For techie tips and tricks, tools and sites of (dis)interest

One for the Bradford fans

| Monday, April 30, 2007
"I understand that the police are looking into the pitch invasions at
Elland Road. So far, they've searched the Championship but have been
unable to find any Leeds" - Rob Freeman.

Audio File Manipulation

| Sunday, April 29, 2007
Free Audio Pack (developed by Koyote Soft) comes with three separate tools:

  • A CD Ripper (to mp3, ogg, and wma at fixed and variable bitrates)
  • An audio file format converter (wma, mp3, ogg, wav, m4a to various file formats)
  • A direct audio waveform editor (trial only)

Download the bundle from ZDNet, or download them separately directly from Koyote Soft.

Another indispensable tool (that you have to pay for) is WavePad which you can download from NCH Swift Sound

In my opinion, while Koyote Soft have done a superb job in offering such useful software for free, WavePad is the far superior program overall - but I think both are definitely worth having.

Wonder goals

| Wednesday, April 25, 2007
A Comparison between Messi's and Maradona's wonder goals:


Here's how you do it with players hanging off your shirt:

Blu-ray burning its high-def DVD rival

| Monday, April 23, 2007

Hamster on crack

| Thursday, April 19, 2007
Oldskool Wii...

Alernative Open source software that doesn't cost

| Thursday, April 12, 2007
Have a look here at Open source software that is available instead of the mega buck stuff

Speed Up My PC 3.0

| Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Here's a utility from Uniblue (liutilities) that seems pretty useful.

It allows you to free up RAM, optimise the way applications use clock cycles and clean up backup files you don't need...

It all seems great in principle, my work PC is seriously short on memory, and any utility that could return some memory to the pool after apps are done with it would be welcome.

This is what the Memory Optimization feature looks like - notice the "Free Up RAM" and "Deep RAM Recovery" buttons.


The problem is, however, that these optimizers don't tend to work well on systems running near their limits - and Speed Up My PC 3.0 on my work PC was no exception. After freeing up RAM a few times, the system got unstable, and the utility doesn't do anything about PF usage either, which seems a glaring omission.

It did seem to perform its other functions well enough, but it was the memory management I was most interested in and, ultimately, most disappointed by.

Don't be put off by my less than glowing review - try it yourself.

ScribeFire

| Sunday, April 08, 2007
If you're starting to think you'd be better named Sir Blogalot, try ScribeFire*.
It's a very useful Firefox add-on that allows you to manage multiple blog accounts through one handy, feature-rich UI.

*You may have seen it in it's previous incarnation as "Performancing", but it has improved quite a bit

Java Tips

| Friday, April 06, 2007
This is a good resource for Java programmers - especially beginners and intermediate level coders.

Check it out

Greenpeace rated each company on its policies on recycling and use of toxic chemicals

| Thursday, April 05, 2007

Pull my finger

| Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Turn your sound up, make sure plenty of people are in earshot and go there.

Best defrag tools

|
Users opinions on defrag tools

For all you lefties

|
Something for all you lefties out there

Message to Dell support: "Keep it simple!"

|
Dell customer lets off some steam:




http://www.ebaumsworld.com/audio/play/5719

Computer Training, Education, & Tutorial Resources in Information Technology

| Tuesday, April 03, 2007
One of the Very Best Computer & IT Education and Training Gateways on the Web Today
Imagine Finding All the Free IT Training and Computer Tutorials You Ever Need and Want!

I need a raise

|
"Boss, I've got to have a raise," the salesman said to his sales manager.
"There are three other companies after me."
"Is that a fact?" the manager asked.
"What other companies are after you?"
"The electric company, the phone company, and the gas company."

CNN Reporter

|
In Jerusalem, a female CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Wailing Wall to pray, twice a day, everyday, for a long, long time. So she went to check it out. She went to the Wailing Wall and there he was! She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, she approached him for an interview. "I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN. Sir, how long have you been coming to the Wall and praying?" "For about 60 years." "60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?" "I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims. I pray for all the hatred to stop and I pray for all our children to grow up in safety and friendship." "How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?" "Like I'm talking to a goddamn wall."

OS/2 is 20 years old today: dead but still walking

|
IBM renowned for keeping their finger on the pulse. They somehow managed to let themselves sidetracked, hoodwinked call it what you will by Mr. Bill Gates and his snakeoil sales pitch.

Knight Rider' Trans Am Up for Sale

|
Relive it all. You know you want to

PingPlotter

| Monday, April 02, 2007
More useful SW flagged by the guys at TechRepublic:

http://www.pingplotter.com/

Screenshot:


Download:
Two versions - Standard or Pro (neither is free)
http://www.pingplotter.com/download.html