Articles marked as "multimedia" :
HOWTO: Send Text Messages via AIM
[ 13 May 2008 ]
Marked under mobile, multimedia, time savers.
As similar method to my previous post on sending free text messages through email, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) supports sending text messages to mobile phones. It’s a great way to send messages without paying an outgoing fee from your own phone provider. Just add a full 10-digit phone number with a + sign in front of it to your buddy list (e.g. +16175551234). All you have to do is send an IM to that “phone number buddy” and the mobile # will get a text message of that IM. Be careful though, don’t send too many.
HOWTO: Download Music for Free
[ 3 March 2008 ]
Marked under multimedia.
Do you use BitTorrent or some other P2P program to download music? There’s a good chance that you actually said yes. There’s really no need to though, because there are plenty of other options out there. Here’s a rundown of some sites I use to get music and the pros and cons of each.
JamGlue - jamglue.com
JamGlue is a mix-based music service that lets you upload your own music and mix it together to make your own remixes. You can mix songs already uploaded by others or upload any music you have on your computer. The trick to free music at JamGlue is the option to download any uploaded music. That means any music that other users have on the site - whether they’re original music by artists or remixes - can be downloaded.
First, sign up for a free account; you need to be logged in to download. Next, search the site for a song you want. Make sure you preview first to make sure its not the instrumental (music only) or acapella (vocals only) version. Once you find a song you like, click the Download button in the bottom left of the song’s page. This will take you to another page where you have to click Download again, but this is the last time.
Pros
- lots of instrumental tracks
- lots of rap/hip-hop if that’s your thing
- also has some non-rap or hip/hop tracks uploaded, especially newer music
Cons
- the server is quite slow, so sometimes it can take forever to search
- 3-click process to download a track after searching
- lots of rap/hip-hop which might not be your thing
- there are lots of acapella and instrumental tracks which you probably aren’t looking for and might get in the way in results
- many tracks are ripped audio from YouTube videos and therefore have lower audio quality
SkreemR - skreemr.com
SkreemR is a search engine for MP3s. It indexes open directories, blogs, …whatever sites have mp3s on them. It even has a flash audio player for each search result, so you can listen without downloading or you can preview the song before you actually download it.
Pros
- indexes music as a search engine, so there are no music styles of focus here
- does a good job indexing music uploaded to blogs
- allows you to listen to each search result through a flash audio player
- 1-click download after searching
Cons
- large result sets can be hard to navigate through
- each search result has a bunch of info and options which can get annoying and in the way
G2P - g2p.org
G2P (a play on P2P) is a “search” that actually creates a carefully crafted Google search query for what you’re looking for. It directs your search term to Google and looks at open web directories hosting music and any sites Google has indexed with your search term. Of course it adds in some filters for file types and only searches your term for audio files. You can search for a single song or an entire album.
Pros
- leverages Google’s search power with carefully crafted queries for specific results
- create a special query for full albums by making Google search megaupload.com for .zip’s and .rar’s of albums
Cons
- powered by Google, and therefore limited by what Google can find
RapidShare1 - rapidshare1.com
RapidShare1 is is a search-engine / directory for uploaded content on RapidShare.com. You can use RS1 to find full albums that you want to download. Search results to .rar’s and .zip’s can quickly become stale (no longer active), so be aware that it might take some digging to find what you want. Also, the majority of the files are in .rar format, so you will need a program to uncompress them, like 7-Zip or WinRAR.
Pros
- you can download entire albums
- indexes all content on RapidShare, so you can download other stuff too
Cons
- results are often stale (inactive)
- it takes many clicks to download a file (this is a result of the process in place at RapidShare)
- you can only download from RapidShare about 90 minutes after your last download
HOWTO: Turn YouTube videos into MP3s
[ 17 January 2008 ]
Marked under multimedia.
Ever have an urge to rip the audio from a YouTube movie into an MP3? Well, I have a fairly easy way to do it. The only required software to use is VLC Media Player. Audacity is optional, but recommended, for additional audio editing. The process uses the VLC command-line to transcode a Flash video file (.flv) into an MP3. Let’s get to it.
1. Download the software
First, you need to download VLC media player. I also recommend Audacity for any additional editing (which I will not get into — it’s up to you).
2. Get a FLV of a YouTube video
Find a YouTube video of your liking and head over to keepvid.com to get a FLV download of it. Once you download the FLV, I recommend you move it to the VLC installation folder, just to keep the paths simple on the command line. The typical installation folder is at
C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC.
3. Transcode the audio
Open up the command prompt (Start > Run > “cmd” [Enter]). Change the directory to the VLC installation folder using the cd command. Once you’re in the VLC folder (with your .flv in the same folder), enter in the following command and swap in your source name and export MP3 name:
vlc.exe "source.flv" :sout=#transcode{acodec=mp3,ab=192,channels=2}
:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=wav,dst="export.mp3"}} vlc:quit
Try to put all of that code into one big line. Once you hit enter, this command will open VLC, go through the GUI and actually transcode the video to an audio file for you, then it will close VLC. This command is actually just the command-line version of going through the VLC GUI from File > Wizard…
Have any additional hints for this in VLC? Let it fly in the comments.
Firefox Quick Search: Google-to-Peer Free Music
[ 22 August 2007 ]
Marked under mozilla, multimedia, time savers.
G2P.org offers an easy way to search Google for music. It’s been around for a while. If you have Firefox though, skip going to g2p and just make a Quick Search to find the music you want. It makes it much easier and faster to get your free music.
Go ahead and create a new Quick Search bookmark. Make the location:
HOWTO: Fast File Tranfers On Your Home Network with FTP
[ 7 June 2007 ]
Marked under multimedia, storage, time savers, windows.
We’ve all done it… we’ve had to transfer some files to a computer just feet away, but we’ve had to do extra work to get the job done. There are plenty of ways to get stuff to another computer on your network - email, external media (thumb drives, external HDDs), web space, direct connections (like in IM), etc. Many of those methods are really great, but by using FTP, we can take advantage of local transfers over our own network.
Note: This requires Windows XP Professional
In a nutshell: install the FTP service in Windows on at least one of the computers (best if all have it); make anonymous FTP connections allowed; FTP to your internal IP address from one computer to the other. And….done.
In detail:
1. Install the FTP server
You need your Windows XP Pro installation CD to install this extra Windows component, so load up the CD and go to the Control Panel in Windows. Open Add or Remove Programs and select Add/Remove Windows Components from the left side.
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Put a check mark next to Internet Information Services (IIS) and click the Details… button.
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Put a check mark next to File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Service. Common Files and the Snap-In will automatically become selected. Click OK and Next and finish up the installation.
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2. Set up anonymous FTP and an ftproot
Open up Administrative Services (can be found in the Control Panel). From there, open up IIS. Expand FTP Sites and right-click on Default FTP Site, and hit Properties.
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Under the Security Accounts tab, make sure Allow Anonymous Connections is checked.
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Under the Home Directory tab, make sure Read and Write are both checked. At the top, choose a path to your ftproot, or keep the default (C:\Inetpub\ftproot). Mine is set to C:\dropbox\.
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3. Transfer files in an FTP client
Load up your favorite FTP client and connect to your local IP address of the computer your sending data to. For example, say my local IP is 192.168.1.4 and the computer I want to send data to is 192.168.1.7. In my FTP client, I would enter 192.168.1.7 for the server and connect. The file transfer should be really quick since you’re on the same network. The data is not going over the Internet but is actually just going through your router from one connected client to another. So, the real bottleneck of the transfer is the router itself.
4. Q & A
Q: Why do you only need one (of two) computers to transfer files?
A: Say you want to transfer files to and from two computers. You have PC1 and PC2. If you set up the FTP server on PC2, it’s possible to transfer data in both directions - to and from PC1. To send data to PC2, connect to its IP from PC1 and send your files over. Easy. Say you want something from PC2 to go to PC1. Just copy the file(s) into the ftproot on PC2, and when you connect from PC1, just drag the files from PC2 to your own local file system.
Q: Can I set up the FTP service using Windows XP Home?
A: No. However, you might be able to get it to work. Read these instructions.
Q: Can I make FTP access NOT anonymous?
A: Yes, just make sure the Allow Anonymous Connections option is not checked. You can manage permissions below it.
HOWTO: Share Files Among Computers with Tubes
[ 3 May 2007 ]
Marked under multimedia, storage, time savers.
Tubes is a free service for sharing files among computers. The application is a desktop program that allows the user to create a “tube” that he can place files in. Other users - friends, family, co-worker, other PCs - can subscribe to the tube and can get updated files added to the tube. You can choose to autosync a tube which will automatically get new files when they’re added to a tube. Think of it as instantly sending files to an aggregate group of people using your tube. This is a walk-through on how to get started using Tubes to share files.
1. Register and download
First, go to www.tubesnow.com. Click the download button. It will take you to a register page. Register for a free account (which gives you 2 Gb of space) or pay $4.99/month for Premium (5 Gb, more features) and download Tubes.
2. Add a tube
The first time you use Tubes, it will connect you to two tubes on its own, Help and What’s New.
Click the + sign to create a new tube. Name the tube and choose additional options from the details menu.
(click image to enlarge)
Your tube will get processed and created.
Double-click on your tube and a tube explorer window will open up.
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You can start dragging some files into this tube. As you can see in the image below, I am using the free account which offer 2 gigabytes of storage.
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In the Tubes Navigator, your tube will show how many files you have in your tube.
3. Invite people to your tube
If you right-click your tube, you can send out invites to other people to use your tube so you can share files
Stay tuned for updates as I’ll be posting some more screenshots of other tubes receiving files.
Utility Center: 4 New Additions
[ 9 April 2007 ]
Marked under general, mobile, multimedia, time savers, windows.
Here are a few new additions to the new Utility Center.
IrfanView - this program goes back to my days with Windows 95. This is an excellent image viewer…a perfect replacement to the default view in Windows. You can open plenty of different image formats as well as play audio formats. This program has been written about before for ability to take great screenshots.
FileZilla - this is a very reliable FTP program — and it’s completely free. I highly recommend it for any FTP use. It has n account manager that lets you save passwords and addresses.
CleanUp! - this program has been mentioned in the past as a good way to clean up your hard drive. It can scan though a lot of common areas looking for temporary files, cached files and other junk. This is definitely a good program to have.
BitPim - this program is a great one for cell phones. If you are able to connect your phone to your computer (either hard wire or wireless), you can use the bad boy to transfer media over to the phone. It’s been mentioned in the past in a detailed tutorial on putting MP3s on the LG Chocolate as ringtones.
HOWTO: Free MP3 Ring Tones on the LG Chocolate
[ 5 April 2007 ]
Marked under mobile, multimedia.
UPDATE: See bottom of post!
For those of you with the LG Chocolate, I have good news — free ringtones are possible. It’s possible to transfer your own MP3s to your phone just by using Verizon’s USB cable. That’s all you need to purchase (or borrow from a friend). I’ll walk you through the process of cutting a ring tone to 30 seconds and transferring it to your phone.
1. The USB Cord & Drivers
You need the USB cable that comes with the Music Essentials Kit at Verizon. You can purchase this for about $25 — try eBay for even cheaper prices.
Once you get the cord (or borrow it from someone), you need to install the necessary drivers. You can install them from the CD that comes with the kit, or download the drivers for free via iGoneMobile.
2. Cut an MP3 into a Ring Tone
Now, find an MP3 you have and cut it down to about 30 seconds or less. You can use the fantastic Audacity to get this job done. Download Audacity and the LAME MP3 codec. Install Audacity first. Next, unzip LAME and move the lame_enc.dll to the Audacity program folder (C:\Program Files\Audacity\).
Go to Edit > Preferences and click the File Formats tab. At the bottom, click Find Library and locate the lame_enc.dll file you just moved.
Close the Preferences and go back into the main window. Drag an MP3 into the window. Highlight specific areas of the song and hit Delete to delete them; shoot for about 30 seconds or less for your final cut. When you’re done, go to File > Export As MP3… and you’re done.
3. Send data to your phone with Bitpim
The software that will send data to your phone is called Bitpim. Download and install it. Connect your phone to your computer with your USB cable. To set the phone model, go to Edit > Settings and select “LG-VX8500″ under Phone Type. Bitpim will connect to your phone.
Click on the Ringers section on the left nav under Media. Drag your new 30 second MP3(s) into the Ringers area. A Convert prompt will pop up. Change the bitrate to what you want — I like 128kbps, but a lower bitrate will reduce the file size. Click Convert and wait.
When it’s done converting, it will allow you to crop and preview the MP3. Just hit OK at the bottom. You might get a warning saying the ring tone might be too big for the phone — just hit Yes to proceed.
Once you are all set with your ring tone(s), click Data > Send Phone Data … to send the MP3(s). Check the button next to Ringtone to send that data.
When the transfer completes, unplug your phone and set your new ring tone. That’s all there is to it.
UPDATE!!!
Many people are having problems using Bitpim with the latest software version on the LG Chocolate. If you were unable to get MP3s to your Chocolate for ringers, try the steps below. They may not work, but please give them a try and let us know in the comments in they worked or not.
1. In Bitpim, go to View > View Filesystem (make sure there’s a checkmark here).
2. Click the Filesystem section in the left nav.
3. Navigate to “/brew/16452/lk/mr” and drop your MP3s into the mr folder.
As before, make sure you first cut your song down to about 20 - 30 seconds (using Audacity or another audio editor).
HOWTO: Set MP3s as Ring Tones for Free [Verizon]
[ 25 January 2007 ]
Marked under mobile, multimedia.
NOTE: This will actually cost you the amount it costs to receive a Pix Msg on your cellphone; probably $0.25…so it’s basically free (compared to the $2.99 it costs on your phone).
I recently received a new cell phone, the LG Chocolate. I was tired of flip phones, so I wanted to try something new and interesting. The Chocolate supports MP3s, however they cannot be set as ring tones. I decided I’d still want to get some sort of music ring tone — nothing special. All you need to do is create a small MP3 sample (about 30 seconds), email it to your phone, and set the attached song as a ring tone.
First, choose a good track
First, find an MP3 you want as your ring tone. It’s best to edit it down to about 30 seconds; you don’t need the entire song. If you want to edit the audio, download a copy of Audacity (free and easy-to-use). Make a copy of the song, open the copy in Audacity, and cut it down to about 30 seconds. You will need the free “LAME MP3 encoder,” so download a copy. Once you have it, unzip lame_enc.dll and save it somewhere on your computer (just toss it in C:\Program Files\Audacity\). When you try to export your song as an MP3, Audacity will ask you where the LAME encoder file is. Just browse to it and select it.
Send to your phone via email
Now that you have your desired ringtone in MP3 format, attach it to an email and send the message to your10digitphonenumber@vzwpix.com (similar to sending txt msgs via email). You will get a new Pix msg on your cellphone. Open the message and in the options menu (which may be different on all phones) select Save As Ringtone. The attached song will be saved as a ringtone on your phone.
That’s about it. The quality of these ring tones may not be very good. I think it’s really up to the MP3 you edit, the quality of the export from Audacity, and your cellphone. If you feel the quality is too poor, I understand…just purchase your tones through GetItNow. If you want something simple and cheap, then try this out.
Also, please post any alternate methods or some good improvements to this method.
HOWTO: Find the right video codec
[ 18 November 2006 ]
Marked under multimedia, time savers.
If you have ever had an AVI movie file on your computer and you wanted to watch it, you’ve probably had a problem with figuring out how to watch it. To watch videos and listen to audio, you need specific codecs. A codec (short for compressor/decompressor), is a way to compress a given file, then decompress it upon use. There are so many codecs out there, it’s hard to keep track of what your machine supports. I recommend the use of AVIcodec, which will examine a video file and tell you what specific codec(s) you need to watch and listen to it.
It’s very easy to use, and there are actually two ways to analyze files:
1. Open the AVIcodec program and either drag a file into the program area, or click the Select button and manually add a file.
(click image to enlarge)
or
2. Right-click a video file > click “AVIcodec : detailed information”
The program will tell you what video codec you need and what website you can go to download it. It will also analyze the audio portion of the movie, so if you need a codec for that as well, you can get it.
HOWTO: Quickly take great screenshots
[ 9 November 2006 ]
Marked under multimedia, windows.
Ever wonder how you can take good screenshots to show off menus and screens of applications? Ever wonder how I make my screenshots for most of my articles? I’ve been using this program called IrfanView since I had Windows 95 (no…seriously). IrfanView has a ton of built-in functions, including something called a Capture. In fact, the screenshot below that shows how to capture was taken using IrfanView. A screen capture is a way to “capture” what is on the screen, so it takes a screenshot (duh). In IrfanView, just go to Options > Capture/Screenshot OR click the C on your keyboard. The Capture menu will pop up:
There are a couple of categories to select options in.
Capture area:
Whole screen - captures entire screen (your resolution)
Foreground window - entire selected window
Foreground window (client area) - window without caption, menu and status bar
Capture method:
Use a hot key to hit when you want to take a shot
Automatic timer delay will take a shot after x seconds
Capture options:
Choose to include or mask the cursor
Saving method:
Show the shot in the viewer
Automatically save the shot to a location
More of IrfanView
Another good thing about IrfanView is the ability to have multiple instances. I had two instances for the screenshot above, one taking a screenshot and the other with the Capture menu open. IrfanView also has the ability to add in plug-ins. You can watch movies and listen to sounds in it.
In case you were wondering, I took a regular-sized screenshot of the Capture menu; that was too big for the site, so I used the resize option and made a second image 50% of the original size. The half-sized image is the thumbnail which links to the full-sized image.
HOWTO: Convert movies to iPod format [for free]
[ 7 November 2006 ]
Marked under multimedia, windows.
I’m sure there are many programs out there these days (free and for $) that will convert files to the iPod format. Well, here is one. It’s called 3GP Converter. It converts typical computer movies to the 3GP video wrapper. That means you can convert to many different formats, but we are only concerned with the iPod MP4 format.
1. DOWNLOAD and UNZIP
Download 3GP Converter and unzip the folder. No install is necessary. It might be a good idea to unzip it to a folder in Program Files (e.g. C:\Program Files\3GP Converter\).
2. RUN INITIAL SETUP
After everything is unzipped, run Setup.exe which will set the basic preferences for the converter. You only need to run this setup the first time you use it.
You may notice the only thing you can understand is the word Japansese at the bottom left. Click it and select English to change the language to English.
Now that you can actually read the formats, scroll down and select Model: MP4, for iPod. This is the format we will convert to. As you can see, there are a ton of other formats to convert to, so do what you want…if you have a PSP or a phone that supports these formats.
3. CONVERT
Click the apply button on the Setup panel. From now on, you just need to run the 3GP_Converter.exe program.
Select an output directory by clicking Browse. You can also choose some other options using the drop-down menu, but I’ve only tried the default. Feel free to try different bit rates and whatnot and comment on your success/failure in the comments. Now, to convert a movie, just drag it onto the white area at the top. If you drag multiple movies up there, they will queue up for conversions.
HOWTO: Manage multiple libraries in iTunes 7
[ 13 September 2006 ]
Marked under multimedia.
iTunes 7 has some new and improved features to help people manage their music, movies, podcasts and pictures. One of the long-awaited features is the support for multiple libraries. A library (in the iTunes realm) is an XML file that stores the information about your media you use in iTunes. All of the songs you have in iTunes are referenced in the XML library file. I will show you how to manage multiple libraries with iTunes 7. This is good for people with iPods. You can have one library just for your iPod’s music and another for all of your music.
UPDATE: Scroll down to the bottom to see the update.
Get iTunes 7
The first step if to get iTunes 7 if you don’t already have it. Get it at the iTunes website.
Copy old files
Now you need to backup your old files. This includes your iTunes Library.xml file and your folder where your music is. In my case, I store all fo my music on my external E:\ drive, so I just need to backup the XML file. The default Windows location for these respective files are in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\. Save these files elswhere, like temporarily on the Desktop.
Shift your way to a new library
Click on your Desktop icon of iTunes (or any icon of it), hold down the Shift key (Option key for Macs) and press the Enter key, but keep Shift held down. iTunes should launch a “Choose Library” box.
Click the “Create Library…” button and select a folder to use as your library folder. For example, I named mine, “iPod music” because it’s just for my iPod music library.
Now when iTunes opens, add in your music for that specific library. For me, I put all of the music I want on my iPod here. Since I have a 30Gb iPod, this would be less than 30 Gbs of music. iTunes will do a lot of stuff, like scanning and whatnot. Once you are finally done, close iTunes.
Follow the same method again for the next library. Click on the iTunes icon, hold Shift and hit the Enter key. Create another library and do the same steps. For this library, I named the folder “all music” because it will have all of my music, including any music on my iPod.
Choose a specific Library for iTunes
Now that you have your libraries made, let’s use them. Say I want to update some stuff on my iPod. I need a way to open my iPod library to do that. Just click the iTunes icon, hold Shift and hit Enter. Now when the “Choose Library” box in shown, click “Choose Library…” and navigate to the respective folder and open the library file.
The key to the whole process is to hold Shift when clicking the iTunes icon. That will cause the Choose Library box to pop up. From there you can create libraries or select specific libraries you already have.
Disclaimer: I manage my music myself, I don’t let iTunes handle that for me. If you do give iTunes control, you may run into problems that I cannot account for. This method works well for me to manage my iPod separately from all of my music. I am not responsible if any of your media is lost using this method. If you know of problems in specific cases, leave a comment or email me and I can add them in.
UPDATE:
If you do not want to use the method I outlined above, go ahead to download a copy of Libra. This shareware will allow you to create multiple libraries. It’s interface has the ability to active the library of your choice. It’s basically the same method, but it’s all packaged into a GUI. Download Libra now.
Now click New to create a new library and select a location for the folder. I made my new library in the My Music folder in My Documents.
Once you create multiple libraries, just click the library and hit Make Active to make it the active library recognized by iTunes. Now just hit the iTunes icon in the bottom right corner and it will open with your library.