Inspirated

I recall three distinct things about my visit to BBC’s Islamabad Studios today. Kamil’s very friendly support (he kept reassuring me that everyone gets nervous for their first live appearance on television), a minor car accident right beneath the balcony I was standing in and prevalent general confusion about what to do with my hands when I’m on air (I wasn’t sure if they were on screen so couldn’t decide whether to stuff them in my pockets or not). In any case, it was ultra fun:

The 100th post, and considering that the most popular ones on the blog so far have been screencasts, there wouldn’t have been a better way to commemorate the occasion than editing a short music-video which would demonstrate the prowess of Linux on desktop.

The very least I could do to express the euphoria.

I’m well aware of the fact that this thing has been posted on various blogs countless times already; but if you haven’t noticed, YouTube has changed its page structure so that only a text-search of player2.swf?video_id= in the source code won’t yield the prolonged video_id. Instead, you now have to search for /watch_fullscreen?video_id= to locate the holy grail.

For those who’re new to this method, here’s what you have to do:

• Open the YouTube video link for which you want to download the FLV.
• Right-click anywhere on the page and click on ‘View (Page) Source’.
• Press CTRL+F and search for the string: /watch_fullscreen?video_id=
• Copy everything after the question mark until the end of quotes, as shown in the image below:

  
  (Click to enlarge)

• Type this in your address bar: https://www.youtube.com/get_video?[video_id you've just copied]
• Hit Enter/Return, you’ll be offered a downloaded named get_video which is actually your desired FLV file. Save it somewhere locally and change its extension to .flv.

Here’s a list of players that you can use to play your downloaded FLV:

• MPlayer (personal favorite — cross-platform)
• VLC Media Player (cross-platform)
• ffdshow-tryouts codecs (Windows)
• FLV Player (Windows)

Bona fide :-) !

Although the fact that Totti’s magnificent strike against Sampdoria has been dropped to the 2nd spot for the first time in 16 weeks does enervate me a little, it doesn’t affect in any way my adoration for the best soccer league in the world. Get ready for some big-time surprises and enjoy this YouTube video:

Keep a lookout for more interesting soccer action on my blog. As some really preeminent Champions League matches are coming up later tonight and I’ll be trying to record and upload their highlights.

Includes Kaka’s match-winning goal from 93rd minute of the game:

Beautifully scored by Makaay — 9 seconds after the kickoff in the 2nd leg against Real Madrid:

Highlights recording (includes goals from Totti and Mancini):

Top ten goals from Calcio, as chosen by the highlights show that aired on 26th February: