Renaming multiple files

Sometimes, I can't help the feeling that we (our generation) get so lost in this high-tech world that we lose track of small yet basics of technology. I came across an interesting situation today. 

I downloaded loads of podcasts (dated back to mid-2006) and archived them in my personal folders. I found it very difficult to go through each of those podcasts on my iPhone and so, I decided to burn these podcasts into CDs and listen to them on the road. Some of the podcasts were in mp3 format and made my job easy. But some of them, like Harvard Ideacasts, were in 'm4a' format. I renamed the file to have a '.mp3' extension and the file played seamlessly. And now, I wanted to change the extensions of hundreds of files. And this is when I, for a moment, was confused.

Like all other iPhone users, I am so used to iTunes. Editing the filenames, extensions or genres is a piece of cake in iTunes. And it is a piece of cake outside of iTunes too, but it doesn't seem to be so. Manually changing the file extensions of hundreds of files is monstrous and disastrous as well. That's when 'ren' (rename) in DOS comes into picture.

1. Open command prompt.

2. Navigate to the directory where the files reside.

3. ren *.m4a *.mp3

'Ren' saved my day!