In this article I will show you how to install and use the clamz downloader for purchased music from Amazon.com.

Meeting the dependencies

First things first. I will be illustrating the installation on a Ubuntu (10.4) machine. You can alter this installation easily for your distribution.  I am going to show you two different installation commands, one of which should work on your system. The commands are (depending upon your release and what you have installed):

sudo apt-get install libgcrypt11-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libexpat1-dev

or

sudo apt-get install libgcrypt11-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libexpat1-dev

On my Ubuntu 10.4 system, libcurl4-gnutls-dev wouldn’t install. That’s not a show stopper as you can use the second command to install without that application.

Installation

Now that you have the dependencies installed, let’s install the application itself. We’ll be doing so, from source. Download the latest, greatest from the project download page and save it do your ~/Downloads directory. Now, from a terminal window, issue the following commands:

tar -zxf clamz-0.1.tar.gz

cd clamz-0.1

./configure && make

sudo make install

That will install the executable command clamz into /usr/local/bin/. You are almost ready to download.

Make it ready

When you purchase music from Amazon, your browser attempts to detect if you have the downloader installed. If the browser does not detect the downloader, it will then direct you to a page instructing you to install the downloader. We have to get around that. You can do this easily by scrolling all the way down to the bottom of the page (the page instructing you to download and install the downloader) you will see a line that reads:

If you have already installed the latest Amazon MP3 Downloader, click here to enable it for use with this browser.

Once you have done this your browser should save the *.amz file to your ~/Downloads directory. Now it’s time to use clamz.

Usage

Using clamz is simple. From within the directory you downloaded the *.amz file issue the command:

clamz -d ~/MUSIC AmazonMP3-XXX.amz

Where MUSIC is the directory you want the downloads to be placed in and XXX is the file name (it will be a random string of numbers and/or letters).

The files will then download from the Amazon site and be saved in the directory you chose. You can now use your Amazon MP3 files without ever having to have installed the Amazon MP3 Downloader!

Final thoughts

It may seem like a lot of work at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a piece of cake. And for those who refuse to use proprietary software, it’s a must-have if you want to download music from Amazon.com.

Naturally the first thing you will need to do is to download the Firefox source. Once the source is downloaded you have a choice to make. You can install Firefox for each user on the system (if there is only one user you don’t really have much to worry about) or you can install Firefox “system wide”. If you choose to install for just one user then place the source file in the users home directory. If you want to install it “system wide” move the file to the /opt directory (you will have to have root permissions or use sudo to do this.)

Now that the file is in place it is time to unpack the file. More than likely the source package will be in bunzip2 format. To unpack the file you will issue the command bunzip2 firefox-XXX.tar.bz2. (Where XXX this the release number you downloaded.) Once bunzip2 has done its thing you will be left with a tar file firefox-XXX.tar (Again where XXX is the release number.)

When you unpack the Firefox tar file a new directory will be created called simply firefox. This new directory contains everything Firefox needs to run. All you have to do now is issue the command ~/firefox/firefox to start up the browser.

Starting Firefox

Naturally you don’t want to have to start Firefox from command line every time you want to run the browser. What you will want to do is edit the preferences in either your menu entries or the Firefox application icons on either your Panel or your desktop. When you do edit the preferences you will want to change the command entry. The entry that came with the pre-installed Firefox will most likely be:

firefox %u

You will to change that to:

~/firefox/firefox %u

Installing Flash

Once you have Firefox up and running you can install plugins manually. For instance, installing the Macromedia Flash plugin involves downloading the Flash plugin, (download the source, not the binary) unpacking the file with the command: tar xvzf install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz, change into the newly created directory with the command cd install_flash_player_10, issue the command ./flashplayer-installer, and answer the necessary questions. When you are asked where the installation directory is you will enter ~/firefox.

You’re done. Now you can fire up Firefox and enter about:plugins to make sure the flash player plugin is installed (it will also tell you which flash version you are using.)

Final Thoughts

It may not be the easiest method of installation, but it’s the best when you want to have more control over your web browser. You will also find it much easier to keep up to date with both the browser itself as well as the plugins you install.

All three ways to display the source are not really comfortable although both Firefox and Opera use colors to mark certain elements. I prefer to use a software like Notepad++ or a real source viewer to display the sources of websites. This default source viewer can be changed in all three browsers, here is how you would do that.

Two changes have to be made to the Firefox configuration to add an external source viewer. Load about:config in the address bar and filter the results for view_source.

view_source.editor.path is the first setting. Enter the full path to the source viewer that you want to use, for example “c:\apps\notepad++.exe”. Double-click view_source.editor.external afterwards to set this value to true. The new source viewer will be available after the next restart.

Opera makes it a little bit easier. Click on Tools > Preferences. In the new menu on the Advanced tab and there on Programs in the left menu. Click on the Edit button next to “Choose Application for viewing source”. Check “Open with another application” and browse to that application on your hard drive. Changes take effect immediately.

Changing the default source viewer in Internet Explorer is only possible in the Registry. Open the Registry by pressing Windows R. Type regedit in the run box and hit enter. Navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer and create a new key called “View Source Editor”.

Create another key below View Source Editor and name it “Editor Name”. Now change the default value to the path to the source editor that you want to use from now on. Changes will become active after a restart of Windows.

The default value is 0 which seems to reduce the sharpness of the textures somehow. Changing that to the value -0.9 which is the lowest value that you can choose without being kicked from servers that are protected against cheating is effecting the graphic quality of the game tremendously.

If you have troubles opening the console try the following: Right-click on Team Fortress 2 in Steam and select properties. Add -console to the launch options. This opens the console by default and will bring it back whenever you hit escape in the game to see the menu.

Take a look at some of the before after screenshots to see what I mean:

The freeware that I’m speaking of is called MP3 My MP3 Recorder. After installing the application you specify the source from where you want to record the audio from. You may select from the following sources: Phone Line, Microphone, Line In, CD Player, AUX, SPDIF, Stereo Mix and Mono Mix. Stereo Mix for instance should be a great selection for most purposes. Once that is done you should fine tune the recording level for best results.

To do so take a look at the bar on the right side of the program window which should not peak into the red area at all times.  Once that is done click on settings to specify the bit rate for the sound that will be recorded (between 32 and 320). You may also set a time limit for the recording but the default is to record until you stop the recording.

If everything is set the way you want it to be you click on the (red) recording button to start the process. The buttons to stop and play the already recorded songs will become active once that process has started.

I think this is a great tool if you want to record audio fast and easy. The quality is pretty nice as well.