Tom's Hardware Guide PCs & HowTo: Cooler and Quieter Barebones PCs? - Choices Galore

Tom's Hardware Guide PCs & HowTo: Cooler and Quieter Barebones PCs? - Choices Galore

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Nice review of this marketplace. I'm very interested in these ultracompacts. Heat is an issue, sounds like an external power supply is the answer (just like laptop). They are basically very similar to the original "portables", including carrying bags reminescent of the Osborne bags. I want to pair one with the new Hitachi SATA drive for an XP workstation and game machine.

There's a more recent article, also from Tom's Hardware, here. This one had some cautionary notes:

Due to the crowded configuration of electricity-devouring components, a conflict of purposes automatically arises: the high degree of heat build-up requires a sophisticated cooling concept. There is enormous scope for development work, precisely with regard to this aspect. Most mini-PCs at full capacity currently make significantly more noise than comparably fitted tower systems. But systems such as the Soltek EQ3701M and, to some extent, some of the XPC Shuttle models show what can be done with conventional aids (fans). [put power supply outside of box?]

A quick run-down of some highlights of this test: two systems with powerful ATI graphics (IGP9100 onboard) - Biostar iDEQ 200A and Shuttle XPC ST61G4 - are also suitable for newer 3D games because of their DirectX-8.1 compatibility. Not so the Intel 865G (DirectX 7) and Nvidia NForce 2 (DirectX 7 with GeForce-2 core), which are completely outmoded and only good for 2D applications. If you want to get the most out of current DirectX-9 games, sooner or later you'll have to get yourself an AGP graphic a lá GeForce FX5950 or Radeon 9800.

The Aopen with the XC Cube EZ65 is a winner right from the start, a sleek combination of great looks and good equipment coupled with neat details. Soltek sets the tone with the EQ3701M's very low running noise - similar to the previous test. Biostar is putting up some competition for Shuttle: the manufacturer likewise offers a mini-system for the Athlon 64 (Socket 754) - for under $383 (300 Euro).

That just leaves us wishing for an integrated DVI interface so that the mini-PC could give optimum output with a TFT monitor. Or how about HDMI straight off?

AbsoluteDeNoiser: Noise reduction for digital images

AbsoluteDeNoiser

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Free, java based, interesting examples. Links to alternatives.

phil ringnalda dot com: a seriously interesting geek blog

phil ringnalda dot com

O'Reilly Network: The Ideal Digital Photographer's Workflow, Part 3 [Feb. 24, 2004]

O'Reilly Network: The Ideal Digital Photographer's Workflow, Part 3 [Feb. 24, 2004]

Links at the bottom connect to other articles in this series. Print and memorize.

Universal Buslink PB7-20 PhotoBank 7 in 1 Multi-Card Reader + 20GB USB 1.1 Hard Drive

Epinions:Universal Buslink PB7-20 PhotoBank 7 in 1 Multi-Card Reader + 20GB USB 1.1 Hard Drive

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Interesting product for traveling. Compare to iPod photobank ...

Finding disk space usage in OS X

Mac OS X Panther (10.3.2): "Re: Disappearing Disk Space in 10.3.2
John Palkovic
I just read some of the discussion of disappearing disk space. Here's what I do to produce a list, sorted in decreasing order, of disk space consumed by every file on my / drive. I open a Terminal.app, become root with 'sudo su -' and then
root# cd /
root# du -ax |sort 0 -rn > /tmp/du.txt
Then view /tmp/du.txt with TextEdit (open /tmp/du.txt), or 'more /tmp/du.txt' or your favorite editor. This can be applied to other drive if multiple drives are present, just cd into /Volumes/whatever and run the 'du -ax |sort 0 -rn'."

Very nice review of OS X shells: Bash and tcsh

bash on Mac OS X by David Miller -- "In the migration from Jaguar to Panther, one of the lesser discussed changes has been the switch from tcsh to bash as the default shell (for new accounts). In this article, David Miller delves into affected areas, such as aliases and environment variables, to help you make the transition."

OS X - create archive -- zips the file

macosxhints - Create Finder-equivalent zip archives from the Terminal

I absolutely love the 'Create Archive of ...' functionality in Panther, found in the Finder's File menu or in the contextual menu when you control-click on an item in the Finder. It's much faster than Stuffit, and it doesn't require me to install any third-party software. Sometimes I need to be able to create archives from the command line, and I wondered how I could get the same functionality of the 'Create Archive of ...' function in the terminal. tar and gzip are out because they don't preserve resource forks and HFS metadata ...

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I've been using Panther for months. I noticed the "archive" option on a context menu but never bothered to figure out what it meant. Turns out it zips files including OS X metadata. Holy cow.

RealAudio reforms: thanks to car talk?

RealPlayer - the best digital media player - Real.com

RealAudio was infamous for a deceptive approach to distributing their audio player. They used to make it very difficult to locate and install the free player; they played a bait and switch to their fee-based product. Then they spammed their users mercilessly.

Then NPR's Car Talk switched from RA to Windows Media Player -- because of Real's policies.

Now Real has a very agreeable and pretty clear download page.

Probably too late.

When will software companies learn -- only Microsoft is big and powerful enough to abuse customers. Everyone else has to treat customers like precious gems.

newegg.com: Shuttle XPC Barebone System

newegg.com

Shuttle XPC Barebone System for Socket 478 at 400/533MHz FSB Intel CPU, Model SS51G

Specifications:
CPU Support: Intel Pentium 4/Celeron (Socket 478, Max.FSB 533)
Chipsets: SiS651 + SiS962L
Memory: 2x 184pin (DDR266/333 up to 2GB)
IDE: 2x ATA133
Graphics: Build in SiS651
Expansion Slot: 1x PCI, 1x AGP 4X
Audio: Realtek ALC 650
LAN: Realtek 8100B
Extension Bay: 2x 3.5", 1x 5.25"
Front Panel Ports: 2x USB, 1x 1394, 1x SPDIF_Out, Audio ports
Back Panel Ports: 2x COM, 2x PS/2, 1x SPDIF_In, 1x VGA, 1x RJ45, 2x 1394, 2x USB, Audio ports
Power Supply: 200W(PFC)
Dimension: 300 x 200 x 185 mm

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This system gets rave reviews on NewEgg -- a demanding audience. I'm thinking of building a downstairs workstation that needs to be quiet, compact and understated, but also support the kids games. It would run XP. This looks pretty impressive. I'd need to add an 802.11G card, memory, a CPU, a hard drive (might scavenge one, I have several lying about), a CD reader (lots of those lying around) and a 1GB of memory. Total system with XP is probably @ $500 or so.

Convert AAC files from iTunes to MP3 and export

Updated 1/17/2007: It took a while for me to realize that even the latest version of iTunes has a simple way to convert non-DRMd music to MP3. It's not as easy as holding down the option key and selecting from the Advanced menu (no longer works), but it's easy enough.

In the Advanced menu there is, typically, a 'convert to aac' option. Turns out what you see here is determined by your import preferences. Set your import to MP3, this will show MP3.

You can convert, export and delete your mp3. I just export the ones I want to convert, move them to a different user account, and convert there.

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Updated 7/14/06

It took a bit of work to figure out the Blacktree iTunes LAME Encoder. It's a GUI wrapped around a command line AAC to MP3 transcoder. By now there's probably something out that's easier to use, but I haven't looked. There's not much documentation.

My Palm Tungsten E plays MP3 files. My DVD player plays MP3 CDs. Great -- except my iTunes library, legally ripped from my personal CDs, is all AAC encoded. Nothing, yet, plays AAC except my iPod and iTunes.

I needed to be able to convert AAC to MP3. This requires software to:

1. convert AAC to AIFF (uncompressed)
2. convert AIFF to MP3

This process takes time, is tedious, etc. I wanted a utility that would automate this.

iTunes LAME encoder does this. Note the UI is all about "Import" but in this case we're exporting from iTunes.

Installation:

1. Drag the app to Applications.
2. Drag the script to the iTunes script folder.

Usage:

1. Set preferences: Destination to save to a local folder rather than iTunes library.
2. Click preferences: "Use Alternate Naming Convention" and delete all but %t (so a flat list of MP3 files is exported).
%a is the album
%l is the ?
%t is the tune or song
3. Change capture settings if desired
4. Create album for AAC files to export/convert and tunes to export there. Select all.
5. Click the LAME script from iTunes. Conversion takes quite a while.

Neat selection of blog tools

Weblogs Compendium - Blog Tools

Extension Room :: Firefox Extensions :: Blogging Category

Extension Room :: Firefox Extensions :: Blogging Category: "Adds a context menu option to blog a link to the current page and the selected text (if any) through Blogger's BlogThis form"

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I wondered if this would work w/ Firefox where the standard BlogThis scriptlet fails. Alas, it works just like BlogThis!, so it doesn't help.

Restoring Graffiti One type print recognition to the Graffiti Two (Jot) Palm devices

Google Groups: View Thread "Tungsten E and print recognition: what's your experi..."

I went through TealScript and ruthlessly deleted all the
variable strokes from my personal profile. The only strokes allowed
are now the ones I use -- the advanced high speed but often
undocumented G1 strokes documented in Pogue's O'Reilly books. I
defined all of my strokes as "standard".

I also deleted many of the "distorted" strokes.

Once I'd paired down the base strokes, I used TealScripts "train
profile" exercise from different angles to create a library of
distorted variants of my base strokes.

I think I could further refine this by tweaking the TealScript squelch
and cutoff settings. Shockingly the best advice I could find seems to
be in the manual.

Based on the manual I have set Squelch and Cutoff to 0 for all of my
"standard" strokes. If one of my standard strokes is being applied
when I don't want it, then

- if it's a simple stroke I'll boost squelch
- if the misapplied strokes is not simple I'll boost cutoff - esp. if
it's distort mismatch

For my distort entries I'll experiment with setting cutoff to 5-15 ...

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One of the miracles of the US Robotics PalmPilot was that the pen character input worked. It worked because of Graffiti, a novel form of printing. The brilliance of Graffiti was that it asked the human to adjust to the limitations of the computer. With a bit of practice one could get pen input to work.

Unfortunately few were willing to learn Graffiti. Xerox won a patent fight about its origins, but it was a false victory. Palm abandoned Graffiti in favor of Jot -- a more familiar but singularly ineffective form of pen input.

Sad.

Got a machine lying around? Web Crossing Express

Web Crossing - Web Crossing Express Features

Web Crossing Express Features: free web/email/ftp server

Web Crossing Express provides unlimited Web Pages (HTTP and HTTPS), Email (POP/IMAP/SMTP), FTP services and WebFiles, and low-volume* use of the popular Web Crossing collaboration features such as such as WebMail, blogs, discussions, chat, wiki, Neurons and more. Web Crossing Express can easily replace a collection of other free servers such as Apache, sendmail, IIS, Exchange, and FTP daemons. It's an excellent choice if you're setting up an Internet presence and also want to try out Web Crossing's powerful collaboration features. You can upgrade your Web Crossing Express license to make greater use of all the collaboration services at any time, without reinstallation.

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This runs atop Win95 and MacOS Classic 9.2. Great use for an old Wintel machine?