That’s when I stumbled upon GOM Player. This player offers quite a number of features that, quite frankly, I don’t understand as a video newbie. Supported formats include DAT, MPEG, DivX, XviD, WMV, ASF, AVI, and MOV, as are common codecs like FLV1, AC3, OGG, MP4, and H263, which is exactly what I was seeking in a video player.

One nice feature is the ability to customize the settings on the control panel. Here you can adjust a video’s image brightness, hue, and
saturation. Because changes occur as the video runs, you need to tweak the settings after clicking “play.” There’s also a built-in screen-capture feature that includes zooming and panning, customizable themes, hot keys, and a host of preset and adjustable audio controls.

GOM is weakest when you’re looking for help documentation and trying to tweak the settings. And, it’s PC-compatible only.

Start watching videos on your computer here.

Color Detector is a free program that lets you detect the color of any pixel on the screen. Simply run the program, point the mouse cursor anywhere on the screen, and the color detector window will display the RGB values, HTML hex code, and the color name of the color of the pixel pointed to by the mouse cursor.  You can use the F6 or F7 keys to copy the RGB or hex codes to the clipboard, where you can copy them into whatever image program you’re using to try and match the colors.  Unfortunately for Mac users, it’s a Windows-only application.

Start matching your web colors here.

Artisteer is the only software program I’ve discovered that instantly creates web site templates, WordPress templates, as well as Blogger, Joomla, and Drupal templates.  There’s no need to learn Photoshop, CSS, or HTML.  You can design your entire site in Artisteer and export it to the type of site you desire.

What I really love about Artisteer is the flexibility of the program.  You can easily change your site’s colors or customize the colors and change one aspect (what the navigation buttons look like, for example) with one click of the mouse.  I’ve found it truly revolutionary and easy to use.

The downsides? I haven’t found the header design portion of the program very robust.  I actually use a separate header design program and then import my header into the Artisteer theme.  And, if you want to make any structural or color changes to your theme, you need to save your original theme as an Artisteer file, go back into the program and make your changes, export a second copy of your theme using a slightly different name, and then import the new theme into WordPress.  I suppose you could also create these kinds of changes by changing the CSS files, but that’s beyond my technical abilities.

There are two versions of the program.  The least expensive version, the Home and Academic Edition, limits your file exports to HTML, Blogger and WordPress templates, while the more expensive Standard Edition offers other export options and more graphic options from which to choose.

Start designing your blogsite today.

Then I found TubeMogul. TubeMogul is a free service that lets you upload a video once and easily deploy it to one or all of the top video and social networking sites. They currently submit to 26 different sites. You can track real-time viewership, performance and engagement analytics with InPlay.

You must create a TubeMogul account and then create accounts at the sites where you want TubeMogul to submit your video. Please go to each video site and read the kinds of videos that they accept. You may discover that your target market doesn’t hang out there (high percentage of male viewers and low percentage of female viewers wouldn’t be a good match for you if your business targets women as customers) or that it’s primarily a children or family video site (not really appropriate for business how-to-videos).

If you want to access more features, you can inquire about their paid services. And, to help you refine your video distribution and promotion, they offer free weekly classes at TubeMogul University.

Let the world know about your video here.

Hamster Video Converter is different from most video converters due to its simplicity and lack of complicated settings. After you install the software, you see an attractive interface that presents the basic three steps you have to go through in order to complete converting your videos: load files, edit settings and convert. It offers a drag and drop interface, and has a Wizard for beginners. It couldn’t get much simpler than that, could it?

The software converts any video to run on iPod, iPad, iPhone, PS3, PSP, Blackberry, xBox, Zune, Apple TV, iRiver, etc.  It converts to 3GP, MP3, MP4, AVI, MPG, WMV, MPEG, FLV, HD, DVD, M2TS and others, and has an integrated video player as well.

Hamster differs from most software in that it is not ad-supported.  However, in the download process, you’ll want to choose the Custom download to prevent Bing toolbars and information being downloaded to your computer.

Start to convert your videos here.

Bluehost is a cPanel hosting service (this is the administrative interface that lets you control many aspects of your hosting account) that offers customers the option of hosting an unlimited number of domains. While the additional domains are set up in a fashion that was somewhat foreign to me, the tutorials provided helped me easily understand their organizational system.

Bluehost also offers:

• Unlimited GB Hosting Space
• Unlimited GB File Transfer
• Unlimited E-mail Accounts
• Free Site Builder w/ templates
• 99.9% Network Uptime Guarantee

I like to use its 1-click Scripts feature, which lets you easily install open source programs like WordPress, Joomla, ZenCart, phpBB, and more. I’ve only used the WordPress option at this point, but the install occurred flawlessly and the new WP update that was recently issued was updated to all of my installs of WP without a problem.

My other favorite feature is the Unlimited FTP option, which is essentially an FTP program built into your Bluehost account to enable you to easily upload new files to any of your domains. I love it because I don’t have to open another program and fumble around for FTP info. All I have to do is log into my Bluehost account and it’s ready and waiting for me there.

They’ve just added a Postini spam filter option to email accounts. This is a service I use with another account at another company, and is does an amazing job of preventing spam from hitting my inbox.

Set up your web site hosting here.

Now there is.  WP Twin clones your ENTIRE blog in seconds,so you can move it to anywhere you want, back it up, or set up other identical blogs that you can then use for other purposes. No longer do you have to configure all the settings of a new blog. Now you can just clone a blog that’s already been configured just how you like it and have it ready to go in minutes!

Having this kind of cloning software makes you more accident-proof. Before you install a new theme on an existing blog, add a new plugin, or try editing something, you can create a clone in seconds. Now if you do break something, nothing is lost. You just deploy the clone and return to your original installation.

If you’re transferring the blog to a new domain or new server, you can do it in seconds – and completely take your whole blog with you. I’ve tried to do this manually with WordPress in the past, and I found it almost impossible. Now you can do it in about 2 minutes.

WP Twin clones:

• Plugins (and their configurations)
• Comments (if you have any)
• Pages & Posts (as well as the content in them)
• Tags & CategoriesPermalink structures & privacy settings
• Themes (including active themes and inactive ones!)
• Affiliate links & links of any kindFooter and header information
• EVERYTHING!

It is compatible with any version of WordPress; you can use it on as many blogs as you like; and it is compatible with PC, Mac, and smartphone systems.

Create your blog clones here.

The site is Lynda.com. Lynda.com believes in life-long learning and that technology should be accessible to everyone. I’ve watched them grow from offering a handful of tutorials to now offering 870 online training programs ranging from office applications to graphic design programs to video editing programs to database design, which is just a small sampling of the variety of
software training programs that they offer. Programs are offered at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, and you can sample portions of most of them before you decide to buy.

They offer a number of membership plans beginning at $25/month to access all of the training you can handle — 53,000 tutorials in all.  They are constantly updating their selection, and they choose top-notch instructors with a passion for their subject matter.

Start improving your software skills here.

To help you better track your time, try  timerSync.  It lets you track your time and submit automatically to FreshBooks™ for invoicing.

timerSync is fast, simple to use, and small, as it sits in your system tray and is ready work for you with just a click. Start a task, time it to the second and sync with FreshBooks for easy and accurate client invoicing. With just one glance you can determine what time has been billed out and what time remains to be invoiced to your clients. Because it sits in your system try, you can submit time entries directly from your desktop without opening any browser windows.

My favorite feature is the one that reminds me to turn off timerSync and to submit to Freshbooks. Simply turn on the optional reminder feature, and timerSync makes sure you never go over. It also reminds you to submit your time to FreshBooks – you’ll never shortchange yourself again! Best of all, if you get up and walk away from your desk. timerSync automatically stops tracking time when your screensaver activates.

timersync is compatible with Windows Vista, XP and 2000. You can try timersync with a 30-day free trial, and then you’ll have to pay for a license to use it beyond the trial period.

Start tracking your time here.

Then I found Instant Teleseminar.  This service offers the ability for 250 participants to listen to the call live on a phone line, and 2000 participants to listen from an  online webcast, which has about a 10-second delay behind the phonecast.  The webcast participants incur no long distance charge for the call, which makes it ideal for international callers.

Other features include:

• Unlimited use — use as often as you want, whenever you want.
• 100+ customizable web-page templates – customize your event in 3  minutes!
• Web event-page publishing at the push of a button
• Question submission form for easy Q&A from your listeners

One of my favorite features is the ability to configure an event and a replay page, which you can use on its own, or embedded into a page on your own site. If you use their event page, you can send out that URL to your participants, where they can get the bridge line number, report back to listen to the webcast, or pick up a handout or a special offer that you’ve linked to on the event or replay page. You can also record a custom greeting and customize the event page with your logo or picture.

The most useful feature, however, is the fact that the service provides a primary recording and two backup recordings. One of the backups records everything between the beginning and ending time of the event in case of a problem with the primary recording. I’ve only had to use this once, and was very glad I had access to the backup. They have recently added the ability to show a Powerpoint presentation during an event, and the system records the PPT and the audio, so participants listening to the call at a later time can see both.

The only downside I’ve discovered to this system is that you can’t use it on the fly. For it to work properly, you have to schedule all calls/events. So, for quick calls with my team or with a client, I’ll use a free service, and for scheduled teleconferences, I use Instant Teleseminar.

You can access all of the features of Instant Teleseminar for a $1, $21 day trial. If you choose to keep the service, monthly packages begin at $67/month.

Create your web events here.