Foxit PDF Reader

Download of the Moment

I don’t read many .PDF files, but when I do I don’t like having to launch Adobe Acrobat. It just feels bulky and I really never liked it. Luckily there is a free alternative in Foxit Reader out there.

Foxit Reader from Foxit Software is a free .PDF reader. It’s extremely small (just about 1.5MB), very fast and fully-featured. You can zoom, search, annotate and a whole lot more. While it doesn’t integrate with any browser like Adobe Acrobat, it’s still a whole lot faster and an over all better experience when reading .PDF files.

Download of the Moment: Foxit Reader

SPECIAL TIP: Don’t want to launch Foxit? Then use Google! If the .PDF file you want to read is on a public website, just copy and paste the URL into a Google Search. More than likely you’ll come up with the document with a “View as HTML” near the link. Just click it and it will load (with a Google generated heading) as a regular web page. This also works if you come across a .PDF file in a search.

Galleon for TiVo

Download of the Moment

One of the (very) few downsides of my switch to Linux was the fact that I couldn’t use TiVoToGo to backup my TiVo recordings for extra space and/or archiving. Sure, I could have used my browser, but that’s not very convenient. Luckily, I’ve found Galleon and it has closed that gap.

Galleon is a cross-platform, open source TiVo server to allow you to transfer your recordings to your Windows, Mac or Linux PC. But that’s not all. In addition to transfers, auto-transfers and transferring back to your TiVo(s), it has some applications that run right on your TiVo! Some of these apps include reading your e-mail and favorite RSS feeds, viewing current and weekly weather and traffic data, Shoutcast stations, and Podcasting, among other features. Needless to say, Galleon is much more feature-rich than the default TiVo applications. Of course, it also includes a GUI for setting everything up.

Overall, I have found no problems with the software and it works very well. If you’re an Ubuntu or other Linux user, I would suggest reading this thread on the official Galleon.tv forums, it helped me to get it up and running in a few minutes and it includes a nice start/stop/restart script.

Download of the Moment: Galleon

Democracy

Download of the Moment

Note: I would like to point out that Democracy will soon be renamed Miro.

Okay, I thought I’d get things rolling with a Download of the Moment.

The Download of the Moment is Democracy Player. Now, I’m a TiVo lover. I own a TiVo (dual tuner, 80 hour), and as such I rarely watch live TV. When I heard people call Democracy Player the “Tivo of Internet Video”, I had to try it. When I did, I instantly fell in love with it.

Democracy is the ultimate internet video viewer – and it’s completely open source! This nifty program does everything and is available across the major platforms (Windows, Linux and Mac). It can search YouTube, Yahoo! Video, DailyMotion and four other video sites. But that’s just the beginning. For starters, you don’t watch the video streaming (this is one of the only downfalls of the player – but the following makes up for it) but you download it. This way you can watch it whenever you want without having to load it – and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had odd YouTube slowdowns. You could pick to download twenty videos, walk off to get a drink or leave the house for a few minutes and come back and have all of them waiting to be played.

Searching and downloading aren’t the only features, obviously. There are also “Channel Guides”, which are basically RSS Feeds. Democracy Player acts as an aggregator for these and any other RSS video feeds. It then downloads these whenever they’re available (if you so choose) and they will be ready for you should you choose to leave it running in the background. Personally, I just start it up then let it run for about ten minutes to get the feeds.

In addition to the feeds, Democracy also acts as a torrent downloader for all your video torrent downloading needs.

Another great feature is that it’s based on VLC Player, an open source video player that plays just about any video file. If you have a video which you can’t play in Windows Media Player, for example, chances are high that it will play in Democracy (and VLC Player). Democracy also acts as a video library, which can watch any folders you choose which you store videos in and they will show up in the My Collection tab.

I must warn you, Democracy is still in beta and there are still bugs to be worked out, including freezing once in a while. Overall, though, it’s a very nice program and I highly recommend it.

Download of the Moment: Democracy Player