04 comes out tomorrow give it a try. Keep in mind that it includes Wubi, which can install Ubuntu alongside Windows without repartitioning your disks or any other risky stuff.

See Also:

• Ubuntu 8.04 Release Candidate Available Now
• New Ubuntu 8.04 Beta Refines The Linux Desktop
• Ubuntu Linux Readies ‘Hardy Heron’ Beta

A new group of analysts is trying to assess how much, and what, open source software is installed. To participate in the census, go to OSSCensus.org and download their free software package, called OSS Discovery. Sounds like a submarine.

It’s written, for whatever reason, in JRuby, a Java implementation of Ruby (the standard, official Ruby implementation is in C), and is itself open source, although the Census Edition is different in some way from the regular edition. It runs on most popular platforms.

I didn’t audit the code myself, and the site doesn’t provide MD5 checksums or any of the other assurances that are typical when you’re trying to persuade people to download and run something. At least it doesn’t insist you run it as root.

Once you’ve unzipped the 50MB package, take a leap of faith and run it on your computer. Discovery scans the filesystem, comparing what it finds against its included library of fingerprints, to try to figure out what (if any) open source software you have installed. I’m not sure how accurate the fingerprint method is, or how thoroughly patched and customized a piece of software can be before it fails to be recognized as itself.

Discovery is not as easy to use as Debian and Ubuntu’s popularity-contest, which automatically (optionally) tracks and reports installed packages without scanning, but this approach makes more sense across a very heterogeneous set of installations.

Here is the user guide for the software, and here are the scantyish reported results so far. 231 machines have been scanned as of this blogging. Mine are not among them: I let the software run on my server for about two hours before I got tired of its RAM greed and killed it. I anticipate that compliance may be a problem for the Census.

See Also:

• Making Open Source Software More “Humane”
• Git Excitement Continues to Grow

Unlike Windows XP SP2, which was for all intents and purposes a completely new operating system, SP3 is more of an incremental upgrade. As for what you get with SP3, Microsoft says the update provides all previously released Windows XP updates — in case you haven’t been using Windows Update —as well as a few new OS enhancements.

The list of new features doesn’t offer much to get excited about, but beta testers who’ve been using XP SP3 report that the unspecified “stability improvements” do indeed make SP3 more stable.

We’ve also seen reports of some people claiming a minor speed boost, but naturally that will depend on your hardware setup.

Windows XP SP3 has been floating around in the various forms for some time, from public betas to leaked copies on torrent sites, but Microsoft delayed the official release and declined to offer a timeline. Many suspect that the company didn’t want to give reluctant upgraders yet another reason to put of making the jump to Windows Vista.

But regardless of the reasoning, the wait is nearly over. The link isn’t live yet, but this Knowledge Base page will have all the details of XP SP3.

[via ZDNet]

See Also:

• Windows XP SP3 Still Not Ready For Release
• Windows XP Service Pack 3 Trounces Vista In Speed Tests
• Windows XP Gets a Life Extension on Low-Cost, Low-Power PCs
• Vista Updates Hint At Coming SP1 Release
• Windows XP Still Trumps Vista
• MojoPac: A Dead Simple Way To Make Windows XP Portable

Six Apart, makers of Movable Type, Typepad and other popular blogging services, have launched a new Facebook application designed to broadcast your posts to just about any external source you’d like.

Blog It allows you to compose and post updates within the Facebook interface and have them simultaneously appear on any one of the ten supported services, including Movable Type, TypePad, Pownce, Twitter, Blogger, and WordPress.

The idea behind Blog It is to simplify the process of updating all the various sites and services you use, offering a single interface for updating all your sites. It’s a bit like turning Facebook into a fire hose that sprays your thoughts across the web.

FriendFeed is also toying with similar, though much more limited cross-posting features, like the ability to send comments to Twitter. Blog It, however, offers far more complete updating capabilities.

Which isn’t to say that Blog It is feature complete. For now you’ll miss niceties like a rich text editor or the ability to upload and include pictures in your posts. In the video below, Six Apart’s David Recordon makes it clear that the company is aware of the short-comings and promises feature upgrades in the near future.

But while Blog It may be a work in progress, even in limited form, it’s the easiest way I’ve seen to broadcast posts across platforms and it offers the ability to pick and choose which posts go where on a per-post basis so you’re always in control of who sees what. Every time you add a new service to update Blog It offers the option to automatically post to that service, though you can always uncheck it when you actually post something.

Blog It is a pretty slick Facebook app, perhaps the best I’ve used and while it still lacks a few features (OAuth support is reportedly in the works, but for now you’ll have to give Blog It your passwords) it definitely makes it easier to broadcast your life to multiple locations.

Recordan has hinted elsewhere that Six Apart may expand Blog It to work from other platform’s — like Plaxo’s Pulse or perhaps even as standalone AIR application like Twirl — but for now Blog It is tied to Facebook.

To get an idea of what Blog It looks like in action, check out the video below where Recordon walks you through the process of setting up and using Blog It (and also offers the best OAuth metaphor I’ve heard: “it’s like a valet key for the web”). If you’d like to jump in with both feet, you can go ahead and add Blog It to your Facebook account.

See Also:

• Look Out Facebook — MySpace Opens Up For Applications
• Widgetmasters Debate Facebook as a Platform
• Plaxo Widget Brings LifeStreaming To The Masses
• The Next Social Network? It’s Web 2.0, And It Knows Where You Are
• Six Apart Wants To Help Manage Your Social Networks
• Six Apart and Facebook Merge? No, They Just Love Open-Source

You could also use the old XP Hyper terminal. Just extract two files hypertrm.dll and hypertrm.exe. You can put them anywhere on the disk, no installation required. Of course, for that you need to have XP to extract files from.

Besides, puTTY and SecureCRT are great too! I would prefer puTTY as it is FREE! :-p
PuTTY can now connect to local serial ports as well as making network connections!!!

Hilgraeve HyperTerminal for Personal Use
puTTY

First there was the debaday Livejournal, a blog dedicated to posting one nifty .deb package per day. A .deb a day, get it? That site served up some great stuff, but petered out after a few months. But not before I discovered such coolness as mairix and ixbiff.

Then came debaday.debian.net, a new site boldly taking up the torch. It’s been going strong for a while now, but those .debs don’t post themselves! The site’s proprietor is hungry for your submissions.

Suggest cool, obscure packages that the world deserves to know about. Maybe you wrote one!

See Also:

• Debian Releases Etch Update
• Is Debian Etch The Other “Easy Linux”?
• Enjoy A Better Looking Firefox In Ubuntu

The final version of Adobe’s desktop video player arrived Wednesday morning. The Adobe Media Player lets users download and stream videos from a variety of mainstream content partners, import video feeds via RSS and play videos stored on his or her local machine.

AMP, as it’s affectionately known, uses Flash to handle all of the video playback. It also runs on AIR, Adobe’s cross-platform runtime for applications built with web technologies re-tooled to run on the desktop. As the first true, HD-capable Flash video player for the desktop, AMP serves as a strong demonstration of AIR’s capabilities. But as a consumer product now in wide release, it has a number of shortcomings and performance problems that will likely prevent it from making a large dent in the media player market until it’s refined and improved.

Adobe Media Player and AIR are available right now as free downloads from Adobe.

There are already a number of applications that let you browse, subscribe to, download and watch video content on your desktop — the open-source Miro player is a favorite. Windows Media Player and iTunes are other, less flexible options. Adobe Media Player doesn’t directly compete with these players, but could find some sort of peaceful co-existence alongside them if Adobe could land a few enticing, exclusive content deals.

AMP downloads with a variety of pre-loaded channels. You can browse the Catalog and watch shows from networks like CBS (Survivor, CSI), MTV (Cribs, The Hills), The Food Network and over 30 others. Some of the content is in HD, most in SD, but you’ll also find a fair amount of regular old blocky web video.

Wired.com has a channel, though none of our recent videos show up in the directory listing. Same with many of the feed-based channels — even after a few minutes, they wouldn’t load. In fact, in my testing, I had a hard time getting several of the videos that did show up to play. I was looking forward to watching some vintage episodes of Hawaii 5-O, but the downloads failed. After watching some Ace of Cakes, I was ready for some Alton Brown — but those downloads failed, too.

The player is capable of on-demand streaming, live streaming, progressive download, and protected download-and-play right now. More features and improvements to these delivery options are expected. For now, though, playback is pretty rough. After sailing through the first ten minutes of testing with few problems, the videos began stalling and stuttering. The user interface of the player is also slow on my machine, making browsing and searching feel sluggish.

I used my workhorse dual 2Ghz G5 Mac running Mac OS X 10.4.11 for testing. A quick check of Activity Monitor shows that AMP was sucking up quite a bit of resources, even with the video paused and no active downloads, such as when this screenshot was taken (click for the bigger version). Closing Photoshop, Firefox and Safari didn’t help, either. I know a hardware upgrade and a bump up to Leopard will likely improve the performance (are you listening, corporate IT overlords?), but a consumer product should be able to do better on my better-than-average setup.

The sound quality is excellent. As is the video quality when playback was uninterrupted. The high-quality CSI episodes look fantastic, though many of the lower-quality videos were locked to specific resolutions and didn’t get bigger when I resized the playback window.

On the business side, Adobe has put a lot of thought into the AMP strategy, which is ultimately what should allow it to compete for eyeballs with iTunes once the performance hiccups are ironed out. The user experience inside the player can be customized by content publishers, allowing for a white label distribution model. There are also optional DRM controls that publishers can implement within the player, and Adobe plans to add support for a download-to-rent framework publishers can take advantage of.