How to convert FLAC audio files to MP3 with Foobar2000

FLAC audio files sound great, but not every app or device supports FLAC and they take up a lot of storage space. Sometimes, you just want the convenience of MP3s, which are supported by many more apps and devices, including mobile phones and tablets. Mobile devices are often short on space, so even if they support FLAC, using MP3 files make a lot of sense.

If you already have FLAC files and would like MP3 versions, you can just convert them to MP3 with Foobar2000. It's a lot easier and faster than reripping all your CDs. Here's how to convert your FLAC files to MP3 with Foobar2000:

Step 1: Foobar2000 doesn't come with an MP3 encoder, so you'll need to download one to use with it. Go to the LAME MP3 site to download the LAME binaries to your computer. After you've downloaded it, extract it to a folder on your PC. We'll point Foobar2000 to that folder later.

Step 2: Select the music you want to convert in Foobar2000, then right-click on the selection(s). In the context menu, go to Convert, then choose the three dots to bring up the Converter Setup.

Step 3: Under "Current settings," click on the link to Output format, then choose MP3 (LAME) from the list of available outputs. Next, click on the Edit button to set your preferred MP3 quality level. If you also want to set a destination folder, click on the Destination link under "Current settings."

Step 4: Once you've configured the Converter, save the settings as a preset so you can use it again later.

Step 5: Click the Convert button to begin the conversion. The first time you try to convert your FLAC files to MP3, you'll be prompted to locate the LAME encoder (lame.exe) before the conversion begins. Once you've set the location, Foobar2000 will start converting your files.

That's it. The conversion is extremely fast, as you'll see. In our test, 293MB of FLAC files were converted to 85MB of MP3s in just 14 seconds. ID tags are copied over as well, so the MP3s will have album info and cover art as long as the original FLAC files were tagged.

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Five quick iOS 7 mysteries solved

Some aspects of iOS 7 are pretty clear -- swipe up to access Control Center? Got it -- while others, not so much.

In fact, I suspect that after installing the new OS (or buying a new iPhone that has it preinstalled), you're going to find yourself scratching your head over certain, shall we say, mysteries.

With that in mind, and fully anticipating calls from friends and relatives having trouble solving these puzzles, I've put together this quick guide.

1. What's the blue dot next to certain apps?

In iOS 6, when you installed a new app, its icon would display a small "new" banner across one corner. In iOS 7, new apps are represented by a blue dot.

That dot also appears when you update an existing app (or the OS updates it for you in the background). In both cases, the dot disappears after you launch that app for the first time.

2. Where did my pop-up iPod controls go?

Oh, there they are. iPod controls, that is. Hiding in plain sight inside Control Center.

In iOS 6, you could double-tap the Home button to bring up the lock screen with iPod controls (play/pause, track skip, and so on). Now, that double-tap does nothing, at least when your iPhone is off.

Likewise, if you double-tap Home when your device is on, you'll see you no longer have the option of swiping the open-apps toolbar to the right to access playback controls. So where did those handy buttons go?

Into Control Center. As I mentioned above, you can swipe up from anywhere (including the lock screen) and you'll find iPod controls smack in the middle of that screen. (Frankly, I miss the double-tap option, a feature I used regularly. Tap-and-swipe is a little more cumbersome.)

3. How do I turn a text message into a contact?

iOS 7 isn't all text labels; you still have to decipher a few icons, like this one for adding new contacts to your address book.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET)

Once upon a time, when you received a text message from someone new, you could easily add that person to your address book. You just tapped Contact, then chose the appropriate "add" option.

4. What happened to the swipe-to-delete option in the Mail app?In iOS 7 the procedure is a little less obvious. After opening a message, again you tap the Contact button (located in the upper-right corner of the screen). Then you tap the little "info" icon (represented by an "i" inside a circle) and choose Create New Contact or Add to Existing Contact.

To delete an e-mail (or text message), now you swipe left instead of right. Yeah, but try telling my brain that.

Want to delete an e-mail? Just swipe to the right and tap Delete. Except that doesn't work anymore, not in iOS 7.

Part of the reason is that if you swipe right from the left edge, you get access to the Mailboxes screen. I'm guessing Apple didn't want to confuse people with a "big right swipe" and a "smaller right swipe," even though that's exactly how Spotlight search is invoked now: swipe down on any Home screen, versus a "big swipe down" (from the top edge) to bring up Notification Center.

Anyway, to delete an individual e-mail, you now swipe left. That now brings up two options: More and Trash. Trash is obvious. Tapping More gives you four other quick-access options: Flag, Mark as Read, Move to Junk, and Move Messages. Handy stuff, yes, but after five years it's going to take some time to reprogram my brain to swipe left.

By the way, the same is true in Messages: you now swipe left to delete.

5. How do I force-close an app?

Pick a card, any card -- then flick it up and out to force-close the corresponding app.

Jason Cipriani already covered this one, but I think it bears repeating because it's such a sea change for iOS.

In iOS 6, if an app was giving you trouble, you'd double-press the Home button to access that toolbar (or "drawer") of currently running apps. Then you'd tap and hold the offending app's icons until it started to do the icon shake. Tap the little red "x" and presto, it's terminated.

In iOS 7, the process is much easier, even if it's not immediately obvious. Double-press the Home button to bring up the new "card" view for running apps (which Apple blatantly ripped off from Palm's WebOS, but that's another story), find the offending app, then flick the card (not the icon) upward. Presto: gone.

Have you encountered any other iOS 7 mysteries that need solving? Share your questions in the comments!

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How to create a system image in Windows 8

(Credit: Ed Rhee/womce)

Creating system image backups of your Windows PC and storing them on an external drive, optical media, or network drive, can be very handy. Reimaging a PC often takes minutes, as opposed to the hours required to reinstall Windows, the hardware drivers, and all your applications. It's also a good way to migrate your old hard drive to a new one.

There are third-party solutions like, True Image, Norton Ghost, and Clonezilla, but Windows can create system images too. Beginning with Windows 7, Microsoft began including a tool for creating system images and it's available in Windows 8 as well. To create a system image in Windows 8, here's what you need to do:

Step 1: Search for "recovery" from the Windows 8 Start screen, then select the setting, "Windows 7 File Recovery."

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee/womce

Step 2: Once the Windows 7 File Recovery control panel launches, click on the "Create a system image" link from the left side of the window.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee/womce)

Step 3: Choose where you want to save the system image. You can select an external storage device or burn the image to DVDs. An external hard drive would be preferable here, since a system image can be several gigabytes or more.

Step 4: Confirm that the backup settings look correct, then click the Start backup button.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee/CNET)

At the end of the process, you'll have the option to create a system repair disc, but you'll probably want to create a USB recovery drive instead. To reimage your PC using the system image, go to Settings > Change PC Settings > General, then click on the Restart now button under Advanced startup. If you made a USB recovery drive, you can boot to the drive, then navigate to Troubleshoot > Advanced options > System Image Recovery.

Once the wizard begins, you'll need to choose your user account and enter your password. If you get an error message that Windows cannot find a system image, make sure you've plugged in the external storage drive where you saved it.

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Save time and trouble with these 10 productivity tips

When you've got work to do, you don't want to wait for your computer to finish whatever system task it's doing before it gives you back control. Even worse, you don't want to spend a big chunk of your workday trying to get a balky machine to work at all.

If you're serious about squeezing every ounce of usefulness out of your computer, put these 10 productivity-boosting techniques to work.

No. 1: Check your power, check your cables, do some preventive dusting
Ask any help-desk staffer and they'll tell you the one thing they wish people did beforethey call the support line is to make sure the device is plugged in and/or powered on.

Second on the list of things to do before making a help-line call is to check your cables to make sure one hasn't come loose. Once you determine the unit is getting power and everything's plugged in snugly, go the extra step of swapping out the existing cable or cord with another, if you have one handy. Cables are as likely to fail as the hardware they're plugged into.

It takes only a few seconds to check your cables for a loose connection. If you've got a few minutes to spare, turn off and unplug your PC, open the case, touch the case to make sure you're grounded, and then make sure all your internal devices and cables are securely seated. Most importantly, get out your can of compressed air and bust the dust inside the case, especially the area around the fans and vents.

No. 2: Clear out your startup apps
Remember defragging? Disk checks? Most disk- and system-maintenance tasks are now automated or just don't improve performance enough to justify the effort. The one cleanup task that hasn't been automated is paring your list of programs that start automatically with Windows and the Mac's OS X.

Use the free Autoruns utility written by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell to take care of the PC equivalent of a spring cleaning. The Microsoft TechNet site explains how to use Autoruns.

Autoruns highlights in yellow the orphaned startup items; uncheck the items you don't want auto-starting, or press Ctrl-D to delete the entry (click Yes to confirm the deletion). To find out more about an entry, right-click it and choose either Properties or Process Explorer (if the free utility is installed).

The free Autoruns utility lists the programs that start with Windows and lets you uncheck items you want to prevent from auto-starting.

(Credit: Screenshot by Dennis O'Reilly/womce)

Mac Life's Corey Bohen explains how to remove startup items in OS X.

No. 3: Don't rely on your backup
Every tech expert tells you, "Be sure to back up your data and your entire system." What they don't tell you is that backups don't always work. If you really want to be prepared for a PC disaster, consider what you would do if both your system and your backup failed.

Store important but nonsensitive personal files online via one of the many free cloud storage services, such as Dropbox or Google Drive. Copy important and sensitive files to one or more removable media that you keep in a secure location, preferably somewhere other than where the PC is.

If you should ever have to start from scratch, you'll need more than just your important files. You'll also need to reinstall your software. Use the Belarc Advisor program (free for non-commercial use) to find and print a list of your software, complete with the license numbers you'll need to reinstall them.

After you download and install the utility, you're asked whether you would like it to check your virus definitions. Then the program scans your system and local network and opens a browser window displaying the scan results. Scroll to the section showing your software licenses and software versions.

Print a list of your software licenses following a system scan by the Belarc Advisor utility to prepare for reinstallation of your programs after a system failure.

(Credit: Screenshot by Dennis O'Reilly/CNET)

Press Ctrl-P to print a copy of the Belarc results page or to save it as a PDF file. To save only the software registration numbers, scroll to those results, select the information, press Ctrl-C to copy it, open MS Word or another text editor, press Ctrl-V to paste the text into a new document, and save the file in your preferred format. Print the file and/or save it to a removable medium.

No. 4: Don't store passwords
Thumbprints and other biometric authentication methods are not likely to replace passwords anytime soon. Until something better comes along, we're stuck with passwords. And there will always be people who make it easy for hackers by using obvious passwords.

The only proof you need that password-management programs are worthwhile is the fact that hackers hate them. The only alternative to a reliable password manager such asRoboForm or LastPass is to devise your own strong-password system.

In December 2011 I described a particular technique for crafting strong passwords that are easy to remember and to change regularly. Base your passwords on something you've already memorized, such as a phrase, slogan, or song lyric. Use the second, third, or last letter of each word. For variety, start with the last word and end with the first.

A longer password is a stronger password. Twenty random lower-case letters are as unbreakable as 12 characters that include numbers, symbols, and upper-case letters. The Microsoft Safety & Security Center describes another method for creating strong passwords and provides a password checker to rate the strength of your creation.

No. 5: Type, don't click
Windows users love the Start button, as I found out following a post from last Februarywhen I wrote that the Windows 8 Start screen is better than the Start button. On the Start screen, you just type the name of a program or file you want to open and press Enter when it appears. If you're on the desktop in Windows 8, press the Windows key and then type the name, just as in Windows 7 (which requires some arrow-key navigating).

Mac OS X's Spotlight works the same way. Either click the Spotlight icon in the top-right corner of the screen or press Command-Spacebar to open Spotlight. Type the name of the program or file you want to open, select it from the resulting list, and press Enter.

You can change the order of the categories in the results list via the Spotlight pane of System Properties; this option appears below the search results. The Apple support siteexplains how Spotlight works.

People's capacity to remember keyboard shortcuts is limited, but two handy keystroke combinations for searching are Ctrl-K to put the focus on the search box, and Ctrl-F to open Find on the current page. (January 2011's "Super Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts" lists several for navigating and resizing Windows Explorer folders.)

Bonus shortcut: In Word, type Ctrl-Windows key-V to paste plain text. To remove all formatting from text, select it and type Ctrl-Spacebar to apply the document's default format. This also gets rid of links.

No. 6: Restarts work wonders for routers, too
If your PC slows down or otherwise acts up, sometimes all it needs is a fresh start. The same goes for your network equipment when your Internet link quits on you.

First, turn off the modem you got from your ISP (the device closest to the outside connection), then turn off your wireless access point, and finally turn off your computer. After a few seconds, turn the modem back on. When the lights start blinking, turn the wireless access point back on. Once the access point's lights are blinking, turn the computer back on.

If that doesn't restore the network connection, call your ISP's toll-free support number, which should be printed on your bill -- a good reason to print out a bill if you pay online.

No. 7: Laptops belong on hard surfaces
The picture at the top of this post shows typical laptop posture. Unfortunately, placing a "laptop" on your laptop or any other soft, form-fitting surface while it is powered shortens the machine's life. The fabric blocks the laptop's air vents, which makes the internal components run hotter.

Sometimes there's nowhere to put the machine but on your real laptop. Whenever possible, though, rest the machine on a hard surface to ensure sufficient air flow and prevent overheating.

Some experts recommend placing a book or other item under the back of the machine to improve air flow around it. When I use my laptop at home I place it on an old serving tray; on the road a newspaper works as a makeshift laptop stand. (If your battery runs out, you've got something to read.)

No. 8: Start each browser session afresh
Everybody's concerned about being tracked, and for good reason. Most of us have no choice but to use the Internet, and you can't use the Internet without being tracked: by your ISP, by the sites you visit, by the advertisements on the sites you visit, etc.

The simplest way to be less trackable is to set your browser to block third-party cookies and to delete cookies and history each time you close the program. In a post from March 2011 I described how to block third-party cookies in Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer. Here's the nutshell version, along with instructions for clearing your history on exit:

In Internet Explorer 8, click Tools > Internet Options > Privacy > Advanced. Select Block under Third-party Cookies and click OK. Next, choose the General tab, check "Delete browsing history on exit," and click OK

In Firefox, click Tools > Options > Privacy and set "Accept third-party cookies" to Never. Check "Clear history when Firefox closes" and click OK.

In Google Chrome, click the settings icon in the top-right corner of the browser, choose Settings, select "Show advanced settings," click the "Content settings" button next to Privacy, check both "Block third-party cookies and site data" and "Keep local data only until I quit my browser," and click Done.

Note that whenever you're signed into a Google account, Google keeps a history of every site you visit and term you search. Also, sites may still use your IP address or other method to recognize you when you return.

No. 9: Change our default text size
I don't know if today's high-resolution monitors shrink text to subatomic size or my eyesight is getting worse or both. All I know is my eyelids are cramping up from all the squinting.

You can increase and decrease the size of onscreen items by pressing Ctrl-+ (plus sign) and Ctrl-- (minus sign), respectively, or by pressing Ctrl and rolling the mouse wheel up and down.

To change the default text size in Windows 8, type "control panel" (press the Windows key first, if necessary), then type "display" and press Enter. Click "Custom sizing options," make your selection in the drop-down menu or enter a percentage value, and click OK and then Apply. The change will take effect once you sign out and sign back in.

Change the default font size in Windows 8 via the Display Control Panel applet.

(Credit: Screenshot by Dennis O'Reilly/CNET)

Note that in Windows 7 the Display option appears in Control Panel under "Appearance and personalization."

No. 10: Use ZIP and area codes as search operators
What's showing at the local movie houses? Enter "movies" and your ZIP code in your favorite search engine to see a list of the local theater offerings. The same trick works for weather, restaurants, gas stations, hospitals, and other items and topics. Broaden your search area by entering a telephone area code rather than a ZIP code.

This is just one of the handy tips offered on Google's Inside Search site. If you're wondering where a ZIP or area code is located, enter it with the word "map" in the search box and press Enter to see it on a map.

Tracking is as easy as entering a package's tracking number or a flight number. Enter a team's name to get the latest scores. To broaden your search with a single character, put the ~ symbol in front of your search term.

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How to automatically upload and share screenshots with Dropbox

Dropbox has been able to automatically upload photos from your desktop or smartphone to the cloud for a while now. To make things a little bit easier for people who frequently take screenshots, Dropbox has just added support for automatic screenshot uploads. Here's how to set it up:

After your Dropbox desktop software has been updated to the latest release, take a screenshot. The first time you do this after the update, you'll get a Dropbox window that asks if you want to enable automatic screenshot uploads. Click the "Save Screenshots to Dropbox" button.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee/womce)

On PCs, screenshots will automatically upload to the Screenshot folder in your Dropbox. Pressing the Ctrl+Print Screen shortcut will upload the screenshot and copy the link to your clipboard. On Macs, screenshots upload automatically and the link is copied to your clipboard. To share the screenshot link, just paste it into your e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

If you change your mind and want to disable automatic screenshot uploads, go to Dropbox preferences > Import, then uncheck the box next to "Share screenshots using Dropbox."

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee/womce)

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How to check for and fix OS X boot drive errors

If you are concerned about your Mac starting to run slow or become unstable, you may have looked into regularly running maintenance routines to clear caches, log files, and other temporary items from your system. You may have even seen advertisements for programs that automate these tasks. While such routines can be beneficial if a system is experiencing slowdowns, and should not adversely affect the system if implemented correctly, there is potential for something to go awry. This is especially true if you use an outdated version of these software packages that may have a bug or two in it.

While periodic maintenance of your Mac is usually not necessary to keep it running in top shape, one exception is periodically checking your hard drive for errors.

If your Mac's hard drive is experiencing formatting errors, then the system may show slowdowns, failures to properly save or read data, and even file corruption, and eventually it may not even boot. Unfortunately, formatting errors can happen even if you've just been using your computer in a normal way, so even though your system may be running fine at the moment, it can only benefit from a regular drive check.

One way to do this is to simply reboot your system into Safe mode periodically, which among some other built-in maintenance tasks will run the "fsck" command-line tool to check the hard drive for errors and repair them if found. However, there are several alternative, manual ways to check for and fix hard-drive errors.

If you select both the drive and a volume on it in the sidebar, Disk Utility will sequentially run the partition table and volume verification routines (click for larger view).

(Credit: Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET)

The first is to use Apple's Disk Utility program, which is available in the Applications > Utilities folder. This is the standard and recommended method for checking the system's hard drive, since the graphical interface is quick and intuitive to use. Simply select your boot volume in the device list (this will be the name of your boot drive), and then hold the Option, Command, or Shift key and select the drive device itself, which will have the size and manufacturer in its name. With both of these selected, click the Verify Disk button and the system will check the partition tables and formatting of the drive.

Do note that checking the hard drive will pause writing to it, and since the system is continuously writing and updating data on the drive, this may result in the system hanging for a few seconds while the checking routines run, so do not be alarmed if you see the spinning color wheel cursor and cannot perform other tasks while this routine is going on. However, even if the system seems paused for a long time, the routine should resume sooner or later. If for some reason the routine seems stuck (which is rare but may happen), since it is just a checking routine, you can force-quit Disk Utility to halt the check and return your system to a usable state.

There are also alternatives to the Disk Utility program built in to OS X. These can be used either if you are logged in in Single User mode (after holding Command-S at startup to drop you to a root terminal prompt instead of loading the OS X interface), or if you are logged in remotely through an SSH connection.

Running "diskutil list" will output the list of devices and associated volumes, and show you their corresponding device IDs (click for larger view).

(Credit: Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET)

Two options for use in the Terminal are the "diskutil" command, and the "fsck" command. Both of these can be used to check the hard drive for errors, using the following syntax:

diskutil verifyDisk DRIVEID

diskutil verifyVolume VOLUME

In these commands, DRIVEID is the device ID of your boot disk, which usually is "disk0," but may be another value such as "disk1" or another number if you have multiple physical drives in your system. You can look this up by running the command "diskutil list" to show the available devices and their respective device IDs.

For the second command, VOLUME is some name that will target the boot partition itself, instead of the drive. There are three ways to do this. The first is to use the name of the boot volume, which should be surrounded by quotes if there are spaces in it (or you can properly escape the space characters with a backslash before them). The second is to use the slice ID for the volume, which looks like the device ID, but with an "s1" or "s2" appended. Since OS X systems generally have an EFI boot partition, this usually offsets the boot drive's slice number to be disk0s2. The third option is to simply target the root of the boot filesystem using a single forward-slash character. The following are examples of all three of these options:

These commands can be used to check the disk's partition and volume formatting (click for larger view).

(Credit: Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET)

diskutil verifyVolume "Macintosh HD"

diskutil verifyVolume Macintosh\ HD

diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2

diskutil verifyVolume /

When you run these commands, the system will check the boot drive and output status similarly to what is seen in the Disk Utility log window.

The final option is to use the "fsck" routine, which is similar to the diskutil command and runs the same checking routines, but is a little barer. Apple recommends using diskutil whenever possible, but sometimes diskutil may show an error it cannot overcome, in which case fsck may be successful.

To use fsck, simply run the following command at the OS X Terminal prompt, changing the volume slice ID to be that of your boot drive:

sudo fsck_hfs -f /dev/disk0s2

As with diskutil, this will result in an output that checks the various formatting database files and shows any potential problems.

If problems do exist, then you can fix them by booting the system to the OS X installation or recovery volume and then using Disk Utility there to repair them, or running the diskutil commands listed above again but using "repairVolume" instead of the "verifyVolume" command. To use the fsck command, you can run it with the following flags to perform the repair:

sudo fsck_hfs -fy /dev/disk0s2

Keep in mind that when booted to the OS X installation or recovery drive, the "disk0" ID will likely now represent the recovery drive instead of the system's main boot drive. Therefore, be sure to run "disktuil list" again before running the command to find out the proper ID to use.

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