Jan

Learning Dutch

admin — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 11:32:20 +0000

When learning Dutch I used:

Free software:

Before You Know It: uses flashcards to teach you quite a varied basic vocabulary. Nice but irritatingly requires you to type exactly the correct answer (including capitalisation) - and sometimes two flashcards within the same set will be identical on one side and different on the other, meaning you’ll always have to guess.
Nieuwe Buren Oefeningen (got it from the local library I think): Pretty dry and uninspiring but gets the job done.

The local library:

There’s a lot of state support for foreigners to learn Dutch, the easiest to find being that libraries are well stocked with learning material.

Courses:

A 5-day intensive course in Arnhem. Was expensive but very effective, I’d recommend splitting your 5 days to be Wednesday through Friday and then Monday, Tuesday the following week to keep yourself sane.

Books

The standard textbook everyone talks about, and that was used by all teachers I used is Taal Vitaal, the blue one is the textbook and the green is the exercise book

Tutor:

http://www.detaalcoach.com: A great teacher and now good friend.

Video (eg XVid) to DVD conversion

admin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:18:09 +0000

May I recommend DVDVideoSoft’s free Studio for the PC. NOTE: The installer defaults to installing some annoying almost-malware, like a toolbar for IE, changing your search provider, etc. So be careful to un-tick/check the tick/checkboxes for the extras during installation. But apart from that, it works wonderfully.

You just drag the videos you want into the video – to – DVD converter, select the quality of the output, press go, and it even can directly burn the DVD when it’s finished converting.

It puts up a pretty basic DVD menu; a list of filenames and their www address. If you want a fancier menu, I haven’t looked, perhaps there’s a way, but this was enough for me.

Nice Internet radio station

admin — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:44:08 +0000

Swiss Internet Radio – RadioCrazy Classical

This direct link will let you play it in the background on an iPhone.

Making your own iPhone ringtones

admin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:53:49 +0000

Let’s say you have a movie, song or other sound that you want to use as a ringtone. Here’s a way to do it with free software.

Say you have a PC.

If you have a movie, you should turn the part of it you want into an MP3 using this free video-to-MP3 converter.

Once you have the sound file, load it into this free sound editing software.

Cut the sound clip down to the size you want. It’s pretty self-explanatory but can I recommend that when you’ve finished cutting, you select the first fraction of a second of the clip, right-click, select “effects” then “fade in,” then select the last fraction of a second of the clip, select “effects” and “fade out.” This will made the ringtone start and stop smoothly.

Save the clip, but change the file type to “Apple AIFF.”

Find the file in Windows Explorer and drag it into iTunes.

Find the track in iTunes, right-click on it, and select “Create Apple lossless version.”

iTunes will make its own copy of the file, probably in “My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Unknown Artist\Unknown Album.” It will have the file extension “m4a.”

Copy the file, and change the new file’s extension to “m4r.”

Drag this file into iTunes again, and it will appear as a ringtone. Then you can sync your iPhone to get the ringtone into the iPhone, and start using it!

Phew, there’s quite a few steps to that, even if they’re quite simple. I’ll edit this post if anyone has any suggestions for how to do it more easily.