Sep 29
MoggyMusic
Hey everyone. Last week I was studying podcasts in Media Studies, and we were given the task of creating a single episode for a podcast. Cool, eh? Well, my topic I chose was to review the album “Incredibad” by American comedy troupe The Lonely Island – makers of the immensely popular tunes “Jizz in my Pants” and “I’m On A Boat“.
So if you wish to listen to my 5 minute quick review, click on the groovy button below. If you want to download the MP3 for whatever reason, just right click and select the “Save As” option.
Sep 10
MoggyInternet, Music, Website
Right, lets get down to it – we all love music, right? But all of us don’t have a huge bank account, and there are some people that want to download music from around the web… without paying money. However, it’s getting harder and harder to do that.
In this series of blog posts I am going to show you where I commonly get my MP3 music files from – without, technically, being illegal. Look and learn people.
My first recommendation would be a website at:
http://www.jimmyr.com/mp3.php
This site was created by a popular YouTuber, Jimmy Ruska, and what he has done, is created a modified Google search that trawls through the internet and looks for free MP3 files. He has posted a video tutorial on YouTube that explains the step by step process, but I thought I would demonstrate the steps myself since the site is so efficient. Though first, I want to toss up the PRO’s and CON’s of the method:
PRO’s = Fast, relatively simple, free and technically legal for personal use.
CON’s = Sometimes contains dead links, often filled with spam, files mixed with bad quality files and ringtones sometimes (annoying!), and only works with the most popular songs and artists. Unwell-heard of artists are often not really found.
So this is how you do it, step by step. In this example, I am going to use the song Billie Jean by the recently late Michael Jackson. So, step 1 is to go to the site and search for the song, like so:
After pressing the Super Google Search button, you’ll see a new window containing a Google Search with a rather long query. This is what mine looked like:
And this is the rather long query. It’s all jibberish to the average person, so don’t worry about this too much. However, you can see the query YOU searched for at the beginning:
Right, so on this page, we have to look through the results, and find a page that may have a legit download link for your song. The top result for my Billie Jean search seems ok because of the following reasons:
- the website link displays the words “Index of” at the beginning.
- the website description displays (somewhere inside) the full name “Billie Jean.mp3″ in bold writing. If you see just “Billie Jean” as it is, without the “.mp3″, this may not be enough.
- the link also features “Micheal Jackson” as a subfolder, meaning the user who uploaded the MP3 file probably contains even more MJ songs. This point isn’t completely necessary, but is always a good thing to look out for.
- The domain (green writing) does not contain a spam link. Two of the biggest spam domains I see around are indexofmp3.net, mp3index.net and null3d.com. Just ignore these links.
Ok, so click on the link, and you should get an index page of some sort, similar to this one. If you go to a page that contains rich web content, you’ve got a spam or dead link. Go back and try again on a different link.
Now we need to search for our file. I can see it there, as the files are in alphabetical order, though you may want to try the handy Ctrl+F/Cmd+F trick if you can’t find it yourself. You want to check before you click on the link these two crucial things:
- The file name ends with “.mp3″ or other audio file extension. NEVER, ever, download a .exe ended file, as this will almost certainly be a virus. Ohh dear. You can check the MP3 status by looking at where it says “MP3 audio file” under the description column, if applicable.
- Check the file size of the file listed. This .mp3 file looks legit for a song as the file is 4.5MB in size. This is good as the average music file is about that… typically between 3MB and 6MB. If you get something at 100KB, that’s obviously either crap quality, a ringtone, or snippet from the song.
Ok? Yes, click on the link. The page will now open a small QuickTime snippet similar to this one, and start playing the file once buffered.
If this plays how you want to (it’s always worth checking), you want to go back to the previous index page listing all those files. Instead on clicking on the link again, right click on the link, and click either “open with iTunes” (Safari on Mac only) or “download linked file” (or could be “save linked file as”, or similar).
Now, the file starts downloading:
Once downloaded, as seen here in my Mac’s download stack, you drag it into iTunes, or whatever music library software you use, and there you go – you’ve got your free MP3.
Woo!
Now, just to recap – as I know someone is going to ask – downloading music like this is classed as stealing, and you could get your wrist slapped by your employer, peer or what have you. It is legal, however… so long as you use it for personal use. ie. you don’t publicly play it, use it in video projects, distribute it further, etc. It is only illegal for you if you break those rules just listed, or you are the person originally uploading that MP3 file to the internet for public use.
These, I know are the rules within the UK. As for the USA, or the rest of the world, it could be illegal, I don’t know, but I presume that it follows suit worldwide.
Sep 09
MoggyApple, Keynote Event, Music, Technology, iPod
Well the keynote has just finished, and here are my brief first thoughts:
iTunes 8
Not as hyped as I would have thought it would have been (eg. no brand new interface, just new tile view). The Genius feature looks great and I cannot wait to have ago, but if I’m honest, it could just be a way for Apple to easily persuade you to buy more.
HD TV Shows look awesome, but, I don’t know if this is the case but only for US – where is a UK version? I’d love to get some BBC stuff in HD!
New iPod Nano
Well as all the leaked images showed us, it was announced… and… they look nice! I want one! And, in the UK it’s only £109 which is nice and cheap for an 8GB model.
I’m liking the choice of colours too! My fave is probably either red, black or orange. The accelerometer looks fantastic and cannot wait to try it out, just like the built in Genius and newish user interface.
iPod classic
Meh. It looks good and all that, but hang about!? ONLY 120GB? I don’t get why they discontinued a model so now you only have a choice of colours at a fixed price. Come on Apple, and this new version is £20 more expensive here than the old 80GB!
iPod touch
Again, sweeeeeeeeet. Nice and thin, 2.1 looks good, liking the built in Genius stuff. I’d love one of these, and especially at £169 which is a tenner less expensive than the classic for an 8GB model. Good to see Nike+ in there too.
I’d expect Apple to post a quicktime of the keynote later on today so us guys can watch, including the 2 ad’s and the awesome music from Jack Johnson.
Laters Guys!
Sep 06
MoggyApple, Keynote Event, Music, Rumor, Technology, iPod
… as the title describes, here is my prediction for the rough transcript of the Apple Media Event Keynote this Tuesday:
- Steve walks on stage and welcomes the crowd, and gives a rant about how well Apple is doing at the moment, particularly in the Music (iPod & iTunes) sector.
- Introduces iTunes – remarks how it is the best music player in the world – but says that it needs improvement to stay ahead of the market.
- Welcomes iTunes 8.
- Features include: New and more professional visualizers, revised user interface, better compatibility for iPod, icon artwork view, and more.
- Gives iTunes 8 demo.
- Also mentions iTunes Store – and confirms the release of TV Shows, Movie Rentals and more in far more countries than currently in.
- Brings on Phil Shiller (or someone similar) to brag about how well iTunes is doing, and may cut a few pence/cents off cost of songs on iTunes.
- Back to Steve, who moves onto the iPod. Best Music Player in the world… all that sort of stuff.
- “And today, we are going to refresh the iPod line once again… [big roar] and we’re very excited about this.”
- Starts with small – here’s some more colors for the iPod shuffle, and now only selling 2GB – 1GB is worthless now.
- Introduces new iPod nano – mentions it goes back to 2G design, but has reasons for it… Pulls it out of his jeans pocket, shortly followed by revised iPod classic with same architecture (curved body, etc).
- And new revision of iPod touch, bearing resemblance to recently released iPhone 3G (ie. thinner and plastic back and available in white), while also revealing a small price drop for the whole range.
- Starts to churn everything down, but there is one more thing…
- After all these new products, we haven’t actually seen inside the iPod’s and seen the software, and gives a demo of new features and user interface changes.
- Says goodbye to everyone and leaves with some music artist to perform at the end.
So guys, remember it’s 10am start, San Francisco time – thats 6pm here in the UK BST. Hope you guys enjoy the keynote, and I’m sure many Tech sites on the web will be providing live feed coverage.
Remember above is just a guide – not actually what will happen! Don’t quote me on this!
Update: I have made a YouTube video about this.
Aug 25
MoggyApple, Music, Rumor, Technology, iPod
As we all are aware – iPod updates are imminent, while MacRumors predicts 9th September and many images have been leaked – here’s my wish list for the future iPod nano / classic software / hardware – leave me a comment with your opinions!
1) Get rid of that new messed up menu with the album artwork (not the coverflow bit, thats awesome… i’m talking about the split screen bit)! Who knows what to replace it with.. it’s just using peoples iPod nanos with no album artwork is just so frustratingly ugly! Please Apple – do something about it!
2) Give iPod’s Bluetooth – this would allow users to wirelessly sync with their computers if they have Bluetooth hardware and software on their computer – it would also allow people to send pictures / music / podcast etc over the air to other iPod’s – I believe the Zune has this already, but finding someone with a Zune, let alone 2 people together with Zune’s is pretty difficult.
3) Revert to a taller design for the nano – not as wide as current – a please don’t go any more thinner – I would feel like snapping it every time!
4) Provide a wall plug charger in the box! I know this saves Apple money but if I ever go away without my laptop there’s no way I can charge my iPod unless I have my wall plug, which cost me £19 in the first place!
5) Bring the price of the iPod Touch down! If it gets below £99 / $199 like the iPhone… I’ll get one… as soon as it’s released. No questions asked.
6) Give the touch a smaller screen – I know this won’t happen because all the App developers would have to re-design their apps and everything, but come on… my touchscreen Samsung phone is smaller… and this is a music player not a phone!!
7) Make iTunes easier to understand when uploading pictures – trying to explain to my Mum how to do so was hell gone wrong, quite litterally.
More and MORE battery life!
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