I was able to rip my new CDs using Rhythmbox directly. I didn’t have to launch Sound Juicer or use ABCDE. I only had to go to the menu and look for the icon with the single CD. It was copy all tracks to the library. And I am pretty much used to using Nautilus to burn files on a disc. There’s also that feature on Rhythmbox apparently. It’s the icon with the 2 CDs.

Rhythmbox could copy all the tracks of a CD to your music library

For some reason though, when I tried ripping one of my CDs and it didn’t find it in the music database it connects to I entered the basic information like the album title, the artist and genre. But strangely, it didn’t automatically use the artist I specified for all the tracks. Considering this album had only one artist for all the tracks. Ah well. I could try to rip another CD next time and see how it goes. For the genre and album title, I had no problems whatsoever.

It looks like Rhythmbox is quite ok. Although Amarok and Banshee are tempting me because of the iPod synch feature. Using gtkpod is ok but I think it would be really nifty to just use one application as it’s all related to my music collection anyway. I should just really try using both Amarok and Banshee to satisfy my needs maybe?

Any other thoughts about music players on Linux are very much welcome. : ) Feel free to drop by and share your thoughts about this application.

Post from: New Linux User

Of course there are a whole bunch of social networking sites that help us with promoting our causes as well as our organizations. There’s Twitter, Facebook, Blip.tv, and so on. But what do we post on these sites? What tools can we use to process the raw material we have?

We’ve got tools for multimedia like Avidemux, GIMP and Audacity. For those who are interested in podcasting, I am sure Audacity is one thing to check out because of its features that could be used in podcasting. You could cut clips, have fade in and fade out effects and so on. There are versions for Linux, Mac and Windows so that you folks out there could enjoy using this for your needs. I once shared a guide on how to make a ringtone using Audacity but you could also use that as a basis on cutting an audio clip.

GIMP is one heck of a useful tool for processing images. Its user interface is definitely not Photoshop’s but in terms of features, there’s a lot that it offers. If you take a look at the GIMP registry, the many plugins and scripts will blow you away. It will also help you in making it more useful and easier to manipulate images using GIMP.

And then there’s Avidemux. I wasn’t able to play around with it a whole lot but this looks like a promising tool for those who have video blogs and presentations to share. It’s very nifty, I like it and would love to learn more on using it too. The nice thing about it is that there’s quite a number of guides on the Avidemux wiki.

These are but tools to help us deal with broadcasting our information. At the end of the day, we must know how these tools will help us in conveying the messages we have, in making sure that we’ve got the material we need for the channels we want to enter and so on. Every organization has something to share — it’s a matter of how, when and why after you realize what they are.

And then there are also content management systems. But I think that there could actually be separate blog entry for them altogether. There’s too many aspects of CMSes that are worth talking about, I think.

Post from: New Linux User

LibriVox has the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg as its partners. Ah yes, Project Gutenberg! I’ve been getting books in text file formats from that site because there are classics that I really just want to read over and over.

What I like about the entries they have about books is that they put other relevant information which links to various sources so that you know if that’s the book you really want to download. For example, I wanted to get a copy of the Daddy Long Legs book from their site so I checked out the LibriVox page on Daddy Long Legs. So yeah. They linked to the Wikipedia page of the author, as well as the novel’s.

Every so often they also update their blog for audiobooks which you might be interested in. And just 3 days ago, they listed a Halloween-themed set of books you might want to listen to in preparation for the occasion. Macbeth and Famous Modern Ghost Stories are included in the list. Too scared to get them? Don’t worry! They’re DRM-free. ; )

So why am I writing about this audiobooks site? Isn’t this blog supposed to be all about Linux? Well, I thought that it’s good to also point out other projects inspired by the Free Software Movement.

Post from: New Linux User

• Amarok
• Audacious
• Banshee
• Exaile
• MPD
• Rhythmbox
• Totem
• TVtime
• VLC
• XMMS2

Remuco

The Remuco project has packages for Arch Linux, Debian, Gentoo and Ubuntu. If you’re using any of the mentioned distros, you should have a way to install the package instead of installing from source.

Hmm. Right now, the information available regarding mobile devices you could use with Remuco are limited. Basically you need JavaME support (MIDP ≥ 2.0, CLDC ≥ 1.1). If you use Bluetooth to connect to a player adapter, there must be JSR-82 (Java Bluetooth) support too. Nevertheless it looks like an interesting thing to use. Too bad I have to borrow someone’s bluetooth dongle first to try it out. That or I could try using my older laptop once I get to the office.

But I think it’s cool, especially if you’re reading a book and you’re using your computer to play music in the background. Sometimes it’s just too fun lying down and reading rather than having to go up and change and the music. I hope that more phones could be tested and checked if Remuco works just fine with them too.

Thanks to the Ubuntu Manual for giving information about how to install Remuco on Ubuntu Karmic, Jaunty and Intrepid. I wouldn’t have known about this app if not for the blog entry.

Post from: New Linux User

Handbrake http://handbrake.fr

So yes, Handbrake. What does it really do? It’s basically a transcoder of video files. It doesn’t rip DVDs but it converts files to other file formats. But as the makers of Handbrake points out in their wiki, if you want a super tool you could check out mencoder instead.

The latest version of Handbrake is said to have better H.264 encoding so picture quality is better now. I already saw that the video I converted was clear and it didn’t have any pixelations whatsoever and it didn’t slow down at any moment either. At least on my iPod.

This is what handbrake really looks like when you launch it.

I think that the Presets from the menu also helps new users of Handbrake a lot because it’s quick for us to choose any one that suits our needs especially if we are not familiar with the settings for conversion too.

I am not sure how quick other transcoders can convert files, so far, it seems as that the conversion time is almost as long as the video’s playback time. More or less, that is. I can’t say it’s slow or quick because I have nothing to compare it with. But at least it seems good enough for me.

Post from: New Linux User

a ringtone made using Audacity

Audacity is actually capable of a whole lot more audio editing features but as I am not really using them yet, I am not very familiar with them. For now, let me share how I made my own ringtone.

1. I installed Audacity. Of course it has dependencies too so it’s good if you check them first. This is especially for those of you who have a lot of mp3 files.
2. I loaded the song of my choice. Audacity converted that.
3. With the selection tool, I dragged the mouse pointer to the starting time and ending time of the song I wanted to use. If you are not too sure about the time of the song, then you could actually drag the mouse on top of the bar with the time and have it play that segment. When you have decided the part to select, put the mouse pointer over the part with the spiky lines. Take note of the timing. Drag the pointer within the area from the start time to the end time. It will be greyed out by Audacity so you know.
4. I selected the trim tool. It’s the one with the wave in between the sideways T-like things. This will give you only the part you selected earlier.
5. I used the time shift tool to move the segment to the beginning of the time.
6. Lastly, I converted the file to mp3 via the Export command on the File menu.

It’s the simplest way I know to make a custom ringtone. There’s probably fade in and fade out somewhere. The moment I figure out how to use it, I’d definitely let you know.

Post from: New Linux User