Safi Saad » Tips

Fan960 Calgary Flames Radio on your iPhone & iPod Touch

SS — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:12:51 +0000

With the 2009-2010 NHL season just around the corner, I thought I’d post a tip for all of you Calgary Flames fans out there who wish to listen to the Fan960 on their iPhones or iPod Touch.

Download and install FStream from the iTunes Application store on to your touch screen device of choice (iPhone/iPod Touch) – http://itunes.com/app/FStream
Once the app is installed, launch FStream and add the following address to your FStream “Favorites” – mms://a543.l8090152405.c80901.n.lm.akamaistream.net/D/543/80901/v0001/reflector:52405

You do not need to fill in the “Format” or “Bitrate” fields as they are populated automatically. That’s it! Now you can enjoy listening to Peter Maher blurt out “Yah Baby!” for just about every play.

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PWN! YouTube

SS — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:58:29 +0000

There are a lot of ways to save and download YouTube videos but this is by far the best implementation I’ve seen.

Courtesy of PWN! YouTube:

Step 1: View a video on YouTube (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5j4McFzies)

Step 2: In the URL location box, type pwn in front of youtube, and enter (e.g. http://www.pwnyoutube.com/watch?v=c5j4McFzies)

Step 3: Save out your video in either FLV or MP4.

Awesome stuff! Thanks to Leo Laporte for letting the Twitter world know about this.

::SS::

Storytlr

SS — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:31:22 +0000

Ever wanted to consolidate your web 2.0 social networks into one site? I just came across this service called Storytlr which does just that:

Import your web 2.0 life. Pick your sources and they will appear as a lifestream directly on your site. We currently support the following services: Delicious, Digg, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Last.FM, Qik, YouTube, and many more.

Sign-up is free. I’ll be setting one up at http://safi.storytlr.com so stay tuned!

::SS::

Media Options

SS — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:10:09 +0000

Courtesy of Lifehacker, here are a couple of top 5 lists:

-Five Best Media Center Applications

-Five Best Media Converters

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Hulu & Pandora outside the U.S.

SS — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 03:25:12 +0000

Like many, I was a big fan of Pandora before access outside of the United States was revoked due to apparent licensing constraints. I also wish Canada had a similar service to Hulu, a free online television station founded by NBC and News Corp, although I’m not sure why anyone would want to watch reruns of Little Mosque on the Prairie or The Border, but I digress.

After several failed attempts to access either service via proxy servers (such as Tor), I finally decided to try a VPN solution. Enter WiTopia’s PersonalVPN. For a very affordable $40 per year, these guys have done a wonderful job at simplifying the heck out of an OpenVPN installation, which provides the end-user with a secure connection to their servers. But more importantly (well, more so for this particular case), the user obtains a U.S. IP address, making your connection to Hulu and Pandora appear like a local one. Problem solved!

Furthermore, I use a program called PlayOn by MediaMall Technologies to stream Hulu (and YouTube & ESPN) to my Xbox 360. It is currently in public beta and free for 21 days. I’ve had no issues thus far, but please note that the PlayOn service has to be stopped prior to connecting to PersonalVPN, and then restarted, or else it just obtains your non-U.S. IP and spits a “content not available outside of the U.S.” error message. MediaMall has not made public when the final version will be released or at what cost, but I can’t imagine it will be more than $30.

I will be posting a few more Xbox 360 tips down the road, including how to stream HD content from your PC, including 1080p .MKV files. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: Hotspot Shield also works the same way and it’s free. So I’ll probably not renew my PersonalVPN subscription next year and just stick with the freebie.

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