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Back in the day, if you were going to do serious things with sound, you needed a bunch of expensive equipment, or maybe access to a real recording studio. With computers, the bar has been lowered considerably. Now you can record a podcast, or make your own mix CD on your desktop. Get yourself a microphone or an optical drive, and you're halfway there. All you need now is the software to manipulate your sound files, and you'll be in business in no time.

Wave Pad is a full-featured professional quality sound editing application. You can use it to record voice, music, or other sounds. As an editor, you can work with either WAV files or MP3s, as well as several other formats. Copy, paste, add echo and reverb to your recordings; voice-activated recording lets you quit fumbling with controls and read your script; auto-split lets you break large recordings down into individual tracks.

WavePad is available for both Windows (any Win32 platform from Windows 95 on up) and Mac (OS X 10.2 or later, on either PowerPC or Intel boxes).

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It's a simple proposition: you have an iPod, you have a PC, you want the music from your iPod to go onto your PC. It's easy with iDump.

All you need to do is to mount your iPod as an external hard drive, and then run the iDump program. You can choose the individual songs you want to grab, or download all of them. A search tool lets you find the individual tracks you want. It supports playlists, so your organization scheme comes down with your music. If you've got tons of music, it features an "unattended" mode, that allows you to start the process and just walk away.

iDump is a free Windows application. It runs under Windows Me or greater. All but the most recent iPods are supported as well (it doesn't work with iPod Touch or the iPhone).

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Hey, why should Mac babies have all the fun? In yesterday's post, we talked about AlphaBaby for Mac users. Today, we have a similar tool for the parents of budding Windows users.

Babysmash is a way to babyproof your PC while at the same time helping to entertain your little geek-in-training. Once you start Babysmash, you effectively cut your system off from most normal system-side functionality. With the [Windows] key, [Control]+[Escape] and [Alt]+[Tab] out of the way, you've dramatically decreased the danger of junior wreaking total havoc on your system. Key presses now generate letters, shapes, and numbers instead of fatal system errors. Hey, you get to sit there and type away, so why shouldn't your little helper have a chance too?

Babysmash is a Windows application. It requires version 3.5 of the .NET Framework.

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Did you ever wonder how iTunes or other media players know so much about the files they're playing? I mean, you've got a file with a name like "my-cool-audio-file.mp3" but when you load it into your player, it tells you that it's actually "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" from The Beatles' White Album. This bit of data sleight-of-hand is accomplished though the use of an "id3 tag", a bit of meta-data that many media files carry along with the actual content of the file itself. This meta data includes information about the title and number of the track, the artist, the album, and more.

If you need to tweak this information, or maybe add more to it, you need a tool to access it. That's where ToeTag comes in.

Named, unfortunately perhaps, after the coroner's favorite means of identification, ToeTag lets you add, edit, or delete meta information stored in your media files. Add a track name, correct a misspelling, or even enter information about the bitrate of the recording, or the composer of the piece. You can also grab song information on-line from the free tracktype.org server.

ToeTag works on Windows Vista and Windows XP with .NET 2.0.

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Formats, formats, formats…. We're awash in multimedia content: images, audio, video. Do you have the right tools to deal with all of the different file formats? In other words, if you download "X", can you look at it, listen to it, or play it? How about putting it on your iPod, iPhone, or PSP? Not necessarily—you may need to convert that file to a different format.

Format Factory is a free media converter that can convert just about anything into just about anything else. Along with file conversions, the authors say that you can use this tool to repair broken audio and video files, as well as reducing their sizes. You can also tweak picture files, flipping and rotating images. Ripping DVDs for backup or archival purposes is supported too.

The authors are working to make this tool available to as many folks as possible. It is currently available in over a dozen languages, but if you're fluent in one that they haven't localized for yet, they're eager for you to give them a hand with that as well.

Format Factory is a Windows application.

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It's said Mozart began playing the piano at age 3, and composing by the time he was 5. While there may be others who could approach this level of proficiency, there are probably many more who wish they could, but had to settle for playing the radio instead of a real musical instrument.

With the advent of computerized music, the bar is lowered considerably. No longer do you have to toil away month after month, year after year, to just make an acceptable sound come out of an instrument. If this is closer to your level of musicality, then Electronic Piano may be the answer for you.

With Electronic Piano, it's easy to play piano—or any other instrument—on the keyboard of your computer. There's also 47 different drum sounds you can add to your composition, and you can combine sounds from up to seven different instruments. One-key chords means you won't have to practice your scales to know which notes go together.

You may not go on to musical fame and fortune, but with Electronic Piano, it's a whole lot cheaper than buying a piano, and a lot faster than spending your entire childhood practicing.

Electronic Piano is a Windows application.

Download Electronic Piano 2.5

Are you hopelessly addicted to music? Is iTunes set to run whenever you boot up your Windows or Mac machine? You may be a good candidate for Anywhere.FM.

Anywhere.FM is a free service that lets you share your music with…yourself! You can upload your music—as little or as much as you want—and have access to it from anywhere. Don't have an iPod? You can still listen to your tunes while you're away from home or the office.

The Anywhere.FM player is a Flash app that you run in your web browser. You can upload and listen to your own music, or you can listen to others' shared music. Not to worry—these guys are fully licensed by the various performance rights agencies to stream this music, so you don't have to be concerned about racking-up any bad juju from "stealing" content. And if you hear something you like, they're hooked into Amazon, so you can buy the track or album right away for yourself.

Anywhere.FM is a free service, and at least for now, there is no limit to the amount of music you can upload.

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Have you ever needed to convert some media file to another format? It might be images, audio files, or some video thing. There are just so many different formats, and most applications are limited in the formats that they support. Having an all-in-one solution might come in handy.

SUPER, the Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer, claims to be just such a solution. With a huge number of different formats supported, it shouldn't require Herculean effort any more to convert between any of the supported formats. All the necessary codecs are built in, so you can spend your time converting files, instead of looking around for more plug-ins and add-ons to really make the software work for you. You can even rip video files to audio, grabbing the sound for your MP3 player.

SUPER, the Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer, is a Windows app, and it's compatible with most systems.

Download SUPER, the Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer

Are you interested in all things astronomical? Can't afford to finance your own visit to the Hubble Space Telescope? The folks at Microsoft may be able to give you a hand.

No, they're not going to send you up on the next Shuttle mission, but they do have a "virtual telescope" that you can download. The WorldWide Telescope is a "visualization software environment" that lets your system act as a telescope, using images collected from any number of terrestrial and space-based telescopes. You can take advantage of the images they have, as well as going on a "guided tour", presented by scientists from some of the country's preeminent observatories and planetariums.

WorldWide Telescope is a Windows application. You'll need Windows XP or Vista as well as version 9 of DirectX and .NET Framework 2.0, and because of the large amount of data involved it won't hurt to have as fast an Internet connection as you can get your hands on.

Download WorldWide Telescope

Can't get enough YouTube? Whether it's the latest viral video, some slick "how-to" program, or any of a zillion other types of content, we've all grown addicted to YouTube. Here's a tool that helps you download YouTube videos to your machine, so that you can enjoy them again and again.

Free YouTube Downloader does exactly what the name suggests: it enables you to grab those videos and save them locally. Just copy and paste the URL of the content you want, and press the button. It couldn't be easier. It supports multiple downloads as well—just type several addresses into the box, each on a separate line.

Free YouTube Downloader is a Java application, which means that it will run on Linux, Macintosh, Windows, or just about any other platform that has Java Runtime Environment Standard Edition, with Java version 1.5 or better.

Download Free YouTube Downloader