Video player - just about any format

Different file types have different functions, focusing on fidelity, picture quality, compression, et al., but who really wants to clog up precious hard drive space by downloading a million different media players?

From Clipart Blog ...

That's where VideoLAN's open-source VLC media player comes in. It may not the most feature-packed or intuitive player, and without the user-made WinAMP-esque skins, it's not much to look at, but one thing's for sure, this scrappy little media player can play just about any format that you can throw at it. The list of files that this thing can handle goes on forever, including, among others, 3gp[6], ASF, AVI, FLV, MKV, MOV (QuickTime), MP4, NUT, Ogg, OGM, Wav, MPEG-2 (ES,PS,TS,PVA,MP3), AIFF, Raw audio, Raw DV, FLAC, 3ivx, Cinepak, DivX, DV, H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, HuffYUV, Indeo 3[7], MJPEG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, RealVideo[8] , WMV, and Xvid files. It can also play your DVDs and VCDs. Not all of the different OS versions of the software support all of the aforementioned file support, but considering that VLC supports 15 different operating systems (Mac, Windows, Linux, et al.), that shouldn't come as too large a shock.

VLC 8.6, introduced last Sunday, fixes a few bugs, and adds Windows Media Video 9 and Flash Video compatibility, among other things.
Found thanks to appscout

Just one more word on fonts

An interesting under-the-radar review by an expert - a little dated but many links still function, and helpful hints about "free" sites that have charges. I haven't seen any other sector that seems quite as bad for this sort of behaviour. font archives.

Crossover 6 Released for Mac & Linux

Just received from Crossover:
www.codeweavers.com

I am very happy to announce that we have shipped final versions of
CrossOver Mac 6.0 and CrossOver Linux 6.0.

Users of Intel based Mac systems can now seamlessly run many
Windows applications on their Mac without needing a Windows license.
Supported applications include Outlook, Visio, Project, Quicken, Steam based games
such as Half Life 2, and many more.

For Linux users, we have added support for Outlook 2003, World of Warcraft,
a range of Steam based games such as Half-Life 2, and a number of other
applications. Additionally, CrossOver 6 represents another major step
forward in the evolution of Wine, so most users will find substantial
improvements in the overall compatibility and behavior of CrossOver
as compared to version 5.

With the addition of games to our lineup, we felt that 'CrossOver Office'
was no longer an appropriate name, so we have also rebranded the Linux product
as 'CrossOver Linux'.

Lookalike fonts

Interesting for designers wanting a free font that is similar to a commercial one.

Which fonts look most like Helvetica? What's a good substitute if you can't find Staccato? Many times companies will produce their own versions of another font. Occasionally the names will be similar such as Lithos and Lithographic. But often the names are totally dissimilar as in Perpetua and Lapidary 333. This list will help you find many of these lookalike fonts, font aliases, clones, and close-match fonts. It's not a comprehensive list by any means, but it is a start and encompasses typefaces from many well-known sources including Monotype, Bitstream, Adobe, Corel, and Linotype AG.