Short cuts and other tips

[felix8406]

Windows Media Player has an easy-to-use interface, which can allow anyone to play digital media files, organize digital media, burn music CDs, rip CD music, sync digital media files to a portable music player, and shop for media content.
I’ve been using the player to backup all my CDs to the hard drive, and so far it hasn’t disappoint me. Through the years, I have collected well over 300 CDs, mostly Salsa and Merengue, and just yesterday I decide to “rip” them to my computer. So far I have to say that the process has been very smooth and I have been satisfied with the results. Once I have ripped them to my hard drive, my next step is to make custom CDs of my favorites songs. Once I accomplish that, I’ll post my experience on this site.
Right now I just want to post the experience I had so far with ripping my CDs to my hard drive. First of all, there is a difference between ripping a CD and burning a CD. Basically, the term “rip” is the process of copying digital media audio CD, while “burn” refers to the process of copying files to a CD.
To rip my CDs, the first thing I did was to decide where to rip my CDs to. Although Media Player can use its default folder (the Music folder in ur HD), I am using a spare 80GB HD. The HD was actually installed in an enclosure, but I removed it from the enclosure and installed it directly to my PC; less wires outside my PC to worry about.
Once I took care of that, I click on Start and Windows Media Player (WMP). Since this was the first time I used WMP, it began its setup process; u have two setup choices…Express or Customize. I chose the latter to make sure I had exactly what I wanted and nothing else.
Once I had completed the setup I went to WMP Taskbar, located at the top of WMP window, and right-click on an empty area and click to check mark Show Classic Menus…this menu is hidden by default. I then click on Tools, Options and open the Rip Music tab. On the “Rip music to this location” I chose “Change”, went to “Computer” and selected the HD I had just installed and pressed OK. I pressed the “File name” button and selected “Album”, “Track number” and “Song title” and pressed OK.
For format, I selected the default, “Windows Media Audio”. I check marked “Rip rip CD when inserted” and “Always”. I also checked “Eject CD when ripping is complete and selcted the "Best Quality" for Audio quality.
I inserted my first CD; Media Player went to the Internet and downloaded the CD information, including singer and information about the album, track number, songs title, length for each song, composer and other info. Then the program started to rip the music to the HD automatically. Once ripping was completed, the CD was ejected. I inserted another CD and the same process began automatically.
After I ripped about 10 CDs, I went to the HD where the files were stored. WPM had organized the CDs by singer and albums…one folder for every singer. So far I can say I had “Una experiencia religiosa” or “A religious experience” (the title of one of the songs I ripped to the HD). I have ripped over 40 CDs and all is well. Happy computing.

[CrowdAds]

[felix8406]

Just wanted to provide a quick glance of what the music folder where I ripped the CDs looks like (see attachment). Widows Vista allows for different views for each folder. I just opened the folder and used the down-arrow on the View menu to select how I wanted to view my folders. ..I just slid the bar on the left. I also opted to “Group” each folder by name. ..as u can see on the attachment, folders are group in alphabetical order. The particular attachment shows that alphabetical index I through P has 23 files. U can also see that with the selected view, I can readily see the album cover, making the selection of a particular album much easier.

For info on ripping music, see previous post (Windows Media Player)

[felix8406]

Although, as of now, we are dealing with a Beta version of vista, it won’t be long before we can begin to decide whether or not we want to upgrade our Windows XP operating system. I know some people had already made that decision, but for others the decision to upgrade is not that simple. Before heading to you favor computer store, there are a few things to keep in mind. For example, you won’t be able to upgrade WinXP Professional to Vista Home Basic or Home Premium. Also, an upgrade from WinXP x64 to Vista will not be available…no matter which version of Vista you decide to get. Both of these conditions will require a clean install. (See attachment for more info) Happy computing!

[Sylar]

Cool: Might I ask for your source for this information out of interest? Also I don't think for the home user that having an upgrade for there system is that important me myself I just wipe whenever.

[felix8406]

Originally Posted by JoshW02@aol.com

Cool: Might I ask for your source for this information out of interest? Also I don't think for the home user that having an upgrade for there system is that important me myself I just wipe whenever.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvist...gradeinfo.mspx

[Sylar]

Found it as well (but thanks for posting the above to the post) however this did make me jump up! quote from above link: "Notes:
If you are currently using Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Professional x64, you are eligible for an upgrade copy to a corresponding or better edition of Windows Vista, but a clean install is required."

So therefore if I am reading this right all we need is Win2000 Pro (Or WinXP Pro x64 (65bit)) to get a free upgrade copy of Vista?

[crabby]

Incorrect Josh. It means that you may PURCHASE an UPGRADE for those specific versions. It will be cheaper than an upgrade for a home version.

crabby

[felix8406]

Originally Posted by crabby

Incorrect Josh. It means that you may PURCHASE an UPGRADE for those specific versions. It will be cheaper than an upgrade for a home version.

crabby

Wish I could say otherwise, but Crabby is correct; It would be nice to get a free upgrade copy, but I believe it’s telling you that although you can purchase an “upgrade” license for Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Professional x64; you must do a clean installed. Like Crabby mentioned, purchasing an upgrade version is cheaper than buying a full version.

[Sylar]

Sorry thought it said "free upgrade copy"

[felix8406]

After I ripped over 80 of my CDs to the HD, I tried to use Windows Media Player to play the files. I right click the folder, which I named CD backup, but did not find the menu titled “Play with Media Player”. So I went to the folder’s Properties (right click, then clicked “properties”). I went to the “Customize” tab, and under “Use this folder type as template:” I selected “Music icons”. I also placed a check mark for “Also apply this template to all subfolders”, and then pressed OK. I right click again and this time the “Play with Media Player” menu was active for the folder. I clicked on it and the music began to play, just like that.
Once the music began to play, I went to the Play menu and selected “Shuffle” for music mode. Then I went to the “View” menu and clicked on “Enhancement” and selected “Show enhancements”. Here I got access to some options; e.g. Play Speed Settings, Quiet Mode, SRS WOW Effects (must download, $14.00-didn’t go for it), Video Settings, Color Chooser, Crossfading and Auto Volume Leveling, Graphic Equalizer and Media Link for E-Mail.
I turned on auto volume leveling to maintain the sound level for each track the same throughout playback mode. I also turn on the crossfeeding and set the overlap to 0.0 seconds…this allows WMP to play each track in succession, with no pause in between. The Graphic Equalizer can be customized or u can choose a predetermine mode… I chose the predetermine “Dance” mode. I left all other options as defaulted and began to enjoy the music.
The music sounded crisp and pleasant. I have an older set of 30-watt PC speakers with a subwoofer, not top of the line, but the sound is excellent for my bedroom. I did burn a CD with WMP; I will post my experience with that later. Happy computing!

[felix8406]

Now I was ready to burn a CD. I inserted a blank CD-R, click Start and selected Windows Media Player. On the Taskbar, I selected the Burn menu, easy enough, and the burn window shows up. The albums I previously ripped to my HD appeared, along with a list of songs for each album. On the right hand side WMP shows a CD-R available in CD Drive (J). There’s a bar just below the CDR icon that shows how many minutes remain on the CD…this is an improvement from previous Windows Media Player versions. Just below the bar, there’s space to drag the music to create a burn list. So it was just a matter of dragging the music files to this location and hit the Start Burn located at the bottom right hand side.
However, I wanted to see what options I had before proceeding. I clicked Burn and a menu came up with the following choices: Audio CD, Data CD or DVD, Eject Disc After Burning, Apply Volume Leveling Across Tracks on audio CDs, More Options…, Help with Burning.
I chose More Options…
For Burn speed, I selected Fastest. This was my first burn with WMP, so I figured if the CD does not work, then I’ll try recording at a lower speed. There are four choices; Fastest, Fast, Medium and Slow.
I also selected, “Automatically eject the disc after burning”. One note, if you push the CD back in after it has been ejected and you have chosen the “Rip music automatically when CD is inserted”, WMP will start ripping the CD you just created. My advice, deselect the “Rip music automatically when a CD is inserted”. Use this option only to rip CDs, and then turn it off when you are done.
I selected “Apply volume leveling across tracks on the CD…I wouldn’t do it any other way. For Data Discs you get your choice of files list; WPL (Windows Media) or M3U (Windows Media Player). I chose WPL for my CD. I also placed a check mark for “Use media information to arrange files in folders on the disc”.
There’s a choice to convert music to a lower bit rate. By converting to a lower bit rate, you can get more songs in a CD. I chose not to convert the music because I want my music to be as crisp and near to perfect as possible. I then clicked OK and started to drag my selections to the right pane. As I dragged the music to create the list, the “remaining” bar kept me inform of how much room I had left on the CD. Once it got to the 2-minute warning, I knew it was time to hit the Start Burn button.
So here are the results. I managed to get 16 songs in the CD. It took about 3:30 minutes to burn and the CD ejected automatically when the burn was completed. I then pushed it back in and WMP started to play the songs. Then I removed the CD and placed it on my CD player…it sounded just great.
One option available in most CD burning software, but not on WMP, is the option to reduce the amount of time it takes to move from one track on to the next. When I listen to music, I don’t like pauses, or at least long pauses, so I kind of miss that feature. Other than that I feel Windows Media Player has the basics to record your CDs. The interface is quite simple and it’s free…as long as you buy Vista that is.
I do have a trivia question: When you have a choice to OK or Apply, should you select Apply or OK and why?) Happy computing!

[crabby]

Both OK and Apply have the same function of completing the changes/command you have selected. However, OK will progress the window (ie; close it or move it to the next page) whereas apply will just apply the settings with no window progression.

At least that's what I think.

crabby

[dazzlin]

I love this thread!

[Sylar]

Here Here!:nicethread:

[felix8406]

A while back properties and settings dialog boxes in Windows were straight forward; you could OK or Cancel the changes or you could press Help. However, through the years, as Windows evolved, it began to change. For starter, the Help button is now a small question mark located in the top right hand corner, that is, if it’s available at all. Then a new button was added, the so called the Apply button.
Like Crabby mentioned, the Apply button was intended to effect the changes while maintaining the dialog box open. When you applied the changes, you could see those changes applied to the document behind the dialog box. If you didn’t like the changes, you could hit Cancel to cancel the changes, or you could hit OK to accept those changes and close the dialog box.
The confusing part is that there appear to be no rules for software developers when designing software using these features. Some applications will disabled the Cancel button once the Apply button is selected. While others, using the Apply command will effect the changes for one time only, re-inverting back to the previous settings when the application is re-opened. While even on a few older applications, it’s the opposite, pressing OK effect the changes for one time only.
So as you can see, although the Apply button was intended to effect the changes while keeping the dialog box open, sometimes it can get more complicated than that. Should you Okay or Apply...That was and still is the question! Happy computing!