Imagine if you can the effect nine crayons might have stuffed into an electric heater being turned on for the first time. Something not unlike walking through the cheap candle isle at Wal-mart following someone whose hair is unfire.
The joy of pulling the molten hot bastards out of the heater you have just taken it apart, only to realize that you have to let the leftover crayon burn off. All the while your little pre-toddler is in the room next door playing innocent.
If you want to play region free DVD’s on your PC, watch MPEG, AVI, WMV, and any other numerous files then you have to get the VLC Media Player – it is open source and it is FREE.
I came to the harsh realization once getting to the CZ that my laptop didn’t have DVD player software installed, or an MPEG-2 decoder, and was of course Region 1 only. This did not bode well for both the Region 1 and Region 2 DVD’s that I had, not to mention a few movies that I had brought with me. Cheap as I am I first went to the internet, then I remembered in my last job (video networking geek extraordinary) that everyone hated VLC; mostly because they gave away their software when others had to pay licensing (boring MPEG-2 legal thing).
I downloaded the software and immediately became impressed ( I felt like a Red Sox fan secretly rooting for the Yankees), but it solved all my video problems. I could play region free DVD’s regardless of if they were PAL or NTSC. I could play all media files that I had on my harddrive AND of course it was free.
So for the cheap-geek or the tech savvy world traveler, this software is a must have on your PC or LAPTOP. Not running Windows XP, well no problem they have a version for almost everyone platform possible.
It has been a month and a day since we arrived in the Czech Republic – into the warm inviting arms of my wife’s family. One month and a day since I have left the geopolitcal womb of the United States behind, weened myself from the gut churning headlines of broadcast television, and said goodbye to a large number of friends and family. I have had to let go of control of things that I would normally handle and let my wife and her father take care of most everything from rental negotiations, furniture delivery, to legal matters. My Czech language deficit has certainly reminded my ego where I am.
Intelligence, to some degree, is relative to your ability to communicate what you know to those around you. Survival, to some degree, is relative to your ability to creatively communication with those around you. Thankfully, basic english is taught to most people 30 or younger, and that combined with my pigeon Czech and vaudeville style hand signaling I have been getting by OK. “Humble” is the word that comes to mind right now as I relearn how to do a lot of the things I used to take for granted.
I have always told people that I was bilingual – I speak English and Geek. Most of the time I was really just making a joke of it, but when having to deal with Czech speaking technophiles it has been a fairly universal. Thankfully, my job really balances things out. I work with Americans and Brits, and for the most part sell to Americans and english speaking natives. This has made things much easier.