by David Hakala
So you used Windows Media Player to “rip” music from an Audio CD to your hard drive. Then you burned the files to a data CD, popped it into your PS2 game console, and nothing happened. “Unsupported format.” You tried transferring the music files to your iPod only to learn that the device will not play Windows Media files. You need MP3 files in both cases.
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by David Hakala
If you are planning to get into P2P (peer-to-peer) BitTorrent networking, you will be shopping for a client program to do your downloading and manage your shared files. There is an awesome comparative list of Bittorrent Clients on Wikipedia. But let me save you a lot of trouble.
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by Tina Gasperson
You just spent an hour or more downloading the CD image for your favorite game or the latest version of OpenOffice, and you realized you’re fresh out of blank CDs – or worse than that, your CD burner is on the blink. There is an alternative – download and install an application that works as a virtual CD drive and use it to open and run any compatible CD image.
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by Tina Gasperson
Making multi-track recordings was once the province of those with access to a recording studio, but with the help of a free application called Audacity, anyone with a computer and a microphone can record and edit multi-track audio.
Audacity is an open source audio manipulation application that is easy to download and install. Follow the on-screen instructions, and then launch the application. To begin recording, plug a microphone into your computer or check to see if your computer has a built-in microphone and use that. Recording with a microphone is the default state in Audacity, so click the record button and begin speaking or singing. If everything is working as it should you’ll see the level indicators moving. When you’re done recording this first track, play it back to make sure it is the way you want it to be, then save it as a new project by clicking on File, then Save Project As. Give it a name and click Save.
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by Tina Gasperson
It’s nearly impossible to walk into a music store today and find a cassette tape for sale. Everything is on CD now, and the ’80s mainstay of audiophiles is relegated to the swap shop and garage sales. But if you have a favorite cassette that you just don’t want to give up, never fear: You can make a digital copy and burn it to a CD for everyday use, then pack the cassette away for safekeeping.
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by Tina Gasperson
A podcast is a recording that you can download onto your computer hard drive. The name is based on the popular iPod mp3 players made by Apple, but podcasts play on many different devices, not just iPods. It is easy to make your own podcast and distribute it on the Internet for others who may be interested in what you have to say.
Once you’ve decided what subject you want to focus on for your podcast, the next thing you’ll need is a computer with empty hard drive space, or some other way to store your podcast files once you’re done recording them, such as a thumb drive. Make sure you have about one MB of storage space for every minute of recording you want to do. A 30-minute podcast takes up about 30MB of disk space.
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