[redshifter]

i'm having a couple of problems with winamp if someone could help me:

1) in the middle of a song it jumps to the next song.
2) if i dialup the inet, it automatically checks for cd and song titles, but stops the music until the cddb give the song titles, then starts the cd over again.
3) if i play mp3's or any other software based music it clicks very loudly between songs. i mean loud enough to harm the speakers.

i would just use window media player, but it sucks so hard i want to put my fist through the screen whenever i use it.

soundcard = guillemot maxi pro 64
computer = ibm aptiva p3 win me (yeah, i know, it is a long story)
winamp = v.2.7.7.0
cd rom = sony cd burner via analog

also, on an unrelated note:

4) how to i make windows and ie to stop giving me popups whenever i mouse hover over something?
5) how do i make office 2000 word not auto-captialize words at the beginning of sentences (i turned off auto-caps and all the grammar and spell checks: it still does it)?
6) how do i make windows let me select text without it automatically extending my selection over letters i do not want selected (make it select like macs do)?
7) how should i fight the urge to through this p.o.s. computer through the window?

 

[BeeEss]

Hey redshifter!

Winamp:
Rightclick on the player to get the menu, then go to "Options --> Preferences".

For problem #2, click the "setup" on the side, then turn off "check for new versions of winamp at startup".
For no CDDB, you'll probably have to click the "no internet connection available" button in the same dialog.

#1: Not sure. You might try "manual playlist advance" under Options. Is it a particular song or all songs?

#3: Perhaps a prob with winamp's output plugins? try a different one, you should at least have DirectSound and WaveOut, try whichever one you aren't using to see if that helps.

It might be worth downloading WinAmp 2.81, you can get it at
http://www.winamp.com/
Just click on the "version 2" in the top right corner.


4: Those things are called ToolTips, and they're annoying as hell. That might help you kill them if you are in the settings of a particular application. Mine still show up if I hover over an open window on the taskbar- it displays the full location or filename if it is abbreviated in the button.

5. Format --> AutoFormat --> Options... -->AutoFormat As You Type. Uncheck all that apply.

6. I am really not sure, but sometimes if it grabs the whole word you can try selecting from the opposite direction and it will grab individual characters.

7. you can't. come throw it through my window, i might be able to find a use for it

While we're asking questions, my WinAmp equalizer does not work. It's turned on and activated and everything, and it just doesn't work. Windows Media EQ works fine, and XMMS eq in Linux works fine also. I have reinstalled winamp and changed input/output plugins and no dice. Any ideas?

 

[redshifter]

thanks beeess!

that fixed the word caps problem. i've tried reverse selecting and it still extends the selected characters over ones i did not select. crush! kill!

there is no help menu info on "tool tips" "tooltips" or "tooltip" for i.e., windows, etc. how can i kill them? please, they must die.

Quote:

While we're asking questions, my WinAmp equalizer does not work. It's turned on and activated and everything, and it just doesn't work. Windows Media EQ works fine, and XMMS eq in Linux works fine also. I have reinstalled winamp and changed input/output plugins and no dice. Any ideas?

well, windows media player converts analog cd audio into waves so the eq can work. straight analog cd rom audio will not get eq'ed by winamp, only mp3, etc.

you can try a great winamp plugin called the shinapalooza eq or something. do a search for joe bloggs and winamp here and you will see the filename. it is a great eq, and might work better for you.

can i ask a couple other questions?

1) using sysmon i noticed sometimes my cpu kernel usage sits at 100%. is this a memory leak? is there a way to tell if a program is hogging memory, and how do i get it to release it? it makes my pointer all draggy, and makes me want to crush, crumble and chomp things.

2) when i use wmp, the cpu spikes at 100% and freezes the machine for a few moment when tracks switch. is there a way to fix this?

3) is there a simple but good program to play cd's in my cd rom besides wmp and winamp? i just want something that will play the cd, no fuss, no pretty graphics, just to play the ******** music for god's sake!!

4) can you recommend any programs to scrub websites of banner ads, and zap popup and popunder ads? i use popup killer, but it is slow and tends to hog memory.

 

[redshifter]

i found a great firewall:
agnitum outpost firewall
it is free, and can be set to filter out banner ads and other aggressive inet scripts. blocked banners show up as a text link "ad". sweet!

it is open code so you can write your own plug ins, and add urls, etc. this is a good program for those on dialup, as it saves bandwidth.

i also d/l'ed adaware, a program that scans your hd for privacy stealing software installed without your consent on your pc. i found about 50 cookies and programs that were spying on my inet usage with it, and deleted them.

 

[BeeEss]

A CD player (from Microsoft, no less) that is really really small and unobtrusive can be found in the Win95 (but it will work on all versions) PowerToys package:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/d...et/Default.asp

It's called FlexiCD, and I use it under XP; works like a charm. I'm not so sure I would install any of the other 95 powertoys as I am not sure which ones will work in WinME.

I'm not sure if this is the one you are using, but a friend of mine uses Popup Stopper Pro:

http://www.panicware.com/popupstopper.html

It seems to be pretty small; sits in a toolbar but only compatible with Internet Explorer. I don't use any of these yet... If I know I am going to be surfing places that are prone to lots of popups (a la looking for warez, etc) I just turn off active scripting in the IE security settings until I'm back on safe territory.

That sounds like a cool firewall program, I'm going to have to check it out. I was going to recommend Ad-Aware but it looks like you found that already... it's about the best of those type of utils I have run across.

On the tooltips, I found this:
Control Panel --> Folder Options --> View --> "Show popup descriptions for folder and desktop items". You should be able to get to the Folder Options from any Folder window, like My Documents --> Tools --> Folder Options. Try doing that first, and then if that doesn't take, you might want to check this out:

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winme/r1028399286

It's a registry hack, and I did the first part on my machine (XP Pro) and it worked great, now the only popups I get are over the Start button and any open windows I have in the taskbar, but it did get rid of all of the other ones. I don't recommend hacking the registry unless you have done it before, but the first part of that post is pretty easy. As for "Hack #2" and below, my registry was different than what he recommended so I didn't mess with it... your mileage may vary there.

As far as the kernel usage goes... that's really difficult to say; there could be any number of things happening there. My suggestion would be to cold boot the computer and watch the usage before you do anything else. If it still spikes, go to Start --> Run --> type msconfig and then OK. Go to the Startup tab and look to see what is booting with windows. All this stuff is running in the background on your machine and may attribute to the CPU usage. You can uncheck anything in the Startup tab and it won't start the next time you boot. Definately kill stuff like RealPlayer or WinAmp Agent or Office Startup (I have no idea what this does, but it doesn't affect office in the least to kill it), Kazaa, -- basically anything that sits in the system tray. There are myriads of stuff that has the possibility to be there depending on what software you've installed and how you installed it. If something doesn't work after you disable it, just run msconfig again and turn it back on- when the machine boots it will tell you something like "you are using selective startup" or some such nonsense- you can go change things if you like. If you recognize something in the list (ie videocard drivers, specific hardware drivers, services you WANT to be running) don't kill them. You can do this from the registry as well (all msconfig does is disable them within the registry) but it's better to use the Windows utility than to do it yourself- some of that stuff will just reappear if you kill it from the registry manually. If something goes haywire, you can boot to safe mode and run msconfig - turn everything on again and you should be good. You can get a good indication of how much stuff is running by cold booting the machine, then right-clicking My Computer, do Properties then Performance and see how much "system resources free" you have. Optimally, on a cold boot, you should have above 90% free. I have seen as low as 40%, the machine ran like crap.

On the wmp track switch thing-- I don't know, but I think that wmp uses CDDB also. You might make sure you have the newest version, it's available for free at Microsoft's website- just DON'T download the "beta" of wmp 9 -- it's not ready yet

Above all, it's a good idea to run Windows Update and make sure you have all of the patches, etc installed. If you're on a modem it is a drag, but just let it go one night before you go to bed. DEFINATELY make sure you have IE patched, as there are nasty little things that can happen to you if you don't have security holes patched up.

Hope all this helps, let me know how it works --- we're all in this thing together; one day someone will invent a computer/os that only does stuff when we tell it to.

--BeeEss

 

[redshifter]

beeess,
you are indeed a font of information. thank you again. i am going to try some of the tips you gave me right now.

i've really had it with wmp. i have 7.1 really despise how it hogs memory and handles music files and directories.

i'm going to d/l that cd player and give it a try. i'll let you know how the registry hacks and whatnot turn out. if i don't post again you know that i fried my os somehow.

 

[BeeEss]

Quote:

i've really had it with wmp. i have 7.1 really despise how it hogs memory and handles music files and directories.

I've always been a Winamp guy, back from the early days. It provides everything I need and nothing that I don't in a small, easy to use package. I just never did like the overall feel of WMP, but I do prefer it as a format for streaming media over Real.

Boy, I really hope to hear from you again as I would feel responsible (and really bad) if I gave you advice that caused a problem

Good luck and let me know what happens

-BeeEss

 

[redshifter]

don't worry beeess, i'm still here. i did the reg hacks with no problems. as a tester i've done things to pc's that would make any normal user cringe, but i enjoy it.

i think the memory problems i was having before might have been too little disk space left, and vm was not dealing. i backed up about 5 gigs of data (mostly .wav files from my music) onto cd and did a defrag, now things are running smoothly again. plus the hacks you gave me helped a lot to ease my frustration. that win 95 cd player didn't work, but that is ok. i got my aptiva keyboard with the built-in cd player controls to work with my new sony drive.

in any case, i'm still here, and the computer has not gone through the window, yet.

 

[BeeEss]

Quote:

that win 95 cd player didn't work, but that is ok.

Rats. I'll bet a dollar that XP is running it in compatibility mode. I never told it to, but that would be about par for the course. If you want to try my copy, I'll email it to you (it's all of 35k, and I downloaded it for free from MS). I never thought about the disk space thing, but that does make sense... even with 384 MB of RAM in my XP machine, it still manages to use a system managed swap file at around 130-140 MB.

Glad everything is working ok- BeeEss

 

[penvzila]

foobar! foobar2000.org

 

[blessingx]

Second Foobar vote.

 

[djgustashaw]

Quote:

3) is there a simple but good program to play cd's in my cd rom besides wmp and winamp? i just want something that will play the cd, no fuss, no pretty graphics, just to play the ******** music for god's sake!!

a third vote for foobar. virtually no GUI to be found.

 

[Lando]

Yet another vote for Foobar, but be sure to get the plugins you want/need, such as the alternate UI that adds a seek bar.

Edit: You'll need to get the CDDA plugin for sure, so Google for it.

 

[grinch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Lando Yet another vote for Foobar, but be sure to get the plugins you want/need, such as the alternate UI that adds a seek bar. Edit: You'll need to get the CDDA plugin for sure, so Google for it.

the latest version's installer comes with all of the above options.

foobar is beginning to sellout, damnit. my latest install took me half an hour to get rid of all the useless crap gui that's there. oh well.


p.s. why bump a thread that's over a year old? heh i don't think foobar wasn't even out at this time.

 

[jessica00]

foobar NEEDS a gui...badly