On the other hand, my iPod lets me take more than a hundred CDs worth of songs and is perfectly at peace sitting in a corner of my backpack.

So is there even a choice here ?

For folks like me who have a small fortune invested in CDs of their favorite artists, the best option is to convert all those CD tracks to MP3 format and that is what this post is about. A list of 5 tools that’ll help you convert your CD’s to an MP3 collection.

iTunes

iTunes is one of those software that almost everyone has on their computer – either because they own an iPod or because, well, they like it. It is a resource hog, I’ll admit, but is also a very capable media player.

What many people don’t know is that iTunes is also a very good software to convert a CD to MP3 format, and the process really couldn’t have been simpler.

iTunes, by default, saves songs imported from CDs in the AAC format. To change the default to MP3, open the Preferences Window (Edit->Preferences) and click the Import Settings button.

Select the MP3 Encoder option from the drop down and Click OK.

Now all you have to do is insert the audio CD in the computer and as soon as iTunes detects it, it will pop-up a dialogue box asking for your permission to “import” the CD to it’s Library. Click Import and let iTunes do its job.

FreeRIP

One of the reasons that I like FreeRIP is its support for the lossless FLAC file format but FLAC is not the only format FreeRIP rips to and it is equally at home with the MP3 format also.

If you’re ripping songs to put on your iPod, MP3 is what you want to stick to. Just insert the audio CD in the CD tray and select the Rip Selected Tracks to MP3 option from the Rip menu.

BonkEnc

BonkEnc is another easy to use free and open source CD ripping tool that can also be used as an audio converter for converting audio files into different formats.

The process of encoding is as easy as it can be. Insert the CD in the drive tray, press the CTRL+E key combination and grab yourself a cup of coffee.

You can also download a portable version.

CDex

We’ve written about CDex earlier and it’s managed to make this list too. Says a lot about the tool that I personally swear by. Download and install it if you need a simple no nonsense tool.

To convert CD tracks to mp3 format, insert the CD, select the tracks that you want converted and hit the F9 button. It really is as easy as it sounds.

You can also download a portable version.

Exact Audio Copy

Exact Audio Copy or EAC claims to read audio CDs “almost perfectly” and it even tries and correct errors that it finds. The downside is that it doesn’t ship with a built-in MP3 encoder. But, EAC works with the excellent open source MP3 encoder, LAME.

LAME is one of the best MP3 encoders around and a number of commercial programs also use it and you’ll have to download the LAME library on your computer for the encoding functions of EAC to work.

When you run EAC for the first time, it takes you through a wizard which, among other things, asks for the location of the lame.exe file that you downloaded.

That is just about the only configuration you’ll need to perform with EAC. Insert an audio CD, click on the MP3 icon in the sidebar and sit back and relax.

What tools do you swear by for ripping CD’s? One of the above or something totally different? Let us know about it in the comments.

But that is not even the best part about Flickr. The best part is the awesome community that the site has and the knowledge that one can gather by just ‘lurking’ around the various photography groups and the forums.

Despite all this, one feature that I really wish Flickr would provide on its own is to let users take a backup of their Flickr photos from the site itself. While Flickr refuses to give this feature on their site, a number of third party tools have sprung up to fill the void and in this post, we’ll be taking you through 3 such tools.

All Flickr applications require you to allow them access to your photos. The application, when launched, will ask for your permission and if you want to try out the application, grant it the required access. You can, of course, revoke the permission later if you’re not interested in using that particular application anymore.

Flump

Flump is an Adobe Air based application that is designed to be as simple to use as is possible. Use it only if you intend to make a backup of all the photos in your Flickr account since Flump doesn’t give the user any option to select which photos/sets they want to download.

As far as the user interface goes the developer couldn’t have made it any simpler. Login using your Flickr account, select the folder that you want to download your pics to, and click the Start Flump button. That’s it !

Flickr Backup

Flickr Backup is a cross platform Java application that lets you backup individual photos as well as complete sets. This is definitely one of my favorite tools for the job. The only thing that I have to do is wait for it to load all my sets/pics, select the ones that I want to download and then click the backup button.

Flickr Backup also gives you an option to burn the backed up pics directly to a CD/DVD using an external application but I didn’t try that option myself. If you only want to make a local copy you can either download the pics to a folder on your computer or create a zip archive.

Flickrtouchr

This one is for all you command line enthusiasts. Flickrtoucher is a simple python script and if, like me, you prefer the command line, also the easiest to get going with.

Just download the script, flicktouchr.py, create a directory where you want it to store all the downloaded files to and launch the script.

python flickrtouchr.py <directory name>

Flickrtouchr will start downloading all the pictures from your account and store them neatly in directories named after the set in which they exist.

How do you guys manage your Flickr photos? Do you backup your Flickr photos or just let Flickr manage all your pics?

Working as a code churner by day and a writer by night hardly leaves me with any time to exercise those (lazy) muscles, so the only other thing that I can do is limit the number of calories I take in.

That, as you all know, is easier said than done. For example, how are you going to stop yourself from eating that Big Mac (with extra cheese!) for lunch or the Chicken Tikka Masala with Cheese Naan for dinner unless you know how many calories it has before ordering it. Nothing better to lose your appetite than a guilt trip!

That is exactly what Lose It! will help you with.

Lose It! is an iPhone calorie intake calculator that acts as your personal guilt trip service by telling you exactly how many calories each of your meals has and how much you need to exercise to reach your weight loss goals.

When you run Lose It! for the first time the application asks you a couple of questions like your current weight, your goal weight, your height, and how much do want to lose per week. Lose It! will then set a daily calorie budget for you.

Now, as you go through the day, you need to either Add Food or Add Exercise to Lose It!. The goal is to remain below the daily calories budget that you’ve been assigned. Easy enough for you ?

Lose It! has a pretty large database of the common types of food that we eat and the calories that they add. For example, I ate a Big Mac for lunch today. Let’s add that bit of info to the Lose It! calorie intake calculator.

Tap on Add Food and select Lunch. Since McDonalds is a pretty famous name, we’ll just search for it under Brand Name Foods -> Restaurant Foods. Type in McDonalds.

Select what you ate from the list and Lose It! will show you the number of calories that your meal contained, and ask you to enter the quantity that you ate.

As you can see, I’m not doing too well with my diet plans. The Big Mac for lunch and the Burger King Whopper for dinner really doesn’t help me with my goal of losing 1lb a week.

So, let’s exercise a bit and add my workout to Lose It!. I love playing squash and since I have a squash court close to where I live, that’s what I’ll play. Of course, with my current fitness levels, an hour of squash is all that I can last for!

Click on the ‘+’ sign and select Exercise. Browse for the extensive list of sports available, select Squash and move the counter to 1 hour.

Ha! I’m still under 1685 calories for the day! I guess I can reward myself with that dessert!

So, you see, Lose It! is not only a very good application to help you track what you’ve eaten, it’ll also tell you just how much you can afford to splurge on yourself and still be on track to losing those extra pounds.

How do you guys plan your diet? Do you like to keep track of the calories you’re consuming?

Image credit: bensonkua

Have you ever wondered how those EXE files are created ?

Well, there are a lot of software that can help you create install packages to distribute your software, and today we’ll walk you through using one that has been been there on your Windows system all along. This unassuming utility is called iExpress and is (probably) the easiest utility you’ll ever find to make an EXE file for your software.

So, if you’ve ever wondered how those installation programs are created, how the “magic” happens during the installation wizard and how a simple single executable spits out hundreds of real useable program files, we’ll answer that question for you today.

Since Microsoft doesn’t create an icon for iExpress in the Programs menu, we’ll have to run it manually. If you’re using Windows XP, go to the Start menu and click the Run button. In the dialogue box that pops up, type iexpress.exe and press Enter. If, like me, you use Windows Vista, just click the Start menu and start typing iexpress and you’ll see the icon popup in the search results.

iExpress runs as a simple wizard and will ask you a couple of questions and based on your choices will generate the installer for you. The first question that you have to answer is if you want to create a new Installer or open an existing one. Since, this is (presumably) your first time using iexpress, we’ll select the first option and click Next.

The next screen will ask you the type of package you want it to create.

iExpress can create a package that runs a command after it unpacks all files to a temporary location, or only extract the files to a location that the user specifies. The first option is useful if you want to, for example, run a script to make changes to the registry before the user runs your program for the first time.

There is a third option to create compressed files only but that is only applicable if you’re distributing Active-X controls. iExpress displays a handy description below each option so you can read that if you’re still not sure which about which option to select.

The next step is to give a name to the package that you’ll create. Enter the name in the text box and move to the next screen.

This step will let you display a confirmation message to the user installing the application. If you want to display a message to your user asking for confirmation if he/she wants to go ahead with the installation, then type in a message in the text box provided and when you’re done click Next.

Now, you will be able to select a license agreement which the installer will ask the user to adhere to. If you have a license agreement for your application, then type it in a text file and provide that here or else select the “Do not display a license“ option and move on.

This is where you actually select the files that will be installed by the installer that you’re creating. You can select as many files as you want here. Add files to the list by clicking on the Add button.

Now, you can safely move forward a few steps and keep clicking on the next button till you come across the Package name and options screen. This is where you select a name for the actual EXE file that gets generated and decide whether you want to hide the extraction process from your users or let them see all the gory details. You can also generate a log files for the installation process.

In the next step you can choose to create what iExpress calls a Self Extraction Directive file. This is needed if you want to later change some of the options that you chose and create another modified installer. Since, we don’t want that right now, we’ll choose not to create an SED file.

That’s it.  iExpress will now go ahead and create an EXE file for you. Wasn’t that easy?

What other tools do you prefer to make exe files?

Proxy servers can also be configured to store (cache) webpages which the client machines frequently request. So when a client requests a webpage for the first time, the proxy downloads and caches the webpage and when a second request comes for the same page,the proxy serves it up from its cache instead of downloading it from the Internet, thus saving the user a hefty download bill and the agonizing wait. Such servers are called caching proxies.

Proxy servers also serve another very important purpose ““ they act as the first line of defense between the bad guys on the other side and the client machines.

The threat becomes even greater when you replace the network on the other side with the Internet and the client machines with a couple of non-technical home users. Broadband connections and multiple computers accessing the Internet in every home have only increased the threat. Setting up a secure caching proxy server for free is an easy way to mitigate the threat and also save some money in the process.

I’ll be using a popular windows based software, Win Proxy, to tell you how you can setup your very own free caching proxy server.

Download Win Proxy to the computer that you want to act as a proxy and run the setup executable. The only question that you have to answer during the setup is to select the way you want to install Win Proxy as (as a normal application or as a service). Unless you’re using Windows NT, you should choose the option titled common application.

The setup program for Win Proxy is one of the simplest that I’ve seen and I’m sure you won’t have a problem getting Win Proxy installed on your computer. When the setup completes, run Win Proxy from the Programs menu and your server is all set.

Congratulations. You’ve just setup your first free proxy server.

Win Proxy comes, by default, all set up to start acting as a proxy for your network. To take advantage of its caching capabilities though, you’ll have to instruct your browser to use it as a proxy.

If you use Firefox, go to the Tools menu and click on the Options link. Now, Under the Advanced options, select the Network tab and click on Settings.

Enter the IP address or hostname of the machine where you installed Win Proxy in the HTTP Proxy text field and set the port to 3128. That’s all. Firefox is now set up to access the Internet through Win Proxy.

The default set of options that Win Proxy installs with are good enough for most users but if you want to tweak it for even more performance, launch your browser from any computer on the network and point it to http://PROXY_MACHINE:3129, where PROXY_MACHINE is the IP address of the machine running the proxy server. This will bring up the web based configuration panel for Win Proxy. Most users will never need to use it, but it’s there if you want to.

As you can see, Win Proxy has a number of advanced features built in that you can configure through the admin panel. For example, if you connect to the Internet using a dial-up account, you can configure Win Proxy to dial up your ISP automatically every time it receives a request from a client for a webpage which is not present in its cache.

You can also configure Win Proxy to give access to only a few websites and/or restrict access to a couple of individuals by creating accounts for each user.

The MUO Network manual also talks about Internet connection sharing which is the name given to the simple proxy functionality built in to Windows.

Fans of horror movies aren’t exactly treated well  – around the Internet as well as in the offline world. Reviews and mentions of horror movies are few and far between in the mainstream media and while there are plenty of torrent sites to download or watch free horror movies online, the movies are usually (mostly) pirated and their quality and source is questionable.

On a particularly boring weekday night, when I was out of my stash of movies to watch, I decided to explore the underbelly of the Internet and was (pleasantly) surprised with what I saw. Not only is the horror genre alive and kicking in the underworld, it actually even has fans who, like me, would give up anything to watch a really nice monster on screen devour the damsel in distress.

Here is my list of the best places to catch free horror movies online.

FEARNet

FEARNet has been featured on the MakeUseOf directory before and they make this list again.

FEARNet is one of the best horror movie portals, as I’d like to describe it. They have free horror movies, shows, videos, blogs and even a pretty vibrant community with an active message board to boot.

So, the next time you really crave to chat with someone after watching the ultimate chainsaw wielding dude, hit up FEARNet.

Public Domain Torrents

Public Domain Torrents hosts torrent files for public domain movies and has about 113 (and growing) horror movies in it’s collection right now.

Since, they only host public domain movies, their collection mostly consists of older movies. But, don’t make that stop you from visiting the site and getting your fix of the gore from yore.

With titles like A Bucket of Blood, Carnival of Souls and Drive-in Massacre, in their collection, you really won’t be complaining for a long time.

Fancast

Fancast is another site which, like Hulu, streams movies to your living room via your browser.

Their collection is nice, if a bit dated, but then with movies like Cry of the Banshee, Horror Express and Night of the Living Dead, who’s to blame me for the hours and hours that I’ve spent on Fancast?

Jimmy did an in-depth article on Fancast here.

Jaman

Jaman has a really slick site and one that I really like, which is unusual because I’ve never actually read or heard about Jaman anywhere else.

I came across Jaman some time back while searching for new sites to watch horror movies for free and I haven’t been disappointed till now.

They not only host English movies, they also have a good collection of movies in languages such as Hindi, Spanish and Swedish, to name a few. That and their fresh collection is what has prompted me to stick to them.

Asian Horror Movies

I’ve long believed that Asian horror movies were a genre in themselves. If you’re a fan of the Asian horror movies scene, this is one site you have to check out.

They’ve got more movies than all the above sites combined and feature collections from China, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and a couple of other Asian countries.

Hulu

While Hulu is not strictly a horror movie site, it is still one of the best streaming video sites on the Internet.

They have a good collection of movies and if it’s one of those days when you’re too creeped out to actually watch a horror movie, you can always sit back and catch The Simpsons.

We have done loads of Hulu stories but here is a small selection :

How to watch movies & shows on Hulu & Sling from abroad.

Hulu Desktop: Instant TV Shows and Movies on Large Screen.

Best sites to watch TV on your computer over the internet.

How to download free Hulu movies to your computer.

Never again do I have to worry about a dull evening anymore. Which other sites do you guys visit to get your daily dose of horror flicks ?

Most videos uploaded to YouTube are made by amateurs like you and I, usually with modest video making equipment. It’s not a surprise that you’d find a lot of the videos lacking in quality and/or content.

Now, quality is something that you can’t do much about but if it is the content that is bothering you and you have the inclination and enthusiasm to make some changes, we’ll tell you how to go about it.  Maybe one particular scene in a video really bothers you and you want to take it out.   Well here’s one way to go about it.

If you want to know how to copy Youtube videos and edit them, it typically involves three steps. Since you can’t edit the videos on YouTube online, the first step is to actually download a copy of the video locally to your computer.

How to Copy YouTube Videos to your computer

There are a couple of different ways that you can copy YouTube videos to your computer and we’ve talked about a few in the past, see 18 Free Ways To Download Videos. So we won’t dwell too much on this part. Searching MakeUseOf for "download youtube videos" will bring you plenty of options.

Which brings us to the second step in the process.

Converting FLV files to Windows Media Video Files (WMV)

There are dozens of software available all around the web that could potentially help you do this conversion, but why bother with all that searching when we have the coolest open source solution for the job, ffmpeg. If you’re comfortable with the command line, you can use ffmpeg directly or download and install the excellent WinFF utility, which is basically a graphical wrap-around for the app.

Launch WinFF and click on the add button to add the FLV file you just downloaded. Select “Microsoft“ from the Convert To drop down and select the WMV2 Generic option from the Device Presets drop down. Choose a location to save the converted file to and click on convert. WinFF will launch ffmpeg which will do the conversion for you without you having to use any command line kung fu.

Editing Videos using Windows Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker is a free software bundled with Windows which can be used to edit and enhance videos and it has built-in support to read WMV files. Mark has previously written two excellent articles on editing movies using Windows Movie Maker and those should be enough to get you started.

Use WMM to remove the offending scene(s). Use the preview window to view the results of your artistry as soon as you’re ready.

When you’re done with editing the video, click the Publish Movie button and export the movie using one of the many choices given, including burning the movie to a DVD or writing a new WMV file to the disk for playing on a computer.

Do you know of any better ways how to copy and edit a YouTube video?  If so, let us know.

Tell me, where’s the fun in not having to deal with himem.sys and esoteric commands to make the sound blaster mode work ? I’m sure none of us really miss those days. But, for an old timer like me, DOS will always hold a special place in my heart.

I still remember all those fun filled afternoons when I’d come back from school, drop the schoolbag and sit and play Digger on our state-of-the-art IBM PC. Haven’t heard of digger ? How about Invaders ?

When Microsoft released Windows XP in 2001, they effectively ended an era of DOS based games and applications. All Microsoft operating systems before XP, had DOS at their heart and could run DOS applications pretty well, but XP was based on an all new architecture which was supposed to be more secure, faster and free of the legacy of DOS.

Security and a spiffy new architecture is all well and good but if you’re like me and you crave good ol’ games of yore, there is still hope for you. What to know how to play DOS games under Windows XP?  DOSBox is here to the rescue.

How to Play DOS Games Under Windows XP With DOSBox

DOSBox is an open source DOS emulator. What that means is that it creates and emulates a DOS based environment for your application. To the application, it appears as if it’s running on it’s own under DOS. So, while DOSBox manages the show behind the scenes, the user really doesn’t need to bother about compatibility, memory management and other stuff which only the old timers amongst us would recognise.

DOSBox is also really easy to get started with. All you need to do is download DOSBox and execute the installer. The installer will create a shortcut to DOSBox on the desktop. Double click the shortcut to run DOSBox for the first time.

Does that Z:\> prompt look familiar ? How about C:\>?  Well, DOSBox, by default, does not create a C: drive for you. Instead, it lets the user select a directory on his/her computer and mount that inside the emulator as the C:\. This is the directory which we’ll use to store all our old DOS utilities and time wasters games.

Create a directory named DOSApps under c: on your windows computer. The name of the folder or the drive on which it is created does not matter as long as you can remember it.

Copy all the DOS apps that you want to run under DOSBox to this folder. I’m going to use DOSBox to run Digger, my favorite DOS game.

Now, get back to DOSBox and at the Z:\ prompt, type in the following command:

mount c c:\DOSApps

As you can, DOSBox has mounted Drive C and mapped it to the local directory c:\DOSApps that you created earlier. Now, switch to the c:\ drive and enter the dir command to see a list of all the files in it. You should see a listing of all the DOS applications that you copied to the directory earlier.

That’s all. I’m all set now to play my favorite DOS game of all time. I give the command digger at the prompt and, lo-and-behold, digger it is, in all its (former) glory.

What are your favorite DOS games ? Try running them in DOSBox and let us know how you fare. Do you have your methods to play DOS games under Windows XP? Share them in the comments section below.

When was the last time you were in a brick and mortar store checking out a book (or a video game) and wondering if it’ll be cheaper to get it online ?

I don’t know about you guys, but this happens with all the time when I’m out shopping.

Just last week, I was at this cool bookshop near my house browsing the shelf looking for a copy of Shantaram (which by the way, is an awesome read). I found it alright but for some reason, I thought the price was a bit more than I thought it should cost. I had my iPhone with me and I could Google the price up but seriously, what’s cool about that?

Instead, armed with my iPhone, I used Snaptell (iTunes Store link).

Snaptell is a cool and free application for the iPhone which uses image recognition to identify photos of books, CD/DVDs and video game covers and tells you their price at various online retailers.

So in my case, using Snaptell, I took a picture of the front cover of Shantaram in the store. Snaptell then uploaded the image to its servers and within a couple of seconds, told me that the book was available at more or less the same price at Amazon and Barnes & Noble as the bookstore I was at. Obviously, I decided to purchase it there and then, saving me a couple of days and shipping costs.

Of course, this is not the only use of Snaptell. Along with a comparison of products’ prices, Snaptell also displays other useful information: it also links to the Wikipedia entry for the product, if it exists; Google Product search results, results from eBay, Half.com and Yahoo search. If you can’t find the product you’re looking for in all those places, I’m not sure you’ll ever find it online.

So, books aren’t really your scene, eh ? Snaptell is an excellent app to have even if you’re searching the back alleys for DVDs of the latest blockbuster or yesteryears’ hits.

Snap a pic and let Snaptell work its magic. Snaptell also helpfully includes links to reviews from IMDB and RottenTomatoes and search results from YouTube. How’s that for convenience ?

Since Snaptell uploads a photo each time to its servers, the application obviously works best over WIFI but the speed is quite acceptable over cellular networks. Also, since you’ll need to take a photo, this will not work on the iPod Touch.

If books, DVDs and games are your thing AND you’re an online junkie like I am, give Snaptell a try and you won’t be dissappointed. Oh, and the Geek cred that you get will definitely be priceless.

Another good article to help you find good buys online is “5 Online Shopping Sites That Will Actually SAVE You Money” which I wrote not long ago.

How do you normally research about the product you plan to buy? Online or physical store? Share with us in the comments!

Tough times like these call for tough measures and while we at MakeUseOf cannot fund a rescue package to revive the economy (yet!), we do try and help you guys in whatever little way that we can.

No, we aren’t going to suggest some tough measures to tide over the bad times. Instead, we’re going to make it easier for you to stretch the reach of your dollar with our selection of 5 online sites which will not only allow you shop from the convenience of your couch, but also help you find good deals online and the most bang for your buck.

CheapStingyBargains.com

A recession is not the best time to upgrade your computer and the good folks here at MakeUseOf have been showing you ways to prolong the life of your computer all this time. However, if you’re really in need of new hardware, make sure you visit CheapStingyBargains to get a good deal.

CheapStingyBargains catalogues and lists discount coupons and special deals from hundreds of computer manufacturers and dealers. The site offers the best deals and coupons for everything from computers to electronics and apparel to home goods.

FreeShipping.org

Don’t you hate it when you checkout an item from an online store only to find out that the shipping costs are more than the total price of your goods !

This is why I always make sure I give Freeshipping does one thing and does it well. It keeps a track of any free shipping offers going on at the 1500 stores on its list.

The next time you’re shopping online, be sure to check out all the free shipping deals that Freeshipping.org tracks.

DealCatcher.com

Dealcatcher is another coupon site that you should visit before making any online purchase. They have a long list of ready to use coupons and track more than 2000 online stores.

The kind of products that you can search for on DealCatcher varies from the usual computer and electronic stuff to apparels, auto accessories, shoes, flowers, cell phones, DVDs and so on. In short, if you’ve got a product in mind, they probably have an online store on their list that can give you a discount for it.

FatWallet.com

The greatest thing about FatWallet.com are the thousands of users who try out the coupons and let everyone else know which coupons are valid and where. The FatWallet community hangs out in the Forum where they share even more coupons and deals which were found elsewhere and generally help each other make the most of their money.

If you’re the cashback kind, there’s good news for you too. FatWallet is one of the few coupon sites that actually gives a cashback to users for using coupons found on their site.

Coupons.com

If you’re the kind who is always on the lookout for a bargain, I’m sure you know how cumbersome it is to go through newspaper coupons, clip and file them. Coupons.com aims to simplify that for you.

On this site, you’ll find electronic equivalent of newspaper coupons that you can print and take to your nearest grocery store for an instant discount.

Are there any other websites that you visit to get the best deals? Let us know in the comments.