Simply the best video player for Windows, VLC, just quit its long beta phase. This is official now, VLC v1.0.0 is available with a list of small improvements brought to an already impressive product that I can only recommend if you are using video (to read DVD, BluRay, HD-DVD discs; to stream videos from your computer; to convert your videos; and I sure forget some).

Apple is not only delivering sleek computer designs and nice little mobile phones. They are also producing a good web browser: Safari.

It’s new version, Safari 4, is just out. Faster, still as good and powerful, but Apple is now claiming the crown for the “fastest” web browser. It could well be possible when Snow Leopard OS-X becomes available later this year. Running natively as a 64-bit Mac application, it could gain 50% from today’s already powerful base of Safari 4.

Safari version 4

Safari 4 is available for Windows XP, Vista, or mac OS X 10.4.11 or newer.

you merely change the size of the Windows desktop and all your desktop icons are forcefully moved around against your will. After one or two of these, you’d be ready to cry, while backing up the position of the icons would be enough, before connecting a new screen, or attaching your laptop to a video-projector, etc.

Up to now, you could only cry and reposition the icons. But here comes DesktopOK. What can I say? It does exactly what you want and what you need: a mere backup, a simple restore and your icons come back where you wanted them.

Simple et necessary.

I’ve been using and recommending the Opera web browser for many years. It’s a kind of a Firefox where everything you need would be directly included rather than having to download extensions. And it’s fast too. For mobile applications (PDAs, mobile phones, etc.) Opera Mini is probably the best possible option and it is in a tight competition for the market leader position.

Now, Opera is launching a beta test version 10 of the browser. And it has amazingly interesting new features.

• Fast browsing on slow connections
• Tab browsing enhanced and flexible
• Speed dial from the empty new page
• Web mail integration
• Re-sizable search field
• Much faster web engine and impressively standards-compliant
• In-line spell checker (I use it a lot to support my blogging habits)
• Auto-update (better than merely asking you to check for updates)
• Mouse control

Even better, after testing it in alpha, I can tell you that it is quite stable. The beta version should stay that way and that is a good thing too.

You can download it here.

hanks to FreeGeekery, here are 101 Awesome Downloadable Fonts for Designers. I am sure that you will appreciate teh variety, the diversity and the quality of this archive.

SitePoint is giving away (for a limited time only) an excellent e-book about PhotoShop. It’s well worth the effort to donwload the PDF file.

SitePoint sensational Photoshop book is now FREE to Download!

Hollywood in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s created a long string of cheap horror movies that never reached the top rating lists. However, some of them, despite being left mostly abandonned by their authors, are worthy of some renewed attention. In this context, it is interesting to notice that the Internet Archive has recently pointed to a nice list of these B horror movies. In there, you will find (available for free download):

• Attack of the Giant Leeches
• Attack of the Killer Mushrooms
• Horrors of Spider Island
• Killers from Space
• Bloody Pit of Horror
• The Satanic Rites of Dracula
• Werewolf of Washington
• Killer Shrews
• The Giant Gila Monster

It is always a bit difficult to actually think about doing backups. Either you spend too much time thinking about it or you forget about it. For Windows, I found a nice free utility program: FileHamster from MOGware.

This small utility will allow you to automatically backup every single file you save or modify. FileHamster will create a full history track of your activity without even the need to think about it. It acts immediately (you don’t have to wait for a daily backup), and keeps everything. Of course, you need some free disk space, but it’s so much of a relief…

Download from CBS Movie information from IMDB.org

Star Trek nearly defined what a SciFi TV series is or should be. Of course, there is something slightly ridiculous to the coloured pajamas used by the actors to convince the spectator that they are in the far future with advanced technology. But despite all its drawbacks, Star Trek is still a must-see for all lovers of Science Fiction.

Starship Enterprise

Most people lost count of the number seasons aired for Star Trek (after the initial series, there were long-living extensions like Voyager, Enterprise, The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine) but CBS decided to offer free access to the first season on its web site: Star Trek: The original season. It was aired from September 8, 1966.

Synopsis

The story is set in the 23rd century. We follow the adventures of the crew of starship Enterprise under the lead of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), his First Officer Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy, his logic and his pointed ears), and his Chief Medical Officer Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley). Exploring deep space, they meet a number of aliens, exotic civilizations and various adventures.

Many will remember the memorable “Beam me up, Scotty!” used by Captain James T. Kirk to call a teleportation back to the spaceship.

If you have a nVidia graphics card on your PC, you can get a free download of recent games from Steam / Valve.

For a limited time, if you qualify (you only need your PC to hold a nVidia graphics card), you can donwload a free copy of the following games from Steam just by creating an account or having an account on Steam.

• Portal: First Slice (11 levels of this new innovative game from Valve)
• Half-Life 2: Deathmatch (networked FPS)
• Half-Life 2: Lost Coast (FPS technology demonstrator)
• Peggle Extreme (a relatively simple game inspired by old brick games)

Look! It’s a free offer for only half of the PC owners in the world.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky, the game prequel to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl (FPS PC game we appreciated a lot last year here at Roumazeilles.net) is now available for download at the Steam video game distribution web site of Valve. More, it will only be available there (no boxed DVD on the shelves).

It seems that this is proving the success of Steam as a distribution media (Valve did not limit it to its own games) and the efficiency of the channel (for the producers, it allows near immediate correction of bugs, removal of packaging-shipping, and coordinated distribution in all parts of the world; for the customers, it simplify the process and offers immediate pleasure – on the condition that you have a broadband connection).

When will Steam be considered as monopolistic?

Today, I want to present a major movie, one of the world best films, a diamond from 1950. Rash么mon is one of the most important movies of its time, and it stays as a golden nugget for both its form and its contents. Akira Kurosawa is clearly not any movie maker, he is the author of Yojimbo (the bodyguard) which was the source of For a fistful of dollars with Clint Eastwood as well as Last man standing with Bruce Willis (the least interesting of the three). He also created Seven Samurais which will be done again in a western adaptation universally known as The Magnificent Seven.

But Akira Kurosawa is not only a Japanese movie maker and director, he also was at the origin of a true revolution of 20th Century Japanese cinema. He introduced techniques and ideas coming from the Western world (like Hokusai had integrated the impressionnists’ painting in his works), and he brought to light an exceptional cinema where everything is worth keeping. Rash么mon is of that quality. One single story, told from different points of view, grows to the size of four different mixed stories. Each camera angle brings distinct tint and perception. The picture-goer will be drawn into the camera moves and will perceive how much there is no perfect point of view, how much a motion-picture (and its director) tells a unique story merely by placing a camera here instead of there.

But it is also the dramas of three people stuck in their environment, their culture, their prejudices and those of their contemporaries. You will be deeply moved, but there is not even a hint of cheap sentimentality.

And we will remember that Rash么mon was the reason for the creation of the Best foreign film category of the Academy Awards. A motion-picture that breaks so many cinema rules, and still stays attractive to the largest public, that it appeared necessary to Hollywood to open a new category just for it.

Synopsis

Toshir么 Mifune plays a bandit accused of the heinous murder of a man. But didn’t he rape his wife too? Four witnesses (including the bandit and his victim) will tell the single sequence of events. Each one will slightly transform it according to his memories and the personnal additions. Where is the truth? Are memories real?

After that, you will be able to come back to Pulp Fiction (a movie I simply loved) and perceive how difficult it is to reproduce the strength of Rash么mon.