Media

I had a “Music” page, but it DEFINITELY needed an overhaul.

I was going to write about music and how to get it free, but now I’ve also decided to include videos in this discussion, making this post titled “Media”.

If any of you read my Music page before I deleted it you would have read me recommending Songza.com. Now Songza.com isn’t bad, but it’s definitely not good either. Songza only lets you listen to music, same as Rhapsody and most other popular music sites.

First I want to talk about places to listen to music.

In my opinion the best places to listen to music online are free.napster.com, Rhapsody.com, Purevolume.com and Songza.com.

Free.napster.com is a great place to listen to free music. Unfortunately you can’t create playlists, but they do have a huge selection of artists and music.

Rhapsody.com, even though it has a 25 song limit, is still great. Rhapsody lets you create, but not save, playlists. One way you can get around the 25 song limit is to uninstall the Rhapsody Player, which can be found in the Add or Remove programs menu. This only works sometimes though, so don’t count on it.

Purevolume.com is a cool website with a lot of the top artists and songs on it. At purevolume you can listen to some music depending on what the Artist has provided, and one in awhile you can find some great songs to download. Purevolume doesn’t have a great selection of music, but the fact that there are totally legal songs on there for download makes it pretty good.

Songza.com is a decent online player. If it works. My experience with Songza hasn’t been too great. At first it worked great. I could create and save playlists and play all the songs I wanted, but then one day it stopped playing the music. I still don’t know why it doesn’t work for me, but oh well. It’s a good service.

The other service I would like to talk about that I didn’t mention above is Downrol.com, formerly known as MusicTNT, formerly known as Danceage. Here you can find and listen to most songs, and download them too. The songs come from Pillage.com. You can go directly to Pillage.com to try and find downloads of your favorite songs, or you can just do it through Downrol’s interface.

Now recently on my quest to download all of the 5 seasons of Teen Titans to my iPod I found an awesome program called Internet Download Manager. Internet Download Manager, or IDM, is a great program that not only allows you to easily download web videos no matter where they’re from, it also allows you to download music from a player such as Rhapsody. Here’s how it works out:

For music. In this example I will use Rhapsody.
Go to Rhapsody.com and find a song that you would like. Now don’t use the pop-out player to play the song. This is what you should be using to play the song:

Play the song and you will see something pop-up beside the player saying “Download this audio” looking like this:

Click “Download This Audio” and select the song you would like to download. This should work for any song on Rhapsody.

If you would like to use this program to download videos IDM will do that too. Unlike most other video downloading programs such as AntToolbar (a firefox addon) or MP4 Downloader (another Firefox addon), IDM can download videos from any source. YouTube, MegaVideo and even flash videos. To download videos with IDM just go to the website where the videos are and start playing the video. Once the video starts playing you should see a little box similar to the one you will see for downloading music pop-up at the top of the video that says “Download this Video”. If you click it then you will be able to download the video as a .flv file. Can’t play .flv files? no problem, check out Videora iPod Converter. Videora lets you convert .FLV files into iPod friendly formats, .mp4. As far as I know you can also use Videora to convert .flv files to a viewing size for regular screens, i.e not your iPod Nano’s, but I’ve never tried it so I couldn’t tell you for sure.

The Beginner’s Guide to Linux, Part 1: Finding the Right Distribution

I was reading a great article from Maximum PC called The Beginner’s Guide to Linux, Part 1: Finding the Right Distribution. This article talked about a few different distros of Linux, and how to pick a version based on your skill level. The article also talks about the purposes of the system, whether a desktop client, or a server one. Finally, it also talks about Package Management, which is how you install software.

Why I might want to be on a social network…

I’ve said time and time again that I think that social networks are worthless, that they are a waste of time, and that I can’t quite understand why people use them, but every once in awhile I think “Wow, this would be a good random, useless fact that I could post on a Twitter or Facebook account.” The only reason that I think having an account at a social network like Twitter or Facebook, would be to post random little posts, so all those random thoughts I have can be on the internet somewhere where other people can read them. I once heard from someone that the purpose of his blog was to keep a lot of information in one place, so he can know where it is. Now I’m not saying I don’t like this blog, I really like that I get as many visitors a day as I do, and I like that I am getting more and more comments on here, some of which are actually asking for assistance. I really like seeing that my work is finally paying off, that I am getting some user feedback, some input, but sometimes I would like a place to post my random little thought, or maybe some other interesting things I read from a book, for me an account at Facebook or Twitter would be a place to store all of those. Now that doesn’t mean that I think the use of, say, MySpace is a good idea, I still think MySpace is a waste of time, but I do think that Twitter and Facebook, as annoying as some people on there are, and as pointless as some people’s posts are, which can compare to some of the Dullest Blogs’s posts, has a place.

I still think MySpace is a waste of time.

Bookmarklets

Some of you may have heard of Bookmarklets, possibly from this LifeHacker story, Ditch your extensions for Bookmarklets. Bookmarklets are kinda like extensions, or addons as we Firefox users are used to calling them, except that they aren’t something you install into a browser, Bookmarklets are a bookmark, that does something. And in the case of Bookmarklets, can take the place of some addons. Here are my three favorite Bookmarklets.

1. Capture Screenshot. Capture Screenshot is a bookmarklet that takes a screenshot of the current webpage. To use you go to the webpage you want a screenshot of, and click the Capture Screenshot bookmark on your bookmarks toolbar. Once you click the Capture Screenshot bookmarklet a new tab will open with the picture of that webpage in it. Here’s an example of my taking a screenshot of the login page for Yahoo! mail. 
Now on the right of the screen you will see a small box, with a sliding bar labeled “size:”. If you drag it to the left or the right the image will grow smaller or larger, depending on which way you drag it. To select part of the webpage just click and drag your mouse over the part or parts you want to select. Now once you do this you will notice the “width:” and “height:” boxes that were gray and unusable are now usable, which you can now input different numbers for length and width of your selection. Once you’ve got the selection you want just click the “Cut Out” button, which will take us to a differnt webpage where you can post this image to your website or Flickr, add an annotation to your selection, add a video comment to your selection, email it to a friend, or get the HTML code to embed it on your website. Also on this page you can decide on the Size of your image selection, you can decorate it by adding a border, rounding the image or adding a shadow (you can also customize the shado color). To use this bookmarklet click and drag it into your Bookmarks Toolbar.

Capture Screenshot

2. I found this addon on ChromePlugins.org, while I was looking for Chrome addons. Bookmarklets are commutable, meaning that they can go between different browsers, so I decided to try and see if this addon, Chrome Split Browser, worked in Firefox. It does, so this is a very cool addon, or bookmarklet, depending on what you want to now call them, which can take the place of some addons, and built in features of newer browsers. Chrome Split Browser does just what it’s name describes, it splits the browser into two frames, which can both hold a different webpage, for easier comparing and for other reasons. Here’s a snapshot of the bookmarklet in action:

Chrome Split Browser

3. Download PDF is a bookmarklet that will let you go to a certain website and download a .PDF version of that webpage. All you have to do is go to the website you want a .PDF copy of, click the Download PDF bookmarklet, which will take you to a webpage from pdfdownload.org, which will prompt you to download a .PDF file, which is the .PDF equivalent of the webpage you decided to download.

Download PDF

Note, to use any yof these bookmarklets just click and drag the Capture Screenshot, Chrome Split Browser and/or Download PDF link into your browser bookmarks bar.

Mikogo beta for Macs.

You may not know this but the popular screen sharing program, Mikogo, is developing a Beta version which can work on Mac computers, meaning you can have meetings over Mikogo with a Mac, a Mac to PC or vise-versa, while previously it could only work on PC computers. If you want you can download the beta of Mikogo for the Mac at This link. Thanks to Andrew Donnely I got the press release for this a day early, which you can read below. Here’s a great picture illustrating this point:

But now on to the press realese!

Mikogo Press Release

Mikogo Releases Mac Beta Version for Online Meeting Software

With its sights set on reshaping current cross-platform Web collaboration, Mikogo (http://www.mikogo.com) the free online meeting tool has announced the release of its Beta version for Mac users. Available at no cost for both commercial and private use, Mikogo now allows anyone to start or join a meeting from either a Mac computer or PC, creating a more flexible screen sharing experience for all involved.

Mannheim, GERMANY March 11, 2009 – Mikogo has today officially announced the availability of its latest version, Mikogo Beta for Mac computers, providing an easy-to-use online meeting solution to Mac users around the world. The innovative software tool is set to spark enthusiasm within the Mac community as well as the current Mikogo PC users, as the new Mikogo Beta provides a simple cross-platform solution to desktop sharing at no cost.

Ideal for online meetings, Web presentations, webinars and more, the Beta version provides Mac users with a quick solution to start a meeting and invite both PC and other Mac users to view their screen in real-time over the Web. Mikogo’s cross-platform functionality also enables both Mac and PC users to join and view an online meeting which was started by a PC organizer.

Once a meeting has started and participants are viewing the organizer’s screen, users of the new version can enjoy the following features:

- Screen sharing with up to 10 participants

- Switch presenter

- Participant pointer

- Pause of transmission

- Copy/paste/email meeting info

- Voice conferencing service

- Instant screen build-up

“Mikogo has already appealed greatly to the Web and business community thanks to it’s ease of use and free offering for both commercial and private use,” explains Mark Zondler, Co-Founder of Mikogo. “Now with its cross-platform functionality, we wish to serve the ever-growing Mac community by providing a simple, fast and effective solution to online meetings and Web presentations.”

With the new Beta version only just out the door, Mikogo doesn’t intend to wait long before empowering Mac users with even greater free desktop sharing. “The release of this Beta version is just the first step of many to come for our Mac users. We look forward to reshaping and strengthening cross-platform desktop sharing by equipping a growing Mikogo Mac user base with further innovative features soon to be released.”

In light of current economic times, the current Beta version is expected to appeal to the greater global corporate audience, with its cost free solution for meetings and presentations via the Web, as an alternative to costly business travel.

Further details on Mikogo’s Beta version can be found at: http://www.mikogo.com/Mac

Press Contact:

Andrew Donnelly

Email: andrew@mikogo.com

+49-621-7001-9987

About Mikogo

Mikogo incorporates innovative screen sharing technology to provide an easy-to-use free online meeting solution, welcoming everyone to high-quality online collaboration. The popular software tool is now supplying its cost free solution in over 160 countries, primarily private users, freelancers and small businesses. Launched in 2007, Mikogo is provided by the renowned provider of web collaboration solutions, BeamYourScreen (http://www.BeamYourScreen.com), whose product range consists of software solutions for online meetings, online presentations, and remote support. At present, more than 1500 corporate customers in over 40 countries worldwide are using the BeamYourScreen technology and benefiting from significantly reduced travel time and travel expenses.

Mikogo is a good program, and now that we will all be able to do Mikogo meetings with Mac users, it opens up a lot of possibilities.