SUPER for Converting Between Video Formats

About a year ago, I started looking for a codec for viewing videos recorded in the 3gp format (Sony Ericsson phones). One would think that should be an easy task, but it wasn't. I spent quite a while searching before a found a codec-pack that played the videos. And as it turned out, they would only play in mplayer classic.

Although the solution was suboptimal, I settled on it. But it didn't last long; I soon wanted to include my clips in some home-videos I edited for entertainment in a couple of my friends wedding. The search for a video converter uncovered SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer). The user interface is very simple, and it can play and convert between pretty much any video formats I can name plus quite a few others.

If you need to convert some video or open a video in a format not supported natively by Windows, chances are SUPER can help you out.

And; almost forgot to mention... Its totally free! :)

MyEclipse to Port Matisse to Eclipse

I just had to drop a line about a news item I just picked up. For those of you that don't already know, Matisse is the new Swing GUI builder in the NetBeans IDE. It has received a very warm welcome, and by looking at the demos it looks quite amazing. Finally we are able to build GUIs in Java!

Anyway... personally I have not tried it - simply because I am an Eclipse guy. I have thought about installing NetBeans for a while, but have not gotten around to it yet. Now it seems I might just not have to. Apparently, the MyEclipse team is porting it to Eclipse, and will release it in the pro edition of MyEclipse 4.1 and 5.0. I can't wait to see how this turns out in practise! It's about time there is a decent GUI builder widely available for Java.

Colibri - Launching Your Applications the Way They Should

One of the fun things about working with a computer all day long, is that once in a while a new tool or thingie surfaces that adds a new dimension to your work day. I had become accustomed to using the mouse and click on an icon to start my applications. I have been doing this since Windows 95. Using the Windows-key and navigating in the Start menu to find my application never felt right; which sane person wants to do a gazillion key strokes to start Opera or Eclipse?

Apparently a similar application has been available for the Mac for a long time; QuickSilver. The Windows clone is called Colibri. You press a hot key to start Colibri (Windows+Space in my case), type some of the characters in the name of the application you want to start and hit enter. Viola.