Tag: SOUND

While this slick little HTML5 audio player might not pack all of the features of your favorite desktop media application, it's still a very cool demonstration of what a Web app can do with access to local resources -- like MP3 and OGG files. Just fire up http://antimatter15.github.com/player/player.html in your HTML5-compatible browser and browse to the topmost folder in your music ...

Songza is an online-radio site that's been around for a while; I've (very) occasionally been using it for the past two years or so. Up until today, the site's forte was its search feature. You could very easily find a specific track and play it – kind of like what Sad Steve does. But the new Songza is something completely different; they've switched to a "stations" model, where you can ...

Quick! Think of the most tired video game concept you can possibly think of. If you're as old as me, you probably thought about Pong. Fun in its day, Pong is now almost a joke when compared to the modern video games of the early 1990's. But, what if you flip the concept on its head, and instead of controlling the paddle, you control the ball? This is one of my favorite trends of late: taking a ...

It happens to everyone with a laptop at some point. You turn on your computer in a library, in a café, or even at home when someone's sleeping, and your blaring startup sound plays for all in the room to hear. Not cool, people. An app called Auto Mute can save you the embarrassment of this little faux-pas by turning off your Windows startup sounds automatically. Not only will your ...

If you're a podcaster, an interviewer, or anyone who works with spoken-word audio files, The Levelator is a must-download. This cross-platform app automatically evens out the levels of different voices in your audio files, making your recordings a lot more listenable. The Levelator is especially important when you've got people calling in via Skype or old-school telephone, but it also comes in ...

We've noticed a meme traveling around Twitter lately that seems to be making people's days at the office a little more fun. Or, depending on how you look at it, making their coworkers' days just a little more annoying. What is this life-changing trend? Old-school sound effects buttons. If you need a drummer to punctuate all your snappy remarks, like some kind of quirky late-night talk show host, ...

In this day and age, who has time for reading? You don't -- obviously. There's this site out there called PimpMyNews and it reads blogs aloud for you using text-to-speech software. You can even listen to the stories on an iPhone or iPod Touch through the site, and the service will even let you transfer stories onto your regular ol' iPod. Despite being perfect for those too busy (lazy?) to read ...

As a music fan, sometimes you feel as if you have heard it all. Every music playing application feels generally the same without too much difference. One music playing application stands out in this regard. MXplay is a different kind of music experience, in that it allows you to move the speakers, thus altering the sound in it's 2D panel (as seen in the gallery below). You can also move your head ...

This time waster isn't a game... it's more like a web toy. Neave Audio / Visual is a web-based audio visualizer, using Flash to access either your microphone or wave-in port. The visualizations are simple, but effective. They're not going to win any awards for being super flashy, but unlike many other audio visualizations, these ones very obviously react to sound. It's particularly enjoyable to ...

If you've ever tried to record streaming audio in Windows, like a Skype call or a webcast, you may be aware of a simple setting that allows you to record any sound playing through your computer's sound card. All you have to do is: Select your sound properties through the control panel or the sound icon in your system tray. Click on the properties tab. Check the recording box. Make sure ...

Awhile back I reported that Microsoft was considering making it impossible to disable the Windows Vista startup sound, short of physically turning off your speakers. I'm still getting comments on that post. Happily, Microsoft has reversed its position. In a post to the Windows Vista Team Blog product manager Nick White writes, "We heard you loud and clear when it came to discussing our plans to ...

As a laptop user, I work in many different environments, sometimes with external speakers, sometimes with headphones, and sometimes (sadly) using only my laptop's tinny little speakers. In each of these different configurations I have different ways of controlling volume, or at least I did. Now I use Volumouse. Lifehacker pointed to this extremely useful little utility, which allows you to use ...

Hmm, this is interesting. According to prominent former Microsoftie Robert Scoble, Microsoft's current plan is to make the Windows Vista startup sound a) unchangeable and b) unmutable. The reason for "a" is branding. Having a unified startup sound on all Vista PCs serves Microsoft well, and Microsoft's Steve Ball says users will benefit from "a short, brief, positive confirmation that your machine ...

Since I've dumped Apple's email client for Gmail, I've come to miss a few minor features like having images accompany contacts in my address book and the emails I receive from them in the email app itself. As of yesterday, this is one feature I can scratch off my Gmail wishlist, as Google announced they are now rolling out contact pictures to Gmail, with some special sauce to boot. Not only will ...

Gmail's built-in Chat feature, which lets you use Google Talk within your web browser, is pretty handy, but I often find that a message has been waiting me for a long time before I notice the tab blinking at me. Gmail Chat Alert is an extension for Firefox that fixes that by sounding an audio notification when you get an IM in Gmail. Simple and effective. ...