Saving and converting FLV videos into an iPod friendly (.mp4) format

I was trying how to download videos from You Tube and I have found this site that automatically downloads FLV files from You Tube or any other provider. Just enter the link of a desired video in the box and after it says “Download Link”, right click to save traget as… File is named as “get_video” by default, rename it and then use iSquint software to convert it into an iPod friendly .mp4 format. You can also tweak video bitrate if you want to make higher quality videos.

How private Amazon.com is?

I was reading this article about Gmail admits privacy Leak. What worries me more then Google privacy is an Amazon privacy. I have typed my full name (Davor Prcovich) to Google and amongst other things, my blogs etc. it listed a whole range of my Amazon searches. Shouldn’t they be private? Anyone could see what I was browsing on Amazon.com and that is not right. What If I was browsing porn DVD’s or any other materials that I want to keep private? I am surprised that no one is complaining about that, and they do when Gmail is automatically handling spam mails. I am not saying that is right doing, only thing that Amazon is much worse to that. Any of you can try typyng your name to any search engine and see what is gonna show up on there.

How to safely shop online

Many people nowadays are afraid of an online shopping because they think someone could get their credit card number(s) and abuse it. Here i am going to put some guidelines that will help you buying things online safely.

1. Before you start buying things online, you have to remember that you only shop at the major (trustworthy) e-commerce websites.

2. Plan your purchase before you start buying things. It is very important to know in advance what things you going to shop for. Almost all of the websites that offer online shopping will require you to create an account. When you do that, you will receive your username and password that can be used to access your web-cart and other features provided on the site. Remember that no site would ever send you an e-mail that looks as same as their original website and ask you to enter your username,password or a credit card number. If you ever receive an e-mail like that, delete it immediately! That technique is called Phishing and it was developed to trick users to enter their personal data in the fields (just like they would do it when accessing real e-commerce website) and then send it to someone who then would have received your personal informations including your credit card number.

3. When it comes to the payment options, many people will pay with a credit card. All major credit cards are widely accepted with all major online stores. When you shop online, never have huge amounts of money on your credit card. Let’s say that if you only want to buy some books or CD’s, having around a 100 (hundred) bucks,pounds euros would be quiet enough. Also, never buy too many things at once. It is better to shop a few times then to buy like 20 things straight away.

4. When doing your online shopping, it is very important to read a website policy to know if the stuff you had purchased can be returned and under which conditions. You have to check if there is SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocol available on the website where you are about to make a payment. Major online stores all have pretty safe protocols thus the transfer of your personal data is as safe as possible.

5. If you are buying more then one thing, place everything you want to buy in your online shopping cart. Calculate the price and write it down on a piece of paper. Now you are ready to make a payment. I recommend you to use Firefox browser on PC or Firefox or Safari if you are on Mac. When it comes to a final check out, and the price is listed on the screen, compare it to a price that you had calculated before. It has to match.In the end it is important to say that you are not the only person buying things online at the certain time. Millions of credit card numbers are circulating on the Internet so you would have to be so “unlucky” that someone out there pick just your credit card. However, taking the steps of precaution is important. Happy online shopping experience:)

Restoring deleted songs from your iTunes app.

If you had deleted one or more songs from your iTunes app. by accident, they wont be able to get transfered into your iPod next time you plug it in (unless you manually managing your songs – but many people don’t). I recommend you not to enable option “Open iTunes when this iPod is attached” under the iPod tab within iTunes. This will stop iTunes to automatically updating songs from your iTunes to your iPod unless you run iTunes app. manually. Ok, now let’s get back to how to restore deleted songs from your iTunes. Songs that are being deleted from your iTunes app. are stored to your iPod. Due to copyright issues, iTunes only can transfer your songs into your iPod but not the other way around as well. Don’t you worry, there are good people who have made quiet amount of shareware or freeware apps that enable you to transferring songs from your iPod back to the iTunes. I use “Ollie’s iPod Extractor“(Broken Helix) for that matter. It’s a small utility that will restore music from your iPod back to iTunes. All you have to do is to run Ollie’s iPod Extractor app when your iPod is connected to your computer and hit “Copy to iTunes” button. All songs will be copied from your iPod so all those who are already in your iTunes will be overwritten.Please note that copying music from other people iPods to your computer is illegal.