Best Bit Rate to Rip or Encode CDs or DVDs

According to Tech Guy Labs….

“Apple’s AAC is better than MP3, [but comes down to personal preference.]

Start at 128kbps. But go at least 160kbps, even with AAC. Makes a significant difference, but only takes up 25% more space. Patrick Norton [of Revision3] says that 320kbps is the max you can encode and hear a difference, . Leo says you can’t really hear any difference above 192. But Leo is older than Patrick.

Use Variable Bit Rate encoding (VBR) will waste less space and is an option in iTunes.”

Best Bit Rate for Ripping/Encoding CDs or DVDs

According to Tech Guy Labs….

“Apple’s AAC is better than MP3, [but comes down to personal preference.]

Start at 128kbps. But go at least 160kbps, even with AAC. Makes a significant difference, but only takes up 25% more space. Patrick Norton [of Revision3] says that 320kbps is the max you can encode and hear a difference, . Leo says you can’t really hear any difference above 192. But Leo is older than Patrick.

Use Variable Bit Rate encoding (VBR) will waste less space and is an option in iTunes.

What is a Solid State Hard Drive (SSD)?

according to Wikipedia…

A solid-state drive (SSD) is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data. Unlike flash-based memory cards, an SSD emulates a hard disk drive, thus easily replacing it in most applications. An SSD using SRAM or DRAM (instead of flash memory) is often called a RAM-drive.

The original usage of the term solid-state (from solid-state physics) refers to the use of semiconductor devices rather than electron tubes, but has in this context been adopted to distinguish solid-state electronics from electromechanical devices as well. With no moving parts, solid-state drives are inherently less fragile than harddisks and therefore also silent (unless a cooling fan is used); as there are no mechanical delays, they usually enjoy low access time and latency.

SSDs have begun to appear in laptops,^[1][2] although they are at present substantially more expensive per unit of capacity than hard drives.

Formatting a drive

Preparing a drive for use is a two part job. Firstly you partition it and then format it. You can right click on ‘My Computer’, and click ‘Manage’, click on ‘Storage’, and then you can manage the partitions in that menu.

 

As a warning, you cannot delete the main partition windows is installed on while in Windows. Not sure why’d you want to anyway, but you can’t. If you want to repartition the drive and reinstall Windows, you’ll need to restart the computer with your Windows CD in the drive, and boot off of it.

 

As for the other hard drives that may show up, once you delete and repartition, any data on the drive is gone, so be careful. 

Completely Erasing A Hard Drive

1. Download and boot DBAN (Derik’s Boot and Nuke)
http://dban.sourceforge.net/
2. This program will completely erase the hard drive from beginning to end by constantly rewriting zeros over all the data
3. You will now have a fresh hard drive, and no way to recover the data.

Windows is not seeing all memory

You want to make sure that the memory is installed in pairs. Try putting in a single memory stick and see if the memory is being properly reported. Make certain that the memory (RAM) is compatible with the motherboard and is properly seated. Also make sure both sticks are from the same manufacturer

Recording What’s Coming Out Of Sound Card

• The soundcard must support “full duplex”
• Older soundcards cannot support that
• Should be able to record sound from your sound card using a program such as Audacity.

Reading Old Jaz Disks

He’s got an Iomega Jaz drive and wants to recover the data off the disks, but it’s got a SCSI connector. Adaptec makes a USB to SCSI adapter, but it’s Windows only.

source: techguylabs.com 

Why Is My Hard Drive Showing Up Smaller Then Advertised?

A 320GB hard drive will only appear as a 300GB. That’s due to the decimal vs binary difference. Computers work in binary but hard drive manufacturers prefer to measure their hard drives in decimal because they sound bigger. So, for example a gigabyte in binary is 2^30 or 1,073,741,824 bytes. In decimal it’s only 1,000,000,000. 320GB in decimal is really only 298GB in binary. HP also reserves several gigs as a hidden partition, which many manufacturers do now, as they claim it’s pricey to ship Restore Discs with each new computer, though the user can create them as well.

PC Guide explains this more thoroughly.

source: techguylabs.com

Keyboard keys are permanently pressed

Sounds like it’s a keyboard short, or that the keyboard is really dirty, so should clean it. To make sure it’s not the OS, try booting one of the live CD versions of Linux. If the keyboard works well otherwise, you just need a new keyboard!