Free Slideshow Programs

The cheap way to convert LPs, audio cassettes to digital

As the how-to points out, Audacity was designed for sound engineers, so the program can be daunting to learn. In fact, on my machine the software crashed repeatedly, especially when other apps were active. The online Audacity manual provides a series of tutorials for beginners and other help resources .

Most of the problems I encountered while using Audacity were overcome through good-old trial and error. Here are a few of the lessons I learned:

Notebook computers may not have the required sound-processing hardware. When I tried using a two-year-old laptop to convert analog audio, I found the sound chip built into the machine's motherboard simply couldn't handle the load. For as little as $15 you can buy a USB sound adapter that supplants the notebook's sound chip, but the sound card that came with a six-year-old PC (like the one I use for the bulk of my audio conversions) will likely give you a better end result.

Record a few tracks at a time. In my experience, Audacity was more likely to crash if I had recorded an hour or more of audio in one go. I soon got into the habit of recording and converting tracks in 30- to 45-minute chunks, which is roughly one album or tape side at a time.

Use the maximum record volume. The MP3s and WMAs I converted from analog tend to have a lower default volume than native-digital audio files, so combining analog-native and digital-native tracks on the same CD makes the disc's volume uneven. Even setting Audacity to record at the maximum volume often leaves the converted tracks quieter than their native-digital counterparts.

Audacity features an Amplify option on the Effect menu that can mitigate some of the volume difference, but I have had mixed results using the feature. As I mentioned, I'm no sound engineer, so you might have better luck than I had evening the track volumes. Other effects include filters, fades, bass boost, echo, and equalization.

Don't be afraid to edit. Some of the tapes I converted date back to the 1970s, a time when my recording "skills" included splitting a single track on two different sides of the same tape. It's surprisingly easy to splice such tracks back together, as well as to remove or reduce the applause at the end of live tracks and the dead air before and after individual tracks.

After you become more familiar with Audacity's many extra features, you may start feeling like a home-grown record producer. Grammys, here you come!

Best Free Slideshow Software

Many people enjoy taking photos. Sadly, all those pictures end up forgotten on who knows what computer or external storage device. Have you ever thought about doing cool things, like slideshows and animations with the photos you have been making through time? If you were concerned about the increased costs that good quality programs specialized in photo editing require, you can give up on such worries right now. Because PhotoStage Slideshow is available and free for download, on the internet. So give it a chance.

Yeah, nothing is perfect and nor this popular software is. Nevertheless, you will soon discover that the few drawbacks that have been reported are about aspects we can live and work without. Even though the processing options are so many, there are just three effects for making transitions, so we might have enjoyed a little variety on this chapter. Depending on the number of photos you are using, it might take some time to compile the slideshow. From over 15 files, you should take a coffee break.

Once you decide to try PhotoStage, you will immediately appreciate the following characteristics: you can flip, crop or rotate pictures in no time; you have a sensitive tune brightness, vivid colors and a pleasant saturation; you can add some text captions for specific slides; all the changes can be previewed in real time; adding music tracks to the presentations will be piece of cake; and you can even record or import some pre – recorded narrations to include in the slideshow.

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