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  1. How to Convert LP to CD or MP3 for FREE

    February 18, 2013 by Karl

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    This article will show you how to convert vinyl records to CD or MP3 for FREE. This assumes that you have the appropriate cable, a computer, and a turntable to play the record. This conversion can be very time-consuming (about one hour actual time per LP), but if you don’t mind spending the time, you can save lots of money in CD purchases, or in sending it out for professional transfer.  My personal reason for doing this has been to convert the approximate 150 albums that I have into something I can listen to without having all this heavy equipment taking up space in the house.  Once I am finished with all of them, the turntable is likely to go.

    Some audiophiles will tell you that this method of conversion is not going to give you the best quality recording.  This is true, but for 99% of the population this will provide a very good quality recording, and we are, after all, talking about vinyl records with all their hiss, pops, and skips.

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    First, if you still have a turntable you are in good shape.  Others will need to beg or borrow from friends who still have this stuff sitting in their attics.  Check Craigslist.  You may be able to find one locally for free.

    The next thing you need is a cable to go from the turntable to your computer.  A laptop is very handy for this, but you could use any computer that you can move close to your turntable.  In most cases the cable you will need has RCA connectors on one side, and a 3.5mm microphone jack on the other.  If you don’t have this type of cable in your house, you can buy one locally from Radio Shack, or on Amazon HERE.
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    Now we need some software for the computer that can be used to record and edit.  For this we use a free program called Audacity.  Download and install the program on your computer.

    The rest is fairly simple.  Just follow the video below:

    How to convert LP’s to CD or MP3 from Frugalberry.com on Vimeo.


  2. Changing folders on a Joomla! website

    January 14, 2013 by Karl

    Sponsor:

    This article may not be helpful to many of my readers, but I wanted to post it to help anyone else who ran into the same problem that I did in changing folders on a Joomla! website.

    The procedure for changing directories / folders  in Joomla! is  fairly straight forward as long as you are keeping the Joomla! site on the same host server.  In this case you don’t need to touch the database at all.  Here’s the basic procedure to move from a sub-folder to the root:

      • Check to make sure the root directory is empty.  What I do is move any files into a sub-directory named “oldroot”.  Obviously you don’t want to remove any directories that contain your needed website data.  For example, if you have your website in the /joomla directory, you leave that directory in the root, but move all other files into the “oldroot” directory.
      • Now that you have an empty pallet, COPY (don’t move) all the files and folders from the subdirectory (/joomla for example) to the root directory.
      • Now that all the website files and folders are in the root directory, you need to change a few line items in the configuration.php file that now sits in your root directory.  Edit the following lines:

    var $log_path
    var $tmp_path
    var $live_site
    Edit each of these lines to remove the sub-directory from the file path.  In our example….
    public $log_path = ‘/home/content/77/8427977/html/joomla/tmp’;
    becomes
    public $log_path = ‘/home/content/77/8427977/html/tmp’;

      • Now browse to the root directory in your web-browser.  The front page should come up.  Try clicking on one of your menu items.  If all your menu items work you are done.  That’s all there is to it.  If you get a 404 error on your menu links, you need to go on to the next step.
      • Log in to the back-end of your Joomla! site (in the root directory).  Go to Site / Global Configuration and click on the Site tab.  Under SEO settings, check to see if the Yes radio button is checked next to “Search Engine Friendly URL’s”.  If it is, you need to do one additional step.  You can click the NO radio button and save the settings, but this will give you an ugly URL.  You need to change the .htaccess file.  Edit your htaccess file in your editor.  Scroll down to the line that says RewriteBase in the example above it will show as RewriteBase /joomla/ .  Now simply remove the joomla/ from the line so it reads RewriteBase /.  Save the file and all should be well with your newly moved site.

    I hope this article helps someone.  I spent about 10 hours pulling my hair out over this one (and I was doing it in the wee hours of the morning so I wouldn’t lose business for my client).