Categories
DivX DVR-MS MPG Software Video Conversion

MPG to DivX Conversion

I searched high and low for the most effective, FREE, MPG to DivX video conversion method and by far MCEBuddy is the best software to do the job. MCEBuddy is actually advertised to convert Microsoft Media Center recorded media, DVR-MS. I found out that it actually also works for converting bulky MPG files also.

To convert MPG to DivX effectively, just follow the simple instructions below.

  1. Go to http://mcebuddy.com/, and follow the instruction to install MCEBuddy.
  2. Once installed, open MCEBuddy, tick “File Selection” and enter either *.mpg (to convert only MPG files) or *.* (to convert any format to AVI).

MCEBuddy Advanced Options

That’s it! Easy and it’s 100% free!

Categories
ApEx Bug Oracle

“Typo” in Oracle ApEx Manage Services Page

Could a developer in Oracle please fix the “typo” in the Manage Services page in Oracle Application Express. I’ve been looking at the error for some time now and was hoping that it will be fixed on the latest ApEx version. Well, I’m looking at version 3.2 and it’s still there. I’m sick of looking at it now so can someone in Oracle please fix it.

The error can be found under Home -> Manage Services. Under the Workspace region, there’s an item that spells “Request Service Terminiation”… I think it should say “Request Service Termination”.

Request Service Terminiation

If I am wrong, I apologize. If I’m right, please fix it because I hold such high regard for Oracle and I don’t want to see them reduced to “human” status by appearing to make such human-like mistakes.

Thank you Oracle.

Categories
dynamic content seo

Web Backlinks Dynamic News Content Service

If you’re tired of constantly updating your website with quality content, why not try our free news content service that will serve up quality news content on your website automatically. All you have to do is include a small piece of code to your web page and we will look after the rest. News feeds are updated daily, so there is no need to modify your code once set up.

For more information, visit Web Backlinks Dynamic News Content.

Categories
ApEx ASP Oracle

Convert Oracle ApEx 3.1 Package Export to 3.0

Here’s a useful ASP page which I wrote which will convert an Oracle Application Express 3.1 package export (or page export) to 3.0 automatically! Just in case you developed an application in 3.1, but need to install it in a 3.0 environment.

http://www.web-backlinks.com/convert-oracle-apex3.1-package-to-3.0.asp

Enjoy!

Categories
Useful Scripts vbscript Windows Batch WSH

Generate Yesterday’s Date Through Windows Batch

Generating past date in a windows batch can be tricky. There doesn’t seem to be any date arithmetic functionality within the DOS kernel. There are a number of ways you can do it, but the one that works for me is through the generation of a text file. There is only one pre-requisite which is listed below

  • Windows Script Hosting (Installed on most XP Pro machines but can be downloaded here.)

 

You need to create two files, in this example, I’ve referred to them as gendate.vbs and gendate.bat. Gendate.vbs is written in vbscript and it takes two integer parameters:

  • Days Integer Paramater eg. -1 for yesterday’s date, 1 for tomorrow’s date and 0 for today’s date
  • Date output format parameter i.e. 0 returns YYYY-MM-DD, 1 returns DD-MON-YY

 

The first parameter is an integer value which is the number of days before/after the current date – used to determine the date you want returned. The second parameter determines the date format you want returned i.e 0 returns YYYY-MM-DD format, while 1 returns DD-MON-YY format. This module can be extended to return whatever format you require. Here’s the content of gendate.vbs:

'Wscript.Arguments(0) - Days Integer Paramater eg. -1 for yesterday's date, 1 for tomorrow's date and 0 for today's date
'Wscript.Arguments(1) - Date output format parameter i.e. 0 returns YYYY-MM-DD, 1 returns DD-MON-YY

dateRequested = dateadd("d", Wscript.Arguments(0) ,date)
yestStr = dateToString(dateRequested, Wscript.Arguments(1))

'Write response to file
Dim oFs, oTextFile, iMode
iMode = 2
set oFs = createobject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set oTextFile = oFs.OpenTextFile("date.txt", iMode, True)
oTextFile.Write yestStr
oTextFile.Close
set oTextFile = nothing
set oFS = nothing

'**************************************************************************************
'* dateToString
'* -------------------------------
'* Returns date object as a string
'* if opt = 0 then returns date string in YYYY-MM-DD format
'* otherwise return DD-MON-YY
'**************************************************************************************
Function dateToString(dteObj, opt)
  dayStr = Day(dteObj)
  if CInt(dayStr) < 10 then
    dayStr = "0" & dayStr
  end if
  monStr = Month(dteObj)
  if CInt(monStr) < 10 then
    monStr = "0" & monStr
  end if

  if opt = 0 then
    retStr = Year(dteObj) & "-" & monStr & "-" & dayStr
  else
    monName = MonthName(monStr,true)
    retStr = dayStr & "-" & UCASE(monName) & "-" & Right(Year(dteObj), 2)
  end if
dateToString = retStr
End Function

Gendate.bat is windows batch file that drives the process. It calls gendate.vbs and outputs the date string requested. Of course you need to add your business process in this file so that it performs tasks that you require. Here’s the content of gendate.bat:

@echo off

if "%1"=="" goto :usage
if "%2"=="" goto :usage

REM If you're familiar with VBSCRIPT you can modify this file to return any date format that you require
gendate.vbs %1 %2

setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
set SEPARATOR=
set filecontent=
for /f "delims=" %%a in (date.txt) do (
  set currentline=%%a
  set filecontent=!filecontent!%SEPARATOR%!currentline!
)

set datestr=%filecontent%
echo The date requested is: %datestr%
echo This value is stored in a variable called "datestr" and can be used within the script

goto :done

:Usage

echo usage 		gendate [Days Integer Paramater] [Date format type]

echo Example to generate yesterday's date in YYYY-MM-DD format: 	gendate -1 0
echo Example to generate yesterday's date in DD-MON-YY format: 	gendate -1 1

echo Example to generate tomorrow's date in YYYY-MM-DD format: 	gendate -1 0
echo Example to generate tomorrow's date in DD-MON-YY format: 	gendate -1 1

echo Example to generate today's date in YYYY-MM-DD format: 	gendate 0 0
echo Example to generate today's date in DD-MON-YY format: 	gendate 0 1

:done

To use the script, call the following in a command prompt window:

echo Example to generate yesterday’s date in YYYY-MM-DD format: gendate -1 0

echo Example to generate yesterday’s date in DD-MON-YY format: gendate -1 1

echo Example to generate tomorrow’s date in YYYY-MM-DD format: gendate -1 0

echo Example to generate tomorrow’s date in DD-MON-YY format: gendate -1 1

echo Example to generate today’s date in YYYY-MM-DD format: gendate 0 0

echo Example to generate today’s date in DD-MON-YY format: gendate 0 1

Categories
Software Video Conversion

DVR-MS to DivX Conversion

Windows Media Center encodes its recording to DVR-MS (Microsoft Digital Video Recording). It’s video is encoded using the MPEG-2 standard and audio using MPEG-1 Layer II or Dolby Digital AC-3 (ATSC A/52). The result is high quality video with top quality audio to match. Only one problem, quality comes at a hefty price.

One minute of audio/video footage takes up about 116,521 kB (113 MB) of space! Considering that an average movie is about 90 minutes long, it would require at least 10,241 MB (10 GB) of storage to store one movie. So with my 1TB hard drive, I could store a measly 100 movies. Now that’s just ridiculous! I guess Microsoft doesn’t want to encourage TV recording through Windows Media Center. That’s the only conclusion I can come up with because there are loads of other trusted high quality standards that they could have used to encode video/audio. Like DivX.

MCEBuddy Website ThumbnailLuckily for us, there’s a useful utility that we can use to convert DVR-MS to DivX. The software is called MCEBuddy. MCEBuddy takes your LARGE DVR-MS television recording files and makes them small by converting to another format saving you disk space. I’ve searched high and low for a utility or script that converted DVR-MS to another format successfully. MCEBuddy is by far the best software for the job. Visit MCEBuddy website http://mcebuddy.com/.