I’ve already covered how to do this with vlc a while back in parts 1 followed by part 2. I just found out that something very similar in results can be done with ffmpeg. ffmpeg has recently added support for directshow filters which now allows one to capture the screen and stream and/or save it. Here is how you can do this:

1.) Grab a copy of the Screen Capture DirectShow source filter from Unreal Streaming Technologies. It’s about half way down that page. They have both the UScreenCapture X86 Edition and the X64 Edition (depending on your OS installation). I used the 64 bit filter on a Windows 7 64 bit installation.

2.) Install the filter and make sure you make the following changes to your windows registry using regedit. The default frame rate for UScreenCapture filter is 10 f/s and we need to boost this to 30 frames/sec. You need to find the key HKLM\SOFTWARE\UNREAL\Live\UScreenCapture and insert a DWORD value of 30 for FrameRate (You have to create FrameRate, it does not exist by default). Once you’ve done the registry tweak, reboot.

3.) Install the latest greatest version of ffmpeg for your windows version from Zeranoe. I grabbed the 64 bit Static build since I didn’t want to deal with libraries and such. Extract it and stick it somewhere on your hard drive. Remember the path to this folder since we will need it later.

4.) Open a command line window and cd to the directory where you extracted ffmpeg into, find the bin directory and cd into it. This is were the ffmpeg executable resides. In my case (I extracted the ffmpeg files into “Program Files” directory) it is C:\Program Files\ffmpeg-git-059707e-win64-static\bin.

5.) If you’ve made it this far, hand in there, we’re almost home. Now you need to issue the command that gets the screen streaming going. But first we need to find out the name of the Screen filter device. So issue the following command:

ffmpeg -list_devices true -f dshow -i dummy

In the output look for a device called “UScreenCapture“. Hopefully if everything is working with the directshow filter you have a entry in the list. That’s the name of our device that we need to pass onto ffmpeg. While you’re there also look for your audio device entry as well. Mine was the truncated word “Stereo Mix (Realtek High Defini” (Yes mine was missing the end of that line). Jot that down somewhere as well. I will show you how to get audio going as well.

6.) So first step is to get video going. Assuming you have a “UScreenCapture” device (You could use another directshow filter if you like, this will work with most of them. I just used the Unreal filter for the heck of it), here is the command to start encoding and sending video:

ffmpeg -f dshow  -i video="UScreenCapture"  -r 30 -vcodec mpeg4 -q 12 -f mpegts udp://aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd:6666?pkt_size=188?buffer_size=65535

• -f dshow specifies that you’re going to be using a directshow device as your input.
• -i video=”UScreenCapture” is the name of the input directshow device which we picked up in step 5.
• -r 30 is the frame rate.
• -vcodec mpeg4 is our video codec of choice.
• -q 12 is a quality measure for the encoding process (1 is the best and 30 the worst). We’re doing VBR encoding so this measures the compression ratio vs. picture quality.
• -f mpegts is our output filetype. In this case mpeg-2 transport stream. Yes, we’re encapsulating mpeg4 video inside a mpeg-2 transport stream…..why?….google it.
• udp://aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd:6666?pkt_size=188?buffer_size=65535 this last bit specifies the address and port number of the recipient machine (aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd is the ip address of that machine and 6666 is my arbitrary port number). We’re also instructing ffmpeg to create smaller 188 byte size udp packets (which is the size of the transport stream packets) to decrease latency and our buffer size is 64kb.

7.) On the receiving machine you should be able to use vlc, ffmpeg or mplayer to catch the stream. In vlc simply open the Network stream rtp://@:6666 , in ffmpeg you can use the command ffplay -i udp://:6666 or using mplayer you can issue the command mplayer -framedrop -double udp://:6666 .

8.) Now to optionally add sound to the whole thing we can use this command on the encoding machine (instead of step 6). You need to know the device name for your sound card and you probably want to turn the volume down (at least initially) on the decoding machine.

ffmpeg -f dshow  -i video="UScreenCapture" -f dshow -i audio="Stereo Mix (Realtek High Defini" -r 30 -vcodec mpeg4 -q 20 -acodec libmp3lame -ab 128k -f mpegts udp://141.117.224.74:6666?pkt_size=188?buffer_size=65535

• -f dshow specifies that you’re going to be using a directshow device as your input (VIDEO).
• -i video=”UScreenCapture” is the name of the input directshow video device which we picked up in step 5.
• -f dshow specifies that you’re going to be using a directshow device as your input (AUDIO).
• -i audio=”Stereo Mix (Realtek High Defini” is the name of the input directshow audio device which we picked up in step 5.
• -r 30 is the frame rate.
• -vcodec mpeg4 is our video codec of choice.
• -q 20 is a quality measure for the encoding process (1 is the best and 30 the worst). We’re doing VBR encoding so this measures the compression ratio vs. picture quality. I went with 20 instead of 12 from step 6 since the audio encoding slows the machine down a bit.
• -acodec libmp3lame is our video codec of choice
• -f mpegts is our output filetype. In this case mpeg-2 transport stream. Yes, we’re encapsulating mpeg4 video inside a mpeg-2 transport stream…..why?….google it.
• udp://aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd:6666?pkt_size=188?buffer_size=65535 this last bit specifies the address and port number of the recipient machine (aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd is the ip address of that machine and 6666 is my arbitrary port number). We’re also instructing ffmpeg to create smaller 188 byte size udp packets (which is the size of the transport stream packets) to decrease latency and our buffer size is 64kb.

Let me guess…..you tried it and it failed. Well, there is a way (probably not sanctioned by MS) to get this done. I’ve installed it on two separate machines and verified that it works. First you need to download MSXML 6 from Microsofts website. Just go to microsoft.com and search for MSXML. There should be a link to MSXML6.0 download. Download the 64-bit version of the software and install it. Then force a windows update by choosing windows update from the start menu. You will notice a bunch of updates for MSXML. Let it update the files and reboot after that’s done.

Now you need to get the x86 version of office 2010 off the cd and copy it onto your computer somewhere (I just dragged the folder onto my desktop). We need to modify something and you can’t do that on the CD/DVD. Once the copy is done, find setup.exe right click on it and choose properties. Under the Compatibility tab choose “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” and choose Windows XP from the pull down.

Click Apply/Okay and double click setup to run it. That’s it. It works…..Happy days are here again .

I’ve been posting mainly about OSX for the last little while, but no worries, I haven’t given up on Windows…yet . Someone today was asking about a good WebDAV client and after searching around for a bit, it seems like there is really only a couple out there. But really none of them can beat BitKinex client in terms of features and “price”. Here is a short list of features (oh…and the price thing….it’s free:-) ):

• Site Navigation Without Freezing Windows
  Unique technology of advanced directory caching and multi connection/threaded directory scanning makes the non-blocking browse windows possible.
• Robust User Request Handling
  Resume and control in detail not only file transfers but all user requests – including file removals, moves, directory creations, remote edits, prints, etc.
• Indirect Transfers
  Allows users to transfer files from one server to another regardless of which protocol they are running (FTP->SFTP, WebDAV->FTPS, HTTP->FTP, etc.)
• Smart Messenger-like User Interface
  Does not occupy much space on your desktop.
• Properties Inheritance
  For easy and flexible configuration.
• Large Number of Supported Protocols
  Including FTP, FXP, FTPS, SFTP, HTTP, HTPS and WebDAV

I don’t know how they do it, but I would just grab a copy, if I were you .

One of the original reasons I bought my first ipod (first gen 5 Gig) was that I could hook it up to my mac and use it as a firewire drive. I could literally run around with this in my pocket and boot OSX off the ipod. Well that came to an end with the intro of iPhone/iTouch. Apple took the “disk mode” out. Well that was then, go grab a FREE copy of iPhone explorer and all that USB stick functionality can be your again. Oh, and did I say there is no need for Jail Break either

Features:

• 100% Free iPhone browser for Mac and Windows
• 100% Drag-and-drop interface for easily copying files to and from your iPhone
• Create, delete and rename files and folders on your iPhone or iPod Touch
• Works with all iPhones and iPod Touches including the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G
• Allows you to use your iPhone as a flash drive / pen drive or put your iPhone into disk mode
• Tiny download size
• (Optional) If you jailbreak your iPhone you can access the real root of your iPhone and recover your address book, SMS, e-mails and more.

Well the title is a bit misleading…..here are the details. I found out that if you have a NTFS native shared directory on your server, everything works fine as long as you’re using OSX 10.5 (Leopard) or below as a client. You can move files from Leopard and/or Tiger clients to the share and as long as you don’t mind the ._ files everything works.

Well something new has been introduced in Snow Leopard that kinda breaks this. If you have a Snow Leopard client machine accessing a NTFS native shared directory (via smb), by default the shares are mounted with the new xattr (Extended Attribute) feature, instead of those “old” ._ files. This messes everything up if you’re in a mixed environment with 10.4, 10.5, and 10.6 clients all accessing files in a NTFS native smb share.

Snow Leopards version of samba will read those old resource fork files, but files uploaded or modified by the Snow Leopard client will be unrecognizable by the older samba clients (10.5-) as far as the resource fork goes. This introduces some problems with programs that use the resource fork to store information.

All this headache is related to the ‘NTFS Streams’ feature of SMB mounts, so if we disable that, everything goes back to normal. To do this you have to create a file named /etc/nsmb.conf on all your 10.6 clients with the following contents:

#######
[default]
streams=no
#######


Yep MS strikes again. This time though it’s funny as hell. Turns out a bug in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 causes a whopping 30 seconds delay to your login process if you have a solid colour background set as your desktop wallpaper. Why? Well it’s MS, what did you expect, a working OS….HAH??? My solution…..Format C:\…..If you prefer an MS solution, check the support page.

NetResView is a great little utility from NirSoft. It displays the list of all network resources (computers, disk shares, and printer shares) on your LAN. As opposed to “My Network Places” module of Windows, NetResView display all network resources from all domains/workgroups in one screen, and including admin/hidden shares. Very useful utility for the Admin/Advanced users.

Let’s be clear on this, Wine, which is what WineBottler uses, lets you run Windows software on other operating systems. With Wine, you can install and run these applications just like you would in Windows without the need for a emulator or virtual machine. Not every program works yet, however there are already several million people using Wine to run their software.

WineBottler makes it really simple to create a application bundle out of Windows programs that will run on OSX. WineBottler is a tool similar to codeweavers Crossover, where separate prefixes — like runtime environments — are created per app. However, WineBottler ‘wraps’ or ‘bottles’ a separate prefix in each application bundle. WineBottler allows standalone (i.e. not requiring wine to be installed) applications to be created as well, by including the wine bundle inside the standalone application bundle.

Additionally unlike Wine which installs files in “standard” unix directories (/opt, /usr/local, etc.), WineBottler has two OSX application bundles that you copy to your Application directory. Very clean install/uninstall. Oh and did I mention that it’s free/opensource. The only catch, OSX for Intel only.

It looks like in trying to make the OS more secure, the latest MS updates (KB915597 and KB976098) “could” actually break the windows login process. From what I understand the access permissions on the winlogon shell entry for explorer.exe are invalidated after this update and hence the OS will not load explorer.exe (and you end up with a black screen). The whole story can be found over at Prevx’s Blog site plus a potential rescue program (and how to use it).

As bad as MS is — sometimes — with their updates, I think this one is the worst. Although, if I were MS I would have probably done the same thing. Too many malwares attach themselves (or attack) this entry, so it makes sense to tighten up security around it. You could argue that this problem has been around since the dawn of windows, so why wasn’t it fixed in Vista, 7, etc before they were released, but that’s another matter . Hopefully you’re not one of the people with it, but if you are, try the Pervx fix before you “format c:”.

Yep, neat little free utility I came across today. Copy Cat 2.0 actually skip the bytes which are not readable from file and copy all other bytes therefore it extracts max data which is normally not done by windows copy operation. Copy Cat can be helpful at times when you want to copy a CD or DVD which is scratched,when you want to copy data from harddisk area which is partially not readable , when you want to copy data from floppy which is currently not being copied by windows. So download and enjoy.

• Copies your oldest collection of CDs and DVDs
• It even tries to copy a highly damaged media byte by byte
• It gives you the option to skip the bytes if bad area found
• It is a very fast data recovery tool
• It also tries to copy damaged files on your hard disk
• Unlike Windows copy operation it does not stop the copy if bad area found

I’ve been using Synergy for about 3 years now and never really thought about writing about it. Tonight I came across Synergy+ which is a maintenance fork of the original Synergy. So I thought about writing a small note about it since it’s now maintained again.

Synergy+ (synergy-plus) lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, without special hardware. All you need is a LAN connection. It’s intended for users with multiple computers, where each system uses its own display. It’s a little like having a 2nd or a 3rd desktop. It’s not a KVM or VNC tool, but it does achieve similar results (but with added convenience). No need to press any buttons when you want to change desktops, and your keyboard input goes to the same screen that your mouse cursor is on.

Main features:

• Move your mouse easily between computers
• Requires nothing other than existing ethernet
• Copy and paste between your computers
• No need to press any buttons (unlike KVM)
• You can still use multiple monitors on the same computer
• By using the ScrLock (or “Scroll Lock”) key you can prevent switching from one monitor to another, which is useful for gaming and other full screen applications.

So head over to Synergy+’s home over at Google Code and grab your copy. Synergy+ is free open source software.

It’s probably not right to compare the Comodo EasyVPN with it’s cousin LogMeIn’s Hamachi2. Both products are free and allow you to setup groups of privately connected computers and access them from within that private network. Both are available for Windows only (although there are command line versions of hamachi for Mac and Linux). The thing that sets EasyVPN apart though is the fact that it comes in 32-bit or 64-bit flavours and that it includes remote desktop capabilities between all the machines participating in the network. For remote desktop capabilities with Hamachi2 you need a extra product called LogMeIn Free, which btw is also available for OSX. To grab your copy of EasyVPN hop over to the following link.

MMmmmmm…..Windows 7 Space Cake…….MMmmmmmm

There are a lot of fantastic free software packages out there for the PC if you’re running windows. VLC, Firefox come to mind. The problem is that it takes a long time to install all of them on your PC. You know the routine, click, wait for download, double click, next, next, next, etc……Well, why? Head over to Ninite’s website, choose the applications you want and let them create a custom “Meta Installer” for all the applications in one package. Run the installer and wham, you got all those free/opensource apps downloaded and installed on your machine in one shot, with minimal clickage . No sign-up required, Free for personal use, Just in time for Windows 7 Upgrade (or potentially downgrade). Now if only someone would make something like this on OSX, so I can install Final Cut Pro Studio without having grass grow under my seat, that would be nice .

Here is a video for all the people who attended — or god forbid hosted — a windows 7 launch party yesterday. This will give you a rough idea of what people will think of your party video in about 17 years……hehehehe

Holy crap…..MS has literally photocopied the Apple Store, replaced the Genius Bar with “Answer Bar” and the Genius’ with Guru’s……Does Microsoft ever come up with something original? Here comes “Attack of the Clones”…..hehehehe

If you’re using any one of Windows XP, Vista or 7 Platforms in 32 or 64 bit mode, you might be interested in the FastPictureViewer RAW picture codec pack from Axel Rietschin Software Developments. They are FREE for personal and educations use and give you fast access to preview RAW images taken by just about any digital camera capable of shooting RAW in Explorer. It even supports the slideshow function in Photo Gallery and Photo Viewer. The fact that it supports 32 and 64 versions of Windows is a bonus since most camera manufacturers — atleast up to now — have been very slow in supporting 64-bit windows. Here is a list of supported RAW Formats:

• Adobe Digital Negative (.dng)
• Canon Raw Image (.cr2, .crw)
• Fuji Raw Image (.raf)
• Hasselblad Raw Image (.3pr, .fff)
• Kodak Raw Image (.dcr, .kdc)
• Leica Raw Image (.raw, .rwl)
• Minolta Raw Image (.mrw)
• Nikon Raw Image (.nef, .nrw)
• Olympus Raw Image (.orf)
• Panasonic Raw Image (.rw2)
• Pentax Raw Image (.pef)
• Sigma Raw Image (.x3f)
• Sony Raw Image (.arw, .sr2, .srf)

For a Photographer — specially if you own an SLR and shoot RAW — this little Gem is a must.

….Atleast if you’re in Japan. Take a look at this monster…seven freaking patties stacked up in between two buns…..in time to celebrate Windows 7 launch. You’ll pay (roughly) $17.10 for the pleasure of clogging your arteries with this 5.1 inch tall monster. Once you’re done — if you’re still alive — you’ll finally understand how your computer feels after a windows installation .

Yeah, it happens to everyone. Either you go do a presentation and/or you play a game that resizes your Windows desktop and all hell breaks loose…..ICONS EVERYWHERE…..YUCK. Well since windows (as usual) comes up short in this area, some smart soul has programmed DesktopOK to save our collective sanity .

DesktopOK saves and restores your desktop icon positions—so your perfect icon layout won’t get lost if your resolution changes when hooking to another monitor or playing a game. DesktopOK is a free download for Windows only.

I was looking for a fast small (read: mini-ITX) mobo that had enough power to drive 1080P monitor/panel and I came across Zotac IonITX-A-U board. According to manufacturer’s website:

The mini-ITX form factor ZOTAC® ION combines a high-performance NVIDIA® ION graphics processor with a power-efficient Intel® Atom processor for the ultimate eco-friendly platform that has no troubles handling regular web browsing, e-mail, & productivity and HD video playback tasks.

NVIDIA® PureVideo HD technology harnesses the power of the ION’s 16 high-speed stream processors for high-definition Blu-ray playback capabilities. PureVideo HD technology decodes HD video formats and enhances standard-definition videos with the ION GPU for flawless HD and superior SD video playback.

Sounds and looks very nice and capable. I guess I’d have to pick one up and give it a whirl. Here are the quick tech specs:

• Onboard Video: GeForce 9400M
• Onboard Audio: 5.1
• Model: IONITX-A
• CPU Socket: 441-ball
• FSB: 533 MHz
• Dimensions: 6.7″ x 6.7″
• Chipset: MCP7A-ION
• Memory Type: DDR2 667/800
• Package Contents: 3 SATA cable 1 SATA power cable 1 WiFi antenna 1 WiFi bracket
• Memory Slots: 2×240pin
• SATA: 3 + 1 eSATA
• PCI Express x1: 1 (mini)
• Form Factor: Mini ITX
• Video Ports: D-Sub + DVI + HDMI
• USB: 10 (6 on back panel, 4 via pin header)
• Power Connector: 24 Pin – 90 Watt PSU included
• PS/2: 1
• RAID: 0/1/0+1

mini-itx.com has a nice review and sells the board aswell.