Question
I need a way to convert wav to mp3 or a way to work with wav files.
Response
Start...programs...accessories...entertainment...sound recorder
And/Or download audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Netscape Replacement
Question
Also since Netscape is not going to support or update the product. What would be a good, and easy fix for a new browser that is not IE
Response
I would recommend Safari, but there are still some issues with some sites that don’t work it. Mozilla, or the full package is SeaMonkey. They are both built off of the original browser Mosaic. The Mozilla Foundation formed when AOL opened up Netscape, after purchasing it a few years back. I also recommend AdBlockPlus. Does wonders on eliminating net ads.
Opera is another option, but haven’t heard too much buzz about it recently. Obviously you have to keep IE up–to-date but run FireFox. IE7 is actually fairly safe now, with the information bar preventing auto-installs. But if you don’t like it you don’t like it.
Firefox
www.mozilla.com/firefox/
IE7
www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx
www.google.com/toolbar/ie7
IE8Beta
www.microsoft.com/windows/Internet-explorer/beta/default.aspx
SeaMonkey
www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/
Opera
www.opera.com/download/
AdBlockerPlus
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
Safari
www.apple.com/safari/download/
Also since Netscape is not going to support or update the product. What would be a good, and easy fix for a new browser that is not IE
Response
I would recommend Safari, but there are still some issues with some sites that don’t work it. Mozilla, or the full package is SeaMonkey. They are both built off of the original browser Mosaic. The Mozilla Foundation formed when AOL opened up Netscape, after purchasing it a few years back. I also recommend AdBlockPlus. Does wonders on eliminating net ads.
Opera is another option, but haven’t heard too much buzz about it recently. Obviously you have to keep IE up–to-date but run FireFox. IE7 is actually fairly safe now, with the information bar preventing auto-installs. But if you don’t like it you don’t like it.
Firefox
www.mozilla.com/firefox/
IE7
www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx
www.google.com/toolbar/ie7
IE8Beta
www.microsoft.com/windows/Internet-explorer/beta/default.aspx
SeaMonkey
www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/
Opera
www.opera.com/download/
AdBlockerPlus
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
Safari
www.apple.com/safari/download/
Overwattage Lamp choices
Question
I was wanting to know that since the new flourescent lights draw less power, can I put a light that is like 75 watts bulb in a 60 watt fixture since it does not pull that number of watts or even have the heat.
Response
What is a flourescent light?
The 60/75 question is probably very safe. Maybe even 100. Go LED! <-- Aside from they are expensive. As soon as I put up my flood lights for the yard, I am putting LEDs in them. I don’t want to have to change bulbs 2 stories up that often.
LED Flood light, ~$45, supposed to give ~10k-20k hours.
I was wanting to know that since the new flourescent lights draw less power, can I put a light that is like 75 watts bulb in a 60 watt fixture since it does not pull that number of watts or even have the heat.
Response
What is a flourescent light?
The 60/75 question is probably very safe. Maybe even 100. Go LED! <-- Aside from they are expensive. As soon as I put up my flood lights for the yard, I am putting LEDs in them. I don’t want to have to change bulbs 2 stories up that often.
LED Flood light, ~$45, supposed to give ~10k-20k hours.
WiFi Router for Cable Modem
Question:
My router crapped out, thoughts?
Response:
Go with a Wifi draft-n version. Probably will have three antennas on it, and should be backwards compatable to wifi-b and wifi-g. I favor Linksys (subsidiary of Cisco), but D-link and Netgear are just as reputable and good. For a while all the Linksys routers were running a customizable Linux OS on there residential routers that expanded their usefullness by leaps and bounds.
Dlink Wifi DIR-615
www.dlink.com/products/?pid=565
Linksys WRT610N
http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/products/WRT610N
Netgear WNEB3100
http://www.netgear.com/Products/APsWirelessControllers/AccessPoints/WNEB3100.aspx
My router crapped out, thoughts?
Response:
Go with a Wifi draft-n version. Probably will have three antennas on it, and should be backwards compatable to wifi-b and wifi-g. I favor Linksys (subsidiary of Cisco), but D-link and Netgear are just as reputable and good. For a while all the Linksys routers were running a customizable Linux OS on there residential routers that expanded their usefullness by leaps and bounds.
Dlink Wifi DIR-615
www.dlink.com/products/?pid=565
Linksys WRT610N
http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/products/WRT610N
Netgear WNEB3100
http://www.netgear.com/Products/APsWirelessControllers/AccessPoints/WNEB3100.aspx
Software to Record Steaming Audio
OP Original Question
Several programs like Car Talk and Rick Steve's Travel allow you to
listen to their radio shows via streaming audio. But there are times
that I would like to capture the program in a wmf or mp3 file and play
it later on my SanDisk Sansa. Do you know of any utilities that will
allow you to record a program as it streams?
Repsonse 1
CarTalk is NPR and available on Itunes as a Podcast
Rick Steves Travel is the same way
http://www.ricksteves.com/news/podcast_menu.htm
I have a ipod adapter and I do cartalk (when I think about it). I really would like to get the wifi sync-ipod adapter so I can be lazy and not have to remember to get ipod out of car to sync up new music.
Audacity can convert many audio files to other formats...
http://audacity.sourceforge.net
On the Mac I have a program called Radiolover that would pull 30(?) minutes (shareware?) and make a MP3 out of the stream. The podcast is the way to go though for those two.
OP Reply
I have ITunes setup to download the Car Talk and Rick Steves podcasts. But how can I move them to my SanDisk Sansa as either a WMA or MP3 file? Everything I look at in the ITunes instructions reference an IPod device.
Response 2
Here are a couple of stream recorders that you can save to MP3/wma format
MediaRecorder
MediaRecorder receives streaming media from a Web source and saves it to a file for playback. It's as easy as specifying 1) the source Web address, 2) a file for saving the broadcast and 3) timer-based, clock-based or scheduler-based recording.
http://www.twinklesoft.com/mediaDetail.html
Welcome to the Streamripper home page, an Open Source (GPL) application that lets you record streaming mp3 to your hard drive
http://streamripper.sourceforge.net/
Here are directions specifically for the Sansa
http://cannell.org/blog/using-itunes-my-sandisk-sansa-mp3-player
Using iTunes with my SanDisk Sansa MP3 player
Submitted by Larry on Sun, 03/04/2007 - 12:38. podcasting
Being able to listen to podcasts in my car has made a big change in my daily life. The thirty minute drive to and from the office is much less stressful. It's now a delightful respite from a busy day. On Fridays I usually work in my home office. This leaves a three day period where I don't have the opportunity to listen to podcasts. It's strange but sometimes, on Monday morning, I look forward to the drive.Although I love learning about new things I don't really like gadgets all that much. Once I'm happy with a cell phone, for example, I usually keep it until it is broken, lost, or the battery needs replacing (replacing the phone is usually cheaper). I also don't buy the most expensive gadgets either. My kids have iPods but I couldn't justify spending the extra money just to listen to podcasts and occasionally some music. I also have a seven year old desktop computer still running Windows 2000 (700Mhz Celeron, although the memory was
upgraded to 512MB).So when it came time to buy an MP3 player I went with a SanDisk Sansa
m250 . It's an inexpensive but good audio player that has 2GB of memory and support for "advanced" features like playlists. I say "advance" since I discovered many players don't support playlists, hard to believe.
The method I use for subscribing to podcasts took me some time to get established but it is working well for me now. I was familiar with iTunes since my kids have iPods. In addition, I wasn't able to find any other good windows-based software for subscribing to podcasts.iTunes makes subscribing to podcasts easy. From the online store to the way it automates the retrieval of podcasts; iTunes is simple to use. I haven't found a competing product this easy. I also find it
interesting that iTunes supports Windows 2000 but Windows Media Player does not.
Here is how I update podcasts on my SanDisk Sansa m250.
I have two synchronization jobs configured:
Some things to consider with this setup:
I have been using this setup for several months now and it is working well. This is an inexpensive method for subscribing to your favorite podcasts using an inexpensive MP3 player and a Windows computer.
Several programs like Car Talk and Rick Steve's Travel allow you to
listen to their radio shows via streaming audio. But there are times
that I would like to capture the program in a wmf or mp3 file and play
it later on my SanDisk Sansa. Do you know of any utilities that will
allow you to record a program as it streams?
Repsonse 1
CarTalk is NPR and available on Itunes as a Podcast
Rick Steves Travel is the same way
http://www.ricksteves.com/news/podcast_menu.htm
I have a ipod adapter and I do cartalk (when I think about it). I really would like to get the wifi sync-ipod adapter so I can be lazy and not have to remember to get ipod out of car to sync up new music.
Audacity can convert many audio files to other formats...
http://audacity.sourceforge.net
On the Mac I have a program called Radiolover that would pull 30(?) minutes (shareware?) and make a MP3 out of the stream. The podcast is the way to go though for those two.
OP Reply
I have ITunes setup to download the Car Talk and Rick Steves podcasts. But how can I move them to my SanDisk Sansa as either a WMA or MP3 file? Everything I look at in the ITunes instructions reference an IPod device.
Response 2
Here are a couple of stream recorders that you can save to MP3/wma format
MediaRecorder
MediaRecorder receives streaming media from a Web source and saves it to a file for playback. It's as easy as specifying 1) the source Web address, 2) a file for saving the broadcast and 3) timer-based, clock-based or scheduler-based recording.
http://www.twinklesoft.com/mediaDetail.html
Welcome to the Streamripper home page, an Open Source (GPL) application that lets you record streaming mp3 to your hard drive
http://streamripper.sourceforge.net/
Here are directions specifically for the Sansa
http://cannell.org/blog/using-itunes-my-sandisk-sansa-mp3-player
Using iTunes with my SanDisk Sansa MP3 player
Submitted by Larry on Sun, 03/04/2007 - 12:38. podcasting
Being able to listen to podcasts in my car has made a big change in my daily life. The thirty minute drive to and from the office is much less stressful. It's now a delightful respite from a busy day. On Fridays I usually work in my home office. This leaves a three day period where I don't have the opportunity to listen to podcasts. It's strange but sometimes, on Monday morning, I look forward to the drive.Although I love learning about new things I don't really like gadgets all that much. Once I'm happy with a cell phone, for example, I usually keep it until it is broken, lost, or the battery needs replacing (replacing the phone is usually cheaper). I also don't buy the most expensive gadgets either. My kids have iPods but I couldn't justify spending the extra money just to listen to podcasts and occasionally some music. I also have a seven year old desktop computer still running Windows 2000 (700Mhz Celeron, although the memory was
upgraded to 512MB).So when it came time to buy an MP3 player I went with a SanDisk Sansa
m250 . It's an inexpensive but good audio player that has 2GB of memory and support for "advanced" features like playlists. I say "advance" since I discovered many players don't support playlists, hard to believe.
The method I use for subscribing to podcasts took me some time to get established but it is working well for me now. I was familiar with iTunes since my kids have iPods. In addition, I wasn't able to find any other good windows-based software for subscribing to podcasts.iTunes makes subscribing to podcasts easy. From the online store to the way it automates the retrieval of podcasts; iTunes is simple to use. I haven't found a competing product this easy. I also find it
interesting that iTunes supports Windows 2000 but Windows Media Player does not.
Here is how I update podcasts on my SanDisk Sansa m250.
- I use iTunes for managing podcasts. Podcast audio files are downloaded into a folder under "My Music". The Sansa is configured for run in MSC mode. This means the player will show up as a USB disk on the desktop computer when plugged in. I synchronize podcasts (and music, by the way) on my computer with the SanDisk Sansa using Allway Sync . This is a fantastic utility that can support many scenarios but works especially well with USB devices like the Sansa.
- Allway Sync is configured to automatically synchronize files on my Windows 2000 computer with the Sansa (which shows up as a USB disk drive) whenever it detects the player is connected.
I have two synchronization jobs configured:
- The audio files in the iTunes podcast folder are synchronized with a folder on the Sansa.
- A folder containing my music is synchronized with a folder on the Sansa (more on this setup some other time).
Some things to consider with this setup:
- I have to be careful and be sure to subscribe to feeds providing files in MP3 format. Sometimes this take a little extra work like going to the podcaster's website, finding the MP3 subscription link and adding the feed manually to iTunes.
- iTunes is configured to automatically launch upon Windows startup. I also minimize iTunes to the system tray so it can run continuously.Once a week I mark all of my iTunes feeds as played. Otherwise, iTunes assumes they are not being used (they aren't, from iTunes' perspective). The Sansa takes a long time (seems like a couple of minutes) to turn on and get to the first menu after synchronization. I assume this is due to it rebuilding indexes and discovering new content.
- Plug in the Sansa player into a USB port on the desktop computer. Come back in a couple of minutes and click on the little icon in the system tray that allows you to safely remove USB devices.
- To see if there are new podcasts I bring up Allway Sync by double-clicking on it's icon in the system tray and look in the "New File" section.
- Once a week I mark all of my podcasts as "played".
I have been using this setup for several months now and it is working well. This is an inexpensive method for subscribing to your favorite podcasts using an inexpensive MP3 player and a Windows computer.
Swimming with the fishes
Question:
I got new fish, platies to be exact, how do I take care of them?
Response:
Um, hummm, check out this site: http://www.wikihow.com/Breed-and-Care-for-Platies
I got new fish, platies to be exact, how do I take care of them?
Response:
Um, hummm, check out this site: http://www.wikihow.com/Breed-and-Care-for-Platies
Friday, January 16, 2009
IPod Broke.. Ideas?
Original Question (OP#1)
I think you said you had good luck fixing ipods. I have a 4th gen (grey scale w/ click wheel) 20gB that gave me the unhappy iPod face about 2 years ago now. I looked it up online and it said "dude, you're screwed." This happened after I left in the car overnight during the winter, so I think it's probably a hard drive issue. At this point, cost wise, do you think its just as likely that it would cost more to fix it than it's worth? I would use this guy as a protable media library for my car, so battery life is not an issue.
REPLY1
I have had really good luck with rockbox. I currently pretty much leave my 30G 4Gvideo in the car all the time, though I need to swap it with the rockbox30G-4Video.
OP #2
It shows up on "My Computer" as a disk drive, but says no disk is available. Since I don't have Spinrite or diskwarrior, what if I sent it to you? would you be interested in fiddling with it? hmm. so the process would be to attempt to load rockbox... then fix the HD, then see if I can plug it into my ipod car controller and get ti to play. if not, could I reinstall Apple firmware? I don't understand the sentences about getting to the HD from the iPOD firmwareOS.
REPLY2
There are a couple of other ones out there, but so far all but the Shuffle have been gifts to us, and the shuffle was a gift to me from Beth. It is the least uesed because I forget to turn it off. If you cant get to the HD from the IPOD FirwareOS, crack it open your self run diskwarrior or spinrite on it and see what is going on. There are plenty of hidden menus to let you know what is going on with the IPOD, I just don't remember them off the top of my head.
Reply3
Diskwarrior is for macs, sprinrite for PCs.
No, I am not splitting with my 4G_Videos.
Select+left to get to serv menu, and there are some diagnostics you can run.
Select+right to get to verbose boot
Select+down to get to disk mode
up stalls boot
down loads linux (with rockbox as bootloader)
Hold ‘on’’ loads apple boot loader
Happy Friday folks! This week's topic is all about helping Chuck out with recovering data from his daughter's corrupt hard drive. Before we begin, I cannot stress how important it is to backup your data, so that you do not find yourself in this situation. With that said, if you haven't backed up your data lately, get to it! Now, let's move on to the topic.
Well, Chuck, there are two possible ways a hard drive can become corrupt, one way is a physical failure (when something mechanically goes wrong within the drive--bad platter, bad circuit board, and so on), and the other way is logical failure (when the drive physically works, but data on the drive is in a corrupt state and it can be caused by a range of issues from viruses to file corruption.) If you read through the answers by our members, physical drive failure are by far more difficult to retrieve data from, as the mechanics need to be fixed, whereas logically failures, while not easy, are recoverable through third-party software, or costly services that specialize in data recovery. Either way, no method is guaranteed to recover your data completely.
This week, our members' solutions to your questions varied, as there are many methods to hard drive recovery--ranging from what software they used to retrieve date from logical drive failures, to the method of freezing the hard drive (which many recommend to be the last resort.) There are simply no wrong or right answers, just a bunch of different approaches. So, give all our members' advice and recommendations a read. I will mention that when it came to recommending a data recovery utility, a few titles that where mentioned more frequently than others were, SpinRite from Gibson Research and Ontrack Easy Recovery, both will cost you a bit of money. However, there were other options, which is to use Knoppix or Ubuntu Live Linux CD that are free to download. Overall, there were many helpful answers. I truly believe that after you read through these recommendations, you'll have some good ideas what to start with. I've selected a few answers to get you all going in the Q&A section, so check them out. Again, as a reminder to all you folks, back up your data and do it frequently, so you won't have to go through this stressful experience. Take care everyone and thank you all for your contributions to the question. Good luck Chuck and, if you have a chance, let us know what worked out for you.
Cheers!
- Lee
I think you said you had good luck fixing ipods. I have a 4th gen (grey scale w/ click wheel) 20gB that gave me the unhappy iPod face about 2 years ago now. I looked it up online and it said "dude, you're screwed." This happened after I left in the car overnight during the winter, so I think it's probably a hard drive issue. At this point, cost wise, do you think its just as likely that it would cost more to fix it than it's worth? I would use this guy as a protable media library for my car, so battery life is not an issue.
REPLY1
I have had really good luck with rockbox. I currently pretty much leave my 30G 4Gvideo in the car all the time, though I need to swap it with the rockbox30G-4Video.
OP #2
It shows up on "My Computer" as a disk drive, but says no disk is available. Since I don't have Spinrite or diskwarrior, what if I sent it to you? would you be interested in fiddling with it? hmm. so the process would be to attempt to load rockbox... then fix the HD, then see if I can plug it into my ipod car controller and get ti to play. if not, could I reinstall Apple firmware? I don't understand the sentences about getting to the HD from the iPOD firmwareOS.
REPLY2
There are a couple of other ones out there, but so far all but the Shuffle have been gifts to us, and the shuffle was a gift to me from Beth. It is the least uesed because I forget to turn it off. If you cant get to the HD from the IPOD FirwareOS, crack it open your self run diskwarrior or spinrite on it and see what is going on. There are plenty of hidden menus to let you know what is going on with the IPOD, I just don't remember them off the top of my head.
Reply3
Diskwarrior is for macs, sprinrite for PCs.
No, I am not splitting with my 4G_Videos.
Select+left to get to serv menu, and there are some diagnostics you can run.
Select+right to get to verbose boot
Select+down to get to disk mode
up stalls boot
down loads linux (with rockbox as bootloader)
Hold ‘on’’ loads apple boot loader
Happy Friday folks! This week's topic is all about helping Chuck out with recovering data from his daughter's corrupt hard drive. Before we begin, I cannot stress how important it is to backup your data, so that you do not find yourself in this situation. With that said, if you haven't backed up your data lately, get to it! Now, let's move on to the topic.
Well, Chuck, there are two possible ways a hard drive can become corrupt, one way is a physical failure (when something mechanically goes wrong within the drive--bad platter, bad circuit board, and so on), and the other way is logical failure (when the drive physically works, but data on the drive is in a corrupt state and it can be caused by a range of issues from viruses to file corruption.) If you read through the answers by our members, physical drive failure are by far more difficult to retrieve data from, as the mechanics need to be fixed, whereas logically failures, while not easy, are recoverable through third-party software, or costly services that specialize in data recovery. Either way, no method is guaranteed to recover your data completely.
This week, our members' solutions to your questions varied, as there are many methods to hard drive recovery--ranging from what software they used to retrieve date from logical drive failures, to the method of freezing the hard drive (which many recommend to be the last resort.) There are simply no wrong or right answers, just a bunch of different approaches. So, give all our members' advice and recommendations a read. I will mention that when it came to recommending a data recovery utility, a few titles that where mentioned more frequently than others were, SpinRite from Gibson Research and Ontrack Easy Recovery, both will cost you a bit of money. However, there were other options, which is to use Knoppix or Ubuntu Live Linux CD that are free to download. Overall, there were many helpful answers. I truly believe that after you read through these recommendations, you'll have some good ideas what to start with. I've selected a few answers to get you all going in the Q&A section, so check them out. Again, as a reminder to all you folks, back up your data and do it frequently, so you won't have to go through this stressful experience. Take care everyone and thank you all for your contributions to the question. Good luck Chuck and, if you have a chance, let us know what worked out for you.
Cheers!
- Lee
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