Nhân thể đang rộ lên chuyện dạo này người Việt mình có tâm lý lười đọc sách [chưa biết đúng sai thế nào], mình mạo muội post 1 bài (mang tính tham khảo) copied từ báo Telegraph của Anh: “110 best books: The perfect library”. Nếu bạn thấy có cuốn sách nào, nhất là của Việt Nam, đáng bổ sung vào danh sách này thì hãy viết vào phần comment. Cảm ơn nhiều!

CLASSICS:

1. The Illiad and The Odyssey (Homer)
2. The Barchester Chronicles (Anthony Trollope)
3. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
4. Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift)
5. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë)
6. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
7. David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
8. Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray)
9. Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert)
10. Middlemarch (George Eliot)

POETRY:

1. Sonnets (Shakespeare)
2. Divine Comedy (Dante)
3. Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)
4. The Prelude (William Wordsworth)
5. Odes (John Keats)
6. The Waste Land (T. S. Eliot)
7. Paradise Lost (John Milton)
8. Songs of Innocence and Experience (William Blake)
9. Collected Poems (W. B. Yeats)
10. Collected Poems (Ted Hughes)

LITERARY FICTION

1. The Portrait of a Lady (Henry James)
2. A la recherche du temps perdu (Proust)
3. Ulysses (James Joyce)
4. For Whom the Bell Tolls (Ernest Hemingway)
5. Sword of Honour trilogy (Evelyn Waugh)
6. The Ballad of Peckham Rye (Muriel Spark)
7. Rabbit series (John Updike)
8. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez)
9. Beloved (Toni Morrison)
10. The Human Stain (Philip Roth)

ROMANTIC FICTION

1. Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)
2. Le Morte D’Arthur (Thomas Malory)
3. Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Choderlos de Laclos)
4. I, Claudius (Robert Graves)
5. Alexander Trilogy (Mary Renault)
6. Master and Commander (Patrick O’Brian)
7. Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
8. Dr Zhivago (Boris Pasternak)
9. Tess of the D’Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)
10. The Plantagenet Saga (Jean Plaidy)

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

1. Swallows and Amazons (Arthur Ransome)
2. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)
3. The Lord of the Rings (J.R. R. Tolkien)
4. His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman)
5. Babar (Jean de Brunhoff)
6. The Railway Children (E. Nesbit)
7. Winnie-the-Pooh (A.A. Milne)
8. Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling)
9. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame)
10. Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)

SCI-FI

1. Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
2. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne)
3. The Time Machine (H.G. Wells)
4. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
5. 1984 (George Orwell)
6. The Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham)
7. Foundation (Isaac Asimov)
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke)
9. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick)
10. Neuromancer (William Gibson)

CRIME

1. The Talented Mr Ripley (Patricia Highsmith)
2. The Maltese Falcon (Dashiell Hammett)
3. The Complete Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
4. The Big Sleep (Raymond Chandler)
5. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (John le Carré)
6. Red Dragon (Thomas Harris)
7. Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie)
8. The Murders in the Rue Morgue (Edgar Allan Poe)
9. The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins)
10. Killshot (Elmore Leonard)

BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

1. Das Kapital (Karl Marx)
2. The Rights of Man (Tom Paine)
3. The Social Contract (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
4. Democracy in America (Alexis de Tocqueville)
5. On War (Carl von Clausewitz)
6. The Prince (Niccolo Machiavelli)
7. Leviathan (Thomas Hobbes)
8. On the Interpretation of Dreams (Sigmund Freud)
9. On the Origin of Species (Charles Darwin)
10. L’Encyclopédie (Diderot, et al)

BOOKS THAT CHANGED YOUR WORLD

1. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert M. Pirsig)
2. Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Richard Bach)
3. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
4. The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell)
5. The Beauty Myth (Naomi Wolf)
6. How to Cook (Delia Smith)
7. A Year in Provence (Peter Mayle)
8. A Child Called ‘It’ (Dave Pelzer)
9. Eats, Shoots and Leaves (Lynne Truss)
10. Schott’s Original Miscellany (Ben Schott)

HISTORY

1. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edward Gibbon)
2. A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (Winston Churchill)
3. A History of the Crusades (Steven Runciman)
4. The Histories (Herodotus)
5. The History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides)
6. Seven Pillars of Wisdom (T. E. Lawrence)
7. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
8. A People’s Tragedy (Orlando Figes)
9. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (Simon Schama)
10. The Origins of the Second World War (A.J.P. Taylor)

LIVES

1. Confessions (St Augustine)
2. Lives of the Caesars (Suetonius)
3. Lives of the Artists (Vasari)
4. If This is a Man (Primo Levi)
5. Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (Siegfried Sassoon)
6. Eminent Victorians (Lytton Strachey)
7. A Life of Charlotte Brontë (Elizabeth Gaskell)
8. Goodbye to All That (Robert Graves)
9. The Life of Dr Johnson (Boswell)
10. Diaries (Alan Clark)

Dưới đây là một số các ứng dụng miễn phí rất hữu dụng bạn có thể tham khảo: Từ trình duyệt web, ứng dụng quản lý email, biên tập ảnh, diệt virus và spyware… Tuy miễn phí nhưng công dụng và tính năng của các ứng dụng này không hề thua kém các ứng dụng chuyên nghiệp đắt tiền.

Notepad ++

Mozilla Firefox

GIMP

AVG Antivirus Free Ed.

Mozilla Thunderbird

Foxit Reader

Further reading: The Six Most Useful Free Applications

CAM
A cam is a theater rip usually done with a digital video camera. A mini tripod is sometimes used, but a lot of the time this wont be possible, so the camera make shake. Also seating placement isn’t always idle, and it might be filmed from an angle. If cropped properly, this is hard to tell unless there’s text on the screen, but a lot of times these are left with triangular borders on the top and bottom of the screen. Sound is taken from the onboard microphone of the camera, and especially in comedies, laughter can often be heard during the film. Due to these factors picture and sound quality are usually quite poor, but sometimes we’re lucky, and the theater will be fairly empty and a fairly clear signal will be heard.

TELESYNC (TS)
A telesync is the same spec as a CAM except it uses an external audio source (most likely an audio jack in the chair for hard of hearing people). A direct audio source does not ensure a good quality audio source, as a lot of background noise can interfere. A lot of the times a telesync is filmed in an empty cinema or from the projection booth with a professional camera, giving a better picture quality. Quality ranges drastically, check the sample before downloading the full release. A high percentage of Telesyncs are CAMs that have been mislabeled.

TELECINE (TC)
A telecine machine copies the film digitally from the reels. Sound and picture should be very good, but due to the equipment involved and cost telecines are fairly uncommon. Generally the film will be in correct aspect ratio, although 4:3 telecines have existed. A great example is the JURASSIC PARK 3 TC done last year. TC should not be confused with TimeCode , which is a visible counter on screen throughout the film

SCREENER (SCR)
A pre VHS tape, sent to rental stores, and various other places for promotional use. A screener is supplied on a VHS tape, and is usually in a 4:3 (full screen) a/r, although letterboxed screeners are sometimes found. The main draw back is a “ticker” (a message that scrolls past at the bottom of the screen, with the copyright and anti-copy telephone number). Also, if the tape contains any serial numbers, or any other markings that could lead to the source of the tape, these will have to be blocked, usually with a black mark over the section. This is sometimes only for a few seconds, but unfortunately on some copies this will last for the entire film, and some can be quite big. Depending on the equipment used, screener quality can range from excellent if done from a MASTER copy, to very poor if done on an old VHS recorder thru poor capture equipment on a copied tape. Most screeners are transferred to VCD, but a few attempts at SVCD have occurred, some looking better than others.

DVD-SCREENER (DVDscr)
Same premise as a screener, but transferred off a DVD. Usually letterbox , but without the extras that a DVD retail would contain. The ticker is not usually in the black bars, and will disrupt the viewing. If the ripper has any skill, a DVDscr should be very good. Usually transferred to SVCD or DivX/XviD.

DVDRip
A copy of the final released DVD. If possible this is released PRE retail (for example, Star Wars episode 2) again, should be excellent quality. DVDrips are released in SVCD and DivX/XviD.

VHSRip
Transferred off a retail VHS, mainly skating/sports videos and XXX releases.

TVRip
TV episode that is either from Network (capped using digital cable/satellite boxes are preferable) or PRE-AIR from satellite feeds sending the program around to networks a few days earlier (do not contain “dogs” but sometimes have flickers etc) Some programs such as WWF Raw Is War contain extra parts, and the “dark matches” and camera/commentary tests are included on the rips. PDTV is capped from a digital TV PCI card, generally giving the best results, and groups tend to release in SVCD for these. VCD/SVCD/DivX/XviD rips are all supported by the TV scene.

WORKPRINT (WP)
A workprint is a copy of the film that has not been finished. It can be missing scenes, music, and quality can range from excellent to very poor. Some WPs are very different from the final print (Men In Black is missing all the aliens, and has actors in their places) and others can contain extra scenes (Jay and Silent Bob) . WPs can be nice additions to the collection once a good quality final has been obtained.

DivX Re-Enc
A DivX re-enc is a film that has been taken from its original VCD source, and re-encoded into a small DivX file. Most commonly found on file sharers, these are usually labeled something like Film.Name.Group(1of2) etc. Common groups are SMR and TND. These aren’t really worth downloading, unless you’re that unsure about a film u only want a 200mb copy of it. Generally avoid.

Watermarks
A lot of films come from Asian Silvers/PDVD (see below) and these are tagged by the people responsible. Usually with a letter/initials or a little logo, generally in one of the corners. Most famous are the “Z” “A” and “Globe” watermarks.

Asian Silvers / PDVD
These are films put out by eastern bootleggers, and these are usually bought by some groups to put out as their own. Silvers are very cheap and easily available.

R5
R5 refers to a specific format of DVD released in DVD Region 5, the former Soviet Union, and bootlegged copies of these releases that are distributed on the Internet. In an effort to compete with movie piracy, the movie industry chose to create a new format for DVD releases that could be produced more quickly and less expensively than traditional DVD releases. R5 releases differ from normal releases in that they are a direct Telecine transfer of the film without any of the image processing common on DVD releases, and without any special features. This allows the film to be released for sale at the same time that DVD Screeners are released. Since DVD Screeners are the chief source of high-quality pirated movies, this allows the movie studios to beat the pirates to market. In some cases, R5 DVDs may be released without an English audio track, requiring pirates to use the direct line audio from the film’s theatrical release. In this case, the pirated release is tagged with “.LINE” to distinguish it from a release with a DVD audio track.

The image quality of an R5 release is generally comparable to a DVD Screener release, except without the added scrolling text and black and white scenes that serve to distinguish screeners from commercial DVD releases. The quality is better than Telecine transfers produced by movie pirates because the transfer is performed usingprofessional-grade film scanning equipment.

Because there is no scene release standard for pirated R5 releases, they were variably tagged as Telecines, DVD Screeners, or even DVD rips. In late 2006, several release groups such as DREAMLiGHT, mVs, and PUKKA began tagging R5 releases with “.R5″ or r5 line (the line meaning it has direct english line audio) and suggesting that other groups do the same.

VCD
VCD is an mpeg1 based format, with a constant bitrate of 1150kbit at a resolution of 352×240 (NTCS). VCDs are generally used for lower quality transfers (CAM/TS/TC/Screener(VHS)/TVrip(analogue) in order to make smaller file sizes, and fit as much on a single disc as possible. Both VCDs and SVCDs are timed in minutes, rather than MB, so when looking at an mpeg, it may appear larger than the disc capacity, and in reality u can fit 74min on a CDR74.

SVCD
SVCD is an mpeg2 based (same as DVD) which allows variable bit-rates of up to 2500kbits at a resolution of 480×480 (NTSC) which is then decompressed into a 4:3 aspect ratio when played back. Due to the variable bit-rate, the length you can fit on a single CDR is not fixed, but generally between 35-60 Mins are the most common. To get a better SVCD encode using variable bit-rates, it is important to use multiple “passes”. this takes a lot longer, but the results are far clearer.

XVCD/XSVCD
These are basically VCD/SVCD that don’t obey the “rules”. They are both capable of much higher resolutions and bit-rates, but it all depends on the player to whether the disc can be played. X(S)VCD are total non-standards, and are usually for home-ripping by people who don’t intend to release them.

DivX / XviD
XviD & DivX are the most commonly encoded movies. DivX used to be the most popular, until it went from open source to a corporation that bought the rights & started charging for it (although the crack can easily be obtained for the DivX encoder, most people have switched to XviD, not only because it is open source, but also because it is superior in many ways). In the last year or so, many stand-alone DVD players have been released that are capable of playing DivX/XviD movies (even on CDRs), which has made this the most popular form of encoding. The majority of XviD/DivX rips are taken from DVDs, and are generally in as good quality as possible that can fit on one 700MB CDR disc, which is why most XviD/DivX movies are almost exactly 700MB, so they can be burnt onto a CDR & played in these new DVD players (which can be purchased just about anywhere for as little as $30-$40 USD). Various codecs exist, the most popular at the moment being the new XviD 1.2 codec. DivX encoded movies will definitely play on these new DVD players, & it only takes a little simple tweaking by the ripper to ensure XviDs will play on them as well, but it is therefore not guaranteed. (If you want to learn more about XviD/DivX encoding so you can make your own DVDrips, just visit doom9.org)

x264
x264 is a free software library for encoding H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video streams. (More to come.)

CVD
CVD is a combination of VCD and SVCD formats, and is generally supported by a majority of DVD players. It supports MPEG2 bit-rates of SVCD, but uses a resolution of 352×480(ntsc) as the horizontal resolution is generally less important. Currently no groups release in CVD.

DVD-R
Is the recordable DVD solution that seems to be the most popular (out of DVD-RAM, DVD-R and DVD+R). it holds 4.7gb of data per side, and double sided discs are available, so discs can hold nearly 10gb in some circumstances. SVCD mpeg2 images must be converted before they can be burnt to DVD-R and played successfully. DVD>DVDR copies are possible, but sometimes extras/languages have to be removed to stick within the available 4.7gb.

MiniDVD
MiniDVD/cDVD is the same format as DVD but on a standard CDR/CDRW. Because of the high resolution/bit-rates, its only possible to fit about 18-21 mins of footage per disc, and the format is only compatible with a few players.