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Play all of your favorite multimedia files and disks with VLC Media Player

Are you looking for a program to play optical disks (BD, DVD, CD) in Windows? Maybe you are feeling frustrated by having to have multiple media players to handle the various file formats you encounter? If so, you'll be happy to know there's a solution: VLC Media Player.

Play all of your favorite multimedia files and disks with VLC Media Player

VLC Media Player is a remarkable media player that can handle a wide range of formats, including MPEG-1/2, DivX® (1/2/3/4/5/6), MPEG-4 ASP, XviD, 3ivX D4, H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC, WMV 1/2/3, QuickTime, RealVideo, and many more. This gives you the flexibility to play just about any media file you come across without the hassle of switching between different players.

But that's not all: VLC Media Player is also highly versatile when it comes to operating systems. Whether you're using Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, iOS, or Android, there is a version of VLC Media Player for your device. This means you can enjoy your media files on your preferred platform without worrying about compatibility issues.

You can also change the appearance of the VLC Media Player by using skins. There are quite a few skins available for download, or you can create your own with the VLC Skin Editor. Note: Skins do not work on the Mac OS version of VLC.

Another great thing about VLC Media Player is that it's completely free. There are no annoying ads or in-app purchases, so that you can enjoy uninterrupted media playback. VLC Media Player is open-source and produced by the non-profit origination VideoLAN.

In summary, VLC Media Player is an excellent choice for anyone looking for a media player that's both versatile and easy to use. For more information on the VLC Media Player, follow the link below.

VLC Media Player

What file system should you use for your external drive?

With the three top operating systems, it is hard to know exactly what file system your operating system will work with. One file system may be fully compatible (read and write) with your OS, while another may not be compatible at all. So here is a list of the various file systems and what operating systems they work with.

What file system should you use for your external drive?

Windows operating system

  • FAT (File Allocation Table) (FAT12, FAT16, FAT32) - FAT was initially developed for floppy disks and was soon adapted to hard drives and other devices. With the limited file size (4GB for FAT32) and limited volume size (32TB for FAT32), and the ever-increasing size of drives, FAT is now used only for smaller USB drives.
  • exFAT (Extensible File Allocation Table) - exFAT was designed as a replacement for FAT and optimized for USB flash drives and SD cards.
  • NTFS (NT File System) - Microsoft introduced NTFS in Windows NT 3.1, and is now the default file system for Windows.
  • ReFS (Resilient File System) - ReFS was created to overcome some of the problems NTFS had with data storage. It appeared in Windows Server 2012, and support for it has been removed from Windows 10.

MAC operating system

  • HFS (Hierarchical File System) - HFS was the original file system for the Mac OS. Over the years, support for HFS has been cut back to read-only in newer Mac OS versions. Starting with Mac OS 10.15, support for HFS was removed.
  • HFS+ (Hierarchical File System Extended) - HFS+ was the replacement for the HFS file system as it supported larger file sizes. HFS+ is still supported in the Mac OS but is no longer the default file system.
  • APFS (Apple File System) - APFS is now the default file system for Mac OS, iOS, and iPadOS.

Linux operating system

  • EXT (Extended File System) - EXT was the first file system designed specifically for Linux. EXT had a file system limit of 2GB and was soon replaced.
  • EXT2 (Second Extended File System) - EXT2 replaced EXT as the default file system for Linux in the mid-'90s. Many versions of Linux still use EXT2 for the file system for USB flash drives.
  • EXT3 (Third Extended File System) - EXT3 replaced EXT2 as the default file system for Linux in the early '00s. One of the main advantages of EXT3 is its compatibility (forward and backward) with EXT2.
  • EXT4 (Fourth Extended File System) - EXT4 replaced EXT3 as the default file system for Linux in the late '00s. There are several advantages to EXT4, including larger volume and file sizes and backward compatibility with EXT2 and EXT3.

Compatibly Index

File System Operating System
FAT Windows (1) Linux (1) Mac OS (1)
exFAT Windows (1) Linux (3) Mac OS (1)
NTFS Windows (1) Linux (3) Mac OS (2)
ReFS Windows (3) Linux (3) Mac OS (3)
HFS Windows (3) Linux (3) Mac OS (3)
HFS+ Windows (3) Linux (3) Mac OS (1)
APFS Windows (3) Linux (3) Mac OS (1)
EXT Windows (3) Linux (3) Mac OS (3)
EXT2 Windows (3) Linux (1) Mac OS (3)
EXT3 Windows (3) Linux (1) Mac OS (3)
EXT4 Windows (3) Linux (1) Mac OS (3)
1. Full read and write compatibility by default.
2. Read only compatibility by default.
3. No compatibility by default.

Note: There is third-party software that can give full read and write access to file systems that are not compatible with an operating system by default.

Conclusion

So if you are looking for a file system for your external drive compatible with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS, look no further than FAT32. It has survived the test of time and is the only file system that can be used without additional software on all three operating systems.

Create stunning graphics and edit images for free with GIMP

Do you need to touch up some photos? Maybe create some cool looking graphics? Or convert some images to different formats? You can do all of this and more for free with GIMP.

The GIMP 2.6.11 user interface
The GIMP 2.6.11 user interface

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free open source image manipulation program. You can do simple tasks like rotating and cropping photos to creating graphics from scratch. You can even convert the format of files and save compressed versions with ZIP or GZ extensions.

A logo created with the one of the built-in scripts in GIMP
A logo created with one of the built-in scripts in GIMP

Some of the features I like are the effect filters and layers/channels. And the predefined scripts for buttons, logos, patterns, and web page themes are pretty cool. Also, GIMP runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. Here's a quote from the GIMP site:

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

Customizable Interface
Each task requires a different environment and GIMP allows you to customize the view and behavior the way you like it. Starting from the widget theme, allowing you to change colors, widget spacings and icon sizes to custom tool sets in the toolbox. The interface is modulized into so called docks, allowing you to stack them into tabs or keep them open in their own window. Pressing the tab key will toggle them hidden.

GIMP features a great fullscreen mode allowing you to not only preview your artwork but also do editing work while using the most of your screen estate.

Photo Enhancement
Numerous digital photo imperfections can be easily compensated for using GIMP. Fix perspective distortion caused by lens tilt simply choosing the corrective mode in the transform tools. Eliminate lens' barrel distortion and vignetting with a powerful filter but a simple interface. The included channel mixer gives you the flexibility and power to get your B/W photography stand out the way you need.

Digital Retouching
GIMP is ideal for advanced photo retouching techniques. Get rid of unneeded details using the clone tool, or touch up minor details easily with the new healing tool. With the perspective clone tool, it's not difficult to clone objects with perspective in mind just as easily as with the orthogonal clone.

Hardware Support
GIMP includes a very unique support for various input devices out of the box. Pressure and tilt sensitive tablets, but also a wide range of USB or MIDI controllers. You can bind often-used actions to device events such as rotating a USB wheel or moving a MIDI controller's slider. Change the size, angle or opacity of a brush while you paint, bind your favorite scripts to buttons. Speed up your workflow!

File Formats
The file format support ranges from the common likes of JPEG (JFIF), GIF, PNG, TIFF to special use formats such as the multi-resolution and multi-color-depth Windows icon files. The architecture allows to extend GIMP's format capabilities with a plug-in. You can find some rare format support in the GIMP plugin registry.

Thanks to the transparent virtual file system, it is possible to load and save files to from remote locations using protocols such as FTP, HTTP or even SMB (MS Windows shares) and SFTP/SSH.

To save disk space, any format can be saved with an archive extension such as ZIP, GZ or BZ2 and GIMP will transparently compress the file without you needing to do any extra steps.

For more information on GIMP, follow the links below:

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program

GIMP - Introduction

Streaming music from the cloud for free with Google Music

Updated November 20, 2020

Note: In October 2020, Google shut down the Google Play Music service and recommended users transfer their accounts to YouTube Music. All of the links in this article have been changed to YouTube Music.

Google recently introduced a new music service into its catalog of products called Google Music. With Google Music, you can store all of your music to your account on Google's servers and stream it back to your favorite device. Google Music gives you space for 20,000 songs, which roughly comes out to around 100 gigabytes of storage for free!

My library on the Google Music website
My library on the Google Music website

You can access your music from any browser with an internet connection, or you can use the Google Music Android app. There are two ways of getting songs into Google Music. You can download free music or purchase music from the Android Market. Or you can use the Music Manager program from Google to download / upload music to / from your computer. A few of the cool features are Auto Playlists (any song you have Thumbs up'd), Instant Mixes (a quick mix of 25 songs), and Playlists. And with free / purchased music, you can share a listen with your circles on Google+.

The Google Music Manager interface
The Google Music Manager interface

Music Manager is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. There is one restriction on types of music files; only MP3 format is allowed to be uploaded. And you will need to have the latest version of Flash for the Google Music website. Here's a quote from the website:

Google Music stores all of your music online so that you can save space on your computers and mobile devices and easily access your collection from anywhere you want to listen.

Use Google Music to browse and search your library, easily create playlists, rate your favorite songs, edit song information, and more. Since your music collection is online, you don’t need to worry about syncing these changes across your devices.

Storage

  • Android Market purchases - Free and purchased music is automatically saved to your Google Music library and does not count towards your storage limit.
  • Your personal collection - You can add up to 20,000 songs to Google Music from your PC, Mac, or Linux computer, free of charge. All you need to do is download a simple desktop application called Music Manager to the computer where you keep your music. Music Manager can upload your iTunes and Windows Media Player library, playlists, playcounts, ratings, and more.

For more information on Google Music, follow the links below:

YouTube Music

Run another operating system on your Windows computer with Oracle VirtualBox

Updated November 6, 2022

Have you ever wanted to try another operating system but did not want to have to erase your drive to do it? Maybe you have an app that will not work on the latest version of Windows? If so, then Oracle VirtualBox may be just what you are looking for.

Three different versions of Windows running in VirtualBoxes
Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows 11 running inside of VirtualBoxes

VirtualBox is a virtualization program that allows you to run an operating system (OS) in a Virtual Machine (VM) environment. VMs emulate the most common hardware found in modern computers, including Trusted Platform Module (TPM) ver. 1.2 and 2 (Windows 11 requires TPM v2).

One of my favorite things is to try out different operating systems, like other versions of Linux, including Android-x86 and Wubuntu. I have used VMs for many years now to do just that and have found VirtualBox to be the one I use the most often.

Another thing I use VMs for is running legacy software on older operating systems. I have several programs that will only run on Windows XP, so I have a dedicated Windows XP VM just for these programs.

And you can configure a VM so it appears as a separate computer on your network. You can even map shared network folders and print to network printers. You can even have multiple monitors too.

A Windows 11 virtual machine using dual monitors
Windows 11 with dual monitors running inside of a VirtualBox

Creating a new VM is relatively simple, give it a name, select the operating system being installed, and the location of the installation media. You will need to know what amount of memory and disk space the operating system you are installing requires.

When it comes to creating a VM for another OS, it is the same as if you were installing the OS on physical hardware. If the OS you are installing requires a product key, like Windows, you will need it. Usually, when it comes to Windows, you can only use retail product keys, not Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) product keys.

VirtualBox currently runs on Windows 8.1 through Windows 11, Windows Server 2012 through 2022, macOS 10.15 through 12, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, 20.04 LTS and 22.04, Debian GNU/Linux 10 (Buster) and 11 (Bullseye), Oracle Linux 7, 8 and 9, CentOS/Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, 8 and 9, Fedora 35 and 36, Gentoo Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 and 15, openSUSE Leap 15.3 and Oracle Solaris 11.4.

With its flexibility in configuration, multiple monitor support, and support for 64-bit virtual machines (only on 64-bit host operating systems), it's my choice for VM. And did I mention that it's free? For more information on Oracle VirtualBox, follow the link below:

Oracle VirtualBox

Free computer diagnostics

Repairing a PC can sometimes be expensive, and that is why we offer free basic in-shop diagnostics. Give one of our professional and experienced technicians a call at (602) 795-1111, and let's see what we can do for you.

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Geeks In Phoenix LLC, BBB Business Review

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Repairing a computer can be time-consuming. That is why we base our in-shop service on the time we work on your computer, not the time it takes for your computer to work! From running memory checking software to scanning for viruses, these are processes that can take some time.

Contact us

If you have any questions, please feel free to give us a call at (602) 795-1111  and talk with one of our Geeks. Or you can send us a message from our contact page contact page , and one of our Geeks will get back to you as soon as possible. Or you can stop by and see us. Here are our hours and location.

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