Category Archives: Uncategorized

puddletag – Cool MP3 tagger for linux

I’ve been using Kid3 for my audio tagging needs for a long time. The in-built tagging functionality of Rhythmbox isn’t suitable for tagging multiple items. Then UbuntuGeek tells me about puddletag.

Puddletag is the best tagger I’ve seen. It’s got almost all the functionality you’ll need to manage your music collection. The options include downloading tag data from various online sources and renaming the file names. The app’s still in its beta and the deb installer can be downloaded here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trending topics in Seesmic Web

IMHO Seesmic Web is the coolest twitter web client out there. One of its coolest features is deciphering the meanings of weird trending topics for us.

For example Zack Snyder was the top trend today. Being the ignorant boy, I was elated when Seesmic Web told me who Zack Snyder really was.

Zack Snyder

Sometimes it can make your day.

Installing abandoned software

The software the programmers have stopped developing, what do you call them – abandonware? When you’re going to install this certain app and you get to know that its further development is halted, would you still install that software?

Today I wanted to install this clipboard manager for gnome called Parcellite and went to its website only to find out that the developer has lost interest in developing it further. It felt like eating some expired food. 😐

3 ways I use Instapaper

Instapaper is a popular service similar to Read-It-Later. We are constantly flooded with links to new information some of which we’ll need to save and make sure we read them later. The solution is to add the pages to Instapaper.

Here are 3 ways I use Instapaper:

  1. Instachrome Google Chrome extension – When you stumble upon an interesting article click the extension’s icon and click Read Later
  2. Instapaper bookmarklet for Google Reader – When you’re on an interesting feed in Google Reader, click on the bookmarklet and it’ll automagically send the link to Instapaper
  3. Add To Instapaper option in Gravity – In this Nokia twitter client, each link in your timeline gives an option to add the URL to Instapaper, which is super cool, since you don’t get to read the articles most of the time from the phone

Whenever you feel like going over the saved links, just head to http://www.instapaper.com/u.

    New Twitter VIP release

    I had a chat with the Jack Dorsey of Twitter today and he said that the New Twitter that’s already out is only the public release and the VIP release would take some time.

    Those who have already got New Twitter won’t be able to enjoy the VIP one. Feeling sorry about them. Life’s unfair, mates.

    Moving back to Google Reader

    I was having a bad time with Google Reader and moved to Good Noows as I mentioned previously. Good Noows is really good except for it being exceptionally slow. I tried to bear it like a husband with a mentally ill wife, but I have my limits.

    So from now on I’m moving to Google Reader. Too bad Good Noows was not quite happy with the idea of a divorce. It doesn’t allow exporting feeds, so had to manually add many feeds to Reader.

    But being the self-centred boy I am, I didn’t like to go to Google Reader’s feet and apologize. Instead I made Google Reader a different person by applying the Helvetica Reader theme, renamed all folders as I had them in Good Noows and hid the Unread Posts counts which were giving me headache.

    So that’s it. I’m now trying to come to good terms with my previous wife.

    ezLinkPreview makes browsing in Google Chrome damn easy

    This wonderful Chrome extension has made my life quite easy, especially because I browse a lot of news sites. Hover on a link while pressing Alt and the link’s target page opens up in a popup. No more messing with the tabs. The popups are easily expandable and movable.

    This comes especially handy when you’re in  a news site and have to open new tabs for each news item you want to read.

    Download link

    Here’s a screenshot to give you an idea:

    Solving the music library not refreshing problem in Nokia E63

    I recently bought this new Micro SD card for my Nokia E63 and added some dozens of songs into it. Unfortunately the in-built music library won’t recognize the new music. A message appears saying it’s refreshing the library but it doesn’t refresh even after hours.

    Later found that this had to do with some compatibility problem in the IDs of the MP3s. After a lot of searching I stumbled upon this post, however the command in there did not work so came up with the following after a bit of modification.

    Get the terminal and enter the following command: (Yes, you need a linux system like Ubuntu. Which sane person uses Windows these days?)

    find /path/to/music/collection/ -name '*.mp3' -exec mid3v2 
    --delete-frames=POPM '{}' ;

    (The above command should be a single line)

    Copy the  music files to the phone. Also delete the following two files which holds the details of the music library:

    • Private/101FFC31/mpxv1.mpd
    • Private/101ffca9/harvesterdb.dat

    That’s it. When you start the music player it should automatically add the new music to the library without any problem. Currently I have more than 700 songs with no issue.

    Swapping the memory card

    Bought a new 4GB microSD card to replace the 1GB card that originally came with my phone (Nokia E63). I was scared at the thought of reinstalling everything in the new card from the beginning. However I copied everything in my old card to the new one (via my PC) just to check. And you know what! It worked! Each and every app and setting remains as they were in the old card!