Adam Zeis from CrackBerry recently asked for an application to lock your BlackBerry screen, since the recently leaked 5.0.0.536 for the BlackBerry 9700 removed the icon.
I needed an excuse to add my new signing to the JDE, and quickly threw together an app (with an ugly icon) to lock your screen.
ScreenLock OTA (.jad) Installation
ScreenLock Offline (.alx) Installation
The BlackBerry records videos in 3GPP format (.3GP extension), which isn't the most portable format. If you send a .3GP video to someone, the odds aren't great they'll be able to play it. Xvid, with an encoding example below, isn't most portable either, but VLC will play it on all platforms, recent versions of Windows Media Player support it, and QuickTime on OS X will play it with the Perian components installed.
FFmpeg is a fantastic cross-platform audio/video encoding solution. In fact it's so good that many commercial applications like to use it without paying license fees to the appropriate patent holders.
Download Windows ffmpeg binaries from http://ffmpeg.arrozcru.org/autobuilds/
On some Linux distros, like Ubuntu, you'll likely need the -unstripped builds.
There aren't many binary releases of ffmpeg for OS X, but the Audacity Project has a build from July, 2009 available. You can also compile it yourself, or use MacPorts.
When quality is not a concern – and with such a low quality source, it isn't – you let ffmpeg use it's default settings without issue. Codec names will vary based on the age/version of your ffmpeg build. Run ffmpeg -codecs to see all the available codecs. If you want to keep the video bitrate the same, pass the -sameq parameter to ffmpeg.
libxvid may just be xvid, and libmp3lame may be called mp3 instead.
ffmpeg -i MOVIE.3GP -f avi -vcodec libxvid -acodec libmp3lame MOVIE.AVI
A 4.3 MB .3GP file was encoded to a 783 KB .avi, 82% reduction in size.
ffmpeg -i MOVIE.3GP MOVIE.MPG
A 4.3 MB .3GP file was encoded to a 910 KB .mpg, 79% reduction in size.
ffmpeg -i MOVIE.3GP MOVIE.MP4
A 4.3 MB .3GP file was encoded to an 825 KB .mp4, 81% reduction in size.
ffmpeg -i MOVIE.3GP -vcodec wmv2 -acodec wmav2 MOVIE.WMV
A 4.3 MB .3GP file was encoded to an 885 KB .wmv, 80% reduction in size.
Amazon was completely wrong, and obviously disregarded the effort that publishers like Macmillan put into producing high-quality ebooks. It's apparent that the publishers truly are looking out for consumers, and being truthful about the high costs of producing quality electronic copies of books.
Blood Ties - Hardcover
Blood Ties - ebook
The Butcher's Boy - Hardcover
The Butcher's Boy - ebook
The Fellowship of the Ring - Hardcover
The Fellowship of the Ring - ebook
The Long Fall - Hardcover
The Long Fall - ebook
I just said to Tracy "I'm going to read my book" and picked up my Kindle.
I don't think I'd ever say that about an iPad – even if the reading experience was superior – because an iPad will always be a computer first; everything else is secondary. The Kindle was designed to replace books, not let you read books, watch movies, listen to music, browse the web and play games.
If you're building a single-purpose device there shouldn't be any compromises with the design, and the overall experience while using it for its sole task should always be more enjoyable than with a multipurpose competitor.
I don't want my Kindle to do more, I just want it to be better at what it already does.
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