Paul's Tech Talk

Record a Quality Podcast on the Cheap

PaulFebruary 4, 2008

MetaFilter founder Matt Haughey reveals his secret to recording the MeFi podcast between two Macs with simple software sans expensive hardware. Matt says:

I read a lot of podcast how-tos when I set out to do my own, and almost all of them are mired in technical details about microphone quality and USB vs. mixer board audio wankery. Most every tutorial about doing a podcast interview focuses way too much on studio-like sound quality achieved through your equipment instead of through software and a bit of clever thinking.

Matt’s trick is to record a Skype call on both ends separately, then combine the two audio tracks in Garageband to bypass any Skype sound quality problems. Genius! Hit the link to get the details.

How to record a kickass podcast between two macs—and cheap! [A Whole Lotta Nothing]

[Via LifeHacker]

The Xbox 360 Elite laptop: Ben Heck strikes again

PaulFebruary 4, 20081 Reply

We think it’s possible that the time has come to admit that Ben Heck (aka Benjamin Heckendorn) has officially taken it to the limit, put the pedal to the metal, and a large number of other cliches that suggest something has been pushed just about as far as you can take it. That’s right folks — it’s the Xbox 360 Elite laptop. We’re not even going to try and pretend to understand how an individual could go about creating this kind of extreme mod to the Microsoft console — needless to say that if there was one man who could do it, Ben is that guy. Luckily for us lay-people, he’s included a graphic breakdown of just about every step on the road to a portable Xbox 360, replete will all the case cracking, innards opening, wire splaying photos you could possibly want or need. Sorry NEStari and Atari 800 laptop — there’s a new boss in town.
[Via Engadget]

Wouldn’t you love one of those! It looks so cool!!! Thought people would like to see this for themselves!!

Ways to improve Battery Life in Vista

PaulJanuary 30, 20086 Replies

Turn off Sidebar:
Turning of the windows Sidebar helps with performance and reliability of Vista. Some people tell me it is nice to have that up. I say this, it’s using system resources and isn’t going to help you out when you’re running on a battery. Here is how you do this:
Control Panel>Classic View>Windows Sidebar Properties

[ad]

Check your Power Plan when you are on battery:
Doing this will help you with your battery power. By making sure your got your CPU on power Saver when on battery power you will save battery life and will give you more time to use the laptop.

Control Panel>Classic View>Power Options

Change windows for Performance:

By changing Windows Aero to look like basic you can boost your battery life by not using any unneeded video acceleration. Doing this will save your battery and will give you 30 more minutes on your battery. It’s 4% to 5% battery increase but all this will make your battery last longer.
Control Panel>Classic View>Performance Information and Tools>Adjust Visual Effects

As you can see, if you like some of the effects, you can customize it to your liking, but keep in mind the more you use the less your have on battery life. It also affects your system speed, so you may want the computer speed so keep the appearance to a minimum.

[ad]

Turn off UAC:

UAC has been nothing but trouble for me so I’ve just turned it off, I suspect it is also helping my battery but I am not going to hazard a guess on how much.
Start Menu>type>Msconfig on the Search bar. run the Msconfig and then you go to: Select Tools Tab, then find Disable UAC and double click it. Reboot and you no longer have UAC.

Download Battery Saver:

Downloading Battery Saver will let you pick when and how to deactivate some of these things when you unplug your power cable. This little Utility comes with a lot of possibilities. It allows you to decide when to deactivate Windows Aero and Sidebar which helps on battery life.

There are several other things to consider when you’re trying to save battery power:

Turn off all unnecessary programs in the background.

Dim your LCD by hitting the Function Key + Left Arrow several times.

This also will improve battery life by not draining it. It will dim it to the lowest setting and will extend the battery.

These tips will improve your battery life in Vista but I do not know by how much time will be extended. I hope these tips will help you out when it comes to using your laptop out in the wild and not wanting to worry about time. Let me know what you think and I’d like to hear all the comments. Enjoy

[ad]

Disable Windows “Unused Icons” Balloon

PaulJanuary 30, 2008

If you’re sick of Windows taskbar popup balloons prompting you about unused icons on your desktop, fear not—you can shut those down easily. The How To Geek explains that when you uncheck the “Run Desktop cleanup wizard every 60 days” box in your desktop items dialog, you’re good to go with one less irritating popup stealing your attention. Remember, using the free TweakUI you can disable all taskbar balloon popups indefinitely.

Stop the Annoying “There are unused icons on your desktop” Popup Balloon [The How-To Geek]
[Via LifeHacker]

Skip Commercials in Windows Media Center with DVRMSToolbox

PaulJanuary 30, 20082 Replies

Windows only: Freeware application DVRMSToolbox analyzes Media Center-recorded files and marks the start and end point of commercials so you can quickly skip over commercials and go straight to the content. Similar to previously mentioned Lifextender in its commercial skipping capabilities, DVRMSToolbox keeps your files in tact and marks the commercials instead of deleting them entirely (like Lifextender does) so there’s less chance of an inadvertant cut. In addition, DVRMSToolbox can convert DVR-MS files (the default recording type of Media Center) to MPEG or WMV files for portability to other devices and other useful features. For a simple guide to getting started with DVRMSToolbox’s commercial detection, check out CyberNet’s introduction. This Media Center favorite is freeware, Windows only.

DVRMSToolbox [via CyberNet]
[Via LifeHacker]