Electronics Info

Weblog Rankings

2006-05-11T00:21:00.000-07:00

There are a lot a weblog directories on the net and there is one more coming, Weblog Rankings. On this site you are able to search through weblogs under language, country, categories, and alphabetically. To get more traffic to your blog submit your site to www.weblogrankings.com.

All You Wanted To Know About Ringtones

2006-05-07T23:59:00.000-07:00

Ringtones are the sounds that mobile phone make to signal incoming calls or text messages. The essential characteristics of ringtones is that it can be customized to suit the individual’s taste and that feature could be said to influence consumers so much in the choice of phones.
Ringtones are popular for several reasons:
They can be assigned to specific numbers so you know who is calling by the sound
They help individuals in crowded settings to know their phone is the one ringing
And for the youth, it is a way of carrying their popular songs with them wherever they go to.
There are three kinds of ringtones in operation now.
Monophonic ringtones are basic sequential notes that makes a single tone at a time. In effect they are not musical as one note success the other like a piano composition.
Polyphonic ringtones can play i6 notes at a time and therefore highly musical. It can produce harmonic sounds and they are a regular feature of modern phones.
Digital samples use mp3 and wav files as ringtones; making them the most sophiscated as it means computer generated sounds can be used as ringtones.
Technically, a ringtone is a program that activates the phone’s speakers anytime it picks text messages or incoming call signals.
Ringtones are based on a programming language called Ringing Tone Text Transfer

Language (RTTTL) which was developed by Nokia .

Ringtones are available in various forms. They can be hard-coded onto your phone from the factory. In that case, you only have to scroll the phone menu and pick the one you would like to use as your tone.

You can also download ringtones from the web. In this case, you can use a data cable and transfer the files to your phone and then use as ringtones. Ringtones on the web can also be downloaded onto phones through WAP services or SMS transfer. You can alternatively use the key press sequence offered by various sites. With this method, you only follow the steps on the web page to accomplish the composition.

Lately, you can compose your own tones by pressing the various keys on your keypad to mimic various notes. Generally, the alpa keys on the phone correspond to the tonic solfa and with a little ingenuity you can compose some primary tones.

If mobile phones have increased in popularity, ringtones have played a big role. As more and more ways to generate tones evolve, so will be the demand for them.

About the author:
For more more information about cell phone ringtones please visit http://www.samsung-mobile-phones.net

Adding Sound to your Web Site - the good, the bad and the ugly

2006-05-07T23:58:00.000-07:00

Many webmasters like the idea of adding background music to their web sites but most shy away from doing it worrying about slow loading pages and large file sizes. There are many different ways to add background music to your site and some of them don't require large files to achieve professional results. Let's examine all the different ways to add background music to your site and rate them to find the best solution for you.

1) MIDI Files
MIDI files are very small because they actually use your sound card's built-in instruments to create the sounds. The problem is that most sound cards don't have any decent sounds to start with, plus no two sound cards sound alike and therefore the results are very unpredictable. MIDI files usually sound like they're coming from one of those cheap Casio keyboards. Using MIDI for background music is very likely to make your site seem amateurish. Want to know how to do it anyway? Just add the line to your site. (Replace xyz with the name of the MIDI file you want to use!) The Autostart command will play the file automatically when the page is loaded.
PROS; Very small file size, easy to implement
CONS: Unpredictable results, amateurish sounds

2) WAV Files
Using the WAV file format allows you to add professional sounding recordings to your site but the problem is that even if you use a low quality setting like 11k/8bit, the file sizes are still very large and it will take a long time for your music to load. And slow loading pages are the worst thing that can happen to a site. Implementing a WAV file on a web page is easy. Just add the line to your page's HTML code. There's an additional command to loop the WAV file but WAV files do not loop cleanly with the embed command.
PROS: Many Quality Levels, Easy to implement
CONS: Large File Sizes, WAV Files do not loop

3) MP3 Files
MP3 files are highly compressed and don't take that long to load but the problem is that MP3s need to bring up an external player program and which in some cases takes your visitors away from your site altogether. Also, MP3 files don't loop cleanly.
PROS: Smaller File Sizes, Good Quality Possible
CONS: Needs external player

software, not loopable

4) Flash
If you own a program that can create Flash files, you will have lots of flexibility in adding sound to your site. Flash lets you import WAV as well as MP3 Files and then creates quite small files from these sounds that will load automatically on your site. You can set the quality level and therefore decide how large you want the Flash file to be. Flash also allows you to loop short pieces of sound to create 'continuous' background music files that can be quite small. But please note that only imported WAV files can be looped in Flash, MP3 files will not loop cleanly.
PROS: Great Flexibility, Small File Sizes, expecially when looping sounds
CONS: You need to buy expensive Flash software to create Flash Files

5) Pre-Made Flash Loops
The newest thing on the market are pre-built Flash Music Loops. These files are professionally recorded, loop almost indefinitely and most of these Flash Music Loops are only about 20k in size so they load almost instantly. Flash Music Loops are available at http://www.flashmusictracks.com and currently there are three different loop packages available in all kinds of music styles from classical to techno. Using these pre-built Flash files is easy. Simply upload the "xyz.swf" Flash file to your server and add a few lines from the corresponding "xyz.html" file to your web page and presto...instant professional sounding background music.
PROS: Extremely small file size, professional quality music
CONS: None

As you can see there are many different ways to add background music to your web pages and you don't have to worry about slow loading pages if you choose the right file format.

Article by Alan Steward, a professional recording engineer and producer who worked with many Grammy award winning groups and musicians.
(c)2004 Alan Steward - http://www.musicleads.net
You may freely redistribute or use this article on your website or in your newsletter as long as the article is unaltered and unedited.

Alan Steward is a professional recording engineer and producer who worked with many Grammy award winning groups and musicians.

Adding Audio To Your Web Site

2006-05-07T23:56:00.000-07:00

What do you do with your intranet or internet site once you’ve added words and pictures? How about adding audio as well?

Audio is friendly, direct and ideally suited to getting complex messages across in a short space of time.

It's now getting easier to add audio to the net, thanks to increasing bandwidths and innovative new ways of compressing data.

The problem has been that CD-quality audio has traditionally been the preserve of ISDN- and ADSL-equipped users. Basically, there has been too much data to fit down the pipe.

But, borrowing on the same techniques that are used to compress digital photographic images, it is now possible to compress sound to make it fit down a standard dial-up 56KBps modem line.

The trick is to compress the audio in a way that doesn’t sound offensive to the ear, but can still pass along the line at about 3 kilobytes per second, given that a dial-up modem downloads at about 4-ish kilobytes per second.

The next trick is to use streaming technology that can start to play the audio while it is still downloading. As a long as it is downloads fast enough you don’t get annoying stops and starts. You should also end up with a “buffer”. In many cases, the whole audio file will have downloaded long before the user has finished listening to it.

The volume of online streaming audio grew by 118 per cent last year, according to market researchers US-based AccuStream iMedia Research and the top ten internet radio stations received an average of 137.5m tuning hours in the same period, up from 63m in 2003.

Typical audio formats are Real’s Radio Player (as chosen by the BBC), the ubiquitous MP3 (as featured on thousands of youngster’s personal hi-fis) and Macromedia Flash.

MP3SoundStream (http://www.mp3soundstream.com/cgi-bin/cppro/go.cgi?snichols1)uses Flash and works well as 98% of computers already have the Flash plug-in and the rest can easily download it. Flash takes the MP3 file, combines it with an audio controller button and streams it for you off any server, which means low-cost and ease of use.

So once you have the technology in place, what can you record? The answer is anything. Adding audio to an intranet lets you record a weekly message from the CEO or a sales message. Or why not have a weekly news round-up?

The audio can either be recorded straight into your PC

via a microphone and soundcard, or recorded on a Minidisc recorder and then digitised into the computer. Once there you can add music, voiceovers, cuts and fades with a program like Adobe Audition or Sony Soundforge. Music can be bought online for just a few pounds and you can even use free audio editing programmes, like Audacity.

What was once the preserve of the BBC and other high-end radio studios is now available on a desktop computer near you – but only if you have the skills to match.

FAQs (291 words)

Q. What is streaming audio?
A. It is audio delivered to your computer that can be listened to while it is still downloading.

Q. What’s the advantage over other audio formats?
A. You don’t get an annoying delay while the whole file downloads.

Q. What do listeners need to have on their computer?
A. A soundcard and speaker(s) or headphones, their normal browser software and a so-called plug-in – a small piece of software that converts the data into sound.

Q. This all sounds expensive – is it?
A. Not really. You can get free programs to record your sound, a computer microphone costs less than a tenner and there are free audio editing programs available on the net. You then need to convert the audio file to a streaming format, but there is an increasing amount of software available to do that too. You also need to think about a MiniDisc recorder as these have superseded cassette tape for most applications. Royalty-free background and intro music is available on CD and via the web for a small fee.

Q. What is the quality like?
A. Judge for yourself – visit www.infotechcomms.co.uk/info10.htm and listen to the demonstration programmes. The trick is to get the quality as high as you can, but still make it playable on an average modem-equipped home computer. Once everyone has broadband it will be CD-quality for all.

Q. How do I find out more?
A. There is a list of useful links at http://www.infotechcomms.co.uk/info11.htm

ENDS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steve Nichols (steve@infotechcomms.co.uk) runs InfoTech Communications, which specialises in online communications. He has acted as consultant and trainer for many blue-chip companies including Aviva, AWG, Shell, Standard Life, HBOS, BNFL, AstraZeneca, Diageo, Accenture and Australia New Zealand Bank.

A Cheap Alternative To Broadband?

2006-05-07T23:55:00.000-07:00

Are you a dial-up user looking for a faster connection, but don't like Broadband prices? If so, you should take a look at a new service called OnSpeed, which has received rave reviews in Internet technology publications.

What OnSpeed does is to re-route web pages and email via its own servers, compressing the data on the fly prior to sending it onwards to your PC. A small program then decompresses the data, so that you can view it in the normal way via your browser or email client.

In my own dial-up tests, with a modem running at a nominal 49kb/s I appeared to get speeds close to that of my normal broadband connection of 598 kb/s - very impressive. Image quality is often reduced but the compression for this can be improved, though with an adverse effect on the speed of course.

Also some file types like MP3 cannot yet be compressed. The company is working on these issues however and expects to find solutions soon.

Unfortunately I was unable to use email in my tests, due to a 'port' conflict with a spam filter that I was using. The standard advice on the OnSpeed site for such cases is to disable the
offending program. Not a constructive approach - to say the least - so I hope that the relevant instructions will be changed soon.

More significantly, the problem persisted even when I switched off the OnSpeed application on my PC; in the end I had to remove the program to get

the spam filter working again. I expect that this fault can be resolved, but clearly there are issues in this area that need to be addressed.

The software is easy to install, and is available for Mac as well as Windows PCs. On the whole the service is surprisingly good, and a lot cheaper than broadband. Unlike other 'speed-up'
techniques that tweak your computer's settings but result in little noticeable improvement, OnSpeed really works.

I can recommend OnSpeed for dial-up users who can't justify the expense of broadband, or who are not located close enough to a suitable exchange. OnSpeed is also stated to be great for mobile or PDA users, as GPRS (wireless) speeds can be boosted by as much as 8 times. It even helps with broadband if you can only get a reduced service in your area.

My overall rating is 4/5 - very good, but the email support needs to be improved.

If you want further details of OnSpeed, please visit http://www.On-Speed.net There is a 14 day money-back guarantee, so you can try the service without any risk.

Copyright © Richard Prosser 2004

About the Author

Richard is a software developer and entrepreneur, and may be contacted via the 'Article Tips' site given below. This article may be published without permission, but only in its entirety.

Free email course: "Drive 'Hot' Prospects To Your Site For Free!"
http://www.ArticleTips.com

12 High Readership Content Ideas!

2006-05-07T23:53:00.000-07:00

1. How To Articles: they include detailed step by step
instructions. Examples: how to publish your e-zine,
how to promote your business, how to attract visitors
to your web site.

2. Tips: they are usually small pieces of information
about the size of a paragraph. Examples: tips on using
a product, tips on doing your taxes.

3. Top Lists: they are a group of tips listed in order,
usually numbered from first to last. Examples: top 7
ways to get to the top of search engines, top 10
ways to market your product.

4. News Articles: they can include news about your
industry or company information. Examples: joint
ventures, new product releases, special events,
overseas activity

5. Interview Articles: they could include interviews
from customers, employees and experts. Examples:
interview an employee that won an award, an expert
related to your industry, a satisfied customer, people
profiles.

6. Publications: they include information that's bundled
together to take with the person. Examples: ebooks,
reports, software, auto responder information.

7. Business History Articles: they include information
about your business. Examples: years in

business,
goals your business has accomplished, community
affairs, financial information.

8. Product Articles: they include information about
your product or services. Examples: new products,
improvements to existing products, new accessories.

9. Visual Content: they include visual helpers that help
explains, shows or supports an example. Examples:
charts, photos, graphics, graphs.

10. Entertaining Content: they include humorous and
off beat information. Examples: contests; quizzes,
trivia, puzzles, games, cartoons.

11. Excerpts: they include information used from other
resources for different purposes, but can also support
your business. Examples: journal articles, transcripts
of seminars, reprints, speeches, press releases.

12. Technology Content: they are new technologies
you can use to present your content. Examples: audio
clips, streaming video, MP3 files.

About the Author

Larry Dotson. Get 1239 FREE Internet Business eBooks when you
visit: http://www.ldpublishing.com As a bonus, Bob
Osgoodby publishes the free weekly "Your Business"
Newsletter visit his web site to subscribe and place
a FREE Ad! http://adv-marketing.com/business.

1. How To Articles: they include detailed step by step
instructions. Examples: how to publish your e-zine,
how to promote your business, how to attract visitors
to your web site.

2. Tips: they are usually small pieces of information
about the size of a paragraph. Examples: tips on using
a product, tips on doing your taxes.

3. Top Lists: they are a group of tips listed in order,
usually numbered from first to last. Examples: top 7
ways to get to the top of search engines, top 10
ways to market your product.

4. News Articles: they can include news about your
industry or company information. Examples: joint
ventures, new product releases, special events,
overseas activity

5. Interview Articles: they could include interviews
from customers, employees and experts. Examples:
interview an employee that won an award, an expert
related to your industry, a satisfied customer, people
profiles.

6. Publications: they include information that's bundled
together to take with the person. Examples: ebooks,
reports, software, auto responder information.

7. Business History Articles: they include information
about your business. Examples: years in

business,
goals your business has accomplished, community
affairs, financial information.

8. Product Articles: they include information about
your product or services. Examples: new products,
improvements to existing products, new accessories.

9. Visual Content: they include visual helpers that help
explains, shows or supports an example. Examples:
charts, photos, graphics, graphs.

10. Entertaining Content: they include humorous and
off beat information. Examples: contests; quizzes,
trivia, puzzles, games, cartoons.

11. Excerpts: they include information used from other
resources for different purposes, but can also support
your business. Examples: journal articles, transcripts
of seminars, reprints, speeches, press releases.

12. Technology Content: they are new technologies
you can use to present your content. Examples: audio
clips, streaming video, MP3 files.

About the Author

Larry Dotson. Get 1239 FREE Internet Business eBooks when you
visit: http://www.ldpublishing.com As a bonus, Bob
Osgoodby publishes the free weekly "Your Business"
Newsletter visit his web site to subscribe and place
a FREE Ad! http://adv-marketing.com/business.

10 Reasons To Include Teleseminars In Your 2006 Marketing Plan

2006-05-07T23:50:00.000-07:00

Did you put off hosting teleseminars and building your business dramatically this year? Make a resolution to start in 2006 and begin increasing your company's cash flow.

Here are 10 reasons to put teleseminars into your budget for 2006.

1. Make money. You can make thousands of dollars in registration fees depending on the size of your audience and the topic's importance. Great Teleseminars Audio Production Studios, http://www.GreatTeleseminars.com has several clients making six-figure incomes from teleseminars over the course of one year. One recently made $30,000 in one hour by offering the right topic at the right price to the right audience.

2. Beat your competition by improving your image and building your name brand. By conducting teleseminars, you will be perceived as a trusted expert, an innovator and a leader within your field.

3. Maintain contact with your clients with little time, energy and financial investment. Isn't it great to offer your clients a seminar so they can learn your latest tactics, techniques and breakthroughs? Some of my clients do teleseminars for free just so they can build rapport and maintain good relationships with clients.

4. Prospecting. What could be a better way to introduce yourself and your services to prospects than by offering a free teleseminar jam packed with beneficial information that show you at your best? You don't have to fly anywhereand they don't have to drive anywhere. Nothing could be simpler or

cheaper since you can deliver the same message to many people at one time - and still be personable.

5. Slash customer support costs and increase customer loyalty. You can do this easily by offering free teleseminars on how to use your products and services effectively.

6. Create multiple streams of income by creating products for future sales. Every teleseminar can be turned into a CD, MP3 file, transcript and/or e-book to generate extra income.

7. Become newsworthy. Teleseminars give you a reason to post press releases about the topic, the guest and the information learned. Don't overlook the chance to get your name in print.

8. Build your list. By offering people on your list a great event, they'll tell their friends, so you'll build your database of prospects.

9. Keep your marketing team busy with a project that is easy to do every month. Once you get the mechanics in place, you can do teleseminars every month with ease.

10. Teleseminars are cheaper and easier than webinars by a factor of at least 10 to 1. Check out Great Teleseminars low prices at http://www.greatteleseminars.com or use our conference lines for free for 100 people.

When you offer teleseminars, you make money, build your customer loyalty and grow your business - for a very small investment. Wouldn't that be a great resolution for the new year?

[ Submitted with ArticleSubmitter Pro - http://www.articlesubmitterpro.com]

7 Warning Signs of an Unprofitable Web Site

2006-05-07T15:01:00.000-07:00

7 general mistakes which you should avoid to make your web business successful and not Unprofitable.

1. Selling To Everyone Means You Sell to No One
If you do not target your offer, it will confuse your customers. People are not patient. In a recent survey, 73% of people claimed to be "insanely busy". If you do not develop a target customer profile and appeal directly to them, you will lose customers. And they will never come back to your site again.

2. Web Flea Market: Buy a Web Site or Get a Grocery Coupon
People are selling Web Sites, classified advertising, pre-paid legal services, long distance phone cards, and reminder services via affiliate programs...All on the same Web Page!

Think about that the next time you go to your grocery store. Do they offer to sell you a Web Site with your pickles? Flea markets diminish the value of what you are selling. Most people who own these sites tell me they depend on selling a high volume of low price items. How do I know this is a doomed approach? Visit their sites and see if there is any life there

3. Huge graphics that make your site take 30 seconds to open, which is all the time you have to sell your customer on staying.
The worst thing about computers is that they enable us to do things we just should not be doing. Graphic design is a skill; most people get some Paint program and have absolutely no sense of size, or what the graphic makes them look like. If you want to SCREAM AT

YOUR AUDIENCE AND BE OBNOXIOUS, then use big graphics.

4. This site has xxxx number of visitors (How many bought?)
Does it really matter to anyone how many people visit your store? The sure sign that a store is visited often is the success and profits of the owner. All the rest is empty bragging.

5. Explaining what technology you use, frames, etc.
To this day it amazes me how people explain the technical design of their Web Page. If you use any reference to technology, you are distracting your customer. Keep it simple.

6. Download the following plug-ins to get this site working.
No one will spend ten minutes downloading the plug-in to see your cutesy message. Avoid plug-ins, with the possible exception of Real Audio.

7. No place to send an email, or gain a free report.
After spending all this time to create a site, most people forget to ask for inquiries. They just think people will work hard to contact them. Assume that a person will visit your site once, and never return unless you remind them to via email.

About the author:
Ash Kawa has written hundreds of articles specializing in helping people succeed when the competition is tough. President of a successful Website Hosting Company [$0.75/month & Get Un-Limit Movies & MP3 Songs on your PC!]

6 Tips for Organizing Your Music Files

2006-05-07T15:00:00.000-07:00

If you're a digital music fan, you probably have problems organizing your music file collection. For me, I used to have hundreds of MP3 files lumped in one folder in my hard drive. Can you imagine the pain I had to go through to find one specific tune to listen to?

Organizing your music files is an important skill to learn. Once your collection is nicely sorted out, you'll be able to find the songs you want quickly and easily. So set aside some time and read through the following tips I've come up with.

1. Create Subfolders

The single most important tip for organizing your music files is to create subfolders in your hard drive. Don't ever leave your MP3 files in one huge folder called C:My Music. Create subfolders like C:My MusicClassical, C:My MusicPop and C:My MusicSoundtracks.

2. Ensure your ID3 Tags Are Correct

ID3 tags are used to store important information about MP3 files. Things like the song title, artist, album are kept and will be displayed by your MP3 player. Take the time to properly edit these tags - many MP3 files you download have the ID3 tag information all wrong. A good software program for editing ID3 tags is TagScanner.

3. Invest in Good Music Management Software

There are several excellent pieces of software out there for managing music files. Two good ones come to mind. The first is MediaMonkey and the second is MusicMatch Jukebox. Both programs offer excellent music management features like an integrated music player, CD burning features and ID3 tag renaming.

4. Get Your Music Files from Legal Sources

If you've been downloading music using P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing programs like KaZaa,

you will very likely get music files which have strange names like 56_HeyjAck.mp3. My advice: Get your files from legal sources like online music services iTunes or Napster and you will avoid this problem.

5. Create Good Playlists

Most software music player (e.g. Winamp) will allow you to create playlists. For example, say you're in the mood for rock songs, you can point to your folder called C:MusicRock and create a playlist from that folder. Save the playlist after it is created. When you next feel like listening to those songs, all you need to do is load that playlist instead of trawling through your hard drive and folders.

6. Get A Huge Hard Drive

I know this sounds a little crazy - but running out of disk space can and will ruin your well-organized music collection. Make sure you have enough hard disk space to store your music files. Say you have 10,000 music files that you absolutely must retain and listen to. It is a very bad idea to store, say, 8,000 files in Hard Drive A and 2,000 files in Hard Drive B. Very messy. It's better to store them all in one hard disk. So get your hands on the biggest hard drive you can find.

Conclusion

I hope this article helps you to organize your music collection a little better. I know it takes effort, but once your music collection is properly catalogued, listening to your music collection will be a much more pleasant experience. So don't hesitate - get organized now!

Gary Hendricks is computer enthusiasts. He runs three websites about digital video, digital music and computers.

gary_hendricks@digital-music-guide.com

5 Ways to Enjoy Your Music Files

2006-05-07T14:59:00.000-07:00

OK, say you've got one thousand of your favorite MP3 songs sitting in your hard disk. What's the best way to enjoy those files? Most of us probably will use the Windows Media Player to listen to those files. but did you know there are other more innovative and interesting ways playback MP3, WMA and WAV files?

Let's take a look at the five methods.

Use MusicMatch Jukebox

If you think most that most PC programs for playing digital music look like the built-in Windows Media Player, think again. There are programs out there that go far beyond the Windows Media Player in functionality. One great example is Musicmatch Jukebox from Musicmatch. Musicmatch Jukebox is quite simply the world's best digital music player. It supports playback of various music formats like audio CDs, MP3s, Internet streams, WMAs, WAV files and more. You also get CD burning, music ripping and music organizing capabilities. The Plus version even allows you to automatically tag your music files with detailed info and album art!

Use a Portable MP3 Player

Portable music players like the Apple iPod, Creative Nomad and Rio Nitrus have taken the market by storm. You don't have to be confined to your desktop PC or laptop to listen to digital music! The portable music players can allow you to take your music anywhere. The compact size of MP3 and WMA music formats means that you can literally take a jukebox of thousands of songs whereever you go! You may also want to check out my review of the top 5 portable music players here. There are also other portable music options, including handphones with MP3 support.

Use a PDA

The latest Pocket PC or Palm-based personal digital assistants (PDAs) can also act as music players. Pop in a large memory card (e.g. 64 MB) and you can store many MP3 or WMA files. Then hook

up a headphone, launch the music software in the PDA and you're good to go! I personally own a HP iPaq 2210 which effectively keeps track of my appointments and doubles up as a music player.

Use Your Car Stereo

This is my favorite way of listening to my MP3 collection. I recently bought a car stereo that can playback native MP3 songs. This means that I can pop in a data CD containing hundreds of MP3 files and the car stereo will play them! This does not work on conventional car stereos. If you own a conventional car stereo, but still want to listen to your MP3 songs, one way is to create an audio CD from your music files first. The car stereo will then have no problem interpreting and playing back the audio CD. Of course, in this case, you'll be limited to about 14 to 17 tracks of music only.

Use Your Home Stereo

If you're a music lover, you probably already have a home stereo. Use it to listen to your MP3 music files! However, take note that Like car stereos, conventional home stereos will not be able to play back native MP3 songs. You will need a newer home stereo set with MP3 playback capability. New models from Kenwood, Panasonic, Pioneer and Sony usually have MP3 support.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many ways to enjoy that digital music collection of yours. My favorite methods of listening to digital audio files is via a portable music player or the car stereo. Of course, you may have your own preference - some people like to listen to music off their desktop PC or laptop. Decide which method(s) is suitable for you and go for it!

Gary Hendricks - http://digital-music-guide.com

gary_hendricks@digital-music-guide.com

5 Steps to Understanding HTML

2006-05-07T14:58:00.000-07:00

HTML is a relatively simple language, but that doesn't stop people from having problems with it. Why is that? It's mainly because, while the HTML tags themselves are easy, creating an HTML document that works as intended on a web server requires you to know a few extra things that aren't often explained. Here, then, is a guide to understanding those parts of HTML that they just don't tell you about in the books.

Step 1: Understand Doctypes.

It isn't often noted that valid HMTL documents don't actually start with the tag – they have one extra tag before it. This is the doctype, and it must be present right at the top of your document for it to be valid HTML.

There are only really two doctypes that you really need to know about. The HTML4 doctype looks like this:

The XHTML one looks like this:

These versions of the doctypes that are a little more forgiving – if you're a purist, you can use the strict ones instead by changing the words 'transitional' and 'loose' to 'strict'.

But what is the doctype for? Well, its purpose is simple enough: it tells web browsers exactly what version of HTML your page was written in, to help them to interpret it correctly.

Step 2: Understand HTTP Errors.

A truly shocking number of people writing HTML pages don't know how HTTP works – and they quickly run into trouble because of it. HTTP is the way a web browser communicates with a web server, and this communication includes information about your pages, such as cookies.

You don't need to worry too much about the internals of HTTP, but it's worth knowing that it works by the browser sending a request to the server for a certain page, and the server then responding with a code.

Your website should be set up to handle error codes well. For example, a 404 (page not found) error should show a page with links to the most useful parts of your site. Other common error codes include:

200 - OK
301 - Page moved.
403 - Forbidden (no authorisation to access).
500 - Internal server error.

For more information, visit www.w3.org/protocols.

Step 3: Understand MIME Types.

MIME types are another part of the HTML header – an important one. Also known as the content-type header, they tell the browser what kind of file they are about to send. Browsers don't rely on HTML files ending in .html, JPEG images ending in .jpeg,

and so on: they rely on the content-type header. If you don't know about this, you can have problems if you need to configure your server to send anything unusual.

Here are some common MIME types:

text/html - HTML.

text/css - CSS

text/plain - plain text.

image/gif - GIF image.

image/jpeg - JPEG image.

image/png - PNG image.

audio/mpeg - MP3 audio file.

application/x-shockwave-flash - Flash movie.

Step 4: Understand Link Paths.

One of the hardest things to understand about HTML is all the different things that you can put in an 'href' property. Abbreviated URLs are created using the rules of old text-based operating systems, and there are plenty of people writing HTML today who are completely unfamiliar with these rules.

Here are some examples. For each one, the assumption is that the link is on a page at http://www.example.com/example1/example1.html.

- links to http://www.example.com/example1/example2.html
- links to http://www.example.com/example1/example2.html
- links to http://www.example.com/example2.html
- links to http://www.example.com/example2.html
- links to http://www.example.com/
- links to http://www.example.com/example1

To put it simply, one dot means "in the folder we're in now", while two dots means "in the folder above the one we're in now". This can get confusing fast – just look at the difference one dot can make! Be careful with it.

Step 5: Understand How to Insert Things That Aren't HTML.

One of the most common HTML questions is how to insert things like Javascript and CSS into an HTML document. This is one of the easiest questions to answer: you simply use the link and script tags, like this:

About The Author

John Bradford is a Premier Web Designer, With more then 10 years of experience. Currently maintaining www.netking.info/webdesign Website With Free Web Design Articles.

5 Steps Basics of Podcasting

2006-05-07T14:56:00.000-07:00

Step1 - Understand podcast/podcasting :

A podcast is basically an audio file that is stored on the Internet that people can download to their computers , IPODS and MP3 players and listen to whenever and wherever they want to. Think of a podcast as a way to deliver any audio content to a large audience worldwide.

Step 2 - Podcast recording :

You have to get your message recorded using a mic. It is called podcast recording.You can either use your own voice or use a software like Jvw Podcast creator to use text to voice conversion for your podcasts. You can use articles, ebooks, lyrics, poems, white papers, tutorials, press releases, emails, business letters and more.

Step 3 - Create RSS feed for podcast :

You can create a simple Rss feed for your podcast with Enclosure url using a text editing software or use a podcast recording software. Make sure you make the feed itunes compatible. A simple Enclosure tag for podcast would look like this :

Step 4 - Validate your podcast

After you create a podcast , it is necessary that you validate your podcast feed to make sure there are no errors in it and that it is Rss specific and itunes compatible. You can use http://feedvalidator.org to check out rss feeds or search for more options on Google : http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&q=podcast+validator&meta= for Podcast validators.

Step 5- Submit your podcast

Make sure you popularize your podcast. Submit your podcast to directories and podcasting specific websites after you have created and validated the feeds. You can search for them at google : http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&q=submit+podcast&meta=

About the author:

Ashish Thakkar is a web consultant and the head of search engine optimization india division at Mumbai. He provides Search engine optimization training to top execs. You can view his new software to create podcast at http://www.jvwinc.com/podcast-creator.php

5 Reasons You Should Join The PDA Phone Revolution Today!

2006-05-07T11:38:00.000-07:00

There is a quite revolution taking place both in the cell phone and in the PDA industries. This is happening right under the noses of most people. But those who are smart enough can jump right in and benefit big.

What I'm talking about is the PDA phone revolution. This thing is bigger then the invention of toaster-oven.

This is because, like the "merge" of toaster and oven into one appliance, PDA phones bring together 2 of the most helpful, most productive, time saving tools many of us already use. Our cell phone, and our PDA.

Having a "Two in one" tool like this is perfect for people who value their time and money. And these savvy people are jumping in right now and making the PDA-phone their best friend.

Let's have a quick look at some of the huge benefits this tool can give us:

1. We need and use both of them anyway. Let's face it - cell phones are so widely used, you'll be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't own one. And as for PDA's - their popularity is growing at a dazzling pace every year, as prices get lower. Isn't it better to just get "two in one" and save money?

2. Save time - Owning two tools that have so many over lapping function is time consuming. For example, It's much easier to maintain just one calendar instead of one at your cell phone

and one at your PDA.

3. Save money - As technology progresses, most of us will upgrade our cell phone and our PDA. Having just one tool to worry about, your upgrades will be less frequent and at half the price.

4. More capacity - Many cell phones are limited in their memory capacity and their overall ability to handle administrative tasks. The PDA's however, were born for these missions. The PDA phone therefore is a phone with a huge capacity for handling almost anything.

5. Integration - The biggest reason for merging these two vital tools is to enjoy the benefits of integration. You'll be able to organize your calendar, talk to your friend and colleagues, download emails, listen to an mp3 file and play an addictive arcade game all at the same place.

The PDA phone revolution is here.

Those who use it to their benefit will be way ahead of others. How about joining the revolution?

About the Author: Ron Hel-Or is the owner and operator of http://www.only-pda.com - a website devoted to PDA, PDA phones, PDA accessories PDA phones and more.

Source: www.isnare.com

5 Minute Guide to Video Editing for Beginners

2006-05-07T11:37:00.000-07:00

Getting started with video editing is very simple you only need a few items and you can be producing quality movies at home that you will be able to enjoy for many years to come. Maybe even produce a hit Hollywood movie.

The basic items you need are a video capture card, the software to edit, your computer, storage space on your computer and a camcorder, VCR, or you can display your movie on your computer screen.

The process is effortless, all you do is capture the video to you computer using a capture card, then edit your video with video editing software and then download the video that you edited to either tape or burn it to a VCD, CD, or DVD.

Let’s look at your computer first. You will need a minimum of a Pentium II 300 or faster, a minimum of 256 Megs of RAM, but you will get better performance with 512 Megs. You will also desire to have a 30GB drive that is split into 2 separate partitions. This means that you will have a C: and a D:. The C: should be given 10GB and will have all of your software stored there and the D: will be where your audio, video and editing projects are stored. Your graphics card should be a 32 Meg AGP. You can have an 8 or 16 Meg but the quality will not be as good.

Storage is probably the most confusing thing about video editing. Video makers have many choices for storing their digital video files and this is why it can be so confusing.

If you desire creating your own DVD’s then you are going to need lot of storage. The most you can get out of a single sided 4.7 GB DVD is around 2 hours of video. If you are using DV footage you are going to need 13GB per hour of video, this means you will need 26GB of storage and remember you always have extra footage that you need to factor that in as well so you are now up to 39GB of storage space needed. If you are adding other options such as graphics, MPEG2 footage for the DVD and the folder to hold it all then you are now up to 50GB. So, for your 2 hour movie you will need 50GB of space at least.

So, when you begin be sure that you have enough storage on your computer for the type of video that you wish to store.

On to the video capture card and the video editing software. When you first visit the electronics store you will find many manufacturers that create video capture cards. The most popular include some of the reputable video capture card manufacturers are: Pinnacle, Matrox, Dazzle, ADS, Canopus, and Digital Origin.

What video capture

cards do to put it in simple terms is that these cards use hardware or software compression to digitize your video onto the hard drive on your computer. This way you can edit your video and play it back onto tape or display your movie on your computer screen.

Some times, you can purchase the video capture cards along with the video editing software that you choose. Some of the most popular video capture cards that are packaged with video software include the Pinnacle Pro One which comes with the Adobe Premiere 6 full version, TitleDeko RT, DV Tools 2.0, Hollywood FX, and Impressions DVD. The Dazzle DV NOW AV can be purchased along with the Premiere 6 full version and the DVDit LE.

Having music along with your video can also be accomplished with a MP3 Converter that will allow you to convert your MP3 music into a wav file or the format in which you need for your video. You may also wish to purchase a MP3 Encoder which will allow you to Wav or other formats into a MP3. A CD ripper is another item that you may wish to purchase that will help with converting your CD’s to MP3, WAV, WMA type files.

One other software program that will make you life easier when you begin video editing is a MPEG Encoder which is a very easy to use program that will make converting several formats easy than you can imagine. Many of these MPEG converters will aid in converting DVD, VCD, AVI, MPEG, GIF, Flash, WMV, WMA, WAV, MP3, MP4, M4A, OGG, AAC, 3GP and even more/

So, now all you need to do is to find the best video editing software that you feel comfortable with and off you go. You can find several different video editing software companies that offer their software on a trial basis, this will let you try out the software so you can see if it is the perfect software for you. But, remember with the trial version you will be receiving the video capture card. You will have to purchase it separately.

Copyright @2005, 4th Media Corporation

About the Author

Natalie Aranda is a freelance writer. She's been experimenting Web design with audio & video editing on a ecommerce website.

5 Tips For Buying The Right Laptop Computer

2006-05-07T11:31:00.000-07:00

It's easy to be intimidated by all the laptop models on the market today. There are literally dozens and dozens in every price range.

The key to finding the right one for you is to step back and consider exactly how you plan to use your laptop. When you define what you need before you go shopping, buying the right machine becomes much easier.

Here are 5 basic factors to consider:

1. SIZE

In the world of mobile computing, size definitely matters. The size of a laptop affects two key areas: portability and display size.

If you're always on the go and will be using your computer only in short bursts, a so-called ultralight will save you some shoulder strain.

On the other hand, if you're going to spend hours in front of your laptop, a larger display may be in order.

Today, some laptop displays exceed 17 inches, rivaling the display size of many desktop systems. The down side is that these monsters can easily weigh three times as much as an ultralight.

2. HARD DRIVE

Speaking of size, what about the size of the hard drive? One way to approach this issue is to ask yourself the following question:

Will this be my primary computer, or will it supplement my desktop system?

If the former, you should look for a bigger hard drive - 60 GB or more.

If the latter, you may be able to make it with a 20-30 GB hard drive.

But even this isn't absolute.

If, for example, you plan to copy a huge MP3 library from your desktop system to your laptop to make your music library portable, you'd be well advised to err on the side of too big.

3. MEMORY

In determining the right amount of system memory, or RAM, take a look at the ways in which you intend to use your laptop:

If your needs are somewhat mundane - email, spreadsheets, word processing, etc. - 256 MB of RAM should be

plenty. This is a common configuration for many laptops, so it means you probably won't need to spend extra for more RAM.

On the flip side, if you're an aspiring mobile digital photographer or videographer, you should stuff your laptop with as much RAM as it can hold.

In fact, exactly how much RAM your laptop can hold may in part drive your purchase decision. Applications for editing and manipulating multimedia content are notorious resource hogs.

4. NETWORK CONNECTIONS

Thanks in no small part to the Internet, computing in the 21st century relies heavily on being connected:

Connected to the Internet, connected to a corporate network, connected to a wireless network, connected to a home network, connected to an online service.

Your life will be easier if you buy a laptop that includes built-in means to connect to them all.

5. PRICE

If you're considering a laptop, you're probably wondering how much money you'll need to spend.

A few years ago, you'd be hard-pressed to find one for under $2,000. Today, there are plenty of laptops to be had for under $1,000.

What's more, most of the major manufacturers offer a variety of financing options.

Laptop prices have come down, to be sure. However, a laptop still represents a fairly major purchase for most people.

If you take the time to search for a laptop that meets your specific needs, you should get many years of use and enjoyment from this important investment.

The author, computer journalist John San Filippo, has created the definitive guide for buying a laptop computer. It's an easy read and explains everything you need to know. Check out ==> http://howtobuyalaptop.com/