MixMeister BPM Analyzer (And My Mod)

MixMeister's BPM Analyzer is a must have tool for any musician. It is simply a program which will process any MP3, WAV, or WMA file, and tell you the exact BPM (Beats per Minute) tempo speed. The program will detect this in a matter of seconds (5-10 seconds from experience) and will display the BPM of your song. Its incredibly simple, and works very well.

To open a file, simply drag it into the open space. If you want it to analyze a folder of files, just click the "Import Music Files" button. This will open a folder tree style explorer window so you can navigate to the folder you wish for it to analyze.



Another included feature is the "Export to Text File" feature. This allows you to save the information about the analyzed music files as a .txt format file. This would be good if you need to save a log of certain song tempos, for instance if working on a remix of a song.

As seen in the title, I have created a mod for the program. This mod simply removes the nag screen that pops up after you exit the program. This is not addressing a nag screen in the shareware since (trying to force you into buying the full version), but it is simply a nag screen that urges you to check out the company's other software. The nag screen also explains how the software is freeware. It gives you permission to use and distribute the software freely. Considering all of this, I took the liberty of modding the software to remove the nag screen. A link to the original version of the software, and also to my mod will be available below.

That is pretty much all to BPM Analyzer. It's very light, very efficient, and does only one thing, but it does that very well. Overall, I recommend this only to the active musician. It will not appeal to everyone, but to the audience it does, it should definitely be downloaded.

*Requirements*

Windows or Mac
Licence: Freeware

BPM Analyzer Link: http://www.mixmeister.com/bpmanalyzer/bpmanalyzer.asp

(no download link available, some personal information required to download)

My BPM Analyzer Mod Download Link:acnyn.com/bpmanalyzermod.zip

-Adam

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Top 5 Most Useful Websites and Web Services of January 2009

5.) Wakerupper Telephone Reminder Service

Something you just have to do at a specific time? Find yourself out of sticky notes, and forgetting what you set your alarm for? Well Wakerupper Telephone Reminder service is for you. Wakerupper works very simply: Enter your phone number, set up a time, write yourself a custom message, and schedule your call. Wakerupper's automatic internet service will call your phone, and have a computer voice read your message. It's free, safe, and works very well. If you sign up, you can buy credits to activate features such as recurring calls, snooze,
and voice messages.



4.) TextMemos Text Message Reminders

You guessed it! Virtually the same as Wakerupper, but will send you a text message. Simple and free as Wakerupper, enter a time and number, and it will send you a custom text message with your message in it. Both websites are very reliable and safe. They will not give your number to any spam companies or organizations.



3.) Pricegrabber

Pricegrabber is a price comparison tool. Most comparison tools out there seem to be scams, or paired with a scam site. Pricewatch is reliable (to the best of my knowledge) and will simply give you the lowest price. It has a wide range of appealing products, and thanks to their service, you can find the lowest price on almost any product you want. I am new to Pricegrabber, and scam sites always worry me. I never fully trust a website. Pricegrabber, however, has been known to remove scam deals form its own site, so it seems reliable to me in that aspect.



2.) File2HD

File2HD.com is a tool that helps you nab files from websites. Anywhere form downloading YouTube videos, to downloading music. Simply put the URL of your desired website in the text box, agree to the Terms of Service, choose which files to view, and click "Get Files". The files of the specific type you chose on the website will appear as a list of URL's, and right click and choose "Save As..." to download your file.



1.) Meebo

Meebo is a remarkably useful online instant messaging client. It allows you to sign on for Aim, Yahoo, and a number of other IM services. You even may sign up for Meebo's own IM service. It supports various functions such as audio chat, webcam chat, file support, image sharing, etc. It works very well, and is more reliable than other in-browser IM clients, specifically AIM Express. Overall, Meebo scores number one in the Top 5 Most Useful Websites and Web Services of January 2008.



Thank you for viewing!

New Top 5 every Month!

-Adam

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Picasa: A Photo/Video Viewer, Uploader, Organizer, and Much More!

I am not a huge photographer. I recently purchased a slim Casio camera based off of its video feature, but seeing as how it is advertised and sold primarily as a photo camera, I figured I would give photography a chance. To this day I am no great photographer, but I definitely find myself taking more pictures of vacations, friends, and myself. After a while I had accumulated a far greater collection of photos than I had ever anticipated. I like looking at my photos but... It just seems so cluttered. What to do? Download Picasa. Picasa - in essence - is iPhoto. However it was originally developed for Windows (There is a Mac version now). Developed by Google, Picasa is an excellent tool to organize, view, and share your favorite photos, and videos.



Picasa does a number of helpful things. It allows you to import folders, individual files, or capture directly from a webcam. Many aspects of your photos can be customized within Picasa. For instance you can add a caption to any of your photos, you may choose which photos or your favorite (or "starred"). There are a variety of creative options, such as creating photo slideshows, video presentations, and photo collages.

Picasa also has options for printing, E-mailing, and various other sharing options. As a matter of fact, you can set up your Blogger account, and post images from Picasa to your blog.

One of the most noteworthy features of Picasa is its web sync feature. This allows you to set up an account at Picasa's web album website service. You can keep your photos on your native system, and also online, for convenience purposes. I have not explored the web photo album aspect very much so far, but I have uploaded an album to try it, and it seems to work just fine.

Overall, Picasa is a very good photo organization tool. It's hard to compare to anything else, because I am a Windows user, and never have had the chance to use iPhoto long enough to develop an opinion about it. I definitely recommend Picasa to both the hardcore and casual photographers.

*Requirements*

Windows 2000/XP, Mac, or Linux
300MHz CPU
64MB RAM
50MB disk space

Picasa Link: http://picasa.google.com/

Download Link: http://picasa.google.com/thanks.html

-Adam

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Free Music Zilla: Download Free Streaming Music To Your Computer

*Legal Note: All examples or methods in the following article are for educational purposes only, and should not be misused for any illegal purposes. Free Music Zilla is not affiliated with any web services, nor do they encourage violating any license agreements.*

Do you listen to music on IMEEM or MySpace? Do you get sick of navigating far into the internet just to listen to those few songs which are not already on your computer? Don't you just wish you could download them, and have them right there where you need them? Well now you can do just that. With Free Music Zilla, downloading files being streamed to your computer is easy as can be.

To the best of my knowledge Free Music Zilla has invented a unique anti leech "hack" to get around websites' attempts to prevent nabbing music from their live audio streams. The software previously limited a ten file a day file download maximum, but a recent update has changed the amount to unlimited, making it worthy of recognition, and worthy of blogging.



Setting up Free Music Zilla is very easy. Go into Tools > Preferences > Monitoring. If your web browser is listed, check the box next to it and Free Music Zilla will be seamlessly be compatible with your web browser. If your browser is not listed, then click the "Browser..." button and navigate to the executable in windows explorer. As you may well know from my previous posts, I am using, and blogging directly from the Flock web browser. Free Music Zilla works fine with Flock (another reason to download Flock!)

The program could not be simpler to use; Simply open up Free Music Zilla, start your stream (go to a page with streaming music) and in the Free Music Zilla window, a text string will appear (usually very long and random.) There will be a check box next to this entry. Check the box, and click the download button to start downloading your music. The download should be started before the leech timeout reaches zero, or else your file will not download properly (or at all). You can set a specific file download location in your preferences, where all your files will go. This may be changed at any time.

Depending on which website you are downloading music from, you may need to do a bit of converting. I mainly use IMEEM, which stores its files as an .FLV format. There is a very simple solution to this problem; a 234 KB program called flv2mp3. What does this do? It converts an .FLV audio file to an .MP3 (thus the title). This program can be found here: http://file2hd.com/tools.html (Download link: http://file2hd.com/flv2mp3.zip) This is by no means a powerful program, but its free light and works perfectly fine. All you do is click the button, choose your file, and it does the rest.

There is not much more to Free Music Zilla. It is fairly self explanatory, and works flawlessly. Most of my praise is due to the new update, allowing unlimited file downloads. This truly makes the software a mandatory download for any music enthusiasts out there. I definitely recommend it.

*Requirements*

64 MB of RAM
6 MB of free disk space
Microsoft Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista

Free Music Zilla Link: http://www.freemusiczilla.com/

Download Link: http://www.freemusiczilla.com/download/FMZsetup.exe

-Adam

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Digsby: The Social Networking IM Client

Simply put, Digsby is to Instant Messaging as Flock is to Web Browsing. It is incredibly powerful, although it is only in its Beta stage (unlike Flock which is in a stable Alpha stage).

Digsby supports multiple instant messaging protocols, including AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, and Facebook Chat. It will merge all of your contacts on to one list, so you do not have to differentiate between services.

On top of simply being a very respectable IM client, you can also optimize Digsby to notify you of updates for some of your favorite social networking websites. Digsby supports MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You can decide specifically what you want Digsby to notify you of. For instance if you want Digsby to notify you of a message, but not of a friend request, you can optimize it to do so.

Additionally, Digsby will notify you off Emails. It supports Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, POP Email, IMAP Email, and AOL/AIM Email.




Digsby has various other convenient features that make it more comfortable to use than the average client.

For instance, if your IM window is not in focus (behind another window), then any IMs you receive will be in the form of a popup in the bottom left side of your screen. You can reply directly from this popup to spare the effort of navigating to the window to reply. The bottom left is where any other Email or Social Networking notifications will popup as well. You can right click any popup message to exit out of it, if it is in the way of another application, or you simply want the notification to go away.

Overall, Digsby is very fully featured. I have only ever had one crash, but this is expected for a Beta product. You should check it out, I definitely recommend it to anyone in search for an ad-free IM client.

*Requirements*

Windows, Mac or Linux

Digsby Link: http://www.digsby.com/

Download Link: http://www.digsby.com/download.php

-Adam

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Flock: The Social Networking Web Browser

I am not a Firefox 3 fan, so I am on the constant search for a powerful and feature efficient web browser. I had downloaded Flock before, but I was not big on the social networking side of the internet. I leaned toward Opera but very recently started using Flock, and getting the most out of its many useful features. As a matter of fact, I am currently using Flock's built in blog editor to post this blog, not Blogger's online editor. So far it has worked seamlessly well, and I have had no crashes or errors.



Various (but not all) websites Flock supports:

Myspace

Facebook

Digg

Flickr

YouTube

Blogger



Flock supports RSS feeds and web mail accounts as well. There are a variety of other helpful aspects of Flock, too many to go over in this post.

So go for it!!!!

Download Flock today, and at least try it out. It takes some time and dedication to figure out Flock and setup all your accounts, but when you're done, it's definitely worth every second.

*Requirements*

Windows, Mac or Linux

Flock Link: http://flock.com/

Download Link: http://www.flock.com/download/



-Adam

Blogged with the Flock Browser