To fix this problem, many music players include an option for the user to go in and fix the ID3 data.  This is often a tedious process, however, and must often be done album by album, if not track by track.

A new program called Beets is able to not only correct those tags, but manage your library as well.  It’s a cross-platform application that is used from the Terminal (hence being called “the music geek’s media organizer” by its developer), and will be demonstrated in Linux.

To install Beets, first open a Terminal.

Next, for Ubuntu users, you’ll need a few Python libraries, so type sudo apt-get install python-dev python-setuptools python-pip into your Terminal.  Depending on what other programs you have installed, they may already be on your system.

Once installed, use ‘pip’ (a tool used to install Python packages from the Python Package Index), to install Beets.  To do this, enter sudo pip install beets into the Terminal.

PIP will now install Beets, along with any other required Python libraries, such as Mutagen (for tagging).

Now, open up the Beets configuration file; we need to edit where Beets will place your modified music, as well as where to store your music library file (a file which won’t exist until Beets creates it).  Type gedit /home/username/.beetconfig (replacing your username with ‘username’ in the command) to create the configuration file.

Next, add the following lines to the file:

[beets]
directory: /path/to/music
library: /path/to/musiclibrary.blb

Once you’ve done this, save the configuration file; you’re now ready to begin using Beets.

To do so, simply type beet import /path/to/music into your Terminal.

In this case, the path is the path to a folder already containing music, not the path you used in the configuration file.  In the above example, there is a folder with music by Phish in it; this is the folder we want Beets to import.  As the music is imported and corrected, you’ll see certain tags being adjusted, thanks to MusicBrainz.  For our test, we intentionally placed a handful of errors in the ID3 tags.  As you can see, the errors were caught and fixed.

As you’ll see, this is not a fast process, as Beets first needs to scan your music, then check with the online MusicBrainz database to compare your tags with the entry located there, and then fix your tags if necessary, before finally moving your music into your new collection folder.  It’s probably a good idea to check with just a single album to see how long it takes for you, before throwing your entire collection at it.

One other thing to keep in mind is that however much space your music takes up before you begin, it will use twice as much when you’re finished, as Beets doesn’t move your music by default, but copies it to the new location.  To change this behavior, add the “-C” modifier to the command, so the above command would be this:

With this command, your music tags will be changed, but your music will not be copied anywhere; instead, your current directory will be used.

You can also choose to simply import your music, without changing tags via MusicBrainz.  For this feature, add the “-A” option to the command.

For other configuration options (options that can be placed in your default configuration file as well as those that can be used when actually running Beets, which will override the default configuration if different), can be found at this link.

At its most basic, that’s what Beets does.  If you have a large library, be prepared to wait awhile as Beets does its thing.  In the end, however, you should not only have a more organized music library, but a more consistently tagged one as well.

Beets also comes with a wide variety of plugins to allow it to embed album art, use ReplayGain settings and more, as well as community contributed plugins, such as grabbing lyrics for your music.  All those plugins can be found here.

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On the other hand, there are too many stories of an update that fixes the bugs it was intended for, but also causes problems for certain users.  If that update was installed automatically, then the user would be trading one problem for another, and who’s to say that the second problem – the one caused by the update – isn’t actually worse?  So, there are good reasons to have automatic updates turned off as well.

Thankfully, this isn’t a setting that’s too difficult to configure in Windows.  The first step to configuring your automatic update behavior is to open the Start menu.  Do this by hitting the Windows key on your keyboard, or clicking the Start orb.

Now click All Programs to view all your installed programs, and not just those pinned to the start menu.

Finally, to configure your automatic update settings, click Windows Update (it should be fairly near the top of the list, before all the folders.

Once Windows update has launched, click Change Settings in the lefthand sidebar.

The recommended behavior is to download and install updates automatically.  If you do this, your computer will check periodically (every day or on a particular day of the week, at a time of day you set), and will install them once downloaded.

There are three other options available. You can also download all updates, but only install the ones you select.  The next step toward doing nothing is to check for updates, but only download and install the ones the user wants. Or, finally, you can never check for updates, which will turn off Windows Update entirely.

Now, assuming you have Windows Update configured to at least do some checking, downloading and installing, there are a couple other options.  First is how Windows Update treats recommended updates.  There are two types of updates: important and recommended.  If you have this setting checked, your recommended updates will be treated exactly the same as important ones, so if you have important updates scheduled to be installed automatically, this will be true of recommended ones as well.

You also have the option to allow any user to update Windows, or with this option unchecked, can keep the privilege for only the administrator.

The first of the last two options allows you to check for extra Microsoft software (such as Microsoft Security Essentials or Silverlight), and allow those to be updated as well.

Finally, in conjunction with the above option, you can choose to receive detailed notice when there is new Microsoft software available.

This will include not just updates, but also software not currently installed on your computer.

Once finished, click the OK button at the bottom of the window and you’re all set.  Windows Update will begin using your new settings immediately; no restart necessary.

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We’ve already shown how to extract audio from a FLV file (using FFmpeg), and that’s helpful since many YouTube videos are in FLV format.

However, it would also be nice to be able to use a single program to both download and convert your videos.  Happily, a program called Downverter exists, and as a bonus it runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.  Here’s how to install and use this helpful program.

First, head over to the Downverter website.

Now, scroll down a bit until you reach the download buttons.  As mentioned, there are Mac and Windows versions, as well as both 32-bit and 64-bit installers for Ubuntu.

Note: For non-Ubuntu Linux users, DEB installers can be converted to RPM (for Red Hat, Fedora and other distributions), TGZ packages (for Slackware), and other formats, using alien, which we discussed here.

Once you’ve grabbed the download for your operating system, go ahead and install it.  Here’s the Ubuntu installer.

Once installed, go ahead and start Downverter.  When it opens, you’ll see its single-window interface.

Once you’ve found a YouTube video you want to save and/or convert, paste its URL into the entry bar.

After this, simply set the configuration options the way you want.

As you can see, one of Downverter’s strong points is a nice range of options for device presets.

You can choose to convert the video for a format suitable for a particular device, such as iPod or PSP, as well as to a format, such as WMV or AVI.  You also have the option to simply the audio to MP3 format, or simply download without conversion.

Once all your settings are to your liking, click the large green Download & Convert button to begin the process.

You’ll see as the video is first downloaded and then – if you chose to convert it, that process as well.

Once you’re finished, you’ll notice the original file in your download folder, as well as the converted file, if present.

All in all, Downverter is a nice little program.  It could be a bit more configurable for some tastes (the quality settings in particular are very basic, with just high, medium and low options), but for quick and easy downloading and converting, plus the advantage of working on Windows, Mac and Linux, Downverter is a great tool.

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Once you’ve done this, you use the Windows Live Writer Insert Image button to add your image to your blog post, only… your image is now different!  Instead of displaying its exactly-correct 580 pixels width, it’s now… quite a bit smaller, left-aligned and with a drop-shadow!

It also has a drop shadow.  And even if you’d previously set your paragraph text to be centered, you’ll find that the image is now left justified.  This is all fixable, but if you look through the Windows Live Writer preferences, you won’t find any image settings, unfortunately.

However, this is one of those instances where the solution happens to be hiding in plain sight.  Part of this is that you don’t actually see any image settings on the toolbar ribbon until you’ve used the Insert Picture feature to add an image to your post or have highlighted an image you’ve already inserted.  So to change our settings, go ahead and add an image.

Note: if you already have an image in your blog post, you could avoid adding another one and highlight an existing one instead.

Once you’ve added an image or selected one, you’ll notice the ribbon has changed to now show Picture Tools.

Here, finally, we can modify how Windows Live Writer treats pictures.  First, click the Size button on the left side of the ribbon.  A little pop-up will appear where you can change how Windows Live Writer resizes your images by default (or simply leaves them alone).

If you want to resize your own images in a separate program, choose the Original option as shown above.  However, if you have uses for Small, Medium, and Large settings, you can choose one, or if you have a use for those settings, but the default settings aren’t quite the sizes you want, click the Set default sizes option (as shown in the image above), to change those default sizes.

When you’re satisfied with the Size options, click the Picture Borders button to choose what – if any – border will be placed around your image.

By default, Windows Live Writer uses a drop shadow, but you can set it to no border, or one of the other options, such as rounded corners, thick black border, or even rounded corners.

When this setting has been configured, click to change what kind of alignment your image has.

You can choose to place your image inline (text flows around it), left justified, centered, or right justified.

By default, these are the only three things Windows Live Writer changes about an image when you upload it, its size, border and alignment.  However, If you want to keep going, there are a couple other optional settings you can choose to have it change.

First is the Rotation of your image.

You can choose to rotate your image 90 degrees to the left or right, or to have it tilted askew.  Finally, you can adjust the margins around your image.

This is nice if you want a bit of space above and below your image, or to switch how close text will flow around it if placed inline.

Once you’ve selected all the settings you want, click the Set To Default button.

You won’t receive any feedback that any changes have been made (not even a “Your Settings Have Been Saved” window or dialog), but the next time you insert an image into a blog post, your settings will be used, and not the default ones.  And that’s about it!  As mentioned, these settings aren’t hard to change, and they’re actually right out in the open.  But since they’re not mentioned at all in the Windows Live Writer Options, and are only discoverable when inserting an image, hopefully this how-to tutorial will be helpful.

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Second, software often gains new features, even between major updates, so a free upgrade might well mean that a program works better on your computer than the currently installed version.  Third, as programs become outdated, they are often not supported any longer, so any bugs or security risks (in the case of web browsers) may never be fixed.

Of course, in Windows, you have the Windows Update feature.

This is all well and good, but the only programs and bug fixes that come through Windows Update are the operating system and assorted Microsoft programs.  What about keeping the rest of your software up-to-date?  Windows users have quite a few options for software update monitors, but one we like is called Software Update Monitor (or SUMo for short).  SUMo is a free program that scans your computer for installed programs, then compares that list to its own database, so you know if a new version is available.

Now, don’t a lot of programs already include automatic updates, or the ability to check for updates from within the program?  Yes, they do!  And we’d suggest using those features for programs that offer them, because they’re easy to use.  But let’s say you have 30 programs installed, and ten of them offer update checking.

That means 20 programs don’t.  That’s 20 programs where you need to visit the program’s website and look to see if there’s a new version.  Therein lies the benefit of SUMo… it does the checking for you – for ALL of your programs – in one easy step.  Here’s how to use it.

First, head over to the SUMo download page and scroll down to the “Sponsored FREE Software” section.

Now, be careful which download you choose.  The default download (“Click Here”) is bundled with optional sponsors via Relevant Knowledge software (which can later be installed).  Their own description mentions that Relevant Knowledge can sometimes be flagged by anti-virus software (even if it isn’t actually malicious), but there’s no need to install it, so grab one of the installers from the More section.

We’re grabbing the 7z file, but there is a ZIP file, or even a basic EXE installer available.  However, grab the 7z or ZIP file, as even the EXE installer requires you to opt-out of certain toolbars and new search engines.

Once you’ve downloaded the program, expand the file, if necessary.

If you grabbed the 7z or ZIP file, you can simply start using SUMo.  So navigate to the sumo folder and open the application.

The first time SUMo opens, you’ll be shown the First Run Wizard.

If you choose the “Automatically detect installed software” option, SUMo will quickly scan your computer for installed software.

When the scan is finished, you’ll see a list of your installed software.

Note that this isn’t an exhaustive list.  There are no Microsoft programs, as they’re considered part of the operating system, which Windows Update will take care of.  If, however, you do want Microsoft software include, that – and other options – can be found in the Configuration window.

Also, if a program includes small utilities, those generally aren’t included.  However, if you have a program like Calibre installed, you’ll notice that LRF Viewer shows up on the list, even though it’s impossible to update one without updating the other.

It’s now time to scan the installed software against SUMo’s list, so click the “Check” button (from the image above), or the “Check for updates for your installed software” button on the First Run Wizard.  SUMo will begin the process of comparing your list against its database.

When this scan is complete, your list will now show you which programs have available updates.  The updates are categorized as Minor or Major (Having Adobe Reader 10.1.0 installed when 10.1.2 is available is a minor update, while having Firefox 8 installed when Firefox 9 is available is considered major).  When you see a program you want to update, highlight it and click the “Get Update” button.

You’ll now be taken – in your Web browser – to a kcsoftwares.com page for the program you want to update.

You won’t automatically receive an update to the software, but you can use this page to go to the program’s home page, where you can download the update.  In the above image, you would click the little caret beside the Mozilla Foundation link, which would take you to the Mozilla home page.

From there, simply download the available update and install.  That’s it!  SUMo isn’t a perfect program.  If it were, it would be able to download the new software for you, and install it in the background.  This isn’t a perfect world, and there are so many installer options as to make this a fairly big pipe dream.  However, what SUMo does in providing you with a one-stop place to check for updated software is a very good thing, and something well worth checking out.

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