FreewareGenius has a write up today about a (new?) free downloading tool StreamTransport.  Sounds promising, and even seems to have some url capturing features like those found in URL Snooper?

The app is able to browse and download video clips from video hosting websites of HTTP, RTMP, RTMPT, RTMPE, RTMPTE protocol, and these cover overwhelming majority of websites such as Hulu, Veoh, Boxee, Joost, YouTube, Yahoo Video, CBS, etc.  The URL of any video clip that is playing will be auto-captured and listed out for your convenience, and you can download it with one click or just ignore it. There is no bother to add URL manually.

http://www.streamtransport.com/

BatchBlitz is a digital photo categorizer, filter and batch editor (freeware).

In BatchBlitz, you first select some source photos to be processed, specify where to output the processed files, define one or more actions to be taken, then simply click Start.

Website homepage:
http://www.sunlitgreen.com/

Regardless of what career path you follow, the ability to promote yourself and build a following is fast becoming an critical skill. One of the better books on the topic is Scott Kirsner's Fans, Friends And Followers: Building An Audience And A Creative Career In The Digital Age[

If you are a glass-half-full type, you’ve already realized that the era of digital creativity presents incredible opportunities. You can do what you love, reach an audience, and earn some money. What starts off as a small fan base can quite suddenly go global, enabling you to quit your day job and earn a solid living.
 
The flip side is that there has never been a noisier, more competitive time to try to make art, entertain people, and tell stories. Everyone is doing it, and so there is an incredible surplus of content in every art form.
 
In 2000, 973 full-length films were submitted to the Sundance Film Festival, generally considered the best platform for launching a new indie movie. By 2008, that number had risen to 3,624. (Just 121 were accepted.) 
 
Think about a band trying to build a reputation in Los Angeles, a city with about 50 FM radio stations – and perhaps just three or four that matter in any particular genre (like Latino music, hip hop, or rock.) Now think about trying to build a reputation online. A link to the band’s MySpace page from any one of several hundred well-regarded music blogs might result in a sold-out show. A song included in any of the thousands of podcasts that are distributed through iTunes might catch fire. 
 
Breaking out, somehow, is both more of a possibility than it has ever been  – and harder than it has ever been. 
 
The attention of an individual audience member anywhere in the world is simultaneously easier to snare (a multi-million-dollar marketing campaign is no longer required) – and harder than ever to snare. 
 
I wanted to write this book to share some of the ways that artists are grappling with those paradoxes. 
 
In conversations over the past three years, I’ve been asking questions about how artists are attracting audiences and building careers in the online world.

There's a write up and sample text available at Amazon if you'd like to take a look:

http://www.amazon.co...ativeASIN=1442100745

A paperback copy will set you back about $16 from Amazon. But Scott is celebrating the 2010 SXSW Week ( www.sxsw.com ) by offering a copy in PDF format for free at the following link:

Info and download link: http://www.scottkirs...er.com/fff/sxsw.html

This is a great book, loaded with ideas you can either "borrow," or use to spark some of your own. Although primarily geared towards creative types, the core concepts apply to virtually every career. In this economy, the ability to "sell yourself" isn't just a plus - it's a necessity.

On Friday night, Ars Technica decided to set up a system to catch those visitors running "a very popular ad blocking tool" (presumably Adblock Plus), which in turn would block those users, not allowing them to see any content on the site. As expected, shit hit the fan once the users stopped freaking out, and found out what happened (kinda expected for a tech-centric site) with the articles. So, on Sunday, Ken Fisher, one of the site founders, explained everything about the experiment, and the reasons for doing it. Nothing new there, expect for the fact that ads on many Internet sites now are paid on a per view basis, instead of clicks.

While the post sounds very reasonable, and no one is threatening to cut access to those running adblockers, many people think otherwise, and express so in the post comments. What's more, now the debate spreads to the rest of the Internet, as the post gets slashdotted (and probably digged as well), and people starts weighing on the issue, ranging from John Gruber noting the complexity of the situation to Tech Dirt telling Ars that it's time to evolve and stop complaining. Other people, like Scott Wason at The Tech Report side with Fisher, painting a situation very similar to Ars Technica.

http://arstechnica.c...e-sites-you-love.ars

One of the most ironic things about the whole situation is that the same Internet sites that are supposedly replacing newspapers as major sources of information are also struggling to find sources of ad revenue, and many say that their business model is 'dead' and they should be researching alternative models. So, are 'old' and 'new' media sharing the same dying model? Fun.

I should note that all the arguments 'for' and 'against' have been beaten to death, even here on this forum, but it's always interesting to see the affected business expressing their opinion on the whole matter. Now, if the ad companies said something as well...

I was lamenting on the irc channel and on a recent post that with video games becoming so cinematic these days, some of us would much more enjoy just watching someone play a video game like a movie, rather than actually playing it ourselves; especially with so little free time.

DC member ewemoa suggested http://nextgenwalkthroughs.com/ to me, and indeed it has some nicely organized walkthrough videos that look like they may fit the bill.  If anyone has other websites that collect comprehensive full-game videos, let us know!

Nextgenwalkthroughs.com was created way back in 2006 by Beer Baron and Explicit D. We've been doing walkthroughs all this time and are not planning on stopping anytime soon.  We make all of our guides on the hardest difficulty, and do voiceovers to make sure to help you through the toughest parts of the game.

http://nextgenwalkthroughs.com/

I'm discovered the following gem to automatically sync my coding changes to a test server over ftp. This utility uses ini files to configure source and destination then sync any changes after running it. Just add it to post-commit hook with subversion or mercurial.   Great documentation

Synchronize two FTP sites or local directories. FTPSync is useful for updating your home page or corporate web site, maintaining an off-site backup, maintaining web site mirrors, etc.

Main features
    * supports UNIX, Microsoft, IBM and Novell type FTP servers
    * only new or changed files are transferred
    * console type application that can be easily executed from various schedulers and batch files
    * FTPSync is intended for computer experts - it has no user interface, so users must know how to edit standard Windows INI files. Synchronization can be configured on the fly from batch files or other applications, making it a convenient tools when sync authomation is required.
    * Brandable version available for bundling with other products.

http://www.cyberkiko...om/page/FTPSync.aspx