Dirpy Replacements [YouTube Downloader]
Dirpy, once a very slick web site which featured tools to download YouTube videos or simply rip the audio from the video, was taken down recently. A suicide message has been left nailed to the door. Was it legal threats? Or did they simply grow weary of playing cat-and-mouse with YouTube? Better question: Does any one care? I’ll venture that most of you don’t; we Netizens are a fickle crowd. We don’t care your blood, sweat, and tears went into something, we just want it to work, we want it to work now, and when it doesn’t work, we’ll just flock somewhere else. Here’s a list of web sites to flock next if you’re looking to rip YouTube videos:
Clip Converter can take uploaded content as well as content from sites like YouTube, Google Video, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Metacafe, Veoh, and more. Output can be audio or video in a variety of formats. This is probably the service which most like Dirpy.
Three-ou-tube? E-o-tube? Either way you say it, just replace the “y” in YouTube.com with the number 3, and you’ll be taken to the 3outube page with links for downloading the video in your desired format.
This site just rips the audio to MP3, but if that’s all you need, YouTube MP3 is dead simple.
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Don’t bother with downloading a piece of software for conversion, especially when you can do it online with no extra download! Plus, they all suck anyway!
Do you know of another conversion web site? Let me know in the comments!
Removing Malware
This is, essentially, a list for myself… sometimes I forget a step if I’m having trouble, or forget about an especially helpful resource! I won’t provide a lot of explanation, but if you know what you’re doing, help yourself. I’m going to list anything and (eventually) everything I like to do/use, so not everything is useful or even necessary in all situations.
Free Holiday / Christmas Music
There’s no other time of the year which is so uniquely identified by entire genres of music than the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays. Then, come January 1st we’re sick of hearing it piped in over store P.A. systems and radio stations. With the explosion of online radio, and the plethora of options available, there’s little need to keep Holiday MP3s on your computer anymore just so you can listen to it for a couple of months out of the year only to take it out of the rotation on December 26. Below I list just a few of the best in online radio which offer holiday music selections. In no particular order:
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- Pandora Radio
- Head over to Pandora and type in the name of your favorite Holiday song, or artist and Pandora will play more music based on the qualities of that song or artist. When you select an artist, and if the option is available, be sure to select the option which includes the word Holiday. For example, when entering “Tran-Siberian Orchestra,” Pandora will suggest “Trans-Siberian Orchestra (Holiday)”. You’ll want to select that Holiday option to ensure Trans-Siberian’s Beethoven performances aren’t included in your mix. Don’t have any song or artist in mind? That’s okay, Pandora has typical genre selections, too.
- AOL Music
- I haven’t found anything special about AOL Radio other than its fairly large pre-defined selection of genres. During this time of year you’ll find a bunch of Holiday-themed stations including “Oldies Holiday,” “Top Christmas Songs,” and so on.
- Last.fm Radio
- Last.fm is known for their social approach to music discovery. They provide plugins for most popular media players to keep track and display your music playing habits and, in turn, will make suggestions for other artists you may be interested in based on your habits. Additionally, you can find your friends on Last.fm and influence each other’s recommendations. However, you can skip past all that socializing, fire up the Last.fm radio, punch in an artist or genre and start listening!
- Grooveshark
- Grooveshark boasts an impressive library and music on-demand. Normally, I would recommend Grooveshark, however, for the purposes of quickly playing Holiday-themed music, Grooveshark sinks to the bottom. While you can use it for Holiday tunes, it’s just not as easy to get a nicely packaged station with only Holiday music as some other services.
- Slacker Radio
- Slacker is a good choice for Holiday-themed music because the service offers both artist or song matching and pre-packaged stations for quick selection of desired genres. Just head over to Slacker Radio, click on the Seasonal category, and select your favorite flavor of Holiday
Have a different place to enjoy Holiday radio? Let us know in the comments!
Look Out OpenDNS: Google Public DNS Hits the Tubes
Google announced today the launch of their public DNS service. As of right now, all it provides is DNS resolution, while OpenDNS provides a plethora of options.
If you want to give it a try, Google got a pretty epic IP address grab. Use the following IP addresses for your DNS:
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4
As always, the service is in beta, so be sure to copy down your current DNS settings before switching over just in case something goes awry. Google is even providing support telephone numbers in the event you’re unable to access the Internet using their DNS.
Update: I ran tests using Namebench from 3 different locations within my city. Two locations use the same ISP, the third is its own ISP. In all tests, UltraDNS and OpenDNS came out on top. Various Tier3 DNS servers (4.2.2.1, 4.2.2.6, etc) also ranked highly. In all tests, Google’s public DNS servers ranked well, but still towards the bottom of the pile.
Shadowrun 4 Character Generator
SR4CharGen Splash
Trying to generate some Shadowrun character sheets? You could use the spreadsheets that are floating around, all over the intertubes, OR you can try out the Shadowrun 4th edition Character Generator by DaisyBox software. The SR4CG is a fully functional (beta) program, dedicated to creating characters for Shadowrun. The program defaults follow all SR4′s standard rules and regulations, but you can customize the program’s data files to create custom categories and items!
The SR4CharGen creates, prints, and saves your Shadowrun characters with an easy-to-use interface completewith detailed drop-downs and tabbed sections for greater organization. Most selections come with a description of what you can and cannot do, and errors are explained to minimize frustration!
Free Google Cards – Got mine!
My Google Card
Google is giving away, with the help of iPrint.com, sets of 25 profile business cards (pictured left) to the first 10,000 Google profile users who complete the process.
The point is to refer people to Google to search for your name. If your Google profile is set up correctly, it should appear in the search results. Within that profile you can configure all your contact information. Sure, these won’t be taken seriously in a business context, but they’re free, and might be fun.
100s of Free Worship Backgrounds & Graphics [Church Media]
I was recently hired by a church in my area to maintain their computers, networks, information services, and web site. Being a poor college student, and previously, a jobless high school student, I’ve gained an appreciation for frugality. That, combined with witnessing disproportionate amounts of cash misdirected in other area ministries, I am determined to support the ministries at this church by positively affecting the most people and supporting the ministry staff while operating under one of the smallest budgets.
One of the responsibilities I took over was the creation of the Sunday morning visual presentation (lyrics, sermon notes, announcements, etc). Previously, someone purchased stock photos from iStockphoto to use as backgrounds for lyrics. Unfortunately, it seemed that this person (long gone before I arrived) had very little money with which to work. There were only a handful of images which were only in small to medium-sized web quality; certainly not something that would look any good when blown up on a large projection screen.
So, off I went on a hunt to find web sites and Flickr users that would allow me to use their photos freely. Sure, there’s plenty of sites out there that offer spectacular photos made specifically for the purpose, but it all comes at a price. After some time, I’ve discovered a few good sites, and one really good Flickr group who freely share their works with the church community. Even if you don’t need backgrounds, or any of the images found on these sites, they’re a great place to get ideas for your own graphic projects.
Free worship and church backgrounds, graphics, and media:
- Shared Worship Background Graphics (a Flickr group pool)
- CreativeMYK Gallery (community dedicated to sharing resources)
- Background 4 Christian
- Church Worship Graphics (Flickr set by dtchristner)
- Christian Wallpaper (Flickr set by David Gunter)
- E-Water (offers simple, yet inspiring videos available in flash, PPT, or avi format) (Added 7/19/09)
- kineticFaith (focuses on providing a full suite of images and videos for central themes) (Added 8/20/09)
- VintageChurch.cc (web site dedicated to connecting churches with substantial resources to those with less) (Added 1/24/11)
- Free Presentation and Worship Backgrounds
Also, if you’re looking for videos or motion backgrounds, here’s a web site that gives them away for simply registering. They’re the real deal, and they’re doing a wonderful thing. Consider sharing your media with them if you have any to share:
This web site provides a small selection of free video backgrounds in return for registering:
- Videos2Worship – Motion Background Loops (Added 11/30/10)
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