PicLens is a browser plugin that enables full-screen slideshows within Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer. The plugin is supported by numerous websites including:

It also comes as a WordPress plugin that allows the user to set up slideshows from the controlpanel. I’ve just tried it on Flickr and I must say it looks impressive.

You can download the browser plugin from www.piclens.com or download and try the Wordpress plugin if you are running a WordPress blog/site yourself.

GooglePreview inserts preview images (thumbnails) of web sites and Amazon products into the Google and Yahoo search results pages. When you use GooglePreview and click on an Amazon link within the search results, you support the author and the further development of the extension and back end if you actually purchase a product.

The GooglePreview thumbnail system currently consists of 5 dedicated servers and generates 4.5 TB of traffic per month.

How to get it

GooglePreview for Firefox | GooglePreview for Internet Explorer

Last year Tim Berners-Lee, director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), announced that it was about time to revise the HTML (HyperText Markup Language). Version 4 came back in 1997, followed by a minor update in the end of 1999 (4.01).

Recently W3C announced that the initial draft of HTML 5 is ready. The working draft is made by W3Cs HTML Working Group, consisting of almost 400 members from companies like AOL, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nokia and Opera among others.

The web has changed dramatically since HTML 4 saw the day of light. Moving from static pages to advanced web applications and extensive use of multimedia.

W3C says Ajax and related innovations have pushed the need for a new standard that allows developers to create web applications that works on all platforms, both stationary and mobile.

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

Supported sources:

• Any DVD-like source: VIDEO_TS folder, DVD image or real DVD (encrypted or unencrypted, but protection methods other than CSS are not supported and must be handled externally with third-party software), and some .VOB and .TS files
• PAL or NTSC
• AC-3, DTS, LPCM or MPEG audio tracks

Outputs:

• File format: MP4, MKV, AVI or OGM
• Video: MPEG-4 or H.264 (1 or 2 passes or constant quantizer/rate encoding)
• Audio: AAC, MP3, Vorbis or AC-3 pass-through (supports encoding of several audio tracks)

Misc features:

• Chapter selection
• Basic subtitle support (burned into the picture)
• Integrated bitrate calculator
• Picture deinterlacing, cropping and scaling
• Grayscale encoding

Visit their website for more information, screenshots and to download the latest version of Handbrake.

Note! In order to convert encrypted DVD’s you will need something like AnyDVD or DVD43 in addition to the converter itself.

This just gotta hurt…

Ooouch!