I was looking for a midi to mp3 converter and chanced upon this online service at
www.hamienet.com/midi2mp3 which I found to be very good.
I had a video that I wanted to put up on Facebook that needed music accompaniment. At first I selected an mp3 of a very popular song to accompany the video -- big mistake because Facebook rejected the video due to potential copyright issues.
The alternative was a midi version of the same song and this I found on www.lockergnome.com/midi/ .
I imported the video into Magix Movie Editor, and tried to replace the MP3 that accompanied the video with the midi, but it was not recognised as an audio file. I then tried Nero with the same result. I did some research and discovered that midi files are not audio files, something that I had not realised. So I needed to covert the midi into an MP3
A search of the internet turned up several converters. Most of these converters seemed to be shareware -- I was not willing to pay because I only wanted this facility for 2 tunes -- and the setup seemed to be quite difficult. After trying several, I decided on this free online service which turned out to be very simple to use.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Online OCR
I scanned 17 pages of a document recently, saving these as jpgs and sent them to a friend. Then the request came for a editable version of this same 17 pages because some information needed to be added and some deleted.
Did I have to rescan them an use the OCR option to make them into editable text? Now this would have been easily done if I had a scanner with a feeder, but mine is a flatbed and so pages had to be redone one by one, 17 times. Not feeling particularly energised to redo scanning procedure, I went to the internet and came across several online OCR services.
Most of these online OCR services can convert text documents in JPG, TIF, PDF formats into editable documents -- either in MS Word, RTF or some other word processor. Some are paid services and some free or free for a certain number of pages. I tried several services but found that most did not do columns very well with the exception of
OCR Terminal at http://www.ocrterminal.com/
This services gives you 20 pages per month free and a very reasonable price for each page exceeding this 20. The conversion to editable text is fast and very accurate. Best of all this online OCR managed to preserve the page format of the original and there was very little or no additional editing required. Registration is need to use the service but the interface and ease of use makes this service a pleasure to use.
Other online OCR programs tried were:
OnLine OCR http://www.onlineocr.net/
OCR Grid http://www.ocrgrid.org/online-ocr.html
Cvision http://www.cvisiontech.com/online-conversion/general/main.html
ABBYY’s FineReader Online http://www.finereaderonline.com/
Did I have to rescan them an use the OCR option to make them into editable text? Now this would have been easily done if I had a scanner with a feeder, but mine is a flatbed and so pages had to be redone one by one, 17 times. Not feeling particularly energised to redo scanning procedure, I went to the internet and came across several online OCR services.
Most of these online OCR services can convert text documents in JPG, TIF, PDF formats into editable documents -- either in MS Word, RTF or some other word processor. Some are paid services and some free or free for a certain number of pages. I tried several services but found that most did not do columns very well with the exception of
OCR Terminal at http://www.ocrterminal.com/
This services gives you 20 pages per month free and a very reasonable price for each page exceeding this 20. The conversion to editable text is fast and very accurate. Best of all this online OCR managed to preserve the page format of the original and there was very little or no additional editing required. Registration is need to use the service but the interface and ease of use makes this service a pleasure to use.
Other online OCR programs tried were:
OnLine OCR http://www.onlineocr.net/
OCR Grid http://www.ocrgrid.org/online-ocr.html
Cvision http://www.cvisiontech.com/online-conversion/general/main.html
ABBYY’s FineReader Online http://www.finereaderonline.com/
Thursday, July 30, 2009
NTFS and FAT32
Learned a few new lessons this week. I bought a 300 gig portable hard drive for my MP3 music and photo files. I spent some time tranferring files from my computer to this handy drive and was delighted when I could see the photos and hear the MP3 files on this disk simply by plugging it into the USB port of my new Philips DVD player.
One week of enjoyment. Then I tried adding some more music files and one of these was corrupted and so the inevitable happened....my Philips DVD player refused to recognise the portable drive. My computer could read the drive but not the DVD player. I removed the offending file, but the result was the same...the portable drive was not recogised by the player.
So I decided to reformat the drive and recopy all the data to it. That done, I tested it on the computer and things looked fine--the MP3 files could play and the photos were OK. I then plugged it into the Philips and, what the heck, the drive was not recognised.
I searched the internet for a solution. Simple it was. Philips DVD players do not recognise drives formated in NTFS which was the default when I reformated it on my Vista computer. I had to format the portable drive in FAT32 which was the original file system when I bought it. FAT32 is the logical choice for vendors who want their portable drives to be compatible with OSs other than Vista.
Formating in FAT32 is not easy because Vista does not have this option. It has an option called exFAT. This was the option I chose and after about 7 hours of reformating work the disk was ready. But try as I would, nothing could be written on this disk as it was now "protected" . By what? I could not find out.
Going to the internet once again, I found the solution. Use the command prompt and type FORMAT /FS:FAT32 X: (X being the drive letter). And so it began, another 6 hours of reformating.....
....then the drive stopped the procedure completely and became once again unreadable. Did I have to reformat the drive in NTFS and forgo the pleasure of listening to my MP3 files via my Philips? A search of the internet told me that Linux machines do FAT32 and so did XP. But these I did not have. Once again I searched the internet and found the solution in SwissKnife a free utility programme that does formatting and partitioning of drives easily.
After a quick download and installation, SwissKnife reformated the portable drive in the FAT32. A transfer of MP3 from the main computer to the portable drive and sweet music from my sound system via the Philips.
One week of enjoyment. Then I tried adding some more music files and one of these was corrupted and so the inevitable happened....my Philips DVD player refused to recognise the portable drive. My computer could read the drive but not the DVD player. I removed the offending file, but the result was the same...the portable drive was not recogised by the player.
So I decided to reformat the drive and recopy all the data to it. That done, I tested it on the computer and things looked fine--the MP3 files could play and the photos were OK. I then plugged it into the Philips and, what the heck, the drive was not recognised.
I searched the internet for a solution. Simple it was. Philips DVD players do not recognise drives formated in NTFS which was the default when I reformated it on my Vista computer. I had to format the portable drive in FAT32 which was the original file system when I bought it. FAT32 is the logical choice for vendors who want their portable drives to be compatible with OSs other than Vista.
Formating in FAT32 is not easy because Vista does not have this option. It has an option called exFAT. This was the option I chose and after about 7 hours of reformating work the disk was ready. But try as I would, nothing could be written on this disk as it was now "protected" . By what? I could not find out.
Going to the internet once again, I found the solution. Use the command prompt and type FORMAT /FS:FAT32 X: (X being the drive letter). And so it began, another 6 hours of reformating.....
....then the drive stopped the procedure completely and became once again unreadable. Did I have to reformat the drive in NTFS and forgo the pleasure of listening to my MP3 files via my Philips? A search of the internet told me that Linux machines do FAT32 and so did XP. But these I did not have. Once again I searched the internet and found the solution in SwissKnife a free utility programme that does formatting and partitioning of drives easily.
After a quick download and installation, SwissKnife reformated the portable drive in the FAT32. A transfer of MP3 from the main computer to the portable drive and sweet music from my sound system via the Philips.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Faxing made difficult...
I've got this online fax facility by signing up with Pfingo.com a Singaporean enterprise linked with Starhub. It is good in that you do not need to have a fax machine to fax out documents and to receive faxes. But there are a couple of short-comings associated with this facility. For one thing, you need to convert all the documents that you want to fax out to .pdf format. One easy way I know to convert documents to .pdf is to scan the documents using and Epson scanner and save the scanned files as .pdf files. Whether this works for other scanners, I would not know. But the thing is that using this method, the .pdf files are pretty large and faxing these out takes a very long time. I discovered that saving the scanned files in .jpg format reduces the file size considerably. These .jpg files can then be assembled as an open office document and exported as a .pdf file. These .pdf files are very much smaller than the ones created by the scanner software.
Besides the bother of having to convert files to .pdf files, Pfingo also has an interface that takes getting used to. When faxes are sent successfully, they are put into a "sent" box and if the fax connection fails and the faxes are not sent out they go into a "out" and they are labelled "failed" Well, I did not realise this at first and kept going to my "out" box to see if the faxes had been sent. The failed ones were there but the successfully sent ones were not. So what I did was to send the faxes out again. On one occasion when I had an urgent fax to send to Australia, I sent it out 5 times before realising that all had gone through. What a nuisance for the receiver.
I don't think that the fault is entirely mine because if one opens the "out" box, the list of failed connections appear and below this you will find the following explanation:
SENT - The Fax was sent successfully to the destination Fax No.PENDING - The Fax is in the process of being sent to the destination Fax No.SENDING - The Fax is being transmitted. RETRY - The destination could not be reached. System will try to send the Fax again. FAILED - The Fax could not be sent. Please try again later. No charges have been incurred. CANCELLED - The Fax send has been cancelled. You may be billed for any part transmitted. RECEIVED - Retrieve your fax at pfingoMAIL. Click here
Naturally a novice would expect that the labels, sent, retry, cancelled, received, etc to be found in the same "out" box. But alas, not so....the "out" seems to have only one label and that is "failed".
Besides the bother of having to convert files to .pdf files, Pfingo also has an interface that takes getting used to. When faxes are sent successfully, they are put into a "sent" box and if the fax connection fails and the faxes are not sent out they go into a "out" and they are labelled "failed" Well, I did not realise this at first and kept going to my "out" box to see if the faxes had been sent. The failed ones were there but the successfully sent ones were not. So what I did was to send the faxes out again. On one occasion when I had an urgent fax to send to Australia, I sent it out 5 times before realising that all had gone through. What a nuisance for the receiver.
I don't think that the fault is entirely mine because if one opens the "out" box, the list of failed connections appear and below this you will find the following explanation:
SENT - The Fax was sent successfully to the destination Fax No.PENDING - The Fax is in the process of being sent to the destination Fax No.SENDING - The Fax is being transmitted. RETRY - The destination could not be reached. System will try to send the Fax again. FAILED - The Fax could not be sent. Please try again later. No charges have been incurred. CANCELLED - The Fax send has been cancelled. You may be billed for any part transmitted. RECEIVED - Retrieve your fax at pfingoMAIL. Click here
Naturally a novice would expect that the labels, sent, retry, cancelled, received, etc to be found in the same "out" box. But alas, not so....the "out" seems to have only one label and that is "failed".
Friday, June 5, 2009
Salvation, Faith and Good Works
Strange that a Mormon writing on the above topic can be so clear about this and yet many Protestants still have problems with it. Many Protestants keep harping that Faith alone justifies us and gives us entry into eternal life and good works are not necessary. Here's an argument that neither by itself is sufficient. Both are necessary.
http://www.moroni10.com/Mormon/Bible_References/Grace_Faith_Works_Salvation.html
http://www.moroni10.com/Mormon/Bible_References/Grace_Faith_Works_Salvation.html
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Windows Photo Gallery
This is an excellent quick touch-up and printing program for your photographs and it comes with Vista. It works well with all installed printers and its response is quick. The tools for enhancement are basic -- crop, removal of red eye, exposure and colour adjustment, but it has a nice interface for printing on different sized paper and for different sized pictures on standard A4 paper. The only thing that it lacks is the ability to resize photos and to change the quality of images.
Making 2 VCDs into one DVD
Fed-up with having to remove the first and insert the second VCD of a very popular Disney movie that my grandchildren loved, I decided to combine the two VCDs into one DVD.
Well I read that VCD files have the extension .DAT and that you needed to rename this to .mpg before you could proceed further since most DVD burning programs did not recognise .dat as a video file. I tried renaming the two .DAT files that I extracted from each of the VCDs I wanted to combine into one DVD, but my Windows Vista would not allow me to do this and the renamed files looked like this filename.mpg.dat. This meant it was still a .dat file even after the renaming. Scouring the net I discovered that you had to use tools to change how Windows Explorer displayed file names. For some reason or other Windows Explorer by default hides the extension names when displaying contents of folders (at least it did on my machine), and I had to change this before I could effect any change of extension names. How to do so? Click on "Computer" then left click on "Organise" and go to the option "Folder and Search Options" then go to "View" and unclick the option that says "Hide extensions for known file types". Now you will see file names with extensions and these can be renamed easily.
The next step was simple: import the two .mpg files into a DVD burning program -- the one I used was Magix Goya BurnR which I got when I purchased the wonderful Magix Movie Edit Pro 12 for $50 at Challenger last year -- and burn your DVD just as you would your home movies. Just make sure that you burn the files in the correct order and this you can do by giving them the same file name except for the numerals 1 and 2 for example mymovie1 and mymovie2.
Well I read that VCD files have the extension .DAT and that you needed to rename this to .mpg before you could proceed further since most DVD burning programs did not recognise .dat as a video file. I tried renaming the two .DAT files that I extracted from each of the VCDs I wanted to combine into one DVD, but my Windows Vista would not allow me to do this and the renamed files looked like this filename.mpg.dat. This meant it was still a .dat file even after the renaming. Scouring the net I discovered that you had to use tools to change how Windows Explorer displayed file names. For some reason or other Windows Explorer by default hides the extension names when displaying contents of folders (at least it did on my machine), and I had to change this before I could effect any change of extension names. How to do so? Click on "Computer" then left click on "Organise" and go to the option "Folder and Search Options" then go to "View" and unclick the option that says "Hide extensions for known file types". Now you will see file names with extensions and these can be renamed easily.
The next step was simple: import the two .mpg files into a DVD burning program -- the one I used was Magix Goya BurnR which I got when I purchased the wonderful Magix Movie Edit Pro 12 for $50 at Challenger last year -- and burn your DVD just as you would your home movies. Just make sure that you burn the files in the correct order and this you can do by giving them the same file name except for the numerals 1 and 2 for example mymovie1 and mymovie2.
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