Linux Multimedia Hacks: Tips & Tools for Taming Images, Audio, and Video

Linux Multimedia Hacks: Tips & Tools for Taming Images, Audio, and Video Overview

The fact that Linux has more multimedia application choices than Mac OS X and Windows combined may come as a surprise to many, but not to those who know Linux well. In Linux Multimedia Hacks, author Kyle Rankin showcases the best available multimedia tools so you can maximize the entertainment capabilities of your favorite OS. Included are tips and tricks for connecting to iPods, creating MP3s and Oggs, watching and making DVDs, turning your Linux box into a Tivo ala MythTV, and much more.

You don't have to be a Linux server guru to make use of this book. Linux Multimedia Hacks takes the best of Linux's multimedia tools and with step-by-step instructions shows even novice users how to do cool and useful things with images, audio, and video. It includes entry level hacks that nearly all Linux users will want, such as installing codecs for audio and video playback and managing thousands of photographs. Later, you'll find hacks that cover a variety of advanced projects, from ripping and organizing media files with metatags, to editing video and audio tracks, to creating your own DVDs. Basic or advanced, each hack stands on its own, so you can feel free to jump around to only the sections that interest you.

The book is divided into five easy-to-understand chapters:

• Images: tips range from basic image edits to automated image manipulation
• Audio: hacks include audio format conversion and tweaking metadata within audio files
• Video: learn how to covert between video formats, plus how to create your own VCDs and DVDs
• Broadcast Media: tips include how to access and create you own web broadcasts as well as watch and record TV
• Web: learn how to make your multimedia creations available to the world

As one of the most powerful multimedia platforms around, Linux has far more capabilities and features than meets the eye. This latest Hacks book gives you the technical chops to enjoy them all.

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VoIP Hacks: Tips & Tools for Internet Telephony

VoIP Hacks: Tips & Tools for Internet Telephony Overview

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is gaining a lot of attention these days, as more companies and individuals switch from standard telephone service to phone service via the Internet. The reason is simple: A single network to carry voice and data is easier to scale, maintain, and administer. As an added bonus, it's also cheaper, because VoIP is free of the endless government regulations and tariffs imposed upon phone companies.

VoIP is simply overflowing with hack potential, and VoIP Hacks is the practical guide from O'Reilly that presents these possibilities to you. It provides dozens of hands-on projects for building a VoIP network, showing you how to tweak and customize a multitude of exciting things to get the job done. Along the way, you'll also learn which standards and practices work best for your particular environment. Among the quick and clever solutions showcased in the book are those for:

• gauging VoIP readiness on an enterprise network
• using SIP, H.323, and other signaling specifications
• providing low-layer security in a VoIP environment
• employing IP hardphones, analog telephone adapters, and softPBX servers
• dealing with and avoiding the most common VoIP deployment mistakes

In reality, VoIP Hacks contains only a small subset of VoIP knowledge-enough to serve as an introduction to the world of VoIP and teach you how to use it to save money, be more productive, or just impress your friends. If you love to tinker and optimize, this is the one technology, and the one book, you must investigate.

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