All posts tagged: File

After years of fighting file formats, I switched to VLC and never looked back

After years of fighting file formats, I switched to VLC and never looked back

Published by Miika Tikkanen

One of the first apps I think to install on a new device is a video player, since the default one is usually subpar. But you rarely find an app that works smoothly across devices and ecosystems without glitches. Enter VLC. For over a decade, this has been my go-to video player. Whether I’m at my workstation, swiping on my smartphone on a flight, or using my tablet in bed, this is the only media player that works the same way every time. Related VLC is secretly the most powerful media tool on your PC — and you’ve barely scratched the surface Most people open VLC, hit play, and call it a day. Turns out, that’s barely scratching the surface. A video player app that works well across devices and ecosystems VLC handles everything you throw at it One of VLC’s biggest perks is its ability to play almost any video or music file, thanks to its legendary codec support. MP4, MKV, AVI, MOV, FLV, WebM, and even ancient formats you thought were lost to …

I ditched online file converters for a Docker container with 1,000+ formats

I ditched online file converters for a Docker container with 1,000+ formats

Published by Miika Tikkanen

For the longest time, I’d relied on online file converters for all those quick conversion needs. As someone working with various types of media, I found an additional tab in my web browser convenient. However, I wouldn’t rely on these sketchy file-conversion websites nowadays, knowing the serious privacy concerns they pose. At the same time, I like the idea of opening a new tab to convert a file. A Docker container I came across recently, namely ConvertX, solved this problem for good! Related I replaced Adobe Acrobat with a free open-source self-hosted app, and I’m not going back Does everything Acrobat does. Costs zero. Hosted on my server. ConvertX is twenty conversion engines in a trenchcoat One Docker container, absurd format coverage For starters, ConvertX is a completely free, self-hosted online file converter that you can set up using Docker. Now, unlike the typical online file converters you may have come across, ConvertX is capable of converting files between over a thousand file formats, including popular and lesser-known ones. The tool does it by combining …

Remembering Len Deighton: The Ipcress File author reveals how he wrote a best-seller

Remembering Len Deighton: The Ipcress File author reveals how he wrote a best-seller

Published by Daniella Wilson

Today, it was announced that British author Len Deighton has sadly passed away at the age of 97. Deighton was best known for his spy novels including The Ipcress File (1962), which was turned into a Bafta-winning film starring Michael Caine, before being remade as an ITV series in 2022 in which Peaky Blinders’ Joe Cole played the leading role. In this piece from the Radio Times archive, Deighton explains the writing process behind his 1987 novel SS-GB, which imagines a Nazi-occupied Britain. The novel was given the TV treatment by the BBC in 2017 in an adaptation starring Sam Riley and Kate Bosworth. Sometimes the trigger for a book comes all at once. That’s how it was for SS-GB. “No one knows what would have happened after 1940 if we had lost the war,” said my editor. It was about ten o’clock at night and we were sitting drinking (nothing stronger than coffee), talking about the research I’d carried out for my history books Fighter and Blitzkrieg. “To some extent, we do know,” I …

I was using File Explorer wrong all along

I was using File Explorer wrong all along

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Like most people, I’ve used File Explorer for years. And also, like most people, I thought I knew everything about it. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. File Explorer has a few tricks that go unnoticed. You can use search filters to improve how you find files, preview documents without opening them, and organize your most important files so they’re always easy to reach. Now that I’ve started exploring some of its lesser-known features, I’ve realized File Explorer is way better than most of us give it credit for. Search works better when you use filters Stop scrolling through an endless list I used to treat the File Explorer search bar like the one in any other app. Type the name of a file and folder, hit Enter, and hope for the right result to magically appear near the top. Most of the time, that never happens, which means scrolling through a wall of files and trying to visually spot what I need. But File Explorer’s search is much more powerful than it looks. …

Jewish Heirs File Suite Regarding Met’s Ownership of Pissarro Canvas

Jewish Heirs File Suite Regarding Met’s Ownership of Pissarro Canvas

Published by José Betancourt

A painting by Camille Pissarro in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is under renewed scrutiny over the circumstances of its sale by its former owner, the department store magnate and art collector Max Julius Braunthal. As reported by the New York Times, seven of Braunthal’s heirs have filed suit in a French court, alleging that the painting, Haystacks, Morning, Eragny (1899), was sold under duress in 1941. The Met maintains that Braunthal received fair market value for the work, which depicts several domed haystacks in a verdant, tree-filled meadow in Eragny, the village northwest of Paris where Pissarro lived from 1884 until his death in 1903. Source link

This Windows File Explorer replacement is everything that I need

This Windows File Explorer replacement is everything that I need

Published by Miika Tikkanen

I have been a Windows user for as long as I can remember. For the most part, I used the default Microsoft apps. They are safe and reliable, and since they come from Microsoft, there is less chance of my data being compromised. However, as I dived deep into the world of technology, I understood that they are a bit boring. The default File Explorer is the perfect example. It does the job, for sure, but I believe that it hasn’t received as many upgrades as it should have. I wanted something modern and something that could adapt to how I use my computer today. Enter Files, an open-source file manager that completely replaced File Explorer on my laptop. After using it for a few months, I can officially say I am never going back. Files is the perfect blend of modern and classic It feels like someone gave File Explorer a much-needed upgrade The best thing about the Files app, apart from it being free, is its design. It tries and successfully gels with …

The Rank and File Of Satan’s Kingdom

The Rank and File Of Satan’s Kingdom

Published by Sam Flores

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.— Ephesians 6:12 By Rick Renner I realize that many people tend to think that screaming, yelling, screeching, stomping, and shouting are required to defeat the devil. However, these actions will accomplish nothing if those same people are not living a consecrated and holy life. It is simply a fact that if we have deliberately or by negligence allowed sinful strongholds to secretly remain in our lives, then we have left gaping holes through which Satan may continue to insert his schemes into our lives. Negligence in dealing with these secret places may give Satan the very loopholes he needs to orchestrate our defeat! This business of spiritual warfare is serious! We must do all we can to shut every door to our souls through which the devil might attempt to access our lives. Because this issue is so serious, we would do well to pay attention when the Bible …