The Download Blog

Like audiobooks? Here's your chance to get two for free.

(Credit: Audible)

I'm a longtime fan of Audible, an audiobook-download service that lets you burn your own CDs and/or transfer books to portable devices (iPods, BlackBerrys, etc.).

The company has offered various free trials and promotions over the years, but this is the best one I've seen: Sign up for a 30-day trial of AudibleListener Gold and get two free audiobooks.

So here's how it works: You sign up for a new account (which does require a credit card), then download the Audible software (available for Windows and Mac, or as an iTunes add-on if you're doing the iPod/iPhone thing). You'll automatically receive two credits in your account, which you can use to download the books of your choice.

After the 30-day trial expires, you'll start getting billed $14.95 per month for your Gold membership, which entitles you to one audio credit, 30 percent off any additional purchases, and a free subscription to The New York Times or Wall Street Journal (the audio versions, natch).

If you routinely buy one audiobook every month, the Gold plan is pretty solid. For example, Jonathan Tropper's "This Is Where I Leave You" (a terrific read, by the way) costs $23.95 on iTunes. If you used your Audible credit, it'd effectively cost you $14.95. Already burned through your credit? Your membership price is $19.59--still cheaper than iTunes.

Of course, you can always cancel your account before the end of the trial, end up paying nothing, and walk away with your two free books.

But if you spend a lot of time in the car, on the train, or even on the biking/hiking/jogging trail, nothing beats a good book. Like I said, I'm a longtime Audible fan. It's a great resource for scoring audiobooks for less than you'd pay elsewhere.

(Credit: CNET)

A recent review of Corel Digital Studio 2010 got me close and personal with the consumer-oriented multimedia suite. Corel's studio excelled at providing a consistent, unified look, navigation, and toolset across its applications for editing photos and videos, making movies, burning content, and playing videos. It also copies photos, videos, and music to your mobile device, and can create photo projects like photo books and cards.

All good stuff, but it doesn't come cheap. Multimedia suites like this will put you out about $100. They're worth the price if you frequently use the tools, or if you vastly prefer the convenience and accessibility of a consumer-friendly setup. However, if you don't mind being scrappy, you can cobble together a spread of multimedia tools--your own "suite"--for next to nothing.

Edit and create

FastStone Image Viewer has quick-access editing tools.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Photo editing, video editing, and making movies are the three largest focal points of multimedia suites like Corel Digital Studio 2010 and Roxio Creator 2010 (unfortunately, no download trial is available for the latter). Google's Picasa is one of my favorite freeware tools for casual users, and one of the closest direct matches to what's offered in a multimedia suite. Its uses are multifarious: organizing your photos and videos into albums, editing images and videos, sharing online, creating projects like collages and movies, and ordering prints.

The image-editing tools are serviceable, with red-eye removal, one-click lighting fixes, cropping and straightening, and finer tools for addressing blemishes and lighting. There are also 12 effects, like sepia tones and soft focus. This contrasts with Picasa's low-grade video editor, which can at least rotate videos and trim them. The movie maker has many more controls, but is basic; it doesn't build in the polished templates of a premium program. Picasa does, however, offer to sell you prints from a choice of providers (choice is good), and can help create a collage.

For standalone photo editing, the freeware applications FastStone Image Viewer, IrfanView, Paint.NET, and GIMP range in features from the accessible to the powerful. Read more about them in this resource guide.

Vista and Windows 7 users can try out Microsft's new Windows Live Movie Maker (review), freeware that can slap photos and video clips into a new movie in seconds. Deeper controls let you tweak transitions, captions, and effects after the automation. Editing tools include splitting, trimming, and applying fade points. As a point of comparison, video editors in these consumer-focused multimedia suites are better-equipped, perhaps with audio-tuning tools and features to adjust video lighting.

Windows Live Movie Maker works on Vista and Windows 7 computers.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

Creating calendars and photo books are a DIY project within your reach if you have an excellent photo printer and a home bookbinding kit. Otherwise, you can spend your energy on the editing and captioning and get a project printed somewhere else. Retail shops, like FedEx Office in the U.S., will print projects. Online photo albums and services like Shutterfly, Snapfish, and Zazzle will also gladly accept your business. The 12-month calendars run from $15 to $20; large photo books are often in the mid-$30 range (online services often charge for shipping). Corel Digital Studio is similarly priced.

Today is the last day we will ever see the triple single-digit date repetition--and Apple sure is making a big deal about it. As I'm sure you've already heard, the company has announced a noticeably refreshed Apple iTunes along with updates to all of the iPods in its line. We have a cadre of editors and photographers at the show who will be bringing you a feast of photos, videos, and info throughout the day. In the meantime, you can see some up-close-and-personal shots of the new hardware and software below.

2009 Apple iPods--photos

iTunes 9 photos

(Credit: CNET)

Before I get to this week's apps, the folks over at Public Radio Exchange let me know there's a new version of Public Radio Tuner (which I've featured here before). Now called Public Radio Player, this new version has been redesigned from the ground up with a new interface, added station schedule information, and new On Demand radio shows you can stream. Past episodes of This American Life, Fresh Air, and many other popular public radio shows can now be streamed whenever you want to listen.

At the iTunes Store, I noticed a lot of the comments mention the new version of the app is much slower to load than Public Radio Tuner. Upon first loading the app, it locked up on the loading screen for me, but after a restart I experienced no problems whatsoever with loading the app, streams, or the on-demand features. Please let me know in the comments what your experience is. Fortunately, downloading the new app to your iPhone doesn't replace the old one, so if it doesn't work right now for you, you can always go back to Public Radio Tuner.

This week's apps include a new painting program and a great new game that refreshes some of the stand-up arcade classics of old.

Use the button in the lower left to access the layer screen

(Credit: CNET)

Layers ($4.99) is a touch-to-paint program that's a lot like Brushes, an app I've talked about before, but with a few more options. With Layers, you get eight different brush types, a color wheel, an eye-dropper (to select onscreen colors), an eraser that has its own transparency settings, and the ability to use layers like in Adobe Photoshop. The layer functionality and interface is truly impressive, with a 3D isometric view of your layers so you can tap to pick which layer you want to work on. You also can use a fill option to fill in specific layers with a chosen color.

When you're done with your painting, Layers offers a few options for how you can share your picture. You can send it to your photo library, save as a duplicate, e-mail as a flattened JPEG image, or even e-mail as a Photoshop (PSD) file so you can keep your layers intact when you transfer the painting to your desktop computer. As an added bonus, you can download the free Layers Replay Viewer (developer's site) for Mac OS X and watch a replay of your painting in a QuickTime movie. If you're an artist or just enjoy playing with colors to see what you can create, Layers offers the most options available for touch painting and what you can do once your done with your piece.

Earth Vs. Moon ($3.99) borrows from old arcade hits like Missile Command, Space Invaders, and Pong to make a new fun and challenging game on the iPhone. You start off by playing the Story mode, in which it is your job to defend Earth by tapping on the screen to fire rockets just ahead of incoming missiles. In these stages, you'll also be able to hit UFOs that heal portions of Earth damaged by missiles and fire at strange aliens that get dropped off by enemy spaceships. Every few levels, you get a chance to play other game types. In Moon Armada levels you'll have to fight an alien armada that looks a lot like Space Invaders, but you'll shoot the armada using your three Missile Command-like gun satellites. In Moon Ball Battle, you'll play Pong against a giant spaceship by redirecting the ball using rocket explosions from your satellites. In all there are 5 different game types to challenge you--most based on old-school classics--as you move up through levels

Sometimes losing is as fun as playing the game--these guys have a good sense of humor

(Credit: CNET)

Like any good arcade game, Earth Vs. Moon gets much harder as you progress. Fortunately you also can swipe the touchscreen to fire a barrage of rockets to hit more enemies (at the cost of ammo), or touch one of your gun satellites for a momentary shield (also costing ammo). As you complete more levels, you can unlock a couple of different game modes including a old-school "get the highest score" mode or you can play each of the variations of the game found in the story mode.

As I played Earth Vs. Moon, I couldn't help but think the touch screen is probably the best possible interface for a Missile Command type of game. Not even the original track ball can compare. In any case, with several game modes to mix up the gameplay, and an excellent touch-screen interface, this game should appeal to fans of the classic arcade games it emulates and new comers who like a unique and varied challenge.

What's your favorite iPhone app? Are you having problems with Public Radio Player? What do you think of Layers or Earth Vs. Moon? Let me know in the comments!

VideoLAN VLC's logo

VideoLAN's VLC media player, arguably the world's best media player, hit version 0.9.9 in early April. Three months and more than 78 million downloads later, VideoLAN has announced VLC 1.0.0, or "Goldeneye."

Your media will never be the same.

In fact, with VideoLAN's VLC media player for Windows, Mac, and Linux, it doesn't have to be. One of the amazing things about VLC is that it can play anything that you've ever even thought about playing. That random media format that one site in Ecuador requires--VLC likely plays it, while Windows Media, Apple QuickTime, etc. likely will not.

This is, in part, a natural result of VLC's open-source heritage. Licensed under the GNU General Public License, VLC attracts a diverse array of developers with disparate media interests. Those interests translate into a media player that really can play every obscure media format I've ever thrown at it. (And in my hunger for Arsenal videos, I've found many different video formats that Windows Media, Apple QuickTime, etc. didn't know what to do with.)

Here are a few of the features now available in VLC 1.0.0:

• Live recording
• Instant pausing and frame-by-frame support
• Finer speed controls
• New HD codecs (AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, Blu-ray Linear PCM, Real Video 3.0 and 4.0, ...)
• New formats (Raw Dirac, M2TS, ...) and major improvements in many formats
• New Dirac encoder and MP3 fixed-point encoder
• Video scaling in full screen
• RTSP Trickplay support
• Zipped file playback
• Customizable toolbars
• Easier encoding GUI in Qt interface
• Better integration in Gtk environments
• MTP devices on Linux
• AirTunes streaming

I regularly use VLC to transcode media files, including files I originally streamed from the Web:

VLC can transcode virtually any media file.

(Credit: Matt Asay)

If you don't have VLC, I encourage you to download it and give it a try. It really is an amazing media player, one that has far more tricks up its sleeve than the proprietary media player that came with your computer.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

TuneWiki is one of the most ambitious social music projects we've seen. It is part licensed lyrics spooler for your own songs and for streaming YouTube videos, and part network--you can see where else in the world other TuneWiki users are playing your track. What began as an Android app created for Google's Android Developer Challenge (and finished as one of 10 winners) grew into a Web site and is, as of Monday, a Windows Media Player plug-in.

TuneWiki for Windows Media Player has a few flubs and flaws, but on average, the lyrics and music maps add the utility and interest to make the free application a helpful addition to Windows Media Player.

Those familiar with TuneWiki's Web site will see the similarities right away. TuneWiki's interface reskins Windows Media Player's 'Now Playing' window. The top half of the screen displays either a music map of where else in the world songs are playing, a YouTube video, album art, or top songs nearby, depending on if you're playing a song from your library, watching a YouTube video through TuneWiki, or browsing the map.

The bottom half of the screen, below the ad space, is where you'll see the available lyrics stream, plus commands to translate into other languages, help TuneWiki resync the song, and expose the scroll bar for manual lyrics perusal.

The unskinned Windows Media Player playlist forms the right side bar unless you banish it. We suggest you don't--you may have a harder time queuing songs if you do.

(Credit: CNET/Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt)

TuneWiki has its share of rough edges. Some tools aren't immediately intuitive, like the resyncing button. Instead of clicking it to have the song resync itself, you click it, then click each line of the song as it plays to help TuneWiki time the lyrics more accurately. Unless you're an approved editor, your version of the time-synced lyrics will be stored locally, but may not make it into TuneWiki's larger database.

Also not obvious is the fact that only approved editors can edit existing lyrics. A text notice on the editor-only area would wipe away potential confusion and frustration. Anyone, however, can add lyrics to TuneWiki's wiki if there aren't any to begin with. (You can apply to be an editor at forums.tunewiki.com. TuneWiki currently tallies abut 1,500 editors.)

Some other issues we encountered were performance-based or preference-related. We'd like the size of the YouTube video to be adjustable, for instance. If the YouTube video stops, as it did once during testing, we want to refresh it without closing and reopening the app. When searching for songs, we'd like a more elegant display of the artist and album information returned in the results. TuneWiki's plug-in is good enough to use on its own, but in a few iterations from now, after a scrub-up, it should be even more promising.

Back at GSMA 2009, Adobe Systems announced that it would bring Flash Player 10 to a number of smartphones in 2010, and it looks like the company is making good on its promise.

In a Q2 audio press release, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen confirmed that Adobe will release a beta version of Flash Player 10 in October for a number of smartphone browsers, including Windows Mobile, Google Android, Palm WebOS, and Symbian. In addition, Narayen said ARM, Nvidia, Broadcom, Intel, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm are currently optimizing the player for their products.

Obviously, this is great news for smartphone owners, but one platform noticeably missing from the list is the iPhone OS. This doesn't rule out Flash support on iPhones in the future, however. In the past, Adobe executives have stated that it's coming but that Apple is operating on its own schedule.

In CNET News' Marguerite Reardon's original report on Flash Player 10 in February, Anup Murarka, director of technology strategy and partner development for Adobe, said, "We would love to see it on the iPhone, too. But it's Apple's decision on when and how they support any new technology. So we will continue to work on it."

While iPhone users will have to wait (why do I imagine some people pointing at iPhone users and doing this?), as well as BlackBerry owners, others can get a sneak peek of what's to come in October in the video below, in which Adobe shows off Flash Player 10 on Google Android.

(Source: TMONews)

After some hiccups in the development process, Sling has finally released SlingPlayer Mobile for the iPhone. The software works with your Slingbox at home, and lets you control and watch your satellite or cable box and DVR from your iPhone or iPod Touch.

All of the functionality found in previous SlingPlayer Mobile platforms is still intact. You'll have access to a menu bar that'll let you use a remote-like interface on-screen to control your box as well as switch sling devices and manage your favorite channels. What's new are a few gestures that'll allow you to scroll through your favorite channels as well as let you scroll up and down through channels.

SlingPlayer Mobile will work with new Slingbox and legacy devices, but Sling officially won't support the Sling Classic, AV, and Tuner models--that means that if you've got a problem with one of those devices, Sling won't be able to help you troubleshoot your issue.

Now here's the real bad news: SlingPlayer Mobile for the iPhone only works with a Wi-Fi connection, meaning you cannot use the 3G network to stream video. Also, we should note that SlingPlayer Mobile will probably perform better on your home network rather than a public Wi-Fi spot.

Performance wise, the software worked well. ... Read more