VLC: More than Just a Video Player

I keep trying other media players, but I also keep coming back to VLC, which used to be primarily a video player but now handles audio, video, discs, and streaming content. This is a shareware project that began as a student project in France and initially the player was called "VideoLan Client". VLC is a shorter name and easier to remember.

A new version builds on VLC's existing strengths and adds new capabilities. Because the program started as a student project, the developers obtained permission from the head of the École Centrale Paris (Central Paris School) to rewrite their student project from scratch in 1998. They then released it under the GNU General Public License in 2001.

Reaching the version 1.0.0 milestone required 13 years of development. Version 2.0.0 was released 3 years later and the current version is 2.13.

Unlike certain other media players that I've mentioned, VLC still installs without surreptitiously adding any tool bars or unwanted search engines to your browser. It is donation-based software, so if you use it and like it, a donation is in order.

One of the new capabilities added to version 2 is the option to "skin" the application. This makes it appear more modern, but I find the traditional interface to be easier to use because of VLC's well-constructed menus that are combined with the typical batch of player transport buttons, and if the tool bar include functions you don't use, you can banish them.

Version 2 makes better use of system resources by moving high-definition video decoding away from the central processing unit and onto the graphics processing unit (GPU).

Besides being able to play media files that are stored on the computer, VLC also handles streaming audio and video. In most cases, these streams can even be recorded and stored in files on your computer.

There is no direct support for Blu-Ray discs, but Blu-Ray support is generally provided only by commercial players. Some procedures exist to add Blu-Ray capability to VLC, but the process is complex and errors can create substantial problems for the computer user. For now, if you need to play a Blu-Ray disc on your computer, spend the money needed to buy an application such as CyberLink Power DVD.

During video or audio playback, VLC offers a variety of settings so that what you see or hear can be fine tuned.

Fine-tuning applies to the overall application, too, because VLC provides default settings for the interface as well as for hotkeys, codecs, on-screen displays, video, and audio.

VLC is available in versions that run on Windows, Apple's OSX and IOS, many Linux distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, openSUSE, Gentoo, Fedora, Arch, Slackware, Mandriva, ALT, Red Hat Enterprise), various Unix variants (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, QNX), OS/2, and Android. A version that supports the Windows 8 Metro (Modern) interface is being developed. Support for Windows RT, Windows Phone, and the Xbox One are also in development.

You won't find a better or more complete media player than VLC.

VLC can handle just about any kind of media with no external codecs needed, provides great playback quality and stability, works with various Internet radio and TV services, and plays most disc formats. You may need another player for Blu-Ray discs, but VLC will handle all of your other media-player needs. And these days, a big plus involves the lack of crap-ware being installed with the player.

Additional details are available on the VLC website.

Here are some of the URLs you can plug in to listen to online radio stations:

WKSU (Kent State): http://www.wksu.org/listen/wksu3.pls

KUSC (University of Southern California): http://kuscstream.org/pls/kusc128.pls

WOSU (Ohio State University, Classical): http://streaming3.osu.edu:8010/listen.pls

WOSU (Ohio State University, News): http://streaming4.osu.edu:8000/listen.pls

WCBE (Columbus Board of Eduction, NPR): http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/wcbe.pls

WNYC (New York City, NPR): http://www.wnyc.org/stream/fm.pls

WQXR (New York City: http://www.wqxr.org/stream/wqxr/mp3.pls

KCRW (Santa Monica, NPR): http://www.kcrw.com/pls/kcrwsimulcast.pls

WAMU (American Universtiy): http://wamu.org/streams/live/1/live.pls

WBEZ (Chicago, NPR): http://wbez.ic.llnwd.net/stream/wbez_91_5_fm.pls

WYSO (Yellow Springs, NPR): http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wyso/ppr/wyso.pls

WBAI (New York City, Pacifica): http://stream.wbai.org/64kmp3stereo.pls

Radio Australia (Jazz): http://abc.net.au/res/streaming/audio/aac/abc_jazz.pls

Deep Mix (Moscow): http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=3665

Russian Radio (New York City): http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=42081

BBC Radio 1 (Popular): http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r1_aaclca.pls

BBC Radio 2 (Adult Contemporary - AOR): http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r2_aaclca.pls

BBC Radio 3 (Classical & Opera): http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r3_aaclca.pls

BBC Radio 4 (Misc: News, Drama, Comedy, etc): http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4_aaclca.pls

BBC Radio 6 (Dance, Jazz, etc): http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r6_aaclca.pls

BBC World Service - Internet Schedule (News): http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/meta/live/mp3/eneuk.pls

BBC World Service - English News Channel (News, International): http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/meta/live/mp3/ennws.pls

Voice of Russia (English): http://engserver.streamr.ru:8020/eng.m3u

Radio Ireland 1: http://www.listenlive.eu/rte1.m3u

Radio Australia (News): http://abc.net.au/res/streaming/audio/mp3/news_radio.pls

Data Crooks Who Raided Target Were Nothing Special

A report by security firm McAfee says that the techniques used by the people who broke in to Target's point-of-sale devices and siphoned off tens of millions of customer records in late November and early December used only common, well-known techniques. Target's Chief Information Officer, Beth Jacob, resigned and Target says that it has started a full review of security.

One question that comes to mind is why a company as large as Target would promote a marketing employee to oversee security. Jacob joined Target in 1984 as an assistant buyer and served as director of Target's guest contact centers before being promoted to vice president in 2006 and in 2008 she was named Executive Vice President for Technology Services and CIO.

Target plans to replace Jacob with someone from outside the company, perhaps someone with a data security background, and to change the CIO role to be that of "chief information security officer".

What McAfee Says

McAfee says that the break-in, previously characterized as one that used highly sophisticated techniques was more along the line of "Breach 101" because it used standard malware that's commonly available for sale to "script kiddies". The thieves then used routine techniques to place the malware on Target's checkout registers.

The malware the thieves used, BlackPOS, is available on the Internet. It would have been customized to work with Target's systems, but McAfee's report says the malware is "an 'off-the-shelf' exploit kit for sale that can easily be modified and redistributed with little programming skill or knowledge of malware functionality."

Astonishingly, says McAfee, the crooks didn't even bother to encrypt either the code that told the malware where to send stolen data or the card information itself. Everything was transmitted in plain text, so although the break-in might have gone unnoticed, the data leak should have been about as obvious as a fire in the lobby.

McAfee's Manager of Threat Intelligence Service, Jim Walter, said that everything is there "in black and white." He characterized the attack as being "unimpressive and unremarkable." Target was unaware of the break-in until federal authorities told them about it. To continue the fire-in-the-lobby analogy, this would be like receiving a call from the fire department advising you that your building is burning and that you might want to evacuate the customers.

McAfee, which is now owned by chip maker Intel is not involved in the investigation of the break-in, but as a security software company, it has an interest in learning more about the exploit. The McAfee report says that it obtained information about the attack from various agencies.

Target Chief Financial Officer John Mulligan has continued to describe the attack as being highly sophisticated, including when he testified at a Senate committee hearing. That's the exact opposite of what the McAfee report depicts as being nothing out of the ordinary.

The Nexus 7 at Six Months

A few months ago, I bought a Nexus 7 tablet. Later, because I don't have a smart phone, I added a NetZero Wi-Fi hotspot to provide cellular access when I'm not within range of either the home or office Wi-Fi service. Even with SurfEasy running, I try to avoid using public Wi-Fi hot-spots for secure operations and the NetZero hotspot provides that functionality.

How's it going, you might ask.

Monday I spent nearly 2 hours waiting for my annual eye exam. Part of that wait time was my early arrival (by 30 minutes), but the rest was the result of numerous people being off because of illness. Since it was the first weekday of Daylight Saving Time, maybe some of them had a bout of acute timeitis.

Instead of being bored, I used the tablet and the Wi-Fi hotspot to read and respond to e-mail and to send an instant message to my wife about the delay; and I read several chapters of a book. These activities were more productive (e-mail) and more satisfying (the book) than reading whatever magazines might have been lying around the waiting room.

The tablet has become my preferred device for reading books because readers such as Aldiko work with most formats and the various proprietary readers (such as those from Amazon and Barnes or Noble) make books that contain digital-rights-management code available.

Beyond that, though, the tablet communicates with my online calendar, task manager, and Microsoft's One Note. Reading and responding to e-mail is easy with the K-9 mail reader. I've installed a couple of solitaire games. At any given time, I have 20 or 30 books that I can choose from, along with a dictionary and thesaurus. The tablet is a camera (granted, the images are noisy, but any camera is better than no camera when something pops up and you want to record it). Adobe Revel allows me to modify and improve any images I capture or to view any images that I've made available from my desktop computer at home.

Firefox and Chrome browsers both run on the Nexus.

If I want to go somewhere, both Google Maps and Google Earth are available, Waze provides turn-by-turn directions and real-time information about road hazards, a GPS tool tells me where I am, and GasBuddy shows the latest known fuel prices. There's even a scanner radio application that lets me listen it to the police in Columbus (or New York or Los Angeles), airport control towers, and more.

The versatility of the tablet itself is remarkable because of its built-in Wi-Fi connectivity, but the cellular Wi-Fi access point (AP) adds an entire new layer of usability. At $15 per month, the NetZero AP costs a third of the least expensive smart-phone data plan. Because I'm on a pay-as-you-go T-Mobile cellular plan that costs me about $5 per month, the $15 data plan from NetZero is more than acceptable.

Short Circuits

As Predicted, Amazon Prime Price Increases 25%

The extra-cost program offers to provide no-extra-cost 2-day shipping (not "free" 2-day shipping as they like to spin it) will increase from $80 per year to $100 per year. That's a 25% increase.

If you're interested and you want to save $20, it appears that you can still obtain a year's worth of service for $80, at least according to Amazon's website. That may be an oversight and, in any case, it probably won't continue for very long now that the decision has been announced.

Is Amazon Prime worth $100 per year or even $80? For the first several years it was available, I thought that it wasn't. Then, last June, I needed something quickly and the no-extra-cost 2-day shipping was available if I would accept a trial membership. I had done that before, too, but canceled within 30 days. This time, I kept the membership.

The 2-day shipping has been handy in many cases, so at $80 renewal was pretty much guaranteed. But 25% more?

In Amazon's defense, the price has been the same for 9 years and when Prime was introduced only a million or so items were eligible. Now that number is 20 million and the Instant Video feature gives me access to some 40 thousand movies and TV episodes.

Those who have Kindle reading devices can borrow one book at a time from a selection of 500,000 books. If you use the Kindle reader on a PC or tablet, you're out of luck. Borrowed books from have no due date and they can be read on other Kindle devices registered to your Amazon account, but not on any other devices.

Do I use $8 worth of no-extra-cost 2-day shipping every month? Most months, I probably don't; but some months the service more than pays for itself. On average, it seems to be an acceptable deal for me, particularly considering at least the occasional use of an Amazon video and the rumored advent of a streaming music service.

I can ponder that decision for a few months, though, because my expiration date is in early June.

Google Goes After Cloud Storage Business

Just a few weeks ago, I described the various online storage options. At the time, Google Drive was the best value for free storage, providing 15GB without charge. Now the company has trimmed prices for additional storage and it's clear that Google wants to win this competition.

In February (Storing Your Important Files in Public Places) I wrote that users could rent an additional 100MB of space for $5 per month. Now Google has reduced that to just $2 per month, or $10 per terabyte. Originally Google offered 5GB for free, but later tripled that.

Director of Product Management, Scott Johnston, explains it this way on Google's blog: "Having launched Google Drive just two years ago, we’re excited that so many people are now using it as their go-to place for keeping all their files. Whether it's all the footage of your kids' baseball games, the novel you're working on, or even just your grocery list for the week, we all have files that are too important to lose. Today, thanks to a number of recent infrastructure improvements, we’re able to make it more affordable for you to keep everything safe and easy to reach on any device, from anywhere."

The cost of online storage is low enough, and enough space is available for free, that not investigating your options just seems silly.

It's a few days late, but ...