For a long time I had resisted converting my DVD and Blu-Ray disks into any other format because I didn’t want to lose any quality. I had lived by this rule for a long time, and thankfully companies like QNAP and Thecus came to my storage rescue. However, the day has come where the cost of storing all the extra garbage that comes along with these movies has opened my eyes to benefits conversions. With that, I have began converting my movie collection to a format that allows me to lose all the excess fat, but keep my movie loss-less. Read More…
For a long time I had resisted converting my DVD and Blu-Ray disks into any other format because I didn't want to lose any quality. I had lived by this rule for a long time, and thankfully companies like QNAP and Thecus came to my storage rescue. However, the day has come where the cost of storing all the extra garbage that comes along with these movies has opened my eyes to benefits conversions. With that, I have began converting my movie collection to a format that allows me to lose all the excess fat, but keep my movie loss-less.
With the conversion to MKV, a new dilemma has plagued my media canter, Windows Media Center in Windows 7 does not natively support recognizing or playing back videos in this format. Luckily, there are few things we can do to rectify this issue; allowing us to take advantage of the format and still maintain all the functionality we have been used to from WMC.
Step 1. Installing a codec pack.
There has been much debate about codec packs and having them on your system, however, I have not found any other way to get things working properly without them. Some are of the opinion that FFDShow (Tryouts) will be all that you need to get things working, however, in my home, this simply has not worked very well. Lately, I have been using Shark007 on all my HTPC's and I am not disappointed in the least.
I can better be classified as more of a PlayStation fan than an XBOX 360 fan, mainly because I don't like to pay to play. However, there are still some things that makes the XBOX an integral part of my entertainment center. Firstly, its application list and UI is more attractive and user friendly than that of the PlayStation 3. The unfortunate part of the XBOX's strengths is that it requires Gold membership. Well, thankfully, Microsoft has loosened its reigns and plans on giving the "rest" of us some candy.
Personally, I have never really been a fan of Apple products. That doesn't mean they don't have their place in the world, it just means they aren't for me. However, when one of the most influential people in technology passes, we ALL mourn the loss. Whether we are PC, Mac, Linux, etc, we can all recognize and appreciate what Steve Jobs has done in our industry. Steve, this one's for you...
Clever utilities are what really get my mouse twitching. In the age of the connected home, more of these devices are disconnected from one another. I have a keyboard and mouse for eight PC's in my home, 3 of which are HTPCs. The HTCPs in my home all are capable of using a Logitech Harmony Remote control and all are currently using a Rocketfish Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse Combo, but it still is a bit cumbersome. Instead of having tons of remote controls on my coffee table, I have a Harmony Remote, a laptop, and my Rocketfish Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse. Well, recently, Microsoft's Garage Program featured an application created to help alleviate the need for multiple mice and keyboards for multiple computers. The application is called Mouse Without Borders.
I run a lot of different software packages on my bench system to perform analysis on hardware. Because of this, I run into a lot of software issues that many of you face or will face. Typically, the fixes are easy and not do difficult to find. Recently, I received an error stating "The program can't start because MSVCR71.DLL is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem." Well, here is the confusing part, MSVCR71.dll is supposed to be part of Microsoft's Visual C++ Package and it seems like they just left it out!
Every person has different tastes when it comes to their installation of Windows. Through the years that have been many things that I do right off the bat when getting my install "just right". In the XP days, the first thing I would do was to stretch the taskbar, enable Quick Launch, add an address bar, unlock it, then move those around a bit. If my taskbar wasn't set up this way, I HATED IT... in fact, I would move other people's around when I worked on their computers! Windows 7 is no different for me, however, the list isn't as exhaustive yet. We covered Part 1 and Part 2 of a multipart series, here is Part 3 Read More...
Look, we all know and realize that Windows is the superior operating system to anything else out there. With that said, I am going to detail ten reasons why this is the case and offer supporting data. Some of this may be shocking to you if you are a user of another operating system, but please... don't feel inferior.
Most of you have probably seen the commercials from Microsoft touting the cloud experience behind Windows 7 and Windows Live. The thing is... many of us that have Windows 7 don't really know how to do some of the things they show in those commercials. In this multi-part series, we will attempt to demystify the "cloud" and show you how to make it happen.
In a previous article here on C.O.D. (Essential Windows 7 Tweaks: Part 1), I mentioned it's my opinion that users should disable the system restore features in Windows 7. Outside of the resources associated with running the task, I feel as though it provides a false sense of security for Windows Users and does nothing for users plagued by things worse than failed updates. So what is the answer? Windows 7 comes with Backup and Restore... Read More...
In my career, yes there is a life outside of C.O.D., I am faced with many obstacles; usually regarding printing or scanning. Recently, it was requested by a customer that printer output be preceded by a separator page. Luckily, this is not restricted by devices (in most cases) and is rather easy to setup. This is very helpful in environments that have more than one user printing to a device. With a separator page, a user can differentiate their print from another person's print.
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