One of the best things about using XBMC as my chosen media center software is the community behind it that develops plugins and software to make it easier to integrate throughout my household.

Getting your music and video library cleaned up so that all of the tags look nice can be a very time consuming project. There are plenty of apps out there that try to lookup the tag information online, but they don't always work that well. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and do the work manually.

If you're trying to figure out why a video won't play on your machine it might help if you knew exactly what format you were dealing with. For example, if you're watching a video but can't hear any audio it may have to do with the format the audio was encoded in (OGG, MP3, AC3, DTS, AAC, etc…) [...]

Have a movie quote in your head, but can't remember what it's from? Most people turn to Google to find that kind of information, and for the most part you can find the source without too much trouble. What if you wanted to find the exact second the quote appeared in the movie so that you could actually play it back though? For that you might be better off using a site like Subzin.

Over the last few years I've written about several video converters, but I always felt that none of them offered the simplicity that they I know they should.

Have you ever tried to open a file just to find out that you don't have something installed that is able to handle it? That's where the Universal File Viewer comes in. This free portable app is able to open most filetypes, and prevents you from having to hunt down the right app for the job. It supports most text, images, videos, documents, and many more.

I take all kinds of videos from cameras that save the movies to a single file that is difficult to share with people who aren't overly comfortable using a computer. When that happens I try to burn the videos to a DVD that they can watch it using any standalone DVD player, but this can be quite a pain depending on the original format of the video.

Coming across some free software is nice, but what's even nicer is finding an app that you typically have to pay for that's available at no cost for a limited time. Do you like the sound of that? If so you may want to check out the currently free (until the end of October) WinX DVD Ripper Platinum that is being given away compliments of Techweenies.

I've been using Windows 7 Media Center as my dedicated media hub for the last few weeks, and it's been a nice upgrade from Vista Media Center. Some improvements include support for up to 4 tuners for each type (QAM, ATSC, etc...), a lot of interface improvements, and HD support to name a few. It can even play AVI/DivX files natively without needing any add-ons.

One of the things that is always hard about downloading from the BitTorrent network is trying to figure out what's legit and what's not. A lot of times I rely on the comments from other people to tell me whether the content is what it should be, or whether someone is trying to play a cruel trick.

Yesterday Google announced that Gmail users can start both audio and video conversations from within the web-based mail interface. Naturally that got a lot of people excited because you don't need to download any third-party program to get it running. You do, however, have to install a plugin on your computer though.

The weekend is here, and I'm sure you're wondering how you can burn through hours and hours of your precious time by doing nothing productive. Like always, we've got you covered. Go download the free Phun program, and let your imagination run wild.

BBC recently posted a video titled "Britain seen from the skies above" and while it was fascinating simply to watch, to think about it really gave us a new perspective on privacy. It's a real short clip, about a minute, so take a look and you'll see what we mean:

We like to think of a service called Qik as "live YouTube." It's a video service that allows users to stream live video feed from their mobile phones to the web. Qik launched a private alpha release not too long ago and people like Kevin Rose and Robert Scoble have really helped to create some buzz about it.

The Improv Everywhere group comes up with some really unique things to do. You might recall that earlier in the year they "froze" themselves in Grand Central Station located in New York. I'm still now sure how they managed to attract all of the participants, but in the end it definitely turned some heads.

The next 24 hours is going to be pure chaos for Apple fans, and the madness started early this morning when Apple released iTunes 7.7. That was then followed by the App Store launch, then a "leaked" iPhone 2.0 firmware, and more. It's madness I tell you.

Yesterday we announced the new Firefox extension that we launched called CyberSearch (our homepage for CyberSearch). It is based on the original version of AwesomeSearch (now called Searchery), and the reason I decided to create the extension was because I saw how it could make me more productive. Hopefully what I've come up with can be useful for you as well.

About a month ago Adobe released some of the first Beta apps from their Creative Suite 4 product line, and that included Dreamweaver CS4. The one app that was disappointingly missing was Photoshop CS4, which has left a lot of people wondering what's going on with it.

Compiz Fusion on Linux has definitely received a lot of attention because of their innovative thinking, and the latest thing to come out of their lab is a plugin called Stackswitch. To put it simply it is an application switcher, but it comes packed with pizzazz.

VLC is an incredibly popular cross-platform media player, and it's well known for supporting a wide variety of media types.