Lossless codecs, like FLAC, are great when it comes to preserving all the quality present on the original media. Unfortunately though, they do take up quite a bit of space and most lossless codecs are far from popular in the mainstream. Therefore, it often becomes necessary to sacrifice some of the quality in order to recoup some disk space and increase compatibility — because the day that the iPod supports open source codecs, is also likely to be the day that hell freezes over…

So, you’re stuck with hordes of FLAC files and you want to convert them all into high-quality MP3’s, and, of course, you’d like to do all this without paying a penny, correct? Is that even possible? After all, the Fraunhofer Society currently owns the rights to the MP3 codec, and they’re not shy about cashing in on it.

Fortunately, there is a solution, and both of the tools needed for this operation are available for free!

Ever since I gave up on iTunes and Winamp, I’ve been using a very light-weight and very elegant music player known as Foobar2000, or just Foobar for short. Besides the wonderful job it does playing back music with an absolute minimum of fuss, unlike iTunes, it also features an extensive array of useful plug-ins, the most fundamental of which come pre-installed. One of these built-in tools is the codec converter, which is what we’ll be using to solve our little dilemma.

In order to encode and decode MP3 files, Foobar uses the LAME codec. Due to reasons I don’t fully understand, the guys behind this codec have somehow circumvented the need to license the relevant technology from the Fraunhofer Society, and can therefore offer MP3 support for free — sounds like that might be an interesting article all on its own, but I digress.

Anyway without further ado, here’s the interesting bit:

Once you have Foobar installed and fired up, click on the “Library” menu, and select “Configure” — alternatively, you can just hit Ctrl-P, and that will get you to the same place. On the left side of the “Preferences” window that just opened up expand the entry titled “Tools,” and click on “Converter.”

From here, look to the right side of this window, and you should see a button labeled “Add New.” Click on that.

You should now see the window pictured below. From the “Encoder” list, select “Custom.” The first text box under the drop-down that you just used should now read “lame.exe” –  again, just like in the picture.

The settings are almost perfect right from the start. There is, however, one problem. We would like to convert our pristine FLAC files to the highest quality offered for MP3’s, but unfortunately, that’s not what the settings reflect at the moment. In order to rectify this, all that we need to do is replace the text in the “Parameters” box with the following:

-S --noreplaygain -b 320 - %d

From a technical standpoint, that’s all you need to change; your files will now be properly converted to 320kbps MP3’s. The description of this conversion preset, however, won’t reflect the fact that we’ve forced the LAME encoder to use a constant bit rate of 320kbps. But, this is easily fixed as well. At the very bottom of the window, simply update the “Bitrate” field to 320, and set the “Settings” field to “CBR,” short for “Constant Bit Rate.”

That’s it, you’re now ready to convert your FLAC files.

Now, in case you’re new to Foobar, once you’re ready to actually convert a file, all you need to do is add the FLAC files in question to any playlist, select the song, right-click, and hit “Convert.” The rest is really straight forward…

Oh, almost forgot: The first time that you convert something to MP3, Foobar will ask you where it can find the LAME executable (i.e.: the file called LAME.exe). If you don’t already have it, you can download it from www.free-codecs.com. Once you’ve downloaded it, simply extract it to any location of your choosing — perhaps you might want to extract it your music folder, so you know where it is for future reference. After the extraction, head back over to Foobar, and when prompted, simply select the executable from the folder that you extracted the .zip file into.

Enjoy!

Despite the troubled roll-out, the beta to Microsoft’s next operating system, Windows 7, is finally available. But, unless you are either a die-hard Microsoft fan (possible, though unlikely), or a true geek, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “So what?”

Well, if that’s your first reaction, then I really can’t blame you. Traditionally, trying out beta releases of operating systems has been a real hassle. Either you’re so eager and willing to try out the very latest that you can’t wait to repartition and reformat a drive in order to install the new OS, or you just can’t be bothered.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just boot your current operating system – be it XP, Vista, or some Unix variant – pop open a window and run Windows 7 in that?

Not only would this be a great alternative to a traditional installation, but it’s also pretty easy to setup!

First off, a few terms. What we’re trying to achieve here is known as “full virtualization,” meaning that we’ll be virtualizing not just a single application or service, but an entire operating system. From now on the operating system that boots up when you turn on the machine will be called the “host,” and the operating system that we’re going to run virtually on that host will be known as the “client.” So, in other words, the client will be running within the host.

A critical aspect to virtualization is the fact that the client will think that it’s the one and only operating system running on the machine; it will, by design, be completely oblivious to the host. From a practical standpoint, this means that the beta to Windows 7 should behave exactly as it would if you had installed it on a fresh machine.

Unfortunately, the complete isolation achieved by virtualization also has a few downsides. First off, Windows 7 won’t have direct access to any of the machine’s hardware; for any action that it wishes to perform it will have to go through a middleman, the host. In short, this means that you’re computing experience in Windows 7 won’t be quite as spiffy as it might otherwise be on the host. Additionally, Windows 7 won’t have any access to OpenGL or Direct3D implementations on the hardware level. In layman’s terms, this means that the graphics will, for lack of a better term, suck. You’ll have to forgo the Aero eye-candy, and forget about playing solitaire at a decent framerate — I’m serious.

With all the warnings out of the way, let’s get started.

There are several application that will provide us with the capabilities that we need, but we’ll go with Sun Microsystem’s VirtualBox, since it’s free. You will find the appropriate download link here.

Besides VirtualBox, you will also need the ISO image of Windows 7 so that you can actually install it. Microsoft already has an entire page dedicated to Windows 7, located here. At the top of the page, you should be able to see a link that reads “Download the Windows 7 Beta.” Clicking on this link should start you on your way towards getting the beta, as well as the key that you’ll need if you don’t want Windows 7 to expire after 30 days. Since we’ll be using VirtualBox, make sure to get the 32-bit version of Windows 7; 64-bit clients aren’t completely supported yet in VirtualBox, but it’s coming soon, I hear.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed VirtualBox, go ahead and run it.

After the application starts, click on the blue star icon labeled “New,” this will start the “Create New Virtual Machine Wizard.” Sun has done a great job with VirtualBox, as such the Wizard is pretty straight forward and easy to use. Nevertheless, I’ll share some of the more important details to getting this all to work.

The second page of this Wizard will ask for the VM name and the OS type. The name can be whatever you like, so “Windows 7 x86,” for instance. The OS type, however, is more important. The operating system is obviously “Microsoft Windows,” so leave that as it is. As for the version, select “Windows 2008″ – not “Windows 2008 (64 bit).”

The third page is where you choose the amount of RAM that client will be able to access. The general rule of thumb is that you want to allocate about 40% of the total physical memory in your system. Too little, and the client won’t run properly, just like in real life; too much, and the host won’t be all too pleased. I would strongly recommend at least one gigabyte, the minimum recommended by Microsoft. On to the next page!

On the fourth page, you’ll be asked to select, and if necessary, create a virtual hard disk to install the client onto. Go head, and hit the “New…” button. This should bring up another Wizard, the “Create New Virtual Disk” wizard. I left all the setting in this Wizard at their default values and that seems to be working just fine for me. These would be: Dynamically expanding storage, the default virtual drive file location, 20.00 GB in size, and that’s it. Once you’re done with new Wizard, you should end up with the first Wizard. Just hit “Next.”

You should be seeing a summary page, so if everything is satisfactory, click “Finish.”

Going back to the main “Sun xVM VirtualBox” window, you should be seeing you’re newly created virtual machine in the left-most side of the window. Virtually speaking, we have just assembled you’re brand new machine from all the various parts, and we are now ready to boot it up for the first time.

Double click on the virtual machine to start it.

You should now see a new window, and a new Wizard, the “First Run Wizard.” Click “Next.”

The second page will ask you to select the installation media; in our case, that would be the ISO image of Windows 7 that we just downloaded. So select the ISO, select the “Image File” bullet, and click on the browse icon. This will open the “Virtual Media Manager.” From this new window, click on the “Add” icon and browse to the 2.44 GB (if it’s the 32-bit version) ISO image that you just downloaded. Once you’ve selected that image, you should end up back in the “First Run Wizard.” Click “Next” once more.

You should new be seeing another summary page. If all the listed information is correct, click “Finish.” If we go back to the analogy of before, you’ve just booted your machine for the first time, the Windows installation disc is in the drive, and you’ll now be asked to install Windows.

After Windows 7 installs itself, you can safely shutdown the client, just as you would with any “real” computer, and the next time you start her up, she’ll behave exactly like you would expect. Any changes you make will be saved for the next session. So, if you want to install Firefox, or OpenOffice in Windows 7, you can, and the next time you boot into Windows 7 everything will be exactly as you left it.

Enjoy, and remember, it’s a beta…

Not thirty minutes ago, the UPS truck came to a screeching halt outside my apartment to deliver the package that I’ve been eagerly awaiting the entire week. Trying hard to contain my enthusiasm, I carefully opened the DVD-sized box that Amazon shipped it in, and there it was: Far Cry 2, Ubisoft’s latest and greatest — or so they claim…

The reviews have been pretty positive so far, with Metacritic giving it a very respectable aggregated score of 88%,  but consumers seen to have a different opinion so far. One need only glance at the user reviews on Amazon.com to know why: SecuRom, a DRM protection scheme that can only be described as malware.

A sizable number of gamers seem to have gotten it into their heads that if they do nothing but give DRM-laden games one or two star reviews on Amazon that the developers might get a clue and stop hassling honest users with DRM. I suppose that this approach might yield some results, but I’m not too optimistic. As long as these large game studios are run by naive, elderly executives, and over-cautious shareholders, I foresee little hope of getting any an A-list title on the shelves without the inclusion of some sort of obnoxious scheme to protect the game from piracy.

I firmly believe that the issue is one of utter ignorance and naivety. The inclusion of a DRM scheme, like SecuRom,  in a game is meant to deter and prevent piracy, which is all fine and well; I, like the vast majority of consumers, have absolutely no problem supporting artists and developers, nor do I believe that studios should sit idly by while their hard work is being sold on the black market. I do, however, take issue with the manner in which SecuRom approaches this problem.

The reason I’m writing this post is that I’ve just about had with SecuRom, and it’s absurd approach to anti-piracy. Having just unwrapped the game, I popped the disc into my DVD drive and fired up the installer. All okay so far; the game, weighing in at a very moderate 3.2 gigs, installed without a hitch. However, as soon as I double-clicked the executable, SecuRom intervened:

Okay, fair enough, I guess this is a reasonable objection, since I do have one application that I suppose might facilitate piracy, namely PowerISO. After all, the application does allow for the mounting of ISO images on virtual drives, which would be a crucial step in installing pirated content. So, fine, this is the first time in a while that I’ve had DRM bitch at me, so I was willing to play along. After booting PowerISO off my computer, and rebooting my rig, I tried again: but no, I got the exact same error!

A few minutes with Google revealed that I’m not the only one experiencing trouble, and that the issue is actually fairly widespread. In fact, the guys responsible for this poorly implemented mess have already acknowledged their mistake and posted a fix, which is nothing more than a modified executable.

At this point, though, I don’t know what I find more aggravating: the fact that studios have absolutely no trust in their own customers, or that they apparently have no issue with shipping defective merchandise! The game has been out for barely a week, and already a patch is needed to even get the damn thing running — this is beyond absurd! Where was Quality Assurance on this one?

Update: So far I’ve only logged a few hours with the game, and I’ve had no further issues with SecuRom, but, then again, I haven’t actually reinstalled PowerISO yet…

If you’ve taken the time to read the last two posts, then surely you must be aware that the time has now come to finally install Ubuntu; and if not, then oh well, just look at the pictures or something.

In my last two posts, I’ve attempted to explain the pains that I went through trying to get the best out of my new laptop. The problem originally started with my realization that I am in no means whatsoever a fan of Vista. Postpartum depression urged me to seek out XP’s familiar setting. Much to my dismay, though, XP would not install on my new laptop, so that was the first hurdle I had to surmount.

Not only was I interested in a return to XP, I was also curious about Linux; particularly Ubuntu. So, the obvious choice, or at least a logic one in my mind, was to dual-boot. In the previous two articles, I explained how to install XP on a new machine intended for Vista, as well as how to prepare a system for a dual boot operation. Okay, so now that we’re all up to speed once again, let’s take the plunge once more, shall we…

If this first step doesn’t seem blatantly obvious, then maybe Linux isn’t for you, but in order to do anything further you’ll need the Ubuntu installation disc. So, head on over to Ubuntu.com. and download the latest version — 7.10 at the time of writing. Once armed with the image file, you’ll need to burn this to a disc. If you already own it, I would recommend using Nero, but if not, InfraRecorder is an excellent, and not to mention free, alternative.

Once the disc has been burned and finalized, pop it into the machine you wish to persuade into conversion — and cross your fingers, for the moment of truth is at hand. Linux is often labeled as being far more stable than Windows, which is true for the most past, but the main problem is getting it to run in the first place. Not all hardware likes Linux flavor. If you’re unlucky, you may have in front of you a machine cursed with unsupported hardware. If this is the case, you may experience issues ranging the benign, such as a nonfunctional web cam, to real show-stoppers, like incompatible graphics cards or display devices. Curing any of these issues may require long and inquisitive searches of some of the less frequented fringes of the net. Fortunately though, there always seem to be a plethora of willing and able Linux hobbyists to help you out.

Oh, and if the CD doesn’t boot right away, make sure that your BIOS is set to boot from CD-ROM drive…

Okay, so assuming that the CD boots properly, you should soon see the Ubuntu desktop–but, hey, wait a minute! What happened; nothing was installed, or was it?

The CD you just popped into your machine is what is known as a Live-CD, meaning that it contains a bootable version of the operating system. Allowing the user to experience the full operating system without having to install a single file is a great way of demonstrating the potential of product that many might be too hesitant to install.

“Okay,” you say, “but I want to install it, not just demo it.” Well, see that little icon on the desktop, the one that says “Install”? That’s where you wanna be if you’re interested in giving Ubuntu a serious test-drive.

Starting up the Installer, you should see a dialog box that will guide you through the installation process in seven rather easy steps. The first three steps are real no-brainers, simply select your prefered language, the appropriate time zone and your keyboard layout.

Step four is were things start to get a little more exciting. Depending on how many drives and partitions your machine has, this step may be more or less complicated. Since I’m writing this as part of a series in which I explain how I managed to dual boot XP and Ubuntu on a Vista-shipped laptop, the path I chose to follow in step four of the Ubuntu installer is quite specific to my particular needs. In the previous article, I explained how GParted was used to partition my drive into a Windows partition and a Linux partition companioned by a SWAP partition. If you followed the same procedure as I did, and used GParted to prepare the drive, then all you’ll have to do is select the correct partition, and move on. Since we already used GParted for most of the heavy labor, it makes little sense to reformat/resize the partition again — unless, of course, you made a mistake the first time around. Not to sound to repetitive, but step four is where you really want to pay attention. It’s very important that you select the correct drive to install Ubuntu onto, otherwise you’ll be in serious danger of losing existing, potentially important, data.

Looking at the screenshot below, we see that the system I used to grab the screenshots has two physical hard drives: HDA and HDB. We can also tell that the first drive, HDA, has three partitions on it: HDA1, HDA2, and HDA3. The one we’re after is the one that is formatted as EXT3, so in this case that would be HDA2. To double check that this is the right drive, take a look at the size of the partition. If this number corresponds to what you specified in GParted then you’re good to go. Note that there is no need to check any of the boxes unless you want to reformat the drive again, which really can’t hurt. So, once again, if you want to reformat, check the box, otherwise just highlight the drive. And in case you are wondering, SDA1 is a removable thumb drive.

If you have decided to reformat any of the drives again, make sure to also hit the “Edit partition” button. This should bring up another dialog box, asking you to specify the new size of the partition as expressed in megabytes, what format to use, and where to set the mount point. If the drive that you are partitioning is meant to house an installation of Ubuntu, it’s critical that you use the EXT3 format and set the mounting point as a single forward slash. If you’re confused, refer to the picture below.

Once you’re done with the “Edit Partition” dialog box, hit “OK,” and then click “Forward” once you’re back at larger dialog box.

Step five is particularly useful for those of us who have decided to dual boot, since Ubuntu will scan existing partitions for any other operating system from which it might be able to port over any important documents and folders. I always prefer to start fresh, and since Gutsy Gibbon is capable of reading Windows partitions, I will leave this step up to you. If you’re not interested, just proceed to the next page.

Even though there appear to be 7 steps, number 6 is really the last one that really requires any work. The purpose of this step is to help you set up a user account, and it’s pretty straight forward. As such the only note to make here is that your log in name cannot be capitalized and that…uhm, oh yeah, don’t forget your password.

Series: Dual-Booting: XP and Ubuntu

Part I | Part II | Part III

After I got my new laptop, it didn’t take me all to long to determine that I wasn’t all too fond of Vista. Instead of hastily ditching Vista and running right back into XP’s familiar settings, I thought I’d try out Linux. Having heard myriad glowing reports of its user friendliness, Ubuntu seemed like the obvious choice. However, if I did dedicate my entire system to Ubuntu, there’d always be the problem of gaming; Linux isn’t exactly a hotbed for interactive entertainment. So, why not dual-boot?

There are several approaches to dual-booting a system with XP and Linux: you can either nuke the drive, partition it, and then reinstall both operating system; install Linux first, then partition and install XP; or you can install Windows first and then get Linux working afterwards. In this article, I’m going to choose the latter method, but no matter which way you choose to go, an essential tool to have in your arsenal is GParted.

GParted is a nondestructive UNIX-based partition editing application used to create, destroy, resize and move entire partitions and their file systems. The application is widely available on many Linux systems, but more importantly, it also comes as a live-cd. What that means is that you can download the application image, burn it to a disc and boot from it, without having to touch the rest of your system.

For the purposes of dual-booting, I’ll describe how to use GParted to shrink an existing Windows partition, so that the freed up space can then be reformatted as EXT3 and SWAP partitions to host a fresh installation of Ubuntu’s Gutsy Gibbon:

• First thing’s first: since you’re going to be making critical changes to your hard drive, make sure that the data on that drive is properly backed up and secure. Even though GParted is designed to be nondestructive, you never know what might happen; the wrong button might get pressed, or the power might fail — so backup first!

• Okay, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s start. In order to do anything you’ll need the program, so go get the GParted Live-CD image first and burn it to a disc. After the burning process finishes, pop the CD back in and reboot. Note: if GParted doesn’t load, then you’ll have to amend your machine’s boot order in the BIOS first.

• When booting from the Live-CD, you’ll be asked to input some system information, such as hardware configuration, language and keymap – don’t worry, it’s easy. A few seconds into the boot process, you’ll see a list of possible boot configurations. From my experience the first option, the one that reads “Gparted-liveCD 0.3.4-11 (auto-configuration),” seems to work just fine, so go ahead and select that. After a few more loading cycles, you’ll be asked to select the appropriate keymap and after that your language; the numbers you should be entering in are 41 and 33, respectively. This should take care of the setup, now just wait for the distro to finish booting.

• Now that everything is loaded and set you’ll want to get started by shrinking the existing Windows partition. To do this, select the partition, either from the list or from the graphical representation, and then hit the button labeled “Resize/Move.” This will bring up a smaller window from which you can choose by how much to shrink the existing partition. Notice that there are three input fields in this window; enter the desired new size of the partition in the second field, or just move the arrows at either end of the graphic. Since GParted aims to keep your existing data intact, the minimum size that an existing partition can be shrunk to is equal to the amount of data already on that partition. The other two fields in the window describe how much of the new free space will appear before the newly resized partition and how much of it will appear after it. How you organize the layout of the partitions isn’t crucial to getting both operating systems running, but it keeps everything organized. Once you feel comfortable with the changes, hit “Resize/Move” — don’t worry, the changes aren’t permanent yet.

• Once you’re back to the main interface, you’ll notice that the existing partition is smaller and that it is now surrounded on either one or both sides by unallocated dark gray space. To create any further partitions, which you’ll need to if you want to install Linux, simply select the dark matter and click “New.” Creating a new partition is just as simple as shrinking an existing one, the only difference being that you’ll also have to select the filesystem type; since the new partition will host a Linux install, select EXT3. When specifying the size of the new partition, make sure that you leave about 512MB to 2GB for a Linux swap partition. Think of the swap partition as an extension of your RAM, but on the hard drive.

• To create the swap partition repeat the previous step, but instead of choosing EXT3 as the filesystem type, select LINUX-SWAP. With the size set, hit “Resize/Move,” and return to the main interface.

• Up to this point, GParted hasn’t done anything to your hard drive; the only thing that you have done up to now has been planning out what to do. So, once you’re confident that you’ve set everything up correctly, press the “Apply” button to actually make the changes to the system. Hitting “Apply” should bring up a cautionary message, telling you that you’d better be sure about what you’re doing. Once you dismiss that message, GParted will get to work and the operations that you have specified will commence. Depending on the size of your hard drive, the amount of data on, and how many new partitions you are going to create, GParted may be at work for a couple of minutes or a couple of hours.

Once you’re done, GParted will kick you back to its main interface window, from where you can go on to the main menu and quit. If everything went to plan you should now have at least three partitions: one based on NTFS, another on EXT3, and then a third to serve as a SWAP partition. At this point you’re free to install whatever Linux distro you fancy.

However, if you’re new to Linux, then I would highly recommend you try out Ubuntu, which is highly user friendly, very stable, and extremely customizable. For help on installing Ubuntu, be sure to check back in a couple of days for the last installment of my dual-booting series to get detailed instructions on what to do and not to do…

Series: Dual-Booting: XP and Ubuntu

Part I | Part II | Part III

Apple’s iPod has been around since late October, 2001, and has since then saturated the market with well over 60 million units worldwide. With so many units in circulation, countless problems have arisen over the years, and getting the thing repaired can be almost as expensive as buying a new one. I recently got my hands on two iPods that Apple customer support deemed beyond repair, but yet I managed to fix them and pretty easily, I might add.

Case One

The first iPod I got to fix had died after about a month of use. This iPod was actually one that my friend, Natalie, had received from Apple after she had sent in her first one because it, too, had stopped working. A few weeks after she had sent in her first iPod, she received a replacement fourth generation iPod at no cost to her, since the incident occurred under warranty. This second iPod stopped working after a mere month of use, after which it started displaying the infamous dead iPod symbol. At this point the warranty had run out, and so had her patience with Apple.

A few weeks ago a couple of friend and I were talking about portable entertainment and this issue with the iPod came up. After hearing about the problem and that the warranty had expired, I asked her if could get my hands on it to tinker with. Since it was already dead, she didn’t have much more to lose, so she handed it to me a few days later.

Case Two

Upon hearing that I was busy trying to fix an iPod for a friend, another friend of mine came up to me and asked if I would be willing to take a look at his iPod as well, since it had failed to function correctly as well.

He told me that his third generation iPod would power on, and that the hard drive would start to spin, but would then stop, start back up again, stop, and so on, until it finally displayed the same error symbol as Natalie’s iPod.

I told him that I would take a look at his iPod as well, but that I could not guarantee anything, since this problem sounded far more severe than the first. Initially, I expected the hard drive to be corrupt, since it behaved awkwardly, but the answer turned out to be a lot simpler than that.

Opening an iPod

No matter that the cause of the malfunction was I would have needed to open up the iPods in either case to figure out if I could do anything to remedy the devices.

It would turn out that the hardest part of fixing these two devices would end up being getting them open without scratching or otherwise damaging them. So, after a little research, I came up with the following procedure, which at took some time the first time through, but I quickly got the hang of it with the second one.

The white top of the iPod case is made out of acrylic and the base is obviously a metal, probably aluminum. Both of these materials are not exactly what you might call scratch resistance — as many of you have probably figured out by now. The two case components are attached to each other with a series of hooks that extend out from the acrylic top and latch onto a matching set of metal clips. So, in order to open the iPods, the hooks needed to be pushed inward slightly in order the separate them from their counterparts.

So as to not scratch the edges of either the base or the top, it is crucial to use a thin, soft plastic tool, like a guitar pick or an (old) credit card, to carefully split apart the two case components, before going in with the big guns. After the guitar pick was inserted, I moved it back and forth a couple of times along the edge of the iPod to create a very slight separation between the base and top. Next, move the plastic tool to the bottom of the iPod and get out a sturdier tool with which to actually start opening the enclosure. I opted to use the flat head screwdriver tool on my Leatherman Super Tool, because, unlike most of the screwdrivers that I had lying around, it had a very flat, broad tip, making it ideal for the task.

Insert the screwdriver, or whatever tool you deem fit, into the split created by the guitar pick and push down slowly and carefully as shown in the pictures below. If you are going to try this yourself, then make sure that you are actually in between the acrylic hook and the metal clip, and not in between the clip and the metal base, as you will bend the metal base out of shape this way. Again, look at the pictures to see what I mean.

After carefully pushing down, I eventually heard a pop, which was the hook slipping loose from under the clip and part of the acrylic top coming loose. After this it was be pretty easy to repeat the procedure and actually open up the iPod in its entirety. Be careful once the iPod is open, as some parts of the internal components are actually mounted on the metal base and you wouldn’t want to tear apart the connection between the two.

The Fix

As it turned out, both of the iPods had the same problem, and thus required the same fix. The cable that connected the 1.8” Toshiba hard drive to the motherboard was loose in both instances. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but upon careful examination it turned out that the cable in Natalie’s iPod (the one from the first case) was not in deep enough for any of the pins to make a decent connection. In the second case, the pins on the very same cable were only partially disconnected, which allowed for the hard drive to receive enough information to start up, but not enough information to do anything else, which explained its erratic behavior.

I was astonished at how easy the problem was to fix and how easily the entire problem could have been avoided on Apple’s end with a little design modification. Since the iPod was intended to be a portable entertainment device, one would think that Apple would have thought of properly securing the major components inside the enclosure. By simply adding another hook and clip to the cable and hard drive cable, like is done on many internal power supply cables for PCs, the problem could have been avoided.

Obviously, most people aren’t aware of exactly how fragile their iPods are – the Nano and the Shuffle being less of a problem, as they employ flash memory instead of actual hard drives, which use vulnerable moving parts. I have seen countless people actually run and jog with their full sized iPods. Such activity simply cannot be good for the hard drive and, as it turns out, for the cables connecting the hard drive to the rest of iPod.

Have you ever wondered why your Internet connection seems to slow down whenever you have a BitTorrent client running? Not only is this slowdown really annoying when you’re trying to download a file and surf the web at the same time, but it can get downright aggravating if you’re forced to share an Internet connection with someone who torrents practically 24/7. As it turns out, the problem is not that abstract, and the answer to the problem is quite simple and not that hard to apply—if you can convince your roommates or housemates to implement it, that is.

Introduction to BitTorrent

In order to understand what a possible solution to this problem might do, it’s important to understand what’s going on within the BitTorrent network and how this affects your machine and your connection. So let’s start off with a bit of history and theory.

For the uninitiated, BitTorrent is the name of a so called peer-to-peer network, based on a protocol designed to distribute large files over a large community without the need for numerous expensive servers. The concept behind the BitTorrent peer-to-peer system was pioneered by American programmer Bram Cohen in 2002, when he first introduced the protocol to the web. The network first gained attention amongst Linux users who where eager to utilize the system to share their open-source software code and ideas. However, the system didn’t really catch on until it was used to illegally distribute multimedia files, such as music, movies, and TV shows.

It’s important to note that there is nothing illegal about the network or its protocol, and as such it’s quite unfortunate that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Movie Picture Association of America (MPAA) seem to regard BitTorrent as being the main source of the problem they wish to eradicate. As if often the case, it’s the illicit use of a few that threatens the legal enjoyment of the masses. But I digress…

Understanding Traditional Downloads

Anyways, in order to be able to make heads or tails of the slowdown problem and its possible solutions, it might also be interesting to understand how BitTorrent works in relation to other methods of obtaining files off of the Net.

The most common way of downloading a file is to simply visit a web page, find the file in question, click on the link, and wait until it finishes downloading. Specifically, the browser sends a request for the file out to the server, the server then responds to initiate the transfer using whatever protocol the client requested (FTP, HTTP, etc). The key to this concept is that the file is stored on a server and the client requests and receives the file from that server; the client traditionally provides no service to anyone else, only the server does.

The P2P Generalities

Now, how and why is BitTorrent so different? The major difference between the traditional method of downloading a file and the way that BitTorrent operates is that the latter is based on the concept of peer-to-peer file sharing, commonly abbreviated as P2P. The essence of P2P is that the need for a server is greatly diminished. The file that you download is hosted by other users, like yourself, as opposed a server—from there the term “peer-to-peer.”

A major difference between BitTorrent and some other P2P networks, like Kazaa and Limewire, is that the protocol uses a centralized server, called a tracker, to keep up with the status of the torrent files. Another major disparity between the different P2P systems and BitTorrent is that it operates on the basic principal of “tit-for-tat,” meaning that a user has to give in order to receive.

A major problem with some P2P systems is that they are saturated with so-called “leechers,” users that take advantage of the network by only downloading and not uploading. One of the major incentives to actually upload in the BitTorrent world is that the more you upload the faster you can download.

One of the main qualms behind the theory of P2P is that the vast majority of users do not have symmetrical connections; meaning that they cannot upload as fast as they can download. Because the sharing of files between peers is based on users sharing what they receive, a crippled upload speed would result in a very slow download. To solve this problem, the protocol is designed to enable multiple connections with different users at the same time, so that different parts of a single file can be downloaded simultaneously, thereby increasing the effective speed of the download.

The Slowdown Problem

The sheer fact that the BitTorrent protocol enables multiple connections is also the main cause of the slowdown in the Internet connection. When the Internet and the systems around it were designed, each device was thought to only be connected with a single connection—not a few hundred as is possible with BitTorrent.

In order to maximize the efficiency of the individual torrent’s peer network, many torrent applications, like Azureus, ABC, uTorrent implement a very high upper limit on the number of concurrent connections. Modems only have a finite amount of memory with which to negotiate the connections and handle the transfer of data, which is what causes the slowdown.

Unfortunately, the problem isn’t only limited to the number of connections, but also to the bit-rate of the upload. If a user is going to dedicate a high percentage of his or her upload speed, say 80% or higher, it would become increasingly hard for other protocols to get their share. If packets encounter a saturated Internet “pipe” then they are more likely to get lost, prompting the client and server to resend the data, resulting in latency.

The Solution

So, how can this slowdown problem be eliminated?

Well, to be perfectly honest: it can’t. However, its effects can be severely limited. Since the problem consists of having too many concurrent connections, together with saturated pipes, it would seem only logical to lower the upper bound on the number of connections and transfers. With an advanced torrent application like Azureus, ABC, or uTorrent, limiting the number of connections is pretty simple; just look for the corresponding settings in the menu system.

Azureus, for one, has a plethora of free plugins to do all sorts of neat things. One of these plugins, called “Auto Speed,” is ideal for managing the global upload bitrate, thereby limiting the connection lag. As the name implies, it automatically adjusts the maximum upload speed based on the latency of your Internet connection.

Obviously, these adjustments can also be made manual. Through a method of trail and error, it shouldn’t take too long to gauge a tolerable threshold for the upload bitrate. Once this limit is determined, simply adjust the speed cap to be a little lower than that to ensure optimum performance.

The number of simultaneous connections that the program is allowed to establish can also be modified pretty easily. In some programs the default cap on the maximum number of connections can be as high as 250. If you usually only download a single torrent at a time, go ahead and turn this number way down, as most torrent won’t connect to more than 50 peers at once.

Well, I hope that the above explanation has been of some assistance, and please note that this has worked pretty well for my setup, and that results may vary from case to case.

If you’re like most computer users nowadays, you probably have multiple applications up and running at the same time. In an effort to “multi-task” you might be using an e-mail client, a chatting application, a web-browser, a word processor, or any number of other programs. Most of the time, you’ll be using these applications, whatever they may be, simultaneously and this is where the frustration arises: you have to keep switching between applications to see the data that you need. One easy solution to this dilemma is using multiple monitors. Not only is it a lot nicer to have two maximized applications open and visible at the same time, it has also been shown that those who work in this fashion are 30% more effective at what they do. Taking advantage of a second monitor is a lot easier than you may think.

Monitors

Windows XP will easily accommodate additional monitors, and comes with quite a few useful tools for doing this, right out of the box—so to say. Additional requirements are, obviously, another monitor, and possibly a new video card, depending on how old your system is. There are no size, resolution, or aspect ratio requirements for the additional monitors that you hook up. A user could, if he or she so desires, hook up a 15 inch CRT with a 30 inch widescreen LCD, it really doesn’t matter. However, it’s rather nice to have two identical displays, running at the same resolution. Currently, I’m sitting in front of two 19 inch widescreen LCD monitors, and it’s really nice to be able to work on two monitors with the same specifications, so that an application will look, and behave the same on either monitor—not that it really matters if you’re only working with Microsoft Word, or other basic programs. The additional monitor doesn’t have to be anything fancy. If you’re like the average user, you’ll have gone through various upgrades these last few years, and chances are that you might have an old monitor lying around somewhere, so why not put it to use again?

Video Cards

As far as video card requirements go, there really isn’t anything special needed in this area either. As far I’m aware, all of the cards sold by ATi and nVidia, include at least two outputs, called “heads.” For basic computing requirements, such as word editing, e-mailing, etc, it doesn’t matter if the output types are the same or not; one can be an analog VGA output, and other can be a digital DVI output. The digital output will provide a better, cleaner signal, but unless you’re doing high-end video editing, or anything of that sort, the difference is negligible—personally, I doubt that the average PC user can casually distinguish between the two. As stated before, you can use any combination of outputs, as long the monitors that you’re using support your choice. However, if you do have to buy a new graphics card to make use of multiple monitors, keep in mind that you’ll have to purchase a card that it compatible with your current machine. AGP cards will not work, or even fit for that matter, in PCI slots, and likewise, PCI Express (PCIe) will not work with the older PCI bus interface—there are numerous other compatibility issues, so be sure to read all documentation first. The newer, more expensive graphics cards might not offer VGA outputs, only DVI, but this isn’t necessarily a problem if you need a VGA connection, as often times the cards ship with a VGA-to-DVI adapter. Before you remove your old card to replace it with the new one, it’s a good idea to back up you data on an external hard dive or other suitable medium.

Hooking It All Up

Getting set up ought to be very simple, but I have found that some systems don’t always play along as nicely as they should. Despite this, however, I’ll only explain how it ought to work, but feel free to leave me a comment explaining the problem.

Turn off your computer, and then hook up the second monitor using whatever connector you have available. Once the monitor is connected and hooked up, turn your PC back on and then follow the following steps when you’re logged back into Windows. Ok, so here are the steps:

1. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, and double-click Display icon.
2. In the Display properties window click the Settings tab.
3. In Settings tab under the Display click the down arrow and select the secondary display connected to your computer.
4. Once selected check the Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor option.

Now, if everything went right, then the second monitor should now be displaying your extended desktop. Assuming that your monitors are identical, the effective horizontal resolution of your screen is now double that of before. Application windows can be dragged over to the second monitor, as if the two monitors where one. If you have any additional concerns or questions feel free to leave a few comments.