Posted from Student On Campus – Part of the Ace Carter Network

Spotify is, at the moment, the hot topic across most parts of Europe. For those who have never heard of it, Spotify is a peer to peer streaming music program with virtually no buffering. It’s easy to use interface allows you to create playlists in a second and it’s huge (and growing) song base means that they probably will have your favourite song.

As of yet, it is unavailable in the US, but the latest news suggests that it will be released by the end of the year. However, it seems alot of people can’t wait that long and have managed to find ways of downloading Spotify outside of Europe.

Here’s one way – thanks to Techcrunch.

Invite yourself from anywhere:
1) go to http://www.daveproxy.co.uk/
2) enter the following URL: https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/
3) Create your account, for UK postcode – check http://www.postcodesearch.org.uk/

Note: I tried it and it does work – leave a comment if there are any problems.

Ok, so you’ve downloaded Spotify. Now, how to get rip/download some songs from it? Thanks to Spotify Ripping.

Note: Do this at your own risk please…..

Download Spotify Ripper

The program was written by Swedish programmers, and thus, is in Swedish – But it is easy to use.

1. Start Spotify and make sure their isn’t a track playing. Then start Spotify Ripper by launching “Spotify Ripper.exe”. Start off by ticking the “Logg” box. By doing that you will get a small window which tells you the status of the ripping.

2. Now press “Hitta Spotify”. This will connect Spotify and Spotify Ripper so that the files will be named correctly. If everything works as it should the message “Spotify hittat” will appear in the log.

3. Now press “Rippa”. This will make Spotify Ripper wait for Spotify to start playing a track and start ripping it while it plays. When a song ends Spotify Ripper will convert the track to a mp3 file which then is named automatically and simultaneously rip the next song in your playlist. You will find the ripped music in the same folder as Spotify Ripper is placed in. Spotify Ripper will keep ripping all the tracks you play on Spotify until you press “Rippa” again.

4. Now switch back to Spotify and start the playlist or album you want to rip. Spotify ripper will do the rest for you. Just leave Spotify playing until the album or playlist is finished. But beware that any background sounds from other applications from your computer will also be recorded by Spotify Ripper so make sure the sound is off on any IM’s, e-mail programs or any other program that might make a sound.

5. If Spotify Ripper doesn’t work for you you could try starting Spotify Ripper before you start Spotify and restart booth Spotify and Spotify ripper. If it still doesn’t work Spotify Ripper probably doesn’t support your soundcard and it won´t work until a new version is released.

Thanks again to Spotify Ripping for making this possible.

Windows XP

SevenVG Refresh
Vishal Gupta has done a fantastic job with this theme. It’s simple to install, looks great, and features both normal taskbar buttons and iconized mode.

Windows 7 Complete
User DopeySneezy calls this one Complete, and he’s not wrong. Includes Windows 7 style system properties, display settings screens, and more.

Seven Remix 2.0
Niwrad Soft recently updated his theme, and it’s even more convincing than V1.0. 

Windows Vista

Windows 7 Essentials Pack 
Another Deviant Art theme – this one by Ka-Booka includes just about every UI tweak you could possibly want to make Vista look like Windows 7 – even a Windows Media Player 11 mod, though some of you may choose to skip that one based on previous feedback about the new look.

Some more links:

Windows Seven(7) Transformation Pack is here

Windows Se7en (Vienna) Transformation Pack is here

Winmatrix lists 5 different options here

Technoworld also lists their Top 5 here

AskVG has a How To Guide for converting without the use of a transformation pack. The instructions are here

source: LifeHacker

Formerly known as SynthaSite, Yola is a a San Francisco-based company that lets users build Web sites with not very much technical experise required. 

Yola provides you with the hosting and tools required to build your web pages. The only thing you have to purchase is your custom domain name (alternatively you could use a example.synthasite.com domain – no example.yola.com domain yet).

To differentiate themeselves from other website building sites, Yola have integrated a bunch of third-party services into the application (e.g. WidgetBox for widget distribution, Picnik for photo editing, etc.). 

And with a recent $20 million boost in funding, it will be interesting to see how Yola stack themselves up against other well known sites such as Microsoft Office Live.

Yola generates revenue from domain names sales only (as an affiliate to Network Solutions) as the service is entirely ad-free. However, their CEO has announced some premium services will be launching soon which will allow users to add custom templates and other advanced features.

Keep an eye on Yola – With the addition of its premium features coming this year, it has real potential to overtake the big players in the website creation market. And with over 1 million registered users, it must be doing something right.