Sarka Posted April 30, 2006 Share Posted April 30, 2006 It's time to tidy my computer, and with me being such a tech n00b I would like to enroll some help. Well, one of the big probelsm is my mass amount of programs, I have over 120 in my start menu So, after cleaning up my documents and sorting them all into basic folders, I am now trying to cut down on my programs. Now, I know nothing about which are the best programs so can someone please suggest whcih would be best for the following tasks (if money was no object, my Mum might fork out some cash): Sound editing software. Edits sound files in a similar fashion to Creative Wave Studio. A big wave of sound and you can type in specific times where you want to edit. Also, it must be able to convert wma and wav to mp3. Video editing software. Easy to import files such as avi and mp4. I want it fairly advanced, so I can do some pretty sweet editing. Stuff liek I can change each frame with effects, pasted in pics and the such. Coding software. Some program that can hightlight syntax (how do you spell that?) in PHP and C++ would be nice. Also one that can compile graphiccal C++ would be great! I could never get it working with DevC++. Infact that is all, but it'd really help if you could help. Also, any tips if you've ever spring cleaned might be helpful! I dunno, any input appericiated! EDIT: Oops, I completely forgot. I was thinking of trying to get a duel boot up type thing going. So when I go on the computer I can choose whether to use Linux or Windows. Is this easy to set up? And what type of Linux do you suggest, nothing more complex then Gentoo please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dieter Posted May 1, 2006 Share Posted May 1, 2006 By far the best sound editing program I have ever used is Audacity, but I'm not sure if it has .wma support (*cough*wmasucks*cough*). I learned how to use it and used to make my podcasts with it completely by myself, no help was ever needed. Just check out what each button does and you're off with it very very quickly. And it's free too! http://audacity.sourceforge.net Edit: found this tutorial: http://www.daniel.uklinux.net/tutorial/ For coding, I've always used ConText. If by highlighting syntax you mean colour coding certain key words, it does that for almost any language. I'm pretty much a total noob in coding at the moment so I don't think that this will be enough for compiling et cetera, it's more like a programmers Notepad. http://www.context.cx/ Video editing is said to be easiest with Adobe Premier, but that's a fairly expensive program. I use VirtualDubMod for simple stuff like format changes and recompression, but editing with VDM is very hard apparantly. And as for the dual boot thing, sure it works fine, as long as you install windows first and then linux. Linux'll plant GRUB on it, a bootloader. From there you'll be able to choose what you want to boot from. If you decide to format your linux partition, you'll have to use the Windows XP installation cd to recover the Master Boot Record with the 'FIXMBR' command to overwrite GRUB again. Ubuntu's good for ubernoobs at it, but it lacks some functionality, Debian is apparantly better, slightly harder though. Aptitude (program downloader and installer) is one of the best linux installing 'things' I've ever seen. So there, hope I helped a bit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bogbas Posted May 1, 2006 Share Posted May 1, 2006 And to help on the linux matter check this website. Click on take the test, and after answering few simple questions it tells you which Linux distribution is the best for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarka Posted May 1, 2006 Author Share Posted May 1, 2006 By far the best sound editing program I have ever used is Audacity, but I'm not sure if it has .wma support (*cough*wmasucks*cough*). I learned how to use it and used to make my podcasts with it completely by myself, no help was ever needed. Just check out what each button does and you're off with it very very quickly. And it's free too! http://audacity.sourceforge.net Edit: found this tutorial: http://www.daniel.uklinux.net/tutorial/ Oh cool, free aswell, yay! Also, I know wma sucks but I accidentally ripped my friends masive CD collection to wma's and they don't work on my phone, so I want to get them to be mp3 files! It's so annoying! Thanks for the tut aswell. For coding, I've always used ConText. If by highlighting syntax you mean colour coding certain key words, it does that for almost any language. I'm pretty much a total noob in coding at the moment so I don't think that this will be enough for compiling et cetera, it's more like a programmers Notepad. http://www.context.cx/ It's really nice, but I also just realized that once I get duel booting set up (hopefully) my computing teacher can help me and I'll get KDevelope with a live PHP enviroment onboard. I also think he said that the shcool computers were very similar to mine (he asked to see my specs) so he could probably easily make a Gentoo disc for me. So yeah, but it's really nice and I'll probably do my coding for my site in here, do you know how the output console works btw? Video editing is said to be easiest with Adobe Premier, but that's a fairly expensive program. I use VirtualDubMod for simple stuff like format changes and recompression, but editing with VDM is very hard apparantly. I'll look into it a bit more... Also, Adobe Premier is only $849 And as for the dual boot thing, sure it works fine, as long as you install windows first and then linux. Linux'll plant GRUB on it, a bootloader. From there you'll be able to choose what you want to boot from. If you decide to format your linux partition, you'll have to use the Windows XP installation cd to recover the Master Boot Record with the 'FIXMBR' command to overwrite GRUB again. Urrr, right. I understood half of that, and of what I understood it sounded good! I think I still have my XP installation cd... again, I'l llook into it so I can see a n00b proof tutorial. Ubuntu's good for ubernoobs at it, but it lacks some functionality, Debian is apparantly better, slightly harder though. Aptitude (program downloader and installer) is one of the best linux installing 'things' I've ever seen. At school we use GenToo and as I said earlier I thin kmy computing teach can hook me up with a copy, so I'll probably use that, I'll have a looky at Aptitude. So there, hope I helped a bit You sure did, thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie Posted May 1, 2006 Share Posted May 1, 2006 iTunes will convert wma's to MP3's for you, make sure you change the options before you start converting otherwise they'll go into aac's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AshMat Posted May 1, 2006 Share Posted May 1, 2006 IF you want to convert your WMAs in to MP3s i suggest ALO Power Audio Converter, 10 free trials, not songs, but you can open it, 10 times. I've done about 50 songs with it so far, it's relatively easy, but you have to do one at a time with the un-revistered version Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaggle64 Posted May 1, 2006 Share Posted May 1, 2006 To get rid of all your unwanted programmes simply use the Add/remove programmes utility (Start->Control panel->Add/remove programmes) - it'll tell you whats on your PC, how much space it uses and when you used it last. Just go through clicking on each unwanted programme and then the Change/Remove button that appears next to it to Uninstall. After uninstalling everything you don't want, better use a Wincleaner programme like Crap Cleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com) to clean out all the garbage out of your system left behind by all those uninstalls. It's a miracle worker for stopping things from getting sluggish. Use every once in awhile to keep things perky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarka Posted May 1, 2006 Author Share Posted May 1, 2006 To get rid of all your unwanted programmes simply use the Add/remove programmes utility (Start->Control panel->Add/remove programmes) - it'll tell you whats on your PC, how much space it uses and when you used it last. Just go through clicking on each unwanted programme and then the Change/Remove button that appears next to it to Uninstall. After uninstalling everything you don't want, better use a Wincleaner programme like Crap Cleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com) to clean out all the garbage out of your system left behind by all those uninstalls. It's a miracle worker for stopping things from getting sluggish. Use every once in awhile to keep things perky. This could take awhile.. I just uninstalled 18 programs beginning with the letter A! I have downloaded far to much stuff over the last year. Thanks for the other advice guys, I'm trying out everything you suggest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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