If you need a “perfect” rip of your audio CD, there’s a new free tool for you to use, courtesy of CDFreaks. The tool will even allow you to calibrate it to work best with your drive.
Here’s a list of features available:
-Reading speed setting.
-Raw and packed (corrected) subchannel reading.
-C2 error reporting with offset correction.
-Image (main, sub and cue) and wav format output.
-Main channel offset correction in samples/bytes.
-User entered and auto detected subchannel offset correction.
-C2 pointer report bit order adjustment.
-Burst vs one read length per read command.
-Highly descriptive log output.
-MCN (UPC/EAN), ISRC, CD-TEXT reading.
-Sub & C2 alternative order setting.
-Accurate song/gap detection/extraction.
You can download it from CDFreaks here.
Microsoft gave out multiple usb devices to police agencies last June that allow investigators to bypass passwords and other protections in Windows operating systems. These devices contain 150 commands that allow for fast scanning on a suspect’s computer when police are looking for evidence.
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I’ve seen a lot of smitfraud spyware/malware infections lately and thought it might be a good idea to share the easiest way to remove the annoying piece of junk that intentionally slows down your PC. These instructions require little technical knowledge and can be completed by most anyone. It is advisable to to have an experienced computer technician to do it, though, in case there are complications. Read the rest of this entry »
I hate to throw things away but was really getting annoyed at various water hoses I had purchased at a local hardware store. They were on sale and were extremely cheap, but were getting expensive by leaking at the fittings where they went together. We have a well, but I figured we were wasting gallons of water each time we used our hoses. Read the rest of this entry »
WindowsXP ServicePack 3 is available for download from MajorGeeks and FreewareFiles. As you can probably imagine, the sites are getting overrun with downloaders, so the downloads may be slow for a while.
There are a lot of exercise products on the market today. Some are good ideas, and some are just overpriced fads. One of the least expensive exercise methods is the use of your own bodyweight. I needed a set of pushup bars and didn’t want to send money to China by buying a set at the local box store.
Fortunately, I had some leftover building materials lying around. Read the rest of this entry »
MSN Music DRM key servers will go dark after August 31. That’s right, another lovely benefit of DRM is that the issuers of the keys can just decide to stop authorizing them. After August 31, those who purchased the music from the MSN Music store now have to either keep the OS and computer that the music resides on, or lose it forever.
You know what’s really odd, though? Those terrible people who downloaded music from Napster in the late 90s are still enjoying their tracks…. If any reps for corporations and media conglomerates are reading this, I have a word of advice. If you are trying to push users to use DRM’d content, you’re doing it wrong.
On another note, remember the article I wrote a while back about Windows XP key activation? What happens when Microsoft shuts down those activation servers because they want you to buy the next version of Windows?
