IMToo Audio Converter

Yesterday I wanted to convert just the audio from a movie in .wmv format to an audio file, and went looking for a free way to do so. I already use IM Too movie format converter, so this seemed like a good choice. IM Too offers a free download, which met my needs. The limitation is that you can only convert 3 minutes of sound. This was plenty for what I needed to do.

The entire program sells for only $23.95, so if I decide that I need to have this functionality often, it won't break the bank.

The use was easy (of course I was already familiar with the movie converter). You just import the file that you want to convert, choose a new format and destination, and then click the button.

The website says :
Convert between different audio files (incl. MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, FLAC, OGG, APE)
Extract audio from different video files (incl. AVI, MPEG, WMV, MP4, FLV, MKV)
MP4 to MP3 Converter to convert MP4 to MP3, M4A to MP3

I converted WMV to mp3.

IM Too Audio Converter

Recovering Lost Stickies

A few days ago I told you about a great little piece of Freeware called Stickies 7.0. But I mentioned that there was a bit of an issue with apparently losing all of your stickies on occasion. For some people (like me) who really use this software to organize their life, that can be a real problem!

The first time it happened I angrily headed for their support forum, and discovered that the recovery is simple. Ahhh.... something that works, and is easy to fix when it does break. Software doesn't get much better than this.

Here's how to recover if your stickies suddenly come up blank. First, you need to be sure that your display options are set to show hidden files and folders. To do that, click Start/ Control Panel/ Folder Options/ View/ Show Hidden Files and Folders. If your settings do not allow for these to show, the path to the stickies recovery folder will not show up.

Now click on My Computer / C: / Documents and Settings/ Your User Name/ Application Data/ stickies. If Application Data is not in the list, you have not successfully made hidden files show.

You should see a list like this.

Now you have several options. But before you try any of them, make a second copy of stickies.bak, stickies24h, and stickies1wk. This just helps insure that you won't accidentally dump those backup files yourself! Rename one of these three files as stickies.ini. Which one? Stickies.bak is the most recent. It will have the most up-to-date information from your stickies. Occasionally, this will be empty. In that case, chose stickies24h, which is all the data from 24 hours ago. As a last resort, stickies1wk is, logically, all the data from one week ago.

I have had stickies.bak be empty after a bad crash, but I've never had to recover anything earlier than the 24 hour file.

Stickies 7.0- Free, Great for Organizing Desktop

Have you tried the free program which places electronic sticky notes on your desktop? It's the only organizer program that ever really helped me keep all those scraps of info and a to-do list so that I can find them. And, it's free!

Developed by Zhorn, Stickies is a small, simple program. It does not write to system files or the registry. It simply stores text in an ini file.

You can set the colors of Stickies. You can arrange them anywhere on your desktop. They can be set to open at a particular time with both visible and/or audio signals.

You can attach one to a web site or document, and it will then only open when you open that document in the future. They can be sent to other computers which are networked, and a long list of other capabilities.

I've been using Stickies for about two years, and I'm really pleased. It does have one real bug... occasionally all the notes will disappear! This sounds deadly, but recovery is really easy. Tomorrow I'll tell you how to do that.

Stickies 7.0

Karteset- Basic Card File for $15

There are a lot of groups of information that we need to store for our lives that don't require a full-fledged data base. In fact a large db program just gets in the way of handling that information quickly and efficiently. A good example is a family address book. Maybe you'd just like to put a note on one entry that says "Paul's sister-in-law," or "ate dinner with them, Christmas 2001." A database forces you to set up fields for extra notes just to do what used to be so simple with a card file or Rolodex.



So I went looking for a very simple card file program for my computer. For only $15, Karteset is a great answer. In fact, you can try it for 30 days for free, before paying even that small price.

Note in the screen shot above that you can set a heading for each card, and add whatever kind of information you want to the body of the card. At the bottom is a space for categories. This is where Karteset shines. You can put any card into multiple categories, making it act like a simple data base. For example, in an address file, perhaps your son is also your auto mechanic. His card could go in two categories (which you create- as many as you want): Family and Services. In a recipe file a card could be put in categories for Dessert, Cherries, Chocolate, etc. It also allows you to search for any piece of text throughout the file. Subcategories are also allowed.

Karteset has few bells and whistles. But you can change the font, both size and color, as it is RTF based.



I've been using it for over a year. There are only a couple of things about it that are annoying. It tabs from the header to the category next, where I would prefer it to tab to the body of the card. Perhaps more importantly it does not automatically save cards or edits. You have to remember to save every change.

However, for the price, I am really happy with this little piece of software

Karteset