​Hmmm Squad is Shrewsbury's premier science and philosophy discussion group. The group meets on the last Thursday evening of each month at the UCS premises in the Guildhall, Frankwell. Each month a member of the group gives a science or philosophy-themed presentation and invites a short discussion. Hmmm Squad is a completely free event.

On Thursday August 25th at 7.30pm, I will be presenting a lecture that I originally gave back in 2009, when working on the cruise ships. Having spent my formative years foraging the internet before the dawn of the world wide web, I have taken particular interest in the most influential websites that have propelled the internet into popular usage. In this talk, you’ll be taken on a trivia tour of the tourist landmarks of the web, you’ll hear a few words of wisdom from our creator and you’ll be told the secret of how to become a ‘dot com’ millionaire.

I hope to see you there.

Extracting (ripping) videos and audio (MP3s) from YouTube is possible thanks to a number of websites like:

• FlvTo (www.flvto.biz)
• OnlineVideoConverter (www.onlinevideoconverter.com)
• Convert2mp3 (www.convert2mp3.net)
• ClipConverter (www.clipconverter.cc)

 
All such websites operate in similar way. The idea is that you find the video or music track in YouTube, copy the URL (web address) of the clip and paste this address into the website that will perform the extraction.
 
 Let’s get an MP3 file for the 1979 hit ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ by Buggles.

• Firstly, visit YouTube (www.youtube.com) and in the search box, type video killed the radio star

 
YouTube shows us a list of videos that match our search. Lots of cover versions, live recordings and other related videos are listed, so we need to pick the one we want. In this case, we want the original track from 1979, making sure it is a recording from the original artist Buggles, and we can check the length of the desired recording to see if it is what we expect (typical music tracks are 3-4mins in length).
 
In the search we have done, the desired video is at the top of the list and it is 3 mins 36 seconds in length, which sounds about right.

• Click on the link to start the video playing just to check it is indeed the track you want

 
Now, click in the address bar of our browser (the line at the top of the window with the URL e.g. ‘http://www.youtube…’). The URL will now be highlighted in blue (in this case, ‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8r-tXRLazs’)

• Take a copy of this URL by doing a right-click and choosing ‘Copy’ or by using the keyboard shortcut (CTRL+C)
• Open a new browser tab and visit one of the converter/extractor websites. We’ll go to www.flvto.biz
• Paste the YouTube URL into the box in FlvTo labelled ‘Enter the link to the media’ by doing a right-click and choosing 'Paste' (or CTRL+V)
• Click on the big red ‘CONVERT TO (MP3)' button (you can click on the down chevron if you wish to extract video rather than just audio)

 
The webpage will refresh and a large progress bar will grow across the page from left to right. After reaching 100%, the conversion has been performed and the webpage will refresh again.

• Click on the big, red 'DOWNLOAD' button to transfer the MP3 (or video file) to your computer. There are also buttons to send it to your email or Dropbox address

 
Pay attention in the last step above, there may be other tempting 'download' buttons that are in fact adverts that will lead you astray. When you click on the 'DOWNLOAD' button, a pop-up webpage may also appear in an attempt to lead you astray (see below). Close any such adverts and check that your MP3 file has downloaded (normally placed in your 'Downloads' folder).
 
Websites like FlvTo and OnlineVideoConverter come under constant attack from powerful organisations like the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and the MAFIAA (Music and Film Industry Association of America). These organisations pay lots of money to Google and internet service providers to discredit such websites by inserting spyware advertisements and other nasties to make the websites problematic.
 
When using converter websites you must be knowledgeable about what you are doing so that you don’t click on adverts or believe any bogus ‘system messages’ that appear.
This is what you must bear in mind:

• Clicking on buttons at these websites may open additional unwanted browser windows. Always close any pop-up browsers windows or tabs and return to the page you were at
• Adverts within webpages are never (Microsoft) ‘system messages’, no matter how genuine they appear to be
• The only thing you want to download is a harmless MP3 file. If you find yourself downloading any other type of file, cancel what you are doing as you have strayed from the path