Archive through March 02, 2002
TV ClubHouse: Archive: Music File Sharing sites:
Archive through March 02, 2002
Crazydog | Friday, January 18, 2002 - 06:32 am     Does anyone have a good recommendation for a site to download songs by file swapping with others? I had heard Aimster.com was good, but it seems to have been replaced by something else. |
Pcakes2 | Friday, January 18, 2002 - 06:52 am     CrazyDog, you mightwant to try "kazaa"...you have to signup, but it's free. Here's the link: KAZAA or go to www.kazaa.com |
Oregonfire | Friday, January 18, 2002 - 07:26 am     I though you'd never ask, Crazydog! I use WinMX, and I burn cds all the time from mp3s I've downloaded from the server. WinMX I only have a 56k connection, but can usually download a song in 20 minutes if I play my cards right, especially of the other user has a cable or DSL modem. It also helps to reset your bandwidth rate speeds to 100000000 and 50000000, respectively, under the file transfers screen. Good luck! |
Spygirl | Friday, January 18, 2002 - 10:55 am     Morpheus is what I've used since Napster went out. Morpheus |
Neko | Friday, January 18, 2002 - 11:12 am     Morpheus is really good. They have lots of music to choose from and if someone cancels your download, you can restart it up at the same point with a different person. That's what I've been using too. |
Misslibra | Friday, January 18, 2002 - 06:03 pm     Crazydog, if it's just music files your looking for I would try AudioGalaxy I like it because it uses up very little resources, and you don't have to download a large program to use it. I have also heard good things about Kaaza and Morpheus. But I heard Kaaza has spyware which is one of the reason I didn't try it. But I have a friend who loves it, because you can download all types of files and games with it. Another good guide to go by before you download any file sharing programs is to read user's reviews at Cnet or Zdnet's ratings, and check out which ones are in the top five, you know do a little research first to make sure your getting the right program to fit your needs. I hope that helps. |
Crazydog | Sunday, January 20, 2002 - 08:40 pm     Thanks everyone for the advice. My brother told me to use Kazaa, but when I went to the site apparently it still works but you can no longer download the software. So I went to Morpheus because I thought the name sounded cool and I liked the idea of switching users if someone cancels you or logs off. Seems pretty good. Spygirl and Neko, I was just wondering why the time it says to download never seems to be the time it actually takes. Sometimes it tells me it will take two minutes and then when the time pops up it looks like it will take forever so I abort. MissL, I tried audiogalaxy, but I was frustrated because it didn't seem to tell me how long it would take or give a status update like Aimster did and Morpheus does. Also, when I downloaded Aimster, some stupid alligator icon came with it and I can't seem to get rid of it! I think it's called Gator.com. Not sure what it does but I don't want it! Oregon, didn't get around to using WinMx but thanks for the tip. If I get annoyed by Morpheus I will certainly switch over. Thanks again to everyone! |
Bigd | Sunday, January 20, 2002 - 09:08 pm     I use LimeWire |
Oregonfire | Sunday, January 20, 2002 - 09:41 pm     Plugging again for WinMx, been using it all weekend. You can also restart a download with a different user, and browse a user to check out their other music selections. WinMX also has an alternate server called Tricky that I haven't gone through yet. The download time and percent downloaded shows throughout the download, and is usually pretty accurate. I also like it becuase it has an "underground" feel to it, zero advertising, just bare bones downloading. I may try Morpheus myself just to diversify. Anyway, happy downloading! |
Oregonfire | Sunday, January 20, 2002 - 10:29 pm     Okay, now I've tried Morpheus, and it seems better than WinMX, in that more songs pop up for each artist (probably more users), and the download time is faster. Great recommendation! I'll probably use both. |
Oregonfire | Monday, January 21, 2002 - 12:30 am     Now I take that back. It entirely depends. I tried to download a Cult song on Morpheus, and it was going to take like 100 minutes, but it only took 15-20 minutes on WinMX. So I guess that while some songs are a very short download on Morpheus, others are very long. Conversely, most of the WinMX downloads are a uniform 20 minutes, in my experience. |
Neko | Monday, January 21, 2002 - 10:45 am     It all depends on who you download it from. The times are still from the person who first put it up I believe. But most songs follow the time it says, if not faster. |
Dahli | Monday, January 21, 2002 - 11:05 am     Has anyone had experience with Gnotella? I have been told to try it, but not sure if I should - so am looking for any input you might offer Thanks! |
Oregonfire | Monday, January 21, 2002 - 11:26 am     Here's the link. I'll try it later. Traffic is really busy right now on the net--attempting to download has been a real pain. gnutella |
Crazydog | Tuesday, January 22, 2002 - 05:43 pm     OK,I have been trying WinMx. Seems like there's a lot more selection than on Morpheus at first glance. Dunno why, but I just turned on Morpheus and it says there's only 37 users online. Now on WinMx, I'm not sure why it's taking so long to download things. I have a cable modem and I have been picking either cable or DSL and it still says it takes forever to load songs (close to 30 minutes). Does this seem right? Why is the k/b transfer rate so slow? I was thinking maybe something is wrong with my cable modem but I am able to get into the web browser right now, so I know that it must work. Confused. aack |
Oregonfire | Tuesday, January 22, 2002 - 07:06 pm     Try the instructions way below Crazydog, straight from a WinMX user (as mentioned in my first post). I guess that if you're using a 56k modem yourself, things just aren't going to go much faster than 15-20 minutes. The only time I've ever had super fast downloads is when I used a cable connection myself. The other person's DSL or cable modem will help, but not entirely make up for the prehistoric slowness of the 56k. Another good method is to wait until 2 in the morning to download--very fast, only hardcore swappers. I get the feeling that some folks leave their internet connections on all night, especially DJs who want people to hear their mixes. I got a very cool 20 minute trip hop mix at three in the morning. It took an hour and a half to download, but was worth it. I was shocked I didn't get booted with such a long download. I would also suggest downloading one file at a time for better speed. Conversely, you could take the Zen approach, download three at a time, and go do something else for a while--the "a watched MP3 file never downloads" theory. And finally, I suggest downloading all the time, any time, so that when you've compiled about 20 songs, you have a good selection from which to burn a CD. Making downloading and CD burning separate activities cuts down on potential frustration. Obviously I've put a lot of time and thought into this process. I think the original Napster was the best invention since sliced bread--and penicillin! From a text file circulating on WinMX: click limit download bandwidth. set to 100000000 bytes per second click limit upload bandwidth. set to 50000000 bytes per second click ok if we can get everyone to do this, we will all be cranking right along at high speeds |
Crazydog | Wednesday, January 23, 2002 - 08:10 am     OK I will try WinMx again. But I am using a cable modem, not a dialup, and things still seemed slow. I will try again using the new settings. Morpheus can be odd sometimes. I'm not sure why when I first logged on there were only 24 users available. Then half an hour later there were over 400,000 users. Strange. The thing I don't like about Morpheus is that you can't see what kind of connection the other person has. There will be identical files that are held by multiple users (same K, time, etc.). There's that little plus sign and if you scroll over it it will list all the users that have that file. Sometimes when I download one of these the other person's connection is slow, but there is no way to get it to switch to another user that has the same song that may have a faster link. Overall, can't complain too much though. It may be slow at times even with a cable modem but it ultimately gets the job done. I like your "watched MP3 never downloads" theory... so true. |
Misslibra | Wednesday, January 23, 2002 - 10:35 am     Crazydog don't forget you can put your MP3's into your Sims game. Then when ever they play the radio or the stereo they will be playing your music. |
Crazydog | Thursday, January 24, 2002 - 08:32 am     Misslibra, that sounds cool... I am still learning the Sims game, and eventually I will get around to learning how to do that! I'm still trying out how to get them to wear different outfits and skins that I've downloaded, but that's a topic for a different folder! Oregon, thanks for the tip on the bandwidth settings. I tried WinMx again last night, and I must say I liked it. What I liked best about it in comparison to Morpheus was the ability to select a user with a faster connection, and if for some reason they were slow, to choose a different user. I am not sure why Morpheus doesn't let you switch around if you find your downloading a tad slow. Also, maybe it was my imagination but it seemed that WinMx had more available songs... unlike Morpheus I couldn't find information on how many users and files were connected. I think there are both good and not so good aspects to both programs. I still like Morpheus's file arrangement better, I like how it organizes files in your folder by artist, etc. Also, I like the playback control bar better in Morpheus. WinMx seems to use the default Microsoft player, which I don't care for. So what I did last night was download through WinMx and then copy the file to the Morpheus folder. I will probably continue to use some combination of both. Thanks everyone for all the tips. Oh, question. (BTW I have found that downloading songs can be just as addictive as the Sims or internet browsing!) This is kind of stupid and ignorant, but I was just wondering how all these files get out there in the first place. Obviously at some point there was an original source mp3 file that has gotten downloaded repeatedly. Where are these files coming from? Does someone find them on an official site, or does someone take their CD and load it onto their computer? How do they convert a song on a CD to an MP3 format? There are some CDs that I'd think would be nice to get into circulation (part of my way of contributing... I've certainly been more of a taker and not a giver so far) but I don't know how to do it. Also, how do I burn the songs onto a CD? A friend of mine who used to do this for me before I got this new computer was saying she had to convert the mp3 files to wav format first. After that I don't know how they get onto the CD. But when I got Morpheus I thought there was a program to burn mp3s directly onto CDs. Pardon my ignorance, I'm kind of a tech idiot so the fact that I even know these terms amazes me.  |
Labmouse | Thursday, January 24, 2002 - 09:37 am     Crazydog, you didn't mention whether or not your computer has a CD burner. Most recent CD creation software is capable of doing any of the operations you mentioned above. If you load Mp3s for "burning", then the software will convert them to Wavs first. If you "rip" your own CDs into Mp3s, then make sure you pick out a compression rate that is CD quality (128, 160, etc.). If you burn to a CDR (non-rewriteable) disk, you will be able to playback on any CD player or DVD player. If you burn to a CDRW (rewriteable), then you can only playback on players that support the CDRW format. |
Crazydog | Thursday, January 24, 2002 - 12:15 pm     I have a CD-RW drive, and I will probably burn the mp3s to CDR disks so they will play in my car, etc. Is there any advantage to burning to the CDRW disks other than that you can reuse them? It seems CDR are so cheap anyways, maybe 50 cents a piece if you buy in quantity that I'm not sure what the point of the CDRW ones are. Do I have to go out and buy this CD creation software, or is it included somewhere on my computer when they installed a CD-RW drive? There is that program I downloaded along with Morpheus but I am not sure exactly what it does, and if it can "rip" CDs to mp3s. Someone told me that to burn things onto CDs, if you have a CD-RW drive, you simply select the file in windows explorer and click save and save it to the D drive. Can't be that easy, can it? |
Oregonfire | Thursday, January 24, 2002 - 12:50 pm     My CD burning software came with my computer--I wasted about 3 CDs before I figured out how to use it properly. It works like a charm now though. It's called the Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4. From what I've seen on the internet, the software runs about $80. That's too much. Maybe you could get it used on E-Bay. I could even put the Adaptec files onto a CD and mail it to you, though I'm not sure if that works (?). I'm hoping that you have burning capabilites; the manual that came with your computer should mention it somewhere. |
Labmouse | Thursday, January 24, 2002 - 01:58 pm     I use the CDRW (rewriteables) for burning data that is subject to change or revision (usually documents and such)...sort of like monster capacity floppy disks. I agree that at .$50, CDRs always seem like the way to go. They will record anything. Some stores are just about giving them away for free with the use of rebates. The "burn speed" for CDRs is a lot faster than for CDRWs (usually twice as fast). If you have a CD burner on your computer, you almost certainly have the software to go with it. Look in your Program Menu. Roxio (previously Adaptec) and Nero are popular programs. The software you downloaded from Morpheus is probably the Ashampoo Studio 2000. Yes...it will do any of the things you want (rip, convert, and burn). It is super easy to use. If you don't have the software, there are a lot of free programs that can be downloaded off the internet. The one catch is that they won't let you burn at maximum speed without paying a registration fee. MusicMatch Jukebox (free off the Internet) will let you "rip" CDs into Mp3s. It will also convert Mp3s to Wavs and Wav files into Mp3 files. It will also burn CDs. The Microsoft Media Player (free with Windows)also includes a degraded (limited features) version of Adaptec CD software. |
Crazydog | Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 04:12 pm     OK, now that I have decided on using Morpheus, there is a new version and it seems all screwy. Does anyone know what is going on with it? I have the new version now and I don't like it... there is no "player" and it seems you can only download one song at a time. |
Sage | Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 06:05 pm     Crazydog, I had Morpheus for several months, then last week when I tried to use it, I couldn't get it to load. Not knowing what the deal was, I just deleted it, then I found Kazaa, which is practically the same thing as the Morpheus I knew. I really like it, and I think you will too. The site is: http://www.kazaa.com/en/index.htm I hope it works out for you. |
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