50 Fixes for the Biggest PC Annoyances

Annoying Audio/Video

Don't you just love it when your sound and video files play without a hitch on your PC? That must happen once out of every 10 or 15 times you click the Play button.

Audio-File Conversion Overkill

The Annoyance: Roxio's Easy CD Creator is a great program, but it's overkill for converting a single audio file.

The Fix: It's crazy to spend more time loading a program than you spend using it to convert a file. Illustrate's free DBpowerAMP Music Converter does .wav-to-MP3 conversions (and vice versa) in a blink. Right-click a music file in Windows Explorer, select Convert To, and click either Mp3 or Wave. The Music Converter lets you change the output folder or rename the converted file. Visit www.dbpoweramp.com to download your copy.

Sticky Car-Stereo MP3 Adapters

The Annoyance: Whenever I tried to plug my Creative MP3 player into my car stereo's tape slot via a cassette adapter, the gizmo would jam in the tape chute. This became so frustrating that I stopped taking the player with me on trips.

The Fix: Aerielle's $35 AudioBug transmits data from my MP3 player to my FM radio. The gadget works with any device that has a standard 3.5mm audio-out connector (as most home stereo systems do). I choose one of four FM frequencies: 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, or 88.7 MHz. Visit www.aerielle.com for more information.

Volume That's on the Level

The Annoyance: I've ripped lots of MP3s onto my hard drive from my CD music collection. The problem was, Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" sounded so loud that it blasts me out of my chair, while the next song, Dave Brubeck's "Take Five," was way too soft.

The Fix: The trick is to adjust (or normalize) the sound level as you rip the MP3 to disk, a feature found in many audio programs. Once you've taken the audio track from your CD, however, the sound problem is in the player. Microsoft's Windows Media Player normalizes the volume of MP3s as you play them. Click View, Enhancements, Crossfading and Auto Volume Leveling. For a permanent fix, use MP3Gain, a free and very cool utility that analyzes and normalizes the sound levels of each of your MP3 files.

Recalcitrant Videos

The Annoyance: My struggles with Windows Media Player had me steamed.

The Fix: Formats for digital video abound, and each one requires a different playback codec (the program that compresses and decompresses the videos). Open Windows Media Player, click Tools, Options, Player, and check Download codecs automatically. Then try to play the video.

Still no luck? You may be missing the one codec you need. Make sure you have Windows Media Player 9. Go to Window's Media 9 Center to download the version for your system.

Bonus tip: If you try to play a video only to be rudely informed that you lack the proper codec, download Gspot, a free utility that analyzes the video and determines exactly which codec it requires. Once you have that information, head to Codec Central and browse the terrific collection of codecs.

Dry Video Streams

The Annoyance: I was going nuts trying to save streaming video to play offline. Windows Media Player seemed to lack that option, as did every other media player I tried.

The Fix: Most videos automatically save on your hard drive while playing in your media player. Once you've learned how to find, rename, and relocate the files for replaying, you can run them any time you like. While the video is playing, the file name usually appears in the player's title bar. Or find the file by searching your hard drive for all files that have a video extension. Select Start, Find, Files or Folders (in Windows 98), Start, Search, For Files or Folders (in Me and 2000), or Start, Search (in XP). Then in the 'Named' field (in Windows 98), the 'Search for files or folders named' field (in Me and 2000), or the 'All or part of the file name' field (in XP), enter the following video file name extensions (with no final period, of course): *.avi,*.mpg,*.mpeg,*.asf,*.mov,*.rm,*.wmv.

The trick is to find the video files right after you've played them (they disappear when you empty your temporary Internet folders), so search by date, looking exclusively for current files. In Windows 98, set your date criteria on the Date tab; in Me and 2000, click the Search Options link to set date criteria. In XP, click the When was it modified chevron and choose Specify dates; the default will be today's date. When you find the file (it's likely to have a temporary name in your Internet cache folder), rename it and move it to a new location. Once you've moved the file, you can open it by double-clicking it. See "The De-Annoyifiers" for information on saving Flash movies.

Videos Minus the Browser

The Annoyance: Some video files I played in Window Media Player opened a site in my browser that I didn't want to visit.

The Fix: The source of this aggressive browser behavior is a dreaded HTML script embedded in numerous Windows Media files. Brett Bartholomew's free WMPopKill utility turns WMP's scripting on and off like a switch. The program automatically downloads any patches it requires for some versions of WMP. Browse to bartdot.com to download your copy.

SuperCookies Threaten Privacy

The Annoyance: I was upset when I found out Windows Media Player uses unique ID numbers to exchange information about me with Web sites.

The Fix: To turn off the SuperCookie tracking in WMP 7 and later, choose Tools, Options, Privacy. Unselect Allow Internet sites to uniquely identify your Player or Send unique Player ID to content providers, depending on your version, and click OK (see FIGURE 3 ). To learn more about SuperCookies, go to Richard M. Smith's privacy site. And visit the SuperCookie demo page to watch a SuperCookie in action.

Media Player Turn-Offs

The Annoyance: Every time my Windows Media Player tried to access the Internet, my firewall (Zone Labs' ZoneAlarm) alerted me with an annoying dialog box. Even though I gave my permission, it asked me again the next time I used the player. Is it dumb or something?

The Fix: Dumb? No. Smart? Yes. ZoneAlarm was simply doing the job I asked it to do--watching for anything coming into my PC from the Internet as well as all things outbound. You can let Windows Media Player head for the Internet and never bother you again by checking Remember this answer the next time I use this program on ZoneAlarm's Alert before you click Yes (see FIGURE 4). But I recommend against doing so. Windows Media Player is a particularly meddlesome program, eager to help you download album covers when you play MP3s, or to use a unique ID number to report about you to Microsoft's Web site (see "Supercookies Threaten Privacy," for more on this). For your privacy's sake, decide case-by-case whether to let the program access the Internet. If WMP wants to retrieve a video you requested, fine. But if the warning pops up when you're playing a file stored on your system, have ZoneAlarm block it.

Write Files to CD a Few at a Time

The Annoyance: When I first used Windows XP instead of a third-party program to burn my CDs, I would open Windows Explorer and select a bunch of files in the right pane. Then I would drop them onto my CD-RW drive icon in the left pane, click the little pop-up that says You have files waiting to be written to the CD, and choose Write these files to CD on the CD Writing Tasks pane. But if I didn't wish to burn the CD immediately--say, because I wanted to add more files later and then burn them all at once--I was out of luck.

The Fix: As you drag the first few audio files to the CD icon, ignore that pop-up message (it will go away) and drag in more at your convenience. When you're ready to burn your CD, simply open My Computer, Windows Explorer, or any folder window; right-click your CD-RW drive icon; and choose Write these files to CD. (Alternatively, you can write your files via the CD Writing Tasks pane: Right-click the CD drive icon, select Open, and click Write these files to CD.) If you change your mind before burning the files to disc, open the CD Writing Tasks pane and choose Delete temporary files.

Where's the CD-Drive Speed Rating?

The Annoyance: I was curious about how fast my CD-ROM drive was, but I couldn't tell anything from looking on the front of the drive, which told me nothing. I even opened the PC's case and looked inside--still nothing.

The Fix: I found the program I needed in Nero's nifty (and free) Info Tool utility. Info Tool told me everything I wanted to know about my drive, and then some. This freebie reports your optical drive's exact write speeds, the formats it supports, the drivers it's using, and its firmware version.

Road Tunes Without the Jewel Cases

The Annoyance: A friend of mine has a terrific collection of MP3s on his home PC, and he wanted a way to play them at work. He had burned a few CDs to take to the office, but what he really longed for was a way to listen to his complete collection at work without to schlep all those discs.

The Fix: No need for him do to anything but load up Chime Software's free AjooBlast Server, a cool little (about 80KB) program that lets you listen to the music files stored on any PC from any other PC in the world. AjooBlast is totally secure, limiting access to the folders you specify. You can't download your music files, however: They're solely for listening. The one downside is that if you're behind a router, you'll need to fiddle with its settings to open port 8080.

Volume Icon Goes AWOL

The Annoyance: I don't know how it happened, but the icon in my system tray that I use to adjust the sound vanished. As Joni Mitchell says, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone."

The Fix: You don't have to hire a sleuth to solve this mysterious disappearance. Open Control Panel. In Windows XP, choose Sounds and Audio Devices (if you're in Category View, open Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices first). On the Volume tab, check Place volume icon in the taskbar. In Windows 2000 and Me, double-click Sounds and Multimedia; and on the Sounds tab, check Show volume control on the taskbar. In Windows 98, double-click Multimedia; and on the Audio tab, check Show volume control on the taskbar. Whatever your version of Windows, click OK, and the speaker icon will reappear in the system tray.

Bonus tip: Sometimes even when 'Place volume icon in the taskbar' is checked, the volume icon still won't show in your system tray. In this case, uncheck the box, click Apply, recheck the box, and click OK.

Little Sounds Don't Need a Big Player

The Annoyance: I maintain a big collection of sound files that I use in my e-mail program, with different sounds announcing incoming mail from different people. But when choosing a sound file for this purpose, I wanted to avoid opening the 800-pound gorilla that is Windows Media Player just to hear the tiny files.

The Fix: WavPlay is a simple, free tool that lets you keep the big media players on the shelf. Instead of dealing with WMP, you can just launch WavPlay and navigate to the folder with the sound files you want to hear. WavPlay lets you set up to five shortcuts to specific folders (see FIGURE 5).