OT: Technology and Geek Stuff Thread

[bimmer84]

A word or two on the turntable. If your record is scratchy, then your recording is scratchy. There is software that comes with it to delete the noise but I haven't taken the time to figure it out.

Also, with mine (it is a *Ion turntable), it is a rather lengthy process. You have to baby sit the recording or your result will be one large mp3 for each side of the album. After each song you go through several "clicks" to isolate each song into it's own mp3. It wore me down. I was jazzed up to get all my old albums moved over to mp3, but it required too much baby sitting and I lost interest. Now it is a big paperweight beside my desk.

[bimmer84]

But...scratchy, or not, it is nice to have Shy Girl by the Cascades playing through my iPod.

[CGVT]

My Dad bought one of those CG and I helped him figure it out last time I visited. It's pretty easy. It records it as an audio file then you can use iTunes to burn it to a CD if you want, or just play the file on your PC. It comes with everything you need.

A word or two on the turntable. If your record is scratchy, then your recording is scratchy. There is software that comes with it to delete the noise but I haven't taken the time to figure it out.

Also, with mine (it is a *Ion turntable), it is a rather lengthy process. You have to baby sit the recording or your result will be one large mp3 for each side of the album. After each song you go through several "clicks" to isolate each song into it's own mp3. It wore me down. I was jazzed up to get all my old albums moved over to mp3, but it required too much baby sitting and I lost interest. Now it is a big paperweight beside my desk.

But...scratchy, or not, it is nice to have Shy Girl by the Cascades playing through my iPod.

Thanks for the info, guys

I am afraid of the lengthy process, Bim. I still listen to CDs because I don't want to take the time to download, but I have soooo much stuff that I don't think I can find anymore that I would like to be able to listen to that I may give it as shot.

Bim, does your Ion play 78s? I have my grandfathers record collect. It is full of some great shit-Billie Holliday, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong etc etc

[bimmer84]

CGVT,

The turntable only has two buttons, one for 33, one for 45. However, in the manual it says, "Note: You can record your 78RPM records by recording them at 33 or 45RPM, then changing them to 78 in the Audacity software." The Audacity software is what you use to remove the scratchiness as well, and came with the turntable along with the Vinyl Converter software.

The Vinyl Converter software came with a manual. The Audacity software did not have a manual, and it wasn't all that intuitive to me, but I know someone that records and pulls the noise out all the time so I suspect I just needed to invest more time. With the recording part you just put the needle on the record, and then stand by to make the appropriate clicks in the software in between songs. Then you get to type in song names after you are done with a side.

[bimmer84]

BTW, if you are converting CD's to mp3, it is a much easier process. Stick that baby in your CD drive and your mp3's are built along with access to a music databank to automatically assign names to the "tracks". I use CDex (free), or iTunes for that. If it helps you, I would be happy to image the manuals and send them to you via email. They are not that large.

[CGVT]

I'm pretty sure I can handle the CDs ( when I get around to it) I just need to get the hardware (and software) for the LPs.

Your info helped me out a lot. It sounds as if it will be a very time consuming process and I wonder if I won't eventually lose interest as you have...

[bimmer84]

Well, just talking about it has me interested again. It is just hard to stay right there with it while it is playing. I would try to do it while I was messing with something else, like doing my weekly bookwork on Quicken. So in that case, you are kind of listening to the music while keeping track of where you were in the song, and doing something else. Anyway, by the time I waded through a couple of albums I wasn't about to take the time to learn how to take each mp3 and run it into Audacity and see what to do there. My problem is that I am very project oriented. I see a stack of albums, and 45's, and want to get to the end pronto. Maybe if you just set aside a 1/2 hour a week and enjoy the music while you manually separate the songs, you would be ok.

[CGVT]

I see I had a "real" double post...Ha!

[unknown lions fan]

videohelp.com will give you everything you need to know to move media from one format to another, with most of it in freeware.

[FVD]

Saw this in a tech blog on Yahoo, thought it pertinent to share.

Major flaw revealed in Internet Explorer; users urged to switch

Tue Dec 16, 2008 11:49AM EST
See Comments (35)
Buzz up!on Yahoo!

The major press outlets are abuzz this morning with news of a major new security flaw that affects all versions of Internet Explorer from IE5 to the latest beta of IE8. The attack has serious and far-reaching ramifications -- and they're not just theoretical attacks. In fact, the flaw is already in wide use as a tool to steal online game passwords, with some 10,000 websites infected with the code needed to take advantage of the hole in IE.


Virtually all security experts (as well as myself) are counseling users to switch to any other web browser -- none of the others are affected, including Firefox, Chrome, and Opera -- at least for the time being, though Microsoft has stubbornly said it "cannot recommend people switch due to this one flaw." Microsoft adds that it is working on a fix but has offered no ETA on when that might happen. Meanwhile it offers some suggestions for a temporary patch, including setting your Internet security zone settings to "high" and offering some complicated workarounds. (Some reports state, however, that the fixes do not actually work.)


Expedient patching or switching are essential. Security pros fear that the attack will soon spread beyond the theft of gaming passwords and into more criminal arenas, as the malicious code can be placed on any website and can be adapted to steal any password stored or entered using the browser. It's now down to the issue of time: Will Microsoft repair the problem and distribute a patch quickly enough to head off the tsunami of fraud that's about to hit or will it come too late to do any good?


Meanwhile, I'll reiterate my recommendation: Switch from Internet Explorer as soon as you can. You can always switch back once the threat is eliminated.

[Malto Marko]

I'm pretty sure I can handle the CDs ( when I get around to it) I just need to get the hardware (and software) for the LPs.

Your info helped me out a lot. It sounds as if it will be a very time consuming process and I wonder if I won't eventually lose interest as you have...

Why would you bother with the LP's when most everything is available for a buck (or less) a song digitally?

Never mind, I know, you are an old fart that wants your record collection to mean something to your kids. (Clue: The do enjoy much of the music we did but they have little tolerance to wait until you figure it out. They want it on their machine now!)

[-Deborah-]

Do you really think *every* song is available as an MP3? I don't know the answer to that but figured that not to be true. My Dad has some pretty obscure records and really enjoys the B-sides of 45s that never got any airplay on the radio back in the day. My guess is it might be impossible to find electronic versions of those.

[unknown lions fan]

When Napster was in its heyday, you could get just about anything. I remember digging up an old show tune for my Mom on there... Now that it's all under "control" there's not as much diversity.

[unknown lions fan]

When Napster was in its heyday, you could get just about anything. I remember digging up an old show tune for my Mom on there... Now that it's all under "control" there's not as much diversity.

[CGVT]

I don't buy "songs". I listen to albums.

Many of my albums are obscure and most likely not avaiable anywhere. Even if they were available at @10 bucks per album, it would cost over a grand to buy them. I can probably download them all for a few hundred dollars tops.