Productivity software

Commercial MP3s and other digital music files provide a wealth of information about the songs in addition to the audio-playback itself. This metadata makes it easy to display the track name, artist, album, and other facts about the songs in your playback device or program.

When you use an application such as the free Audacity audio-editing utility to convert music from LPs, cassettes, or another analog source, the only metadata accompanying the tracks is whatever information you provide when you create the digital file. There's the rub.

In July 2011 I described how to use Audacity to convert LPs and audio cassettes to digital. … Read more

A previous post, Six tips for managing your iTunes library, described how to use iTunes' "Part of a gapless album" option to ensure related tracks that iTunes treats as separate files always play in their intended sequence.

As several commenters pointed out, the tip doesn't work as I described. The gapless option functions only when the two sequential album tracks are played in the order they were imported to iTunes.

The fact is, once album tracks are added to your iTunes library as separate files, it's easy for them to lose their association as contiguous album … Read more

About the time my iTunes music library reached 5,000 tracks I knew it was time for a cleanup. While I was at it, I adjusted the volume on some tracks that I had converted from audio cassettes, made sure joined tracks play in sequence, set iTunes to fill my iPod automatically, and learned some handy playback-control keyboard shortcuts.

Now I'm spending more time listening to the tracks in my iTunes library and less time skipping, scrolling, and searching.

The semi-automatic way to remove duplicate media files iTunes provides two options for identifying duplicate files: one based on the … Read more

Twice in the last month I had to become reacquainted with Microsoft Office because a company I was working with required a genuine Office file. Both experiences made me appreciate Google Drive's simple, straightforward apps all over again.

Yes, there are tasks Google Drive's word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation program can't handle well or at all, but for 99.9 percent of the files I work on, Google Drive fits the bill nicely. Here are five ways to use Google Drive to shave minutes off your workday.

Keyboard shortcut opens a list of keyboard shortcuts After a … Read more

Some people still snicker when they see a coworker toting an iPad. After all, who can get any real work done on that Etch-a-Sketch on steroids?

Lots of people, actually. And as the quality and quantity of iPad apps increase, the devices inch closer to becoming workplace essentials.

Case in point: the free CloudOn program whose mobile versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint give you the Office 2007/2010 interface when working on files stored on the Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box online storage services.

Support for Office XML file types, and a ribbon to boot Speculation continues as to … Read more

Few business resources are as valuable as your list of contacts. It's no wonder companies such as Twitter and iPad app vendor Path are trying to get their hands on their customers' contacts--with or without their express permission.

Contacts are like rabbits: they tend to multiply whenever they get together.

In the past year my Gmail contact list has grown by 50 percent, not to mention the many updates and changes to existing entries. Contact-sync programs promise to keep the information in multiple address books up-to-date, but the programs I've tried create so many duplicate records they'… Read more

If you've ever filled in a Web form, chances are you have experienced having the text you just entered get wiped out when the page freezes, unexpectedly reloads, or otherwise causes the form to reset. Here are three Firefox add-ons that let you replace this lost text with just a few clicks.

Of course, some of what you enter on Web sites shouldn't be retrievable. The Clear Form History add-on deletes all entries saved in a search box, sign-in field, or other text field. And to see at a glance the country hosting the current site's server … Read more

Not many people use only one computer. In fact, most of us hop from machine to machine in the course of a workday.

The best way to make sure you can access your important files from any of the various machines in your digital life is to store the files online. If you use Google Docs as your online file repository, these tips will help shorten your workday.

Send a zipped copy of all your Google Docs files to your hard drive Most PC users back up their important files by copying them to an optical disc or USB storage … Read more

Who uses those receipts for e-mails read? Most people either block sending receipts altogether or ask to be notified before sending a read receipt (a default setting in Microsoft Outlook and other mail clients). So read receipts either don't work at all, or they require acceptance by the recipient--no sure thing.

That doesn't mean that we aren't curious about when the messages we send are opened, and when the links they include are followed. For most organizations, this information can be a valuable asset. The Zendio add-on for Microsoft Outlook tracks the messages you select and records … Read more