Have you found a song you really like, but not enough to buy it?

Burn A Copy Of Any DVD with FREE Software

DRM, or Digital Rights Management, is the technology used by Movie Studios and Record Companies to protect their intellectual property.  However, it is largely ineffective when it comes to your computer.  I have not found a DVD yet that could not be cracked by a defunct, yet absolutely effective little program called DVD Decrypter. I simple google search will assist you there.  That program along with DVD Shrink, will enable you to copy any DVD you’ve purchased to a blank disk (for backup purposes only, of course).

In The Audio Realm, The FREE Program Audacity Makes It Easy.

In the Video Tutorial Below, I’ll Show you how to record any song on the Internet.  Watch:

To Pirate or Not to Pirate

To me, pirating is mass production of copyright material and unauthorized sale of that property.   If you buy a CD or DVD, that intellectual property becomes yours for personal use.  If you want to protect your investment by making a backup copy of something you already paid for, you should not be considered a criminal for doing it.

If you make copies and sell them, however, you should be fried and I’ll be happy to provide the lighter.

dave@flatheadenterprises.com

peace

Convert your favorite cassette audio tapes to your iPod – for FREE

If you have music, spoken word or other audio on cassette and want to listen to it on your iPod, it’s easy and FREE to do.

Tools:

1. Cassette Deck or Player
2. Computer
3. Audio Recording Program
4. Audio Cables

Step 1-

Open your Audio Recording program.  I’ll be using Audacity, which is a FREE audio recording program that has lots of features.  You can download it HERE. Download, install and open Audacity, and set the input to Line In or Microphone, depending on whether you plug into the back or front of your computer.

Step 2-

Plug your Tape Deck or Tape Player into y0ur computer.  Use a RCA to Headphone (Stereo Mini)  audio cable for a Tape Deck:

Or a Stereo Headphone cable for Cassetter Player:

Plug the audio cable into either the Line (blue) input on the back of your computer or if you have a Mic  (pink) input on the front, use that.

Step 3-

Press Play on your cassette deck or player, then click the round red Record button on Audacity.  Once the song or other audio has finished, press Stop (obvious right).  Go to File and Export MP3 and you’re done.

Notes:

• You may need to adjust the volume on your computer (not your speakers) for the best possible results.  Raising the volume level a few notches under distortion is usually best, just watch out for peaks in the audio.
• Audacity has lots of features to improve the sound quality of your recordings.  Save a copy of one song or recording just to play around with.
• You can use the same process to record audio from video tapes on your VCR.
• If you change the input on Audacity to “Stereo Mix” you can record audio from internet radio or any music or video you play online.

Have Fun

There are thousands of free programs available on the internet.  The list below is not a complete directory, rather it is a list of FREE programs that are highly useful and well written.  As a rule, the less programs you have installed, the better your machine will run.  However the FREE software listed, with few exceptions, are small and lightweight meaning they do not heavily weigh-down your CPU or processor.

Crap Cleaner

CCleaner or Crap Cleaner is an extremely fast hard drive cleaner.   Have you ever used UNDO?  Of course you have, most any program periodically saves temp versions of the document you’re working on so that you can go back if you mess up.  Those versions stay on your hard drive in Temp folders.  Also, any website you visit downloads images, scripts all kinds of…well, crap on your hard drive.  Use CCleaner regularly to free up hard drive space and keep things running clean.

CCleaner also has a registry cleaner and program uninstaller.  It’s a favorite amongst professional graphic artists and video editors.

Spybot Search and Destroy

Spybot SD, still one of the best anti-spyware, malware and adware programs, and still free.  Spybot’s advanced features include Immunizing your computer from known threat sites, control of your system start-up and running processes and control of your hosts file.

Ad-Aware – by Lavasoft

No one program can defeat spyware, malware or adware alone.  Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware is the perfect compliment to Spybot Search and Destroy.   What one misses the other catches.

PC Inspector – File Recovery, Smart Recovery

As mentioned in an earlier post, files are not actually deleted from your computer, they’re moved to a different location and written over.  PC Inspector’s File Recovery and Smart Recovery can recover accidentally deleted files. Has the Smart Card in your camera mistakenly been re-formatted?  If so, Smart Recovery can recover your pictures and data files. It’s an amazing FREE program.

Amp Font Viewer

Ever want a seperate graphical representation to see what your fonts look like?  Amp Font Viewer does that and more.  Fonts are fun, but can also severely slow down your system if you have too many.  With Amp Font Viewer, you can temporarily install the font for the application you’re working on, then delete it.  It’s cool.

Screenshot of AMP Font Viewer

Irfanview – Image Editor/Viewer

Ever want to “Photoshop” an image, but can’t afford Photoshop?  Irfanview is an excellent alternative.

Audacity – Audio Editor

Want to record your voice or convert your old cassette tapes to MP3′s?  Audacity is a multi-featured audio recorder and editor.  It supports multiple formats and has the ability to change speed and pitch, mix sounds together add effects and more.

Open Office Productivity Suite

If you can’t afford Microsoft Office, but want to create files that are compatible with MS Office, there is no better tool than Open Office.  Unbelievably, OpenOffice (OO) offers Word Processor (Writer) , Spreadsheet (Calc)  and Powerpoint-like (Impress) programs all for FREE.