http://www.ecoustics.com/latest/articles Latest articles, updated every five minutes http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/150734 Ralph Isaacs wants to know why Windows is telling him that it can't install its own updates. Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:30:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/23724/ The Sprint HTC Touch Diamond is almost here!!! Here are the facts! - Coming to Sprint in September - SRP $549.99 - Net Cost $299.99 Re-defining the perception of advanced mobile phones… the Sprint HTC Touch Diamond signals a giant leap forward in combining hi-tech prowess with intuitive usability and exhilarating design. Featuring a sharp 2.8-inch touch screen housed within a stunning formation of brushed metal and flawless faceted edges, the Sprint HTC Touch Diamond is as beautiful to behold as it is to use. With HTC’s vibrant touch-responsive user interface, TouchFLO 3D, and ultra-fast HSDPA internet connectivity… the Sprint HTC Touch Diamond offers a rich online experience to rival a notebook computer, allowing you to interact with Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia as freely as you would with a broadband connection. Your contacts, favourite music, videos and photos are no longer an uninspired line of text. With TouchFLO 3D, album artwork, video stills and snapshots of your friends’ and family’s faces are brought to life for you to interact, play and launch at your fingertips. A 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera will help you capture the perfect moment in style and with a massive 4GB of internal storage you can keep... Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:00:07 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/23304/ Now, I'd like to give my two cents on MobileMe.  A little backstory first, though - I've been a Mac user for about 6 years now (I'm guessing) and have loved it.  However, I always had to work on PC's (until more recently) and became addicted to Exchange and it's instant syncing ability between my Windows Mobile phone, work PC, and home PC.  Switching to Mac made me really miss these features, so naturally I was stoked for the release of MobileMe. Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:49:08 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/22686/ Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:30:21 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/147466 It's all out there: free cell-phone headsets, help getting refunds from big-name retailers, and, of course, cell phones making popcorn. Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/146582 A nifty free Wi-Fi hotspot tool, a real-life GPS gadget review, and a scary-looking "motorcycle." Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:45:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/21993/ Windows Media Player is a media player for all your digital media (audio, photos and video) for computers running Windows XP and Vista. It is available as a downloadable application for Windows XP directly from Microsoft or via Windows Update and ships with Windows Vista as its default player. It is also available on Pocket PC and Windows mobile based devices. In the following sections, I will show you the basic interface, library management, ripping/burning audio cds to the library and how to sync your media to a portable MP3 player. This article focuses on Windows Media Player 11. The Interface Windows Media Player 11 (WMP11) is the latest version on Microsoft's Media Player. It has undergone a complete overhaul from previous versions and sports a slicker user interface. It is pretty simple to navigate and access your media by just a few clicks of the mouse. You can use it to share media with other pcs, media streaming devices (XBox360, PS3, Netgear EVA8000, etc.), to rip and burn cd's to and from your library and sync your media to/from portable media players (both audio and video). There are 5 main buttons on the interface, they consist of the "Now... Fri, 16 May 2008 11:15:06 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/144320 Free voice-to-text service is an excellent productivity tool for busy mobile professionals. Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/144319 An Internet tablet saves the day in Italy, a tourist avoids looking touristy, and a traveler instantly shares pictures with folks back home--all thanks to their portable gear. Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:45:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/143937 A guide to Web sites offering deep discounts on laptops, smart phones, and other gear. Wed, 02 Apr 2008 04:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/143770 The graphics board vendor sent a reader two replacement cards that also malfunctioned, but it never tried to troubleshoot the problem. Plus: D-Link recalls its first dual-mode draft-n routers, and Magellan blames support problems on a change in outsourced customer service. Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:30:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/143573 How to capture ideas and reminders when you're in transit--using tools you may already have. Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/143696 Plus: Patch IE, update Reader and Skype, and crush Yahoo Jukebox bugs. Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:50:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/21472/ Everyone with a digital music collection of any size has this problem: their music tags are far from perfect. Maybe it's because you ripped the songs from a CD before it was in cddb or one of the other directories, maybe there was no cddb back when you took your first steps into digital audio, maybe your ripper didn't do a good tagging job - remember MusicMatch Jukebox? Whatever the reason, however bad the tags, there is a pretty straightforward way to sort them out, and that's to let your computer fix them for you. I've tried a number of tools to do this, but the best I've found so far is BeaTunes . BeaTunes works on both Mac and Windows machines, all you need is a copy of iTunes with a library containing the (non-DRM'd) tracks you want to clean up. The way BeaTunes works is that it analyzes the audio of selected tracks and creates a fingerprint which it then compares to a database run by MusicIP.com. If it finds a matching fingerprint, BeaTunes can use the associated track data to update your track's tags. Yes, it's just that simple, and pretty fast too. Even if your current... Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:00:05 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/143217 Leave the laptop at home, copy and paste blog posts, don't rely on your cell phone, and more tips. Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/21466/ Apple recently released a major upgrade to its Apple TV software that sports a new interface as well as additional features; the most significant of which is movie rentals. They're offered in both standard definition and in some cases, high definition. I didn't jump on the upgrade bandwagon immediately; over the last year I've been using my Apple TV primarily to watch videos stored on my NAS in non-Quicktime format, and I didn't want to lose that capability. So, I decided to wait and make sure that the various hacks which allowed me to do that were going to be updated to support the Take 2. They are all in various states of beta testing at this point, so last week I did the upgrade and began playing with the new release. So far, here are my thoughts... Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:45:04 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/142146 This week: A better WinPatrol, a perfect hard drive destroyer, and an easy way to pick a lock. Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:30:00 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/dt/talk/233 I just got two systems in from Intel and AMD and they are pretty sweet. The AMD is the new Spider/Phenom platform which was followed last week by the ATI 3870 X2 card which currently is the fastest single graphics card on the market. The Intel is a full quad core system named Skulltrail that will take 4 graphics cards as long as they aren’t double wide cards; it is an engineering master piece. Last year I looked at earlier versions of these boxes and both are strong improvements.Both of these systems are nicely turned out. But they also showcase the advantages and disadvantages of bo... Wed, 30 Jan 2008 03:00:00 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/20615/ The tech community has gone crazy over Apple's announcements at Macworld 2008 - the quintessential Mac conference of the year. The highlight is Steve Jobs' keynote address , which is always highly anticipated by tech aficionados. In the address, Mr. Jobs discusses the newest products and upgrades by Apple. This year, of course, was no exception. However, the announcements are branching out to a larger and larger audience - they're not just for Apple geeks anymore. We'd like to give a highlight of the most significant announcements made at Macworld 2008. MacBook Air - The World's Thinnest Notebook To much fervor, the MacBook Air was announced - and it is the thinnest notebook computer in the world, according to Apple. It's so thin, Jobs removed the device from a standard office envelope - impressive. At its thickest point, it measures only .76 inches, and at its thinnest, only .16 inches. This delicate marvel weighs in at only 3 pounds. It is truly built to appeal to the mobile user who demands ease of use and flexibility - the full-size keyboard is backlit, and the trackpad utilizes the Multi-Touch feature that is also used in the iPhone. It comes in a... Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:54:13 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/20398/ The iPhone, up until now, hasn’t met a lot of customer expectations. Want to send a “Happy New Year!” message to all your friends? You can… one at a time. Want to have live Google maps as you drive without having to look at street signs every second? You can’t. But this, my friends, may be about to change - according to various sources on the Internet, including GearLive . The last firmware update to grace the iPhone included very minute additions (iTunes WiFi), and was mostly put in place to resolve some of the bugs. However, with the release of iPhone firmware 1.1.3, the iPhone could be that much closer to being real competition. The new update may include the things that Apple truly forgot on release. A list, perhaps, will explain it better: Google Maps Hybrid Mode Drag and Drop Applications on Home Screen Bookmark Shortcuts on Home Screen Home Screen Support of Pagination Multiple Receivers via SMS Messages Google Maps Pin-Point Application Using Cell Tower Triangulation Sure, Apple is still missing things: for example, a louder ring/vibration, flash-supported Safari, and 3 rd party apps - but it's certainly getting there. This update will hopefully bring us that... Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:48:12 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/20324/ I just read about a new feature being introduced in some 2008 cars where the parent can hit one button ("time out" button?) and instantly mute all the A/V going on in the car and... get this... project their voice throughout the cabin! As a parent, I have to tell you that this is an awesome feature. Its one of those that seems so obvious that you wonder what took them so long to come up with it, especially as it doesn't require any unique technology, just some innovative thought. So on that note, I thought I'd throw two other, seemingly obvious and much needed inventions for anyone listening. Optimized Voicemail - right now, we only have two choices when our phones ring: answer it or let it go to voicemail. Actually, I have used a voicemail preview function on some phones that let you listen in on the recording voicemail and interrupt the caller mid-stream by accepting the call. But I'm talking about a different but much more common scenario here. I find that there are many times where I *really* want to answer the incoming call but I need a bit more time. Not hours, but minutes. What... Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:04:13 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/dt/guide/105 We all have our favorite websites, news topics and eBay items that we like to check out every day. Some of us have 10 to 15 websites bookmarked and others have 50, 100, 200 or more. If it takes an average of 3-4 minutes to check out each page for updated news, scan headlines and then navigate to the next bookmarked website, a lot of time adds up in daily visits to those sites. And if you're one of those people who craves information and feels compelled to check those same websites over and over again in case something has been updated... well, you could be wasting a lot of time and energy.Take control of your information and entertainment habits by using a very simple, easily understood and effective way of bringing web searches... Sun, 25 Nov 2007 03:00:00 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/19529/ Wireless technology is fast becoming a necessity rather than a desired application on some of today’s hottest gadgets. We are developing into a society that expects to receive information or become connected wherever we happen to be at the time. With this desire is an influx of wireless gadgets to keep us in-touch, entertained and connected whenever we desire to do so. The following list represents the top ten most popular wireless gadgets for today’s techno savvy consumer. 1. The Apple iPhone - The Apple iPhone was the must have gadget of the summer of 2007 and still holds the allure of today’s gadget crazy consumer. The iPhone can be best categorized as a cell phone on steroids. The unit provides multimedia capabilities, including the functions of Apple’s iPod, a PDA and web browser. The iPhone also offers a camera function, email interface and instant messaging. The iPhone originally retailed for a whopping $600, however it can be purchased now for around $400 (for the 8GGB model). 2. Apple iPod Nano - The Apple iPod Nano (third generation - 4 GB), continues to refine the ever-popular iPod technology. Retailing for under $200, the Nano not only allows the user to ... Wed, 14 Nov 2007 01:15:06 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/19631/                                               Sony Convergence Procedure Document version 1.0 ( I Will update as needed and if errors are found, please let me know and I will issue an update) Changing values in the service mode can cause your tv to malfunction, this text will only explain how to adjust the factory convergence.  Before changing any other values make sure you know what you are doing. To Enter Service mode With the tv off and the remote in tv mode, press the following keys: <Display> <5> <vol up(+)> <Power> The tv will now display "3D-COMB" in the upper left hand corner . Press the <2> or <3> keys to move up or down through the adjustment categories until you see "PJE" in the upper left hand corner(note that the letters will change to a different font). Next press the <6> key twice, this will bring up a grid (crosshatch) without video behind it. When I refer to the <Center> key, It is located in the middle of the directional arrow keys on the remote. When cursor is white, you can move it to an adjustment point using the arrow keys. Once you press the <Center> button,  the cursor will lock to that ... Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:30:07 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/18973/ Are you getting the most out of your gadgets? With so many products and information out there, it's hard to keep up with the useful items that any average person would buy. Sure, there are plenty of products for owners of specific devices (i.e., seemingly millions of iPod accessories), but what about those that are applicable to most any device that you happen to own? That's the criteria for this list: it has to be something that's not only useful to most people, but is also relevant regardless of the brand name or type of gadget. It was a hard list to come up with, but here are my top 5 picks: 1. Hold on to your Gadgets. I used to constantly drop my cell phone, iPod, and other gadgetry. As a result, they're badly scratched up and difficult to use. Then, I discovered eGrips . Attaching eGrips to your devices is a great way to keep your gadget from escaping your slippery hand while holding it, and keeps your device in its place when you set it down. I've used eGrips since they were first introduced a couple of years ago. They're inexpensive (~$10) and they have generic ones ... Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:21:00 -0400