My latest obsession for free music consumption is Zamzar. It is a free online service that converts between various file types. For example, you want to convert a Microsoft Word .doc to an Adobe Reader .pdf. It will convert between a million image filetype like .jpg to .png. Audio files are well supported too, such as .flac, .mp3, .aac, and .m4a. What excites me is that they now can work with videos from YouTube and Google Video.
Imagine there is a song you like (in the public domain, of course). But, it is not available in stores, or you do not have the money. Luckily, a lot of music fans have posted music videos on YouTube.
Assuming you have found the video you want, here are the steps
- Grab the URL.
- Go to Zamzar.com
- Enter the URL.
- Ask Zamzar to convert the video into your favorite audio filetype.
- Wait for the email from Zamzar informing you that your download is ready.
- Feel great because the song that has been stuck in your head can now be loaded up onto your mp3 player.
If you want the video
Then I recommend using Firefox and the DownloadHelper add-on.
Do you like these techniques? Do you have better ones? Let me know. Comment and share below!
Posted in music | Tagged add-on, conversions, convert, DownloadHelper, extension, files, filetypes, Firefox, free, mp3, mp3 player, music, plugin, tutorial, video, YouTube, Zamzar |
Here is the scenario
You have two related datasets in Excel or OpenOffice’s Calc. One is a list of names with phone numbers, and the other is a list of names and email addresses. The two datasets have a unique id in common (like a Social Security number). You want to merge the two of them together. This is a common problem with an easy solution. Read More »
Posted in spreadsheets (Excel or Calc) | Tagged Calc, data, dataset, datasets, Excel, formulas, merge, OpenOffice, paste special, spreadsheet, tutorial, vlookup |
I found a cool CSS technique on this web page. The idea is have text wrap in a curvy, rather than in a block-like manner.
Here are the basic steps
- Take an image and slice it into horizontal strips. Use the same height for each strip.
- I use GIMP to make the image’s background transparent.
- I saved the image as a PNG file.
- Using CSS, each image is stacked on top of one another using “float.” I found that if you floating the images to the right, it looks less awkward.
Here is a sample I created using a similar technique, called “ragged float”.
