Recently I had to help out a friend who, for various reasons had two Outlook Express identities on his XP machine.  He had recently changed the password to his ‘important’ identity and couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was.

No password, no access, no important emails.  That’s when I got called.

A quick search showed tons and tons of applications available for recovering OE Identity passwords - they ranged from $19.95 to $49.95.  I knew there had to be a way to get the email back for him without having to shell out money and guess what?  There is.  I had a bit of a search to find this stuff so I thought I’d write it up and share with the world.

Two notes before we start.  First, click the images to make them bigger and easier to read. Second, yes I know that OE is an older mail client and yes I’m sure there are better mail solutions out there.  However, there are lots of people who still use it so I hope this will come in handy to someone.

Here’s what we’re going to do.  We’re going to determine where OE stores all of the folders, emails and whatnot for each identity.  Then we’re going to create a new identity with the same email account settings as the ‘lost’ identity.  Finally, we’re going to copy all of the important stuff into this new identity.

Go ahead and right click on “My Computer” and choose explore.   In order to find the files we’re looking for, we’re going to have to make a few changes to how XP shows files in explorer. Mainly, we want to display file extensions and be able to see hidden and system files.

So in your Explorer window, choose Tools-> Folder Options.  Then select View.  From there, uncheck Hide file extensions, hide system files and change the option on Hidden files to Show hidden files and folders.

Now, let’s go look and see where OE keeps it’s brains.  In your Explorer window, browse to:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities

USERNAME should be substituted with your actual user name.

You should see something that looks like this:

Those long strings of numbers and letters are your GUIDs for your OE data.  Each Identity has a separate GUID.   There are a couple of ways to determine which GUID belongs to which Identity.

• The first is size - if you’re looking to find the files for an Identity that has much more mail than another one, you’ll be looking for larger files.
• The second is to look for date modified - if you haven’t been able to get into an Identity for the past two days, use that to determine which one is which.
• And lastly - the old fashioned go into OE and look method.  To do this though, you’ll have to have access to one of your Identities.   Open Outlook Express,  go to Tools-> Options.  From there click the Maintenance tab.  Then click the Store Folder button and look for a GUID.  That’s the GUID that belongs to the Identity you’re in.

So, you know where to find Outlook Express’ place to keep its mail - now what do you do?  Let’s minimize Explorer and continue on like so.

First thing we’re going to want to do is create a new Identity in Outlook Express.   Even if you don’t have access to any OE Identities, you can do this by Launching OE and then clicking the Manage Identities button.  From there, create a new Identity.  When OE launches, add all of your email account settings for the inaccessible Identity into this new Identity.  (For instructions on how to set up an OE mail account, hit Google).

Now that you’re in the new account, don’t allow it to check mail.  Just quit out of Outlook Express.

Back into your Explorer window and let’s dig a little deeper and find the files we’re going to copy to our new Identity.

You should be at: C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities

Now browse deeper - GUID\Microsoft\Outlook Express

So your full path would be

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\GUID\Microsoft\Outlook Express\

Inside the Outlook Express folder you should see a number of .dbx files.  These are your mail files.  Folders.dbx will contain your folders, Inbox.dbx your Inbox, etc.  You’ll want to highlight all of these files and then right click and choose “Copy”.

Now, still in Explorer, back up a bit and go into your new Identities GUID - the easiest way for me to find this is by the date but you can use one of the methods I mentioned above.  Once in the new Identities GUID, browse to \Microsoft\Outlook Express, right click the white space in Explorer and choose “Paste”.  Allow these files to overwrite any existing ones.

Minimize Explorer, go ahead and start up OE and log in to your new Identity.  You should see all of your emails that were stuck in the inaccessible Identity.  Go ahead and check your mail so that new stuff comes in.  The hard part is over.

Tell  OE that your newly created ID is the one you want to log into by default (if that’s the case) through the Manage Identities tool which you’ll see when you launch OE again.

You should now have access to your previously locked Identity’s email in a new Identity.

Technorati Tags: howto, how to, oe, outlook express, identities, lost password, recover email

Two of us here at ArsGeek have the game and so far we’re split 50/50 between issues and enjoyment.

I’ve had the game since release and have so far experienced no issues with it. This is the kind of game I enjoy, with a lot for the casual gamer and a lot for the hardcore gamer (space phase).

Cavtroop got the game at the same time, and ran in to the nasty DasmX86Dll.dll issue.  What’s that?  Well it looks like DasmX86Dll.dll is a part of Dasm32 - a debugger/disassembler.  Basically this is a tool used to debug software.  You can get it for free here if you want to check it out.  What happens is, at some point the game crashes to the desktop with an error on that DLL.  Why?  It looks like EA/Maxis was a bit sloppy and left a reference to the debugger in their production code, which should not be in there.  Thus, when the game wants to go into debug mode it crashes to the desktop.

Don’t think that installing Dasm32 will help though, it won’t.  EA and Maxis need to release a patch for this.  Until then, the only real work around seems to be. . . well, the one that we shouldn’t have to use.  Others report that the pirated .exe works fine.  It’s a pretty big problem when the pirated exe works better than the one shipped from EA.  It’s not clear to me if this debug call is a SecuRom call, or one built into Spore itself.  At a guess, it’s a SecuRom thing - once you remove SecuRom from the picture, no crash.

While I don’t advocate pirating anything, I just don’t have a moral issue with finding a cracked .exe for a game that I’ve already purchased, just to get the game to work.  And not only do you have to do that for the game to work, but your running it at a reduced capacity - no online content for you!

There’s been talk of how hard it is to remove SecuRom in and of itself.  I’ve found official instructions for doing this online at several sources, and I’ll reproduce them here in a cleaned up version so you know what to do.  Obviously this will stop Spore from functioning properly for you.  But if you have had SecuRom infected games installed on your PC and you no longer want to play them, here’s how to remove this software.

To remove all SecuROM related files (except the license data stored beneath the registry keys) please follow the uninstall instructions below.

Before you start the uninstall process, close all programs which are running in the background, especially be sure that no instance of the Windows Explorer is running.

Open the Windows command prompt.
type in the path of the infected executable:

“C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\[Your game] (for example: The Sims 2 Bon Voyage)\TSBin\[Sims 2 .exe file] (for example: Sims2EP6.exe or Sims2SP5.exe)”

And append /uninstall to it.

So for Sims2EP6.exe, you would type C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Sims 2\TSBin\Sims2EP6.exe /uninstall

A dialog box should then appear to start the SecuRom uninstall process.

The registry keys described above are not removed by the above uninstall process; otherwise, the copy protection function of SecuROM would be completely undermined. The registry keys, which contain license data, remain on your PC and do not affect any of your PC’s functions. This is no different than other commercially available software programs that employ a similar use of registry keys.

Note: These instructions will work only for applications protected with SecuROM version 7.24 or higher (The Sims 2 Bon Voyage uses version 7.33 of SecuROM, so the instructions do apply). If you have an earlier version of SecuROM, please contact support@securom.com for different instructions.

Speaking of SecuRom - I’m not quite sure why software companies continue to insist that DRM of this type (or any type) is worth it.  I wonder how much money EA stuck into this?  The game was available on the torrents before it’s official launch and yet here’s EA and far to many other companies shoveling money down the DRM hole.

And it’s doubly a problem because of their refusal to see this as an issue.  If the game sells well, EA says “See! DRM isn’t that big a deal, people don’t care and we’re still selling games.”  If the game’s sales are hurt by DRM they fall back on “Pirates are killing our bottom line!”  Seriously?  Games will get pirated, sure.  But you’re much more likely to sell copies if they’re not crippled in the first place by software that does nothing to stop the pirates and everything to annoy legitimate users.

Think EA!  How many more games would you sell to people if your Amazon ratings were 4 or 5 stars?  How manyon the fence gamers wondering if they should plonk down $50 of their hard earned money are going to turn away from this?  I like this game, I really do, but I had to give it a 1 star rating on Amazon as well because of the way legit users are treated like criminals and the folks who do steal the game get to play it whenever and wherever they want.

So what to do?  Well obviously you can decide to not spend your money on this game.  Even more important though, rather than pirate it which is still illegal, why not give your money to publishers who refuse to treat their customers as criminals in the first place?  If PC gaming is a dying past time, it’s because of publishers who use DRM.  If someone’s going to save it, it’s the folks below.

My favorite game company of all time, Stardock, has a number of good to great games out there right now, Sins of a Solar Empire being my current favorite video game period.  They make good games, and their currently in the spotlight for refusing to use DRM, a commitement to ship a finished product and their gamers bill of rights. Impulse is also a neat client and is shaping up to be a real Steam competitor.

I’m glad to give them my money for a product that works, is fun and is DRM free.

The folks at Software, Technology and More have also gone through the trouble of compiling a great list of DRM free, indie games.  Their top pick, Mount and Blade is a fantastic game and the rest, though I don’t have much experience with them, I’ll be checking out.

The bottom line - DRM sucks. It punishes the people doing the right thing by paying developers to develop, causing a lot of unecessary headaches among users and basically making us all feel like we’re just renting a game, not purchasing it. I hope that the mob of low ratings on Amazon sends EA and other publishers a message but I’m doubtful they’re even listening.

Technorati Tags: drm, spore, securom, video games, remove drm, ea, maxis, stardock, indie, games, geek, technology, computers

If you’re a Linux guru or or experienced enough to know what all of these things are then you probably don’t need this article and we can go our merry ways.  If not, then DO NOT, DON’T, NEVER EVER EVER EVER run these commands in a terminal session.  If you do you will render your system anything from useless without a forced reboot to devoid of any useful purpose ever.

Why write this article then?  Because you should be forewarned as a Linux user that there are people out there who consider it good fun to bait others into running destructive and harmful commands on their machines.  Particularly those new to Linux.  So use this list as a caution as to what not to do.  And note that it’s not an exhaustive list, simply a quick reference against stuff you really don’t want to do.  Bottom line is, research what you’re about to execute before you push the enter key and know what you’re doing to your system, yourself and your job prospects.

Let’s start with commands that delete things that probably shouldn’t be deleted, shall we?

The basic way to delete a file in Linux is with the rm command.  rm foo will take foo, wring its skinny neck and throw it down the drain.  Gone.  See you later.

Now there are lots of variants on these commands.  Let’s look at a few.  Again, look but do not execute!

rm -rf ./  - Delete the files in a current directory (all of them)

rm -rf / - Delete the partition.  (AHHH!)

rm -rf . - Delete the whole directory.

rm -rf * - Delete all visible files in a directory

Running all of these commands have certain real world utility.  They’re also a great way to fubar your system if run in the wrong place.  Remember ‘rm’ means remove.  -r means recursive and -f means don’t bother asking me if you want me to really delete your /usr/bin directory - or any other for that matter.

Mean folks have gotten slightly more creative and regular Linux users have made this mistake more than once.

rm -rf .* - Delete all hidden (files that start with a ‘.’) files.

Now, how about the good old fork bomb!  Sounds ominous eh?  What a fork bomb does is eat up all of your available system processes, essentially bringing your system to it’s knees.  A fork is when a program spawns another program - often a version of itself.  A fork bomb is when this happens endlessly and nearly exponentially until there are no resources left on your system.  Most often the only way to get out of this is to hard reboot (i.e. hold down the old power button) which can cause file system problems.  Here’s a few examples of fork bombs to watch out for:

:(){ :|:& };: - The cutest one.  Like a vorpal bunny.

#!/usr/bin/perl  - for Perl meanies.
fork while 1

or also in perl:

fork while fork

#include <unistd.h>
int main(int argc, char* args[])
{
while(1)
fork();
return 0;
}

That last one is in C.  As you can see there are a bunch of ways to do this - the above examples are only that, examples.  Just be careful of code you don’t know with the word ‘fork’ in it, or of typing lots of emoticons into your shell.

Even windows users can be subject to fork bombs in the form of malicious batch code.  Here are two examples:

:s
START %0
GOTO :s

%0|%0

The next kind of code bomb is a tar bomb.  Tar is a nifty program for compressing and uncompressing stuff so you don’t have to lug around hefty loads of data.  Tared files can be crafted however to ‘explode’ into an existing directory, rather than into a new directory.

An example: Say you’re in your home directory and you have file called foo.tar you want to untar.  So you do so and it should untar into a directory called /foo sitting in your home directory.  Through malice or bad practice though, it could just untar all of it’s files into your /home directory.  This is bad if there are say. . . 487,038 files in the tarbomb.  Now you’ve got all the junk to sort through in your home directory.  Ouch!

The same can be said for any uncompiled code.  If you don’t know where it’s coming from think twice before compiling it.  It’s very easy for someone to hide a chunk of malicious code in the thousands of lines of codeit takes to make a program.

Bottom line is - be cautious, don’t run things if you don’t know where they came from and always, always check what a command does if you’re not familiar with it.  Not only will this make you more productive and more powerful user but it will help you protect yourself as well.  Remember this isn’t an exhaustive list, there are plenty of other tricks out there as well.  Be safe.

Edit: Thanks to the commenters for pointing out some errors - I’ve since corrected them!

Technorati Tags: how not to, linux, unix, commands not to run, tarbom, fork bomb, malicous commands, shell scripts, ouchie

Note: This will work on any system using gnome, or just about any other system if you know your way around cron.  I happen to run Ubuntu though, and enjoy it over other distros, so that’s where I wrote this and that’s how I titled it.

I also like to see what’s going on with the world, particularly the weather but often find myself not in orbit so I’m unable to track worldwide weather patterns like I want to.

Then a though occurred to me - what if I set up one of my Ubuntu boxes to have a map of the world with clouds overlayed, updated every hour?  Neat!  I now have a map of the world with cloud overlays updated hourly for my background.

It took me a little time to figure this out but I’ve nailed it and now you can do it too by following my quick, easy plan to wealth and . . . er. . . to a weatherified desktop.

First, you’re going to want to get a program called gnome-schedule. You can either start Synaptic (System-> Administration-> Synaptic Package Manager) and search for ‘gnome-schedule’ or open up a terminal session (Applications-> Accessories-> Terminal Session) and type:

sudo apt-get install gnome-schedule

What is it?  Gnome Schedule is a GUI front end to Cron, which is a scheduling daemon.  It allows you to tell your computer to execute a command at a given time, which in our case is going to be every hour - and to repeat this command at given times, again, hourly.

Gnome-scheduler isn’t automagically added to your menus, so let’s add it to the Applications-> Accessories menu, shall we?  Right click on Applications and choose “Edit Menus”.  From there, left click on Accessories and click the New Item button.  Call this new menu item “Gnome Schedule” in the Name field and in the Command field, type ‘gnome-schedule‘.

Click okay, and it’s there.  You can also always launch it from a terminal session by typing gnome-schedule.

Thankfully, there’s an awesome site out there called die.net.  They host a nice good sized image of the world with cloud cover updated once every hour or so.  We’re going to automate the task of going to die.net and downloading the needed .jpg file.

Open Gnome Scheduler, and click the New button.  From there, choose “A task that launches recurrently”.

In the description field, call it “weather wallpaper” or whatever you’d like.  In the Command field, type

wget -r -N http://static.die.net/earth/mercator/1600.jpg

In the Time & Date section, click the Advanced radio button.  Now, in the Minute field, put something between ‘10‘ and ‘55‘  - you choose a number.  In the hour field, put 0-23. Now click the Add button to add this task to your scheduler.

What does this do?  It tells your computer to go out to die.net and grab the 1600.jpg file some number of minutes past every hour.  Why do it this way?  Well I figure if the image updates on the hour and my clock is a little off, a few minutes past the hour or a few minutes to the hour should be enough leeway for me to get the latest image.  If we vary our numbers, we won’t all flood the site at 10 minutes past.

Once you’ve added this to Gnome Schedule, click the Run task button.  This will execute the task so you can both test it, and grab the appropriate file.  Gnome Schedule will run this command as you, and dump the file into your home directory.

Now to get it on to your computer as your background.  Right click your desktop and choose “Change Desktop Background”.  Now click the Add button and browse to your home directory.  Choose the file 1600.jpg and it will be added to your backgrounds and set up as your wallpaper.

When this image updates every hour, your background will automatically update as well.  Neat, eh?

You can do this with any image that’s available on the web which updates.  All you need is the URL to download the image and you’ll have to modify your little script to reflect the correct file name.

Enjoy!

EDIT: Thanks to Sam R and some astute Reddit readers, I’ve edited this article to make it even easier to do.  Now - anyone got a list of pictures online that are updated every N minutes?

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, how to, wallpaper, desktop, rotating, weather map, linux, updated world cloud coverage, geek

A note: I say Ubuntu in the title because that’s what I’m running and that’s where I wrote this how to article.  It is most likely applicable to any Debian system and probably good for just about any other flavor out there.

Now, we begin!

First thing you’ll need is an intimate knowledge of how your Linux kernel is programed, along with a decent working knowledge of physics program for modern GPUs.  Nah, just kidding.  You’ll need a terminal session. Go to Applications-> Accessories-> Terminal and lets get this show on the road.

In your terminal session, we’re going to create a directory for your Steam dedicated servers to live.  Let’s call it ’steam’.

sudo mkdir /steam

Hey, we’re on our way! No lets head into the directory we just created.

cd /steam

Once there, we’ll need to download a .bin file called hldsupdatetool.bin, like so:

sudo wget http://storefront.steampowered.com/download/hldsupdatetool.bin

That will take but a few seconds, unless you’re on dial up in which case you probably shouldn’t be running a dedicated server anyway.  Once that’s there, let’s run it.

chmod +x hldsupdatetool.bin

sudo ./hldsupdatetool.bin

Now that we’ve gotten the half life server update stuff out of the way, we’ll run Steam for Linux for the first time so it can update itself.

sudo ./steam

Let that do it’s thing, it could take a minute or two.  Once that finishes, you’ll have to decide on what game(s) you want to host and then tell Steam to go get the dedicated server.  The command looks like this:

sudo ./steam -command update -game “SOMEGAME” -dir .

You’ll want to substitute SOMEGAME with one of the following options (keeping the quotes) cstrike, dmc, dod, ricochet, tfc, valve, Counter-Strike Source or hl2mp.  The two that I’ve messed with are Half-Life 2 Multiplayer (hlf2mp) and Counter Strike Source.  So to set up Counter Strike Source, do this:

./steam -command update -game “Counter-Strike Source” -dir .

That tells Steam to update the game (in this case, install it too) in to the local (.) directory.

Once you’ve downloaded a particular game you want to host, you’re going to want to change some directory permissions, like so:

sudo chmod -R 755 steam

Now that you’ve gotten the game downloaded, you launch a dedicated server like so:

./srcds_run -game cstrike +maxplayers 16 -autoupdate

That will launch Counter Strike Source, set the max players to 16 and update as necessary.  You can also specifiy a map, located in the cstrike/maps directory by adding -map de_mapname.  Leave off the file extension when you do this.  To see all of the maps, do this from the steam directory.

cd cstrike/maps

ls | grep *.bsp

if you go up one directory (cd ..) you can look at maplist.txt to see all of the maps available.  There’s also a mapcycle.txt which I’m assuming is how the server knows to move through maps.

I do know you can set a specific port with the +port 12345 command where 12345 would be the desired port number.

Now you and I are both up to the same level of understanding on this.  I’d love to delve further into it, and love even more to know how to get statistics (number of players connected, which map is currently running, etc.) or some sort of GUI control panel.  And how do you ban J. Random Asshat players?

If you discover more, please let me know!

Technorati Tags: half life 2, counter strike, steam, valve, dedicated server, multiplayer, linux, ubuntu, how to, video games

The Way Toys Work is a book that explores the origins and inner workings of 50 popular toys.  A guide on how to recreate simple versions of each toy is also included, as well as various science experiments that can be performed with them.

The book is divided into 50 chapters - one for each toy.  Each chapter includes sections on history, function, dismantlement, and duplication.

My opinion of this book oscillated between excitement and disappointment.  But as I eventually recognized the goal of the authors and who their target audience was, I became very satisfied with the book.

The Pros

What the book does especially well is describe the origins of each toy.  I was a little shocked to discover how many popular toys were created by people with no toy-making experience.  I found the histories genuinely interesting.  I also enjoyed the in-depth explanations of how many of the toys worked, especially ones that involved scientific principles more complex than gravity and aerodynamics (the Dunking Bird is powered by methylene chloride vapor, for example).

The Cons

It is difficult to tell who would best benefit from reading this book.  The brief histories and simple related crafts would best benefit school children, but the in-depth scientific analyses would frequently be over their heads and better suited for older geeks.  Also, each chapter is disconnected and it is sometimes difficult to read the book for more than a few chapters.  I found it best to leave the book sitting out and read a chapter or two when I was bored.

I eventually decided that this book has a place both in the classroom and at home.  Children can benefit from the brief explanations of how their favorite toys work, and adults can benefit from the interesting backgrounds and inner workings of their childhood playthings.

I would certainly recommend this book to geeks of all ages.

The Stats

Title: The Way Toys Work: The Science Behind the Magic 8 Ball, Etch A Sketch, Boomerang, and More
Author(s): Ed and Woody Sobey
ISBN10: 1556527454
ISBN13: 978-1556527456
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Cost: $10.17 (from Amazon)
Format: Paperback, 178 pages
Published: May 1, 2008

Technorati Tags: books, book reviews, The Way Toys Work, The Way Toys Work: The Science Behind the Magic 8 Ball, Etch A Sketch, Boomerang, and More, Ed Sobey, Woody Sobey

Technorati Tags: lifehacker, windows, optimization, myths, debunked, debunking, tweaks, registry cleaners, prefetch

Error removing file: Permission denied

I like computers but I’m not a big fan of when they talk back.  So here’s a quick and easy way to go into your system and nuke those files.

First, open up a terminal session (Applications-> Accessoris ->Terminal)

Now, type this:

cd /home/YOUR-USER-NAME/.local/share/Trash/files

Typing ‘ls’ at this point should reveal to you the folders and files you’re trying to delete.  Now on to the nuking.  If it’s just a few files, this will do:

sudo rm -f *

If it’s files, folders and files within folders, try this:

sudo rm -Rf *

No more stuck stuff in your trash.

Technorati Tags: linux, ubuntu, trash, stuck, howto, geeks, computers

While Ubuntu (the distro that I use) and other distros don’t really use Superfetch, you can still get an advantage using the disk cache functionality - particularly if you’re running on a system that doesn’t have a ton of RAM available. This tutorial is written with Ubuntu in mind but can be easily modified to use with just about any distro.  And yes, there’s some command line stuff.  No, it’s not as guified as Vista.

First, stick the USB drive into an open USB slot. Make sure it’s a drive that you don’t mind overwriting.

Ubuntu should mount this automagically in /media/disk.  You’ll probably also get a nifty icon on your desktop.

To unmount this  - open up a terminal session (Applications-> Accessories-> Terminal) and type

mount

Now look to see where your USB drive is mounted.  In Ubuntuland it’s usually under /media/disk or /media/usbdisk.  On my system it’s mounted like this:

/dev/sdb1 on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=mixed,uid=1000,utf8,umask=077,flush)

The easy way to tell if this is the correct disk is to run the mount command before you stick it in your USB slot and then after.  The newest mount - well that’s the one you want.

To unmount this, type:

sudo umount /dev/sdb1

Of course, change the /dev/sdb1 bit to reflect what’s on your system.

Now, we’re going to create a swap file on the unmounted USB drive.  In my case I’ll type:

sudo mkswap /dev/sdb1

Again, change the /dev/sdb1 bit to what you say when you ran the ‘mount’ command earlier.

Now that I’ve filled this drive with a swap partition, it’s time to turn it on and give it high priority.

sudo swapon -p 32767 /dev/sdb1

That turns the swap partition on, with a priority (-p) of 32767.  Why 32767?  Well that’s the highest priority available.  Here’s the documentation if you’re interested.

You can double check that you did everything correctly by checking the /proc/swaps file:

cat /proc/swaps

My output is as follows:

Filename                Type        Size    Used    Priority
/dev/sda5                               partition    3229024    0    -1
/dev/sdb1                               partition    1981928    0    32767

You can see I have about 2GB of swap space allocated on /dev/sdb1

This won’t give you a huge speed boost on higher memory machines but if you’re using a laptop with only 512 megs of RAM you should see a noticable difference.

Technorati Tags: how to, howto, ubuntu, linux, swap, readyboost, geek, technology, foss

Getting music from ‘out there’ to ‘in here’.  There are several ways to go about doing this.  The first, and easiest is to hang around your favorite DRM-free download store, like Amazon.com or Rhapsody for starters.  See something you like?  Buy it!  You may also have a lot of your music on an ancient format, like a CD or perhaps a clay tablet.  Let’s say you’re looking at a stack of CDs that are sitting outside of your computer and you’d like to get all that music into your computer.

Grab the first CD you want to encode (and remember, this is for your one, archival purposes only copy of your CD.  Don’t sell it, share it or do anything illegal with it - or if you do, remember that I told you not to).

You’ll have to install a program called Sound Juicer to rip those tracks from your CD and deposit them to your computer.  Here’s a previous post on how to install Sound Juicer and enable it to rip to MP3 format if it doesn’t default to that option for you.

When you run Sound Juicer, I’d suggest saving all of your files to your Music folder.  You can find it at /home/your-user-name/Music, or click on Places -> Music.

In my 8.04 Ubuntu install, Sound Juicer wasn’t put into the Applications menu for me.  You can always hit the terminal and type sound-juicer but I like a menu entry as much as the next guy.  Right click on your Applications menu and choose Edit Menus.  From there, click on the Sound & Video menu on the left, and then click the New Item button on the right.  Call it Sound Juicer, use the command sound-juicer and the icon should find itself.  Click Okay and exit out of everything until you’re back on your desktop.  Open it up and rip some CDs!

Now, you’ve got a few CD’s ripped, you’ve downloaded all of Barry White’s music from Amazon and you also have a gig or two (or twenty) of music you’ve been carting around with you since your brother’s friend used to DJ, you’ve got to decide what to do with all this stuff.

My first suggestion would be to take the whole cart load of music, in it’s many folders and various locations and put it all in one place.  Ubuntu 8.04 has a nice place all set up for you called “Music” which we talked about earlier.  Not terribly original, but eminently workable.  The folder is located in your home director, under Music, or Places -> Music.

Once you’ve got everything in one place, what should you do?  I’ve been working hard at getting all of my MP3’s tagged correctly.  Tags are bits of the file that tell you and your computer what the song is, where it came from, who the artist is, what album it’s from and lots of other information. Improperly tagged music can cause a lot of problems for those who like order and organization.  It’s also the leading cause of MP3s showing up in players as “03.mp3” rather than “Sweet Barry White.mp3”.  (I made that title up, by the way).

So you’ve got your music in one place, what now?  Let’s make sure it’s all properly tagged!  If you’ve downloaded the music from a reputable site, it’s most likely tagged correctly, although it could have some extra information there you don’t want.

What about all the other stuff?  If you’ve ripped it and made sure your info was correct in Sound Juicer (default settings usually work) then you should be okay as well.  All the other files you’ve got laying around though, they could use some work most likely.

In comes MusicBrainz.  It’s a community run and updated music metadata site!  Wha?  Essentially they’ve compiled a list of music, musicians and albums and have made a way for you to use that information to correctly tag your stuff.

You’ll need to get get a nifty piece of software called Picard to utilize their services.  Go to System -> Administration -> Synaptic File Manager.  Once synaptic is open, search for Picard.  Find it, right click on it, mark it for install and say okay.  Synaptic does it’s thing and you’ve got Picard!

Again, you’ll have to add it to your Applications menu manually.  Right click on your Applications menu and choose Edit Menus.  From there, click on the Sound & Video menu on the left, and then click the New Item button on the right.  Call it Picard, use the command picard and the icon should find itself.  Click Okay and exit out of everything until you’re back on your desktop.

Now, start up Picard from your new menu entry.  You can do a single MP3 or load up a whole folder’s worth by clicking the Add Files or Add Folder buttons.  For this example, I’ll use a single file.

Click the Add Files button, browse to where your dubiously tagged MP3 file is and open it.  I’ll show you how this works, by illustrating tags with one song.

Once your file is opened, double click on it to see what kind of tags you have.  I’ve used a Bobby McFerrin song because he’s cool and I like to seem worldly.  As you can see, there’s only one tag, and that’s the file name.

Click Okay.  Now, back at the main Picard screen, with your MP3 highlighted still, click the Lookup button.

BAM!  There’s your MP3 info!  It’s like magic!  Or not.  Anyway, highlight the song on the right side panel and click the Save button.

Now you’ve got all the info you need for this MP3.  You can use the Add Files or Add Folder buttons to put up as many MP3’s as your mind can handle, and then highlight them all and click the Lookup button.  You’ll have to go through and save what you want but it sure beats manually looking up all this information.  This means opening each album, and saving the selected MP3s.

Picard can do a lot more but those are the basic tools you’ll need to get started.  Here’s the documentation for those who want to dig deeper.

There may be songs that Picard and Music