Photo courtesy of Re-ality
In your digital media journey you’ve probably encountered music files called FLAC, Ogg Vorbis or Shorten. Getting them to play on your Mac is pretty easy but playing them on an iPod or other MP3 player isn’t an easy task for the average person.
Instead of doing things the hard way – messing around with unsupported and warranty breaking alternate firmware, go the easy way and convert your FLACs, Oggs, and Shortens to MP3 and get on with your life. Continue Reading…
Photo courtesy of Erik Pitti
Despite being inside a phone, the iPhone’s camera is surprisingly decent and can produce some interesting photos. That said, there’s probably a large portion of iPhone owners taking under/over exposed, flash-bleached, visually boring shots of their relatives and landmarks.
Don’t let that iPhone camera go to waste! In order to get the best pictures from your iPhone’s camera, read the following tips: Continue Reading…
Photo courtesy of Cogdogblog
More than a media player and much more than just a phone, the iPhone and iPod Touch is handy for many different interests. Music Developers out there already had the idea of using an iPhone as an instrument for a while now and there’s a lot they’ve come up with.
You may not know this, but there’s actually a ton of apps out there for music making purposes. Continue Reading…
Photo courtesy of OS X
Our music collections outlast both our Macs and our iPods. As we upgrade or they break, at some point we’ll have to migrate our iTunes library from one Mac to another.
You may think that moving your iTunes Library from one Mac to another (or from a PC to a Mac) is tricky but actually it’s an easy process. To ensure everything goes well, you’ll want to follow each step carefully. Continue Reading…
Photo courtesy of Calu777
OS X is full of little features that are understated, yet extremely useful. Most of them are within less famous applications like Preview, Quicktime Player or Calculator. Sometimes you don’t find out about them until you stumble across them while working on something else.
I inadvertently found another one of these features the other day inside Quicktime Player…
Like it or not, there’s a zillion different file formats for Music, Movies, Text documents and Pictures. Sometimes you come across one that’s not standard like .MP3, .WAV/.AIFF, .JPG/.GIF, etc. In the past, you’d have to find a utility to convert the files from one format to another. You’d also have to hope that it was a Freeware or Open Source application. Luckily QuickTime Player will sort out your Audio / Video conversions needs, for free.
Before you begin:
On my Mac, I see the option for converting “Movie to Ogg”. I also know that Ogg Vorbis isn’t supported by QuickTime by default. This leads me to think that I can do all these cool conversions because I have some special plugins installed.
The first thing you should do, if you haven’t already is:
Download and install Perian and if you want to work with Ogg files, XiphQT.
Changing Audio / Video Formats within QuickTime Player:
- Open the file you wish to convert.
- In the Menu Bar, Click “File” and Choose “Export…”.
- The Save As: box will appear.
- At the Bottom, next to “Export:”, pick the format you’d like to convert to.
- If you need, clicking “Options” will allow you to tweak advanced settings.
- Click “Save” and you’re done.
Missing Formats:
Some common formats are missing with this trick, such as .MP3 and .AAC. To easily convert them in OS X, use iTunes. So, to convert an Ogg file to .mp3, for use in an iPod or other player, use iTunes to do the conversion.
Guiding, encouraging, and improving your digital life with Apple’s OS X.
My name is David Balogh and I’ve enjoyed using OS X as a part of my digital life as a musician, writer, web designer, amateur photographer, entrepreneur and IT professional since 2001.
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