A new search facility has recently been created by Google Labs. The facility is specifically targeted at computer programmers and enables them to search through an immense archive of freely available programming source code on the Internet. The facility has been named “Google Codesearch” and can be found at: Google Codesearch

Useful features:

• Results can be found by entering regular expressions as well as the usual freeform text. Regular Expressions are familiar to most experienced programmers and offer a very powerful mechanism for searching text.
• The results can be filtered by programming language; limiting the returned results to the preferred programming language.
• The search results provide a detailed snippet of the source code, along with a link to the original application code and a link to the license that the source code is released under (GPL license, MIT license, BSD license, etc.)All in all, Codesearch is a useful tool in any computer programmer’s arsenal. Saving time and making you more productive, enabling you to find existing code easily rather than spending time writing it from scratch.

MP3 Trim is a neat little (free) program for clipping mp3s down to size and length. There’s no installation as it runs straight from the executable, and you can add fade effects to make the trim less harsh. Great for small projects like maybe a music quiz, or to make sample clips for a garage band’s album?

Download MP3 Trim at MP3 Trim

Getting video to your PSP Portable music is old school. Ever since Apple added a video screen to its IPods, portable video is the craze. Arguably the best portable solution has to be the PSP. With a screen resolution of 320/240 (TV format) or 368×208 (widescreen), the PSP is unchallenged for portable solutions. The question is:Hhow best to get those video clips, or even entire movies to your PSP screen? Arguably the most versatile though easy to use solution is PSP Video9. PSP Video9 offers two simple steps for basic use.

First, convert, which allows selection of the original video-file (which can be any of multiple formats including VOB, AVI, MPEG, QuickTime and more). Select the filename as it will appear on the PSP, and the conversion quality. This last setting is important, as it defines a trade-off between high quality and low filesize. As such, choosing the correct resolution and bitrate is all important. As a rough guideline, if your PSP has firmware 2.00 or higher, AVC is the better choice, older firmware’s are bound to SP. Further, higher bitrates always produce bigger files. Luckily, Video9 supports an estimation in the ‘setup’ screen, which gives a good indication of the resulting filesize based on resolution settings and video-duration. With this, a correct setting can usually be found.

After the actual conversion, it is on to the second available step offered by PSP Video9: Copy. This step basically offers a rudimentary file-management system that automatically can detect your PSP when connected to your PC, and offers copy, remove, and playback facilities. So, that’s it. Two simple steps can get you to take your videos on the road, only limited by the free space on your PSP’s memory card. For advanced users, PSP Video9 offers quite some more facilities, making this tool the most obvious choice for both beginners and more advanced users.

For more video conversion software visit our Video Conversion section.

MySQL is advertised as the world’s most popular open source database, and is used by big names like Yahoo!, NASA and Reuters. Available on all major platforms, easy to install and administer, MySQL is ideal for small to medium companies looking for a high quality database system without the high price tag!

The latest stable version of MySQL (5.0) comes with all the features you’d expect from an enterprise grade database system (ACID compliance, views, triggers, stored procedures, full-text indexes, master-slave replication) whilst avoiding feeling bloated or awkward. Connectors are available for most major programming languages, giving you the freedom to choose which technology suits your project best. The software is available in two forms – a free ‘community edition’ and a paid-for ‘enterprise edition’. There’s very little difference between the two, other than the ‘enterprise’ edition comes with different levels of ‘enterprise grade’ support at the expense of some features (those which MySQL AB cannot absolutely certify and remove in the interest of stability.) MySQL AB also offers training and certification for their software, allowing both DBAs and employers alike to have confidence in the ability to run a stable and well maintained database.

Java is one of the most widely used Object oriented Programming language in the world. Java came into existence in 1991 when a team headed by James Gosling set out to create a language intended for interactive television. Java was initially called “Oak”, it was later named “Green” and finally it got the name “Java”.

Java had a host of features which made it unique in its early days. Features like Inheritance, Polymorphism, Encapsulation, and Platform Independence made very powerful. Java was originally intended for Embedded Systems but as the World Wide Web came into existence Java power became more apparent. With the onset of the Web, developers faced a big challenge. The web was accessible from all platforms like Mac(Apple), Linux, Windows(Microsoft) etc. So the developers needed a language which was platform independent. Java came to the Web developers aid offering “Write once, Run Anywhere” capabilities. Thus it became the Language preferred by most web developers.

Java has gone many changes from its original release in 1992. The latest version Java 7 has many new features supporting advanced animation, sound and video handling etc. Java Platform is divided in three Parts: Java SE(Standard Edition), Java EE(Enterprise Edition), Java ME(Micro Edition). The Standard Edition for Standalone Applications, The Enterprise Edition for Web Applications, The Micro Edition for Mobile Applications.

Though Java has a host of features it also has some shortcoming. Most important among them is the execution speed of Java applications which were very low compared to applications written in native languages like C and C++. This shortcoming was significantly reduced by the use of JIT (Just In Time) Compilers.

Java has been one of the most Successful programming languages in the world and with the arrival of Oracle by Java’s side, I thing the future of Java look very bright.

Jing is an easy-to-use screen capture application for both Windows and Mac. It can capture both images and video. Even better, it is as easy to copy the image as it is to save it to your hard drive or email it or blog it.

Jing can sit silently in your taskbar, or it can be an active icon at the top, bottom, or side of your computer screen. Click on that icon, and you can have your screen capture in seconds. If you are having an online conversation, pictures can be worth a thousand words.

One of the surprising aspects to this software is that the basic version is free. The paid Pro version includes greater video support, including recording from a webcam and instant posting to YouTube and Facebook. Once I started using it, I can’t do without it. It is that good.