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Vol. 6, No. 26
6-22-06
1 Ripping Part 3
2 High tech cookout
3 Internet Neutrality, Digg, MySpace, bleeding edge speed
4 Baby iPhoto
5 WinPatrol
6 Firefox to go
7 Oops!
MusicMatch Jukebox is a great program, at least the paid version that Troy uses at work is. The free version from http://www.musicmatch.com/download/free/index.cgi?OS=pc&MODE=input is a crippled mess, with many buttons leading to pay-to-play Yahoo content, a constant ad to urge you to upgrade to the Plus version (for $20) and burning/ripping speeds of 25% or less of the paid version. Not to mention the animated pop-up every time you drop a CD in that prompts you to buy Plus, wasting both time and bandwidth.
Regardless, many people use it so I’ll step you through the process of ripping tracks this week. This process should work regardless of the version you have, one of which comes preinstalled on Dell PCs.
This week I’m going to rip a few of my favorite tunes from Disc 2 of Alligator Record’s 20th Anniversary blues collection. As last week, drop your disk in, close the annoying ad, stop the auto-playback (you may have to click the CD button on the left at that point since the free version kicks straight out to paid content) and you’re ready to start.
Click the Copy from CD button on the left and you’ll get Recorder window with a playlist on the right, each track with a checkbox for selection.
From the playlist, which like WiMP pulls track information from online databases, I’m choosing track 1, “Brick” by Albert Collins, track 3, “You Don’t Exist Any More” by Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials, track 6, “Going Down to Big Mary’s” by The Paladins and track 10, “The Middle Aged Blues Boogie” by The Uppity Blues Women.
Clicking Start Copy yields yet another annoying ad to buy Plus (I’m hating MusicMatch more and more each second) which you can close, after which the program will rip the selected songs into .mp3 format and, again like WiMP, create a new folder and subfolder in the My Music folder for the new files.
I apologize if this week’s portion of the ripping and burning series seemed more like a rant than a tutorial or educational piece but this is my first experience with MusicMatch, and I can honestly say I’m underwhelmed. It was a hassle to install, it offered to add unwanted toolbars to my browser (but in its favor, at least it asked), it dumped a bunch of stuff into my startup group and snagged the default file associations of my audio files (this time without asking).
AVG offers a free version of their antivirus software that doesn’t club you over the head to buy the “full” version. Ad-Aware and Zone Alarm are the same. All offer free but limited versions of their software that do what they claim to do without bells and whistles. MusicMatch does much the same but they mace you with reminders and enticements, pop-ups and floating buttons at every opportunity in trying to sell the same functionality that you get built into Windows.
It might be a little smoother or have a few more features than what I can do for free through Windows, but I only buy bolt-ons that work without poking me in the eye with a stick. I won’t be buying MusicMatch any time soon.
Next week we’ll start burning and I’ll have to re-visit this waste of hard drive space but, as I mentioned earlier, some of you already have something beyond the free version that I had to subject myself to.
For you I’ll suffer through it ;)
Kevin Mefford, Editor
Terry Wise
Tech News of the Week
Despite the
divisiveness in Congress and the tech world over whether
the government
should regulate the Internet a compromise that
satisfies everyone is
possible, according to a report released Tuesday
by a non-profit public
policy group:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/14868662.htm
Digg.com,
a tech-news phenomenon that has readers recommend online
articles to others,
is expanding to let users also vote for the most
popular general news,
entertainment stories or videos, the company
said on Thursday:
http://today.reuters.com/stocks/QuoteCompanyNewsArticle.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2006-06-23T000014Z_01_N19372831_RTRIDST_0_MEDIA-DIGG-SCHEDULED.XML&rpc=66
MySpace.com,
the most popular teen hangout on the Web, added on
Wednesday protections for
minors:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189600539
Researchers
from IBM and the Georgia Institute of Technology have
demonstrated a
silicon-germanium (SiGe) processor that, when
cryogenically frozen, can
operate at frequencies higher than 500
gigahertz (GHz)---bring some
gloves:
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/51228.html
Copy
us on the good stuff...even if your PC isn't faster than a
speeding bullet
;-)
Matthew Dattilo
thepcgurus@gmail.com
www.mattstodayinhistory.com
Mac Tip of the Week
Apple iLife applications offer seamless integration between the various applications. However if you are like me and have hundreds of photos I find iPhoto cumbersome for quick access, such as a simple cut and paste into a document.
The following describes the steps to create a simple iPhoto picture browser. If you have never used the Automator function before, the following also illustrates the simplicity of this powerful application.
1. Go to Applications, Open Automator and click iPhoto.
2. From the list of actions, select Ask for Photos, and drag it to the right-hand pane.
3. Save this as an Application or a Script Menu (File - Save As or Save as Plugin). If you save this as a plug-in, and select Script Menu it can be accessed system wide (the script menu displays in the menu bar). If this menu is not visible, launch the AppleScript Utility in /Applications/Applescript, and check 'Show Script Menu in menu bar.'
The next time you need a picture from your iPhoto library, open the Application or select the script from the AppleScript Menu, and you'll have a baby iPhoto browser.
Hash
Download of the Week
Every house needs a watchdog
to warn you when something nasty is at the front door. And your PC is no
different: It needs something that is ever-vigilant, keeping an eye on the
programs running on your computer and making plenty of noise when something
seems out of place. WinPatrol performs this guard job, keeping tabs on programs
running on your PC (including the hidden ones) and alerting you if a program
tries to install something unexpected, sets itself to run on startup, changes
your home page, or installs something it shouldn't. You can delete the offending
programs, block their automatic startup, or just monitor them to see what they
do. Best yet, it’s a
freebie:
Art Maley
Firefox Extension of the Week
This week I'm
not covering an extension, but I'm covering something that I
love about
Firefox and the Open Source Community. I love Firefox and I
want to
take it wherever I go, but I don't want the hassle of installing
it on
every computer I sit at during my day at work. In
comes
PortableFirefox, which you can get from http://www.portableapps.com/.
John Haller
has taken the time to take popular open source programs and
turn them into
versions of the applications that don't need to be
installed, all you have to
do is unzip the download and they are ready to
go! I have been using
PortableFirefox for the past 6 months at work. I
keep a copy in my
shared network storage, so I can run it whenever I am on
a computer on the
network. I also use it to test out extensions for my
extension of the
week features here in the newsletter. This way I don't
screw up my main
Firefox installation with an extension that has a bug in
it. The most
common way that I have seen this used is to put on a flash
drive and take it
computer to computer, either using Firefox wherever you
are using a computer
or trying to show someone the differences and
benefits of Firefox over other
browsers. Any way you look at it, it's a
great way to keep Firefox
around without having to install it everywhere
that you go.
Happy Portable
Browsing!
Daniel A. Williams
daniel@thepcgurus.com
Email Question of the Week
Q: Finally, team member Dan Dennison sends in a great link from the chatroom for you music fans. You're going to love this: http://www.pandora.com/ Copy us on the stuff ;-) Matthew Dattilo "MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "www.thepcgurus.com" claiming to be MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "www.thepcgurus.com" claiming to be thepcgurus@gmail.com" www.mattstodayinhistory.com" The above in the quotes was in a newsletter I downed today - IN BIG RED TYPEFACE. What the he__ does it mean? Thanks Worrried a bit...... Subject line on newsletter: "GuruNews, Volume 6 Number 25, 6-15-06" I have no "mailscanner" installed,,,,,,
A: That was a goof on my part. As a
general rule I like each section of the newsletter to contain the name of the
author as well as a direct email address for reader comments and
questions.
Matt's email signature contains links to www.thepcgurus.com and www.mattstodayinhistory.com. I usually delete the Guru link (why beat it over your head) and replace it with his team email address, but last week I selected it and typed over it instead, which resulted in Word retaining the original link while changing the visible link, so clicking on the thepcguru@gmail.com hyperlink would take you to our website rather than open your email program with a new message screen.
The text you got in last week's letter was inserted by a server-side virus/spyware/phishing scanner used by your ISP and is intended to point out an obfuscated link, which is a practice often used by email scammers to make you think you're clicking a link to eBay or your personal bank site while actually sending you someplace entirely different.
Nothing nefarious about it, just a goof on my part, but at least it shows your ISP is taking some steps to help protect you.
Hope that helps assuage your concerns, I'll try to do better in the future. Thanks for pointing it out ;)
Kevin Mefford
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