TubeSock
Rip. Mix. Copy to iPod.Is this legal?
Our lawyers think so. YouTube's Terms of Use (http://www.youtube.com/t/terms) states that all content is provided for your own personal -- not commercial -- use. I am not a lawyer, but this is pretty clear:
Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only and may not be used, copied, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, broadcast, displayed, sold, licensed, or otherwise exploited for any other purposes whatsoever without the prior written consent of the respective owners.
Moving videos from your computer to your iPod is clearly personal use, so yes. Although I suppose if you're hooking your video iPod to a theatrical video projector and playing videos to a packed house of paying patrons, then no.
Anyway, our lawyers think there is legal precedent.
I'm getting an error like "file does not exist"!
You need the most recent version of TubeSock. For Mac, it's 3.0 beta 19. For Windows, it's 1.0.8. Check our download page for the most recent versions.
I paid already! Where's my registration file?!?
Our registration emails are sent immediately after you complete your purchase in PayPal. If you didn't get your license, check your junk mail folder. In the vast majority of missing license cases, the problem is a spam blocker or junk mail folder. Hotmail is the worst offender. And Verizon is the worst, too. Mac.com seems to be pretty bad. Earthlink, too.)
Also, don't forget to check the email PayPal uses for you -- that's the only email address we'll know.
Can you resend my registration email?
Sure thing. Use this form to have your registration email resent to you. Please note that it takes about a week for your registration email to get added to the database, so if your registration is very recent, the form may say it can't find your email address.
I use Hotmail, Verizon, or Earthlink for email, and I didn't get my registration file yet!
Hotmail tends to filter our emails. Earthlink often sends us a email that says "click here to have your email delivered" but of course they send it to our nonexistant "do_not_reply" address. And our emails just disappear into Verizon, whole, never to be seen again.
So, take a few minutes. Walk the dog, eat a sandwich, or have your dog eat a sandwich. Then check your mail. If you didn't get your registration, email us. We can look up your info on PayPal and get a registration generated manually pretty quickly.
If you use spam blocking software like EarthLink's spamBlocker, be sure to add stinkbotllc@gmail.com to your allowed sender list before you purchase a registration. EarthLink (and other spam blockers) sends a reply to our "do_not_reply" address and no one ever sees it.
Where do I enter my registration code?
You don't enter a code anywhere. It's much easier than that. Simply double-click the registration file, or drag the registration file onto the TubeSock icon. On a Mac, it looks like this:
On Windows, you drag the file into the TubeSock window, like this:
I use AOL and the registration file opens in Excel/Textedit/OmniOutliner!?!
It's an AOL thing. Our registration file is just a simple text file, containing some XML text. Its name should end in ".tslic" which the Finder will automatically open in TubeSock. But AOL messes up the filename. So, just rename the file so that it ends in ".tslic" and everything should be fine.
TubeSock says "file doesn't exist" but I know the video is there!
If a video is marked "private" in YouTube, TubeSock will not be able to preview it. But, and this is a big but, you will be able to save it. Just click "Save".
TubeSock says my registration file has an "invalid format" or "is corrupted"!
Again, this happens because many email providers suck. The registration files for Windows users is a plain text file attachment. Some email providers allow their servers to place extraneous characters (especially "=") in the file. (I'm looking at you, Juno, Excite, and Comcast.) This is ludicrously bad behavior for a mail server. If this happens to you, you should pick one of the following: (a) open the file in Notepad and erase any "=" you see; (b) email us and ask for another copy in a zip archive; (c) stop using such a lousy email provider.
Hey! I tried "Add to iTunes," but nothing shows up in iTunes!
TubeSock does all of its nasty conversion business in your system's temporary directory. (Files in the temporary directory are deleted by OS X the next time you reboot.) If your iTunes preferences are not set to copy the file into your Music folder, iTunes will have a reference to a file in the /tmp folder. You see the problem, no? After the next reboot, OS X will delete the files in /tmp and the file in iTunes will disappear.
Solution: turn on the iTunes option "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library", or set TubeSock to "Save to Movies folder" and add it to iTunes manually.
When I "Save as PSP", why is the file name weird?
Video files for the PSP need to be named in a special way: they always start with "M4V", and then there's a five-digit number, and then the file extension "MP4". Because it cares, TubeSock tries to properly name these files for you. And TubeSock will automatically increment the digits so that files don't get overwritten.
How did you pick the videos in the "My favorites" bar?
Those are videos that I didn't get sick of after hours and hours of testing. Some I found, others were suggested by beta testers. And, I was involved in production of a couple of them, so I guess I'm pimping my own vids.
I know a few of them use some salty language. If you have small children, and they heard some naughty words from these videos, please take solace in the fact that this happened to my own small children just yesterday and I'm in deep trouble with the missus.
Update: Version 1.0.1 no longer has a favorites bar. Imposing my personal favorites on you good people was a poor choice.
If Google somehow disables TubeSock, what will you do?
Question sent by TubeSock user John Rouse. Thanks, John! Sure -- there is always the possibility that, at any time, YouTube could make technical changes that would stop TubeSock from working. And the TubeSock license has been carefully worded so that it offers no warranty whatsoever. Like many software licenses, it's very devious that way.
But the reality is, should YouTube change up, we do have contingency plans. For instance, every time YouTube changes their Flash playback movie, a Stinkbotter analyzes it to see if there are changes in media delivery (or perhaps code in place for a possible upcoming change).
The bottom line is, if YouTube changes something, we plan to match them. But, given our imperfect abilities to prognosticate, we reserve the right to throw up our hands and say "we can't figure it out." Even if that were to happen, I don't expect we'd stop updating TubeSock. We are already adding support additional video services. For instance, in beta right now is DailyMotion, a company who actually wants our software to work with them.
When I use the Browser bookmark, TubeSock automatically saves the video. How can I make it preview instead?
Open up Terminal.app and type the following:
defaults write com.robterrell.tubesock previewWhenSentURL -bool YES
After that, TubeSock will default to Previewing for any browser-integration related activity.
When will there be a windows version?
The windows version is finally ready.
What if my Windows computer doesn't have .NET?
The TubeSock installer will check for .NET 2.0 and, if it's missing, offer to install it. If for some reason you can't use this feature of the installer, you can download .NET 2.0 from Microsoft here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx
Metal Windows? Why oh why?
It's my first Cocoa app -- by an unspoken universal law, I had to use metal windows. In my defense, I did try to make it nicer than most. A future version will use a custom winow that has a nice translucent gradient and no metal. I promise.
What? You just learned how to program?!?
I've seen some concerned messages about this. No need to fear. I have been writing Mac software—professionally, for money—since 1986. I have written software sold by National Geographic, Softkey, and even the mothership Apple itself. I've written three books about Macs, including a book about Mac programming. And I accidentally stirred the "snappy" hornets' nest with this stupid thing.
This is just my first Cocoa app, that is to say, the first program I've written specifically and only for Mac OS X, as opposed to a Carbon app that can run on OS 9 as well. But it's not my first program ever. So if you were worried, you can worry less.
I need to call a tech support dude like pronto!
Look, I'll be honest. We're not crazy about getting phone calls. We're a small company, we have a nice help desk web site that keeps track of support requests for us, and for the most part we're antisocial nerds who shy away hearing our own squeaky voices on the phone. But if you absolutely must talk to someone right now, we can be reached at 919-741-5212. Call now! Operators may or may not be standing by! But voicemail is. (That "919" means North Carolina, on the eastern seaboard of the United States, and work hours more or less match the regionally accepted norm.) Please note that the nerds who answer these calls can't do anything about billing issues. For those kinds of questions, please send an email to the web support team instead.
My question wasn't answered here! I have a feature request! Send an email to us at support@stinkbot.com and we'll get right on it.
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