YouTube to Your Desktop/Device

A friend at one of my schools asked me, because I'm a geek, whether I knew how to download videos from YouTube and then strip the video to be left with an mp3. At the time, I did not, but I flexed my Google-fu and figured it out in pretty short order. It was easy enough that I thought I'd share it with you all.

These instructions are for Mac-based downloading and stripping but the PC version is similarly straight forward so it should be easily adaptable.

1. Find the video you want to download on YouTube or other video sites (I've not tested it on Vimeo or other spots though so YMMV).
2. Copy the URL and paste it into the box at VideoDownloadX (warning, I got two pop ups on the page). Change the suffix on the to be downloaded file to flv (very important).
3. Download the appropriate application for your OS on Vixy. They do have an online converter but I wasn't able to get it to digest my paste URL properly.
4. Once you have the Vixy.net Converter Desktop application, open it up and browse to the downloaded flv file (you did remember to change the suffix, right?). Load it in, select the end product you want (mp4 for iPhone/Touch, mov for desktop or mp3 for just audio) and let it rip. You should end up with a clean file.
5. Import into iTunes or your player of choice and enjoy.

I tested this process out with a sweet video of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones song Kinder Words and it worked like a charm. Great song and a pretty good video too.

Note, in doing this you are almost certainly stepping across the ethical DRM divide with the exception possibly being live performances. So, do this at your own risk.

Today's WTF? Fail

I'm trying to give a trial run to Parallels for the Mac to see if it can resolve some problems at one of my schools (well, actually the problem occurs at all of them).

I registered my info and got ready to download the demo program when I was faced with this rather stupid roadblock error message. The astute observer will notice that there is no field to enter in a phone number therefore this error page is a complete FAIL.

Did You Help Set a New World Record?

I did. And I tried to get as many others to download FireFox on Download Day as I could. The end result is: Mozilla Sets New Guinness World Record with 8,002,530 Firefox 3 Downloads in a 24 hour period.

And FireFox 3 rocks it! If you're still using Internet Explorer, go give FF3 a try and see if you don't love it too.

If you did download it on Download Day then don't forget to go and get yourself a personalized FireFox 3 Download Day certificate! Mine has been framed and has a spotlight in the main hall of my art gallery (no, not really).

[Added: Here's a neat tutorial of the updated Address Bar and all the cool stuff it can do.]

FireFox 3: Help Set a Record

The latest and greatest browser has been updated and released into the wilds. Today is Firefox 3 Download Day 2008 and the developers are trying to set a 24 hour downloading record.

Right now its been downloaded more than 3 million times worldwide. Do your part and download it today, you know you're going to do it eventually, why not do it today and take part in setting a new Guinness World Record?

My only concern is that my awesome steampunk theme, OldFactory Black, will not work in FF3, yet. I think I can live without it for a little while.

Head on over and get a copy before 11:16 am tomorrow morning pacific time and grab your little part of history in the making!

[Update: More than 8 million downloads in 24 hours! Well done, everyone. Including you 846 intrepid downloaders from Mongolia!]