MP3Pro

MP3Pro is the successor to MP3. It was created by Thompson RCA. The problem is the format isn’t universal. So you have to be sure your player can recognize it and play it. The Zen can play it. The format is higher quality then MP3 at better bitrate. Since the format isn’t universally used, you may end up needing to re-encode the files to have them work in the future.

According to Wikipedia, “mp3PRO is an audio compression algorithm (or codec) that combines the MP3 audio format with spectral band replication compression methods. It claims to achieve transparency at lower bitrates than MP3, resulting in a file nearly half the size of standard MP3. RCA was the only company to offer portable players compatible with mp3PRO, but they have dropped support for the format.”

For now, stick with MP3 and encode it at 160KB VBR or more. MP3 is the format that will be around for years to come. There are other formats you can encode the audio files in, such as FLAK or other lossless formats. It comes down to personal preference of how the audio sounds to you, and which players you prefer to listen on.

Backup Firefox Passwords

You will need a Firefox Add-on (extension) called Password Exporter, which you can find here. Simply click ‘add to Firefox’ on the page, then ‘install’ on the window that pops up. Then click the ‘restart firefox’ button. Firefox will automatically restart. Then click ‘tools’, then ‘add-ons’, then ‘extensions’. Then click on the ‘password exporter’, then ‘options’, then ‘export’. You may also choose to encrypt the passwords, in which you can use the Master Password you use for the Firefox password manager, detailed here.

Prevent Overheating

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Too many fans can make it hotter. What you really need is strategically placed fans.You don’t want all of the fans blowing the air inside the case. That won’t cool things down, in fact it’ll just make the case even hotter with the poor air circulation. Depending on how much stress you put your system through will determine how many fans are needed to cool the case.

It could also be a power supply issue. You really need to make sure it has enough power to power the whole computer. If it’s a stock system or one that was built years ago, changes to the system may require more power, and if the power supply is struggling to keep up, it can be overworked and have issues. You may need to upgrade your power supply to provide sufficient power.

On laptops, overheating a big issue. Everything in laptops is crammed into such tight spaces that overheating is common. It’s a big reason why laptops shouldn’t be on your lap anymore, but on a table, and have sufficient fan power to cool the components, and sufficient room to ventilate the air properly.

Content Management Systems

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Leo Laporte uses Drupal for TWiT.tv. He also uses WordPress for his blog.

Joomla is a very good CMS. Joomla is a spin off of Mambo. Drupal is very very flexible.

Rocket Theme is a great source for Joomla templates.

PHP and MySQL are the standard and most Content Management systems rely on them.

However there are alternatives like PostgreSQL. Most CMS do deal with a few different web services like PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL and IIS.

source: techguylabs.com

Photo Editing Software

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The free Picasa from Google and Photoscape would be a good tool to organize your photos and do basic editing. You also may want to check out Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for $299 if you start to shoot RAW.There are also online solutions such as Adobe Photoshop Express, Picnik, SplashUp, among others.

Recovering Files off Flash Memory

Camera Memory these days is seen as a hard drive, and so you should be able to recover it fairly easily using free tools, such as smart Recovery.  The most important thing is not to use the drive for anything else. Just like with a hard drive, even though it tells you the data is gone, it actually isn’t until the space on the drives where the files are located is overwritten. When you initially delete a file or folder, it just removes the reference to it, not the file itself. Only when the space on the hard drive/usb drive is overwritten is the data deleted. Though there are programs like SpinRite that can recover such files as well, so long as it hasn’t been very long since the files were overwritten.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) Slipstream

If you want to create a backup copy of your Windows XP CD, and you want it to include Service Pack 3, so you can avoid downloading and installing nearly 200 updates, which takes forever, this is an excellent solution. The process is called Slipstreaming.

Lifehacker.com has an excellent article on how to do this. I have tested and verified that it works.

You will need 5 things.

• Your Windows XP CD
• nLite (and Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0)
• A copy of Service Pack 3 (SP3) for XP (32-bit), downloaded from Microsoft’s servers
• A spare computer with at least 1 GB free hard drive space (or use virtual machine software such as VMWare or the free Microsoft Virtual PC 2007)
• Blank CD or DVD
• WinUpdatesList (recommended)

I see no reason to rewrite Lifehacker’s entire article in my own words, as it’s very well written and easy to follow. Follow the instructions to the letter and you shouldn’t have any problems or hiccups. The software listed above is also very easy to use and does most of the work itself, you just have to point it to where files are located.

Change Windows Vista Start-up Sound

Vista is the first version of Windows to include a non user-customizable startup sound. This is played while the Pearl (or Orb) animates. By default, the sound either plays or it doesn’t. Changing this sound cannot be done using the Sound control panel. Instead, follow these steps:1) For best results, boot out of Vista and into an alternative OS, such as XP. (This is assuming you dual boot.)

2) Locate the file “imageres.dll” in Vista’s System32 folder. For instance, E:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll. Copy that file into a different location, i.e. your desktop.

3) Download

ResHacker.4) Open ResHacker. Open the imageres.dll file in ResHacker.

5) Find the folder that reads “WAVE” and expand everything below that. This is what it should look like:

6) Right click 1033 (this could have a different name depending on your locale), and click Replace Resource. Click “Open file with new resource”, and find the wave file you want to replace it with. Once you’re done, in Resource Type, type “WAVE”, in Resource Name type “5051”, and under Resource Language type “1033” (or whatever number you have). Once done, click Replace.

7) Click File, then click Save. Now you can copy this file to Vista’s System32 folder. Keep the imageres_original.dll file ResHack left behind in case you want to revert back to the original sound.

 

 

source: http://vistahelp.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-replace-vistas-startup-sound.html

Turn off Windows Vista Start-Up sound

Vista plays as sound as it starts up. You can easily disable the startup sound if you would prefer not to hear it as your system is starting up. To disable the Vista startup sound:

1. Click on the Start Button and type in Sound in the search field.
2. Select Sound from the list of results.
3. Click the Sounds tab.
4. Deselect the Play Windows Startup sound option.
5. Click OK.

–lockergnome

Disabling the Clicking Sound in Internet Explorer

Some people get really irritated with the constant clicking noise that Internet Explorer makes when navigating through web pages by clicking links. If you want to turn this clicking noise off, it’s pretty easy to do.

• Go to ‘Control Panel’
• Double-click on the ‘Sounds and Audio Devices’ control panel
• Click the Sounds tab.
• Scroll down in the ‘Program events’ list until you find the ‘Windows Explorer’ section, then highlight ‘Start Navigation.’
• Change the ‘Sounds’ drop down menu at the bottom of the dialog to ‘(None).’
• Press the OK button when done.

source:

http://windowstipoftheday.blogspot.com/2005/07/disabling-clicking-sound-in-internet.html