TED Downloader Premium Announcement

4 years, 8 months and 1 day.

94,442 downloads.

That’s how long and useful this project has been. I have tried my level best to fulfil expectations, to make sure every demand is fulfilled. I have had my share of flowery praises and scathing attacks on my ability, depending on whether my app was working or not.

I still remember the first time I had been introduced to TED, I was amazed by the content and wanted to download the videos for later viewing. But there was no way to obtain the videos all in bulk and from that desire, rose the very first version of TED downloader. A simplistic, in the very sense of the word,  application which allowed you to just select a video quality and download everything… And I mean everything. I had shared that exe with the intention that maybe someone would find it useful.

The response was overwhelming, people responded back via comments, via email that they really liked the app and provided suggestions on features they would like to see. After that, TED downloader has never looked back. It has gone through multiple iterations, multiple UI changes, multiple functionality changes but it endured. The greatest challenge I faced was the ever changing data source provided by TED but the app still endured, albeit there were delays but still. When, the last iteration happened, the move to TED API, I had thought that the data problems were all but solved. However, that was not to be… TED decided to shut down their API and that necessitated a need for a new iteration.

The new Materialistic TED

Farewell to the TED Open API

I am afraid that I’m the bearer of some bad news. It has been conveyed to me that the TED API, which is the basis for the TED Downloader application, that you all use, is going to be shut down on July 15 2016. What this means is that the app will stop working, come 15 th July.

TED supports 3 kinds of  APIs : Basic (Free and very low calls to the API permitted), Premium (Probably not free and allowing more calls to the API) and Partner (for  businesses and media companies). What has been conveyed to me is that :

 On July 15, the public API will be turned off. Keys will stop working after this date.


As per the above notice, it can mean that the premium API will continue (as I see it). I have dropped them a mail to confirm if this is the case and what would be the charges for it (as I assume that they won’t allow free access to anyone).

But what this means is that, essentially, the free version of TED Downloader will stop working, come 15th July and there would be no way to access TED without the premium API (if the reply is positive), so unfortunately, Ted Downloader will no longer be able to remain a freeware as the charge for the premium key will need to be recovered.

But, still this is just a heads-up, as it might happen that the API is shutting down completely with no way to salvage anything and the app will be shut down for good. I’m waiting for their reply which will provide a conclusive answer.

 

Update :

Here is the reply, I got from TED :

Hey Obin,

My apologies for the delay! Partners will still have access to TED’s API, only public access will be retired.

If you’d like to discuss a partner license with someone at TED, please fill out the media license request form.

Please let me know if you have any other API questions!

So, apparently only the free public API is retired and the paid API is going to be available. So this means that the free version of the app shall work till July 15 2016.

I will be applying for a media license and as per the cost, the new application shall be priced (I tried and will try to keep the application free for as long as I can but still…). I have applied for the license and hopefully, within the next month, the application shall be up again.

 

Tedinator V3.8

As promised, I’m providing the updated version which fixes the errors that you have been facing and there are some good news and bad news. Read the change list below to understand them.

Flickr Downloader BETA : Testers Wanted

Okay guys, I know that I have been MIA for some time now but that is because I have been working on a project which I am very happy to present to you.

As you all know that Flickr.com (pronounced “flicker”) is an image hosting and video hosting website, and web services suite that is a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, and effectively an online community. With a total of 87 million registered members and more than 3.5 million new images uploaded daily, flickr.com is one of the biggest source of beautiful images.

I am a regular user of flickr.com and there are some users whose albums I like and would like to download but the sheer number of images in those users albums make it next to impossible to download. Flickr.com does provide a way to download images from a set but you can only download one image at a time and if the set in question has more than 200 – 300 images then you can imagine the “fun” you will have downloading each image one at a time.

Plagued with this problem, i decided to do what is do best and approach this problem programatically and came up with Flickr downloadr (deja vu!!!). Before i explain what the downloader is about, i would like you to be aware that the downloader is currently in BETA and i’m releasing this to users to understand user requirements and to make any changes as applicable. The app is nearly fully functional and free of bugs(as much as i could test) but it might be possible that some have escaped me.

Ted Downloader V 3.7 Mid-Release

I have gotten various complaints from various users that they are having some issues with TED Downloader. These concerns are mainly regarding the downloader being unable to download videos properly in areas with low network connectivity. Also,they are not able to download subtitles. Now, I have got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I have decided to patch some of the issues and do a mid-release prior to the next V 4.0 that i have promised and in this release I address the problem of  the video downloads failing but the bad news is that i had to drop the Subtitle module.

Unable to drag and drop any files

Scenario : You click on a file and try to drag it to drop it into an application but you are unable to do so. Try as much as you may, you are not able to drag it. What do you do ??

Solution : You tried to drag a file into an application but it just does not allow you to do so. You try to drag a window, it does not allow you to do so too. You can click and select the file, you can also resize the window but you cannot drag anything. What do you do ??

 

Hide User Accounts from the Windows Login Screen

Scenario : You have enabled the Default Administrator account on your Windows PC and want it to be a fail – safe when something goes wrong but it keeps showing up on your Logon Screen. You want it to be active but it should not appear on the Welcome Screen.

Solution : The user accounts that are created in Windows will by default show up in the logon screen. This behavior provides a convenience for the users to login by clicking on their user account and typing their password to login to Windows. However, there are times when you want to hide the user accounts from showing up in the login screen as an additional security especially when you are sharing a computer.

Also, The default admin account on the Windows PC is disabled by default and hence does not show up on the Logon Screen but once you enable it, it does appear there.Fortunately, there is a way to hide it but it involves messing with the Registry. Or what you could do is use the Utility i created and cut out the the manual work….thats what technology is for, right ??
Anyways, i will list what you need to do with both.

.chm file : This program cannot display the webpage error

Scenario : You downloaded a chm file from the internets and when you try to open it, you see the file opening but the content shows “This program cannot display the webpage”. How do you view it ??

Solution : While this is a common problem for those who download .chm files but who does nowadays, right ?? Anyways, When you try to open the file it will open but the pages that will be displayed will have the ‘This program cannot display the webpage’ error as shown below :

NFS MW 2012 Sensitivity Fix

Scenario : You have installed NFS Most Wanted 2012 (The Criterion Reboot) on your PC and are not satisfied with the sensitivity settings of the game….there are NONE. But you want to give the game a Shot….what do you do ??

Solution : NFS Most Wanted 2012 by Criterion is a 2012 racing video game with nonlinear gameplay, developed by Criterion Games and published by Electronic Arts. Announced on 4 June 2012, during EA’s E3 press conference, Most Wanted is the nineteenth title in the long-running Need for Speed series and was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita, iOS and Android.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted received positive reviews, which focused on the world map that blended the styles of previous Burnout and Need for Speed games, and the social features, while criticism fell on the single-player mode. Following its release, the game won several awards including the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards for Best Driving Game and was nominated for Best British Game and Best Online Multiplayer at the 2013 BAFTA Awards, and was repeatedly recognized as the best driving/racing game of 2012 by several outlets.

 

Always Start Task manager in admin mode

Scenario : You start task manager by right-clicking on the taskbar or by pressing Alt-Ctrl-Del but it always starts in standard mode and does not show processes from all users. You have to click on the button to make it show all and that too, you want the setting to be retained every time you start Task Manager.

Solution : By default, Task Manager does not start in admin mode. When you launch it, it usually starts as shown below and you have to click on the ‘Show processes from all users’ button to show all the processes. While this does work, it does not always start the task manager showing these processes so what do you do ??
Read on…