VLC for iPad sent to Apple for approval.

VideoLan sent their free media player, VLC, to the approval process at Apple. If everything goes well (it shouldn't be any problems as the app doesn't break any rule, but we know Apple's style of denying apps for absolutely no real reason....), users will be able to play all kind of multimedia content on their iPads.

You won't be obliged to convert all of your videos to H.264 in order to get them working on your iPad, you will be able to put videos in any kind of format on your iPad, because VLC has plenty of codecs for almost anything (passing the limits QuickTime has).

This is a video demonstrating how VLC works on the iPad.


You can read more on Gizmodo.

Samsung S2 are quite good external HDDs. Unless you're going to use them with Multimedia Players (Popcorn Hour/WD HD TV).

Samsung S2 external HDDs are quite attractive products. Mostly because of the variety of capacities, and because of the available colors. So, they look good, they are perfect for backups, and they work well (I get somewhere around 25-30 MBs reading/writing rates on my computers). But if you're planning to use them with multimedia players, such as Popcorn Hour or Western Digital HD TV Media Player, they are going to give you an enormous headache.

I also got one, a blue one, with 640 GB, and I have some issues with it. As long as it is on FAT32 file system or HFS+ (Apple native), it works like a charm, both on my Popcorn Hour and on my WD HD TV. But when I'm converting it to NTFS, it is completely unreadable by my both multimedia players.

WD HD TV used to say that it didn't recognize it, but after I was told that an unofficial firmware might make it work with my HDD, now it doesn't react at all when I'm connecting my HDD to it. On Popcorn Hour, it simply says that "USB failed". I tried connecting it through an external USB hub (which was externally powered), in order to exclude the possibility of failing because of not getting enough power, but the S2, formatted on NTFS, won't work at all.

I found on some forums users complaining of this (reproducing exactly the same situation, the S2 work on these multimedia players as long as it isn't formatted as NTFS), but there's no fix for this (only some suggestions that were tried by everybody having these issues, suggestions that don't help).

If you're stuck here, you can format the external HDD as HFS+ (FAT isn't an option, as it has  limitations), and then install MacDrive on your Windows computer (unfortunately, you have to buy it), which will give you the possibility of both reading and writing to HFS+ partitions from Windows. I don't know if MacDrive can format the HDD as HFS+, because I did it from my MacBook.

Anyway, the idea is that if you want to buy an external HDD and you're planning to use it with a multimedia player, you should avoid Samsung's S2 external HDD.

Android 2.2 Froyo stops supporting .aac files for the media player.

This is something I discovered yesterday, when I was heading towards somebody. When I tried to play my playlist (all songs were downloaded directly on my Nexus with a third-party application, from YouTube, in .aac format) I was notified that this format was not supported (anymore) by the music player.

OK..so I downloaded the songs on a computer in .mp3 from YouTube (because I was in a rush) and sent them to my phone. Then, when I was going home, another surprise. Even if the downloads from YouTube are not done in a very high quality, the .aac songs were more that OK. But the mp3-s were worse than anything else. I had difficulties in even understanding what the singers were saying. So, Google screwed it up a little.

What you have to do is to download the music externally (not from YouTube, because they are mainly in a low quality), preferable is directly in .mp3 (because converting can affect the quality!) and then to send them to your phone. You can send them via your USB cable, but as I observed that the media player "feels" the changes with a considerable delay, I recommend you rebooting the phone. If it still does not see your music and you are sure it is in .mp3, play a little with the player and then it should update the list with the new songs.

Android 2.2 is coming in a few weeks.

Android 2.2, also known as Froyo, is coming up in a few weeks for Android fans. What is known is that, if now everybody agrees that it's extremely fast on powerful devices (e.g: Nexus One or Desire), the next version will be much faster. Google developed a new JIT compiler (just-in-time compiler) which accelerates programming languages from 2 to 5 times faster. Yes, you read correctly, Java is going to be accelerated up to 5X.

The new version will have Flash 10.1 support integrated, this means that you don't need anymore to root your phone and get another ROM in order to have Flash, it will be integrated into the OS. Moreover, with this new update, you will be able to transform your phone in a Wi-Fi hotspot. This means that you will be able to share a mobile data connection (from carrier) with another computers/devices, either via Wi-Fi or via USB.

The home screen (launcher) will have near the "menu" button, a phone shortcut (on left) and a internet shortcut (on right), being available in whatever screen you will be. Installation of applications on the SD card is (finally) going to be supported on this new version of Android. You will be able to install as many applications as your SD card can store. An update is coming to Market too, making it able to update all apps with only one tap.

It is know that it will come in a few weeks, and as soon as Google will announce an exact date, I will let you know.

Play Flash video content on your Android device! (including Nexus One, already).

Skyfire is a free complex browser, designed especially for mobile devices. It's clearly the best browser for terminal devices. You're probably asking now what is the connection between flash and this browser. It is capable of displaying webpages on their entire, with all scripts and players (and whatever else) included. And the Android version has just came out today!

I've installed it on my Nexus One, and what I have to tell you is that: in normal browsing, Android's default browser is quite at the same level with this browser, but if you need to play Flash on your phone, Skyfire beats anything. Flash content is not automatically played, as you have to go in menu and select "video". A new window will open, playing the requested video.

The advantage of this is that you don't need a modified rom in order to try playing Flash (I'm not sure if it can be done like this), which is done by rooting your phone, which will void your warranty. But with Skyfire, you can enjoy Flash (and other scripts that Android's browser isn't capable of running), risk-free.

Download it now from http://get.skyfire.com/dl_android.php, or directly on your phone from http://www.skyfire.com/ (if you can't download through Market, where it says "Don't have Android Market on your phone?", select "go here").

YouTube turns to HTML 5 (no flash needed anymore).

If you want to view YouTube video content, you don't need anymore Flash Player. And this is because the videos from YouTube can now be played on HTML 5, which runs the h.264 video codec. This plays the content faster and uses less resources, compared to the older way (with Flash). YouTube says that it's just an experiment, and from what I've already seen, the videos are running on the whole black area (which makes, because of the bigger image, its quality lower), and are playing faster than before. And I like the idea.

What do you need : Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame installed (Download Chrome Frame here). Anything else you need to know is that there is no fullscreen viewer and some videos that have ads can't be currently played using HTML 5.

Join HTML5 Beta from here: http://www.youtube.com/html5

Skyfire. The best browser for Windows Mobile.

I ever wanted to have the ability to run different content/scripts on my Windows Mobile based HP iPAQ 111 PDA, including Flash Player. For YouTube I got a little program, but there are many other good sites for music/videos that are using Adobe's Flash Player. But I never got Flash working natively on any browser for Windows Mobile. As Internet Explorer can't display almost anything as it should, I tried browsing the internet with Opera, but due to reduced RAM memory of the PDA (64 MB), it remained frequently without memory and crashed. And there was still no Flash Player...


But recently, I discovered SkyFire. It has, so far, any scripts that I needed. My blogs are both displayed perfectly, and so any other site. Flash Player works without any problems, on all the sites I navigated through until now. If you are viewing a page exactly like in a computer/laptop browser, it's quality will be reduced in order to keep the device running fine. While zooming in, page quality will increase, because the power needed to display the page decreases as the area that needs to be displayed is getting smaller. The only problem I found is that the browser hits for desktop version on pages, and if you try to view a mobile version of a site it will generally turn you to its desktop version.


So, if you're satisfied with Opera, you'll love SkyFire. Available for download from the official site here (Symbian version also available): http://get.skyfire.com/

Adding background music to your blogspot blog.

You probably thought if it is possible to add music background to your blog. And yes, it is. But the way I know to do, it is only partially possible. I'm telling you that, because this method works only on Safari, Opera and Chrome, but not on Internet Explorer 8 or on Firefox. So, the only way I can share you the code is by putting it into a .txt file, and giving you the link. I've told you in a previous article, my blog is going to run the code automatically if I put it over here, and you won't be able to see the code, only it's effect. I'm really sorry for that !

Let's continue. Because it's really hard to find a way on which the sharing would be possible only by a link, the service we are going to use is Youtube. Now go to Youtube, choose a video (you'll have only the sound from it), and on the right side, you should see the "URL" (it is in the box where are some details about the publisher). Let that window/tab opened, because now we are going to work with the code. In the .txt file you have the code, which must be copied and pasted into a HTML/JavaScript Gadget (Dashboard -> Layout -> Add Gadget -> HTML/JavaScript), but where it says "URL of the video", please paste the URL which you just saw on the Youtube window/tab. Leave the quotes how they are, and paste that link between them.

Now you should be having music on your blog. If not, please try again, and if you can't get it working, please leave a comment, and I'll try to help you.

Here's the link for the .txt file: (it's safe, don't worry) http://www.4shared.com/file/182233947/6ae0a1d2/musicblogspot.html