Ars Technica: Portable headphone roundup - Page 6 - (2/2004)

Ars Technica: Portable headphone roundup - Page 6 - (2/2004)

Sennheiser PXC250 (US$130): Sound = 7 / Value = 7 / Overall = 7

As the only set of headphones with active noise cancellation in this comparison, the PXC250 was at a bit of a disadvantage — generally active noise-reduction headphones show a significant price premium over their counterparts (The PXC250 is based off of the PX200, which is significantly cheaper). While the PXC250's sound was not terrific, they were at worst entirely inoffensive, and at best quite balanced and pleasing. Neither Jeff nor Matt had any major complaints about the sound. We would definitely recommend these to anyone that travels on planes a lot, works in a server room, or perhaps someone with a rather loud computer that they do not want to hear, but wants to hear other ambient sound. Just as the other Sennheiser PX series headphones were, the PXC250 is also very light and comfortable. The bottom line is that some people would get a lot of good use out of the PXC250s, but they are probably not worth it for people that do not need the active noise cancellation — better sounding headphones without noise cancellation can be had.

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I bought some reconditioned AIWA noise cancelling headphones for $17, but these sound interesting ....

Panther Kernel crashes and BSOD - networks, sleep and location changes

MacFixIt - Troubleshooting Solution for the Macintosh

Mac OS X 10.3.x: Kernel panics upon location change
Yesterday we covered a reader report from Rob Tillyard that his PowerBook G4 has recently been experiencing kernel panics when switching between Network Locations (via the Locations submenu of the Apple Menu or the Network pane of System Preferences). Since then we've received corroborating reports of this issue from many MacFixIt readers.

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I see this. No clear workaround except for Apple to fix the problem.

Smaller Panther PDFs - Colorsync option allows Quartz Shrinking (JPEG Compression)

Mac OS X Panther (10.3.2)

Dan Frakes Benjamin Drew wrote: 'How come the PDF's made in Panther are so large?...'

You could use any of a number of PDF 'shrinking' utilities, or even Acrobat. However, Panther has a built-in feature that can significantly reduce the size of Panther-generated PDF files during the creation process:

1. Access the Print dialog normally, but don't use the 'Save as PDF' command yet.
2. From the options pop-up menu in the Print dialog (the one that normally says Copies & Pages by default), choose ColorSync.
3. From the Quartz Filter pop-up menu that appears, choose Reduce File Size.
4. *Then* use the 'Save as PDF' command to create your PDF. (If you plan on using this option often, you may want to first create a new preset using the Presets pop-up menu in the Print dialog; this will allow you to create PDF files using this option in the future by simply selecting the preset before you create the PDF.)

This option won't reduce the size of PDF files as much as some of the third-party utilities on the market, but in some cases it works wonders... and it's free.

Report Google Link Spam

Report a Spam Result

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Report sites that game google. When what you see isn't what you expected, copy here.

Apple Software Restore: How to install or reinstall parts without erasing

Apple Software Restore: How to install or reinstall parts without erasing

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Working around Apple's own mistakes.

smugmug - now if they'd only add preconfigured user print accounts

smugmug - easy photo sharing with the world's best online photo albums

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Here's what I wrote them:

Smugmug looks extremely interesting. Maybe you'll do what I've been writing shutterfly and others about for about a year.

I want to create special prefunded preconfigured accounts for specific users to order prints with. Mother, aunt, grandmother, baby sitter, etc.

I would enter mailing addresses, username, password, default print size, and print budget when I set up their accounts.

They would login to my smugmug page and choose their name from a list. They would be asked a password.

Then they would see a simple app for specifying images to print. Then click done. They see a confirmatory screen and confirm.

That's IT. They don't enter credit card info, uname, pword, address, ANYTHING. They only click, enter password, select print, confirm. Prints get mailed to them.

When my account runs low I'm notified to add more money.

HUGE time saver for me. I don't have to worry about shipping, selecting, anything.

Include a special account without an address. That's to give to parents at a party, so they can get prints.

Do this and you'll be drowning in print orders. Money, money, money.

If you weren't already planning to do this, you can give me 10 free prints as a gesture of your eternal gratitude.

Google Viewer and Safari quick keys

Google Viewer

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Google viewer is a google experiment -- it generates a slideshow view. I put in on my Safari toolbar, then I (re)discovered that the Cmd-Number keys map to toobar items.

So cmd-1 brings up BlogThis!, cmd-2 TinyUrl, cmd-3 Google Viewer, etc. It's actually FASTER to use this technique for googling than to use the google search field in Safari. In one keystroke I can enter my search term rather than clicking and entering ...