Looking for a some great, free media players for your PC that will play all the different formats out there, convert with ease, and are robust enough to cover practically all the bases? We’ve put together a small list of what we feel are the best of the best, completely free, lite (place no heavy processing demands on your computer) and are really ace software. All of these can be currently found in the ‘Computer Stuff’ directory on Kiwibeak.com.

Audio

1. Quintessential Media Player 5.0 [downloads] /Classic Player 4.51 [on Tucows]

The original Quinessential Player and version 4.51 (QCD) have been a long-time favorites for music/mp3 aficianados who demand a simple and straightforward music player for Windows. Somewhat recently, Quinnware (qmp) introduced their Quintessential Media Player which looks to be more focused on skins, managing a media library, but also the ability to handle most audio formats (either by default or through an extensive plug-in library). Also present is the new ability to play basic video files.

For those who just want a really, really simple & easy music player and converter, most will probably prefer the classic player, version 4.51. You still have to install plug-ins for converting to mp3 or FLAC formats, but it’s painless (through quick-n-easy executables. This classic player version has by default a somewhat ‘techie/sci-fi’ skin, but it just works and displays well. Through using the right-click context menu, you can very quickly access and set preferences (from the top-left menu drop-down button) or, by right-clicking on a track, convert between formats in a breeze. Still comes highly-recommended as the best. You can still grab a free copy off of Tucows here. For the main Quinnware website, click here. Also currently available on the Quinnware site is their very first original player version from 1998 (not sure if this is the same as the stellar QCD 4.51).

Video

There are 3 essential video players for serious videoheads out there, all with what we see as one big advantage over each other:

1. GOM Player [homepage] *All-around, except DVD

GOM Player rocks. It’s just a very nice, lite yet robust player with a pleasant design that handles the practically any format of encoded video. You can access a diverse list of preferences covering practically every possible setting for audio, video, subtitling, screen capture, playlist, playback, aspect ratio, and more. Cons: DVD menu playback is often troublesome and encoding compatibility is not 100%. You’ll want to have one or both of the following players in your arsenal.

2. KMPlayer 2.9.4.1434 [download on softonic] [Korean site] *DVD

A recent discovery when DVD menu issues started occurring with GOM Player. This Korean media player has a slick look to it, but most importantly is lite and plays DVD, menus and all, perfectly fine—fast and easy.

3. VLC Media Player [download] *Troublesome or rare formats
The cross-platform open-source multimedia framework, player and server. Simply, this player will play anything and everything. Although, perhaps, not as lite and not nearly as many features, as say, GOM Player. For troublesome or corrupted files, this is the best bet.

——-

Comments, Opinions? Know of any other great media players that you think are great? Please share in the comments section…

Tags: audio, free, media players, PC, video.

There are quite a few lists on the web regarding Firefox browser add-ons. We’ve combed through them selecting the cream of the crop, most useful and impressive in our opinion for the regular websurfer. Nothing too advanced or difficult, but extremely helpful to make our time spent online more productive and easier. Our concerns: simple browsing efficiency, ease-of-use, super-useful task/info helpers, and websurfer privacy.
I have installed (each take only a few seconds) all of these and tested on Firefox version 3.0.10 (PC, Vista). Versions available May 2009.

1. ColorfulTabs
by Shivanand Sharma

“The most beautiful yet the simplest add-on that makes a strong colorful appeal. Colors every tab in a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appearance of the interface.”

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1368

2. PDF Download
by Nitro PDF Software

“Use PDF Download to do whatever you like with PDF files on the Web. Regain control of them and eliminate browser problems, view PDFs directly in Firefox as HTML, and use the all-new Web-to-PDF toolbar to save and share Web pages as high-quality PDF files.”

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/636

3. Copy Plain Text
by Jeremy Gillick

“Have you ever copied something to Thunderbird or Office and been annoyed that the text formatting (bold, font size, etc) came with it? Don’t you wish you could just copy the text itself, without having to copy it, paste it into notepad, then copy it again? This extension gives you an option to copy text without the formatting. You can even set it to trim extra space in and around the copied text!”

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/134

4. Forecastbar Enhanced
by Aaron Sarna

“A weather forecast right in your statusbar. [Includes] the ability to supply a URL to use images from other sites. It also allows for pausing, restarting and setting the frequency of automatic updates and disabling the progress meter.”

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1978

5. ReminderFox
by Tom Mutdosch, Daniel Lee

“ReminderFox displays and manages lists of date-based reminders and ToDo’s…ReminderFox makes sure you remember all of your important dates via easy-to-use lists, alerts, and alarm notifications.”

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1191

6. BetterPrivacy
by NettiCat

“BetterPrivacy is a Super-Cookie Safeguard which protects from usually undeletable LSO’s (Flash-Cookies) or DOM Storage Objects. It blocks longterm tracking on Google, YouTube, Ebay, and many other domains.”

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623

Tags: best of, firefox add-ons.

A new feature in Firefox V3 is what FF calls the ‘Smart Location Bar,’ which is a memory-component similiar to the technology some mobile phones (Blackberry) are offering—smart typing, where the phone would remember your most often typed letters & words, the browser remembers and matches your most often used bookmarks, displaying them in a drop-down menu attached to the right side of the URL/address bar.

A quick way to get to the sites you love—even the ones with addresses you only vaguely remember. The new Firefox 3 location bar learns as you use it—it’s so highly evolved that we like to call it the “Awesome Bar”. Over time, it adapts to your preferences and offers better fitting matches. Type in a term and the autocomplete function includes possible matching sites from your browsing history, as well as sites you’ve bookmarked and tagged in a drop down. For example, you could enter the tag: “investments” to find “www.fool.com”. Matched terms are highlighted, making the list of results easy to scan.

Using the new FF V3 browser for awhile now, I found myself very rarely using this—as I prefer to reserve bookmarking for site I want to remember but don’t necessarily visit with any regularity. Many of my most-visited, regular sites are on Kiwibeak anyway.

On the discussion board, it was expressed by one websurfer that he did not desire this feature. At the least in this bloggers opinion, under the ‘view’ menu (where you can disable certain toolbars from being displayed, etc), there probably should of been an additional option in regard to this new feature.

Passing along this handy trick, you can manually disable the Smart Location Bar feature:

In the address bar type this… ABOUT:CONFIG then go down to…. browser.urlbar.maxrichresults and change the value from 12 to 0.

Tags: bookmarking, disable, Firefox, Smart Location Bar, tip, websurfing.

Possibly unnecessary, maybe… One question may be: Why would I want to download a small program to sync with the Atomic Clock? Doesn’t windows already have the capability built-in with the ‘time and date settings?’ Well, if you are a Windows Vista owner like me, you probably have already discovered the ridiculous number of annoying little quirks and issues the operating system beholds. Yes, the ‘Sync function’ with the Atomic Clock is present, although I could not connect to any of the servers. My computer is fairly new, spyware-free, virus-free, and only has a simple, lightweight Internet Security Suite installed.

It’s November 2nd, I really needed to check the time change. Looks like my computer time has shifted automatically, my phone too. To make sure, I turn on my cable television guide… Nope, it says its one hour ahead. Hmm… I am led to believe the computer is right, although how could the television be wrong? Then I think, “Yes, the TV must be wrong, we are just trained to rely on ‘old’ technology.” There’s only one sure answer, I need to check the Atomic Clock.

First I go into Vista’s ‘time and date’ settings and try to sync the provided ‘Internet Time Server.’ Message: “An error occurred while Windows was synchronizing with time.windows.com.” I try all the other servers. No luck.

Next, I go online, of course, in the Reference > General section of the Kiwibeak Directory  and check the time there > timeanddate.com.  Indeed, it says 2pm.

I am determined to still sync my computer with the Atomic Clock. I find and download ‘Atomic Clock Sync.’

Atomic Clock Sync Screenshot

Hey, it worked. I now feel confident of the time and secure with my clock. And sometimes I just like to download little programs for fun, which for this little computer doodad, I placed in a folder on my desktop call ‘Web Tools.’ After running the program, I discovered that my computer’s clock was 26 seconds off. I might even run this nifty little program for fun once in awhile to make sure everything is in order. Most of all, I am sure this ordeal will not happen again, and I will ’save’ that hour of time.

PS. In regard to a couple of the negative comments: (1) “This functionality is already in WindowsXP… it comes with your computer” ANSWER: It certainly did not work on my computer and, logically, many other people may have the same, lame issue. (2) “You cannot uninstall this program with the uninstall feature. I found that other programs are a little more accurate, and found out that I could not uninstall this. I will now need to waste some time cleaning out the files/registry.” ANSWER: I did not encounter any problem. There’s also a great little program that will safely clean out your registry automatically, finding and deleting non-existent or erroneous entries. Kiwibeak > Computer Stuff > PC Tune-up > WinInstaller Cleanup

All in all, the program is simple, light and does what it says: Accurating syncs your computer’s clock to the correct time.

Tags: atomic clock, atomic clock sync, computer tools, time.