Tips

If you use Google Drive Spreadsheets and work with a lot of data, or just need a better way to quickly look at the data the following tutorial is for you. Even if you are unsure if you want to use Google Drive the follow tutorial will give you an idea of some of the tools Google Drive provides in its spreadsheet editor. If you don’t wish to read through all the steps you can view the video on the bottom of the screen that will go over all of the features below and how to do them.

If you have to convert video or audio files of any type you may be overwhelmed by how many software options you have to pick from. And if that isn’t bad enough, a lot of those software options contain adware, viruses and more.

But there is a solution that is very simple and powerful, FFMpeg. FFMpeg is a free console based program that lets you convert audio and video files. A lot of websites and software we discussed above use it. But why use a third party client when you can use the real thing and have more power, control and security.

If you have used CamStudio, you may of noticed files don’t work after 2GB filesize. This is an issue with the program that has not been resolved for many years. But don’t fret, there is a fix for it if you do happen to go over the 2GB limit.

You will need VirtualDub. VirtualDub is a video processor, which allows you to render and process videos using a set of plugins and settings. For instance you can stabilize videos, color correct, change formats, and reprocess the video files.

If you ever need to quickly get the Hex Color Code, or RGB value of a color on your screen, you may have some issues. Sure you can screen shot, then paste into Photoshop and use the color picker… but even typing that took too long. And who wants to open up Photoshop when they are only coding a site and need a quick value of a color.

The answer is Pixie. Pixie is a free to use “Color Grabber” or “Eye Dropper”. It is very light weight and portable, meaning you don’t need to install it. You just run the EXE and you are golden.

If you no longer can boot into your Operating System and need to recover your files an easy way to go about this is using a Linux Live CD. There are GUI and Text Live CD’s but in this tutorial we will be using a Text Live CD by Debian. Right below is the video demonstrating how to do this. Or if you want you can just read how to do right under the video.