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After working on it for several weeks, I finally finished my guide for audiophile-quality extraction of music from CDs. To get the best possible audio quality, it is necessary to have bit-perfect extraction from the CD (with no unnecessary error correction trying to reconstruct misreads due to CD drive offset). Then, the perfectly-extracted audio should be compressed using a lossless format to maintain the original quality. The guide shows how to use setup and use some free programs to do this: EAC, FLAC, and AccurateRip. To be honest, I’m not positive I could identify the difference between a “regular” extraction and a bit-perfect extraction, andRead More →

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In: Tech
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I’ve built my new desktop computer / server and now have it up an running. It’s been 4 years since my last PC, so it was time for an upgrade. The biggest advantages of the new computer are a dual-core processor, a super-quiet case, and a RAID hard drive controller card that provides protection against drive failures and lets me add disks to the array to make one huge drive. Biggest advantage: all of my movies stored on my network, so that I can use the PC in my basement to browse and play movies. Just like TiVo, only with a better looking interface (WindowsRead More →

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Palm needs to get their act together. FedEx attempted to deliver my Treo 650 on Thursday, July 30 even though their website says it is still in repair and will not be shipped until July 12. At least I have it. They fixed the screen and the keyboard key. However, a note was included stating that the modem could not be programmed properly and that I would not be charged for the repair. My initial thought was: “Great! No charge!” Then I tired to use my phone. It crashed / rebooted continuously as soon as I turned the phone on. I noticed that they installedRead More →

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I found out more about the Apple 30 inch Cinema HD display. It requires a special video card with a dual link DVI connector. I thought this implied that two DVI connectors were required, but it turns out that only one DVI connector with all of the pins populated is required. The standard single link DVI connectors on most video cards do not have the bandwidth to drive the display at the native resolution. See the PC Magazine forum for more details. It looks like I would have to buy a special video card to get it to work with my PC. nVidia is makingRead More →

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Suunto Cobra PC Interface I recently completed my own interface for connecting a PC, Palm, or PocketPC to a Suunto Cobra or Vyper dive computer. A complete US parts list is available here: Suunto Interface Parts List USA.pdf (Adobe Acrobat file, 72 KB) These parts were identified and assembled thanks to the help of Roli. Complete assembly instructions are available on his website, located here. Notes: There used to be a supplier I in Germany that manufactured spring-loaded contacts. I can’t find an equivalent in the US. The connectors listed in my parts list above do not work extremely well without extensive modification — spring-loadedRead More →