rip-audio-mainAs MP3 players and mobile devices become very common, more and more people are beginning to convert their audio CD collection to music files so they will listen to them while on the move. In Windows and Mac, the conversion can be done automatically with Windows Media Player or iTunes. What about Linux? Let’s take a look.
Rhythmbox
Rhythmbox is the default player in Ubuntu. Like many other media player, it comes with the capability to import audio CD into your library.
Open your Rhythmbox. Before you start to import your audio CD, it is best to configure the location of the imported files and the song format.
Go to Edit -> Preferences. Click on the Music tab.
In the “Music Files are placed in” field, select the location of the folder where the imported music will be stored.
rip-audio-rhythmbox-preferences1
Next, you may want to configure how the folder hierarchy of the album.
Lastly, select the preferred format that you want the imported music to be. The best choice would be FLAC format, but the file size will also be the biggest. MP3 is the most popular choice.
rip-audio-rhythmbox-preferences2
Once you are done with the configuration, go back to the Rhythmbox player and insert in your audio CD. You should see the CD entry on the left pane and all the songs in the right pane. To import all the songs, simply right click on the left pane CD entry and select “Extract to Library”.
rip-audio-rhythmbox-extract-cd
To import only selected songs, first uncheck the songs that you don’t want to import. Next, right click on the left pane CD entry and select “Extract to Library”.
Personally, I found that audio extracting in Rhythmbox is extremely slow. It could take up to 20 minutes to extract 10 songs from a CD. If you are looking for a faster alternative, Sound Juicer is a better choice.
Sound Juicer
Sound Juicer is not a music player, even though it allows you to playback songs. In fact, it exists only for one purpose – to rip audio CD into music files. The good thing is, it did its job well and fast.
Debian/Ubuntu users can install Sound Juicer with the command:
sudo apt-get install sound-juicer
or simply click here to install.
Once installed, open the Sound Juicer application via Applications -> Sound & Video -> Audio CD Extractor.
As usual, it is best to configure the settings before we start the ripping. Go to “Edit -> Preferences”. Similarly, you can set the location to store your music, the folder hierarchy and the music format.
rip-audio-soundjuicer-preferences
Note: The default Ubuntu does not come with MP3 support. Unless you install the “ubuntu-restricted-extra” package, you won’t be able to choose MP3 as the output format.
When you are done with the configuration, simply pop in your audio CD. Sound Juicer will automatically detect the CD and fetch the album info from the Web. You just have to click the “Extract” button to start the ripping.
rip-audio-soundjuicer-extract-cd
The whole ripping process is much faster than Rhythmbox. Typically, a CD of 10 songs (about 50mins of playback time) takes about 5 minutes to finish ripping.
That’s it. Don’t forget to check out the ultimate guide to manage your audio/video files to handle all sort of media files in Linux.
Image credit: LaserGuided
Related Posts:
* The Ultimate Guide To Manage Your Audio/Video Files In Linux
* [Snippet] Ubntu: Backup Your Applications Easily With A Single Command
* Review of Qimo: Linux for Kids
* Using the /proc Filesystem to Examine Your Linux Inner Working
How to Rip Audio CD in Linux originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter
Snippet: How to Disable Firefox 4 Tab Preview in Windows 7
Posted: 02 Sep 2010 12:00 PM PDT
firefox4-preview-mainWe all know that Firefox 4 comes with plenty of interesting and useful features. However, there is one feature that really annoy me out of hell – the tab preview feature (only available for Windows 7).
Here’s what happen: Let’s assume that your Firefox browser is opened with plenty of tabs, but it is not currently your active application (you might be doing some work in Ms. Office). When you hover your mouse above the Firefox icon in the taskbar, it will show a preview of all the opened tabs. This is good and fine as I can now pick the tab that I want to go to. The bad part is, I don’t want to manually select the tab everytime. When I click on the Firefox icon, I would expect it to switch to the browser immediately and load my last active tab, not to make me select the tab.
firefox4-tab-preview
Imagine if you have 10 or more tabs opened and you need to manually select your last active tab before it would switch to the browser, how counter-productive it has become.
If you are experiencing the same annoyance as me, here’s how you can fix it.
Open a new tab and type “about:config”. You will see the void warranty page. Just click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button.
In the Filter field at the top, enter the term “taskbar” (without the quote).
Scroll down to find the entry “browser.taskbar.previews.enable”. Double click on it to toggle it to “false”.
firefox4-disable-tab-preview
Close the tab. That’s it. the Tab Preview feature is now disabled.
Related Posts:
* 10 Firefox Extensions For Better Tab Management
* 28 Coolest Firefox About:Config Tricks
* Firefox 4 Review: App Tab, Panorama and Sync
* How to Perform Site Specific Search With Google, Yahoo and Bing
Snippet: How to Disable Firefox 4 Tab Preview in Windows 7 originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter
How to Add Physics to Google Sketchup
Posted: 02 Sep 2010 05:00 AM PDT
sketchphysics-logoHave you ever wanted to design your own catapult? How about a toy robot, or maybe a more complex machine you’ve been layout out in your head? If so, you might already be familiar with Google Sketchup. It’s a simple to use 3D modeling program for Windows and Mac that has been popular for years, and is used in such other products such as Google Earth to create the buildings. What you may not know is that you can add a plugin to Sketchup which will enable physics, turning your sketches into simulators.
Rather than try to describe exactly what it can do, I’ll give you this video to see for yourself.
Getting SketchyPhysics
The plugin we’ll be using today is called SketchyPhysics. It is not a standalone application, and requires Google Sketchup in order to run, which can be downloaded here for free. Once Sketchup is installed, you can download the SketchPhysics installer here. It’s intended for Sketchup 7, but will work with version 8 with one small tweak.
When installing SketchPhysics, it will ask for the location to install. By default, it will assume version 7 (ie C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Plugins). Just make sure to change that to version 8 if required.
Creating a Physics-Friendly Sketch
Once SketchyPhysics has been installed, you’ll get some new toolbars showing in Sketchup. These are required for some of the actions related to the physics engine. You can drag those into the main toolbar at will to arrange them however you wish, as shown in the screenshot below. As an example, we’re going to build a simple machine where one box falls on a lever, causing another box to launch in the air.
sketchphysics-createfloor
There’s a good chance that the first thing you’ll want to do is create a solid floor. Without that, your objects will drop away into nothing. In the shape toolbar, you’ll find an icon to automatically create that floor.
Once you’ve got the floor, select the Box tool from the shape toolbar. Creating a box requires three clicks to set the length, width, and height of the box. It’s a bit unusual at first, but does not take long to get used to.
sketchphysics-box1
Now that you’ve got our falling weight, it’s time to add a cylinder to act as a fulcrum. Select the cylinder shape and click the floor to begin drawing your cylinder. The width and height do not have to be anything specific, just enough to act as the base of our lever. Once drawn, use the Rotate tool to lay the cylinder on its side.
sketchphysics-fulcrum
Once you’ve got that, use the same method to create boxes for the board and payload.
sketchphysics-assembled
When you click the Play/Pause button from the SketchyPhysics, your simulation will begin. All physical objects are assumed to be made of the same material, so larger will be considered heavier than smaller ones. If all went well, your lever should have shot the smaller box into the air before it eventually fell back down.
Conclusion
While SketchyPhysics is clearly not the stuff NASA simulations are made of, it fills an important niche. Many people have great ideas about little gizmos that they’d like to explore, but lack the skills to create a real prototype. Others are interested in the field of 3D modeling, but have a hard time learning the well known professional quality applications. Whatever the reasons for using it, Sketchup and SketchyPhysics give you a simple way to explore ideas, and that’s always something worthwhile.
