Software : Downloads: Download of the day: Windows Movie Maker |
- Downloads: Download of the day: Windows Movie Maker
- Spotify swipes right on Tinder
- Round up: The best free music player 2016
- Microsoft prepares for Skype world domination with cross-platform client
- You'll never be able to pretend you missed a WhatsApp message again
- Opera's free VPN gives you browsing privacy with no strings attached
- Round up: The best free YouTube downloader 2016
| Downloads: Download of the day: Windows Movie Maker Posted:  Download of the day: Windows Movie MakerGood quality free video editing suites are hard to come by, and although Microsoft has yet to release a version specifically for Windows 10, Windows Movie Maker remains one of the best tools around for assembling and refining your own movies.
The installer should pick up the correct language settings from your operating system, but if not, type langselector into the Windows search bar once he program is installed, run the command and select the correct language from the drop-down list. Why you need itWindows Move Maker's drag-and-drop interface makes importing video clips, still photos and audio files simplicity itself. You can also record footage directly from a webcam, record narration and take screen grabs to incorporate into your project without any additional software. Videos can be stabilized or rotated with a single click, and connected using various transitions and wipes. Trimming videos is a simple matter of pausing the video and pressing I to set the start point, or O to set the end point. Audio and video can be edited independently and unlike many video editors, Windows Movie Maker doesn't require you to split the file into two channels then ensure they sync. Instead, it handles the task automatically, ensuring music and narration play in time with your clips and stills. Movie Maker's built-in export tools let you publish your finished video directly to Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo or Flickr. There are also export presets for a wide range of playback devices and other sites, including DailyMotion and Blip.TV. The previous version of Windows Movie Maker also supports plug-ins for effects including sharpening and picture-in-picture video. Note that this edition can only be run in Windows 10 by right-clicking the downloaded installer and selecting 'Troubleshoot compatibility'. Key features
Works onWindows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 PriceFree |
| Spotify swipes right on Tinder Posted:  Are you a Tinder user that's struggled to perfect your most dateable profile? Well, we hate to break it to you, but you've got a new element to sweat over - your music taste. Thanks to a new partnership between Spotify and Tinder, you'll now be judged not just on your looks and pithy profile one liners, but also on how banging your tunes are. A new update to the Tinder app will let you link a Spotify account to your Tinder one, showing potential swipe-righters your choice of top artists, as well as a track you designate as your life "anthem". You sexy thingWhether you've got a Spotify account or not, you'll be able to listen to other Tinder folks' anthems and see their favorite bands - though you'll have to have an account on the Swedish streaming service in order to offer a deeper look at your listening habits. The Spotify-charged Tinder app will be launching today in all 59 territories where Spotify's core service is available. Finally, we'll be able to prove just how unsexy Ed Sheeran is. Top tip - pop this in instead: |
| Round up: The best free music player 2016 Posted:  The best free music player for WindowsThe best free music playerAll music libraries are different, and a dedicated music player can help you get the most out of yours. If you're still using a general purpose media player, you're missing out on a wealth of features that can make organizing, expanding and enjoying your music a breeze. A clear winner emerged in our tests, but the other four options are all superb in their own right and well worth a look – especially if your music collection is fairly small, or you really need something that can handle video as well.
1. MusicBeeEasy to use and feature-packed – easily the best free player around
Switching to MusicBee is easy. The first time it runs, the app scans your PC for music and lets you import your files from Windows Media Player or iTunes. Tracks are catalogued, but aren't moved unless you've checked that option under Library Preferences so there'll be no surprises,
As in Windows Media Player, adding artwork is as simple as copying and pasting, and it isn't limited to the album cover – you can also add pictures of the artist, lead singer, band logo, and photos from live performances. These additional pictures are used throughout the player as navigation aids, and as visualizations while tracks are playing. MusicBee also searches for song lyrics to display as each track plays. The player is designed to make the most of your PC's hardware, including top-end soundcards and surround-sound setups, with upmixing for stereo sound. Continuous playback eliminates silences between tracks (ideal for Pink Floyd fans), and you can choose to add silences or fades, normalize volume, and experiment with the equalizer. MusicBee is also great for streaming from internet radio stations and listening to podcasts, and supports both SoundCloud and Last.fm. You can even link it to VLC Media Player to stream video podcasts. The player supports almost every audio format around and converting files is simplicity itself, with presets for different playback devices (though for MP3 encoding you'll need to download the LAME codec). If all of that isn't enough, there's even an Android app for controlling MusicBee remotely, and support for WinAmp plugins. You won't find a more comprehensive free music player, and although it's not open source, it's completely free to use and tinker with for personal use.
2. AIMPA well-designed app to manage even the messiest music library Like all the best free music players, AIMP makes organizing your songs a breeze – even if your collection is currently a sprawling, disorganized mess of tracks in different formats and locations, with incomplete or missing metadata. Your AIMP library can be built using files from multiple directories and ripped from CDs, with automatic track numbering and tag filling to help you get it in shape.
The app also features some unusual built-in tools, including an alarm clock function that starts playing at a certain time, a wind-down setting that shuts down your PC at the end of a playlist, and a voice remover for making your own karaoke tracks. It's not as feature-filled as MusicBee, but its thoughtful design and carefully curated feature-set earn it a respectable second place.
3. MediaMonkeyGreat automated tagging and organization for a hands-off approach MediaMonkey plays and organizes both music and video, and unlike some dual-purpose media players, it does an excellent job of both. It identifies tracks with missing metadata and searches for the information online, and like MusicBee, its superb tagging tool lets you tag files using industry-standard formats.
MediaMonkey organizes your musiclibrary in a logical hierarchy, and its File Monitor ensures everything is kept up to date as you add, edit and remove files. It works well, but if you want total manual control you'll need to install a third-party plugin. As a slightly trimmed-down version of a premium product, MediaMoney's interface has a little more gloss than its open-source competitors, but at the expense of some features. The paid-for Gold version includes a party mode that locks the interface to prevent guests messing with your carefully curated playlist, built-in conversion for TVs and mobile devices, and MP3 encoding for ripped CDs. None are essential, but their absence pushes MediaMonkey's free music player to third place.
4. foobar2000A modular music player and manager suited to small collections foobar2000's advanced tagging tool makes light work of cleaning up a messy library, with options including batch processing, automatic metadata completion and track numbering, and copying and pasting data between fields.
foobar2000 supports all common audio formats, and includes a Quick Convert tool with various presets and options for creating your own profiles. If you encounter a file that it can't open, extra codecs are available as user-created plugins, which are installed via the Preferences menu. Rather than flashy skins, foobar2000 features a customizable modular interface that gives you the information you want in a format that's convenient for you. Modules include album art, search box, playlist manager and various visualizations, with optional tabs for easier navigation. Custom layouts can be saved as themes for future use, and you can experiment with different settings using a built-in scratchbox. All in all, foobar2000 is an extremely lightweight and adaptable option that suits smaller music libraries.
5. VLC Media PlayerPrimarily a video app, but also a capable free music player Open source VLC Media Player is best known for its video-handling chops, but it's also a superb music manager that can play almost any format without installing any additional codecs – and convert between them, too.
Managing your music is easy – just drag files and directories into the Media Library, and VLC Media Player will sort them all into folders. You can organize tracks by album, artists, genre of any other metadata, and use the built-in search tool to find the song you want. VLC also supports extensions. Most of these are designed to optimize video playback, but a few – including ones for silencing ads on internet radio stations – are specifically for music-lovers. VLC is lightweight and works happily on all versions of Windows from XP onwards. Versions for Mac, Linux, Android and iOS are also available. If you're looking for a single app to handle both music and video then it's hard to beat, but for music alone, the dedicated tools above will serve you better. |
| Microsoft prepares for Skype world domination with cross-platform client Posted:  Microsoft is a company with a plan as far as Skype is concerned, and apparently that plan is to get rid of the sprawl of existing Skype clients, instead producing one single app which works across all platforms. As you're probably aware if you use Skype at all, there's a rather messy range of different options in terms of clients which include the universal app for Windows 10 (which works across devices including Windows smartphones and the Xbox), the standard desktop app, Linux app, a web app, as well as Skype for Mac, and mobile apps for Android and iOS. All that's rather unsatisfactory for users who run a number of the above operating systems across different devices, and must cope with all these different apps, not to mention an unnecessary faff for Microsoft which must update, patch and maintain all these different pieces of software. Which is why one client that works across all these platforms makes sense, and according to Ars Technica, that's exactly what's in the works and currently going by the codename of 'Skype for Life'. Truly universalThis fresh cross-platform offering will work on all Windows devices, much as the universal app does now with Microsoft's newest OS, and also on macOS, Linux, along with Android and iOS. A truly universal app, in other words. And that far neater solution will sit alongside the offering aimed at companies, Skype for Business. Remember that this is just a rumour, though – but it certainly makes sense, and the source who spoke to Ars noted that the fact that all these multiple clients are being put on ice (going into 'maintenance mode', i.e. no longer being updated with new features) was part of the reasoning behind the recent job losses at Skype and closure of the London office. The report also notes that Microsoft is still working on Skype Teams, its incoming messaging service which is built to rival Slack and is very similar, but will branch off in some different directions such as having threaded conversations (i.e. replies to specific messages). Meanwhile, work continues on building new features into Skype Preview on Windows 10, with the latest move being the reintroduction of the ability to send and receive text messages via your PC, with no need to reach for your phone at all. SMS and MMS messages will appear seamlessly alongside your usual Skype chats.
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| You'll never be able to pretend you missed a WhatsApp message again Posted:  Popular for its group chat function, messaging app WhatsApp has now added the ability to tag individual users so that they receive a notification even if they've muted the conversation. For anyone who uses the app for fast-moving and important work conversations, this feature could prove to be incredibly useful for keeping things on track, directing tasks to specific people, and sending messages of relative urgency with the knowledge that a notification will be received. On the other hand, for anyone who's part of a handful of conversations they'd rather never see a notification for, it will become incredibly difficult to avoid someone determined to attract your attention. You can mute but you can't hideTagging someone on WhatsApp will work in a similar way to tagging someone on Facebook or Twitter – simply type the '@' symbol followed by their name. To make the process quicker, and to ensure you're tagging the right person, a contact list will pop up when you begin typing from which you can select the contact you want. Right now, the notification you receive when tagged isn't actually any different from a standard message notification. But since WhatsApp seems to be trying to make group chats less unwieldy with this feature, there's a good chance it might consider developing a specific tagging notification in the future. Something similar to the old nudge feature on MSN messenger would be just great. For the moment this new tagging feature is still in beta and will work on iOS and Android, but not desktop. If you'd like to try it out for yourself you can find the download here, or you can subscribe to WhatsApp's beta program in the Google Play store. |
| Opera's free VPN gives you browsing privacy with no strings attached Posted:  There's some good news for those who like their privacy when browsing, because the full version of Opera now comes with a built-in free VPN service (which first became available in the developer version of the browser back in April). Opera's integrated VPN is 'no-log', meaning that your surfing activities are not logged in any form, and it offers 256-bit AES encryption to keep your communications secure. You get the choice of five virtual locations from across the globe, which is increased from the selection of three as seen when the VPN was first pushed out in preview. Said locations are: Canada, US, Germany, the Netherlands and Singapore. That means you can appear to be from any of those locations to potentially get around region restrictions applied to online content, which is what a lot of folks use a VPN for, as well as staying secure when surfing. Ease of useAnd it's obviously convenient to have the VPN built-in rather than having to look for a third-party service – plus Opera has designed its offering to be simple to use. Once turned on (you'll find the switch for that in the browser's Settings – or Preferences on a Mac – and then look under Privacy & Security), the VPN can be left to intelligently select the best server location on its own, so no thought is required from the user. Krystian Kolondra, SVP of Opera browser for computers, commented: "If people knew how the internet truly works, I believe they all would use a VPN. By making our browser VPN free and easy to use, we hope to make it an essential tool, just as the lock and key is to your house." We contacted Opera to check if there were any restrictions on this VPN service in terms of transfer limits, and the company clarified that there were none. In terms of revenue, a spokesperson for Opera also noted that there are no plans to make money off the back of the VPN offering right now – the main goal is simply to differentiate the browser from others and make it more appealing. Last month, Opera launched a new free VPN app for Android, following up on its previously released iOS offering.
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| Round up: The best free YouTube downloader 2016 Posted:  Free YouTube downloadersDownload YouTube videos freeYouTube's streaming is superb, offering the best quality for your current connection. But what happens if you're going somewhere where connectivity is weak or non-existent? Have no fear; with the right YouTube video downloader you can save streams for offline viewing. Before we proceed it's important to note that you should only download videos when you have the copyright owner's permission to do so. YouTube's terms of service explicitly prohibit unauthorised downloading. It's also important to note that many of these programs will install bundled software toolbars, default search engines and so on if you're not careful with their installers' 'Next' and 'Accept' buttons. None of these apps currently include malware or non-removable adware, but many of their rivals do. Be careful out there. Have we missed any of your favourite YouTube video downloader? Let us know in the comments below.
1. Any Video ConverterA speedy free downloader with format conversion and special effects
It's not the fastest converter around (the free version isn't optimized for multi-core processors) but it downloads videos quickly.
2. aTube CatcherDownload, convert, merge and even record videos as they're playing Like Any Video Converter, aTube Catcher can do lots of things: in addition to video downloading it can create and convert all kinds of video, find clips you've watched from your internet history and merge multiple files together. There's even a screen recorder which can grab video as it's playing, which is handy for making screencasts.
3. Free YouTube DownloadDownload multiple videos at once, in resolutions up to 8K The installer is a little too keen on adding bundled software, but Free YouTube Download is very good and completely free. Its focus is on the downloading rather than converting files from one format to another, so you get a good multi-stream download manager for grabbing several clips simultaneously.
4. Ummy Video DownloaderA simple, slimline downloader that won't stress your PC Ummy Video Downloader is designed to do just one thing, and that's download YouTube videos and save them as video or audio files. There are no fancy bells or whistles, making it a slim package that puts minimal demands on your PC. The interface is clean and good-looking, and in a nice touch it grabs the video's main image to use as a backdrop while the clip downloads. It can save as FLV, MKV, MOV, AVI, MP3 and MPG, it doesn't gobble up system resources and it's completely free.
5. YTD Video DownloaderDownload videos from more than 60 sites, including YouTube and Vimeo YTD Video Downloader comes in two flavors: Basic, which is free, and Pro, which costs £18.90 (about AU$40, US$30) per year. Basic doesn't get multiple simultaneous downloads, download acceleration or an ad-free interface but it does cover the fundamentals: it downloads from YouTube and more than 60 other video sites, it can convert to WMV, AVI, MP3 and iPhone, and it can resume failed downloads if your connection drops mid-download.
6. Clip ConverterLeave this downloader to do its work, and it'll let you know when it's done Clip Converter is a website rather than an app. Simply paste your URL, pick a format - MP4, 3GP, AVI or MOV for video, or MP3, M4A or AAC for audio - and then choose the quality. For YouTube, you can download HD up to 1080p and 4K if it's available, and the process couldn't be simpler.
7. VideoGrabbyA simple but effective web app for downloading videos and music Sometimes you don't want too many options; you just want to paste and go. That's clearly the thinking behind VideoGrabby, which gives you just two options: download video or download music. The downloads are MP4 for video and MP3 for music, and if there's a high quality version of the clip an extra HQ button will appear at the bottom of the page.
8. KeepvidA fast online-only downloader, but watch out for the cunningly-placed ads Another online YouTube downloader, KeepVid is both very good and very bad: good in that it offers a decent range of download options (MP4, 3GP, WebM, audio) and bad because it has those ads with fake download buttons in the centre of the screen in what looks like a deliberate attempt to get you to click on them. We're not anti-advertising - developers have to eat - but that's rather deceptive.
9. SaveFromNetAn online-only downloader with an optional browser add-on for convenience Downloading YouTube videos doesn't get much simpler than SaveFromNet. Copy your clip's address, paste it into the box and choose your download format. And that's pretty much it. It's nice to see the option to include subtitles (where available), and you can download in MP4, WebM, FLV, 3GP and audio.
10. AiryA simple tool, but one that will suit most basic downloading needs The free version is limited to just two downloads (the full version is US$19.95, about £15.24, AU$26.79) so you can't take advantage of the playlist download feature in the free edition, but Airy is a handy tool if you just need to download a clip quickly.
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MusicBee
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