How To Walk In High Heels: The Girl's Guide To Everything (30 page)

To download music from the internet you need to go to the web page or site where the music you desire is. There you will find the step-by-step process of how to download the track, telling you what to press and when to click. You need to do a right click on your mouse, select Save Target As, and choose the required destination. You can either simply listen online, if it’s live-stream, or you can save to your hard drive and then burn onto a CD to listen to at your leisure, both of which you now know how to do.

There are three ways that you can download. Two are legal and one verges on the illegal.

Record companies make music available on the internet and charge you to listen and download it. This is usually done as a monthly subscription, with a minimum rate for a number of tracks. This helps the labels recover some of the money they have lost since the advent of downloading. As there are no overheads the prices are lower than in the shops.

Many groups have tracks that you can download from their websites. These are often live tracks or unreleased studio exclusives. So that ends the careers of the bootleggers. Whatever tracks are available is fully at the artist’s/label’s discretion. But there is often a little exclusive for the devotee.

Napster is a file-sharing format developed to trade massive amounts of music files over the internet. Lawsuits forced the original version to be shut down, but the Napster technology is re-emerging on a subscription-based service. It provides a forum for people to share music, like a chat room, and was, in its purist sense, meant to be an arena for unsigned talent to show their material, and for enthusiasts to share their finds. The idea was that you could donate copyright-free music and swap it with other people. But it got invaded fairly quickly by greedy, cunning people, who used it to download free copies of popular releases, which in turn led to a dramatic fall in CD sales. It had a crippling effect on the music industry and many artists were very anti it, as ultimately they lost out on their royalties. Now sites are carefully monitored, and charge subscription fees.

Heavy-metal group Metallica showed they weren’t as anti the system as all that ‘wild men of rock’ behaviour would have you believe. They have been the most vocal opponents of Napster. Admittedly, being very popular, and with a massive back catalogue, it meant they stood to lose a lot. But how many eyeliners does a man need?

The hip-hop industry, although they are unlikely to admit it, supported the idea of Napster. The rebel site led to their music being heard by people who would not normally listen to it, and Napster is a main contributing factor behind the rise of hip-hop culture, and the popularity of R’n’B.

When Napster got closed down, hip-hop group Public Enemy showed their support of downloading music by making their new album available only if you downloaded. It was successful, but, boringly, a CD of the same album was released to the shops some six months later for the full retail sting, so the exclusivity lasted only a short while.

Since the demise of the original Napster, more file-sharing programs have appeared, such as Kazaa. The key difference being that this is more search engine than website. At the time of writing, record labels have come up with a plan to stop these newer file-sharing programs. There could be some interesting cases in the future as music conglomerates try to take ten-year-olds to court for downloading the latest boy wonder hits.

Know what an MP3 is

To get a decent quality, CDs use 44,000 samples per second. Notes and instruments can vary but the sound quality can’t. An MP3 can replicate the same quality, if not higher, of a CD, hence the popularity of downloading from the web.

An MP3 is a way of getting music from your computer to a more user-friendly format, such as a CD. And yes, the advent of the iPod has institutionalised it. It is, in fact, a much easier way to collect a whole library of sounds. It does this by putting the music into a data compressor so that it is all condensed, and you can get more music and more downloads faster and easier.

A full CD will occupy 650 Mbytes while an MP3 can compress it to 65 Mbytes. A super zip file for sound. You then need to get devices that can play your MP3 files and translate the data into music. This device is an MP3 Discman (its brand name), but it is a bit out of date now as everyone is opting for an iPod.

How to be cool enough to own and use an iPod

An iPod is a player for the MP3 files and is a mini-mini computer that is able to read the files and convert them to music without bothering you with all the technical wizardry. Music lovers will never want to listen to anything else after sampling this sound quality, and, best of all, it’s as small as a pack of cards, and equally addictive.

Because of their huge memory capacity and the speed with which they can read and download tunes, iPods have taken over the market place. In their mini or full size they are hoping to knock CD players off the top spot. And they are cute. They come in pink, gold, green and blue, as well as white and silver.

An iPod is the chic way of playing music, and is more compact than previous portables and is a lot less fragile. Its huge RAM memory means it is able to store thousands upon thousands of tracks, say 15,000 on a full size and slightly less on a mini. Can you even think of that many tunes? You can load all your saved or downloaded MP3s onto your PC, and then send or ‘import’ them to your iPod, usually using iTunes. In other words, an iPod can hold a pretty inexhaustible library of music, maybe not a whole megastore, but more than you will ever be able to listen to, so no longer do you need to lug around your entire CD library. Just don’t put too many tunes on or else you will never be able to decide what to listen to. Download your existing CDs, from the web or iTunes, and compile your own personal soundtrack.

First the iPod played songs. Then it stored your photos and podcasts; now the Nanos are super-slim, light as a feather and will download and play your favourite videos, as well as music. And there’s a host of fabulous accessories too.

Microsoft are in talks with music giant SONY hoping to invent a rival. Not only did SONY invent the ’80s equivalent of an iPod, the Walkman, but they have access to a lot of major artists. Combine this with Bill Gates software and the result could be very exciting. Whatever happens its clear that innovations are coming thick and fast and we can only win in the ensuing price wars.

Once you have selected the colour and the size, and you have taken your purchase home it is only a matter of time before you can be dancing to your trendy tracks in your living room. Set aside an evening to load up your favourite tunes, and get the little thing up and running. The iPod works with iTunes music software, but don’t worry: a CD of all this comes in the box with your groovy gadget.

iPods, despite being an Apple product, do work with both Macs and PCs. All you need to check is that you have a machine that you are able to plug in to the iPod’s USB port and that the lead is connected from iPod to computer. But before you get to this dizzying height, don’t skip the basics: plug in and charge the iPod as there is no battery here. If this is your first time, insert the CD into your computer and install the software. Luckily, as this is an Apple product, the instructions are kept, thankfully, simple and concise. Once you have clicked and agreed to all their questions you can start compiling your own soundtrack. It’s that easy.

Insert the chosen CD into your computer, and once you are online and the iPod and computer are connected, the CD will automatically be selected and taken to the iTunes option. Then the CD’s listing and track names will appear on the screen. You can select which tunes you want by clicking Tick or unselecting as you desire, then it will chug away and before you know it your iPod will have a copy of those songs.

Buying music online

The easiest, and therefore most sensible, way to do this is to go to
www.apple.com/iTunes
and click on the Music Store option. If you are hunting out something more obscure you can ask this site to try to locate it for you, or you can google more specialised, off-the-beaten-track sites. But if you do see a tune that you like, first open an account, which is done by clicking on the Account icon and logging the details that they ask for.

Once this is done you are able to roam the music store, like a child in a candy store, only this time it won’t add weight but a wiggle to your hips. Pick and mix to your heart’s content, and it will do all the importing for you. All you have to do is have good taste, and keep a vague eye on how many tunes you are clocking up as it might add up in your excitement.

Be careful, though: with both of these options you must not disconnect your iPod and go offline until your iPod displays ‘OK to disconnect’. If you disconnect too soon you risk losing all that you have spent hours selecting.

How to rock with your iPod

Once you are loaded, you are ready to go. Style with stilettos and shades for the ultimate cool. You can hook your iPod to your computer, with its special wire, plus the assistance of speakers; then select random, et voilà, you have your own mini radio station! Tracks you’ve chosen, sans irritating DJ chatter. So much more compact-bijoux than a stereo system.

But if music alone isn’t enough to keep you entertained – don’t worry. You can now also use your iPod to view photos, or watch a video, so it’s practically impossible for any trip to be boring. To flick through your photos, simply transfer and download a jpeg from your computer or digital camera. Downloading a video follows the same process as downloading music – though it will take slightly longer. Just be careful when you’re in the bath – at the time of print there were no waterproof models . . . though that could have changed by next week.

Another gadget to keep an eye out for is the iriver, a rival MP3 player setting out to take on the iPod. It has a built-in radio and increased battery. But this all depends on how long your jog round the park or house-cleaning requires background music, and how much you have to have the next big thing.

How to understand the difference between a Palm Tree and Palm Pilot

A palm tree is usually found on white sand and sun-drenched beaches, and is a picturesque location to drink your cocktail under. This is VERY different to a Palm Pilot.

A Palm Pilot is the popular version of the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). It is for those who need something that will organise their lives, keep their diary and contacts in order, and have it all accessible in their pocket. It’s information you can hold in the palm of your hand.

Just as Pinocchio had Jiminy Cricket, you can have your own guardian angel to remind you about meetings at nine, and lunches that you tried to forget.

The most popular applications to use are the diary and the address book. These are more useful than a filofax as you can download and synchronise your diary not only with what is on your computer but also, if you are really clever, with the whole office, so everyone can see how hard you are working and what you are up to. Although sometimes this is not a good thing.

You can also use your Palm Pilot to store recent emails and some files. You can even get newspaper headlines downloaded, to keep you in touch.