Steve’s Tech Guide

Have you ever wanted to make your own recording studio, but don’t have the funds, or the connections to make it happen? Maybe you should take a look at my new best friend I use for all my audio projects, Audacity.

Audacity is a free, open source software for recording and editing sounds, audio, and music. It’s available on Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and GNU/Linux. Audacity basically turns your computer into a home mixing and recording studio. It’s great for editing audio, combining multiple tracks, and adding special effects to your audio.

Here are just a few things that Audacity can do: Allows you to record from a microphone, line input, and other sources. Level meters can monitor volume levels before, during, and after recording. Import and export WAV, AIFF, AU, and Ogg Vorbis files. Export MP3s with the optional LAME encoder library. Very fast editing of large files. Remove static, hiss, hum, or other constant background noises. As well as being free and feature plugin support.

I’ve personally used Audacity many times for recording live music, dubbing over videos, and even for making ringtones. It is a brilliant piece of open source software that you can look forward to solving all of your audio editing problems.

The latest stable release of Audacity is 1.2.6, and they also have a beta release (1.3.5) that you should check out, because it includes some great new features as well.

Some of you may be hesistant to try out the new Firefox 3 Beta, because you can’t keep your old Firefox 2 install intact. Also, some websites just don’t work that well yet on Firefox 3, even though the last beta is out. So here’s a nifty guide on how you run the Firefox 3 Beta while keeping your Firefox 2 intact on the same PC.

Before we get into the how to, just remember that you should make a backup of your profile folder, don’t uninstall Firefox 2, don’t install Firefox 3 into the same folder that Firefox 2 is installed, and don’t let Firefox 3 run with the default profile, because it will mess up your existing Firefox 2 settings.

1. First make sure you backup your existing profile folder. It can be located at C:\Documents and Settings\(User Name)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\. If you can’t find it you may have to enable Show hidden Files And Folders by going to Tools -> Folder Options -> View -> Show hidden files and folders.
2. Now, download the Firefox 3 Beta 5, and install it into a different directory than your Firefox 2 install. Also make sure that you select custom install, and that the installer doesn’t make any shortcuts, and uncheck ‘Launch Firefox 3 now’, before you finish the install.
3. Go to your command prompt via Start -> Run -> Type ‘cmd’. You’ll need to navigate to the directory that you installed Firefox 3 in the command prompt. Type cd C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 5\. Replace the C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 5\ with the directory that you installed Firefox 3 in.

Optional:

Once your in the Firefox 3 Beta directory you’ll have to type firefox.exe -P in the command prompt. And In the window that opens click New and create a new profile, name it anything you want, but make sure you can tell it is your Firefox 3 Beta Testing Profile.

Now you’ll need to create a shortcut of Firefox.exe on your desktop. Right click the shortcut and go to properties and add -P to the end after the “” in the command options.

4. If you don’t want to do the optional steps, you’ll just have to make a shortcut to the Firefox.exe for Firefox 3 Beta on your desktop, and launch Firefox from that, if you want to use Firefox 2, access it from your start menu, or you can create a seperate desktop shortcut for that.

Have you window shopped around Amazon, and wished certain things were cheaper, or you know maybe you wanted to save a few items for you to keep your eye on without having to go through all the trouble of opening up a wishlist or temporarily adding them to your cart?

The BuyLater plugin for Firefox lets you do that. It adds a ‘Buy This Later’ button to Amazon Web pages below the shopping cart so you can keep track of prices, sales, and availability. The plugin immediately lets you know when something goes on sale. It checks Amazon every minute, so you know exactly when something is on sale. You can save hundreds of dollars using this, especially if you’re looking for a hard-to-find item, or something that’s on sale for only an hour or so, because Amazon has a lot of those sales.

To set it up, you’ll have to go to BuyLatr.com download the plugin, and restart Firefox. After you’ve restarted Firefox a BuyLater Settings browser window will pop up. Put in your e-mail address then click ok. Now go to Amazon and make sure you’re logged in, and go find an item that you’d like to receive notifications about. The BuyLater button should be located right below the Add To Cart Button, and just click the button. Then BuyLater will tell you they’ve sent you an e-mail and just go to your e-mail and confirm it. Now you’re tracking prices and availability of that hard to find item.

It will send you Twitter, and email notifications depending what you specify.

The BuyLater plugin for Firefox will make a good addition to any Firefox plugin collection.

Graphics card artifacts are the jaggies, and video anomalies that appear on some monitors due to problems with either the graphics card or the power supply. These artifacts are irritating, and most of the time can be prevented.

Video artifacts show up mostly due to three reasons: faulty, or poorly manufactured graphics card, lack of power to the video card from your power supply, or overclocking your graphics card beyond its performance capabilities.

Faulty Graphics Card

I once bought a graphics card from NewEgg. After it got to me I eagerly popped it in my computer, installed the drivers, and tried to run a few benchmarking tests. To my dismay all the little artifacting jaggies showed up. After doing some research it was the graphics card that several people were having problems with. There was nothing I could really do except send the card back and wait for a replacement card. Faulty graphics cards can cause several problems, like artifacting, overheating, and display problems with your video display, and there’s not much you can do except RMA it and try to get a working replacement.

Overclocking Your Graphics Card

Overclocking graphics cards can also cause artifacting. If you don’t have enough cooling, the memory and the video core processor will overheat and cause artifacts, because performance decreases as components temperature increases. Also, you may have enough cooling, but you can only push your graphics card so far, once it’s overclocked to a certain speed the artifacts will start appearing, and they will only increase.

Not Enough Power From The Power Supply

When your graphics card is not receiving enough power from the power supply either due to the maximum power supply wattage, or not enough voltage on the cables delivering the power you’ll experience artifacting, and eventually the artifacting will cause the video display to fail. I had this happen to me with one graphics card, I sent it back twice thinking it was a component problem only to later figure out that my power supply wasn’t providing enough power on the 12V rails.

Preventing Graphics Card Artifacts

You can prevent graphics card artifacts by making sure your power supply fully meets your graphics cards requirements which can be found on the video card box. If you notice graphics card artifacting, you can try checking the manufacturers website to see if other people are experiencing the same problems that you are, because it may be a bad batch of graphics card produced with faulty manufacturing. And if you overclock your graphics card and are experiencing artifacts, try turning down your overclocks, or adding extra cooling to help keep the temperatures low and prevent artifacts.

Online computer stores are typically the best places to buy computer parts. Low prices, shipping is often free, or for a very low price, no sales tax, unless you live in like 2 of the 50 US states, they also features reviews and important information so you can make informed buying decisions, and you don’t even have to leave the coziness of your own house to get your computer hardware.

Courtesy of Malingering

Which Online Computer Store Is Right For You?

There are so many computer stores online that at first it may seem daunting, you want one that’s reliable, provides good customer service, decent shipping, and the best prices you can find online. Generally when dealing with computer stores, the most popular, and reliable stores are NewEgg, Tiger Direct, and Amazon. All of these stores are constantly praised for their customer care, amazing computer hardware selection, and unbeatable prices. There is also two great computer part comparison sites, PriceWatch, and PriceGrabber. These sites compare the different prices and deals between several different computer stores so you can get the best deal for your computer hardware.

NewEgg

NewEgg is the ultimate computer store for buying anything ranging from computer parts, laptops, electronics, video games and more. They have daily deals on their front page, and each day they have new deals out there on some pretty good stuff. NewEgg also sends out a newsletter that features special deals for its subscribers. Today I received a newsletter that had some amazing deals on HDTVs, as well several good deals on various computer parts, and for that newsletter mostly everything included free shipping.

NewEgg has a quality review system and computer information catalog. Reviews are scored out of five ‘eggs’, with 5/5 ‘eggs’ being the best. These are customer reviews that are done with the consumer in mind. The customers writing the reviews are very smart individuals who actually write really good reviews that can be considered truthful.

Most items ship on NewEgg for $3.99, several items also feature Free 3 Business Day Shipping via UPS.

TigerDirect

TigerDirect is the other big-name computer store on the internet. I prefer NewEgg’s website over theirs, because it’s a bit cluttered with the word ‘DEAL’ spread out all over the place. But nonetheless TigerDirect is a trusted computer part supplier, and they also have several store locations spread throughout the US. Their front page lists several deals as well, and one ultimate ‘Today’s TOP DEAL!’, which is their selected ‘best deal’ for the day, as well as spot so you can subscribe to their e-deals newsletter.

TigerDirect also has a very good customer-service oriented shipping/returns policy with ‘Assurz’ purchasing. Select ‘Assurz’ before you check out, and after you’ve added the items to your cart. Now you have 90 days to return your items, compared to the regular 30-day return policy. You also get a refund for the full purchase price, including shipping, taxes, and no restocking fee. Assurz is an extra non-refundable fee, but it’s worth it if you’ve buying an expensive HDTV, or digital camera, so you want make sure that you get your money’s worth.

Amazon

Amazon is the biggest E-tailer in the world. Their catalog of items and merchandise is amazing, ranging from anything you could ever possibly want. This is your number one selection if you want a company that will have everything you could ever want. Trusted and well-known by everybody, if you’re completely paranoid about your privacy and security, this would be your only place to shop.

Amazon has a wide variety of computer and electronic parts, and usually gets them well soon after they are released. NewEgg and TigerDirect receive newly released components a couple days before Amazon, but you can be sure Amazon will have it eventually. I, personally use Amazon to buy those rare parts that I really can’t find anywhere else. I’m a big fan of their ‘Used & New’ buying system where you can buy anything from anyone that’s selling the items used, or new for a lower price than the selling price on Amazon.

PriceWatch

PriceWatch was the first online computer part comparison site. It helps you find lower prices on your computer component by comparing several different online store prices, because prices aren’t always the same.

PriceWatch also features it’s good deals on the front page, and has a merchant rating system so you can ensure that you won’t get ripped off for your purchase.

PriceGrabber

PriceGrabber is another online shopping comparison site that not only does computer parts and electronics, it also has anything from appliances to autoparts and clothing. The website’s design is really nice, and easy to navigate through. The front page features their ‘Featured Products’, ‘Most Popular Products’ and the ‘Highest Rated Products’.

PriceGrabber also has an easy way to sell your own items if you own an online store already. They have several online reviews, and allow you to subscribe to a deals list and you can setup alerts so you can be e-mailed when a price drops.

What online stores do you shop at the most?

Google Earth 4.3 Beta was released2 days ago. “The release of Google Earth 4.3 (beta) greatly advances our vision of offering a realistic, 3D model of the world by giving users a higher quality, more immersive experience.” -Google Lat Long Blog. They changed the navigation system, added more and faster 3D buildings, added a new sunlight function so you can see the different times of the sun setting, as well as adding 12 new language too.

Windows has finally set a release date schedule for Windows XP Service Pack 3.
Windows XP SP3 will be released as follows:

• April 14, 2008: Support is available for the release version of Service Pack 3 for Windows XP
• April 21, 2008: Original Equipment Manufacturers, Volume License, Connect, and MSDN and TechNet subscribers
• April 29, 2008: Microsoft Update, Windows Update, Download Center
• June 10, 2008: Automatic Updates

New York Times has written an article on calibrating your HDTV. It discusses the variou methods you can use to calibrate your HDTV as well as the benefits and cons of using such methods.

Popular Mechanics performed several comparative benchmarks on PCs and Mac computers to see who the ultimate winner is, basing them on real facts, rather than silly Apple commercials.

WinAmp is a very good media player that includes a lot of built-in functionality. It’s easy to use, setup and manage, yet still has enough bells and whistles to satisfy many power users. And if the basic functionality isn’t enough for you, you can install plugins and customizable themes to tweak everything to your liking, try doing that with iTunes.

Using The Built-In iPod Portables Functionality

The Portables Interface (Including iPod functionality) was introduced in WinAmp 5.2, and provided an easy way to synchronize your music library with your iPod, and manage everything that you kept on your iPod and off your iPod by using two separate media libraries for what you have on your computer and what you have on your iPod.

WinAmp also supports:

• iPod (Original, Shuffle, Nano & Classic, but not iTouch or iPhone)
• Creative Nomad/Jukebox (Zen Micro, Neeon & Vision, MuVo, etc.)
• Microsoft PlaysForSure (P4S-compatible devices)
• Generic USB Players & Thumbdrives
• Microsoft ActiveSync (Smartphone & Pocket PC)

To use your iPod with WinAmp all you have to do is plug in your iPod via USB, and go to the ‘Portables’ section on the left hand menu. After that you can sync, autofill, or play files directly from your iPod, by using the buttons on the bottom of your Media Library.

When you Sync with your iPod the Sync window will popup and it will show you exactly what will be transferring from you media library to your iPod, as well what songs are not in your media library that are on your iPod. You decide if you want to delete the songs, transfer them to your media library, or just leave the extra ones on your iPod. You can also allow your iPod to automatically sync when it is connected.

If you don’t want to Sync your entire music library, or just want to conserve room you can also manually send songs to your iPod by right clicking on the song and going to ‘Send to:’ then click on your Portable Device.

When transferring your songs to your iPod, you can view the trasnfers in the Transfer Queue screen and it tells what song is currently transferring, how much percent is left, as well as an estimated time til it is done transferring.

In addition to managing your music, you can also save and make playlists on your iPod as well as transfer any existing playlists in your media library over to your iPod.

Podcast Directory

WinAmp also has a podcast directory so you can easily find new podcasts, while managing your podcast subscriptions. You can also manually add podcast subscriptions if you know the address, and tell it to upgrade every week/day/month, as well as download new podcasts automatically.

ml_iPod Plugin

Before WinAmp released it’s own software bundled into WinAmp to support iPods and portable devices, ml_iPod was a plugin that was used to incorporate iPod syncing, and functionality. It features many improvements and has been in development since 2003, whereas the WinAmp iPod functionality has only been in development since 2006. If you are using WinAmp to sync and manage your iPod I highly suggest that you get the ml_iPod plugin. Here is a comparison between ml_iPod and WinAmp’s iPod.

Among the most important differences is Audiobook support, video support, lyrics, repair iPod functions, iPod database management, formatting iPod, volume boost, Motorola smart phone support, last .fm support, and iPhone and iPod Touch support.

It’s easy to use your iPod with WinAmp, and it’s a better media player than iTunes, I’m not sure why more people don’t use WinAmp. It also has good functionality for all sorts of computer users, I once used iTunes, and now that I switched over to WinAmp, I’ll most likely never go back. If you haven’t tried out WinAmp yet, give it a test run, it’s free and you might like it.

Blue Lock is a program written by Wuul to help you secure your PC when you’re not around it. Now you don’t have to worry about locking up your computer at work, or at home, because this program will automatically lock it for you.

Blue Lock locks your Windows PC when a particular Bluetooth device is not detected, so if setup your cellphone to work with Blue Lock and walk away, it will automatically lock your Windows PC, keeping everything on your PC safe, and you don’t have to remember to lock it anymore.

What you’ll need:

• Bluetooth device (Cellphone, Smartphone, PDA, etc, anything that detects Bluetooth)
• Bluetooth functionality on your PC, (I’m sure most laptops come with it, but for your PC, you’ll have to get a Bluetooth card for your computer)

Here are the usage instructions: Start up Blue Lock and wait for about a minute or so for the program to discover the surrounding Bluetooth devices, and it will be displayed on the right window of the screen. Click on the device that you want to lock up your computer with. Now the program will loop continuously until it doesn't detect your Bluetooth device anymore, then it will lock up.