Print huge posters of your digital images.  Rasterbator (free) converts your images into tiny little dots, and then creates a multi-page pdf that you can print, assemble, and hang on your wall.  When you are close to the poster, you will see the little dots, but at a distance, they will blend together, and you will see the image in all its glory.

Rasterbator is a fun application that does what it says it does.  I am looking forward to decorating my office with these posters.  I wish the program would allow you to modify the default settings so that I wouldn't have to select the language, paper size, etc every time; but it is very quick to make the changes as it is.  I'll give it a 4.5 because of the lack of retainable settings.

The ISR in FirstDefense-ISR stands for Instant System Recovery, and that is what this program promises.  Let me tell you, it delivers in an astounding way.  While at first glance, it may appear that this program is little more than a disk imaging program a la Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost, it is a completely different concept.  While the program does provide peace of mind that you can recover from an application gone bad, virus infection, or just plain user error, it does it so quickly that you may find yourself inviting disaster just for the chance to fix it as fast as it takes to punch the reset button on your PC (I am not, of course, suggesting that you infect yourself with a virus or abandon safe hex, but if that kind of thing is your idea of a good time, ISR can and will protect you from most mishaps.  Please see my "Needs Improvement" section below).

I'm a big music guy.  I listen to a lot of music, I'm a musician myself, it's one of the things I really love.  I'm also a huge computer geek and a gadget-a-holic.  Putting all of this together, one would think that I would have some mp3 player by now (like an ipod or something).  But I don't.  Why is that?  It's because there's a whole bunch of little things about these players that annoy me and they just aren't implemented well at all.  For someone like me (and a lot of the people here at DC) who are computer "powerusers" and are really picky (er...anal) about every minuscule detail, these annoyances are intolerable.  OK, I'm exaggerating a little, it's not that bad, but it's still the reason why I haven't bought an ipod yet.  OK, OK!  The real reason why I haven't bought one is because I'm a cheap bastard.  But for the sake of this blog, let's just blame it on the annoying features.


Proprietary Multimedia Management Software
These softwares are the spawns of the devil himself.  Why do I need a software, whose primary purpose is to transfer files to a media player, take over the management of the music itself?  Just transfer the freakin files and be done with it!  But that's what all these programs do (itunes, Sony's SonicStage, etc.).  I'm already extremely anal about my management and organization of my mp3 files.  I rip and encode them with very particular software (EAC and advaLAME); I tag the files with a consistent naming scheme using another software (Tag & Rename); and I organize the files in directories in a very specific manner.  Furthermore, I keep track of the files I burn or archive using another software (MP3 Collector).  Therefore, I don't need my mp3 player's software duplicating any of these functions, especially since they can't do it half as well anyway.

But why is the software necessary at all in the first place?  Think about it, the files are already on my computer, and all I want to do is transfer them to this device.  I don't use special to transfer files to USB sticks, so I shouldn't need one for these mp3 players.  There are a variety of reasons why the companies do this:

• Not all users are as computer literate as the rest of us.  They need a nice, easy interface to use their device without having to call their computer friends for every little problem (don't you just hate that!).  This is a fine enough reason, I don't really have a problem.  But, please, for the rest of us provide a way to bypass these novice features.
• Copyright protection.  The companies believe the more control they have over the transfer of the files, the more copyright protection they will have.  This is true to a point; it makes it more difficult to transfer the music files off the device.  I think the global impact of it is pretty insignificant, but what do I know.  I feel like this is one of those things where they punish the consumer too much for the level of prevention it offers.
• Corporate greed and/or ignorance.  Instead of concentrating on quality, a lot of these large companies just want their name all over the place.  Think of all the bloated software you know of.  This trend of multimedia software taking over all aspects of your computer is sickening.  I also mention ignorance, because, to be fair, they may not do it on purpose all the time.  I'm sure that SOMETIMES they think they are helping.

Replaceable/Rechargeable batteries
Or should I say lack thereof?  The ipods, and I'm sure some of the competitors, make it difficult to replace batteries if they go bad.  Don't you wish they all just ran on rechargeable NIMH AA batteries?  That's one of the things I love about my Minidisc player; it uses a replaceable "gumstick" battery and you can also screw on this attachment that holds a single AA battery to extend the battery life by a few hours.  So, essentially, you can carry with you a handful of rechargeable AA batteries, and you won't run out of power for weeks.  The good thing about that is, you can find AA batteries anywhere, and the proprietary gumstick battery is replaceable (and relatively cheap) if it ever goes bad.  What happens if the ipod battery goes bad?  Well, let's just say it's a little more of a pain in the ass.


Music Storage
Hard-drive, built-in flash memory, card memory.  These are all different ways that these mp3 players can store the music.  If you want lots of storage, you go with one of the hard-drive units.  If you want something that is really tiny, get a flash player.  There really aren't many card-reading players that I know of.  And that is a shame.  Why?  Imagine if these mp3 players used cards like digital cameras?  That would give the user flexibility in how much they wanted to spend on the memory.  Let the company sell the player, and the user will buy the cards, just like the cameras.  Wouldn't that be fantastic?  I remember, before mp3 players were so popular, the company Rio had a couple of players that operated like this.  The problem back then was that the flash cards also weren't that widely used yet, so the people who had the players and wanted to buy more memory didn't have it as accessible as they do now.  Besides, back then 32 MB and 64 MB were pretty freakin expensive.

The main issue in storage is the portability.  With flash cards and flash memory, the players are very small and extremely portable.  Some of them are ridiculously small.  There's this tiny little cube mp3 player that holds 1 GB of music literally in your fingertips:

However, these little drives can only hold a few gigabytes of music (which, of course, is plenty for most people).  But for hard core collectors, you're going to need a hard-drive based player, like an ipod.  These are significantly larger (although, realistically speaking, they're not all that big...it just goes to show how spoiled we've become ).  They are also heavier, but can also do a lot more things by virtue of a larger screen, better navigation controls, and more advanced features.  Personally, I've never considered a flash player because the amount of music I have is enormous.  Besides, I like things that have a little heft to them; I don't like those super-light plasticky players.

Another question I have is why do ipod's competitors keep coming out with hard-drive players with 20 or 30 GB of memory, when ipod is now up to 80 GB?  Geez people, if you're going to compete, compete!  Maybe there are some technical details I don't know about, but I keep shaking my head at the Microsofts, Zens, irivers, Sony's, etc. when they come out with yet another hard drive player that can hold about half of the largest ipod.  From what I know, the hard drives aren't too much different than laptop 2.5" drives, so there shouldn't be too much of a problem, right?
Edit:  Zen finally came out with a 60 GB model, about freakin time-->Zen Vision M

You know what would be really cool?  A player where the user can buy whatever 2.5" drive he wanted, and just slide it into the player (kind of like the flash cards).  That would be awesome!

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Random Ranting

• I said I don't have an mp3 player, but I actually sort of do.  My Sony RH10 Minidisc Recorder doubles as an mp3 player.  In fact, I use it 10% for recording my music and 90% as an mp3 player.  It's actually really cool, but as it always goes with Sony, they always find a way to screw something up.  In this case, they make you use the Sonicstage software, which is really annoying.  In the last year, however, they loosened their Nazi grip on copyright protection.  Those of you that are familiar with MD will be glad to know that the new HiMD format has several advantages:  now has 1 GB discs (around $7 each; compare to memory cards), the players can play back native mp3 files (doesn't have to be ATRAC anymore), you can upload and download quickly using USB (you don't have to use the line-out to play back recorded material in realtime to record to the computer).  See this DC thread on minidiscs (MINIDISC)
  Here's a picture of my beautiful gold player:
  
  
• How about this movement of integrating mp3 players in the cell phones?  I'm a bit torn on this idea, because I like keeping my different applications separate from each other.  I hate all-in-one things, whether it's software or hardware.  On the other hand, there's no need to carry around an mp3 player, cell phone, and pda around with you, so it kind of makes sense.  Most likely, these portable devices will be the big thing in the near future.  PDA's have already become less and less common as they've become integrated on the cell phones, so the same will eventually happen with the media players.  In fact, apple already has a jump on this with their new phone-video player.
  
• You know what would be REALLY cool?  An mp3 player that runs on replaceable/rechargeable lithium and/or AA batteries, has a removable 2.5" hard drive, and also has one of those 15-in-1 cardreaders all on the same device!  Oh yeah, baby!  I don't care if it was big brick and ugly as hell, that would be the ultimate.
• I know so many people that keep their entire music collection on their ipods, and don't have a copy of it backed up on their computer.  Yikes!  That's all I have to say about that.
• Is it just me, or do you get uncomfortable listening to a portable music player in public, like out on the street?  I feel antisocial, like I'm missing out what's happening around me.  I've never been able to do for more than a few minutes.
• It's the new year, right?  Man, I've recieved like 10 calendars already from different vendors and stuff.  I don't even use calendars anymore!  Some things just won't die, will they?  I can get a calendar with one click on the computer, not to mention all the mini-calendars integrated in our PIM software also, and other various drop-down calendars on applications that use dates.  You know what else?  I've never actually turned the page of the calendar when the month changed last year.  Yet, it's always on the right month!  It must really bother someone around here, where they go through the trouble to change my page.  That's pretty funny.  I know this has nothing to do with mp3 players, but it is the "Random Ranting" section.
• Does it bother anyone else that mp3 files are audio files, and mp4 are quicktime video files?  That's annoying.  By the way, if you really want to read how confusing it all is, research the differences between mpeg-1 audio layer I/II, mpeg-2, etc.
• I'm completely sick of ipod accessories.  All those little boombox stations where you plug an ipod in.  Please...no more!
• There is a little subculture out there that is into custom building computers that will work in the car.  They are called carputers.  If I had the time and money, I would build one of these for my car.  Then I can use a regular 500 GB hard drive and have endless amounts of music and all the customization I wanted.

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Publisher's Description:
Locate saves names of all files in your hard drives to file database. After that you can locate files. This program works like updatedb and locate in Unix systems. Win32 based locating program also included.

Check out http://fileforum.bet.../Locate/1044509669/1

This mini-review will cover two of the better tray management utilities available for the microsoft windows platform. The two reviewed are XDesk's SysTrayX and PS Soft Lab's PS Tray Factory.

What is a tray management utility?

These program's are designed to alleviate some space in your system tray by replacing many of your less commonly used or accessed icons with a single icon (or none at all). They give your more real estate in your taskbar and can add another very useful function that allows you to minimize any running app to the system tray.

WhyReboot?

This tiny little freeware program is very simple but i find myself using it constantly, whenever some program tells me it wants to reboot to "complete the install".

Can usually give you some good insight into what operations are pending the reboot:
Tiny, simple, risk free; doesn't change anything, just reports on what it finds in the registry settings that are used to perform operations on rebooting.

http://www.exodus-de.../products/WhyReboot/