VideoLAN Media Player

The VideoLAN media player (http://www.videolan.org/)is a free, open-source, cross-platform video and audio player that I've been using for close to a year now. It will play most DVDs, virtually all audio CDs, as well as web-friendly formats like Flash and the Windows .wmv format (a complete list is available at http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html). It has, in fact, played almost every media file format I've thrown at it, without requiring me to go online and find the applicable codec.

It's fast, and simple. It plays on Windows, Mac and Linux systems. It's a great alternative to Windows Media player, and I've made it my default media player for video and audio on both my personal and work computers.

Give it a try! You can download it here: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/.

Aviary: Online Design Tools

Aviary (http://aviary.com/)is a suite of seven free browser-based design tools: Phoenix (a Photoshop-like image editor), Toucan (a color picker and color palette generator), Peacock (a very fun visual effects editor), Raven (a vector graphics editor), Talon (a screen capture tool), Falcon (an image markup tool) and Myna (a multi-track audio editor).


While the bird related names for the various tolls might be a little overly cute, the tools are for the most part easy to use and well designed (my seven year old daughter figured out how to use the image editor in minutes). Each tool has an introductory video and many video tutorials. Talon, the screen capture tool, can be incorporated into Firefox with an add-on. You can store your work either on the Aviary "cloud" or save it back to your own computer when you are done (recommended; see the last paragraph).

While all the tools are free, registration is required for some features (username, password, email address). There used to be a $25/yr pro version, but now everything is free.

Two drawbacks that I found: any work you do can be used for display by Aviary, although you will be listed as the creator. For example, your art could be used as an image for a third-party news article about Aviary. Also, if you store your work online with Aviary, they will place a watermark in the lower left hand corner. This watermark can be avoided, however, if you download your work directly to your desktop, rather than storing it with Aviary.

Other than those drawbacks, it's a wonderful design suite. Aviary does most of the chores performed by the costly Adobe Creative Suite, does them online, and for free!

Thanks to Darrin Goodman for the tip.

Video and Audio Editing and Converting Tools

AVS4You (http://www.avs4you.com/) offers cheap and easy to use audio and video editing and converting tools. The home page of the site is a little misleading, as the download buttons say "Free download," but the non-activated versions have a watermark in the middle of the screen (shown below), as well as an audio watermark for audio tools. So, you're going to have to pay to get anything useful.



Still, their products are easy to use, and cheap: $39 for a one year subscription to all the tools they offer, and $59 for unlimited access to all their audio and video tools.

The screenshot below shows how simple the video conversion tool is. You select the file you wish to convert, select what format you want to convert it to using the icons at the top, choose a folder and a file name, and click "Convert Now."



The video editing tool is similarly user-friendly. You import video clips, drag them into the time line at the bottom, where you can trim them, add text, transitions, and audio tracks. A screenshot is below.