Filed under: Internet, OS Updates, Utilities, Features, Windows, Office, Shareware, Freeware, Open Source, How-Tos

You've just downloaded that must have program only to realize that Windows has no idea what to do with it. After an hour of Google searching, forum posting, and being called n00b, you finally figure it out.

If only there was a guide that showed you how to get all those needed programs. We at Download Squad feel your pain and have put together a list of 10 free programs that will take care of those pesky "Windows cannot open this file" messages once and for all.

Note: See a blatant omission or oversight? Please add it to the comments. With your help, we hope to re-post a more complete list the future.

1. K-Lite codec pack
   
   File Types: DivX, XviD, AVI, Mpeg 1-4, AC3, AAC, FLAC, WAV, FLV, OGG, VOB, and tons you've never heard of.
   
   Description: Why there are 85,000,000 different audio and video types we have no idea. What we do know is trying to install codecs one at a time generally ends in a reformat.
   
   Thankfully, the good people from K-Lite (Koors Lite?) have bundled all the software and codecs you need into one executable. Cheers!
   
   
   
2. Real Alternative and QuickTime Alternative
   
   File Types: RM, RA, RAM, RPM, RMVB, RPX, SMI, SMIL, RT, RP, MOV, QT, 3GP
   
   Description: Before the days of Youtube, the Real Player and QuickTime were kings of Internet multimedia. Sure you had to deal with popups, reminders, updates, and bloatware, but that 1" video was so worth it.
   
   Fortunately, the Real and Quicktime Alternatives removed the real in Real Player and restored the quick to QuickTime. Enjoy your 1" video!
   

Continue reading HELP! Windows cannot open this file

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Filed under: Audio, Internet, Social Software, Beta, web 2.0

Qbox is a search engine/media player combo that lets you find and listen to music available from social networking sites including MySpace, Bebo, and YouTube. The interface is a bit more complicated than it needs to be. If you just download the standalone media player for Windows, you'll be told that you need to sign in if you want to search for music.

Search results are displayed in your default web browser, which is odd because the Qbox media player acts as sort of a stripped down browser for playing web audio and video clips. Don't ask us why it won't display search results.

Now here comes the important part: Qbox is not compatible with Firefox 3. If you conduct a search from the media player or the web site using Firefox 3, you'll get a list of songs. But when you click the play buttons next to those songs, you'll be told that you haven't installed the Qbox media player if you're using Firefox 3. When we logged into the web site with Internet Explorer, everything worked properly. But when we tried to search from songs from the media player interface, the results were again displayed in our default browser, which was Firefox 3. There doesn't seem to be a way to select your prefered browser from within the software.

You can also click on genre tags to browse for songs within the media player itself. Qbox is currently available as a public beta, so it's possible the company could improve the interface and adds Firefox 3 compatibility.

[via AppScout]

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As the 2008 US presidential election campaign finally approaches full steam, presumtive nominees Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama are facing off in the media to win hearts and minds. But which candidate is making the most of the of online social media services?

A visit to www.barackobama.com shows that the Obama campaign has established itself firmly in the social media world with an offical presence on major services such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn and more specialist sites such as Glee, Eons, MyBatanga, AsianAve and Faithbase.

On the Republican side, John McCain's presidential campaign has developed its basic Web presence with a mult-faceted Web site but McCain lags far behind Obama in terms of presence and supporters in the key online social media battlegrounds.

Continue reading Election 08: candidates face off in social media

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Filed under: Internet, Google, Search

Everybody knows that Alexa, Compete, and other web services that track web site traffic are inherently flawed. Because they compile third party data instead of looking at your actual server data, you can never be sure that the statistics you're reading are accurate. But hey, if you really want to see whether Engadget is more popular than Gizmodo, they're the only game in town, right?

Now there's a new player in the web traffic comparison game. Google has added the ability to search for websites in Google Trends. While there's no guarantee that the stats Google spits back are any more accurate than the ones you'll find from Alexa or Compete, the service does give you one more source for comparison.

Search Engine Land reports that Google grabs its numbers from a combination of sources including search traffic, anonymous Google Analytics figures and other third party marketing data.

[via VentureBeat]

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Filed under: Business, Internet, Video

Netflix users are in an uproar, and rightfully so.

If you're not familiar with what Netflix is, then sorry...please move along.

Kidding...you can rent movies online, and you can create a queue of what you want to see, and they'll mail them to your house as they're available. It's like an autopilot feature and it frakkin rocks.

A few months ago the company put out an even cooler feature that let Netflix account holders create multiple queues under one account. So basically your baby daughter, mom, uncle Steve, and your parrot Whiskers could have their own queue of movies that they want to see.

Such a time saver, such a great function that really reminds you why you use and love (and pay for) Netflix.

Don't go and try to sign up just for that feature though, because Netflix just announced that they're taking it away.

Continue reading We think we just saw Ashton Kutcher, cuz you just got Netflix'd!

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Filed under: Finance, Internet, Web services, Google, Social Software, Googleholic, web 2.0

In this edition:

• Upcoming AdWords system maintenance
• Sites gets new features
• YouTube tries long-form
• YouTube introduces Screening Room
• Google Docs on ultraportables
• Google Finance adds cash tracking

Continue reading Googleholic for June 20, 2008

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Filed under: Internet, Security, Mozilla, Browsers

If you were one of those 8 million people that downloaded Firefox 3 the other day be aware that Tipping Point DVLabs has announced a vulnerability in Mozilla's latest browser.

Details are unknown but in order for this exploit to work, you'll have to visit a site with the malicious code and click the infected link. Zero Day rates the severity as "High" and it effects both version 2 and 3 of the popular internet browser. Mozilla has acknowledged the security issue and should have a patch issued in its 3.0.1 release shortly.

With the amount of beta testing that's been done on Firefox 3 it makes you wonder why something like this slipped by?

In the mean time, be careful of where you click and make sure Firefox is set to auto update.

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Filed under: Business, Internet, Security

We're talking part one, the one with the hot version of Jennifer Love Hewitt. And oh yeah, that's who you were downloading last week, and we know alllllll about it.

A recent study by Cyber-Ark, who asked 300 IT Professionals about the topic of System Admins checking out what you're doing online at work, says that 1 in 3 IT professionals snoop on their co-workers surfing habits and stats.

I mean why not, right...all the info is right there! They're just "protecting the company from harmful usage".

Sheah, right.

IT Professionals download more pr0n than the entire state of Texas.

Even scarier? 47% of those surveyed said that they accessed info about you that had nothing to do with their job.

No wonder most SysAdmins have the password g0d. Oy!

What might be even worse, is that the other 2 in 3 surveyed lied out of fear that someone was snooping on them while they were taking the survey, thus uncovering the fact that they snoop on us. OMS our heads hurt!

SysAdmins, do you snoop? Worker folk, are you snooped upon?

You can hiphopanonymously write a comment here and let us know about it.

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Filed under: Internet, Video

DiVX killed off the Stage6 video sharing community back in February. And ever since then, new sites have been trying to pick up the torch. Stage6 used the popular DiVX codec and a DiVX Web player which allowed users to watch high definition videos at a time when most web video was YouTube quality. But the company decided the web service wasn't worth the price of bandwidth.

Last night one of the most talked-about DiVX clones, Vreel launched in public beta. And then the site went down after it was hit by a rush of traffic and several apparent attacks on the site. Durign the few minutes that Vreel was publicly available, the site looked pretty good. It features a fair number of videos, makes use of the DiVX web player, and allows you to watch high quality videos in full screen.

One of the things that really sets Vreel apart from other sites like YouTube is support for videos of any length. What that means is that while you won't find too many videos that are clearly labeled Lost episode 1, you can find plenty of full-length TV shows and movies if you look around. That means that once Vreel recovers from its traffic and hacker problems it may still face legal challenges.

But if you're tired of waiting for Vreel to get its act together, you should know that this is hardly the only site hoping to replace Stage6 in you hearts and minds. Others include Stage Next, Stagevu (which is currently down for maintenance), and SetVid. The video selection at these three sites is somewhat limited. But at least they're up and running (most of the time), which is more than Vreel can say at the moment.

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Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

Developed by Pet Tomato the object of the game is simple. Get your character from door to door. It's just the way that he gets there is rather um... how should we put this... gas-tastic.

While you can certainly jump, in order to reach the heights required to get to each level you'll have to expend you inner powers. Of course there is a limit to this and you can't very well expect an infinite supply, so use it wisely. As you progress, the levels get harder and enemies try to block your way from reaching your goal.

We've haven't been able to get very far in the game, so we'll need to work on our fourth meal to increase our strength.

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