I am looking to rip my vinyl LPs into digital music files and was wondering if you could recommend software to do this job. I have a turntable that has an internal amplifier and will connect directly to my PC.
A. Once you have a turntable with an internal amplifier and a computer with a line-in soundcard, there are two approaches to software. You can acquire a shareware program from small-time operations over the Web or buy one of the programs from established companies.
I’ve never seen audio-recording shareware that beats the product from the Netherlands-based Polderbits Software (www.polderbits.com).
Called Sound Recorder and Editor, the software works with admirable simplicity. It costs about $33.50. A bit of advice: You can avoid a lot of invasive ads by looking for the option on the download page to use the Netherlands site rather than one near your home state.
I prefer a more costly solution because I am a heavy user of DVD/CD recording packages like Nero 7 Ultra and Roxio/Sonic Solutions Easy Media Creator, both around $80. These suites of media software include splendid line-in recording, along with a huge number of other tools, ranging from copying a CD to making a movie. Check them out at
www.nero.com and www.roxio.com.
Q. The problem I describe here occurs on both a Windows XP and a Windows 98 machine. When trying to view a news video (say on CNN), a new window opens with a title bar showing the name of the video, and then nothing happens.
I am using Internet Explorer 6, Netscape 7.2 and Firefox 1.07. Same response on all three browsers and both machines. For my virus protection and firewall, I use Norton Internet Security 2003.
If I turn off the ad-blocking in Norton, the control bar for the video appears with the control symbols grayed out. If I disable Norton Internet Security, I can view the video, but I don’t want to run with it disabled.
Can you suggest any tweaks in Norton Internet Security to have it allow me to view videos without difficulty?
A. Your problem is solved by using the program scan feature in Norton Internet Security to change firewall settings from the default, which is set to disable opening any streaming files, such as CNN newscasts, in the Media Player software.
Right-click the Options command in the Norton software and then click on Personal Firewall. Click on Internet Access in the drop-down menu that appears. There you will find a list of programs that can be toggled on and off.
Click on the Modify button and accept the Media Player, and you’ll be able to watch video. Keep in mind there are hacker tricks aplenty, so make sure you know from whom you are streaming.
Contact Jim Coates at The Chicago Tribune, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60611 or jcoates@tribune.com.
