file conversion

When you're faced with an unfamiliar file format and just want to hear that track, watch that vid, or read that e-book now, you may have your work cut out for you. There are plenty of file converters out there, but they require download, installation, updates, and an understanding of how they work. Online Convert aims to clear away all those requirements and make it easy to shift files from one type to another. Here's how to use it:

The first time I heard someone say "Everybody has a book in them," I recommended that they see a doctor right away.

At least that explains all those books I've read that appear to have traveled through the author's colon. Writing can be painful, but there are limits.

Lots of people have unpublished novels and other book-length documents sitting forlornly on their hard drive, waiting and waiting for an audience. If your magnum opus (or even half-pint opus) is a Word document that's ready for the world to fall in love with, give the free … Read more

Apple has filed a patent application detailing a better process for encoding and transmitting data over Bluetooth.

The patent application, uncovered by AppleInsider, was refiled back in February as a continuation of a December 2008 patent application and shows Apple's continued commitment to get the best performance from its mobile, battery-powered devices.

"Data Format Conversion for Electronic Devices" seeks to improve your iDevice's battery by simplifying the data conversion process that occurs when sending information to other devices via Bluetooth connections.

Data sent over a Bluetooth connection must be compressed due to limited transmission capacity of … Read more

Even if you don't own an iPod, it can be easy to get sucked into the AAC trap. It's the default format used by the popular iTunes Software to rip CDs, and the program will prompt you to convert WMAs to AACs upon initial use if you have the Windows format living in your music folder. That's not to say AAC--or WMA, for that matter--is a bad format to use; in fact, some users prefer it to MP3. Plus, more and more portable devices are adding AAC support. However, MP3 is still the most widely supported file … Read more

Power Downloader tries his best to help all, but recently his friend Francois Foto approached him with a tricky problem: is there a way to easily convert photos from one format to another? ''Ze emphasees,'' said Francois, ''eez on easy.'' Power had a simple solution, a freeware program called XnView.

XnView is a robust program, an image browser and viewer as well as a converter. For conversions, though, it can handle more than 400 formats from Camera RAW, JPG, GIF, TIFF, and other still image formats all the way through AVI, MOV, MPEG, and a multitude of movie formats. Metadata … Read more

Some programs are more trouble than they're worth.

I'm a big fan of the PDF file format. It lets you share files with people using almost any type of computer without worrying about whether they have the right program installed to view it, or whether it will look to them the way it looks to you.

The problem is Adobe Systems' Acrobat, which is simply more software than I need to meet my meager PDF requirements. (It's also more annoying than any two Office apps combined.)

The fact is, you can create, convert, and edit PDF files … Read more

Recently an associate whose PC lacked Adobe Acrobat sent me a Word file via e-mail, asking if I could convert it to PDF and e-mail it back to her. Since the process took all of about 30 seconds, I was delighted to help. Then the next day she sent two more files in need of conversion to PDF, and a couple of days after than another. After her fourth request of the week I felt compelled to tell her about two ways she could have converted the files herself for free: Adobe's own Create Adobe PDF Online free trial, … Read more

I'm always on the lookout for simple ways to manage video on the Web. One of them, called Mux has been getting some buzz lately for taking advantage of both Amazon's EC2 and S3 Web services to store data and do the crunching at the same time. Mux uses the two services together to serves as a video ripper and converter, letting you grab videos off a small handful of popular sites and save them locally or send them to your mobile phone. It'll also take any file on your computer and convert it without the need … Read more

If you're away from your home computer and need to open a file on a foreign computer that doesn't have the program installed, there are a few options. For one, Gmail converts several file types so they can be viewed right in the browser, including PDF, PowerPoint, and Microsoft Office documents. However, it's not nearly as helpful for music files, as its only able to make a few listenable. Enter Koolwire, a simple no-frills service that converts several popular file formats under 10MB through e-mail.

Besides taking any Word, PowerPoint, or Excel document and turning it into … Read more