Screen captures at the click of a button

You'll be glad to know that for a change this is a very short and snappy tip (geddit?). To take a screen shot of your Windows desktop: arrange your windows as you want them to appear in your captured image and press the 'print screen' button on your keyboard (it should be next to the 'scroll lock' and 'pause' buttons near the top right corner). Now if you open up your favourite paint program, locate the 'paste' button and press it, your capture will appear in all its glory.

What you choose to do with it now is up to you. I wouldn't for a second advocate that you set it as the desktop wallpaper image on a friend's computer and observe them hopelessly attempting to close down windows and edit documents that were open when you snapped the pic because that would be extremely mischievous and naughty.

Conversely, if you only want to take a snapshot of your currently active window, you can hold down the 'alt' button while you press the print screen key.

Mac users can achieve the same results by using OS X's built-in 'Grab' tool located in the Applications - Utilities folder.

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How can I capture an audio stream?

If you're a Mac user, the simplest way to achieve this would be to use the original, free version of WireTap. Unfortunately, version 1.0 is no longer available from the official home page (oh look, they have a pro version for sale - could the two things be connected?), but can be found elsewhere on the web if you're prepared to scout around for it.

WireTap is an atypical stream-ripping tool in that it records any sounds emitted by your Mac within a given time-frame - it doesn't discriminate between applications - it will pick up system beeps, iTunes output, everything, so if you require a 'clean' recording, ensure that you mute the sound in all applications bar the target source before you begin 'tapping'.

The interface consists of three buttons - record, stop and pause. To save an audio stream you would click on the relevant link in your web browser to commence playback and then hit the record button in WireTap - the captured sound is saved to a folder of your choice as an AIFF file. If you wish to save streams in MP3 format you will have to upgrade to the pro version or use Audio Hijack instead. Incidentally, Audio Hijack will allow you to capture audio from specific applications, and additionally grants you much more control over the quality and format of captured sound files.

The handful of PC users amongst us *wink* might like to try Stream Ripper instead. This being a more traditional stream capturing tool, it records audio streams directly, ignoring any extraneous background system noise. It can't interpret Windows Media or Real Audio streams, but pretty much anything else is fair game.

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Whiff of humble pie distracts APB attack dogs

Antipiratbyran spokesman: "Hey Jon, how ya doin' pal? You remember last month when we accidentally raided your ISP and accused you of running an Aladdin's cave for software pirates? Well, err, tell ya what; let's just forget it, whadda ya say? We realize the reprehensible behaviour of that loose cannon 'Rouge' could well land us in hot water, but that's not what this is about. No, no, no, we just think it was really a lot of kerfuffle over nothing and neither of us need the hassle of taking this to court. Uhm, so if you promise not to make a fuss about our silly little slip-up, we'll do the same. Everyone makes mistakes from time to time, right?"

Not an actual quote from Sweden's anti-piracy bureau (reeeally?), but that's the paraphrased gist of the latest turn of events in the bungled Bahnhof raid escapade.

Left reeling by the highly dubious agent provocateur tactics employed by the ABP at the offices of Swedish ISP, Bahnhof, managing director, Jon Karlung, threatened judicial proceedings of his own. The row centred around the APB's use of an employee infiltrator known as 'Rouge' who was found to have transferred 68,000 illegal files throughout Bahnhof servers while undertaking an anti-piracy surveillance operation on the firm.

Following the dismissal of two Bahnhof employees and APB's infiltrator, both parties have agreed to bury the hatchet and "stand united against pirate copying". Despite the ceasefire, the Swedish Data Inspection Board and the National Post and Telecom Agency may still seek to hold the APB accountable for transgressing personal data and electronic communication laws. As Bart Simpson would say: "the ironing is delicious."

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