These days mp3 players are all the rage and consumers are lining up to take advantage of this latest evolution in music technology. But there are already lots of portable mp3 players on the market and many don’t understand what to look for when they buy an mp3 player. So here are a few things [...]
The MP3 player watch is a novel idea that has finally become reality. It is a perfect combination of watches and mp3 players. Just plug the MP3 player watch into your computer’s USB port to transfer music files and data. You can listen to Music and Record Conversations wherever you go. All stored in your [...]
You would think that anyone taking an objective look at the RIAA would recognize what a complete disaster the organization has been over the past decade. It’s fought off every new innovation in the marketplace (remember, it tried to kill off mp3 players as illegal), alienated a huge number of its biggest customers and failed to do much to actually get the industry in a position to capitalize on new distribution and promotional methods created by the internet. In other words, it’s done plenty to hurt the industry while doing almost nothing to help it. You would think that might make folks in similar organizations think twice about hiring execs from the RIAA, but perhaps not.
The Entertainment Software Association — basically the RIAA for video game companies — has apparently hired a high level RIAA exec. And not just any high level exec, but the guy who was in charge of the RIAA’s disastrous litigation efforts. The ESA hasn’t been as widely reviled as the RIAA or MPAA (or even the BSA), but it has had its run-ins with folks in the past. And, of course, it was just about a year ago that the ESA’s boss was whining that he wished more countries copied the DMCA. No wonder Davenport Lyons is having a field day suing people for file sharing video games. It appears that the video gaming industry is looking to follow in the footsteps of all the RIAA’s mistakes.
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If you’re in the market for one of those diddy little MP3 players like the Zen Krystal or Sansa Clip then hold fire for a bit as it seems Apple is making some movements in the area.
As a follow-up to a similar move made last February, The popular iPod Shuffle is allegedly going to get another upgrade with a new 4GB model to accompany the current 1GB and 2GB versions.
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Dear oh dear. Ok, Transformers are pretty cool in a nostalgic kinda way, and we guess it was inevitable that a string of transforming tat would appear after the movie’s release.
We’ve already seen stuff like MP3 players, speakers and headphones, but shoes? Seriously?
Yes, unfortunately it now seems like you can pick up a pair of Nikes that are capable of fighting for the future of the planet when they’re not getting sweated on by your hoofing great feet.
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Dear oh dear. Ok, Transformers are pretty cool in a nostalgic kinda way, and we guess it was inevitable that a string of transforming tat would appear after the movie’s release.
We’ve already seen stuff like MP3 players http://uk.gizmodo.com/2007/07/18/the_transformers_mp3_player.html , speakers http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/05/16/gadgets_in_disguise.html and headphones http://uk.gizmodo.com/2007/08/06/transformers_headphones_fight.html , but shoes? Seriously?
Yes, unfortunately it now seems like you can pick up a pair of Nikes that are capable of fighting for the future of the planet when they’re not getting sweated on by your hoofing great feet.
Unless this is some elaborate ruse, we’re actually quite impressed they managed to cram a robot into the sole of something that looks just like a regular trainer, though of course you’ll probably have to sacrifice comfort for the privilege.
They’re available for just $27 (though you’ll have to order them from the US) and come in a range of guises aimed at boys and girls.
Nike has actually gotten involved so we don’t think it’d put its name to something that’ll end up being a laughing stock, unless of course they just wanted an excuse to produce the rather cool advert below. - Paul Lester
[Geekologie] http://www.geekologie.com/2007/04/nike_shoe_transformers.php
[Gadget4all] http://www.gadget4all.com/prod_detail.php?prod_id=00331
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Laws are like London buses, which come along in threes. I’ve therefore suffered a bit of teasing for only having two Laws of Computing. However, I am now thinking about a third law, which will roughly state that “the easier it is for you to access your data, the easier it is for someone else to access your data”. If you can come up with a snappy or even witty formulation, I’d be grateful. I’m obviously not Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler or Isaac Asimov, and I’m not proud.
My laws are nothing like real laws in the scientific sense. They are simply intended to help people think about the possible consequences of their actions. We all like computer geegaws, and can be sucked in by their shiny-shiny aspect. But as every teenager soon discovers, short-term attractions can have regrettable long-term effects.
And over the long term, data is the only thing that matters. In 50 years, you won’t care which computer hardware or software you used, and whether it had fashionably rounded corners. But you will care if you can’t read your old notes and diaries, play your favourite songs, or access old family photos. Data is forever.
With that in mind, Schofield’s First Law of Computing says: never put data into a program unless you can see exactly how to get it out.
This law was born in the early 1980s when I edited a monthly magazine called Practical Computing. We used a lot of incompatible machines with different storage formats including cassette tape, 5.25in and 8in floppies, 3in and 3.5in “stiffies” and Sinclair Microdrives. We used even more incompatible word processors and other software. All of this stuff was doomed, but what isn’t?
Schofield’s Second Law of Computing says that data doesn’t really exist unless you have at least two copies of it.
This one was born when we got hard drives that were so big that we didn’t back them up. When files were on floppies, you knew you needed a spare. When you could back up a 40MB or 80MB hard drive to a 700MB CD-Rom, backups were a doddle. If you had to back up an 80GB hard drive with a 700MB CD-Rom, it was easier not to bother.
But could you remember which files you had backed up, which you’d deleted to make space, and which had simply gone missing? Of course not. You only found out what you had when the hard drive failed, as all of them do, eventually.
When I figure it out, Schofield’s Third Law of Computing will reflect life in the 2000s. Over the past 50 years, you knew where your data was: it didn’t move around. Now you may have data on PC hard drives, laptops, mobile phones, MP3 players and online. This is good, from the point of view of my first two laws, but there’s a downside. While it has become much easier for us to access our data, it has also become much easier for other people to access it.
Any data that’s online is vulnerable either through mistakes, hacking, social engineering or other causes. Maybe you got the permissions wrong, maybe it was cross-site scripting, maybe it was that library or cybercafe you visited, or you used the same weak password everywhere. Any data on a mobile device is vulnerable to loss or theft, and that includes external hard drives and Flash memory cards.
Data loss has obviously become a major problem for UK government and major corporations. Protecting data could soon become your problem, too.
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Looking at digital SLR cameras, most appear to use xD cards. I already use SD cards. What is the difference?
Maurice
JS: The SD (Secure Digital) card standard was developed by Panasonic, SanDisk and Toshiba to provide a small protected storage format for devices such as PDAs, MP3 players and mobile phones. There are now miniSD and microSD versions, plus SDHC cards.
The SDHC cards look the same but are generally incompatible with older devices that lack SDHC support, so this is the main point to watch. Digital SLRs that use SD cards are available from Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Panasonic and Samsung.
The xD (extreme Digital) storage format is similar, but was introduced later by Olympus and Fujifilm. This now has variants called Type M and Type H, so again, watch out for compatibility problems. Since xD is less popular that SD, prices are usually higher and cards will fit fewer devices. Frankly, I can’t see any reason for choosing xD rather than SD or CompactFlash - an older but very reliable format that uses a much bigger card - and I avoid the numerous Sony Memory Stick cards for the same reasons. If you have multiple devices, then it should be cheaper and more convenient to stick to a couple of popular formats, instead of having a different type of card in each device.
I like Outlook Express but cannot use spellcheck with my new laptop because it has only French spelling.
GP Ray
JS: Funnily enough, this is a common complaint, because Microsoft Office 2007 installs English, Spanish and German files that are incompatible with Outlook Express 6. This is a problem because OE does not actually have a spellchecker: it borrows one from Microsoft Office or Microsoft Works. Microsoft’s Help Centre article offers a solution. It says: “There are a variety of third-party free spell-checking programs available on the Internet”. One popular option is Vampirefo’s Spell Checker For OE, which is also available from SnapFiles. You could also use the inline spellchecker in Firefox 2 or Internet Explorer 7 with IE7Pro. If you really want to try to fix the problem, however, Tech-Pro.net has an article on How To: Fix spell checking in Outlook Express 6.
For several years I have been very satisfied with Microsoft’s Picture It! program. However, having changed my computer, it is no longer available.
JH Prentice
JS: Microsoft’s Picture It! was included in the Microsoft Works suite and subsumed into the Microsoft Digital Image Suite. Microsoft discontinued it after adding most of the features to Windows Vista. However, your old CD could work: according to web reports, Picture It! 9 and 10 will work in Vista if you run it in XP compatibility mode and check the box “As Administrator”. Sadly, the very easy photo retouching features were not added to Vista, and I don’t know of any other program that takes the same non-geeky approach. The closest may be an online Flash-based picture editor, Picnik. Otherwise, Paint.net is a good free picture editor for Windows, though it’s in the traditional mould.
One of my three anti-spyware programmes keeps reporting a Trojan backdoor in the internat.exe Windows file. This has a large query as its icon, and properties describes it as a Keyboard Language Indicator Applet. If I let the program remove it, or if I delete it myself, then it promptly reappears.
Richard Parish
JS: Try running a search for internat.exe, the name of the software that detects it and “false alarm”, because that’s what it probably is. There are at least two versions of internat.exe, one of which puts a small blue square in the SysTray to let you change languages. Most UK users don’t need this feature and don’t run it. This has a question mark icon and is about 20K. The Trojan version is about four times larger and has a zip file icon. If it also says “Hello. I’m NetSnake” on startup, then it’s definitely a virus. For more information, see Symantec’s write-up.
· Bill Taylor has come up with “a very simple typo that causes a Word document to be closed without saving” - which was Stafford Linsley’s problem. It’s “Ctrl+W - an unadvertised keyboard shortcut for Close”. He says he learned the hard way by typing “When” and hitting Ctrl instead of the shift key. I’ve previously recommended Ctrl-W as a quick way of closing unwanted popups and browser windows.
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Control systems for portable devices like MP3 players and mobile phones can start to get a bit silly sometimes, and though the trend was arguably started by Apple’s scroll wheel, this is also one of the few that can genuinely be labelled a success.
LG is pretty culpable in this area and seems to have a clear penchant for building a touchscreen into everything, and iRiver mixed things up a bit with its Clix and Twist players.
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Many people take their skinny laptops and whiz-bang MP3 players for granted these days but just over 50 years ago, digital music was a much different prospect.
The BBC has unearthed what it believes to be the oldest computer generated music recordings but, before you go dusting off those dancing shoes, it’s Baa Baa Black Sheep.
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