CyberCoyote - April, 2006

NEWS

What a treat we had today. Bruce Fries, in his own words a "bona fide audio geek" demonstrated the essence of his book, "Digital Audio Essentials". He covered everything from putting old 78s on your hard drive to loading tunes on your iPod.

Apple made digital music easy with their seamless iTunes/iPod combination. The iTunes program is a free download, and is an easy way to get started. If you want to do anything more adventurous, I highly recommend Bruce's book.

You should know that there's another way to go. My music taste runs to artists who are obscure, dead or both. :-) I've found amost everything I've looked for, and discovered much more in Rhapsody's 1,500,000library of tunes. http://www.real.com/rhapsody

Here's some helpful links. (Magix Audio Cleaning Lab is the inexpensive but essential software you'll need to do much beyond the basics.)
http://cybercoyote.org/events/fries.html -- information on Bruce
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/digaudio/index.html -- the book
http://www.apple.com/itunes/ -- iTunes
http://www.magix.net/ Magix (Audio Cleaning Lab)

NOTES and NOTICES

Our program for the meeting next week (last one of the season) is "Questions and Answers". The next one after that will be November 2nd in NC-2, which is where they all will be next season. T.S.A willing and the creek don't rise, I'll be "Up North" next week, not at the meeting. :-)
http://cybercoyote.org/club/06-april.shtml

The latest "Mr.-Modem!" column and the latest Smart Computing Newsletter are now online.
http://cybercoyote.org/articles/modem.shtml
http://cybercoyote.org/articles/smart.shtml

With this issue, CyberCoyote moves from weekly to monthly issues for the summer. There may not be enough in this issue to keep you busy until May. If you feel deprived, just venture out on the Web yourself. Watch out for spiders. :^)
http://mamba.bio.uci.edu/~pjbryant/biodiv/spiders/index.htm

COMPUTERS

How Bill Gates works. (I want three screens too!)
http://cybercoyote.org/url/177.html

Curious about what's inside your monitor or laptop screen? "How CRT and LCD monitors work" is a good introduction. (Don't quit until you get to page 5, where they take a LCD monitor apart. ;-)
http://cybercoyote.org/url/170.html

There's a chance you'll desperately need a new computer before the new Windows Vista is available (estimated to be January, 2007, but my guess is March). Ed Bott at ZDNet has three simple rules for you to follow to ensure you'll like the results if/when you upgrade to Vista.

I'll add one of my own: your new computer should have a CPU that is capable of running both 32 bit and 64 bit applications, as 64 bits is where many are heading. I recommend AMD's, not Intel's at this point.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=28 -- article
http://cybercoyote.org/url/178.html -- comment

SECURITY

"Click on an eBay auction listing, and you could get an unwanted result: a fake eBay login page, created by scammers looking to pilfer your username and password."
http://news.com.com/Phishers+set+hidden+traps+on+eBay/2100-7349_3-6056687.html
http://pages.ebay.com/ebay_toolbar/index.html

INTERNET

Walt Mossberg on Ask.com vs Google: "I've found that in terms of relevant results and ease of use, Ask holds its own with Google, and even beats the champ on some searches. It has some very nice features Google lacks, including previews of the sites it finds, an easy way to narrow or broaden your search results, and frequent top-of-the-screen answers that lead you directly to core information."
http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20060330.html

Take a "tour" of the next version (7.0) of Internet Explorer -- kinda looks like Firefox. ;-) I strongly caution against installing this beta verson though. It has some kinks -- you may not get back to 6.0 -- you may regret it. :^) And remember, the completely rewickered Firefox 2.0 is coming anyway.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/tour/default.mspx

DIVERSION

Finally, a solution to the rabbit problem at Happy Trails: :-)
http://cybercoyote.org/url/171.html

And for those who wait a little too long before heading back next season...
http://www.v8snowblowers.com/index.html -- home
http://www.v8snowblowers.com/id6.html -- gallery

You've probably chased butterflies, but have you bubbled bees?
http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/bubble.htm

What's underneath New York City? (Don't miss the audio tours and the links to more information.) An amusing excerpt: "Sewage levels drop late at night, permitting workers to go down and work before the morning flush hour."
http://xo.typepad.com/blog/2006/04/new_york_underg.html