Quick Gmail Tip

Posted on December 8, 2012 by Jesse Zylstra

Replying to a long email?

In your reply, its easy to select the text that you want quoted at the end of your email.

Simply select the text you want included in the reply email, and hit the “Reply” button. Only the selected text will be copied over.

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Last Results from Spam Testing

Posted on December 1, 2012 by Jesse Zylstra

November 23rd at 6:13PM:
We shut the spam testing site down.

Since December 24th, 2011, there were a total of:
325,008 posts in 246,957 topics by 291,210 spammers.

If you are interested in receiving a copy of the MySQL database which we used for spam testing, this can be arranged. Please use the contact page.

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Microsoft Surface

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Jesse Zylstra

Microsoft’s latest operating systems adventures are clearly attempting to pull us into the tablet world. Windows 8 is fully focused around being a tablet OS — even though it will probably be installed on more “regular” (or traditional) desktops than tablets for the time being. Most users are not impressed with Windows 8 as a desktop operating system. But, what about as a tablet OS?

I’ve done some reading. Here is what stands out to me about Microsoft Surface:

There are two versions of the Surface tablet:
The Windows RT version, which features a nVidia Tegra 3 Quad-Core processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB or 64GB of storage, USB 2.0, and a preview of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013 (which will automatically upgrade to the official release for no cost). The RT version can only run applications from the Microsoft Store.
I note that the nVidia Tegra 3 processor is an ARM-based processor.

Continue reading →

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A business will never sell you something for less than what it is worth.

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Jesse Zylstra
Posted in Personal Blog | 1 Comment

Audio Stretching Software: Paul’s Extreme Stretch (Windows, Linux, Mac)

Posted on November 17, 2012 by Jesse Zylstra

Music is an interesting thing to slow down, but it is difficult to slow down music to the extreme without getting a bad digital effect or chopping noises.

Luckily for those of us who like to massively slow down music, it is possible to slow down music to this extreme without getting a digital effect using a program made to do just that: Paul’s Extreme Stretch.

Paul’s Extreme Stretch is completely free and open source. It is only suitable for slowing down music to major factors, up to 1e+018x times slower (meaning a 2 minute 30 second song would take about 4.27789 trillion years to play) if you really wanted (and somehow had the hard drive space to store something like that…). The program can play the audio live, it does not have to render before it can play the stretched audio.

Interestingly, you can hear a live stream of Beehtoven’s 9th Symphony stretched over a 24 hour period if you want an idea of what this program can do. Read more about that here. 

More realistically, you can slow down the audio to reasonable speeds that can still be followed (such as 5-15x slower). This is extremely pleasant to listen to with classical music.

Slowing rock music down doesn’t sound great, but classical and instrumental without drums and vocals sounds fantastic. You can hear each individual instrument begin playing.

Visit the official website here: http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/

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Microsoft’s Free Phone Directory: TellMe

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Jesse Zylstra

A while back, Microsoft released a true answer to the lack of Goog411:
TellMe, powered by Bing.

TellMe is a toll-free number that you can call for free directory search, driving directions, traffic, weather, movies, sports, stock quotes, ‘cheap gas’, horroscopes, news, time, travel, and more. TellMe will connect you to the business you search for in directory for no cost. To try out TellMe just call 1(888) 247-2425 and you will be connected to TellMe. TellMe is voice controlled with the goal of recognizing “natural speech”.

TellMe is very intuitive and easy to use, and a number you should definitely keep in your cellular contact list.

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Comparison of Adobe Reader, Foxit Reader, and SumatraPDF Reader Resources

Posted on November 3, 2012 by Jesse Zylstra

This chart compares Adobe Reader, Foxit Reader, and SumatraPDF from a standpoint of the installer size, the installation size left on the disk (as measured in C:\Program Files) and the amount of memory usage the programs use while running idle.

(Continue reading to see some really fancy charts)

Continue reading →

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Browser Plugin: HTTPS Everywhere (Chrome, FireFox)

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Jesse Zylstra

I use my computer on a network of which the security isn’t so great. Much of the traffic is behind a hub and more data is visible to other computers on the network than what probably should be. One way that I combat security issues such as these is by using a plugin called HTTPS Everywhere.

The plugin HTTPS Everywhere does exactly what you might have guessed: It causes your browser to try and use HTTPS everywhere that it can. The plugin has a large, updated database of sites that support HTTPS. Whenever you visit said sites, it forces your browser to redirect from the HTTP site to the HTTPS site ensuring that all exchanged data is encrypted.

This is great for when you are connected to a network similar to mine where other computers can easily see the data you are exchanging (apartments with shared computer networks, dorms, school computers, work computer, &etc.)

Check out HTTPS Everywhere online here: https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

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SumatraPDF Reader

Posted on October 13, 2012 by Jesse Zylstra

Until recently, I would have declared FoxIt reader the best PDF reader for speed, usability, and visual appeal. Unfortuantely, like AdobeReader, Foxit is beginning to become bogged down and is getting much slower to use. Although I still think FoxIt is a fantastic program, I decided I needed to find something more lightweight that did what I needed it to do and not much more. I also wanted to find something that was Open Source and not commercial freeware.

Introducing SumatraPDF: An Open Source, light weight, easy-to-use PDF reader.

What’s so great about Sumatra?
It does what it needs to do. It is a very simple PDF interface, you open your document and it is there. No more waiting for programs to load, no more fancy interfaces, this is just a basic, down-to-earth, PDF reader.

The load time is fantastic! I do not believe in having to pre-load applications such as you often see with programs like Adobe Reader. Sumatra, from clicking a document to opening, takes about 1 second on my i7 8GBRAM 7,200RPM HDD laptop.

I don’t feel that I can say much else about Sumatra. It is FANTASTIC at what it does and is simply simple.

What it lacks: It is a PDF Reader, not a writer in any way. It can’t fill out forms like FoxIt or Adobe Reader, nor can it add comments to documents or do digital signing. If you often need these types of features, I recommend keeping FoxIt on your computer as a backup program and using Sumatra as your primary PDF reader.

Visit their code website on Google Code: https://code.google.com/p/sumatrapdf/
Download Sumatra PDF from FileHippo: http://filehippo.com/download_sumatrapdf/

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Review: K-Lite Codecs Pack

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Jesse Zylstra

Video encoding offers a great variety in compression and quality abilities, but can be cumbersome when it comes to playing video and audio on a computer.

The K-Lite Codecs Pack offers multiple “packages” of codecs for any level of media nerd. K-Lite is of course completely free and will not nag you to upgrade or pay. The basic pack includes codecs to play VI, MKV, MP4, FLV, MPEG, MOV, TS, M2TS, RMVB, OGM, WMV, 3GP, WEBM, FLAC, and Wavpack files. The “Standard”, “Full”, and “Mega” include more support and more software to help you play.

The “Basic” pack is 9.3MB, and the “Standard” back is about 13.7MB. Any software required to play media files will run automatically when needed and won’t waste your computer’s memory. K-Lite is also working on a 64-bit version, but that is still in the experimental phase.

To download K-Lite, just visit their download page: http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm

If you are still having problems playing media, try out VLC as a media player. It seldom has issues playing video files and can also play sound.

Want QuickTime or RealPlayer WITHOUT having to install the “official” players?
QuickTime Alternative: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm
RealPlayer Alternative: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm

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