Online Audio Tests – check your PC Speakers right online

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A. Just found this great site.

Audio Check

Navigation

This site is organized in four main sections, accessed from your left-hand side menu.

 

  • Audio Tests : intuitively tests your sound equipment, your room's acoustic and… ears!
  • Test Tones : individual test tones for the audio experts among our readers 😉
  • Blind Tests : how good is your hearing when you are blind ?
  • Eng Training : training files for sound engineers

 

 B. "Test Tone Generator" is another with a great shareware application. I use this to find the correct settings for windows volume controls like WAV and MASTER. Just play the 0db sounds it creates and set the volume sliders to match. I use Sound Forge recording meters to set it, but Audacity meters also work.

 C. QuickMix is a freeware application that allows you to save and then restore (by opening the utility and Loading a saved) volume settings. 

 

Posted in: PC

Damn! Another Microsoft OS to learn, developed by kids, again.

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Is Windows 7 just about what kids want these days–music, videos, pictures, or is there more to it, that say, a developer might like too? Did the MS teams even ask adults, who work for a living, what they wanted? As always, they say it is so. 

First impression wasn't good. Mom still has a 56k modem — the young developers never thought of that, I bet! — and it's impossible to set up email, internet, printers, an old Access application and Word with that! So off we go to my house where we start with a wireless connect. Our Lexmark driver didn't work to the multifunction printer scanner. Kodak easy picture or whatever did work. Transferring old files from the old PC worked, including pictures. What!? There is no email application installed?! What were they thinking? (Search Google for Windows Live e-mail or try http://download.live.com/wlmail here.) That was too much for a modem of course. Good time to find something else. How about Thunderbird?! Yup. No problem downloading that, installing, setup. (But we did have trouble importing Outlook Express contacts. Messages not so much). Okay, I know IE is going to be a very b i g  and slow application. Gosh! Here's an icon to load Chrome. Worked perfectly. All those lawsuits must have worked out for others. And Windows is now just an OS. Obviously, this is going to take a while. To learn. To set up, and to re-educate. Damn.

Like me, at one time you may have said it before:

I love DOS (I hate it!)

I love WIN98 (I hate it!) … Windows 2000 etc.

I love XP (hmmm, not much to not like there)

I avoided Vista (not to be confused with AltaVista)

Now the only new PCs come with Windows 7. (I miss typing the old OS' short name: XP. Can we just call it, se7en?, or, 7en?) 

So, where do we start? Through trial and error here we go.

LINKS

We'll be adding more later. 

 

Posted in: PC

Holiday Meat Roasting Chart

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This is a nice chart, if you like to cook. 

Holiday Meat Roasting Chart
RED MEAT, TYPE OVEN °F TIMING INTERNAL TEMP °F
BEEF, FRESH
Beef, rib roast, bone-in; 4 to 8 pounds 325 23 to 30 min/lb 145 med. rare
27 to 38 min/lb 160 medium
Beef, rib roast, boneless; 4 pounds 325 39 to 43 min/lb 145
Beef, eye round roast; 2 to 3 pounds 325 20 to 22 min/lb 145
Beef, tenderloin roast, whole; 4 to 6 lbs 425 45 to 60 minutes total 145
Beef, tenderloin roast, half; 2 to 3 lbs 425 35 to 45 minutes total 145
LAMB
Lamb, leg, bone-in; 5 to 9 pounds
Lamb, leg, boneless; 4 to 7 pounds		 325 20-26 min/lb 145 med. rare
26-30 min/lb 160 medium
30-35 min/lb 170 well done
Lamb, crown roast; 3 to 4 pounds 375 20-30 min/lb Same as above.
PORK, FRESH
Pork, loin roast, bone-in; 3 to 5 pounds 325 20-25 min/lb 160
Pork, loin roast boneless; 2 to 4 pounds 325 23-33 min/lb 160
Pork, crown roast; 6 to 10 lbs 325 20-25 min/lb 160
Pork, tenderloin; ½ to 1½ lbs 425 20-30 minutes total 160
PORK, CURED
Ham, cook-before-eating, bone-in; Whole, 14 to 16 pounds 325 18-20 min/lb 160
Ham, cook-before-eating, bone-in; Half, 7 to 8 pounds 325 22-25 min/lb 160
Ham, fully cooked, bone-in; Whole, 14 to 16 pound 325 15-18 min/lb 140
Ham, fully cooked, bone-in; Half, 7 to 8 pounds 325 18-25 min/lb 140
Ham, fully cooked, boneless; 3 to 4 lbs 325 27-33 min/lb 140
Ham, country, dried (see label directions)
VEAL
Veal, boneless roast, rump or shoulder; 2 to 3 pounds 325 25-30 min/lb 145 med. rare
31-35 min/lb 160 medium
34-40 min/lb 170 well done
Veal, bone-in roast, loin; 3 to 4 pounds 325 30-34 min/lb 145 med. rare
34-36 min/lb 160 medium
38-40 min/lb 170 well done
VENISON
Venison, round, rump, loin, or rib roast; 3 to 4 pounds 325 20-25 min/lb 160
Posted in: Cooking

Outlook – paste HTML content changes BR to P etc.

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Here's how to fix the "double-space" problem caused by e.g. pasting from the Web or SSMS or other color coder source.
 
Simply paste into the Outlook HTML body; reselect it; change to bulleted list; turn off the bulleted list. That's it!
  This

SET ANSI_NULLS ON

GO

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF

GO

  becomes

SET ANSI_NULLS ON

GO

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF

GO

 
 
As a bonus to remove most of the other formatting, highlight it; press Ctrl-Space. 
Becomes:
 
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF
GO
 
Presto magic. 
Posted in: Debugging

Photoshop – tricks

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I. Add text over an image and rotate it vertically.

  1. Open your image.
  2. Create another layer call it text
  3. Select the color you want for the text
  4. Open the text tool
  5. Make sure the grid is on to assist in positioning the textbox
  6. Select the font and size
  7. Type your text e.g. using left justified.
  8. Click the check box when you're done.
  9. Press ^T to select the text box.
  10. Right-click outside the box and choose e.g. rotate 90 counter-clockwise.
  11. Click check box when done.
  12. Choose move tool.
  13. Hover in the text box until a move arrow appears and drag it to where you'd like it.
  14. Done
II. Optionally create a shadow around the previously entered text.
  1. Click below the layer we called text, and click on the Create New Layer icon, which will create a layer below your text layer.

 

Posted in: PhotoShop

Task Manager won’t minimize to System Tray

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This tip (not mine) works! If you expect to see the CPU graph in your system tray and no longer are seeing it, then try these instructions.

Open the task manager, goto options, UNCHECK 'minimize on use' and 'hide when minimized'.

Close the task manager and reopen it.  You should see the cool CPU meter in your
system tray again. 

Then reselect 'hide when minimized' so you don't have the taskbar
button when it's minimized.

Posted in: PC

GPRESULT – displays the Resultant Set of Policy

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This doesn't work for Windows 2000 but XP and on.
 
GPRESULT [/S system [/U username [/P [password]]]]
[/SCOPE scope]
         [/USER targetusername] [/V | /Z]
 
Description:
    This command line tool displays the
Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP)
    for a target user and
computer.
 
Parameter List:
    /S        system          
Specifies the remote system to connect
                              
to.
 
    /U        [domain\]user    Specifies the user
context under which
                               the command should
execute.
 
    /P        [password]       Specifies the password
for the given
                               user context. Prompts for input
if omitte
 
    /USER     [domain\]user    Specifies the user name
for which the
                               RSOP data is to be
displayed.
 
    /SCOPE    scope            Specifies whether the
user or the
                               computer settings needs to
be
                              
displayed.
                               Valid values: "USER",
"COMPUTER".
 
    /V                         Specifies that the
verbose information
                               is to be displayed.
Verbose information
                               details specific settings
that have
                               been applied with a precedence of
1.
 
    /Z                         Specifies that the
super-verbose
                               information is to be displayed.
Super-
                               verbose information details
specific
                               settings that have been applied with
a
                               precedence of 1 and higher. This
allows
                               you to see if a setting was set
in
                               multiple places. See the Group
Policy
                               online help for more
information.
 
    /?                         Displays this
help/usage.
 
NOTE: If you run GPRESULT without parameters, it
returns the RSoP data
      for the current logged-on user on the computer it
was run on.
 
Examples:
    GPRESULT
    GPRESULT /USER
targetusername /V
    GPRESULT /S system /USER targetusername /SCOPE COMPUTER
/Z
    GPRESULT /S system /U username /P password /SCOPE USER
/V
 
Posted in: PC