Subler, Great App to Embed Subtitles in Quicktime. Mux MP4 Files. Open Source.

Hosted on Google Code, Subler (by Damiano Galassi) is an open source application for Mac OS X that enables you to mux .mp4 files. For those who don’t know mux (from multiplexing), it’s a device that selects one of many analog or digital input signals and forwards the selected input into a single line. (Wikipedia)

Basically, Mux allows the creation of tx3g subtitle tracks compatible with most every Apple product out there, not to mention full Quicktime compatibility. It’s got tagChimp support, you can play around with the iTunes metadata (you can even add metadata unavailable in other apps, such as the HD tag) and it supports the following formats: .h264, .264, .aac, .ac3 and .scc.

What’s so great about Subler is how easily it lets you edit stuff. Whether you need to add soft subtitles, remove audio tracks and cut chapters Subler is just perfect. Also, with this process you can avoid the conversion time of burning subtitles in the video with Quicktime or Perian: you can just use Subler to mux the .srt file.

Overall, Subler is the best solution to quickly embed subtitles in a Quicktime movie. And I think that’s a great achievement.


Virgin America Rejects Flash. “HTML Is Good Enough”

Link

“Start-up airline Virgin America has decided HTML is “good enough” for animating online content on its brand-new website, which went live Monday, dumping Flash.

Chief information officer (CTO) Ravi Simhambhatla told The Reg: “I don’t want to cater to one hardware or one software platform one way to another, and Flash eliminates iPhone users. This year is going to be the year of the mobile [for Virgin].”

See? It’s that easy.


Less Framework Enables Smart Website Resizing for Mobile Devices. HTML5-powered.

Link

Well, not just for mobile devices:

“Less Framework is a CSS framework for building flexible multi-column website layouts. It contains an eight-column grid optimized for a line-height of 24px, as well as a set of typography presets based on the golden ratio that fit into the grid’s vertical rhythm.

Less Framework layouts work perfectly in Chrome, Safari 3.0+, Firefox 3.0+ and Internet Explorer 7+. They collapse intelligently into a single column in legacy browsers and on small screens.

The best example of Less Framework in use is this very site. Try resizing your browser window or accessing this site with different devices, like your mobile phone.”

Excellent.



Quote Portal Winners Announced

Thanks everyone who entered the Quote Portal giveaway. Also, we’d like to thank the Decluttered Mind developers for the codes they gave to MacStories.

Here are the winners:

Yseult

Pham Duy Nguyen

Ethan G

carlomaru

Eduardo

Teryn

Marcus

Chris

Michael

Rossella

You’ll receive the code in your inbox in a matter of a few hours.

Cheers!


html5media Enables The HTML5 Video Tag In All Major Browsers

Earlier today I posted a tweet regarding this new project I found on Google Code, html5media. With only two lines of code in the <head> of your webpage html5media allows you to use the <video> tag in almost every browser by simply calling two .js files.

From the wiki page:

“The html5media script scans your page for video tags, and checks whether your browser is capable of playing the files they contain using a HTML5 media player. If the browser can play the contents of the video tags, then the script does nothing.

If your browser does not support HTML5 video, then the offending video tags are dynamically replaced with a Flowplayer instance, providing the same functionality as the original video tag.”

This makes me think how ridiculous is the debate on keeping the current Flash alive. There’s something better out there, even for you porn aficionados.


Alfred, Blazing Fast Quick Search

Quicksilver. LaunchBar. Google’s Quick Search Box. These are all applications designed to put instant information at your fingertips. For those having been on the Mac for a while now, you’re probably using Quicksilver - it’s really one of the first applications that brought this kind of instant power to us. Some users have moved on up to LaunchBar, which combines even more powerful features into a slim search box - it’s a power user’s dream. Then we have Google’s Quick Search Box, which is half quick search, half application launcher. All of these applications however, either offer too much or too little. Quicksilver has a confusing plugins pane and lots of features still need updating. LaunchBar offers features that the casual user won’t even touch. And Google’s Quick Search Box forces you to succumb to the Google singularity (and it’s not as fast).

However, today I’m going to show you the quick search solution for everyone. I’d like you to meet Alfred.

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Sneak Peek: Laterstars, the Faved Tweets Manager. 25 Invite Codes Up for Grabs.

Do you know what @Digeratii, @mosspuppet and @jackamick have in common? They share the highest ratio of favorited tweets in my account. I don’t know what’s wrong with those guys, I seriously can’t help but hitting the fave button on their tweets. Follow them on Twitter and you’ll find out why but remember - you heard it here first.

Anyway, it’s not like everyone on Twitter follows @Digeratii (though he once confessed he plans to surpass Ashton’s followers someday) and wants to hear about the adventures of his smart dog Kona; people seem to use the favorite feature as a way to save links for later. And I must admit it, I do it as well sometimes. Rather than emailing the tweet to myself, saving it to Read It Later or just retweet it, I can fave it (because I like it anyway) and open it later. Works good, it’s fast and it gives a little more information about you and the stuff you like.

Now, I think the Laterstars guys have been as smart as Kona in developing their web application. Laterstars is a self-updating container and organizer for the tweets you’ve faved, packed in a sexy and usable UI.

It’s in the closed beta stage, but we got 25 invites for you. Keep on reading.

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