This will be a quick tutorial on how to use the Open Source software Virtualdub to add music to videos. I started recording some games that I’m playing for my game blog Take 9 and discovered in the process how it is fairly easy to add your music to the videos. Now this might be common knowledge for the video guys among us but everyone else who wants a clean fast solution might be inclined to give this method a try.

You do need the program Virtualdub, a video file and some sort of audio file. Now start Virtualdub and either open the video using the File > Open Video File dialog or drag and drop it into the program interface. The video can be played right away in the software. You see it twice because the left one is the original video and the right one the processed video. If you only change the audio they will look alike.

Click on Video and make sure Full Processing Mode is activated. Switch to the Audio menu and make sure Direct Stream Copy is active in here. Select the Audio from other file option and pick a audio file on your hard drive. It will be automatically integrated in your video and play in normal speed.

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Mix2Stix was primarily designed to copy random mp3 files from the hard drive to an USB stick or mp3 player to ease the pain of selecting the music manually. It provides a one click solution with a few comfort functions which I will explain later in this article. The user has to set four parameters after program start that define the process.

He has to select the folder from which the files are copied - subfolders are automatically included in the process -, a destination drive or folder, a size that should be copied and the file extension. The first two are obvious while the latter two require a short explanation. Size defines the total size of all files that are copied. If you pick for instance 1000 Megabyte as the size and mp3 as the file extension mp3 files with a total size of about 1000 Megabytes will be copied, never more than that of course to avoid the dreaded disk is full message.

The file extension can be any file extension which means you can also copy avi files, documents, images or anything else that you can think of randomly to the folder or hard drive.It is furthermore possible to add additional file extensions with the “;” separator.

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The UEFA Euro 2008 cup is just 20 days ahead and I thought I give everyone a head start by listing the possibilities to watch the games online. The tournament takes place in Switzerland and Austria from 7-29 June 2008 and will be aired live in many countries throughout the world. That does not help much if no TV is around and your team is playing. Chances are good that you can still watch the games if you have a computer that is connected to the Internet around.

Several applications will be needed to watch the games. The so called P2P apps stream different tv stations, mostly from Asia, which generally means that the language will be Chinese, but some are in English as well. I would suggest to download the applications as soon as possible because servers will definitely be overrun when the UEFA Euro 2008 begins.

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If you have a huge collection of mp3 you probably would have a hard time checking them for missing tags or other errors unless you are very thorough when adding new music to the collection checking them before you add them to the main directory. Most users that I know are not that thorough though because it would really mean lots of work to check every new mp3 before adding it to the collection.

Enter MP3 Check. This little tool can check a directory - and its subdirectories - full of mp3s taking roughly 10 seconds for every 1000 mp3s in the directory. The program checks for undefined Id3v1 and Id3v2 tags, insufficient bit rates (CBR and VBR), insufficient sample rates, channel modes, volume gain and unordinary mp3.

The values that are checked can be edited in the left pane of the main window. Default values are for instance 128 Kbps to 230 Kbps for the bit rate checks and 44100 Hz for the sample rate check. It’s easy to adjust the values to your needs.

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If your home computer runs 24/7, there’s a strong chance that you use it to access the music stored on your hard drive when you’re at work, on vacation, etc. Even if you haven’t gotten around to it yet, you might be looking for something that gives you this functionality.

One program that has caught my attention in this sphere is SimplifyMedia. This is a new program which looks quite promising. How does it work? Once you download and install the application, it allows you to share your music libraries on iTunes and Winamp. You can set-up your account and share it with up to 30 friends. Of course, your work address will be one of those friends. However, since you can choose the others, you have access to a wide range of music.

The program also lets you access your library through your iPhone or iPod Touch. Just download the SimplifyMedia app for the iPhone and install it. A word of caution: your iPhone needs to jailbroken before installing the app. Then, you can use a local wi-fi connection to access your music. The iPhone integration is definitely this program’s biggest asset.

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