Posts Tagged: CDs

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 2 Comments
29
Aug 06

Transferring LP’s and Cassettes to CD

One of my customer's today was using an older Windows 98 machine to try and transfer LP's to her computer so she could then burn CD's. I will have some links at the end of this article for products that help perform this feat, but first I want to put into perspective the time involved:

  1. The average song is 4 minutes long. By the time you adjust levels, start and restart the song and then end the song to get it just right, you will easily spend double the time per song just to get it from the LP or cassette to the computer and saved.
  2. Because you are moving from an analog to a digital format, certain pops, hisses and other noises will enter the equation. Many of the products that I will link up offer software solutions to help 'clean up' the artifacts. On average, it will take approximately 50-70% of the total time of the song to complete this process. 
  3. You will need to convert the file from the .wav format to .mp3 to save space on your hard drive. This takes approximately 25-30% of the total time of the song.
  4. Lastly, you need to finally compile and burn the CD's. Plan on about 25-30% of the time per song to complete this step.

Taking these four factors into consideration, if you have a four minute song, it will take about 16-20 minutes to complete the process. Multiply this by the number of songs you have and the time investment is HUGE. Yes it is possible, but don't be surprised at the time involved. Factors that will decrease (or increase) this time include:

  • Processor speed of your computer
  • Available RAM (the more the better)
  • Free hard drive space
  • Your knowledge of the process and the products. 

All that being said, here are some products to consider when deciding to transfer your old 8-tracks, LP's, and cassettes to CD:

PlusDeck2 

DAK PC Interface Preamp Mixer

Polderbit's Sound Recorder and Editor  

Cassettes2CD's.com – They do it for you! (there are other services out there similar to these guys…shop around and compare time turnaround, guarantee, cost, etc). In the long run, the cost may well be worth your time.

 

 

Tips & Tricks — No Comments
25
Jul 06

Organizing and Backing Up Photos

Getting organized:

The best way to get your photos organized is to start with a system that works for you.

My system is to create a single folder for all my digital photos on my hard drive. Inside that folder, called "Digital Pictures," I place a sub-folder for each month of the year. In each month's folder I may place more folders for each activity held during that month.

For example: Digital Photos –> April –> Easter –> Grandmas

I then place the digital pictures into their respective folders.

TIPS:

Creating a folder:

Right click anywhere and choose NEW –>FOLDER in the menu that pops up.

Renaming a folder:

Right click on a folder and go to RENAME or…
Select the folder (left click once) and then press F2.

Creating a shortcut, Copying or Moving a file:

Click and hold on your RIGHT mouse button and drag the file to the location where you want it to go.
Let go of your mouse button and you will be given an options menu asking which of the three options you want to do. Copy, shortcut or move.

Backing up:

Once you have created this file system or one similar – backing up is easy. All you need to do is create a CD with all of the files for the months you haven't previously backed up. Label the CD with something like "January-March '04 Pictures."

Using this file system will make finding your photos much easier later.

A word about CD-R and DVD-R media and drives:

We spend a long time on this topic at the meeting. I thought I should break it down here in a simple manner.

CD-R (also called a CD Burner) – Write or read CD media or music.
DVD-R (also called a DVD Burner) – Write or read DVD or CD media.
DVD-ROM – reads DVDs and CDs but does not write to either
CD-ROM – reads CD media only. Does not write to CD or DVD and won't read DVDs.

Popular CD burning programs:

Roxio EZ CD Creator, Nero, NTI RecordNOW!, HP Record Now.

Riding Shotgun with Adam — No Comments
3
Jul 06

How to change your records to CDs

I subscribe to the "How to of the Day" tip from WikiHow.com. Yesterday then featured a great tip on how to change your old records into CDs. We have covered this a little on our website, but this tip is very thourough.

Riding Shotgun with Adam — No Comments
18
Apr 06

Give Picasa a try!

http://www.drwinn.com/graphics/quarter_hourse.gif

I just put that picture there to get your attention. 

I’m not trying to brag, but I know more about digital photography than the average computer user. This is partly due to the fact that I took Photoshop classes in college for about three years.

I love Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, but I can also appreciate that not everyone needs such a powerful program.

Google has a free program called Picasa. Even with my borderline supernatural understanding of Photoshop, I still use Picasa on a regular basis.

I like Picasa for several reasons:

1. It’s free – www.Picasa.com

2. It catalogs all of your digital photos and organizes them quickly and in real-time without moving or changing the originals.

3. Making gift slideshow CDs or backups of all of your photos can be done in three steps.

4. It is not an image editing program, but the editing tools it does have are wonderful.

5. Transferring photos from your scanner or digital camera is very easy and forces you into an organizational system for your digital photos.

If you haven’t tried Picasa, go ahead and download it. It won’t cause any problems with the system you may currently have setup on your computer.

DP Software — No Comments
28
Mar 06

Microsoft PowerPoint slideshows

Microsoft PowerPoint is a program for creating business presentations but many people use it for creating elaborate photo slide shows.

In addition to discussing PowerPoint we also talked about a few PowerPoint alternatives.

OpenOffice – a great free alternative to Microsoft Office

Ulead Movie Factory – for creating Slideshows and movies on DVDs or CDs

There are a couple of others that I failed to mention at the meeting.

SmoothShow – probably the most popular slideshow creator for professions 

XatShow -  this is one of my favorite programs because it will allow you to make screensavers, slideshows, DVDs, and other cool multimedia projects

In our question and answer session we discussed what the P,S,A and M stood for on most digital cameras – here is a recap:

P – Program mode – this is a full auto mode that allows you to change certain settings like the ISO (film speed) and flash settings.

S – Shutter priority – Great for sports or motion shots in weird lighting. You set the shutter speed and the camera determines the rest.

A -  Aperture priority – Great for setting long focal lengths (stuff’s in focus for a long way)  or short focal lengths and then letting the camera do everything else.

M – Full manual – You must tell the camera everything. You set the shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and flash settings. This is a great mode for learning about how your camera works, but it is not recommended for shooting when fractions of a second count such as in wildlife, sports or weddings.

OnAir Solutions — No Comments
11
Mar 06

What to do if your CD doesn’t autostart or it autostarts incorrectly

Often computers forget how to start up CDs automatically when you put them into the drive or they start up in the wrong program starts up.

To solve this problem go through the following steps:

1. Close any programs that are running.

2. Double-click on My Computer (on your desktop or in the right pain of your XP start menu).

3. Right-click on your CD-ROM icon.

4. Click on Explore from the menu that comes up.

This will open up a window showing the contents of the disk. From this point you can click on the "Setup" icon if you are trying to install a program. If the disk contains pictures or music, double click on the files that you want to look at or listen to. 

 

DP Hardware — No Comments
24
Jan 06

Digital Darkroom Basics Revisited

DIGITAL DARKROOM BASICS
(revisited)

 

This was the topic of our first meeting. I was nervous and talked faster than usual (yes it’s possible). As Rick Castellini sat on the side lines watching me ramble he just kept reminding me to take a breath once in a while.

The user group has grown since then and I am much more comfortable teaching the group. This month should be a much better meeting than that first one two years ago. Thanks for helping it become so successful.

This month’s topic is a brief over view of the elements of a digital dark room. We will discuss scanners, digital cameras, printers, monitors and even fun stuff like Wacom tablets and screen calibrators.

What is a digital darkroom?

This question always comes up. A digital darkroom is simply the equipment and software used to play with and print pictures from your computer. A digital darkroom typically includes a monitor, printer, scanner, digital camera and computer.

What do I need to get started?

We make it a point each month of stressing that Digital Photography does not equal digital camera. You can do digital photography with any picture from any source. You can play with pictures that someone else sent you in your email or you can do it with pictures that you scanned in. It doesn’t matter how the pictures got on your computer.
Other than a computer the only other vital tool is a program that allows you to alter the pictures.

What kind of computer do I need?

If still pictures is all you really want to play with then you don’t need much of a workhorse. Any computer purchased new should do the trick. However, The lower end the computer falls the sooner it will need replaced. The following chart shows some good guidelines to follow:

Processor: Pentium 4 or Athlon 4 chip – NOT CELERON.
RAM: 256 MB – I would recommend doubling this (roughly $70 per 256)
Hard Drive – very important! 60 gigabytes MINIMUM – The more the better!
64 MB video card – minimum.
Optical mouse – these are cheap to add – less than $20 in most cases.
CRT monitors are best – LCDs don’t show as many colors in most cases.

What do I look for in a scanner?

I like the Epson Perfection 3170. It is a workhorse and it does slides, negatives and even medium format film! Look for at least 2400 dpi. Ignore the interpolated resolution on the box.

What do I look for in a camera?

There are a variety of features that we will discuss at the meeting. Look forward to a "Shopping for a Digital Camera" meeting in the near future.

What do I look for in a printer?

Photo labs produce the best results in you are looking for something that will last, but if you want a printer for home – you can’t beat the Epson Photo line of printers.

At the meeting we will also discuss other goodies like monitor calibrators, Wacom tablets, and CDRW vs. DVD-R(+R).

DP Software — No Comments
24
Jan 06

Picasa 2

What can you do with Picasa 2?

Picasa 2 is a free program made by Google that allows you to organize your photos without any effort on your part.

Besides organizing photos it also has some great creativity tools including gift CDs, slide shows, and blogging tools.

HOW TO GET PICASA:

1. Download Either click on this button, or go to www.picasa.com and click on the Free Download button.

2. After downloading, install the program by double-clicking on the Picasa icon wherever you downloaded it to.

3. After installing, the program will search your entire computer for photos and arrange them by date.

PICASA 2 FEATURES:

The following features are found in the top Picasa menus. No photos need to be selected to apply these features.

Import – Copies images from a camera or folder.

Slideshow – Shows selected pictures as a slideshow.

Timeline – Shows all of your photos grouped by date in a graphically pleasing interface.

Gift CD – Creates a slideshow CD in a few simple steps.

Backup – Backs up your photos to CD or other drive.

 

The following features are found in the bottom Picasa menus. These features only effect selected photos.

Print - Does package printing of selected photos, such as 8×10, wallets, 4×6 etc.

Email – Resizes and attaches selected photos to an email message.

Collage – An artsy features of Picasa, combines multiple images into a pre-designed collage pattern.

Hello - This will probably be the first feature that is changed in Picasa 3. Hello is an instant messaging program similar to Yahoo, AOL and MSN Instant Messengers.

Blogger - Click on the Blogger button to setup a new blog so that you can post photos directly from your blog using Picasa.

Order - Picasa works with Shutterfly, Wal-mart, Ritz, Kodak, Snapfish and others to allow you to order prints and gift items directly from Picasa.

Export - Copies all selected pictures into a new folder.

 

Links from this month’s meeting

Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition

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