High quality CDs and DVDs have a lifetime of up to 30 years, while cheap blanks may fail after less than five years. Hence, hard disks, which are said to become error-prone after three to five years, may be less durable and reliable.
However, it’s much easier to transfer data from a hard drive, to date the capacity is much bigger, and when dealing with a mass of data, hard drives are of course cheaper, way faster and much more convenient to use for backups.
It’s been nearly two years since Windows Vista was released to the masses back in November of 2007. Throughout this somewhat painful couple of years Microsoft managed to turn around just about all of the major issues facing the new operating system (compatibility, performance and bugginess) and they’ve even, believe it or not, had considerable commercial success.
If you have only very recently upgraded or bought a new computer then hopefully this list of essential downloads will be useful for you.
These are not suggested replacement applications, these are downloads to enhance and complement what already comes with Windows Vista.
It’s time for another poll. Last time we asked you about music players. Today we are doing the same for video players.
What video player do you use to play movies and other video files? If you’re a regular MUO user, there is a good chance you have a nice video player on your system. Something that is capable of playing pretty much any movie. So like we did in the past, we are asking you to tell us about it. Help us find the best video player out there.
So how many coasters do you have that started life as critical backup CD/DVD’s? Or the CD/DVD’s that you entrusted to store a lifetime of photo memories? Well if you’re like most of us, you may have more than one.
As a long term file storage medium, CD/DVD’s are, in effect, all-purpose, durable and generally inexpensive. The difficulty in relying on this storage medium however is they aren’t always as reliable as we sometimes seem to think.
A label originally introduced in Great Britain to mark foreign products thought to be of inferior quality when compared to British products, Made in Germany has now become one of the most popular labels. Today it stands for reliability and quality.
Each of you is using German technology and tools. Most of you will know that, among many other things, the automobile, the Aspirin, the computer and the mp3 were invented (at least in part) by German engineers.
A while back, I made a decision to thin out and refresh my CD collection. Rather than dumping them off at a music store and collecting a few dollars, I decided to give Lala a try.
Lala is a music player, store and discovery tool. It’s also a fantastically downplayed CD trading site. Back in 2006 or so, Lala was primarily a platform for trading CDs with other users. Today, the focus is on its music player but the trading community is what makes it a great site.
If you’re interested in installing Linux on your hard drive, but you’re a little worried about the prospect of partitioning your drive, there is a way for Windows users to avoid that learning curve. Wubi, which stands for Windows Ubuntu Installer, was designed to make dual-booting as easy as pi pie. The project hasn’t been around very long, but it has already gotten to the point that it will be included on the Live CD (”desktop cd”) for Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, the Hardy Heron, due out next Thursday. I’m beta-testing the release, and it’s looking very good.
Last time, I wrote about Live CDs and how you can make your own custom one. Live CDs are great, but let’s face it, sometimes even a CD is just too big to carry around. You male geeks probably have no idea what I’m talking about, but the other ladies can testify that the pockets on our clothes are just too small to carry around anything bigger than a small cell phone. CDs also have the magic ability to go from pristine to horribly scratched about 5 minutes before you need them and, since they’re CDs, don’t save changes.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past years figuring out how to get my DVD collection onto my PC so I can use my Home Theater PC (HTPC) to play my library on my TV. The following is the two step process I’ve come up with to do this; all other programs I’ve used either are not free, install spyware, or desync the audio.
Install and use DVDFab HD Decrypter.
The settings here are pretty straightforward. Select “Full Disk” and where you want to save the file. Click start, and about 40 minutes later you will have your DVD on your hard drive and ready to encode.
How many people out there have hundreds, if not thousands, of digital pictures stored on their computers accumulated over years that no one has ever seen? Me! Thankfully, I try to upload most of my pictures to free online photo sharing sites like Picasa and Flickr to at least get some return on the time I spent actually taking all of those pictures.
However, I noticed that not too many of my friends nor my family really care to wade through hundreds of pictures, usually the same scene, just a different angle, because it’s boring. That’s where photo slideshows come in handy. You can make yourself look pretty suave by creating fancy slideshows with customized music, titles, and more using some very easy-to-use and free tools.
Nero is one of the best piece of softwares available in the market for CD/DVD Burning Purposes, but it’s quite expensive. It’s bulky and comes with a lot of programs that you’ll never really use.
Why not try some freeware CD DVD Burning Apps applications that can serve as an alternative to Nero Burning ROM for your Windows PC?
1. CDBurnerXP
This is by far the most popular free alternative to the expensive Nero Software. Works on Vista as well, and here’s a features-highlight from CDBurnerXP:
Bunch of unusual ways to make use of of your dusty printer. If you have a printer in the office, it’s even better: not only do you get free ink but also something to keep you occupied and make office hours fly. Well, and some actually to get things done.
Pocketmod - Create all-purpose, wallet-sized, booklets out of plain A4 sheets in just 1-2 minutes. As it says on the website, “it is hard to describe just how incredibly useful the PocketMod is. It’s best that you just dive in and create one“.
Last time I discussed finding drivers for your software programs and also how to set up a printer on Windows. Well today I am going to get onto a more interesting topic - what to put on your computer. I know countless other blogs have done lists like this so this isn’t anything groundbreaking. But I know quite a few people at the moment who are buying their first PC and who are asking me “so what do I put on this PC-thingy-ma-jig then?”. Well, here’s your answer.
So for all the newbies, parents, grandparents, techno-phobes and computer doofs out there, here’s what should be on your computer.
Television sets and CD players are rapidly becoming a thing of the past for me. I spend most of my waking day in front of the computer and so I have adopted the practice of having DVD’s and CD’s playing in the top right hand corner of the screen while I work. Whether it’s a DVD rental from the shop, BBC streaming news broadcasts or the new iTunes download, media players have become an essential part of my internet life.
Here’s a brief selection of the media players I have encountered over the past few years.
When I was a young kiddie and the apple of my mother’s eye, I would spend part of my Saturday mornings watching Swap Shop on TV. Swap Shop was presented by British cheeky chappie Noel Edmonds and people would come on the show to swap their trading cards for a GI Joe, or their little brother in exchange for Yoda, and so on. Fast-forward twenty-five years and we now have more or less the same concept online.
NOTE: These sites are pre-dominantly US sites although it may be possible to register a non-US address. Check each site for details.
