Kompulsa - General Technology

Mp3s normally occupy gigabytes of space on tablet PCs. Each MP3 is usually ~3-4 MB in size, depending on their quality, it can exceed 7 MB, but it is common for people to have at least hundreds, or even thousands of them (this is common too).

Toshiba Thrive - Image obtained with thanks from Jay Shouldol on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/da_ladd/

1,000 4 MB, medium quality MP3s will take up 4 GB (4,000 MB) of space on your tablet. This occupies 1/4 of the space on your 16 GB Blackberry Playbook, or half the space on your 8 GB Kindle Fire.

If you are buying a tablet in the lower end range (8 gb to 16 gb), then here is how choosing one with Ogg can help you:

Based on my past conversions to Ogg, Ogg audio files of the same or better quality are as little as half the size (48%) of MP3s. This means that you can reduce the 4 GB space requirements of the 1,000 MP3s listed above to only 1.92 GB.

If you are an audiophile, and use the larger, higher quality 7 MB mp3s, 1,000 of them would hog 7 GB of space, and the Ogg format would enable you to reduce their size to 3.3 GB. Also, you can play Ogg files that will save space on your computer hard drive using UMPlayer (which happens to play Youtube, and it can even buffer it to avoid Youtube lag).

Finally, my point is that buying a tablet that supports Ogg is somewhat like getting a tablet that has more space, except that it just frees more space for other things.

Not many tablet PCs support the relatively recent Ogg file format, but here is a list of those which I know do support it:

Less than $200: Kindle Fire.
$400: Toshiba Thrive.
$350: Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0.

Recently, my mother’s car brake light bulbs were replaced due to a failure. Afterwards, they lit so dimly that I couldn’t even see them at daytime, despite the fact that the bulbs were brand new.

I looked at the box of new bulbs that the replacements were obtained from and noticed that it said 24V21/5W. This means 24 volts, but they were supposed to be 12, and it also means that one filament is 21 watts, while the other filament is 5 watts. This is why one is thinner than the other.

Brake light bulbs contain two filaments because they are essentially two in one bulbs. One turns on when you are braking, and the other turns on at night when you turn your park and/or headlamps on so that people behind you will notice that your car is in front of them. This is a form of notice lamp. Read the caption on the image below.

In case you didn't notice (no pun intended), the reason why the driver can see the vehicle in front of them is because of the glowing tail lights. They penetrate some fog, rain, and snow so you know a car is there. All you can see is the lights, actually. Image obtained with thanks from Stefanvds(.com) on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefanvds/3360277443/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Most cars have a 12 volt electrical system (14 volts when the engine is on, but don’t worry about this), including this one, so I replaced the 24 volt bulbs with 12 volt ones. I found them to be much brighter and they were finally noticeable. Before replacing any of your vehicle’s light bulbs, look at the voltage printed on the lamp itself, rather than the bulbs (just in case someone put the wrong bulb in there), then remove the bulb and carry it to the store, and ask for the correct voltage.

Why the 24 Volt Bulbs Were Dimmer than the 12 Volt

The 24 volts are the same standard 21/5 watts as the 12 volt bulbs. The electrical system provided the 24 volt bulb with only 12 volts, and at 12 volts, the 24 volt bulb does not draw as much power as it should, therefore it does not light as brightly.

Simply put: At the correct voltage, the bulbs draw what they need. if it is less than adequate, they draw less current, if it is more than 12, they draw too much current.

The higher the voltage of the electrical system they are installed in, the more the bulbs draw. Putting a 12 volt bulb in a 24 volt system, however, will destroy it because it will draw excessive current.

Always find the correct bulb!

There is an easy way to significantly reduce the amount of disk space that your music occupies, and without sacrificing the quality of it.

You would start by converting all of your lossless FLAC and WAV files into the Ogg Vorbis file format. Set the quality bar to 7 if you want it to sound just like the original lossless recording, or 5 if you want to save more disk space.

Ogg Vorbis (often just called Ogg for convenience) files have a filename ending with .ogg, like how mp3s end with .mp3. Ogg Vorbis files of slightly better quality than mp3s utilized 40%-52% of the disk space that my mp3s did.

Media Players that Support Ogg Files

UMPlayer (works on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X). It also plays Youtube video, and you can circumvent choppy Youtube video playback by playing them in this player, and setting your Youtube cache in the settings to 64 MB to 100 MB, depending on what quality videos you are playing. I would recommend setting the Youtube quality to 720p. This player caches videos, then plays them, instead of choppy streaming.
Songbird (works on Windows, Mac OS X 10.5 or later, Android, and Facebook) .
SMPlayer (works on Windows and Linux).
VLC (VideoLAN. It works on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X).

All of the software above is clean (free of malware and spyware), and they are completely free software (open source) There are many more players that support Ogg, but I decided to only list those I would recommend most.

You can convert MP3s, WAVs, FLACs, and other file formats to Ogg using Audacity, which is also free, clean, and open source.

Apple Power Mac G4 Cube. Obtained with thanks from http://www.flickr.com/photos/mac_users_guide/.

Steve Jobs has stepped down from his CEO position at Apple Inc. and will be succeeded by Tim Cook, whom was hired by Apple in 1998.

Steve Jobs is a 59 year old who has been battling pancreatic cancer and other illnesses for more than 7 years, and some believe that he may be losing that battle, causing him to step down. 7 years is actually a long time to survive that type of cancer, as it usually kills it’s victims in less than 5 years. I do not know that status of his pancreatic cancer, but he was diagnosed with it in 2003.

Apple has a long history of being a very innovative company that raised the bar with the release of revolutionary technologies such as the Lisa computer, some of the thinnest notebook computers, the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and more. Manufacturers then follow and release their own (sometimes improved) versions of the technologies mentioned above.

Steve Jobs said that Apple’s brightest days are yet to come and that his resignation does not mean that Apple will lose its technological edge. He will remain the chairman of the board for now.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Helpful Tablet PC Tip: Buy One That Supports Ogg and Save Gigabytes of Space.

Check Your Automotive Bulbs (Short Story and Explanation)

Why the 24 Volt Bulbs Were Dimmer than the 12 Volt

A Way to Save Plenty of Disk Space

Media Players that Support Ogg Files

Steve Jobs Steps Down as Apple CEO

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