Clever s*ds - help required please!!

[SparkOut]

I have phoned the little man again. He is coming to collect the PC and book into into a hotel for computers while we are away. On the plus side anyone who breaks in while we're gone will thing we've already been done and go away again.

He says he's going to take windows off and reinstall it. (I think) Maybe he said I should chuck it out of the window and start again?

Might do the trick. Just make sure you have all the program discs that you will need to reinstall when you get it back, and (although he should be taking care to keep your documents and pictures and things) you would be wise to back stuff up - especially your account settings for email, and the emails themselves.

[Bunnylump]

WOW. Remember ages ago I said I couldn't get the work laptop to connect to the wireless network? I've been having skanky leads trailing all over the living room ever since. And today, my clever girl realised there was a button on the stupid internet box thingy, helpfully labelled "1". Pressed it, put all the gobbledegook back in and hey presto! I now have a wireless network. Impressed? I am.

[SparkOut]

Kindof, but I'm also a little concerned in case you now have an open network that other people can piggyback on (costing you bandwidth charges possibly, although that's maybe not a major issue) and maybe "sniffing" your passwords and account details to your online millions. Wireless is convenient, but you need to make sure it's configured correctly to keep your details private. Chances are that it's preconfigured by the ISP so there's basic security set up on it already, but... just double check you know what you've done.

[Bunnylump]

We had to enter the WEP code before we could use it, and OH says the button is to give clearance for 10 minutes to connect to it. So I think it's ok.

[clvrlad]

Not on a computer, true! But can you imagine the cost of actually making a "bionic man" in today's money? Six million dollars sounded a huge amount in those days I know, but still, the mind boggles at what the needed investment would be today.

well depends how "bionic" you want them remember there are a few false prosthetics out there..... some even look real and progress is being made towards bionic eyes....


i much rather have the 6 million rupee man
much healthier on the pocket

[giraffe]

Does anyone know if it is possible to copy half a track off a cd and put it on another blank cd?

I've managed to copy the whole thing, but I only wanted the first 1m 05s of it.

[LAT]

my mate suggests this to split the file -

http://www.afterdawn.com/software/audio ... ectcut.cfm

[giraffe]

Thanks. It says it's for MP3 files is that the same as something off a cd I thought that was to do with Ipods? Is it free to download?

[clvrlad]

mp3 is the file format
its short for MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (mpeg= movie pictures expert group) and its the most common form of way to save audio files on your computer

[giraffe]

So how do iI know if it is one?

[LAT]

Sorry, I mentioned this to a chap at work just before I left the office. It is free to download and he seemed to think that it would be what you wanted assuming the CD track is saved to your computer. Hopefully someone a bit more knowledgeable will be able to help you further.

[Scurra]

How did you copy the track from the CD? You can use various programs to "rip" tracks from a CD; but the result has to be saved onto your computer somewhere, often with the same name as the track and with ".mp3" on the end (to show the file type.)

So if you don't know where exactly it saved the file (although things like the Windows Media Player tend to save them into a folder called "My Music") then you can search for it using the track name as a file title.

[SparkOut]

Pretty much any CD burning software will make a CD audio track out of "whatever" (within reason) audio file type you give it to write.
Going the other way, "ripping" from CD to an audio file of "whatever" type is not necessarily as straightforward - so it will depend on what you used to copy it off the CD in the first place, and what settings it was given to copy the file onto your computer.
Can you say exactly what you did to get the copy from the CD in the first place?
When do you need to have this done?

[Bunnylump]

My question is, WHY do you just want half a CD?

I used something called Digital Orchestrator Plus when I made those short clips of music for a quiz thing once. I don't know if that's something everybody has or if that's something my musicky lot have installed. But even I was able to use it. Well, I was then...

[giraffe]

I used media player. I put the cd in the slot and it came up on the screen I think.

It doesn't seem to have a .something name It is just named the same as the cd it came off.

Bunnylump: Lally wants to use it to do he gym routine to for competitions. There are quite strict rules as to what you can and can't use. This is one of Kingsley's Clarinet CD backing tracks. The music isn't allowed to have words, so the clarinet cds are quite good. Plan B is to record Kingsley playing it and get her to stop at the relevant point. It might even be a better option as she could make the end a bit more final. It must be between 50 and 70 seconds long, which is a pain, but the track she likes sort of repeats itself, so she could use just half of it.

[Bunnylump]

Ah, I see. Flipping stupid rules, aren't they? My son says you could try downloading something called Audacity which is a free download and you can edit audio stuff with it.

[giraffe]

I have audacity, but it doesn't seem to want to do anything with this one just makes a funny noise. (Like the compare the Meerkat advert after he says "Simples"

[Bunnylump]

I just asked Donald and he said if you e mail it to him he'll do it for you. Just tell him where you want it stopped. He could chop bits out so you get a proper ending too if that helps.

Edit I'll pm you with his e mail address. Also when do you need it for?

[Scurra]

And you think that nobody who is actually on here (like, say, SparkOut - or even me!) couldn't do that? Thanks for the vote of confidence, Bunny

At the moment, it's still not clear what Giraffe actually did the first time, before we get as far as how to edit the file. That's why the questions have been about what was used to "rip" the track, and what format the file is in, before we get as far as what software to use to edit it...

[giraffe]

I experimented! So I'm not sure what I did, but it worked first time whatever it was.

I'm not sure when she needs it for, she can probably practise to the long version for now and just stop, unless it is adjusted too much.

Thanks bunny I'll try. Not very good at attaching things to emails. We are talking very uncomputer-literate.