Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Lossy and Lossless audio formats
For convenience we can divide the audio formats for PC as lossy and lossless (no quality loss). A conversion software (like avs4you ) can convert a normal audio file to any other format you can imagine.
The idea of lossy formats (the most popular among the casual user) comes from the idea that not all the sounds in the 44,100 samples per second content in a standard WAV files are correctly perceived by the human ear.
In this way (as is the case for the jpg image) we are going to cut the high frequencies, which are believed to be less distinct from the ear. The more you cut these frequencies the more space occupied by our audio file decreases (for example you can get 3MB instead of 6 MB for a song of a few minutes length). Also the decrease in the quality is not much because the frequencies that are cut are not so much 'audible'.
The conversion to WAV, starting from the lossy formats, does not bring any benefit (unless you must draw up the track and save it several times, in this case the loss of quality will be limited to the first step), and there are programs that are able to return to our original tracks some of these high frequencies, such as Steinberg Clean Plus or others (eg early versions of Easy CD Creator, or other more professional tools), however, while-doing a decent job is not much that can be done for reverting a lossy audio to an original wav.
The lossless audio formats, instead of trying to decrease the space occupied by the track, works without going to touch the sound. The compression ratio will be much lower compared to lossy formats, but there will be no loss of quality. If converted to WAV (perhaps to be processed), the sound will be the same as before.
Some lossy audio formats:
WMA (. Wma): Windows Media Audio format, compressed and very similar to an mp3. This is Audio compression format from Microsoft. Files compressed in this format are approximately 20% smaller than MP3
MP3 (. Mp3) is short for MPEG 1 Layer III and identifies the audio files using this algorithm. Its standard that eliminates sounds inaudible to human ears. In this way an MP3 song of 128 kbps occupies a space equal to 1 / 11 compared to the same format of the original Wav or audio cd.
Lossless Audio formats
WAV (. Wav) format. Wave formats is nothing but a digital recording of real sounds, sounds that have originated from a source external to the PC. In a WAV music, drums, piano, guitar, bass or voice are felt the same way regardless of the PC where the file is playing (with the same sound quality of the hardware, of course).
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Fast PC at work and at home
Computers fulfil many roles in each of our lives. If you use a computer for work, you no doubt know how a slow computer can affect your day. If you have deadlines to meet, a slow computer can add to the stress. Your work computer needs to be a fast computer. For example, advanced system optimizer will definitely transform your PC into a fast machine with all the features is has.
If you are a gamer, speed is of importance, as much as hard drive size. Having a fast computer would help to avoid glitches and freezing. As well as speeding start-up time and the time between each level of video sequence.
People who use the internet to listen to music, watch videos or for downloading get frustrated if things take a long time. We want everything instantly, or close enough. With a slow computer, this isn't possible. If you are in this situation, you need a fast computer to experience the internet at the highest speed possible.
So, we have established that we would really like a fast computer. What can we do to achieve this? In your house, a clean-up of things help you to get to the things you need when you need them faster, doesn't it? It's exactly the same thing with computers. You need to regularly delete and remove things you no longer need.
If your wardrobe is bursting with clothes, it's likely harder to find things. You may have to clear it up. This is the same with a computer. Regularly clearing unwanted files and programs, can give you a faster computer.
Software and hardware need regular updating. You can get Windows updates directly without clicking anywhere. While some driver and software is updated automatically by Windows updates, you may have to do some manual driver updating as needed. This can help several hardware areas of your computer to run better, which will affect the speed of the whole computer.
The best way to make your computer a fast computer, is to use PC optimization software. These are specialized software, whose purpose is to help maintain the computer's performance at the highest level. These software include many tools and utilities such as registry cleaners, hard-disk cleaner and defrag, memory optimization tool, security protection tool, start-up programs management etc.
To see how valuable and effective these programs are, one of the utilities they have is a registry optimizer. This tool will search all the registry entries and find unnecessary data and delete it. Also, it will compact and defragment the registry for real enhancement in speed. As we know, the registry is a specialized database where the operating system keeps a record of all details of the computer, like programs installed, where data is located, what programs must start at boot time etc. So having an optimized registry is essential.
If you would like to improve the speed of your computer, you should consider all the tips above. If the thought of using a PC Optimizer Software fills you with dread, have no fear as they are designed to be used by everyone. Using this type of optimizing software will result in a fast computer again. This will save you hundreds of dollars in buying a new PC or buying new hardware to increase performance.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Sony PlayStation Vita to use proprietary memory cards
The Sony PlayStation Vita (PS Vita) (PCH-1000 series) will use proprietary memory cards. A user by the name of onQ123 on the Neogaf forums posted a picture showing four sizes of the planned chips: 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB.
While they look very much like a standard SD card, they have an extra notch that clearly distinguishes them. This is very unfortunate because it means you will not be able to use any of the SD cards you already have: you will have to go out and buy a Sony memory card if you want additional storage on your Vita.
This sad news follows the great news from last week, when we learned the PS Vita will be region-free. Region-free simply means that you can purchase a game and system from any two different regions and they will be compatible.

Sony is promising that the PS Vita will have give a PS3-level experience with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor and a multi-core PowerVR SGX543MP4 graphics chip four times faster than the PSP's. The device will come with a 5-inch OLED screen (950 x 544 resolution), two micro-analog sticks to simulate the Dual Shock experience, front and rear facing cameras, and two-finger multitouch pad on the back of the machine. Sony is hoping the front and rear touch screens will offer new three dimension-like motion gameplay experiences never before seen on any device through "touch, grab, trace, push and pull" finger motions. A Sixaxis equivalent with a gyroscope and accelerometer is also available to let players control games by moving and tilting the system itself.
In terms of connectivity you can expect built-in 3G in addition to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, as well as GPS support. The PS Vita will come with a pre-installed app called Party, which lets you use voice chat or text chat when gaming, using other apps, or browsing the Internet. Another app, called Near, will let you share your game information with other users and add them as friends.
The Wi-Fi model will be available for 25,000 yen (including tax) in Japan, $250.00 in the US, and €250.00 in Europe, while the 3G/Wi-Fi model will be available for 30,000 yen (including tax) in Japan, $300.00 in the US and €300.00 in Europe. Exact release dates are still unknown, all Sony has said is that the PS Vita will launch globally at the end of this year.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
YouTube adds HD preview images, logoless playback option
Google has found that YouTube's video preview images are, for many people, the ultimate deciding factor as to whether or not to watch a video. As such, the company has added HD preview images to its embedded YouTube player. Previously, video preview images were not keeping up with high-quality and larger videos. Any new video uploaded to the site in a resolution of 480p or higher will now have an HD preview image wherever the player is embedded. Google will also automatically give HD preview images to older videos in the next few weeks, as long as they are 480p or larger.
At the same time, Google has responded to requests offering a logoless YouTube player. This means an embedded YouTube video is no longer marked with a YouTube logo in the bottom right corner, so the video plays without any branding. To enable this option, at the end of the video URL in your embed code you need to add "?modestbranding=1" and the player will show without the YouTube logo in the control bar. In this way, Google is helping users turn the option off, but by leaving it on by default for all videos, it is still pushing the YouTube brand.
Below we've embedded an example (it's the recently released Desmond Journey teaser trailer for Assassin's Creed Revelations):
On YouTube's sixth anniversary, Google announced the site is getting more than 3 billion page views per day. The search giant also revealed that more than 48 hours (two days worth) of video is uploaded to the site every minute.
YouTube is still pushing to improve the video sharing and viewing experience by making the processing of uploads faster, increasing the video lengths limit, tweaking the hompeage for all users, and so on. This year in particular, YouTube has been pushing to expand its reach in many areas.
Three months ago, the company announced that it wants to grow its staff by 30 percent this year. Two months ago, Google entered live streaming business wanted by launching YouTube Live, which integrates live streaming capabilities and discovery tools directly into the YouTube platform. Last month, YouTube began offering full-length feature films from major Hollywood studios, for rent.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Intel releases first dual-core Atom for netbooks, the N550
This is not the first time a dual core Atom has found its way into a netbook. The Asus Eee PC 1201N, for example, pairs a desktop chip known as the Atom N330 with Nvidia Ion graphics. But the extra performance comes at the expense of battery life. According to Intel, however, netbooks with the new chip will offer similar battery life as single-core Atom N450 offerings -- though it's expected to consume around 3 watts more with a TDP of 8.5W.
The Atom N550 will be made using a 45-nanometer manufacturing process and support DDR3 memory. The new chip will be offered in products by Acer, Asus, Lenovo, Samsung and Toshiba starting today -- though we've yet to spot any netbook announcements besides the Dell Inspiron Mini 1018, which still features the single core N455.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Gmail creator: Google just can't compete with Facebook
"I'm actually rather optimistic about Google overall," Buchheit told Gawker. "The inevitable doom of ChromeOS is due in part to the huge success of Android. As for social, I expect that Google will find greater success with their self-driving car and moon landing initiatives. I think it's worth noting that the two most successful Facebook competitors, Twitter and Foursquare, were both started by people who were relatively unsuccessful at Google. The only good strategy I can see for Google is to create something fundamentally different from Facebook (like Twitter or Foursquare were), but Google probably doesn't have the right people doing that because of this problem."
When he says "this problem," Buchheit is referring to story of Dennis Crowley, who sold his check-in service Dodgeball to Google in 2005. He left the company two years later due to a lack of engineering resources. He then launched Foursquare, a virtually identical service, which has done very well in a market that Google now considers quite valuable.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Natural Diabetes Treatment
Whoever is capable of living with consciousness of diabetes lives a quality life. Once adopting our organism to a regular exercise habit is an important start of this change. Preventing being obese and gaining weight is a powerful tool of maintaining blood sugar. That is why people with diabetes should perform mild but regular exercises, such as intensive walking, swimming or cycling.
Diabetes needs control in food. Healthy and nutritive dishes will provide and maintain the level of blood sugar. Naturally, alcohol and smoking should be avoided at all times. With diabetes, it is not recommended to take dishes containing sugar. However, with substitutes for people with diabetes, it is possible to eat sweets too. If there is a need for a glass of alcohol containing drink, a person has to eat something.
Most diabetic suffering people get used in time to eat frequently. However, their portions should be smaller, which helps irregularities in blood sugar fluctuation. Having healthy snacks between the meals is advisable. However, unsweetened juice, tea or water is also recommended. Avoiding all types of fuzzy beverages is a benefit. Coffee is also a drink to avoid, which is not a problem with varieties of decaf drinks.
Being in control of one’s life is a key to live with diabetes and yet live normally. One of the most important factors today is to care about the stress. As much as it is dangerous to the healthiest people, it is known to affect also diabetic men and women severely, messing up the level of their blood sugar intensely. It is recommended to try yoga or similar relaxation techniques.
Naturally, diabetic men and women must not avoid medication, if prescribed. They all have to be taken at proper time and in prescribed quantities. With today’s modern medicine solutions, diabetes is very easily controlled. Using various patches, which release insulin when needed, it is a great novelty in the diabetes medications market. However, regular doctors’ checkups are a necessity.
Intake of particular natural remedies also improves life quality in persons suffering from diabetes. Consumption of celery, garlic and onion is a great benefit. It cleans the blood-vessel system and provides a constant level of blood sugar. Daily consumption of gourd juice is also recommended in patients with diabetes.
Various beverages, such as mango leaves, tea or cinnamon in water proved excellent controllers over blood sugar level. Once a person suffering from any type of diabetes adopts completely different, health oriented lifestyle, the chances for keeping it under control are much higher. With moderate exercises and nutritional plan, most of the patients can live a quality life. Combining medications with natural remedies only help the entire organism fight the disease more successfully.
Americans can't live without high-speed Internet, or e-mail
High-speed Internet came in first place at 24 percent, followed close behind by Facebook at 22 percent, and Google settled for third place with 10 percent. Men and those over 55 said high-speed Internet has had the greatest impact on society while women and adults under the age of 55 found Facebook had the most impact. Of the technologies most said they cannot live without, high-speed Internet came in first at 28 percent, e-mail was second at 18 percent, while Facebook only grabbed 3 percent among all adults. 15 percent of young adults (aged 18-24), however, said they cannot live without Facebook.
24 percent of Americans believe the greatest technological advancement for the next year will be in home entertainment while only 16 percent believe it will be in general computing. In the next decade (by the year 2020), the following will take place:
43 percent of Americans believe we will see regular use of stem cells and cloning techniques to create human organs for transplant40 percent of Americans believe we will see computer chips implanted in people to monitor their health40 percent of Americans believe we will see robots capable of performing manual labor jobs36 percent of Americans believe we will see virtual reality incorporated into home entertainmentZogby International said slight weights were added to region, party, age, race, religion, gender, and education to more accurately reflect the overall US population. The data was given a margin of error of +/- 2.3 percentage points.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Acer, Asustek, Lenovo to launch ultra-thin notebooks at CES?
With the Macbook Air, Apple adopted an open-cell assembly, where panel makers only complete the cell part of the LCD module. They then ship the unfinished product to backlight unit makers to finish the backend part of LCD module assembly using panel modules 3 to 5mm thinner than the traditional procedure others use. Naturally, Acer, Asus, and Lenovo want in on this process.
The biggest problem with thin notebooks is their price tag. Apple's option is expensive, and so was Dell's Adamo XPS, even though it was quite an "engineering marvel." Hopefully, with more companies entering the fray, we'll see competition result in a good old price war that benefits all types of consumers.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Acer readies Aspire One 522 with AMD Fusion
Macles reports that the Acer Aspire One 522 uses a similar chassis design to the Aspire One D255, except it loses the textured touchpad and dons a new green color scheme. The netbook will sport a 10.1-inch 1280x720 display, HDMI and VGA-out, three USB ports, a webcam, and a multi-card reader. Acer will supposedly market the system with an emphasis on HD media, given the 720p screen and support for video acceleration.

Most of the Aspire One 522's remaining specifications will mirror the D255's, though it only carries a single speaker. Interestingly, battery life is rated at six hours, which is two hours less than the D255. We haven't seen any information about pricing or a release date, but we assume it will be available shortly after Fusion hits the market. We expect more information to slip out when CES kicks off in early January.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Why is it necessary to update your PC’s hardware drivers?
The easiest way to keep your computer performing in a smooth manner is to update hardware drivers. You keep updating software but do not think of hardware. Drivers for hardware actually connect it with the operating system. The software that you use makes this connection possible. Software allows hardware and operating system to understand and communicate with each other without any glitches.
Despite it being necessary to update drivers at regular intervals, some people do not perform this action. Drivers are an important part in the set up of any windows based system and affect the performance of the system. Manufacturers take huge effort to release hardware updates just as software makers do. They do this to take out bugs and also to increase the efficiency of their hardware components.
People use a plethora of devices with their PC like a camera, scanner or a printer that do not work efficiently as there are bugs in the drivers. Old drivers having one or the other problem make it difficult for your computer to keep performing at a high level. Either because of any invalid response from you or because of the presence of any virus, driver files may be deleted or get corrupted. Single missing or deleted files simply means that the devices attached to the PC may not work at a desired level.
Often your system begs you to update drivers but you fail to notice distress signs. This is when the sound of the system suddenly changes and then the system crashes or when the system goes blank playing a video game. This simply tells you that you need to update both sound as well as picture drivers.
Drivers are supplied free by the manufacturers along with hardware and if you feel they have become outdated, you can always download updated drivers from the site of the manufacturer. Sometimes, out of love and habit, people keep using old operating system despite using new hardware. This also causes a mismatch between the two and updating of hardware drivers becomes a must.
The problem of outdated problems is unique to systems that are Windows based as Windows it is that offers so many choices when it comes to using devices that leads to a mismatch between hardware drivers and the OS. It is natural for Microsoft to think that users would take care of drivers while using different devices.
Updating hardware drivers makes it sure that you are always making use of latest drivers. You can easily get them for free on the site of the manufacturer thus making it a very easy process. You can also go and check these drivers on driver databases on the net. A program called driver navigator has a huge database of more than 2 million drivers for you and updates the drivers automatically.
The necessity of updating your PC’s hardware drivers
By updating hardware drivers, it is easy to keep a computer performing at an optimum level. It has been seen that people update their software but forget about hardware. The OS used by a person is connected to the hardware by these drivers. This connection is done with the help of software called “driver”. It is when there is a better understanding between hardware and OS with the help of driver software that the system performs at its maximum speed.
Despite it being necessary to update drivers at regular intervals, some people do not perform this action. Drivers are an important part in the set up of any windows based system and affect the performance of the system. Manufacturers take huge effort to release hardware updates just as software makers do. They do this to take out bugs and also to increase the efficiency of their hardware components.
People love to use several devices with their computer but if there is any problem in the drivers, these devices will not work properly. Bad or outdated drivers stop a PC to achieve its optimal level. It is also possible that the files associated with drivers may become corrupt or infected by virus. It is difficult to get a device to function normally even if one or two files are deleted or corrupt.
Sometimes your computer itself tells you about any problem present in the drivers but they get unnoticed by you. It normally happens that the sound of the computer may behave abnormally and then the system crashes or the PC goes blank in between a game telling you that there is something wrong with the drivers of hardware. It is not only audio but also video drivers that need updating frequently.
Manufacturers keep updating drivers and they are freely available on the net which means that you can update your hardware drivers whenever you think they have become outdated. Then there are people who become used to an older operating system despite having latest hardware drivers. This mismatch also causes problems and necessitates matching of hardware drivers with the OS.
Driver problems are associated with Windows based computers as there are lots of devices that can be attached with your PC which often causes a mismatch between drivers and operating system. It is assumed by Microsoft that users are smart enough to match their drivers with devices that they are using with their PC.
Updating hardware drivers makes it sure that you are always making use of latest drivers. You can easily get them for free on the site of the manufacturer thus making it a very easy process. You can also go and check these drivers on driver databases on the net. A program called driver navigator has a huge database of more than 2 million drivers for you and updates the drivers automatically.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Elliptic Labs brings Minority Report interface to the iPad
"The idea is that you use touchless gestures to operate primary functions of a docked tablet in situations like when you have wet or greasy hands in the kitchen," Elliptic Labs CEO Stian Aldrin told Mobile Magazine. "In general tablets are made for being handheld. When it is docked you are often walking or standing further away, and then using a finger on the screen involves a change of modality. Rather than bending down, leaning forward or picking it up you can use larger movements a little bit further away to do things like volume up or next song without changing modality."
The technology emits an ultrasound field around the device that detects your hand movements and takes them into account. The iPad has a small screen, so standing back and using it without touching it seems a little pointless. Aldrin does, however, mention one use case that makes soem sense: when you're cooking and you're using the iPad to look at a recipe. Can you think of any others?
Saturday, January 1, 2011
EA: microtransactions are more profitable than in-game ads
EA tested both models with its free-to-play cartoony shooter Battlefield Heroes, and while virtual sales exploded, advertisements have been somewhat of a flop. "If you think about how fast the virtual goods business has grown in the last year or so, it's been much quicker and become a much more reliable source of revenue," Cousins said in reference to Farmville, which has been wildly successful thanks to microtransactions.
EA plans to release a new free-to-play Battlefield title called "Battlefield Play4Free" next spring, which will ditch Battlefield Heroes' cartoonish graphics and allow gamers to purchase items and upgrades with real money. Play4Free will scale up to 32 players, support vehicular combat, and include popular maps from Battlefield 2 as well as the classes and factions in Bad Company 2. You can register to become a beta tester on the official site.