random neuron misfires

UPDATED: 2010-4-8 to include rotating video.

I’ve recently started creating some screencasting tutorials with my Linux laptop using recordMyDesktop and find myself having to convert the video to various other formats before I can share it with my Windows colleagues, or upload it to YouTube.

I’ve done some of this before for converting video for use on my BlackBerry over here and converting video for my iPod over here.

Here’s are the snippets all in one place (using mencoder, but you could also use ffmpeg). Hopefully these will be useful to others as well.

Some of the lines below are quite long; make sure you unwrap them all on one line when you run the one you need.

Enjoy!

This past weekend, I “upgraded” my Lenovo Thinkpad x61s laptop from XP Professional to Windows 7 Ultimate, in preparation for some new gadgets I’m planning on testing with it.

Anyone who knows me well enough, knows I’m definitely NOT a Windows fan, but I do have to use it for some of my proprietary peripherals, my hybrid GTD system, and for my day job. Everywhere else, I use Linux. This is the reason I carry two laptops with me when I travel: One running my favorite flavor of Linux + VMware Workstation for “regular” Windows work, and the ultra-portable for running “real” Windows for cases where a virtualized Windows instance just won’t work.

A lot has changed in Windows 7 from what I’m used to with Windows XP, and there are a lot of annoying quirks, but I’m trying to stick with it, and keep it installed, so I can use the 12″ notebook as my “primary” on-the-go machine for the short term, until my second Lenovo T61p shows up to replace my current one.

Because there are a lot of changed settings, and everything is buried everywhere on Windows 7, in a seemingly illogical fashion, I had to find a way to get to it all.

Windows lacks a lot of power, customization and flexibility that Linux has had for a decade, so I continue to use and support Linux. But there are ways to eek out some power in Windows, and in Windows 7 I found such an option, and it’s called “God Mode”. Here’s how you activate it: