Organize Your Music Collection with MP3 Rename
Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 April 2012 11:36 Written by Alan Thursday, 17 May 2012 07:00
Organizing my music collection seems to be a never-ending task. I have literally worked on it off and on for a couple of years, although I admit it’s much more off than on. That’s mostly because there just isn’t any easy way to do it, despite trying many different software programs. Recently I stumbled across another program that I wanted to try out. This one is called MP3 Rename, but it’s a lot more powerful than the simple name implies.
MP3 Rename is an absolutely free program and it doesn’t come with any little extras like browser toolbars. It’s also a very small, lightweight program, as evidenced by its 130 KB download size.
The main interface isn’t necessarily simple, but most experienced users shouldn’t have any problem finding their way around. You can drag and drop files and folders straight to the top pane of the app, or browse your network for the music files you want to fix.
Once you have added your files you will need to figure out how you would like to structure the renaming. This is where the program gets a bit complicated. This will come down to the file information you have and what you prefer. In most cases I prefer to use the ID3 Tag info. The Rename files tab lets you use ID3 info from the file. You can also enable Force extension to .mp3 on the renamed file option, and unpack and rename compressed files in music folder.
There are other tabs to choose from that give you many features, some of them very advanced. I could spend a long time going through them and still not be able to explain everything. This app is definitely for more advanced users, but those users will reslish the control they can get with it. Even better, it’s completely free. MP3 Rename is available for Windows XP, Vista, and 7. You can download it from Nodesoft.
USB Drive Letter Manager
Last Updated on Thursday, 8 March 2012 02:19 Written by Alan Saturday, 7 April 2012 06:00
One thing that drives Windows users nuts is the constant changing of the lettering when a USB drive is plugged in. It can cause problems, especially when multiple drives are plugged into a computer, making it difficult t to distinguish what USB device is under what drive letter. USB Drive Letter Manager can help out Windows users with all of that. You can use it to change the drive letter of any USB device that is plugged into your PC.
You can save a preferred choice for all of your different devices in an INI file and it will then be assigned every time that particular device is plugged in. You can also have the app intelligently assign drive letters from a list, depending on such criteria as the active user, volume label, drive size, and more. So you might have small USB keys always assigned to K, L or M, while a larger external USB drive gets X, Y or Z. There is even an option to hide card reader drive letters unless they contain media and customize your own autorun options for any USB drive or device.
It all sounds great, but it isn’t that easy to use. there isn’t a GUI interface – all options are changed by editing an INI file. However that’s not particularly difficult to do for any Windows user who qualifies as above a beginner. Before you install this app you may want to check the online documentation. If you feel you are ready to use the app then head over to USBDLM to download and install the app.
WinDirStat Shows What’s Taking Up Your Hard Drive Space
Last Updated on Monday, 5 March 2012 06:00 Written by Alan Monday, 2 April 2012 07:00
One of the great mysteries of Windows computers can be the hard drive, especially when it appears to suddenly fill up with data for an “unknown” reason. That’s perhaps one of the most frustrating problems of all because it’s not always obvious where that data is is actually at. You can spend a lot of time looking through every file on your hard drive to find the data and then determine where it’s coming from, but you can save a lot time by letting a utility do this job for you.
One of the simplest ways to solve these issues is with an app like WinDirStat which can easily and quickly search through your hard drive and find out what is using up all of your disk space. It’s a free utility that can easily be downloaded and installed to any PC. Once you have the utility downloaded and installed you can open it and choose the drive you would like to search. You can search just one hard drive or multiple drives.
When you start the app you will notice the little “Pac Man” figures moving back and forth on each folder in your drive searching for the files that are eating up your precious disk space.
Once the process completes, and it’s surprisingly fast, you can begin to quickly analyze your hard drive. You will see each folder on your hard drive and, like using Windows Explorer you can click each one to drill down into sub-folders. Each folder has a bar, size, and percentage to the right so you can quickly see which ones are taking up the most space.
Now that you know where your space is going you can begin to decide what to do to fix the problem. If these are files you don’t need you can simply delete them, but if they are relevant then you may want to move them to a USB drive or some other external source.
WinDirStat is a free download available from WinDirStat.info. The program and is open-source and is based on an earlier KDE app.
