Archive for the 'Others' Category

One Sunday morning as I was out buying breakfast, I was walking behind a couple with their toddler. The toddler was being carried by the father. I thought she looked rather adorable.

All of a sudden, “pop” a little shoe fell right before me. The couple had not realised it. They kept on walking ahead. I picked up the shoe, ran after them and passed it to the embarrassed but amused couple. They thanked me and laughed. I can see that they adored their little girl. Such a happy moment in their lives…. being young parents to a sweet little girl.

It brings me back to a nostalgic moment in the not too distant past. My little girl is 8 now and my little boy is 6, long past toddlerhood but oh how I remember those “shoe dropping” moments. We certainly had our fair share of those! We even lost some lovely looking baby shoes that way because we only realised it when we got home.

Those shoes were nice to look at but poorly fitted. We would have benefited from watching the following video on how to fit girl’s shoes. I am sure other parents would too.

What about you? Have you had any unforgetable “shoe dropping” moments?

I managed to download YouTube videos on my PC for watching offline. However I hated the fact that I could only watch them one at a time on a special .flv or flash video compatible player. Sometimes the videos are as short as 5 minutes. It seems really silly to download and watch a 5 minute video offline.

I searched around for ways to merge the videos together and finally I found an application that not only allows me to merge but it also allows me to convert the video format at the same time. The best part is its free! Now I can piece together the YouTube videos that I like into one long video and watch them offline using my Windows Media Player (and not any specialised flash video player) whenever I am free without interruption ie without the video stalling and buffering every few seconds which is terribly annoying. It is all very well if you have a good and fast internet connection but a terrible waste of time when you have broadband but half the time it is slow as a snail.

This is what I use.  It is the Free AVI/MPEG/WMA/MP4/FLV Video Joiner from FreeAudioVideoSoft, a video joiner application which allows users to join more than one video file of different formats to one file of a specified format, including AVI, MPEG, MP4, FLV, WMV, FLV etc.  I tried to join a mp4 file and a flv file from YouTube but it didn’t work very well but joining flv videos together is a breeze. All I had to do is download the video joiner then add videos from the video files on my pc and merge them.

Then I can watch the flash video files one after another back to back. I can even join up to an hour full of 5 minute videos if I like.

Hope this was helpful. Happy Watching.

Related Posts:

1. How to download and watch YouTube videos on your pc

2. I managed to download mini YouTube clips, merge them and convert them into dvd format to watch on TV. Yeah!

I love YouTube but I do not love my browser experience. My internet connection is too slow. Sometimes when I try to watch YouTube videos I give up because it takes too long to buffer and play the videos.

Finally, I found the answer. I download the videos to my PC to watch offline. Downloading takes much less time then buffering. I do not know about the legal issues about downloading YouTube videos but common sense tells me that if it is for personal use and not copyright materials it should be fine.

Let me share my “secret”. I am using Cucusoft YouTube Mate free version. It is a downloader, player and converter. The free version only allows you to download and playback but not convert video files. Most YouTube video files are flash videos with the extension .flv so if you want to watch these videos offline, you will need a special .flv player. The thing I like best about this downloader and player is the fact that it allows you to download several files at one go saving a lot of time.

Right. So now I have downloaded the downloader and player, I have another problem. Most .flv videos are short around 5 to 10 minutes. I also cannot watch it on any other player on my pc, like the windows media player for example. My free version does not allow me to convert the video formats. So what next?

Stay tuned. In my next post, I will share with you how I merge and convert the videos so I can watch the flash videos one after another back to back.

Related Posts:

1. How to merge flash (.flv) videos and watch them one after another

2. I managed to download mini YouTube clips, merge them and convert them into dvd format to watch on TV. Yeah!

The Olympic Fever begins today on the 8th Day of the 8th Month of the year at 8:08:08pm. You know Chinese lah. Everything also must be auspicious.

I read from my kids McDonald’s newsletter that there are five mascots. They are…

1. A Fish named Bei Bei
2. A Panda named Jing Jing
3. The Olympic Flame Doll called Huan Huan
4. A Tibetan Antelope named Ying Ying
5. A Swallow named Ni Ni

Put them all together and they form the words “Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni” (Meaning Beijing Welcomes You). See? I know a little bit of Chinese. I’m not such a banana afterall.

Anyway, I am rather excited to see the opening ceremony tonight. I think the Olympic Games is a good opportunity to expose or teach the kids about the different countries of the world as well as the various types of sports. Unfortunately, I don’t have Astro, so I can only watch a delayed live transmission by RTM 1. What to do? Miser don’t want to pay. Have to watch delayed loh. Hopefully the transmission will be clear and we won’t miss anything.

For those who are interested to know more about the Olympic Mascots, you can check out this : Beijing 2008 Olympics: What are the meanings of the five mascots? Or you can simply enjoy the following YouTube video on The Mascots of the Olympic Games. The background music you hear in the video is a Chinese Folk song called “Mo Li Hua” or “Jasmine Flower”. My girl sings it in kindy. Very nice.

I’ve got something to confess today. I’m a lazy housewife. I guess this is nothing new to those who read my blog regularly. Hahaha.

My husband says I’m even worse than a lazy maid (and we know all about lazy maids, don’t we?).  Thats because I usually take a lot of shortcuts, like sweeping under the carpet or overlooking dirt on top of the carpet. Sometimes, I just use a tissue to pick up dirt whenever I see it, just to avoid wasting energy on massive cleanups when things accumulate beyond my control. I hate it when that happens. It makes me feel so overwhelmed!

I really need a new smart cleaning equipment like the hand or stick vacumn from Dirt Devil with AccuCharge Technology. I really need something that helps me save time and money and I can do this with AccuCharge Technology because it charges 2x faster than a regular vacumn using 70% less electricity.

This advanced technology makes AccuCharge the first Cordless Vacumns to be Energy Star  approved.

Now, the next thing I have to do is to sweetalk dear hubby into getting me such a clever cleaning product. Well, diamonds may be a girl’s best friend but I would say that a vacumn that helps to save energy, time and money while helping to clean up the house comes a close second or third. Lol.