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Download Flash Videos

If you want to download Flash videos, such as from YouTube, there are many options. My favorite way is to use the Firefox plug-in called Download Flash and Video. It actually can download anything that’s Flash including Flash games.

Install it like any Firefox Add-on by going to Tools – Add-ons – Get Add-ons. Once installed you will see a down arrow at the the bottom right hand of Firefox. It turns blue when there is content on the current page that you can download. It’s simple.

After downloading a video, you can use Handbrake to change the video to another format you might need.

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iTunes Scripts for Mac

iTunes has some quirks. One is that if you add artwork using its Get Album Artwork function, the images are not embedded in the music files but are kept elsewhere in the iTunes database. This is normally fine. But if you want to send someone an mp3 you have, the artwork won’t travel with it. So I was looking for software to fix this and came upon the resource of Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes (for Mac only).

Doug has software and scripts to help you with many common issues such as dealing with duplicate files and multiple iTunes libraries.

My problem was solved with the script Embed Artwork. Once you install the files, you get a script option in the iTunes menu as shown here, allowing you to embed the artwork into the MP3 file so that it is portable. This also helps people who want to use iTunes and other non-Apple media players such as Android devices.

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iPhone 4 at Clarendon Virginia Apple Store

The line this morning was over 4 hours long at the Apple store in Clarendon, Virginia. Apple gave us water and a guy from Whole Foods came around with carts of food. The Whole Foods guy would hand out food, then a napkin saying, “There’s a nap for that.”

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Twitter Facebook Application Fixed

There are several ways to update Twitter, Facebook, and other social sites at the same time. One solution is the Twitter Application in Facebook which takes your tweets and automatically puts them on your Facebook page. Now that the Twitter Application works, it’s worth mentioning. Until recently, it was broken for me and many others.

Twitter updated their Known Issues page to show that the problem has been resolved. Currently Twitter updates are sent to the Facebook Wall only. Plans are to have it also update the Facebook status.

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Fighting Conficker

I have mentioned several times that Conficker is considered the most dangerous virus to date.

The Atlantic Monthy magazine has a great article titled The Enemy Within on the history of Conficker and where we are now. It’s a fascinating read for both technical security buffs and non techies.

It starts:

The Enemy Within by Mark Bowden

When the Conficker computer “worm” was unleashed on the world in November 2008, cyber-security experts didn’t know what to make of it. It infiltrated millions of computers around the globe. It constantly checks in with its unknown creators. It uses an encryption code so sophisticated that only a very few people could have deployed it. For the first time ever, the cyber-security elites of the world have joined forces in a high-tech game of cops and robbers, trying to find Conficker’s creators and defeat them. The cops are failing. And now the worm lies there, waiting …

Image credit: Alex Ostroy