Web Design, Programming, Tutorials
Posts tagged how to
Audiobooks On Your IPod
Jan 30th
If you like to listen to audio books on your IPod, you may be wondering how you can load your own audio books from MP3 files and have them show up under the “Audiobooks” category on your IPod.
If you load your audiobook files onto your IPod as MP3s, they will show up under Music and not Audiobooks. The MP3 files need to be converted to the M4B format.
There are a couple different ways to make M4B files. I’ve listed two methods below. Depending on if you want to combine your files into fewer files will determine which method you should probably use.
Using Itunes to convert your files
The easiest method is to use Itunes to do the converting. To do this, you need to import your files into Itunes as MP3 files. Once they are imported, find them in the list of Music (Hopefully they are tagged correctly to make it easy to find them). Next, select all the files you wish to convert and right-click on your selection and select the option “Convert selection to AAC”. This will convert your audio files to M4P files. Then, once they have all been converted, just remove the MP3 and M4P versions from your music list, rename all the converted M4P files to M4B and reimport them into Itunes. Now, your audiobook files should be under the “Audiobooks” category.
Using a third-party program
I have also found the “MP3 to iPod Audio Book Convert” useful when I want to combine multiple files into one M4B. You can add all the MP3 files you want and it will process them all into one M4B for you. This program allows you to do some limited tagging on the newly created file as well.
One note on using this converter: I’ve found that my Ipod sometimes chokes on audiobooks that are only one large file. If you stop listening to the audiobook and switch over to music and then go back, the marker that holds your place sometimes resets to the beginning. This can be annoying when you are near the end and have to fast-forward for several minutes to get back to your place. I’ve found that combining your files works best if you limit the size to around the length of a CD or if you break your audiobooks up by making each chapter its own file.
Photoshop CS3
Aug 30th
I thought I’d post this little note about the hassles I’ve had recently with the installation of Photoshop CS3, which my company purchased as an upgrade from Photoshop 7.
I was pretty excited to get the new version since we were 3 versions behind on the latest release. After I got approval to purchase the software, I went through the online ordering process on Adobe’s website. Everything went well with this part of the process, but soon I would end up in the installation hell that is Photoshop CS3 (and apparently the other CS3 products from Adobe).
Once the download was finished, I started the “setup.exe” program and watched as the progress bar went to 100%. Then, nothing. No installer. So, I tried running the installer again. This time I got an error saying that I could only install one Adobe product at a time. So, after searching the Internet for solutions to the problem, I found that I wasn’t the only one having issues with the Adobe software.
I ran through some of the procedures on a test computer which led me to downloading a program called WinCS3Clean that removes Adobe software from the registry as well as from the file system. This program also required having the Microsoft Windows Installer Clean Up utility installed.
To get the Clean program to work, I had to instruct it to remove all Adobe and Macromedia products. Also, you must run it multiple times to make sure to remove everything. Then, finally the installer worked on my test computer.
However, this was not the end of my troubles. I called Adobe’s tech support to find out if there was an easier way to get CS3 installed on my production computer. We walked through pretty much the same steps I had done based on the support documents I found. Eventually, we had to remove all of the Adobe and Macromedia products once again. This time, though, the installer did not run. We had to go one step further and create a fresh local admin account on the computer before the installer would work. Then, I had to reinstall my Adobe and Macromedia products.
Finally, I did get the new version installed on my computer. So, if you want Photoshop CS3, be prepared to remove all of your Adobe and Macromedia software and, in my case, spend about two hours on the phone talking to a technician. When did Adobe’s quality drop to this level? They use to be very reliable. Well, those days seem to be gone.