Software

3RVX

In Software, Windows on 27 February 2010 tagged audio, Freeware, indicator, OSI, Windows with no comments

My keyboard has dedicated volume and mute keys. I usually check the system tray to see the level of my master volume since I don’t touch the [physical] volume control on my speakers.

Now, 3RVX gives me a slick on screen volume indicator like Macs. Sweet! (Hat tip: Lifehacker)

Quick thoughts on Songbird 1.0

In Music, Software, iTunes on 2 December 2008 with no comments

iTunes is too bulky and sluggish for me. Sometimes, it’ll halt for a second or two navigating through my library. I also don’t like how iTunes installs additional software¹.

I don’t need Bonjour.
Apple Mobile Device Support isn’t necessary. I have a 3rd generation iPod.
I don’t need MobileMe.
I don’t want Apple Software Update installing the whole shebang of unwanted apps.

Wait, doesn’t that article explain how to slim iTunes down? Yep. How about I just want to try something new and extensible? Huh?

Enter Songbird 1.0.

After downloading the setup file, it took less than two minutes to install and import 1,900 songs (and podcasts) from my iTunes database into Songbird.

In the process, it asked if I wanted to import my iTunes database and if I needed iPod Device Support, QuickTime Playback Support, SHOUTcast Radio, and Windows Media Playback. Ratings and play counts were all intact. I was good to go.

Memory footprint: In use, Songbird got up to 100 MB, and as low as 40 MB when minimized.

Add-ons: I like Concerts, Last.fm, Last.fm Album Art, and mashTape.

Grouping field/tags: The grouping field in iTunes helped specify elements in my music, which enabled better smart playlists². There isn’t a similar field in Songbird. (Yet?)

Podcast management: I guess they’re not using that word and going with “subscriptions.”³ I’m totally cool with that. I need to manually find the URLs of the podcasts I was subscribed to and add them in — a pain if I subscribed to a lot of podcasts.

That’s all from me about this — for now. I think you should give Songbird a try.

P.S. I’m ignoring Songbird support questions because I’m also a new user. They have a help section.

Update 12/3/2008: Songbird runs just fine on my Windows XP-based work computer. Also, listening to music directly off my iPod get scrobbled to Last.fm perfectly.⁴

“Slimming down the bloated iTunes 8 installer” by Ed Bott via ZDNet ↩
Mellow, Songs with screaming, fast songs, catchy songs. ↩
“Songbird is the bitchinest podcast receiver ever” – Croncast ↩
I remember reading that someone was having issues with that. ↩

How to split huge PDF documents for free

In Open Source, PDF, Software, Tip, Work on 3 July 2008 with 4 comments

At work, one of the attorneys had a humongous PDF document she needed to email a lot of other attorneys outside the office. I tried extracting pages with an old version of Adobe Acrobat (v5), but the original file still kept the same size (despite having deleted the pages).

With open source (free) software, I split the document into two separate files in a couple minutes.

Required: PDFCreator

Once you install that, open your PDF document (original_superlongdocument.pdf) in your preferred reader. Now, go to File > Print. Change your printer to PDFCreator, then change your page range so you’re only “printing” half the document. If you have a 1,000 page document, set it to 1-500.

Follow the prompts and save that new PDF file — just not over your original. (superlongdocument_a.pdf)

Now, repeat for pages 501-1000 and save that one with a different filename. (superlongdocument_b.pdf)

Speed up podcasts for free with foobar2000

In Podcasts, Software, Time Savers, Tip on 20 March 2008 with 2 comments

A commenter (Freddie) was struggling with speeding up podcasts with Audacity. (See my how-to on speeding up podcasts with Audacity, version 1 and version 2.) Then, he found this article:

“Time stretching [MP3s] and other audio” by Blake Tolbert

I haven’t tried foobar2000 — because I’ve only been into the Kevin and Bean’s podcast from KROQ lately — but it looks legit and much simpler.

Oh yeah, welcome the new blogger! He doesn’t have a contact page and his comment form is broken, so let’s send him some traffic so he could see a spike from my blog.

Why some PSD files aren’t shown in Picasa

In Photography, Software on 4 March 2008 with no comments

From the Picasa Glossary:

Grayscale – A range of accurately known shades of gray printed out for use in calibrating those shades on a display or printer. Grayscale images are not supported in Picasa.

Grr. I hope it doesn’t hurt that much saving in RGB mode.

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