If there is no Favicon for a webpage, Internet Explorer substitute it with the standard IE icon while Firefox 3.0.x merely display a “blank canvas”.

So, as a webmaster or blog owner, why don’t try to enrich its appearance with a dedicated web icon, like a branded logo to represent the site/blog?

Is it very technical or do you need special tools to create a Favicon? As of today, create and add a Favicon is just simple.

How to create a Favicon for a blog / website?

1. Find an image, preferable a picture with equal pixel (e.g. same width and height) and the picture content is still visible after resize to 32×32 or 16×16 pixel (i.e. the size of Favicon that’s fit to appear in Address bar, Bookmark, Favorite, tab).
    
2. Ask Google Search to get a list of “Favicon maker” or “Favicon generator“. For example, you may use one of these online Favicon makers to automatically resize and generate a Favicon from the picture you’ve selected in previous step:
   • FaviconR.com
   • Favicon.co.uk
      
3. Download the generated Favicon to local hard disk and proceed to add the Favicon to a blog/website.

How to add a Favicon to a blog / website?

Now, upload the Favicon you’ve generated from online Favicon maker to the root directory of blog/website, i.e. the directory where the index file usually exists (e.g. index.php, index.html, index.htm, etc).

For WordPress powered blog, the blog root directory is where you extract the WordPress core files, i.e. the directory where you see index.php, wp-config.phg, etc.

Now, the Favicon should have been automatically picked up by Internet Explorer when you force IE to reload the blog (by pressing CTRL+F5 hotkey).

Some other web browsers, however, might not automatically retrieve the Favicon in root directory. Thus, you need to refer the following template code:

<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="http://www.walkernews.net/favicon.ico"/>

Update the red color text with the URL of your Favicon, copy the updated template code and insert it to HTML source file, right before the <head/>.

Again, for WordPress powered blog, you should only update the header.php source file by inserting the template code just before the <head/> tag, e.g.:

<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="http://www.YOUR_OWN_URL/favicon.ico"/>
<head/>

That’s all you’ve to do with Favicon of a blog/website. Is it easy?

Embedded image/video VS Inline image/video

In brief, “embedded image/video” present an URL or HTML link to the media file that might invoke a download process for the target file, a new browser window to display the media file, or invoke a third party program (non-browser application) to open the media file.

Then, “inline image/video” means web browser understand how to open and display the media file inside the same browser window, in line of the text surrounding it.

How to embed Windows Media Video/WMV file in HTML code and stream the video content inline on a webpage?

Windows Media Video/WMV file sample:
http://walkernewsdownload.googlepages.com/HP-iPaq-614.wmv

Embedded WMV file:

The code:

<a href="http://walkernewsdownload.googlepages.com/HP-iPaq-614.wmv">HP iPAQ Business Navigator</a>

The result:
HP iPAQ Business Navigator

Inline WMV file:

The sample of code:

<object classid="clsid:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95" width="480" height="360" codebase="http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/MediaPlayer/">
<param name="Filename" value="http://walkernewsdownload.googlepages.com/HP-iPaq-614.wmv">
<param name="AutoStart" value="true">
<param name="ShowControls" value="true">
<param name="BufferingTime" value="2">
<param name="ShowStatusBar" value="true">
<param name="AutoSize" value="true">
<param name="InvokeURLs" value="false">
<embed src="http://walkernewsdownload.googlepages.com/HP-iPaq-614.wmv" type="application/x-mplayer2" autostart="1" enabled="1" showstatusbar="1" showdisplay="1" showcontrols="1" pluginspage="http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/MediaPlayer/" CODEBASE="http://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/mplayer/en/nsmp2inf.cab#Version=6,0,0,0" width="480" height="360"></embed>
</object>

The result of the sample code:

Note: You might need to download and install Windows Media Player plugin/add-on to play inline Windows Media Player files.

1. Select Show hidden files and folders
2. Deselect Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)

Once you’ve turn on these two options, you will see the hidden files with their icons appear with a lighter color in Windows Explorer, e.g. the $Recycle.bin hidden system folder:

Turn on Windows Explorer option to view Windows Vista hidden system files

However, there is another camp of people (me too), who occasionally would like to download YouTube videos and save them to mobile hard disk or the latest 8GB USB thumb drive.

The reasons? Well, as for me, those are for my mom and dad who are too old and reluctant to learn something about computer! You might want to download them for safekeeping, backup, playback on media server at home, saving the metered broadband usage at home, etc.

OK. For whatever reasons, how could you direct download YouTube video clips (or from any other video hosting sites)?

1) Native way - retrieve video clips from a Web browser cache folder

This native method works for most video hosting sites, as long as you know where is the web browser cache folder that used to temporarily keeping web page contents (including picture, MIDI, MP3, FLV, SWF, etc).

Firefox cache folder:

Type the following Firefox URI in the Address bar, press ENTER, and look for the Cache Directory: path of Disk Cache Device:

about:cache

Vista-IE7 cache folder:

By default installation, you could find the IE7 super-hidden cache folder in Windows Vista at this folder path:

%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.ie5

Note: You might need to enable “view hidden files/folders” option in Windows to locate all sub-folders or the browser cache folder itself.

For example, you could find YouTube video clips that finish playback in web browser leaving the cached video files with file name similar to get_video, get_video[1], get_video[2], etc.

Save all these cached file to another folder and rename them with a flash video file extension (i.e. FLV, e.g. get_video to be renamed as video1.flv) and you’re ready to play the YouTube video offline or convert them to other video format as you like.

For more detail, you may refer to Where Is IE7 Cache Folder, Retrieve Flash Movie In IE7 Cache Folder Of Windows Vista, How to save flash video from Firefox cache folder.

2) Techie way - retrieve the hidden YouTube video direct download link

This method is only applicable to YouTube video and it’s working at this time of writing.

It’s not really user-friendly but it’s good enough for those who wonder how YouTube Downloader extracts the YouTube video direct download link.

For the detail of this method, please refer to YouTube Video Direct Download Link

3) Easier way - retrieve the YouTube video download link with YouTube Downloader

There are many YouTube downloader freeware that you could easily find one or two from Google search.

If you’re not serious about downloading YouTube video (to be frank, watching YouTube video online is more fun because of the interactive features), I’ve my friend developed this simple one-click YouTube downloader.

Enter YouTube video URL here and click Submit button

And click your YouTube Video direct download link at here:

Strictly speaking, it’s not a perfect downloader. For example, sometime it’s not working without hard forcing web browser to refresh (i.e. pressing CTRL+F5 hotkey). And, it doesn’t download the video. Indeed, it merely presents the YouTube video direct download link that described in previous method.

(Bear with my poor video demo skill, I’ll try to make it better as time goes, hopefully!)

And with the Nokia Software Updater (a.k.a. NSU), you don’t have to update the firmware at authorised service centre. Indeed, NSU allows Nokia phone users to easily upgrade the phone firmware in a simple click-next-continue graphical user interface, at your own pace!

How difficult is to upgrade Nokia phone firmware with Nokia Software Updater?

Don’t worry, there is no complexity! All you need is a Windows PC (Windows XP/Vista) with broadband Internet connection and USB-2.0 interface port for NSU to function (at optimized state):

1. Make a backup of phone data (contact, email, SMS, picture, to-do-list, etc):
   • To backup to your memory card:
     1. Select Tools > Memory from the main menu
     2. Select Options > Backup phone mem.
   • To restore data to phone memory:
     1. Select Tools > Memory from the main menu
     2. Select Options > Restore from card
   • For complete phone data backup, please consider the latest Nokia PC Suite (another great value added freeware)
2. Charge the battery to full
3. Run NSU and follow the instructions. There are only three major steps to go through.

As shown here, I’ve just upgraded the N73 firmware version 4.0812.4.2.1 for my NSeries, which includes Mobile TV application (to use with external SU-33W receiver), Express Mail clients, improved Nokia Maps software and better Java support. (Personally, I notice the battery last longer now, even if I’ve forgotten to properly close the open applications / games).

Nokia Software Updater or NSU is a useful value added freeware used to upgrade Nokia phone firmware to latest release. NSU version 1.4.49 is compatible with Windows Vista.

So, what are you waiting for? Download Nokia Software Updater and do it now! If you’re not convinced, take few minutes to vet through the useful NSU FAQ or leave a comment.

Trust me; it’s a not complicated process. The NSU on-screen instructions are easy to understand and simple to follow.

Now, you should back to it, the Nokia Video Manager is rock!

If not because of upgrading N73 firmware to latest version 4.0812.4.2.1, probably I won’t give Nokia PC Suite another try and so won’t realize how wonderful is the latest Nokia Video Manager.

Nokia Video Manager v1.7.0 supports NSeries and many other smart phone models than the v1.1 released last year.

Although it’s not as powerful as Xilisoft Video Converter, this Nokia freeware can automatically convert supported video file to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (.mp4) video format in suitable screen resolution and bit-rates that is highly compatible to playback on Nokia phone.

Currently, NVM v1.7.0 supports video conversion for high quality mp4 movie from MOV/QT (QuickTime movie file format), WMV (Windows Media Video), AVI, and MPEG video file format.

Nokia Video Manager is a value added software used to convert video file to high definition mp4 movie for playback on selected Nokia smart phone models.

There is no explicit menu option to direct convert movie into MP4 format. The conversion starts automatically for those supported video file formats (e.g. MOV/QT, AVI, MPEG, and WMV). The converted video in MP4 format can be found in the user home directory, in “Videos\Nokia Video Manager” folder:

%userprofile%\videos\"Nokia Video Manager"

As shown in these screenshots, the 700MB AVI file format of a horrible action movie “The Condemned” was successfully converted to H.264/MP4 format with 320×240 playback resolution and AAC 48KHz stereo audio.

I believe that latest N73 firmware v4.0812.4.2.1 worth some credits, because there is no “Operation failed! Not enough memory!” kind of error message when playing the 252MB video file!

Besides, the video playback is incredible slick, even in some heavy action footages! I kinda like it!

One final note, I suggest you to download latest Nokia PC Suite 7.0.7.0 that bundle Nokia Video Manager v1.7.0 (this is what I used to convert movie for my ageing N73).