Web Design Discussion

Have you ever wanted to add music to your web site?
Do you want to add music to your powerpoint presentation?

It’s a very easy thing to do if you have Windows Media Player 10. If you have a PC running windows then you probably already have it installed in your computer by default. If not, you can simply upgrade your current Windows Media Player.

Definition of Ripping

Ripping means to copy music from a CD. When you rip a CD, you can either copy the entire CD or copy selected tracks, and these are created as files on your computer.

Ripping helps preserve your CDs because after they have been ripped, you no longer need to use them when you listen to that music on your computer. Simply start Windows Media Player, find the music in your library, and play it. You can also mix that music with other music in a playlist to extend your listening possibilities.

Steps to Rip Music from a CD to Your Computer

Requirements

Music CD
Windows Media Player 10 or above
CD drive

1. Open windows media player and connect to the Internet

2. Insert your audio CD into the CD drive, and then click Rip.

3. All songs are selected to be ripped if you have not previously ripped them.

4. Clear the check box next to each song, for songs you do not want to rip. You can use the check box at the top of the list to select or clear all check boxes.

5. Click Rip Music.

6. The first time you rip music, you are prompted to choose the format for the files being created. Click one of the following options:

a) Keep my current format settings. This option keeps your current file format and audio quality level settings and immediately starts ripping the songs you selected to your computer. By default, the Player uses the Windows Media Audio format, which optimizes the balance between file size and sound quality.

b) Change my current format settings. Select this option if you want to change the format, bit rate, storage folder, or other options. After you click an option, click OK. (To change the format or audio quality settings later, on the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Rip Music tab.)

7. After the songs have been ripped, you can find and play them in your library.

Choosing a Format

By default, the Player uses the Windows Media Audio format, which optimizes the balance between file size and sound quality. You can also choose one of the following formats:

-Windows Media Audio (variable bit rate), which can reduce the file size but may also take longer to rip.

-Windows Media Audio Lossless, which provides the best audio quality but increases the file size.

-MP3 format, new in Windows Media Player 10, which provides more flexibility when choosing a format.

Freeware for ripping CDs

FreeRIP
http://www.mgshareware.com/frmmain.shtml

Save audio CD tracks to Wav, MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis or FLAC audio files

Exact Audio Copy
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

Free audio grabber for audio CDs using standard CD and DVD-ROM drives

Resources

Quickly Rip CDs to Your Computer
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/howto/rip_how_to.aspx

DIY: How to rip a CD as MP3s
http://www.cnet.com.au/mp3players/musicsoftware/0,239029154,240057141,00.htm

How to rip a CD as a single MP3
http://www.cnet.com.au/mp3players/musicsoftware/0,239029154,240056800,00.htm

MIDI files are one of the easiest ways to add background music to your web site. They are very small and load fast.

Steps on how to add a MIDI file

1. Add these few lines of code to your html page.


<embed src="yourmusicfile.mid" autostart="true" loop="true" width="2" height="0">
</embed>
<noembed>
<bgsound src=”yourmusicfile.mp3″ loop=”infinite”>
</noembed>

This code is compatible with all versions of Internet Explorer, Netscape and Opera.

The width and height attribute used in the above code causes the player to be invisible.

If you do not want it to be invisible, you can specify your own dimensions to suit the design of your web site.

You can also use this code if you wish to use WAV or MP3 files.

2. Upload the MIDI file and your HTML web page to the server.

3. Turn on your speakers and check the sound.

That’s it!

Alternatives

For Opera and all Internet Explorer versions, the following code works:


<bgsound src="yourmusicfile.mid" loop="infinite">


For all versions of Netscape, and all versions of Internet Explorer you can use the following code:


<embed src="yourmusicfile.mid" autostart="true" loop="true"
width=”2″ height=”0″>
</embed>


How to Add a MIDI file to a Joomla Web Site

1. Create a new module.

2. Switch to “HTML view” in the “WYSIWYG” editor.

3. Add this code:


<embed src="yourmusicfile.mid" width="200" height="200" autostart=true loop=false volume=100 hidden=false>


If hidden is “true” you don’t need to set the width and height as it should be hidden.

4. Save the module.

Resource

Embedding sound in web pages

There are many different ways to add music to your web site. It largely depends on the type, size and quality of your music file.

Types of music files

1. MIDI files (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)

This is the easiest file to incorporate into your web site because of it’s small file size and loads quickly. The sound may not be of high quality compared to an mp3 file but for in most cases it will be sufficient.

One advantage of MIDI files is that most sound cards can play a MIDI file and a WAV file (see below) at the same time.

2. WAV files

WAV is a format for storing sound in files, which was developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM. WAV allows you to add professional recordings to your web site. A one minute WAV file can be as large as 1MB in size, while a 1 minute MIDI file can be less than 25K. Using software converters, it may be possible to resample WAV files to reduce their file size.

3. MP3 Files

MP3 files produce a high quality sound because they are highly compressed, don’t take long to load and have a small fie size. One problem with playing them is that you need to have an external player. If your visitor’s computer does not have a player he may have to download one from the Net. This means he will have to leave your web site. Many computer users are not proficient or afraid to download files (because of getting viruses) so they may decide to opt out and click elsewhere.

4) FLASH files

Flash files offer the most flexibility for adding sound to your web site because you can set the quality level. Flash file to be. Flash also allows you to loop short pieces of sound to create ‘continuous’ background music files that are small in size. Only imported WAV files can be looped in Flash, MP3 files will not loop cleanly. A couple of disadvantages for using flash files is that you need expensive software to create them and not all visitors have the flash player installed on their machines. To bypass this you can include the free flash player download within the code of your web site.

5) Pre-Made Flash Loops

These are files that are professionally recorded and can loop almost indefinitely. They are only about 20k in size so they load almost instantly and contain professional quality music. You can purchase packages of Flash Music Loops at http://www.flashmusictracks.com. They include all types of music ie classical, country, rock, jazz, hip hop, ambient, fusion, funk, ethnic. These pre-made flash loop files are also very small and will play immediately when a person visits your web site.

Conclusion

When deciding on the type of music for your web site, choose music that won’t offend anyone, loads quickly and won’t require an external player that needs to be downloaded.

Have you ever heard music playing when you visited a web site?
Did you have your speakers turned on and did you like the choice of music?

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I often get asked to add a link from my site to the links page of a site owner. He says that his web site has a page rank of 8 (PR8). I check out the links page and find that it is actually a directory of links most of which are unrelated to my site. The page is buried deep within his site and has a page rank of 2 (PR2). This has happened so many times that I no longer do reciprocal link exchanges. I simply delete any requests.

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