Subsonic Review

Subsonic is a free web based music streamer. with it installed on your computer you can access your music anywhere that you have access to the Internet and on any device that has a Flash enabled browser (in addition the iPhone, Android, Windows, Linux, and Mac have specific applications for use with Subsonic).

Subsonic works with all stream able audio formats. Additionally, it can use on-the-fly conversion to convert any non stream able format and stream it to the web player.

As well as streaming the music to your browser it can also operate in Jukebox mode, allowing you to control what your host computer is playing.

Additionally, you can use it to upload any file to your computer.

These last two features work particularly well with the robust user account system. It is easy to set up any number of accounts for yourself or your friends and even includes a IM IRC style chatting system allowing you to collaboratively set up playlists or build a collection of music.

Tricks and Tips: Windows 7

I just recently started using Windows 7 and I have got to say I am impressed.

One of my favourite improvements over XP is the improved searching, particularly the Start menu's search bar which is very convenient. But as always when I use something I think, how could this be improved.

The following are a few tricks I was easily able to implement to greatly speed up my everyday tasks.

General Tips:

• To open up a window explorer view of Windows start menu folder. Start Menu>(right click) All Programs>Open
• All of the Start menu folder (C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu) is searched by the search bar
  
• The only folder in the Start menu folder that is shown is Programs (All Programs) and its sub folders
• The previous 2 points can be used to create files and folders that do not clutter up your Start menu but are still searched
• Folders and normal folder shortcuts cannot be searched for with the search bar
• To create a shortcut to a folder, simply create a shortcut with the string: (explorer "path"). for example (explorer "E:\Movies")

In addition to shortcuts to useful folders and files I also created some scripts to duplicate some of the functionality of the command line.
A batch file must be run with Administrator right, so when creating a shortcut use: runas /user:USERNAME /savecred "path".

Tricks and Tips: VLC player

VLC player, a media player capable of playing all (or almost all anyways) video files without the annoying need to install codecs.

But most of you probably already know that, so I am here to show you a few customizations to make it even better. VLC is full of tons and tons of customizations, but unfortunately the labels are full of jargon that even the most experienced of computer users will have a hard time with.

General Info & Tips:

• Preferences window can be brought up using: Tools > Preferences
• In the Preferences window the user can switch between "All Settings" and "Simple Settings" using the "Show Settings" menu in the lower left corner
• Hovering the mouse over a configuration element for a few seconds will show more detailed info about the configuration element
• Preferences>All>Interface>Main interfaces>Qt is configuration page for startup options

Useful Configuration Options:
1. Allow Volume to be set to 400%.
While their are certain methods to set the volume to 400% without this option set, setting this option will allow you to set the volume all the way to 400% using every volume changing method and will show all the way to 400% on the graph.

Preferences>All>Interface>Main interfaces>Qt>"Allow the volume to be set to 400%" (~ middle of screen)

2. Do not resize window on file change.
Preferences>All>Interface>Main interfaces>Qt>"Resize interface to native video size" (~ 1/3 of window down from top)
Turn option off.

3. Subtitle detection path.
If you are like me you hate having all those ugly subtitles files in your movie directory, but want to have them available; The solution is custom subtitle auto detection paths. Subtitle auto detection paths are the directories used by VLC player to search for subtitles for the curentally playing video, the default being the directory that the video is in (.\).
The paths are separated by the "," character.
Personally I use ".\subtitles,..\subtitles,..\..\subtitles,.\",
this searches in the current directory, and any directory named subtitles either in the current directory the parent directory or the parents parent directory.

Preferences>All>Video>Subtitles/OSD>"Subtitles autodetection paths" (~middle of screen)

4. Auto detect subtitles but do not load.
To auto detect the videos subtitles, but not to start using them.

Preferences>All>Input / Codecs>"Subtitles track" (in first sub section "Track Settings")
Set to 0(zero).
Preferences>All>Input / Codecs>"Subtitles track ID" (in first sub section "Track Settings")
Set to 0(zero).


(VLC version 1.0.5)