Three Wise Men

Encoding videos with FFMPEG and H.264

Encoding videos can be a real pain. While ffmpeg is an excellent utility for converting videos between various formats it is also a pain to use. If you put H.264 codec on top of this, you will get a real mess with command lines that are longer than 200 characters. H.264 is a great format and linux¹ implementation is hiding in the libx264. It will come pre-installed with Ubuntu 10.04, but if you are more adventurous you should try and install the latest versions from SVN repositories as described on Ubuntu forums. The whole procedure is quite easy and very well documented so in this post I will assume that you have installed the latest versions.

The focus of this test and tutorial will be on video production, more specifically on an average YouTube Vlogger video. This means, one pass encoding, high compression and very uniform videos. For encoding movies and other videos with very dynamic content and big changes in the scenes you will have to look elsewhere of wait for another post. :)

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1. and other similar operating systems [↩]

Cloning Ubuntu Linux – The easy way

Image via Wikipedia

Your Ubuntu Linux installation is getting bigger and bigger and you are running out of space on your hard disk. You got your new hard drive and now you need to clone your old drive to the new one. The dreaded cloning is actually quite easy and relatively simple to do. The only thing you will need is a little patience and some typing skills. No special software just your already installed Ubuntu Linux.

The regular obligatory disclaimer: This procedure worked for me several times, I use it almost on a daily basis and I had no problems with it. Your mileage my vary. Make sure you double check all the commands that you type and that you do not format your data drive. You will end up with two empty disks. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
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Generating sample XML from XSD or DTD in Eclipse

Feature is useful if you are writing your XSD schema files or you have XSD schema files and want to create sample XML files for schema elements. Process is the same for generating sample XML files from DTD files.

How to do it. Simple.

1. Create a project and add, import or somehow see created, generated XSD files in Project Explorer.
2. Select your desired XSD file.
3. Right-click and choose Generate->XML File
4. New XML File wizard will pop-up where you define where generated file should be saved and what should be it’s name. When desired information is input-ed press Next.
5. In Select Root Element window choose root element of your sample XML file. Root element can be any element defined in XSD file you choose to use for generation of the sample XML.
6. Set content options and pay special attention to optional attributes & optional elements. Check those if you would like a complete XML sample.
7. Name-space information is populated with name-spaces defined in chosen XSD file. You can manipulate the existing name-space information by changing prefix, adding additional name-space or create new name-space.
8. Once you are satisfied click Finish.

And presto you have your blank sample XML. Edit it with the information you wish to present and your sample XML is ready. No XMLSpy or any other commercial tools required.

Using menus in WordPress 3.0

Menus are a new big thing in the upcoming release of WordPress 3.0 and most of the theme builders will have to add at least some minor support in their themes for menus to work. Not so long time ago we tested one of the WordPress nightly builds and we had some trouble with our theme. It was about time to address these issues and see how much work will be required to add support for menus to our theme. It turned out that the work was minimal and really simple. We did miss few things that would be nice to have. Read on to see what needs to be done in your theme to support menus.

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Mandatory PlayStation 3 Firmware update (v3.30)

A Sony figure called Eric Lampel¹ announced on the 22nd April 2010 that new mandatory PlayStation 3 firmware system update is available for all interested users on PSN.

Sony continues with surprises. I will fire up my PS3 and update to the latest and the greatest system update. User agreement v1.4 – nothing new about that, accepting and checking turn off the system auto-magically after the update, and waiting … Must say that Sony could do a little more for us technical geeks. For example while we wait for download to complete we could browse through a list of new features, bug-fixes, possible new bugs, commercial about how movie downloading is the same as stealing.

Anyway since Sony doesn’t have this information available for us, Eric has a job that requires from him to pass some of this information to us. You know the tech geeks. And this is what Eric reported:

“Hi everyone, in our continued effort to provide the best, most comprehensive entertainment experience possible, we’ll be adding a few new features to PlayStation 3 (PS3) via the latest system software update, which is a mandatory update and will be available shortly.

Most notably, you’ll see some new sorting options within Trophies that make it easier to claim bragging rights among your friends on PlayStation Network.

• Trophy enhancements – Now you can more easily sort trophies in the [Trophy Collection] and [Comparing Trophy] sections. Sorting can be done with [Trophy Collection] in the [Game Category] and also when comparing trophies with your friends in the [Friend Category]

• Trophy Folder (Title List) can be sorted by game name/ by title according to the date in which you earned your last trophy (ascending/descending)

• Add-on list (Group list) can be sorted by original/the date in which you earned your last trophy (ascending/descending)

• Trophy list can be sorted by original/trophy name/grade/date of obtaining the trophy (ascending/descending)

In addition, this update preps the PS3 system for some upcoming new features, including 3D stereoscopic gaming, which is coming soon to PS3, in time for the launch of Sony’s 3D BRAVIA TVs.”

Update and you will have the capability to sort your trophies. I will never understand why is sorting called a mandatory feature.

1. he is director or PlayStation Network Operations [↩]