Resize video for Android

A 32GB MicroSD card is now around £20, room enough for a large music collection and a few TV shows and movies. But although 32GB is a lot of space, why store a 300MB file that has a bigger size in pixels than the mobile device, and is not compatible with the stock Android video player, when you can store a 50MB file exactly customised for the screen size of your mobile device and plays on the stock player?
I was looking around for an application that would do this in Linux, but in the end found a command line application that does the job. I've lost the original link, so I'll just post the command, using an example file name, and screen dimensions for an Android phone. The frame rate is a bit low, but perfectly watchable. First install ffmpeg. Then in a Terminal, in the directory where the original file is, issue this command:

ffmpeg -i "TOS - S02E19 - The Immunity Syndrome.avi" -s 480x320 -vcodec mpeg4 -acodec aac -strict experimental -ac 1 -ar 16000 -r 15 -ab 32000 -aspect 3:2 "TOS - S02E19 - The Immunity Syndrome.mp4"

The Linux Dilemma

Gnome 3.4 is in Beta. It looks good. But when can I uses it? As I'm running Debian Squeeze, not in the near future. Fortunately, Fedora 17 is in Alpha, and will have Gnome 3.4. This means I will be able to try out Gnome 3.4 in a couple of months on a  Live USB, or even install it if I want to sacrifice the stability of Debian for the minor bugs and frequent updates of Fedora.
The is the Linux dilemma: a stable system or the latest desktop (and software).
I just hope that by the time Debian Wheezy comes out, Gnome 3 has matured. I'd hate to install Wheezy only for Gnome to issue a new release full of new features and bug fixes, meaning I wouldn't get it for two years till the next Debian release.

YouTube HTML5 Video Player

A post on the CrunchBang forum points out that it's possible to opt-in for an HTML5 trial on YouTube. I'd heard about HTML5 on YouTube, but didn't know how to try it. Seems to work OK. (Background: Adobe is abandoning Flash on Linux.)

Windows 8 logo looks like Windows 1 logo

Forbes has the details. The 80s seem to be back in fashion anyway: the 70s bar in town has been replaced by an 80s bar. The font from Windows 1 is more interesting, and the Window has more character: is that a Golden Section?

Adobe abandons Flash on Linux

Adobe is going to give up supporting Flash on Linux. Google is going to implement a version for Chrome. The freeze in Flash development, plus some extra documentation released by Adobe, may allow open-source alternatives to replace the Flash player.
Phoronix has the details.

Firefox to get a theme update

Firefox has plenty of updates over the last year or so, but the theme has remained the same. Web UPD8 has the story on a new theme update planned for this year. I'm looking forward to a Firefox update where I actually notice anything different... Here's a screen shot I pinched.

Bluetooth dongle for a quid

My laptop doesn't have Bluetooth but my new Android phone does. I remember seeing Bluetooth dongles in Poundworld a few years ago, and they seemed like a bargain because they are much more expensive elsewhere. When I bought the phone, I looked again, but there were none in stock. A couple of days ago they were back in stock, and I snapped one up. It works with Debian. Here's a photo I just sent to the laptop.

The dongle looks almost exactly like this offering from Argos at £10, except for the CE logo and the order of the grip ridges (getting bigger towards the outer edge in the Poundworld dongle, the reverse in the Argos one).

Another blog on the bargain dongle: Can you find a decent gadget in a pound shop?

Here's a shot of the packaging while I'm playing with the dongle.