How to: Record ANY Audio Passed Through Your Sound Card

In this tutorial, I will be showing you how to capture any sound/audio that is played through your computer's speakers. Yes, this theoretically means you could record songs from music websites such as last.fm, purevolume.com, or rhapsody.com, but I am not advocating that!

Hah, ok let's begin!

Things you will need:
Any working sound card with the drivers installed,
And a free program called Audacity.

The first thing you will need to do is download Audacity and install it on your computer. I am using version 1.2.6.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Once you have Audacity installed and running, click the drop down bar in the top right corner and select “Stereo Mix”. Then crank the volume up to full, 1.0. This will set your sound card to capture audio directly as it is played, and record it in real time. The resulting sound is much better than an input from a microphone or other line in device would be, as it is grabbing the raw waves.

Now that Audacity is set to intercept audio streams, you will probably want it to record in Stereo instead of the default, Mono. To enable dual channel recording, click “Edit” on the top menu, and then the “Preferences” item. On the “Audio I/O” tab, select “2 (Stereo)” as the channel setting.

If you want to export the audio as an MP3 track, you will need to download and locate the “LAME MP3 Codec” It can be found here, and when unzipped, the “lame_enc.dll” file should be placed in the “Audacity/Plug-ins” folder. Then just click find library on the “File Formats” tab and navigate to the Plug-Ins directory. 128 Kbps is the preferred bit rate for audio quality vs. file size.

Now you are all set up to hijack some audio. Just click the record button and Audacity will start doing its thing! Any audio played in the background will be captured by Audacity and graphed as separate left and right channels below.

When you are done recording, you can select the beginning and end of the track with the cursor tool, and press delete to remove the silent areas. Also feel free to play around with some of audio effects and other goodies.

To save your work, go to File, “Export as MP3”

Have fun!

COD4 / COD5: Stats Program

A while ago, I started writing a program that would give you a whole bunch of averages and info based upon your Call of Duty 4 Online stats. A friend started tossing ideas my way, and we ended up with something like this.

Now with the release of Call of Duty 5, a new version needed to be made and is finally done!

It's pretty self explanatory, just enter your stats and click "Calculate", that's it! You will receive a multitude of info I guarantee you didn't know before! Feel free to post comments with bugs or suggestions, and enjoy!

UPDATE: March 13th, 2010
Modern Warfare 2 Support
Version 2.4
https://sites.google.com/site/codstatscalc/

COD4: Escape Ambush, Escape Backlot, and Escape Crossfire

How to Get out of Ambush...

1. Get a buddy to go prone in that corner over there.
2. Start from the side and jump onto his head. This might take a few tries.
3. Start jumping as your buddy stands up.
4. Don't stop hitting jump and holding the forward until you are over the wall.

That's it enjoy!

To get out of Backlot...

1. Get a friend to jump onto the railing, then up onto the ledge.
2. As he crouches, jump from about 1/2 of the way up the railing onto his head. This will probably take a few tries, don't stop hitting jump or holding forward until you are up onto the next ledge.
3. Now, go prone and keep wiggling towards the right until you zoop through the invisible wall. This can get kind of frustrating, keep at it you will make it.
4. Stand up and carefully step forward until you are able to reenter the building on the left.

That's all there is to it, Enjoy!

Scraping the Sky in Crossfire...

1. Make sure you have RPG's and go up to the 2nd floor of that building.
2. Jump onto the peak of the chair, and then around of the corner of the wall snaking back onto the bricks shown.
3. Adjust your position until you can jump onto the pieces of sheet rock with the exposed re-bar.
4. Now, goto the top left corner of the rock and jump to make sure you aren't under the higher level. Equip the RPG's and aim the launcher at the small wall down on the ground level.
5. Fire, and as soon as you zoom in, jump upwards and hold back on the stick.

If all goes well you will be on top of the building, and be free to explore! Note that this glitch is very hard to do. Try not to get frustrated, although I really couldn't help it haha, Enjoy!

How To: Use your Laptop as a Wireless Hub

In this tutorial, I will be showing you how to use your Laptop as a Wireless Hub for your Original Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Gamecube, Wii, or any other device that has an Ethernet port. This will allow you to connect to, for example: Xbox Live without the need to buy the $100 official wireless adapter!

Things you will need:

UPDATE: Newer consoles don't always need a crossover cable. TRY a standard and post your results.

Method 1:
(If you have a crossover cable and only ONE game console to connect to.)

1. A Laptop with both a Wireless Card and an open Ethernet port.
   
2. A CAT5e Crossover Ethernet Cable. (Not your standard cable! I found one on eBay for less than $5.)

Method 2:
(If you don't have a crossover cable and/or have MORE THAN ONE game console to connect to.)

1. A Laptop with both a Wireless Card and an open Ethernet port.
2. A Network Switch with at least 2 open ports. (Mine is a Netgear 5 port.)
   
3. 2 or more Standard Ethernet Cables
   

Ok let's begin...

• Click on Start, mouse over the "Connect to" menu and then select "Show all connections".
• Use control, shift, or a drag of the mouse to highlight both your wireless connection, and your Ethernet (wired) connection.
• Right click the two connections and then select "Bridge Connections".

• Minimize that and click Start again.
• Go to "Run" and type "cmd". (With or without quotes.)
• Type the following lines of code into the command prompt and hit enter.
  

1. netsh bridge set adapter 1 e
2. netsh bridge set adapter 2 e

This will enable "forced compatibility mode" and will allow you to surf the web while playing online.

-Method 1-

This method uses a direct connection from your laptop to the game system.

• Connect the Crossover Cable from the game system to your laptop, and power on the console.
• As you may have noticed, crossover cables might be hard to distinguish from normal Ethernet cables. The one I have has "XOVER" imprinted next to the plug.

-Method 2-

This method uses a split connection, from your laptop, to the Network Switch, and then to the game system.

The Network Switch will automatically detect the input port and split it into many connections, basically turning one Ethernet connection into several.

If you have multiple game systems in one location, you can connect them all to the Network Switch and have them all function at once!

• First, connect one Ethernet Cable from your laptop to the Network Switch.
• Next, connect the other Ethernet Cable from the Network switch to your game system and turn it on.

In my setup, yellow connects to my laptop, and blue connects to the Xbox 360.

Regardless of what method you are using...

• Go back to "Network Connections" and hit F5 to refresh.
• The end result should look something like this.

There you go, your game console(s) should be able to access the Internet and you can now play online!

Troubleshooting:
If you can't connect there are a few things you can try.

1. Turn off the game system and power it back on.
2. Disable the "Network Bridge" by right clicking on it and selecting "Disable". Then double click on it to Enable it again. You should try this with the other connections too. ("Wireless Network Connection" and "Local Area Connection")
   
3. Make sure the cables are firmly connected to all devices.
4. Make sure the Network Switch is plugged into an AC outlet.
   
5. Restart the Laptop.

Good Luck!

Extreme Street Luging [VIDEO]

This is the kind of thing that happens when Xbox gets boring and it's a nice day outside. My friends and I duct-taped a skateboard to a plastic sled and went luging down Tiger Hill, reaching speeds above 40MPH... The bike rider equipped with a speedometer couldn't keep up with us at 40MPH so we know it was a bit faster than that!

Back in action with 2 news hills this time, Hickory Drive and Beacon Hill. Not quite the speed achieved last time but a much longer ride and a nice change of scenery.