Wednesday, February 8, 2012 9:10:45 AM
srs, audio, enhancement
Ok, i just found this gem few days ago. It's called SRS Audio Essentials. It's a sound enhancer developed by a famous company SRS Labs which supplies audio enhancing algorithms to various software companies and also hardware companies like Philips, LG, Grundig, Samsung and so on. What's so interesting about SRS Audio Essentials are two things. First is that they offer a limited free version and second that it works for all audio that you playback on your PC. It doesn't matter if it's a music player, video player or a game. It applies sound processing to all sounds. Even windows sounds! So you don't have to bother with plugins that only work in one application but not in the other.
In a nutshell, it works very similar to Creative Labs Crystalizer or Analog Devices (ADI Soundmax) BlackHawk for anyone who has ever used it, except it can be used on any soundcard. And offers much more settings and tweaks.
I have tested it for music on my Altec Lansing MX5021 speakers and it gives very pleasant effect to the sound. The bass feels a bit deeper and smoothed out (sounds softer) which in return makes it feel like it's much stronger than it really is. I've also tested it in NFS Hot Pursuit 2010 and CounterStrike:Source and it worked great as well. Again with deeper bass and noticeably more high and mid frequency details. It didn't ruin the games 3D sound positioning even in Music mode used in limited free version which is a good thing.
It even worked well on my laptop and laptop using headphones though sound "quality" varied based on content used. It sometimes worked better with Speakers setting than with Built-in. But in general, very nice effect on small laptop speakers as well.
Free version is well, free but has certain limitations:- works only for 2.0 or 2.1 speaker configuration
- only Music mode can be used
- only Speakers and Laptop Speakers (Built-in) can be used
- none of the advanced settings can be changed (sliders below)
- Smart Volume cannot be enabled
What might also be interesting is that they sell this thing for end users as well and it's surprisingly cheap. $19,99 (around 15€) for a single PC license. Various software companies sell plugins for Winamp or Windows Media Player that cost the same, but have very limited functionality (you can only use them for that program and not for games either). This one works in ALL applications. So it has a much greater value.
I'll be using free version for a while but i think for the price, it would be well worth it, based on what i've seen with my ears so far.
Give it a try and see how it works for you. It's free, so there's nothing to lose
DOWNLOAD:http://www.srslabs.com/audioessentials/
Sunday, February 5, 2012 3:14:36 AM
DAZ is offering over $1600 worth of professional grade 3D modeling software absolutely free.
If you want to model 3D landscapes with cinematic quality, create human models in various poses or even combine all of it into one 3D scene in a very user friendly software, look no further.
Only requirement is to have a DAZ account so you can checkout items that are market as FREE.
3 main apps (DAZ Studio 4 Pro, DAZ Bryce 7 Pro and Hexagon 2.5) http://www.daz3d.com/i/0/0You can also get many free addons as well here:https://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/all-products-promotions?cat=1068#1,cat_1068_382Many thanks to user stinger608 on TechPowerUp forums for the heads up! Get the software while it's hot and free! Some deals last till end of the February 2012, some last almost entire year 2012, be quick and pick what you need, some deals might not last much longer!
You can find some of the stuff that i made using older versions of Bryce years ago:
http://rejzor.deviantart.com/gallery/35145092Have fun and let us know here if you make something really good.
Saturday, February 4, 2012 7:57:22 PM
Ok, this is getting a bit ridiculous. Second week or so and Youtube is still working like garbage. Once ultra fast service, today it's barely buffering 480p on my 8Mbit line. 720p videos are simply unwatchable and i don't even want to try 1080p... I've even left video to buffer for 2 minutes before watching it and it somehow managed to stall 3 times near the end. Youtube stalling but i get 1MB/s (yes, megabyte!) when downloading from anywhere else. So i'm guessing it's not my connection... just fix it will ya big G ?
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 9:11:46 PM
act, pipa, sopa, protest
...
Wikipedia will start to protest against these acts on January 18 at 5:00 UTC time. So don't wonder why you can't access the Wikipedia. Hell, i use Wikipedia daily but i'm with them 100%. The protest will last for 24 hours and then they'll be back. Since i can't take MyOpera servers offline i'll just show support by writing about it here on my blog. Read the below link and spread the word so more and more ppl read and learn about these ridiculous acts that want to enforce their way to everyone in the world. The greatness of internet is its open nature. And no one should ever change that!
LINK:http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout
Sunday, January 1, 2012 7:27:10 AM
Another new year, another constant adaption to properly write down the new year number hehe.
I could easily stay up till 3 AM during the year almost every day and still go to the work at 7 AM easily, but today i somehow fell asleep at around 1 AM lol. I guess handling the number 2012 was too much for me
I don't think much will change this year and i'm also not gonna write something cheesy here like everyone do every single year. Especially since the world will end in a massive BSOD this year. Or so they say.
Just enjoy it in whatever way you like it the most. Now where is that eggnog hm...
Sunday, December 4, 2011 10:03:33 AM
size, allocation, readyboost
I had few spare SDHC cards around so i've decided to use them in my netbook as ReadyBoost device. Out of all, two were the fastest in sequential tests, so i picked these, Nikon SDHC 8GB of unknown class that arrived with D-SLR and a Kingston 4GB Class 6 card. Since i was testing on Windows 7 x64, using exFAT was an obious choice, especially if you want to use ReadyBoost cache larger than 4GiB in size.
Testing was done using CrystalDiskMark 3, both 4K and 512K tests which in case of ReadyBoost matter the most. I was testing random read and write for 4K, 512K, 1M and 32M allocation units using exFAT.
The winner? Well, even though random read figures were changing a bit, they were basically a double digit figures on both SDHC cards. Not really important if you ask me. However, random write was severely affected and that was shown in triple digit numbers. Only 512K random write was affected where 4K random write remained unchanged.
Lets crumble the info down a bit:
Best 4K read: 32M allocation unit size
Best 512K read: 32M allocation unit size
Best 4K write: doesn't matter, anything from 4K to 32M
Best 512K write: 512K allocation unit size
So, if you want to squeeze absolutelly everything out of the ReadyBoost device, use 32M allocation unit size. ReadyBoost's primary task is to assist HDD with very fast random read. However, if random writes are slow, it might take longer to write cache data to the SDHC card. I can't really tell how this might reflect in real world situations but the best bet would be to test both, 512K and 32M and pick one of these that might work the best for you. If you just don't want to bother, use 32M allocation unit size as the random read speed is what most will be looking for.
Saturday, December 3, 2011 9:11:57 PM
netbook, laptop, speakers, volume
If you're having problems with too low laptop speakers volume, even though you have the volume already cranked to the max, there is a trick to increase volume even further. It's really simple and in most cases does a fine job. Just open the audio device equalizer, pretty much all of them have it. It might look slightly different, maybe even have less sliders (or more). But that doesn't really matter as you'll see why...
Adjust all the sliders to the same level. Make sure you're increasing it (move them up). If you increase just the left side, you'll increase low frequencies (bass). If you move just the right part you'll increase high frequencies (treble). But if you increase them all in the straight line, sound characteristics won't change, but the volume will. If volume is not high enough, move them even higher.
Please note that on some devices, this will slightly distort the sound (especially at very high levels). Not by much but some might notice. Still, overal volume will be significantly higher, making even small netbook speakers loud enough.
Friday, November 11, 2011 8:02:25 AM
win7, disk, missing, drive
Another day and another problem fixing. This time, there were disk drives missing in the Windows 7 Disk Defragmenter Schedule menu. Drives were listed in main Disk Defragmenter window but not in the schedule option.
(Right click on the image and select View Image to see full size)
I was trying to solve this, Googling around and couldn't find the solution. Then i was testing something else and they magically appeared. And the only thing i was doing last was running Windows Experience Index utility (the one that benchmarks various system components and gives you performance index). That is the solution for this bizarre problem. How on Earth would anyone find out you have to run WEI to list the drives!?
SOLUTION (for Windows 7, similar for Vista):- open Control Panel
- select System and Security category
- under System category click "Check the Windows Experience Index"
- click "Re-run the assessment" (bottom right corner)
Wait a minute or two for tests to complete and check the Disk Defragmenter Schedule menu again. The drives should be listed again.
Sunday, November 6, 2011 6:36:10 AM
8, mozilla, firefox
Well, not officially yet on a official web page, but you can download it on their FTP. It's located in the releases folder which means it's the exactly same version that everyone will get later when it's officially released. It's a Mozilla practice where they don't release it until all the test channels are moved forward.
EN-US version:EN-US DownloadAll languages:Multi-language DownloadWhat's new?Mostly under the hood changes for WebGL and new features for HTML5 and search capability for Twitter.
There is also a very small change in the interface where additional buttons like Sync, Downloads, Bookmarks and so on aren't bulged out all the time when using small icons. They are flat now, unless you hover mouse over them. Then they get the 3D shape. There are also small changes in the add-ons management to improve control over add-ons.
Sunday, October 9, 2011 5:50:32 AM
headphone, crackling, sound, wifi
...
Everywhere on forums, everyone praised Lenovo S205 as the best choice for netbook right now. So i've ordered the E-450 version. And it is nice and quite fast. Until you try to do the following things...
Try to use wireless...
First thing i've done was to connect to my wireless network. I was using it on small and otherwise crappy ACER Aspire One and on another ACER Aspire 5520G. It worked perfectly with zero connectivity problems for years now. Lenovo S205? On the exactly same position where i had Aspire One with exactly the same router settings, 1 freakin bar of signal, constant dropping, horrible download speed etc etc.
I had to boost router signal strength to 200mW to get a normal connectivity which is just idiotic when it worked perfectly before with just 75mW of antenna power. Tried different drivers, same crap.
Checking the Device Manager and it's Ralink thing i never heard of before. Either the WiFi module is total shit or i have broken internal antenna. Have seen few exactly the same reports on Lenovo Forums.
Pathetic sound quality when using headphones...
Without headphones, everything is fine. Sound is just normal. It works fine. Plug in headphones, any kind, doesn't matter. You can hear horrible crackling and clicking in the background when not listening to anything or when something silent is playing (like vocal with pauses in between). It's so annoying it's driving me nuts. 12 years old computers didn't have such horrid sound or build quality, because from the looks of it this thing has some bad internal grounding. In low load condition, clicking is strong and random. When i put higher load on the netbook, the crackling became less noticeable apparently when fan started spinning up. Again, tried changing headphones, same thing. Changed bunch of settings and updated drivers as seen on Lenovo Forums again by some user with the same issue. Nothing changed. Still crackling like freakin crazy.
And what's the worst of it, device is 4 days old and it's all broken up from the day i got it. Apparently i did right by buying an extra extended warranty because i'll need it if things continue this way. Now i'll have to take it for service, wait ages to get it back with nothing fixed because from the looks of it it's a hardware issue and i doubt they can or will change faulty audio components. Well they could change the WiFi module or antennas or something but someone on Lenovo forums said they just blamed his router and denied the repair. Sorry, my router is perfectly fine and has worked perfectly on all netbooks, laptops and smartphones till i got this thing. Which is the most expensive netbook i've ever had (even more expensive than the regular notebooks) and it's this broken from the start.
Ppl were always saying that ACER is crap (i had only ACER's before that all worked fine, even the ages old 5520G works perfectly) so i've decided for Lenovo which is suppose to be a higher grade stuff. Just to find out it's even worse than notebooks from 12 years ago in the most important things. WiFi and sound through headphones. How the hell Lenovo managed to screw that up!?
Gonna take it for service next week and see what will happen. I just hate the awful long waiting to get things back from service...
My Opera
