Sam's Blog

A New Era... (Again)

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Fri, 13 May 2011 22:05:00 +0000

Well, This will be my last post at this site...

I'm moving on I'm afraid. Blogger has served me well, but its high time I moved to a more modern and functional system (for me.) In that respect, you can now find me:

- http://samharman.com - (For all audio technology / professional items)

- http://sammio2.tumblr.com - (For general musings, blogs, links, etc)

- http://techrant.co.uk - (Where i'm currently blogging semi-professionally.)

Please feel free to check out those sites, and bare with me as I (finally) start transferring, and updating, some of the best posts from this site...

So long blogger, it's been fun!

Ads are off...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 12:56:00 +0000

Well, after a trial period of a couple of months, i've decided to turn the ads off! I kind of always knew this would happen, even with a comfortable ~40 daily visitors, i had earned.... wait for it..... 89 pence.

This certainly isn't an amount to be taken likely, that is 89 penny sweets right there! Instead, I will be posting affilate links and suggestions occasionally. However, i will state now, that these links will ONLY be for products I highly recommend!

That's all for now, But let me suggest you visit my professional blog / portfolio online to see my latest work. It's at http://samharman.com

Many Thanks
Sam

A New Era...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:29:00 +0000

Today, I have an announcement to make. I have created a new blog, with a custom domain, and my own hosting system. This new blog will also function as my professional e-portfolio documenting work I have done both in university and in the real world. So without further ado, you can find my new site at...

http://www.samharman.com

If you visit you will see I have started porting some of the various posts over to the new site. This process will take a while, as the new site will be a lot more focused on audio technology and programming as these are the fields I am looking to work in when I leave university.

The new blog is powered by wordpress and hosted on my own server. I have been with blogger for 3 years now, and it has served me well until this point. I can just get so much more customisation and flexibility with a wordpress system, especially run on my own hosting service.

So what may become of this blog? You may well ask. Well I intend to keep the blog running, and nothing much will change, but the posts you see here will be more personal and less formal that those on my new site. You may have noticed that I have added some ads to the sidebar and main body of this blog, I'm getting a steady stream of about 300 unique visitors a month, so the ads are a way of partially funding my new site. If you'd rather not see them, then i'm open for discussion and will remove them again.

I think that's all I really have to say at the moment, except I hope you do visit my new site, and let me know what you think! I'll update you all on how the final year at university is going in another post (suffice to say, i'm pretty damn busy!!)

Once again, thanks for reading! Feel free to leave lots of lovely encouraging comments below the break!

How I use my iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 22:19:00 +0000

I was inspired to write this by a recent post on TiPB, detailing how a student uses his iPhone on a day to day basis. This post is about how I use mine!

It starts first thing in the morning (about 11:30 for a student), with the alarm rousing me from my morning slumber. Then begins the seemingly never ending cycle of hitting the sleep button, and being woken up, and hitting the sleep button, etc etc

Once I finally decide to wake up, I check my emails for the day which is useful to find out about room changes or cancellations (in which case, back to bed!) I also check Facebook and Twitter in case... well I don't know why I check these actually, I just do! Then if I'm really bored, I'll check out the BBC site to see if anything amazing has happened overnight (it never has.)

So, then I get up and do the usual boring (but necessary) tasks, like eat, wash, etc. I then open the single most important app on my iPhone for university: iStudiez Pro. This app is brilliant, it contains a digital copy of my timetable, for all lectures, seminars, and labs I have to attend. It contains any assignments I've been set, and deadlines I have to meet. It has results of my previous assignments or exams and lets me calculate averages at the tap of a button. In short, this app is central to my organisation as a student.

iStudiez Pro also has excellent integration with the iPhones contacts, so I can send an email off to my lecturers right from the app. Which brings me onto the second most important use of the iPhone. Email. I have a constant stream of email to me wherever I am. I can be the first person to know the results of assignments, or when lectures have been canceled.

Obviously, the iPhone is a phone, and of course I use it every day to text and call my girlfriend at university elsewhere. It also keeps me up to date with the weather forecast, and train times using the National Rail app (expensive but worth it!)

Another app worth mentioning, which isn't part of my daily routine but has proven to be very useful indeed, is the Tesco clubcard app. Essentially a digital copy of your bar code which can be scanned at the checkout to collect points!

Other apps used on a daily basis, but that are not worthy of more detail because their use is obvious are: Dropbox, Skype, MSN, Camera+, Allowance, and Maps.

Anyway, that's just a bit of information about how I use my iPhone as a student at university. Thanks for reading, as always all comments and suggestions are welcomed!

Minimalism

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 11:30:00 +0000

This post is all about minimalism, and how I see things.

Western society today is in a lot of trouble, global recessions, housing market crashes, etc etc. I think the sole reason for this is the commercialised world that we live in. You are taught from an early age, that you must do well at school, to get a good job which pays well, so you can have lots of money, and buy lots of nice and expensive things. This idea is forced into our minds throughout our childhood and continues through into our adulthood.

The items we desire change, from newer and bigger toys as children, to newer and more expensive luxurious cars as we get older. But the idea is exactly the same, the more stuff we have the happier we will be.

But the thing is, it's not true!

It just leads to us buying more and more stuff, which leads us to want a bigger house to put this stuff in, so we borrow money to afford the house, and now we have the house, we need more stuff to fill it up, so we use credit cards to borrow yet more money to pay for stuff which makes us happier, right? Wrong. Pretty soon, it starts to spiral out of control and you can't afford to pay off the debt. Oh, and don't forget all those subscription services like Sky TV, Mobile contracts, Super fast broadband, that you need to pay for monthly, to actually USE some of that stuff you've brought. So now we owe incredible amounts of money, but it's okay, because we're happy remember.

It's not all about the money either, we then have a large house which needs heating, which uses resources and harms the planet. We have a large luxurious and uneconomical car that uses far too much petrol.

Minimalism means surviving on just what you need, and it's a journey i've only just embarked upon. I used to be wound up in the world of buy, earn, buy more. Those who know me, will know how many gadgets I used to buy, and own. Many of them I still own, and use regularly. But I won't be buying any more, unless i NEED them, and I am also giving away those that I don't need. It's a long process, and I doubt I'll ever really get my possessions down to the bare minimum, but i'll enjoy trying, and reap the benefits in the process.

Multiview App

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:34:00 +0000

Hello Dear Readers,

As you may know, I have opted to take the iPhone programming route with my dissertation project. Today I have been working on my iPhone Programming, and just have a small app to share with you all. This is a simple application that switches between two views and has buttons with pop-up messages. I have added a flip animation between the two views to make it look better. You can see the basic app in the video below.

This app was made following instructions and guidance from the brilliant 'Beginning iPhone 3 Development' textbook by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche. Now obviously this app was made purely to teach myself and bears no practical purpose.

I did cover various new things when developing this app today though, including multiple views, animation, UI Alerts, toolbars, etc... So my next step is to combine this with my previous 'Hello World' app to get textbox functionality within different views!

Many Thanks for reading!

As always, all comments and/or help is very much appreciated!!

Sam

iPhone Programming

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:01:00 +0000

So, I've started working on my dissertation. Yes, I know i don't even start my final year of university for another 2 months (or something), but i've decided to give it a go anyway. Now, when I started university as an eager fresher on my first day I was excited to be learning all about Music Technology. This excitement continued right up until the moment the words "C++ Programming" appeared on the projector.

Ask any first year student at Bournemouth University studying Music & Audio Technology and they will tell you that programming is the bane of their life. And I felt the same, we all did! Anyway, the end of term rolled around and our first assignment was set. That was when something strange started to happen, We all tentatively started work (Well, I say all... I mean those who didn't leave it till the night before!! You know who you are!! :-) ) and we coded, and googled, and coded, and googled, and daniwebbed, and coded some more, and suddenly I realised that I was actually enjoying myself quite a lot! Turned out that I got a 1st in that programming assignment.

Roll on to the present day, and my head is now full of classes, objects, inheritance, buffers, loops, heap/stack/and pile errors, memory management, garbage collector and all kinds of other programming jargon. And guess what? I've decided to do a programming based dissertation...

Except, it's not just your standard C++ VST Program (which are hard enough), No. I've decided I want to teach myself an entirely new language, on an entirely different platform. As the title of this post would suggest, it's Apples iPhone! And that is why i'm sitting here attempting to start my dissertation.

So far, progress has been made. I have followed instructions and explored enough to create a typical 'Hello World' app. And then used my limitless creativity, to expand the functionality to a 'Goodbye World' app. I know, Brilliant isn't it?

My Very Brilliant Hello World App

Well that's the stage i'm at right now. I have 2 areas to cover for this dissertation; iPhone programming, and core audio. Neither of which I have any knowledge about and both of which i believe use different programming languages, C++ for the core audio, and Objective-C for the iPhone.

Well, I have quite a task ahead of me, so expect to see posts of this nature on the blog for the next year or so. It seems that i'm destined to be an audio programmer, and if I can program for Apple devices then so much the better. I think there is a lot of potential in the iPhone / iPad devices in terms of audio that has yet to be realised.

Anyway, It would appear that i'm rambling now. So to all those non-computery folk I apologise for a very geeky blog post, and to those that are interested: Thank you for reading, and please feel free to leave any comments you may have.

Minimalism / The Mac Plan

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:15:00 +0000

Firstly, i'd like to apologize for the lack of content recently. I've had a very busy year at University, and have just finished the final exams for the year. Over the summer I hope to spend more time updating the blog with lots more articles relating to Apple, Music Technology, and More. But now, for the topic of the day...

Minimalism. The pursuit of a simple life, with few distractions or possessions.

I have found myself reading certain blogs like Zen Habits, Mnmlist, Minimal Mac, and Unclutterer increasingly in the last few months or so. In doing so, I have realised how much completely unnecessary clutter and rubbish I have accumulated over the last few years. Since I had my first saturday job, I saw most of my income as dispensable, and proceeded to buy various gadgets and gizmos as soon as I could afford them. A fact i'm sure most of my friends including my girlfriend would provide testimony to!

Enough is enough, I have decided to rid myself of most of this gadgetry, and focus on quality rather than quantity. Many of you know of my passion for Apple products, few know of my previous hatred for Apple products. Suffice to say somewhere along the line, i was converted.

My current mission, is to sell / give away / recycle all of my old 'PC' or 'Windows' based technology. By this I mean, pretty much everything; Keyboard, Mouse, Various additional screens, Old speakers, etc etc. I call this 'The Mac Plan'. The aim of this is to fund myself a brand new Mac Mini (2010). Now while this may sound nothing like minimalism to you, the fact is, that I can now fit everything my old desktop PC machine is capable of, into a package less than 20x20x4 cm. In addition to this space saving, the Mac Mini is confirmed to use between 7-8W of power when idling. Compare this to the relatively gargantuan 500W power supply in my desktop machine, thats a huge difference!

At £649 for the base model, it's not cheap for the specifications. But as with everything Apple, you are paying for a fantastic design, and a fantastic operating system. In addition to this, saving space is very important to me right now so I think it's a premium worth paying. I couldn't think of a better solution for me right now, than my current laptop for university, paired with the Mac Mini at home.

If you're still reading this, then you may be thinking that i've just said I need to rid myself of gadgets followed up by talking about how I intend to purchase another one. And you'd be right, thus rendering this entire post pretty pointless. But as you've got this far, i'd like to thank you for reading and keep a look out for some 'real' minimalist posts here very soon!

My latest mix...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:08:00 +0000

Check it out here: http://bit.ly/awDa1o

All comments are welcome and appreciated!

Mac setup for musicians...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:07:00 +0000

This post has been somewhat inspired by a recent post at Mac AppStorm, they called this post "The Ultimate Mac Setup For Musicians". Whilst the post was a good read, and outlines various different pieces of software, one reader pointed out in the comments section that this was essentially all the post was, a list of software. So in continuation of that post, here is a post detailing what you will need to get you started making music on your Mac.

Now, everyone knows that all new macs come with iLife, which includes garageband. Now you can use garage band to make music, but if thats what you're into then this post really isn't for you! Some of you may remember back to last year, when i detailed a comparison between two DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) Protools Vs Cubase. I direct you to this article to decide which of these fits your preference best. Essentially ProTools is best for audio recording, and Cubase is best for MIDI. There will be the hardcore logic fans out there who argue that logic is a contender, but in my personal opinion, logic is simply a 'professional' version of garage band (That's not to say you cant do advanced audio editing with it, I just wouldn't !! ).

Anyway, so you've decided on your weapon of choice (and by weapon, i mean DAW!). The first piece of hardware you will need is an interface (fancy term for sound card). Obviously, if you have decided to choose ProTools, you will either have purchased a Digidesign soundcard (Mbox / 003 Rack / etc as the software comes with the hardware!) or you will have to have gone down the ProTools M-Powered route, which means you require a compatible M-Audio interface. It is worth mentioning here, that Digidesign hardware is very unreliable on both Mac and PC when you try to use the interface for anything other than ProTools, for example iTunes or iLife programs on a Mac tend to cause kernal panics at shutdown.

Regardless, If you have gone down the Cubase or (*ahem* Logic) route, you will need a standard interface. There are literally hundreds of possible choices here, Personally I would recommend anything by Edirol, E-MU, or if your a guitarist then I would particularly recommend anything by Line 6. I would advise going for an external USB or Firewire sound card, as they are portable, and often powered off the USB socket themselves (saves lugging around that hefty power adaptor!). Personally my interface of choice is an Mbox 2 Mini (when running ProTools) and an Edirol UA-25EX (When running cubase and everything else). The Edirol interface is now branded as Cakewalk, and has excellent Mac support!

Now you have to make the most difficult choice of all, You have your DAW, you have your interface. You just need some monitors (for those not in the know, speakers are referred to as monitors in the music industry, as you are 'monitoring' your sound!). Now, you can spend anything from £50, to £50,000 (Maybe a slight exaggeration for home musicians) on monitors, and as with interfaces, there are hundreds available. A few of the choices you have to make are, whether you want active or passive monitors. Active monitors have built in amplifiers, whereas you will need a separate amplifier to power passive monitors. You will need to decide how much power you want, this is measured in Watts and essentially translates into how loud the speakers will be. Remember, studio monitors are all about the quality of the sound, and NOT the loudness. So make sure you take into account the frequency response, Most studio monitors will come with a frequency response from 20Hz - 20Khz, as this is the range of frequencies our ear can pick up. However, it is important to look at the frequency response graph of a speaker, as it is important to have a flat frequency response (this is also true of microphones) as you will be hearing a truer sound, the flatter the line. Below is an example of a good frequency response graph, and a bad frequency response graph.

Below is an example of a flat (Good) frequency response

Whereas Below, is an example of a non-flat (Bad) frequency response

So, Armed with this insider knowledge, My personal recommendations would be to check out cheaper offerings from Alesis, but if you're looking to spend a bit more, then Genelec Monitors are a firm favourite in the industry. Personally, I run Alesis M1 Active MK2 monitors, which can be brought for a fairly reasonable price today. The new version of these monitors is the Alesis M1 Active 520's. A good friend of mine has these monitors, and is more than happy with them!

Right, now you have everything you need to get a good quality sound from your Mac. You need to get sound into your Mac! You can do this in two ways, either record the audio information using a Microphone or a DI-Box, or using MIDI. MIDI stands for (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and esentially all you need to know, is that you can purchase a MIDI keyboard (USB / Firewire / or MIDI ports) plug it into your mac (or interface) and play musical information into the DAW. This can then be picked up by a VSTI (Virtual Studio Technology Instrument) and turned into audio information. For the purposes of this post, i will talk only about MIDI keyboards. Microphone choice is such a vast topic, I will cover this in a future post.

MIDI keyboards come in all shapes and sizes! (Well okay, they don't, they all look like keyboards, but anyway...) You have a number of different choices and options, you can get different sizes. e.g. if you're not a grade 8, classically trained pianist, a 25 key, semi-weighted solution will probably suffice. But midi keyboards are available up to 8 octaves, with fully-weighed keys for the more traditional pianist! I could talk for days about MIDI and the benifits, etc, however right now, i'm going to give you a few suggestions of keyboards. The M-Audio Axiom range is a relatively comprehensive solution, available in 25, or 49 key versions. If you're looking for something a little simpler then the Oxygen range, also by M-Audio should suit you well.

Now, this post just brushes the surface of music creation on a Mac. But the intention was to cover some of the hardware you will require to start producing music at home. I am considering making this a series of posts, covering everything from Microhpones, to Synthesisers, to Outboard Gear, and Virtual Instruments. Well, If you're still reading, then I applaud you, and thank you! If you have any specific questions please don't hesitate to ask in the comments!

Remix...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:06:00 +0000

Hey All,

Just a quick update, i've just completed and handed in my remix of 'Dance Little Sister' originally by Terence Trent D'Arby and it's online for you to listen to. Just hit the link below...

- Click here to listen

It's the first remix of this type that i've done, and would appreciate any and all feedback!

Thanks for reading!
Sam

Apples latest creation...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:37:00 +0000

Well it's official! Apple have a press event on the 27th of January where they are rumoured to be introducing a tablet computer, a new version of iLife and a new iPhone OS. Which is all nice and all... but I can't help thinking that Apple has been playing it safe recently.

A tablet PC is boring. I used to like Apple for their 'Think Different' slogan, and they actually used to apply it to products. The apple tablet could be so great, but i'm betting it wont be! I bet it will be an average specification for a huge price and that it will do everything it's been rumoured to do; eBook reader, web, video chat, etc. This stuff is all fine, but its also stuff I can do on my £200 netbook!

Why not do something exciting with it Apple, Why not have a space on the tablet to dock your iPhone, or allow bluetooth tethering for 3G wireless. Why not make the tablet, the new 10" netbook or even a small iMac? It would be simple, Add a stand and devise some form of docking the tablet. Allow us to use it as a small secondary screen for our Macs perhaps. Let it run the full OS X operating system and incorporate multitouch to the entire OS. Build a DVD drive into it, show netbook makers that it can be done! Build in a TV receiver, let us record and watch back live TV. Put wireless 'N' inside it, let us use it for online gaming.

Now i don't doubt that the tablet will be capable of doing some of these functions. But i bet they will be locked into iTunes and iLife, and the App store, and be boring! Come on Apple, you make some great products! Please let the tablet be exciting!

Exciting Year for Tech in 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:42:00 +0000

We’ve got a lot of stuff to look forward to in 2010! Apples iSlate (or iGuide?!), Chrome for Mac, Google Chrome OS, potentially a new iPhone to mention just a few. I shall endeavour to blog about these things as and when they happen.

For now, i must state that my new years resolution will be 1920 x 1080 and that i shall attempt to update this blog a little more frequently!! University has kind of been taking over (as it probably should) for the last few months, and it looks set to continue this way when i get back to Bournemouth on the 10th! I have a presentation to make 9am on the 11th, so its straight back into it!

Amidst all of this, i have become rather hooked on the xbox 360 i bought a couple of months back! Its incredible, before this I was playing games on a 4/5 year old PC. The difference is incomparable… I now have a Wireless N adaptor for the xbox, just need to get me a gold subscription and i’m away!

Right now, i’m off to work on a uni assignment! Attempting to get sequential playback working in C++ using a class that has no feedback method! Fun times!

Christmas Update...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:01:00 +0000

Wow, well I sure haven't been updating this blog as much as I originally intended. Well, the truth is that i've kind of been snowed under (pun very much intended) with work lately. A couple of my assignments at the moment are to analyse the RMS amplitude of various tracks and produce a scientific report, another one is to program a media player in C++, and finally to set out a strategic and operation business plan. The only one of these that I can call finished is the first one. My scientific report is full of figures, statistics, and research, fun stuff! Just need to hand that in now!

At the moment I'm also working mainly on the programming assignment, the media player has to be built purely in C++ and has to handle the playback of wav files, and also act as a playlist creator / editor / manager! So that's all fun!

Other than university, this terms been pretty awesome! Living in a flat with my mates from uni is great! Better than halls i think, if only for the quietness! haha. I can't believe that university is going so quickly, i've pretty much finished the first term in my second year. Seems like only yesterday I was arriving in Bournemouth as a nervous fresher, not sure what to expect from the whole thing! But on the whole, university is great!

This term i decided to make an investment... in an xbox 360! Well I decided it could be my early christmas present to myself, and it's fantastic! I only have a few games, including Forza 3, COD MW2, GTA IV, and some others, but i'm already becoming dangerously addicted to it!

Speaking of which, i must just go and finish that mission in GTA...

Windows 7 Release...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:08:00 +0000

Well as you will all (or should all) know, Windows 7 was released on Thursday! And what an effect it had on my blog hits! There must be a fair few Samsung N310 owners out there looking for some advice on how to get Windows 7 working perfectly!!

I have some news for you guys! Samsung have now released Windows 7 compatible drivers for most (if not all) of the machines they make, this includes the N310. Just head over to the Samsung N310 Driver Downloads page, and find them there!

Update for family and friends...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:33:00 +0000

Hey all,

This ones a more personal update for family and friends, so if you're interested in the tech stories It might be worth you skipping over this post! There will be a couple of reviews coming up in the next few weeks, one for the Crumpler Sticky Date bag, and another for the Behringer Xenyx 1204FX mixer, so stay tuned...

Well, I'm back at Uni in Bournemouth now, living in my new flat! I arrived yesterday and am still setting everything up! Most important things were done first; Photo of Emma, Computer, and Bed (in that order). And now I am about to start the mammoth task of sorting out my clothes, kitchen things, bathroom things, and loads of other general things that become necessities when at university! For those of you who have asked for pictures of the flat, I shall post them on Facebook as it is slightly more private than this blog!

So what's the flat like? Well the hot water / heating in this flat is strange! There is no program for the heating, it simply comes on when it detects that it's too cold, and the hot water comes on when it's needed. Oh... That's if we've remembered to keep the meters filled up with coins!

Speaking of coin meters, this is something which is unnerving me somewhat! When you pay your electricity quarterly or annually, you don't really think about how much you use, until the bill drops onto your doormat! Whereas when you have a little dial that is slowly ticking its way down to the big red 'Empty' marker, you suddenly become all conservative! Silly things, like turning plugs off at the wall and only filling the kettle enough for one cup, etc... This got me thinking, maybe we wouldn't be in such a bad global climate situation if more people were on metered electricity!

Anyhow, I shall keep you updated on how i'm getting on in my second year at uni, it still feels weird being in Bournemouth, and not being in Purbeck (Halls for my first year!) Anyway, now i'm off to clean the kitchen and bathroom, and organise all my things...

Thanks for reading!

P.S. We're about to go over the 5,000 mark for hits on this blog, so thank you to each and every one of you!

Snow Leopard...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:56:00 +0000

Well, I have just upgraded my Mac from Leopard and personally I am loving it! Instead of writing 'another' lengthy review of how i found the installation and the end result, I thought I'd link to a great user review I read earlier today!

http://top.burningfiles.com/apple-snow-leopard-upgrade

This review literally sums up all the points I have to make! Thanks to @Burnspot for taking the time to post this. Whether you have just brought Snow Leopard and want to know what the new features are, or you are wondering if it's worth the effort / money to upgrade, this review will help you!

As a side note I intend to post some of my own thoughts after a few weeks of usage!

Facebook 3.0 for iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 19:12:00 +0000

I've just seen a great preview of the new Facebook app for iPhone. Well worth a read if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch!

[Via @theiphoneblog]

5 Free PC Maintenance Tools…

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 21:42:00 +0000

I constantly get people asking me what free software they can use to either speed their Windows PC up, protect them from hackers, or get rid of viruses. So I thought I'd compile a list of free software that I use and recommend to keep your computer virus free, and running in top condition.

1) AVG Free Antivirus – This is an excellent antivirus application for the general PC user, those who are slightly more advanced will find that it sometimes reports false viruses but for the most part users will have no problems. It will auto-update to the latest definitions and can be set to scan either the whole computer, a certain hard drive, or even certain files. Scanning can be done on demand, or on a set schedule. It also supports web browsers such as Firefox as well as messenger, scanning all downloads automatically (once set up!) to ensure no nasties can get onto your computer.

2) CCleaner – Stands for (quite literally) Crap Cleaner! It will clean the crap off your computer! Many people do not realise that as you browse the web, every image you see, every link you see, pretty much information about everything you see is stored on your hard drive. Not only can this cause privacy risks, but most of all, it slows your computer down! This program auto-updates and provides an easy to use scanner and cleaner that even novices will find easy to use. The program has a variety of options to choose from (the basics come preset) and more advanced users have the option to clean further files in their system.

3) Comodo Firewall – Most people believe that their PC is protected if they install an antivirus program. My more advanced readers will know that this simply isn’t true! Whilst an antivirus program will protect you from any viruses in files you may download, it will not protect you from unauthorised access to your system. This is surprisingly easy if you have a WiFi network in your home! Install this simple, free, and surprisingly configurable firewall, and you will have some great protection against these kind of threats.

4) Disk Defragmenter – Personally I use the built in disk defragmenter in Windows. Now i have heard this called everything under the sun, one particularly amusing description is “Windows disk defragmenter is about as useful as shoving a badger down your underpants!” Personally, I have found it to do the job and increase various system times, such as start-up and shut-down. If you are after something more than the built in windows tool, then Auslogics Disk Defrag is supposed to be the best free tool at the moment, but I have not used this tool!

5) Wise Registry Cleaner – I was very reluctant to include a registry cleaner on this list, as the damage they can cause to your computer is sometimes irreparable. However, when used properly, they can really help to speed up your computer. Now we all know, uninstalling a program removes all files associated with that program, but sometimes (read: most of the time) it does not remove the registry entries associated with that program. Now think of the registry as a giant book, As humans, we would find it a lot easier to find information in a book, if that book didn’t contain pages and pages of completely useless and redundant information (This is essentially what is left over when registry entries are not removed). Wise registry cleaner will scan your entire registry and mark all problems with either ‘Safe to remove’ or ‘Unsafe to remove’. You should only remove those that are safe to do so, and when you have you will surely notice the difference.

As a footnote, I will say that I am not responsible for any consequences that may be caused by using any of these tools, this post is for informational purposes only and all programs are purely my own recommendations. Users should take particular care when using any type of registry modification tools and a full system restore backup point is highly recommended before any registry entries are modified.

Amazing what one post can do…

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:21:00 +0000

Well isn’t it just! A few weeks ago, this place was bumbling along, a nice happy blog with a nice number of regular readers. I write a review of the Samsung N310, and the hits go through the roof (well for me anyway). We now stand at 3,005 hits, up from around 2000 a month ago, and are now getting 40+ hits a day! I am just glad that people are reading my review, and hope that everyone finds it useful!

So, what’s planned for the blog over the next month. Well I'd like to do several things; more product reviews, unfortunately this means getting hold of these tech products! And that’s a pricey job! Those of you who know me will know that I have got a slot on a local radio station over the summer, presenting an evening music/chat show! I’m hoping to link that to the blog somehow, maybe competitions, etc. And of course, anything i find lurking on the internet that may be of use of interest to you, I’ll probably blog about that too!

Anyway, for those of you who read this blog to find out what I’m up too… Quite a lot, Like I said before, I’ve got this slot on local radio, which believe it or not involves a fair bit of prep work before going live. If you want to listen in to trashcan radio, just click on the blue writing! We are live every Thursday from 8PM – 11PM. I also start my holiday / summer job this Thursday, supervising and running local play schemes for kids during the summer holiday!

And finally for those who want to know how my first year at Uni went, I got a first, along with a letter of commendation from the Dean of the University congratulating me for finishing in the top 89%, so I was very pleased with that!

Just to finish off, I’d like to let you all know about a project my old school / college is running. Its called Classrooms for Kenya, hit the link for more info. Basically students have spent 3 or 4 years fund raising, and are now visiting Kenya for the 3rd time to build new schools, classrooms, teach and learn from Kenyan children. This is a great project and a few of my close friends, along with 57 other pupils of the Weald School, flew off to Kenya yesterday for 3 weeks to build new classrooms and help teach the children. If you could spare even a few pounds for this cause it would be very much appreciated. The scheme is a registered charity (No. 1122559) and you can donate online here!

Samsung N310 after a week…

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:17:00 +0000

Well, I’ve had the netbook a little while now so i thought i should go over some of the little things that have been bugging me!

1) The right shift key on the UK keyboard, I’ve said it before but this really is the single most annoying thing about this netbook! Honestly, i thought it would be a matter of getting used to, but i am still pressing the ‘\’ key instead of shift!

2) The battery life could be better! Although Samsung’s battery life extender does an interesting job of attempting to extend the overall life of the battery by giving you the option to only charge to 80% of the full capacity.However, when running the netbook on battery from 100% to the point it enters automatic hibernation, i got a time of 2.35 hours. This was running the display on 50% brightness and surfing web over the WiFi connection.

3) Boot time on Windows 7, it is unfair to blame this on the netbook but is an important point to consider if you are intending to run Windows 7. It takes 1.24 minutes from cold boot to login screen, then another minute to log in. Bear in mind these times are with 2GB of RAM and booting into Windows 7. Stock N310’s running XP with 1GB of RAM probably have a completely different time.

4) If I am being really picky, then the ‘rocker-bar’ style mouse click button feels very cheap, the feel is defiantly not as nice as some of the Asus netbooks (The later ones rather than the earlier ones), but saying this, the trackpad itself is a joy to use, I don’t find it cramped at all.

Okay so that’s the negatives out of the way! So after a week, what are the things I'm really liking about this netbook?

1) It has to be the screen, this is a seriously nice screen for a netbook. The sharpness of the screen literally blows away every other netbook screen I’ve seen. Although on a slight negative, the reflections from the edge to edge glass display can be slightly distracting, but it doesn’t bother me. I am going to try and calibrate the screen using an eye-one device in the near future, i will keep you posted.

2) The keyboard, aside from the right shift key, the rest of it is a dream to type on. After a few days, my typing speed is the same on the netbook as it is on a full sized keyboard. The chicklet style design really helps to avoid wrong key presses!

3) WiFi – This netbook has an incredibly good WiFi connection, it only comes with 802.11 b/g at the moment, I’m guessing 802.11n will be added to a later revision (Possibly the ‘Samsung Go’ in the US). But seriously, this thing can get WiFi reception where other laptops cannot. If there is even a trace of a signal, it seems to pick it up and work with it, where my Mac would not even allow me to connect!

4) Video playback performance. Even though this netbook is equipped with the GMA945 Express Chipset, rather than the more powerful GMA500 Chipset, this netbook managed to playback several 720p HD videos in a row without faltering! (It did have trouble streaming BBC iPlayer HD content though, normal iPlayer content streamed fine!)

5) Temperature / Fan speed. Some netbooks I have used in the past have gotten pretty hot. It may be standard now, as I have not got any other netbooks to compare this too, but the bottom of this netbook stays fairly cool with no audible fan noise! Always a bonus!

Anyway, that concludes my experiences with the N310 after a week or so. Incidentally this is also my first post using Windows Live Writer (From my netbook) so if there are any glitches you know why! As always, any questions? I’m happy to answer!

My New Samsung N310 running Windows 7...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:05:00 +0000

UPDATE - My Experiences after a week or so with the N310

I'm on the bandwagon and well, my netbook of choice was the Samsung N310. A relatively new netbook by a manufacturer with a history of good, solid netbook designs. The NC10 is a popular samsung netbook, and the N310 is essentially a redesign of this netbook. As you can see from a lot of review sites, the company made a big thing about handing the netbook over to top designer Naoto Fukasawa who came up with this pebble concept (apparently it looks like one!)

Anyway, enough about the design. You can judge that for yourselves at the flickr album page, lets just say that I like it! The idea behind me purchasing this netbook was with the view of upgrading the RAM to a 2GB stick and installing Windows 7, to cut a long story short upgrading the ram was a peice of cake. It literally is a matter of unscrewing one screw, popping open a hatch, swapping the ram stick, and screwing the hatch back on! Nothing like the process needed for say, the Dell Mini 10v.

Anyway, with a 2GB Ram stick installed and working, i plugged in an external DVD drive and set about installing the RC of Windows 7. The install was a breeze, all of the main components worked immediately after installation, which took about 20 minutes to complete. It might be worth noting for anyone who intends to install Windows 7, that amongst several minor things the Fn keys do NOT work straight away, you need to install Easy Desktop Manager for Windows Vista. Click the links (Repeated at end of post) to head to Samsung download page).

A few other drivers are needed for 100% functionality in Windows 7; The Windows Vista Synaptics touch pad driver is needed to enable the scrolling functionality of the touch pad. Some people have also suggested that you install Realtek's sound drivers as Windows 7 drivers sometimes cut out after sleep (This is not something that I have experienced).

So thats functionality dealt with, onto performance. I have as of this moment only had limited experience with the netbook, having had it for all of 3 hours! I will be sure to post again within a few weeks regarding performance and overall stability. However, initial impressions are good! Windows 7 with 2GB of RAM and the Intel Atom 1.6Ghz CPU seems to be a winning combination. The included 720p 'Wildlife' sample video within Windows 7 played back flawlessly in windows media player, this was with Aero enabled which incidentally also runs fantastically well!

Aesthetically the netbook is pleasing, it also feels great to type on. I have always been a fan of 'chicklet' or 'pebble style' (as Samsung likes to call it) keyboards, and personally think its a win win situation for netbooks. I have yet to hit a wrong key on this keyboard, and my hands feel anything but cramped. The only gripe i have is with the small shift key on the UK keyboards, click here for picture. Having seen some of the US/Foreign models reviewed, I prefered the combination of longer shift key and single row enter key, but other than that, the keyboard wins my praise.

The touchpad is very nice, the texture allows your finger to move smoothly (unlike some of the glossy trackpads favoured by other manufacturers) and the rocker button has a distinctive (if somewhat cheap) feel. The real gem of this netbook though is the 10.1" glass to glass covered screen. It is bright, crisp, and very sharp. Text is easily viewable, I will be testing some professional quality photographs a little later, so stay tuned for my verdict on that. The screen has a native resolution of 1024x600 which I prefer to the 1024x576 that Dell and others use in their netbooks. Whilst i appreciate that 1024x576 is in a 16:9 ratio for HD content, i will put up with the black 'post-box' type effect when (if) i choose to watch movies on this machine.

A few other features worth mentioning, the power lead comes with a traditional style laptop 'brick' rather than the wall converter that Dell uses (see picture below). If carried around this adds to the bulk of the netbook significantly. Some have complained about the size of the Samsung logo on the lid, it doesn't bother me that much, infact I think Samsung shows confidence in their netbook by doing this. The status LED's are a very welcome addition to this netbook allowing you to easily see whats enabled (Something which frustrates Dell mini users). The netbook also comes with built in webcam, microphone, bluetooth, and 2.1 style speakers.

Which reminds me, i'll end this initial review on a bizzare note. When the laptop arrived (running XP before I installed Windows 7) the audio was all panned hard left, meaning when I plugged headphones in it would only come out of the left ear! Easily fixed by panning the audio to the center again, but this was just a strange anomaly in what has otherwise been a very smooth, enjoyable, and... well fantastic netbook experience really!

If there are any questions, leave a comment and i'll be only too happy to try and answer them!

More Photos are available on the flickr Page - Here

UPDATE - My Experiences after a week or so with the N310

Pros
- Fantastic form factor
- Screen
- 'Chicklet' style keyboard
- Added extras (Status LED's, Bluetooth, etc)

Cons
- Power Brick
- Small right shift key (UK Keyboard only)

Download Links

- Easy Display Manager for Windows Vista
- Windows Vista Synaptics touch pad driver
- Realtek's sound drivers

Other Useful Links

- Sammy Netbook Forums
- Windows 7 & Samsung NC10 Blog post
- Flickr page of Samsung N310 initial Photos

The Netbook Bandwagon

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:12:00 +0000

Netbooks; Where did they start?, Why do they exist?, Why have I jumped on the bandwagon? All questions I intend to answer within this post...

So i finally decided to make the purchase. Mostly for practical purposes, and maybe slightly out of pure curiosity! I want to know just how much of my every day computing can be carried out on these little devices, and possibly how far they can be used in portable recording situations.

The first netbook is a debate which has been going on for a while within the tech community. Many think the netbook revolution really started with the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) Project, which aimed to bring computing to developing countries in an attempt to bridge the digital divide. The aim with this project was to create a fully functional computer for $100. The end result was a 366Mhz AMD Geode GX2-500 CPU, 128Mb of RAM, and 802.11g Wi-Fi. The significant detail here really has to be the Wi-Fi, it surely has defined how these small computers are intended to be used, and indeed the name itself! Netbook, implies the device should be used for browsing the net!

The OLPC Project is a debate within itself, whether it was a success or not, well, it's not for me to say! But it is safe to say that this very small, light weight, budget laptop was what inspired Asus to believe that there was a market for this sort of laptop within developed countries. Their first attempt at a netbook was esentially a clone of the OLPC Project, with slightly higher grade components, and a less rugged case. And guess what!? It worked!

The Eee PC series was born, with the 700 series being announced in September of 2007. The Price was set at $245 and that got you a 900Mhz CPU, 2GB SSD, and 256MB of Ram. It was released with a linux operating system, but Asus soon performed a swift U-turn and sold subsequent releases of Eee PC's with the option of Windows XP as an operating system.

A trend which has unfortunatly continued. Windows XP remains the default operating system for netbooks, purely because of the speed with which it runs on limited hardware. Windows Vista (XP's big brother) is widely known and criticised for it's lack of speed and compatibility with old hardware. As a side note, I believe this has provoked manufactures to sell higher specification machines at a lower price, so may not be entirely a bad thing. Anyway, i digress... Windows XP remains to this day the default OS of many netbooks, but due to liscencing issues Microsoft is limiting its usage to machines with less than 1GB of RAM. A decision which, in my opinion, is holding back netbooks from reaching their full potential. Some manufacturers have countered this by providing easy access to the RAM within the netbook to allow the users themselves to increase the amount (Something I intend to take advantage of as soon as my netbook arrives).

Windows 7 is the new XP, when it is released on the 22nd October 2009, is set to rock the netbook world. It will be provided to netbook manufactures in a starter package, bascially a 'dummed-down' version of the operating system designed to run on less powerful hardware, Microsoft has made an interesting decision with this OS release, to limit the number of programs that can run [on the starter edition] at any time to 3! (NB: This is rumoured to have been dropped from the final release) Something I feel would again, limit the potential of these netbooks!

When my netbook arrives this week, i intend to fully test the machine with XP. I will then install Windows 7 RC (Which will eventually be Windows 7 Ultimate Edition) and test the machine again. This post will be continued towards the end of next week, where I will reveal exactly which netbook I purchased (Clue: It's only been out about a month in the UK) and there will be plenty of photos to look at!

Portable recording on netbooks...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:00:00 +0000

I just wanted to share this blog post with you guys, its all about turning a netbook into a portable linux based recording system! Click link to visit original post!

"Recording music with Linux on an EEE PC"

While an Asus EEE PC is perhaps not best suited for full-on intensive music production, it does have values which make it an ideal solution for portable recording. This tutorial will show you how to install and setup a linux recording environment...

+224 people dugg this story.

Bad Microsoft Design...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Harman) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:45:00 +0000

I speak with regards to Windows Live Messenger, a free download is available to all windows users. No doubt every single person who reads this blog will know of this program, and will have probably used it at some point in their life!

Well as some of you may know, I decided to reformat my PC and install Windows 7 RC to see what improvements had been made since vista (there are many!) but more on that in a later blog post. Anyway, as part of my testing / daily computer tasks I will be using WLM. So i downloaded the web installer and set to work, installation went like a dream so no problems there. The problems start when I run WLM for the first time, I was presented with this...

Yes, thats right, out of around 200 of my contacts I can see only 1 person. This is just completely stupid. Fair enough, Microsoft may have a new idea about how we should all organise our contacts, into groups and favourites and whatnot but seriously, the implementation couldn't have been worse. After about 5 minutes of tinkering I was able to make it look like this...

Now I don't know about the rest of you, but this is certainly what I would prefer to see immediatly after instalation. Maybe have a tutorial popup which helps users migrate their contacts to the new group and favourite system? Wouldn't that make more sense? I guess not, afterall what would a 19yr old fresher know about design...