Quick Tip: 3GP Video Converter

Looking for a quick and easy way to convert all your video’s for play on your favorite mobile device, such as iPod, PSP or Zune? Well look no further. 3GP Video Converter is a free quick and easy to use little program for just that, supporting formats such as MP4, 3GPP, 3GP2, MQV, and more. All you have to do is download it, choose your language, output file type, destination folder, then just drag and drop the files you want to convert into the little box labeled “Drag & Drop Files Here”.

Now all that’s left is to sit back and wait for the process to finish. The conversion process usually takes about ½ to¼ of the play time depending on your machine. Handles most every file format that I’ve thrown at it so far including: VOB, AVI, MPG, & FLV (yes flash animation like on YouTube). The only file type that I’ve found that it can’t handle is WMV, which really surprised me because it just chewed up and spit out every other file type that I’ve thrown at it so far.

Tip: I find that MP4 for PSP works best even for my iPod because it gives you more options when it comes to the sound and video quality. (QVGA/15fps/512kbps Stereo/96kbps is my setting of choice, of coarse it all depends on your tolerance for compressed video and audio)

Quick Tip: John’s Background Switcher

If you’re like me, you like having kool looking backgrounds on your laptop but hate taking the time to decide on witch one you want to use, and absolutely deplore having to take the time to actually change your wallpaper.

Well today is your lucky day!

John’s Background Switcher is the answer to all your background related dilemmas. A quiet little program that just sits in your system tray and randomly changes your wallpaper for you at an interval that you specify and from a source that you select: choose from a folder on your machine, Flickr, Smugmug, Phanfare and more.

This little utility is provided to you totally free from its creator John Conners (no not the kid from the Terminator, that’s John Connor you fool) however as with most free wares he does accept donations. so if you like what you getting, show him a little love!

Just not feeling the pic that JBS selected as your background and don‘t feel like waiting for the next time it‘s supposed to change? Just give the icon in your system tray a good ol’ double click and presto: new background! Have fun!

How To: Edit The Metadata On Your MP4s

Ok so you’ve taken all of your illegally pirated videos and converted them into MP4s to play on your oh so cool little iPod, but you’ve got one problem: iTunes won’t let you edit certain information on your files.

While it’s true that Apple has made it incredibly easy to edit the ID3 tags on you MP3s and add additional information to your movies, it does reserve certain categories for “official use” (only to be used by Apple). For example: the release dates on TV Shows. Unless you download the latest copy of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles from iTunes, when you view it on your iPod you will be greeted by the message “Unknown Release Date” underneath the file name. I have teh OCD so this bugs me… A LOT!

Editing metadata on MP4s admittedly is not a new topic, but finding a program that works on Vista 64 is, well at least to my Google search results it was because they were more than helpless. So don’t you worry all you early adopters of technology, I have the answer… Tagger. Tagger is a rather easy to use Java based program that allows you to edit almost all of the metadata contained in your MP4s as you can see:

Very simple to use, just open the file you want to edit, change/add the information needed, save, and voila; no more OCD induced panic attacks when you peruse you iTunes library.

The only problem that I have with this program is that when you edit the release date on a file, once it’s saved, it changes the release date to the day before the one that you’ve entered. For example: if the release date of the new Sarah Connor Chronicles was 9-8-2008, it would show up in iTunes as 9-7-2008. I’m not quite sure how or why it does this but the easy work around for this is to just add one to the release date that you want and it will show the correct date.

How To: Dual Boot With Vista And Ubuntu

So you’ve decided to take the plunge and delve into Linux, but you’re not quite ready to give up that Windows machine that you’re become so comfortable with (kind of like myself). Admittedly, Linux is not for everyone, and if you’re a n00bie to the scene a dual boot system is probably what you’re going to want to do. This will allow you to use Vista for you day to day activities, and still let you use and learn about Ubuntu at your leisure.

Here’s a list of what you’re going to need:

• The latest Ubuntu distribution
• Nero Burning ROM (or another program capable of burning an ISO, Roxieo is also good)
• 1 blank CD
• About 4 gigs minimum of free hard drive space (although I would suggest more, at least 10 or 20)

The first thing you’re going to need to do is download and burn a copy of Ubuntu, you can do this by following the link provided or Googling the term “Ubuntu” (this can take some time depending on you’re internet connection). Various torrent sites are also a good source to get Linux distros at a good speed because they allow you to download from multiple sources simultaneously.

Once you’ve downloaded the Ubuntu ISO you’ll need to burn it as a bootable CD. You can do this by opening Nero, and from the “Back Up” sub-menu clicking “burn image to disk“, and selecting the Ubuntu ISO you just downloaded.

Once the disk is finished burning you’ll need to do is create a partition to install Linux on. To do this you need to right click on the “Computer” or “My Computer” icon on your desktop. From there you’ll need to go into Manage/Storage/Disk Management and right click on the partition that you’ll want to take the storage space from (usually the C: drive) and click shrink volume.

Where it says Enter the amount of space to shrink, enter the desired size of your new partition. 15000 would be 15 gigs. Simple enough right?

From here you’ll need to restart your computer with the Ubuntu disk still in the drive. You’ll need to make sure that your computer is set to boot from the CD/DVD Drive first and not from the hard disk, if not you can change this by entering the BIOS Menu at the Splash Screen upon start up (usually by pressing F1, if not it should say something to the effect of press F1 to enter settings. This varies from machine to machine.).

From there Ubuntu will proceed to load up from the disk, select install and simply fill in the prompts with the appropriate information until it asks you to select a partition to install Linux on. At the partition manager you’re going to want to select “largest free space”, that’s the partition that you just created before you restarted your computer. After that all that’s left is to follow the rest of the prompts and wait for Ubuntu to be installed on your computer.

When the install is done you will be walked through the process of rebooting again and be greeted by GRUB, Linux’s boot loader, and given the option to load either Vista or Ubuntu, simply select which operating system you want to load up and you’re done. (Grub by default will select Ubuntu and begin to count down from 10 and then load Ubuntu if no buttons are pressed.)

Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux!

Editorial 4.15.08

Our time has come watch me set it off
It’s been a while but we back
So you can count it loss
We lie and wait don’t hesitate
When opportunity knocks
Break the locks and rush the gates
Seize the day we got moves to make
It’s got to be now
Cause we’re half past late
–P.O.D., Set It Off

Fuck, shit, ass, bitch, cunt, whore! Ok I think I’ve adequately expressed my frustration and gotten it out of my system, so with that in mind it’s time for another editorial from me: Th0r4z1n3 the “Editor and Chief” (if you will) here at The Restricted.

Editor and Chief? WTF? That term couldn’t fit me less, if Clark Kent himself had to submit his stories to me. I never in my life would I have imagined myself in a position where that title could even remotely be appropriate. I jokingly use it as a nod to a conversation that I had with our newest writer, who coincidentally now solidifies my being able to use the term our/we rather than mine/me.

As you may have noticed there is a new face here at The Restricted, so I’d like to take the time to introduce you to Tony Glasses; a long time friend and original member of The Restricted (from its original incarnation as a hacker based pod cast). Over the past week or so I’ve been in almost constant contact with him as we discussed what our plans are for this little endeavor, started laying out a game plan, and giving a little forethought to the future. As always “Pod cast” is defiantly on both of our minds, but for now we are going to focus on content and as this thing grows, so shall we. We have however taken the steps, again in forethought, to start filming all of our meetings and discussions for future use… but I’m getting ahead of myself, right here-right now here’s what’s going on:

In an effort to not let this project spiral out of control (again) we’ve decided to lay down some ground rules and limit our topics of discussion to things that will fall under the categories:

• Editorial: A place for me, or one of the other Editors to post information about what’s going on with The Restricted and keep people informed on up coming events.
• How To: Simple “How To” guides that will cover everything from Linux, Windows, and Mac, along with tips for hacking everyday devises like your iPod, PSP, and anything else we can justify talking about. The only restriction we’ve put on this topic is that there has to be a legal reason for wanting to do it, some of the thing we cover may be used, or misused, for illegal activities, but if we cannot think of a legal reason to discuss it we will not cover it… for now.
• Music: A place for us to discuss music in general (artists, albums, and songs) and pass our recommendations and thoughts on all music both new and old.
• Movies: Pretty much the same thing as the Music category but for film
• Social Commentary: The area in which we both seem to excel, a place to give our take on current events and society in general.
• Crème de’ le’ Crap: Well I’m sure most of you have stumbled upon our first candidate for the “Crème de’ le’ Crap” award, Ms. Cristina Garcia, and with its success we’ve decided to keep it around on a monthly, weekly, whatever basis. Pretty much an “Ass Hole of the Month” column where we can highlight the worst of the worst people to come to our attention.

As our reader base grows and we add more contributors we defiantly have plans to expand our topics and other content, so if you’d like to bring something to our attention feel free contact us via email or give me a shout on Twitter. My contact information is in the sidebar and Tony should have his up very soon (if he hasn’t done it already).

In closing I’d like to thank everyone who has taken the time to read The Restricted, and give a very special thanks to those of you who have taken the extra step to subscribe to us either through RSS or Email: “Thank you all for a great first week!”

Sincerely,
Th0r4z1n3

P.S.
I’ve also taken the liberty to attach some video footage from our original project for those of you who are curious…