MP3 is an audio compression codec that allows users to compress songs, speeches, and monkey sounds (Yes, they're out there...) dramatically without noticeable loss of quality. MP3 stands for Motion Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3 (MPEG Audio Layer 3), and because its ability to compress songs, it became de facto standard for music distribution over the web.

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Actually, it's quite simple (in concept, that is). What MP3 codec does, is that it gets rid of parts of audio that you and I cannot hear. Our human ears are quite limited in that after hearing something loud, you can't hear quiet sound for short period of time. MP3 codec calculates and deletes that part. This is how MP3 achieves its great compression ratio without the apparent quality loss.

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There are a number of MP3 players out there, from software that runs on your computer to hand-held portable MP3 players. I personally use WinAmp, but there are a lot of other nice MP3 players as well. You will find some of the most popular ones at the MP3 Player Software section of MP3fusion.net

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Download a Mp3 encoder from the MP3 Encoder Software page at MP3Fusion.net, install it, then read the Readme file that comes with the software.

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In short, you download the files to your computer, then you must rename the files to one of the applicable extensions (mp3, zip, or rar). You must rename the files into .mp3 from whatever file extention you had before. If .mp3 does not work, you should then try renaming the file to .zip (use Winzip ) and see if you can unzip it. If it still doesn't work, rename it to .rar (use WinRAR ) and see if you can unrar it. Use the File Renaming Guide if you are not sure how to rename your files.

Or use this utility called Rename It 3.0 to rename the file extension.

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Sometimes when you try to download a song, it will respond with something like "server busy" or "server not responding". That doesn't mean the link is broken, it just mean that the server has reached it's limited # of users. You can try to download again in a few minutes.

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OGG has the same quality as MP3, but the size is much less. It's like WMA and MP3pro, but OGG sounds much better then WMA. More info here and here.

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You can play OGG files with winamp. You can find it here . If you have an older version of Winamp and you can't listen it then download this plug-in . Ogg is also playable in JetAudio, that's free too, and you can download that here. To Play OGG in Windows Media Player you need to download a Plug-in, that's available here.

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Yes you can do that with DB Power Amp. It's available for download here. You'll also need a OGG plug-in, you can get it here. Goldwave is also able to convert OGG to MP3, download it here.

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You can convert the files to wave and then burn it with your favourite app (see question above). You can burn it directly with Nero, but then you have to download a plug-in. You can find here. You can also burn OGG directly with Burn4Free, click here to download.

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Normal:
To rename the file, you should first select it in Window's Explorer. Then press "F2" on your keyboard and change the extension to .zip (just type it in at the end of the filename).

Change Settings:
If this doesn't work, then it may be because Windows is set to hide the filename extensions. Bring up the View menu (in Windows Explorer), and click "Folder Options...". Select the "View" tab, and select "Hide file extensions for known file types". The exact procedure may vary between different versions of Windows, but have a look around and I'm sure you will find it.

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