Q. I would like to catch a one-hour radio program in my computer or on a CD for later listening. It’s a station out of California (I’m in Wilmette) that I can only pick up via my computer. But it’s broadcast at a time of day when I am in the car picking up kids and groceries. Is there a way I can tune in on the computer and set it to save the program for me?
I have Windows XP and a CD-RW drive.
A. There are many software products that cover this growing demand as Internet radio takes hold. Folks realize that a computer can do a better job recording–not to mention saving tape storage space and ending the hassle of fast-forwarding and rewinding cassettes.
The best-known software for recording Internet-based radio broadcasts is Replay Radio, a $30 program that currently offers TiVo-type radio recording of nearly 1,000 specific shows and around 1,300 Web accessible radio stations. I’m betting your favorite show is among them, P.A. To find out, you can download a free limited demo at www.replay-radio.com.
This works great if you’re only interested in hearing a show, as opposed to turning streaming music into MP3 file collections for use on mobile digital players. A large and growing number of commercially peddled programs handle that MP3-from-streaming audio but most of them are a bit weak on the scheduling aspect.
Applian Technologies Inc., maker of the Replay Radio program, also offers a more expensive ($50) program that can create MP3 files of streaming music cuts and usually tag each with song name, artist, etc., just as Napster and iTunes do.
Audio MP3 Recorder ($15), a much less expensive program that I use, lets the user click an icon and turn streaming audio into MP3 files on the fly. It’s at www.mp3-recorder.biz.
Q. Almost four years ago I started using ACDSee for photo management and love it. I didn’t like Adobe’s Album. I bought it, tried it and uninstalled it. Ditto for the package that came with my new Canon camera.
I’m curious what you think about this type of tool.
John [email protected]
A. Oh, I hate to do this, Mr. F., but I’ve got to confess that I am delighted using the Windows XP operating system and Microsoft Corp.’s new (and free) Desktop Search tool instead of my previous photo filing favorite, the superb Picassa software available for free at www.google.com. More about that program in a bit.
I find that the thumbnail icons created by Windows XP give me as good a way of seeing the content of my thousands of images as do these dedicated programs.
Open a folder (My Pictures will do nicely) and give a right-click and select the View choice that pops up. Select Thumbnails, and the miniature rendition icons this creates will make any image recognizable instantly. Windows also lets you sort a folder full of icons by Date, Size, Name and Type, so it’s fairly easy to get close to a desired picture quickly.
This wasn’t good enough before because there was no practical way to search for file names. The Windows XP Search tool is too slow. But the new and free MSN Desktop Search tool indexes all items and permits fast searches. Beyond that, this search tool can read the “metadata” that Windows lets users add to each file to identify its contents.
Right-click on any photo’s icon and select Properties from the menu that appears. This brings up a menu with a tab called Summary and from there a display where you can enter the name of the photo, the subject, the photographer, keywords and a comment box that can be filled with any type of category you want along with a lengthy essay about the image.
The MSN Desktop Search tool indexes this metadata along with file names and all of the rest. It makes finding pictures extremely easy. Give it a try at www.search.msn.com. It’s a superb tool with many uses beyond photo tracking, as you will quickly see.
If you want complex software with bells and whistles, go to www.picassa.com and check out Google’s free software for tracking images on your hard drive. It’s superb. So is ACDSee. Neither, however, is really necessary.
Q. Is there an easy way to transfer the contents of a hard drive to a new computer?
More Top Picks Best Portable Camping Grills
Larry Adkins, Prospect Heights
A. If you want to move the data from your old computer onto the hard drive in a new machine there is a tool now built into Windows itself that handles this nicely, Mr. A. However, transferring your installed software is a cigar of another color.
Windows offers a Settings and Files Transfer Wizard that has a step-by-step interface that shows you how to connect two computers using either a common serial cable or an Ethernet cable called a crossover, both widely available.
The idea is that you move your settings for Windows, for Outlook Express and browser favorites and such to the new computer and then move the files you have created using these high-speed connections.
Then a user must reinstall all of the software that was on the old machine by hand.
A company called Eisenworld Corp. offers Alohabob PC Relocator Ultra Control, which probably is the most popular software designed to move entire programs as well as the data that these programs created. A $69.95 boxed product comes with the necessary cable along with the software. Or you can get your own cable and download the software for the same price.
The user loads PC Relocator on both the old machine and the new one and then, unlike the Windows wizard, it handles the process without any further work. You can get details and the software at www.alohabob.com.
The problem is that your nice new machine then looks like and acts like the dreary and cluttered old one that you’re dropping.
———-
Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at [email protected] or via snail mail at the baiduhai, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60611. Questions can be answered only through this column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/askjim. James Coates