Chase and Sam

Welcome to the Home Page of Chase Thompson and Sam Knowles. We're tech journalists, web designers and computer security consultants based in Birmingham Alabama. You can hear us weekly on WAPI 1070 AM in Birmingham (11:00 am) and also see us on TV (Thursday night, 9:55pm) hosting Tech Check on WBRC6 - the local Fox affiliate.

Freeware

Every week, you can find great downloads on this page. We feature freeware, open source software, and any high quality (and malware free) software download we can find. Regular show listeners like Uncle Monster and Tollie often contribute to this page.

Faith Today - Parenting Advice (Chase and Sam’s New Show)

Parenting is the focus of this week’s Faith Today. Panelist Gary Anders (a Father of 9) joins the guys as they talk about how to find joy in the often difficult calling of being a father or mother. Parenting tips are also offered, including tips on discipline, spending more time with your kids, and why it is so important to encourage other parents. Join in the fun as Sam describes the remarkable birth of his fourth child (on the side of a road, after a police chase), and David describes the time that his youngest had a dirty diaper that was spread from the top of the stairs to the bottom. This kind of stuff can’t be made up!

The show leads off with discussion of a Facebook app that transforms baby pictures into pictures of bacon. Join the fun, and subscribe to our iTunes audio or video podcast here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/faith-today-audio/id466334326

Faith Today - A New Video Show With Chase and Sam (This week: Where Was God In The Storms?)

This week’s Faith Today features a discussion with fire/rescue Michael Lombard about the April 27, 2011 and January 2012 tornadoes that ripped across Alabama. Why didn’t God prevent the storms and the suffering that came from them? Could He have even caused the storms? We also explore the issue of why God allows tragedy or suffering in our own lives, and how we can genuinely help people that are suffering. Please check it out, and share with your friends!

Faith Today

Alabama Tornadoes

While Tech Talk may one day make a reappearance, Chase and Sam are back now in a new video show called Faith Today.  Faith Today is a weekly show  that takes a look at the world around us through the lens of faith in Jesus; real people, real issues; a real faith for a real world.  Please check out the links below and give this week’s edition of Faith Today a watch. It would help us out a lot if you subscribed to our Youtube channel and give Faith Today a thumbs up. This week on Faith Today, we discuss the fact that the former Pope’s blood is being paraded around Mexico in an effort to ease drug violence (as well as some silly things that Evangelical Christians do). We also talk about Bible “verses” that aren’t really in the Bible, and even deal with some controversial sex related topics, and discuss how the Bible weighs in on each one.

Thanks for watching!

Faith2  - A brand new Christian Video show.

VLC Media Player, and other downloads from Uncle Monster

This week brings a gaggle of free media
players. The latest version of VLC and
several more small footprint players from
around the world.

[8~{} Uncle Monster
==============================

==

VLC media player 0.9.3

Home:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Download:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/VLC_media_player_d4674.html

VLC media player - the cross-platform media
player and streaming server

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia
player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1,
MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as
DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It
can also be used as a server to stream in unicast
or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
=================================

1by1 The Directory Player 1.65

Home:
http://mpesch3.de1.cc/1by1.html

Download:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4344.html

Tired of handling playlists?
1by1 is a small, fast and handy audio
player which is not only small: it provides
a smart and versatile environment to handle
your file collection and listen to your tracks
with no need for playlists or databases.

Features

* Directory Player: directly plays your folder contents
* Full Resume play: remembers last track and position
* Supported decoders: ACM (mp3), mpglib (mp2, mp3)
* Winamp input plugin support (ogg, wav, cd..)
* Gapless play · simple crossfading · Audio enhancer
* Folder tree file navigation · Directory finder: plays a whole drive
* File utils: copy, move, rename while play, delete, date change
* Cue sheet support · Playlist support · Favorites · Big title display
* Very small size · Low resource usage · portable
* Folder compare utility
=================================

XMPlay 3.4.2

http://www.un4seen.com/

http://support.xmplay.com/

XMPlay is an audio player, supporting the
OGG / MP3 / MP2 / MP1 / WMA / WAV /
CDA / MO3 / IT / XM / S3M / MTM / MOD /
UMX audio formats, and PLS / M3U / ASX /
WAX playlists. A load more formats are also
supported via plugins. When XMPlay was first
released in 1998, only the XM format was
supported, hence the name “XMPlay”.
=================================

AIMP v2.11

http://www.aimp.ru/index.php?do=static&page=player_en

http://www.aimp.ru/index.php?do=cat&category=aimp

# Good functionality and friendly user interface
# 18-sliders equalizer and build-in sound effects
Reverb, Flanger, Chorus, Pitch, Tempo, Echo, Speed
# 32-bit sound processing
for crystal clear sound
# Works with few playlists
Listern one, work with other
# Plug-Ins support
You can add new utils or extend already exists
and connect some winamp plugins: Input, Gen, DSP
# Autoshutdown manager
# Internet-Radio
Listern and Capture!

Also - check out Charles Thompson, a Birmingham Securities Lawyer

Internet TiVo, Network Help, Free Painting tool, cross platform Thesaurus / Dictionary

This week brings some really good free
software. One is a free Internet TV app
that I’ve probably sent in before but here
it is again. One is software that may bring
out the artist in you, another is a real Dude
that likes networks and the last is software
that eye yooz awl th tyme cuz eye caynt
spel sumtymes.

[8~{} Uncle Monster
==============================

==

Miro 1.2.7

http://www.getmiro.com/

What is Miro?

Quite simply, Miro is a free application for
channels of internet video (also known as
video podcasts and video rss). Miro is designed
to be easy to use and to give you an elegant
fullscreen viewing experience.

There are thousands of free internet video channels
that you can watch. You’ll be able to download all
the videos that each channel offers and when new
ones are released, Miro will grab them automatically.

Unlike tiny videos on websites like YouTube, Miro
videos are usually very high quality and look great
when watched full screen. Since Miro downloads
videos completely before you watch, your videos will
never skip or stutter while they are playing.
================================

Artweaver 0.5.3

http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?en_version

Artweaver is a simple Freeware program
for creative painting, i.e. Artweaver offers
you all artistic effects which you need for
your work.

You can create sketches from photos and
experiment with a wide range of brushes.
The brush simulation is thereby so realistic
as possible.
================================

The Dude 3.0 RC3

Home Page:
http://www.mikrotik.com/thedude.php

Alternate Download:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download5130.html

The Dude network monitor is a new application
by MikroTik which can dramatically improve the
way you manage your network environment. It
will automatically scan all devices within specified
subnets, draw and layout a map of your networks,
monitor services of your devices and alert you in
case some service has problems.
===============================

WordWeb 5.51

http://wordweb.info/free/

WORDWEB FREE* VERSION
WordWeb is a one-click English thesaurus
and dictionary for Windows that can look up
words in almost any program. It works off-line,
but can also look up words in web references
such as the Wikipedia encyclopedia. Features
of the free version include:

Definitions and synonyms
Proper nouns
Related words
Pronunciations

150 000 root words
120 000 synonym sets
Look up words in almost any program

Format Factory, cdrtfe, and ChunkIt,

This week brings some unique software apps..
One is a new way to search the web, another
is a front end to some very cool CD creating
and recording tools, links to the various tools
are on the site. I’ve also included a link to a
really neat app called FormatFactory that does
all sorts of multimedia stuff.

[8~{} Uncle Monster
==============================

======

ChunkIt

http://www.tigerlogic.com/ChunkIt/

Discover an innovative new way to surf the Web.
With a single click, ChunkIt! provides x-ray vision
into any Web page and its embedded links to extract
the valuable “chunks” of information that really
matter.
====================================

cdrtfe 1.3.2

http://cdrtfe.sourceforge.net/cdrtfe/index_en.html

cdrtfe is a Win32 front end for some functions of
Jörg Schilling’s cdrtools. With VCDImager VideoCDs
can be created. Furthermore, cdrtfe supports the basic
functions of the Mode2CDMaker which makes it possible
to create CDs that can contain about 13% more data as
usual (Mode 2 Form 2: 738 MiByte instead of 650 MiByte,
795 MiByte instead of 700 MiByte).
=====================================

FormatFactory V1.48

http://www.formatoz.com/

FormatFactory’s Feature:
1 support converting all popular video,audio,picture formats
to others.
2 Repair damaged video and audio file.
3 Reducing Multimedia file size.
4 Support iphone,ipod multimedia file formats.
5 Picture converting supports Zoom,Rotate/Flip,tags.
6 DVD Ripper.
7 Supports 30 languages

Monitoring programs, HWMonitor, Perfmonitor, Pc Wizard, and CPU-Z

This week brings four free hardware
monitoring, information, diagnostic
and benchmarking apps for all you
geeks out there. The main site is:
http://www.cpuid.com/

[8~{} Uncle Monster
==========================

CPU-Z

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

CPU-Z is a freeware that gathers information
on some of the main devices of your system.
===========================

PC WIZARD

http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php

PC WIZARD 2008 is a powerful utility designed
especially for detection of hardware, but also some
more analysis. It’s able to identify a large scale of
system components and supports the latest
technologies and standards. This tool is periodically
updated (usually once per month) in order to provide
most accurate results.
============================

PerfMonitor

http://www.cpuid.com/perfmonitor.php

PerfMonitor is a processor performance monitoring tool.
It allows to track the frequency of 4 events choosen in a
set of model-specific list. PerfMonitor can be used to
identify the performance bottlenecks of a system, or to
monitor a program for cache-miss rate or mis-predicted
branches. But PerfMonitor can also be used as a
hardware-level CPU comparison tool, comparing the key
parameters of different CPUs runnning the same benchmark.
=============================

HWMonitor

http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

HWMonitor is a hardware monitoring program that reads
PC systems main health sensors : voltages, temperatures,
fans speed. The program handles the most common sensor
chips, like ITE(R) IT87 series, most Winbond(R) ICs, and others.
In addition, it can read modern CPUs on-die core thermal
sensors, as well has hard drives temperature via S.M.A.R.T,
and video card GPU temperature. Special hardware monitors
such as abit(R) uGuru and Gigabyte(R) ODIN™ power supplies
serie are supported too.