Welcome to new Domain!!

. Thursday, July 30, 2009
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Whoo Hooo!!!

Only year and half after opening this blog I finally received my first advertisement compensation. Let me assure you its not much, but I was enough to help me finance new domain name, which was luckily stilly available !!

I hope I’ll still be bored and have time to keep contributing to this blog !!

DIY: 3Tb NAS for under $380

. Friday, July 17, 2009
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This article is a quick update my older one titled “How-to: Mini DIY Project: 2TB NAS Box for $360 (Update 3)”.

Sorry, I’ll post items list today as picture since I’m busy (as in NOT Bored :(( ) so you’ll have to forgive me.

And of course, The main component is free ! Pick FreeNAS or OpenFiler and your set!

Class Action Suit is filed vs Amazon for selling Kindle damaging covers

. Thursday, July 16, 2009
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A federal class action claims that a leather cover Amazon.com sells to protect its Kindle electronic reader actually damages the machine, and Amazon refuses to honor its warranty. The class claims the $30 Kindle cover has caused more than $5 million in damages.
     The class claims the leather cover cracks the Kindles.
     Lead plaintiff Matthew Geise says that 4 months after he bought the Kindle and spent $30 extra on the cover, the Kindle cracked where the Kindle Cover clips onto it. The complaint says Amazon refused to honor its warranty, telling him he must have "opened the Kindle backwards."

     Amazon said it would cost $200 to repair the cracks, Geise says.
     He says numerous customers have complained about the cover on Internet review sites, including one claim on Amazon.com stating, "This is garbage. The hinge caused a crack on the left side of my kindle, and Amazon has been horrible about helping with this issue. I am sorry, but if an accessory is purchased to PROTECT the product, the company should certainly be liable if it is the cause of the damage."

How to normalize Last.FM volume or how i stopped using Pandora

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It’s no secret or news, Pandora went to bed with Sound Exchange and now they have to impose more limit in order to get more money to pay to Music Mafia aka RIAA.

Anyhow my 40 monthly allowance went by in less then week and I forced the choice between paying money or stop enjoying Pandora's great music selection.

I choose 3rd option – switch to Last.FM ! It doesn’t have stupid 1 hour limitations like Pandora got or monthly allowances.

I loaded Desktop client in swift, but was quickly disappointed and reminded why I choose to listed to Pandora at workplace first place.

Each song on Last.FM was played on different volume ! So ether you got very quiet old recording or next one blowing speakers away with some harsh guitar riffs very like TV ads always louder than content (this one is on purpose)

Last.FM team acknowledges the issue, but using the excuse of “To normalize our collection of several million tracks takes a lot of time”. While simple math could tell you this could be done on strong machines in matter of few weeks or less or Fully real-time.

Real-Time solution, is might not provide best results, but for crying out loud – on my $10 speakers on work pc I’d never hear the difference anyhow.

Now, enough with back story, lest get back to details:
On my work pc currently running Windows 7 RC x64 and my pc happened to have Realtek HD audio onboard sound card.

Windows 7 does provide built-in drivers for it and a decent control panel.

Open sound in your control panel and select Properties on “Speakers”.
Pick Enhancements Tab and check Loudness Equalization. Apply/OK

Your all set.

While this works for ANY sound in windows, it does help to enjoy last.fm radio at workplace without fear of making too much noise and disturb people around your desk/cube.

HUGE Win for Common Sense !!! [I Rule!]

. Friday, July 10, 2009
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As I predicted OVER A YEAR ago about using proprietary plugs for headphones is complete and utter rubbish, someone eventually came to their senses!!!

HTC saying they will be dropping the silly extUSB port, because nobody cared about about it, except HTC itself. I don’t remember my local BestBuy ever had in stock headphones with extUSB plug (Circuit City might had them – Gigitty-Gigitty)

We’ve seen HTC already wising up to this problem with the Hero, though we might have to trudge through a few more extUSB-only devices in the immediate future. Fine, whatever it takes, - you can even keep extUSB on there, if you insist - just give us a plain ol’ 3.5mm headphone jack, too