Kicking sweet Morpheus...

I think I was wrong about XP having a built in "agent" if it does I can't figure out how to work it.

Er...(ooh, those pesky dots) where would I look for this agent, Mykle?

Never mind, all fixed now. Kicked and rebooted as advised. Seemed to work! *lies down with wet flannel, paracetamol and bucket of Guinness*

I still don't know what it is.

It's an avatar of Napster (now defunct) that lets you download other people's files (with their approval) eg music. It avoids copyright problems as it is a one-to-one loan for private use, (even if a hundred people download it from your machine) that's what the row was about with Napster. I use mine for finding old bits of music that you cannot buy any more . OK?

was a really a posting by e-griff? not an ounce of drivel in it. *impressed* it won't last though, will it?

Thanks, Griff. Is it free?

Yes Tom, it's free - www.musiccity.com (I think) and a free download. Trouble is, all (or most) of the stuff I like is ancient - y'know, hippy-type stuff (Tom'll probably relate to that!) and hardly has any hosts, so the tracks can sometimes take ages to download. You can leave it doing its thing in the background, though... Good fun.

Hi Andrea, If you go to MSN and do a search for Forte Agent you should have no trouble. Download it and then when you run it you will have to choose your news groups - I recomend the alt binary I mentioned above. When you find an MP3 you like click on one of it's threads (typically 8 to 108 threads per MP3) then click on File at the top of the screen and choose Decode Binary Attachments - if it can find all the threads then it will mark them with little lightning icons and begin decoding - it places the finished MP3 in the Agent directory in Program Files. Hope that helps - sometimes it can take a few tries before you find a complete attachment but from then most will work. Good luck.

Thanks, Andrea. Yeah, I'm old stuff and I like old stuff.

just 'shootin' the breeze, one-arm! Glad you seem to be feeling better. Quite like it when you do something serious.

Gawd! Binaries! Icons! Decoding! Programme files! Attachments! DIRECTORIES!! *swallows prozac hastily and in huge quantities* Er...thanks, Mykle.

There's Procul Harum's album with Whiter Shade of Pale, Conquistador, Kaleidosope etc. on the 60's alt.bin if you haven't got it Andrea.

I downloaded 'Balham - Gateway to the South' from KaZaA. that's about it. That's how important this is. Not at all, Shrinking! I must have been (no not at all) not, Thinking!

I have an MP3 CD player and I find it much easier to download MP3's than to copy the tracks from my record collection as wave files and then convert them to MP3. Does anyone know an easier way to copy records to MP3? I have lots of records that cannot be obtained as CD and I would love to find an easy way to copy them to disk.

I must be older than Tom cos I'm still confused.

>>>I downloaded 'Balham - Gateway to the South' from KaZaA. that's about it. That's how important this is. Not at all, Shrinking! I must have been (no not at all) not, Thinking!<<< can someone translate the above for me please? I don't care if it is meant as flippancy or if it is not intellectual ,,,, I just do not understand gibberish, perhaps skypilotmykledolphinarivicky can explain, with respect, ,-) one eyed winker

don't worry Fecky, I'm young, and I'm utterly baffled

:->>>> etc

Alright. I was wondering how good is this Bobby Zamora. I've heard people rave about him on this fantastic game!! I've picked him for my team and hopefully he'll come up with the goods! How many goals has he scored for you if you've got him on your side! Nonsense! Maybe! But readable!! Yes!!!!

Oooh, and me a silver-surfer, too.

music match jukebox mp3 player has an option for converting cd's to mp3. you can download it from www.musicmatch.com or cnet. i find it a simple way to do it.

If you like 60's music you can get lots of stuff ranging from Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin,- throught to Pink Floyd, Iron Butterfly and Jimi Hendrix from the alt binaries on your newsgroups by using something like Forte's Agent to de-compile the threads back into MP3's. Today's alt binarary sounds Mp3 1960's has lots of Nashville Teens and a live at the Filmore album by Cream "Wheels OF Fire" including Spoonful. I think XP has a built in agent doesn't it Andrea?

Thanks Liana. What I really want is a way to copy record albums to MP3 via the line in socket on the soundcard. I haven't found anything that allows me to do it yet - without first copying them as wave files. I tend to use Windows Media Player 7.1 for copying CD's and just convert the tracks I want to record to CDR in to MP3's - but I will look into the Music Match MP3 option. I have hundreds of albums on my hard disk and find it so much easier than having to search through a huge pile of CD's. I really like the "visualisations" in media player 7.1 - if only it had been around 20 years ago...

WH Smiths! Books on all manner of computer problems, and I just happen to be in charge of that section, although as of yet, I haven't absorbed anything useful. And Andrea, I promise you, they may as well be Dutch for all the sense they make to me :)

What's Morpheus? Have I just woken up to something?

Oh, don't ask me, Mykle - I''ve only just learnt how to cut 'n' paste in Word :-)

Kick the computer! It often works (by jiggling tha valves about inside) Don't buy a book - won't help. You probably fixed it by now using ire and terror! reboot the commuter! and catch the 8.15 in despair, morphing! I use KaZaA, just as bad sometimes

It's all double-Dutch to me...quite literally.