audio

Recall -- After briefly reviewing Sound Pad by Menasoft in last weeks' newsletter, I asked Infopackets Readers to send me their own picks for a favorite freeware sound editor. Quite a number of of users recommended a program called Audacity. ... Infopackets Reader Peter G. writes: " I have used Audacity to record audio tapes onto CD. It's pretty straightforward to use -- anyone with a bit of experience will find it quite easy to work out without having to read the help files too much. What I like about it is the very clean interface without any bells and whistles to clutter it up. From the ... (view more)

Do your eyes ever get tired from reading the screen? Have you ever wanted to listen to your emails and documents -- rather than read them? Quite often, I'm faced both these scenarios. And since I do a lot of traveling, it's not always feasible to ... bring my laptop along with me to get caught up on some reading. So, when my eyes are exhausted and when I just want to sit back and relax, I use a program called TextAloud to listen to my documents and emails. How does TextAloud work? In a nutshell, TextAloud converts text into spoken audio. With TextAloud, you can either listen to the audio ... (view more)

Just recently, I discovered another totally cool screensaver. Quebec based Esm Software makes Active Media Player Screen Saver, an application designed to play streaming video while your computer is idle. What is Active Media Player Screen Saver? ... Active Media Player Screen Saver (AMPSS) is a screensaver application capable of playing live video streams in MPEG, AVI, ASF, WMV, or QuickTime format. AMPSS also plays full motion video from your hard drive, giving you unlimited choices for video playback. Active Media Player Screen Saver: Features Play local or remote files: Play video files from ... (view more)

How do you record audio from a tape cassette to the computer, and finally, to a CD recordable disc? That was the question I asked Infopackets Readers in yesterday's visitor feedback section of the Gazett e. Before I get into the reader's ... submissions, let me first point out that a few users recommended using the Line In port instead instead of the MIC port (as I suggested yesterday), for clarity reasons. Chris M. and Kooby both write: " It is better to use the Line Out or Aux RCA output on the stereo receiver rather than the tape player, because now you could record LP's, radio, or ... (view more)

Tom S. asks: " I have some old cassette tapes I would like to put on CD using my computer's CD burner. How do I hook the cassette player to the CD burner to get the best audio quality? " My Response: Audio quality with respect to a cassette tape ... recorded to a CD will only be as good as the source (tape) and the equipment used to read the tape and input it to the computer ... and of course, the ability to modify the digital recording in order to improve sound. Two great reasons for recording your analog tapes to digital might include: a) wear and tear: digital media doesn't lose its ... (view more)

Last week I generalized how one might go about systematic PC troubleshooting. In particular, I received a question from Thomas V. who was having problems with his Internet Radio (via Windows Media Player) and his CD ROM drive which both produced ... intermittent silence. Thomas suspected that the issues might be one in the same. I suggested otherwise, based on a familiar problem with TCP / IP packet loss that can result in Internet Radio lag. Since this matter is common, I further theorized that these two issues were most likely not related. But, wouldn't you know it? I received emails from ... (view more)