10 Places To Get Cool Media Clips For PowerPoint Presentations Remember Al Gore’s PowerPoint show? Well, it went and won the Oscars. Okay, “˜The Inconvenient Truth’ was more about alarming statistics than the Microsoft Office application. Slideshare is a good place to see some really cool works of PowerPoint “˜art’. Whether you are on your first presentation or on your umpteenth, it’s always better to be prepared with the right resources to back up your ideas for the PowerPoint slides. Sound Clips Wave Central I wanted to end one of my presentations with a “˜Beam me Up, Scotty’ sound clip from Star Trek. CCMixter This is a community music site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses. Sound Bible From prankish sounds (give the farts a miss in your PPTs) to cool sound effects, this site has a good collection. The Open Directory Project The DMOZ page on music and audio loops is worth a look. Movie Clips YouTube The ultimate reservoir of videos will hopefully not be short of the perfect clip you are looking for. Atom
Tag Editors - Tom's Definitive Linux Software Roundup: Audio Apps EasyTag (v. 2.1.6) EasyTag is a tagging application that can handle more than just ID3 tags. Files that EasyTag supports include MP2, MP3, MP4, OGG, FLAC, AAC, Monkey's Audio, MusePack, and WavPack. Under the menu bar sits the main toolbar, which holds key functions like next/prev, first, last, undo/redo, scan, remove tag, save, file tree/list view switcher, select all, invert selection, search, CDDB lookup, create playlist, stop, and quit. EasyTag does pretty much any tagging operation you can imagine. Kid3 (v. 1.4) Kid3 is an audio file tagger for KDE 4.x. As a KDE 4.x app, Kid3 looks great, with highly configurable toolbars that suit anyone. MusicBrainz-Picard (v. 0.12.1) MusicBrainz-Picard is the official tagger application of the online community-based MusicBrainz database of metadata, with the Picard coming from the famous captain of the USS Enterprise D and E. The user interface is clean and all elements are well-placed. Entagged (v. 0.35) Sorting options are good, though.
MetatOgger: audio tagger with “acoustic fingerprinting” and other powerful options MetatOgger is a free, powerful program for tagging and renaming MP3s and other audio files. It offers the functions you would expect from a tag editor (e.g. mass renaming, tags from filenames or path, scripts to perform editing functions) as well as a few that are not so common, such as “acoustic fingerprinting” of unknown songs using the MusicBrainz database, built in album art search, importing lyrics from lyricwiki.org into your audio tags, and the ability to download a massive audio tag database that it can use as a tagging resource. Applying the correct tags and cover art to your audio library may feel like a never ending quest or even an impossible one; fortunately, however, there are sophisticated tools such as MetatOgger to help with the task. This software has a lot of potential, but also needs to iron out some significant kinks. My favorite MetatOgger features (also known as the PROS section): My not-so-favorite features (also know as the CONS section): Version Tested: 3.9.1.0
4 Fantastic Tools to Manage Your Massive MP3 Collection Music library management can be an entirely frustrating experience, especially if you have years of unorganized music waiting to be sorted and labeled properly. Poor music library management will come back and bite you later when you’re listening to music on-the-go and you can’t navigate your songs without confusion. Fortunately, there are a few great tools made specifically to help you in these things. I purge my music collection on a regular basis so I, admittedly, don’t have a huge music library, but it’s still large enough that I avoid organizing it due to the inevitable headaches. ID3 Remover Sometimes you just need to start over from scratch. Open the program, drag and drop whichever files or folders from which you want to delete ID3 tags, and click “Remove.” MP3Tag MP3Tag is a lightweight program meant to aid you in managing the metadata for songs in your library. MP3Tag has a few advanced features to make your life easier if you so choose to use those features: MusicBrainz Picard
Control Windows volume with keyboard shortcuts with 3RVX 3RVX is a utility that lets you control your computer's volume using global hotkeys including keyboard or mouse shortcuts. If you don't have a keyboard with volume controls on it, this can come in handy and save you the valuable fraction of a second it takes to click on the over the Windows volume icon and adjust the volume the old fashioned way. As an added bonus, 3RVX also has a rather attractive volume indicator that shows up when you adjust the volume. The default view looks a lot like the OS X volume indicator. 3RVX is available as a free download. [via Freeware Genius] Tags: 3rvx, freeware, volume
How to tag all your audio files in the fastest possible way Last week, I promised that this time I'd introduce efficient ways to add ID3 tags to MP3 files. For me, adding such tags is an absolute necessity. If I really want my MP3 files to be and remain properly sorted and quickly usable even if I change software, I must guarantee that: They are indexable through an open standard that many software tools can process automatically.The corresponding data are written inside the files themselves, to follow them when the files move to another computer or operating system, and inside backups. This said, let me make clear from the beginning that "the fastest possible way to tag MP3 files" can still involve a lot of manual work. Digitized analog recordings (you know what I mean: things like me singing "Merry Christmas" in kindergarten...), normally made by relatives and friends who have no clue of what tagging is, or...Podcasts from "professional" radio stations, that were very unprofessionally published online without any tagging whatsoever. Figure B 4 do
Rainy Mood helps you relax with the sound of RAIN! One of my favorite hacks involves using audio to set a mood. I've created an "anger playlist" to calm myself down when I'm angry, and I often listen to binaural beat tracks to help wake myself up without the use of caffeine, or to help me focus on what I'm working on. The sound of rain has always created a certain calmness for me. The audio is superb, and if you close your eyes it can transport you to a totally different place. Tags: audio, calm, calming, freeware, rain, rainy mood, rainy weather, RainyMood, RainyWeather, sound of rain, SoundOfRain, white noise, WhiteNoise
Audio File Formats Explained in Simple Terms Almost everyone is familiar with the most commonly used file formats – for music, mp3 and wmv, for video, avi and mpeg, and for images, jpeg and gif. Unfortunately, these common formats are not the only ones we run into on a daily basis. On any given day, we are likely to also see .flv on Youtube or .pdf while opening documents. It seems as though there is an unending list of file formats that accomplish the same task – saving a bunch of data. What is the purpose of the existence of these seperate formats, and why do they extend the list of available formats to “Save As…“? The list of questions could go on, pretty much for the length of this article, but I believe I should provide some answers, since the questions are probably what led you here in the first place. Technical Jargon: File Format: a specific way to encode data that is to be saved as a file. Codec: a program/algorithm that encodes/decodes data to convert a file between different formats. Audio File Formats Explained .aac .ogg
6 Free White Noise Sites To Relax Or Set Yourself To Sleep Sleep is one of the most mysterious bodily states. It is speculated to be important for recovery, the immune system, and learning. While the functions of sleep remain not well understood, one thing is clear: sleep is essential for survival. Many people suffer from poor sleep. Sleep hygiene i.e. controlling behavioral and environmental practices that affect sleep, may provide relief. One thing that naturally aids falling asleep is calming white noise. Here is a collection of six pages that provide different types of free white noise and music for better sleep and relaxation. RainyMood RainyMood features a 15-minute high-quality loop of various types of free white noise including gentle rain sound, accompanied by thunder and chirping birds. White Noise 24/7 This website offers more than just “a random signal with a flat power spectral density“, i.e. free white noise. WhiteNoisePlayer SoundSleeping SoundSleeping lets you create your own relaxing sound mix. Last.fm – Absolute Sleep Music Radio
Normalize MP3 Volume Levels with MP3Gain Most of us have a huge collection of digital music that we call our own. Usually, albums and songs have been added irregularly over the year from many, many different sources. You may have digitized your existing record, MC and CD collections, while most of us exchange music with friends and family. I’m sure you’ll agree that the one annoying thing when enjoying a random mix of your favorite tunes is the change in quality, especially in the volume. Since our music originates from so many different sources, quality is never the same, but variations in the volume are most unpleasant. While it’s difficult to fix the overall quality, it’s rather easy to normalize MP3 volume levels with the right tool. MP3Gain, does statistical analysis to determine how loud a file sounds to the human ear. The program was primarily written for Windows. So how does it work? When you have added all files you wish to normalize, click the Analysis button. What else would you like to know? Image credits: fangol