How do I delete frames from a movie?

You've probably gathered by now that I'm quite fond of Virtual Dub. Unsurprisingly this is the program I'm going to recommend you use here too. Run the program and open the movie you wish to edit. Use the tracking slider bar to locate the start of the scenes or frames you would like to delete, click on the 'edit' menu and choose the 'set selection start' option to place a marker on the slider bar. Now...

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It's a pirate eat pirate world

Subsequent to Sharman Network's recent Google-bullying exploits, the company responsible for developing the only file sharing client your granny can put a name to, have been moralising once again on the subject of copyright infringement. This time round they've succeeded in having the hacked client removed from the most eminent peer to peer sites and hammered the final nail in the coffin by blocking...

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Are you (bulletin) bored with typing?

My favourites (or bookmarks if you like) consist mostly of forums which require a username and password to gain entry. Because it's not a good idea to use the same password for each forum I must remember which password is associated with which forum, otherwise I'll find myself locked out. Each time I clear my cookies, this information is lost and as a result I have to re-login to the forums on my...

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The lamb they couldn't silence

Just recently I had an email from a Kookosity reader informing me that Clone CD had been discontinued. This isn't actually the case though you'd be forgiven for thinking so judging by the terminal 'game over' message left in place of the section of the Elaborate Bytes web site devoted to the no. 1 CD duplication tool. Owing to the introduction of new copyright laws in Germany, where Elby are based,...

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It was so colossal the line snapped!

According to the developers of Earthstation 5, their file sharing client offers water-tight anonymity, is more secure than Fort Knox, has been translated into 12 languages, downloaded 22 million times and supports more than 15 million simultaneous users 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Operating from a refugee camp in Palestine, the pioneering company responsible for bringing P2P bliss to the masses...

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What is a .par file?

If you've ever dabbled in a spot of spanned archive downloading you'll know that getting them to work isn't always plain sailing. Several bytes are often lost on the long journey from remote servers to your computer, and even more infuriating, sometimes the uploaded files are corrupt to begin with. Par files are designed to combat these problems as they are capable of rebuilding partially intact archives. For...

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The future's bright, the future's... the past?

Two of my most enduring passions are radio and classic gaming, so imagine my elation upon discovering that the two had been married together in the form of www.retrogamingradio.com. Lovingly crafted by the entertainingly opinionated Shane R. Monroe, the show has been 'on air' since 1998 and is broadcast at monthly intervals. Weaved into the proceedings are retro hardware and software reviews, emulation...

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eMule and the eDonkey network unwrapped

eMule, more commonly known as "that really difficult to configure file sharing client", is a reworking of its more recognisable older brother eDonkey, and contrary to popular belief it's no more taxing to use than any other piece of peer to peer software. Let's face it, if you're prepared to entrust your file transfers to a ladybird and a chocolate spread and are still not satisfied with the results,...

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My movie is too large to fit on a CD-R. Is it possible to chop it up and put it on two CD-Rs?

You can do this using Virtual Dub's 'save segmented AVI' option, but this is very slow because you have to recompress the file using the full processing mode for both video and audio streams. If you only want to cut the movie in two then it would be much faster to do it manually using the techniques described in my blog entry entitled, "How do I delete frames from a movie?" What you need to do is...

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The ants are my friends, they're blowin' in the wind

Surely not? Find out for sure with Evil Lyrics. It's a tool of minuscule proportions which runs alongside Winamp, QCD Player, Windows Media Player 9, Foobar 2000 and Sonique. The idea is that as you play a music track, Evil Lyrics automatically downloads the lyrics of the song in plain text format so you can sing along or find out what your favourite band are babbling on about. Don't worry, the lyrics...

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Really alternative operating systems

Let's get the obvious out of the way from the outset - Microsoft is the absolute epitome of evil - they boil little children in hydrochloric acid, torture puppies and feed kittens to their blood sucking hell hounds. All are undeniable facts, but let's not dwell too deeply on Microsoft the company; what about their spawn-of-Satan operating system, Windows? In its defence, the latest version, Windows...

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The end of the line for tiny fonts

Do you ever find yourself squinting at your monitor in a hopeless attempt to decipher the tiny fonts on a web page? No, I'm not going to suggest you start wearing glasses. Although that might not be such a bad idea, there is an easier way to make your screen text more legible. If you've got a scroll mouse and use Internet Explorer as your web browser, you can make the text on web pages grow or shrink...

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What are .srt files?

Filenames annexed with the extension .srt denote subtitles ripped from a DVD movie. They are stored in plain text format so can be opened, read and edited using Notep...

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How can I disable anti-right-click web site protection?

First up, you can just turn off javascript in your browser. Drastic perhaps, but very effective. A second method is to keep your finger on the right mouse button after you have pressed it. When the "don't steal our links" warning message appears, press the enter key to close it and then release the right mouse button. You should discover that all the usual context menu functions will appear as though...

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I've got a set of files with the extensions 001, 002, 003 and so on, but there's no ace or rar file. What do I use to open them?

Often these are just rar archives, only without the initial rar file. If you double click on the first file (001) nothing happens. This is because it hasn't been associated with the program, however, if you open Winrar using the shortcut on your start button or desktop you can browse through your directories until you find the file and open it that way. If this is part of a rar archive, the remaining...

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File Interrupted

I've been downloading a large file from an FTP site for several hours and it has suddenly become inaccessible. Even though I can log in using the same username and password I cannot resume my download. What am I doing wrong? This can happen when the owner of the FTP site has moved the files from one drive to another. When you log in, the layout looks identical so it can be difficult to spot the problem. To...

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Share and share alike - file sharing clients uncovered

Following the immense success of Napster, it was only a matter of time before someone posed the question, why not develop a program that allows people to exchange other file types as well as MP3s?. A very good question, and one which was swiftly answered by a deluge of file sharing clients based on the now infamous Napster protocol. For those of you who haven't been formally introduced to file sharing...

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