So you Downloaded the Windows 7 OS-Tan  Madobi Nanami theme, but can’t figure out where to put all those wav files. If you are using Windows 7 then it will load the theme automatically, but for those of us on an older OS that still want the theme the sound files have to be entered manually. After screwing around with the file names on Google Translate, and comparing them to the XP sounds list I think I got at least most of them figured out. You would think someone had done this already, but searches for a translated list have been futile.

The file pack I got only has 24 files, but I’ve heard there may be as many as 39… Well… I only got 24 so that’s all that are on the list.

The filenames are in Japanese, so if you don’t have the Asian font pack installed on your computer you will only see boxes, but I have made a .jpg image of the list that can be viewed here: OS-tan sound files jpg image

Here is what I came up with:

• _じゃじゃーん.wav = (Ja-Jang) Maximize
• _じゃん.wav = (Jang) Minimize
• _ちーん.wav = (Chiin) Restore up/Restore down/(Open/Close Window?)
• _ぴぽ.wav = (Pipo) (*I believe Pipo and Pirorin are meant to be the Asterisk and Exclamation sounds, but which is which?)
• _ぴろりん.wav = (Pirorin)
• Windowsテーマの変更.wav = Windows Change Theme
• Windowsユーザーアカウント制御.wav = Windows User Control Account
• Windowsログオフ.wav = Windows Off (assume this is log off)
• Windowsログオン.wav = Windows Log (login)
• Windows終了.wav = Windows End (Windows Exit)
• ごみ箱を空にする.wav = Empty Recycle Bin
• システムエラー.wav = System Error
• システム通知.wav = System Notification
• デバイスの切断.wav = Device Disconnecting
• デバイスの接続.wav = Connecting Device
• デバイスの接続の失敗.wav = Device Connection Failure
• バッテリ低下アラーム.wav = Low Battery Alarm
• バッテリ切れアラーム.wav = Battery Alarm (Critical battery alarm?)
• ポップアップウィンドウのブロック.wav = Block Pop Up Window
• メッセージ（情報）.wav = Message(Information)
• メッセージ（警告）.wav = Message (Warning)
• 一般の警告音.wav = Default Beep
• 情報バー.wav = Information Bar
• 新着メールの通知.wav = Mail Notification

Note: For myself I set the “Windows Change Theme” to Windows start since she says: “Konnichiwa Nanami desu” I think that it works well there rather than that crappy music we all hate by now. Also regarding “pipo” and “pirorin”… I never did find anyone who would tell me which was for what function so in my case I used “pipo” for the exclamation sound, and “pirorin” for the asterisk sound. Seems logical to me. I also agree with others about the “chiin”… I used it for restore up/restore down, but using it for window open/close is really annoying, so you may want to not use it for all those sounds. Otherwise the soundpack is much cooler than the standard Windows default sound scheme.

Today Intel announced that they are ready to start offering the i7 mobile CPU for laptops. Using Intel’s “Turbo Boost” technology the new chip is supposed to be 75% faster than current generation laptop mobile CPUs.

“These processors in addition to the new Intel® PM55 Express Chipset, provide the best laptop experience for intense gaming, digital media, photos, music, business applications and other multi-threaded software that hungers for faster processing speed. The chips also boost overall performance when using several of these applications simultaneously.”

Pricing for the Intel® Core™ i7-920XM, Intel® Core™ i7-820QM and Intel® Core™ i7-720QM mobile processors is $1,054, $546 and $364, respectively.

Read the full story here:  Intel Unveils Fastest Laptop Chips Ever With the New Intel® Core™ i7 Mobile Processor

An interesting tidbit I picked up from Slashdot this evening. As I was wandering through my newsreader wondering why there hasn’t been anything really interesting to write about lately, and I find this… It seems that Yahoo has officially announced that it will shut down the Geocities service for good.

Reading feedback on this I kinda get the idea nobody really knows what Geocities actually “was”. I mean really… Comparing it to Myspace or Facebook??? Before Yahoo got a hold of it Geocities was simply a web host just like any other… Just like the one I pay to host this site… Except it was free. Comparing it to a profile site like Facebook or Myspace is just not even close. Those sites are strictly there for profiles and networking with barely any content to speak of. Geocities on the other hand was free form web design… Granted most folks didn’t really have the knowledge or skill to create sites that were much better than a typical Myspace page (I never could convince people that 100 animated gifs wasn’t a good idea), but there were some who utilized the service to it’s full capability… I’m sure countless geeks out there probably learned to code HTML and their first clumsy flirting with javascript right there in Geocities file editor… I know I was one… I spent countless days on end pouring out HTML like a madman with nothing keeping me going besides  lukewarm soda, cigarettes, and the anticipation of seeing the next page go live. I think at one point I had at least 5 different sites running on there plus one on Tripod, and another on my Earthlink web space. Trying desperately to make a page that would interest enough people to make that free hit counter at the bottom roll to 100,000.

Yes… It’s the sad life of a nerd I know, but the day I booted up my 386SX 16Mhz computer and waited for my clunky 56k modem to connect and see that one of my sites had hit 100,002 was still an amazing moment.

I also recall the old neighborhood community system they used… Say what you like, but I think it was unique even by today’s standards. I still remember my personal site (which is still online to this day) was located in SouthBeach/Shores/.  Most people these days don’t even bother with coding their own HTML, and I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who don’t even know what that is anymore even though it’s still the way pages are created. Personally I still like to code my own with the exception of this blog obviously. Something about it get’s lost when you rely on software to do everything for you… Yeah the site is a bit prettier than the ones I wrote, and it’s rather easy to update, but with my old sites I knew every detail. I knew why every item was in a particular place, and understood how it all worked. Now I have to search help sites, or download applications or plug-ins to get things done as I’m completely clueless to the background scripting used by these modern blog sites. And it’s not all roses in that garden either. Now I have to deal with the twitchiness that comes with using someone Else’s software to run my site. I’ve already spent countless hours trying to fix problems when the software just decides it doesn’t want to work today. You never really had that problem with hand coding… You always tested your code before going live, and barring any server issues once you had it right it stayed that way.

Well… Enough reminicing… I suppose I had better get my butt over to Yahoo, and back my pages and files up before they vanish… Hate to lose that site as it was the first I ever made. It’s been through so many changes that reflect my learning efforts in web design, and it still has some information that doesn’t quite fit with any of my other sites, but I don’t want to lose.

Here is the link to the original Slashdot article:

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/23/2339224&from=rss

Update: October 24th, 2006. I wrote an update to this article here: Yahoo Geocities Update

Well… Soon there won’t be much (if anything) left for people to complain about iTunes anymore (except for the folks who simply can’t stand Apple and will surely find something to whine about). With the release of iTunes 8 Apple has announced that they will be offering a new service called iTunes Plus in which music from all 4 major labels will be available as DRM free 256 kbp/s AAC tracks. So it seems that amongst all the rumors of iTunes possibly closing down or never being able to offer DRM free music Steve Jobs managed to pull yet another rabbit out of his hat to give folks what they want.

The catch??? Of course there is one. The iTunes Plus tracks will cost $1.29 each, but that’s not too bad for the people who really want the higher quality and DRM free tracks. The regular 128 kbp/s AAC DRM tracks are still going to be available at 99 cents each, so we get the best of both worlds… We can choose freedom of where and how we store our music or cheaper tracks for those of us who don’t have the need for music portability outside the iPod. There will also be a selection of bargain tracks which will cost 69 cents each giving iTunes customers 3 price points for music now. According to Apple most albums will still be priced at $9.99.

Another nice touch since I can hear people screaming already… For those of us who have been long time iTunes customers they thought about us too. Simply by paying the 30 cents extra per track you can upgrade your existing library to iTunes Plus. So there is no need to repurchase your entire library just to get DRM free and the higher quality.

In other iTunes news… Geneon will begin releasing anime songs onto iTunes in 22 countries for purchase this week. Just a small selection to start, but they intend to have complete soundtracks, character songs, and other related materials to be added later.

For those that have been fans of the Vocaloids the day that has been anticipated by many has arrived. The announcement of the latest Vocaloid has been made official after months of teasers and silhouettes the curtain has finally been drawn and Megurine Luka is born.

A lot of folks are likening her design to several fantasy anime or RPG characters, but me being a big fan of Pangya thought even back when I first saw the silhouette that she reminded me of the character Lucia that was introduced in Season 4 of Pangya, and after seeing the reveal I’d say my first intuition was right on the money… Even down to the pink hair. Of course I imagine everyone’s past tastes will dictate what character she reminds them of, but that’s what my first thought was (matter of fact I just realized the names Lucia/Luka… Coincidence??? Maybe).

Putting aside the looks and going into the Vocaloid itself the differences between Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin/Len this one has a bit of a deeper voice. A bit more sultry if you will. Megurine Luka also has a trick up her sleeve that the other Vocaloids regardless of the many attempts made by several people have not achieved. She can sing English lyrics. Granted it’s still not perfect, and she is still native Japanese, but it’s a step in the right direction. The voice demos I’ve heard so far aren’t that impressive, but then I don’t think Miku’s were all that great out of the gate either. Once the software is released (January 30, 2009) and some of the Vocaloid masters get their hands on it I suspect NicoVision will quickly fill up with new works, and the we’ll see what she’s capable of.

The voice sampling for Megurine Luca was done by Asakawa Yuu who voiced the characters of Miss Sakaki in Azumanga Daioh, Itoko Osakabe in School Rumble, Julia Basil Elden in Vandread, Motoko Aoyama in Love Hina, and many others. Not a bad heritage there.

Okay… Another reason I haven’t posted much in the past couple weeks (aside from a brief marathon involving watching all 167 episodes of InuYasha) was that my 2 year old PC finally started showing signs of getting ready to kick the bucket. I started getting warnings on the Intel monitor that the CPU was running about 50-60 degrees F above normal (actually went up to the terminal temp range several times). I had intended to wait until next year hoping to score an i7 after the prices dropped a bit, but it wasn’t meant to be, so I spent the past week rebuilding my PC (most of that time reloading software).

Read more after the jump…

So after several days of staring at motherboards and CPUs I finally decided I was going to give AMD another try (the last time I used AMD was back when they came out with the 486 DX4 CPU and it wasn’t impressive or very stable). I finally decided on the Asus M3A78-EM motherboard coupled with an Athalon 64 X2 5200+ CPU. The choice wasn’t too difficult… XfX and MSI both carry similar boards, but the XfX seems to get some very mixed reviews while the MSI runs about $20 more than the Asus. Having used Asus in the past it was the clear winner in my eyes.

The good… The board is based on the latest 780G chip set, and while some people seem to have troubles with these first boards implementing it the M3A78-EM seems to be pretty stable. The first thing one will notice about this board is the massive amount of ports on the back. 6 USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 8 Channel sound, VGA, DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI, ESATA, optical audio, and iEEE 1394 (firewire). That’s quite a bit of connectivity there, and that’s not even the end. On the motherboard itself there are an additional 3 USB 2.0 headers allowing a total of 12 ports, a iEEE 1394 header for an additional firewire port, 5 SATA ports, and the rest of the usual suspects (PCIe X 16, PCIe X 2, Floppy header, IDE header, etc). This board can probably connect to everything you own and still have ports left over.

Other features of the board include built in ATI Radeon HD3200 graphics which is not a bad GPU overall though power gamers may want more (hence the PCIe X 16 slot). It also has ATI’s Crossfire technology, so if you purchase one of the new ATI Radeon cards (and run Windows Vista) you can operate the the onboard video and the add on card in conjunction to get dual GPU performance. And, although I opted for an Athalon 64 X 2 CPU the board does support 140w AMD CPUs allowing it to handle the latest Phenom X4 CPUs. The onboard audio seems to be the usual fare (although I haven’t really noticed much improvement in the audio department since the SoundBlaster Platinum, so pretty much any audio is decent and effective these days).

The bad… Not much bad to speak of. The only issue I had was that it only has one IDE header so I had to dump my IDE CD writer, but with SATA DVD writers running from $30 these days it’s not much of an issue, and honestly I already have an external LG DVD writer which I prefer since today’s computers tend to need lots of cooling one less heat producing drive in the case is a good thing. In case anyone was wondering… Yes this board will boot from a USB drive. The only other thing that gave me headaches also involved the IDE header. They placed it sideways on the board so it actually faces the front of the PC when installed… Right under the area where the hard drive bays are usually located so it may take a bit of contortion to route the cable if you have multiple drives. With a single drive I suspect it would be mounted in a higher bay, and probably wouldn’t be an issue. Now that I think of it though… The SATA ports are located right in the same area, and it took a bit of twisting around to get my big fingers to reach the port.

The ugly… The only ugly thing about this board can’t really be blamed on Asus, and that is some of the port locations (mentioned above) as well as the overall fit of the board. The true blame rests on the cramped style of Micro ATX computers, and even with a full tower it took a bit of maneuvering to get the board into the case, and the CPU sits right at the back of one of my hard drives. But like I said… You won’t find anything else these days any different… The Micro ATX standard is just what we have to work with at the moment.

Overall… The build was rather painless. The jumper less setup meant that once I had all my components connected the board was ready to go. The board even comes with a little thing called a Q-connector which simplifies the connection of the case wiring by allowing you to connect all the case wires to the clearly labeled Q-connector, and then simply plugging the whole thing onto the motherboard. The package includes an IDE cable, a FDD cable, 2 SATA cables, an SATA to Molex power adapter, and the driver CD.

Now… I made a little fuss about the IDE features on this board, and now I will tell you the reason for that. If you use a version of Windows XP that predates Service Pack 1 (I use the very first version of XP Home released) then you will be needing that IDE header. The reason is that Pre SP1 Windows did not support SATA drives, and I’ve read several reviews stating that this board will not support early versions of XP at all. That’s just not true. You just have to know what you are doing. In my case I used my IDE drive to load Windows, and my SATA drives to store my programs and data. The main thing is that once you have an early version of XP installed you need to install SP1 (or in my case I have SP2 on CD that I purchased from Microsoft) immediately before doing anything else. Afterward your SATA drives will function properly, and you can then load the driver CD that came with the board. Not really an issue if you do everything in the correct order, and it is something you will run into with any motherboard if you use an old version of XP. Another thing to keep in mind is that USB 2.0 drivers are not included with the board, so you will have to go to your device manager and will probably notice 2 devices with question marks by them. These are your USB 2.0 controllers. It’s just a simple matter of opening them and choosing to install the driver which the computer will download from Microsoft.

As far as performance. The board simply does what you’d expect it to do. My previous PC was an Intel Celeron D 2.93 Ghz on an Intel motherboard, and according to Passmark that CPU rated 338 while the AMD Athalon 64 X2 5200+ rated 1056, so in essence about 3 times faster than my previous model. I tested this by burning some DVDs. On the Celeron it took about 3 hours for Nero to trans code 2 and a half hours of video and burn it to DVD while the AMD took 1 hour to do the same task, so I’d say performance is exactly what was expected with a 3 X increase in overall speed.

A couple more things to keep in mind… One… This is a new board which means… You guessed it… They have switched memory yet again. Those DDR Dimms from your old board won’t work here. This board uses DDR2 Dual Channel DIMMS up to 1066 Mhz speed (I opted for 800Mhz since I wanted a module that was specifically listed in Asus’s compatibility chart just to be safe). Not really a big deal with memory prices being so low now. I paid $45 for 4 GB of Gskill 800 Mhz DDR2. Also you need to keep in mind that Windows 32 bit operating systems (be it XP, Vista, etc) do not recognize more than 4 GB of RAM. It doesn’t hurt to have more and Windows will use it, but it will not show the RAM in the system information. From what I understand if it recognizes more than 3 GB then consider yourself lucky and go on with life. In my case Windows recognized 3.25 GB so I’m satisfied, although I’ve read posts of people who haven’t been able to get more than 2.5 GB to show up, so I guess it depends on the system as to what windows will recognize, and I say again… According to Microsoft, Windows does use all the RAM even though it doesn’t show it all in the system info. If you have a 64 bit version of Windows then you should be able to recognize up to the full amount (I believe the board supports 8 GB max).

The last thing to mention is the Crossfire technology. I have read reviews and posts of people who don’t seem to understand how to get this to work. First of all you have to purchase an ATI Radeon card which is “Crossfire compatible” which means pretty much any of their newer cards. Older ATI cards do not support Crossfire, so please stop cluttering the internet with posts like “I can’t get my 5 year old ATI X1500 to work with Crossfire” Go buy a new card already. The other thing about Crossfire is you need to be running Windows Vista in order to use it. The drivers are not compatible with earlier versions of Windows.

So in essence I think you wouldn’t be able to do better for a motherboard in the $80 price range than the M3A78-EM Asus. Please also note that I haven’t even discussed the overclocking features of this board as I don’t overclock, so don’t have anything to say on the subject… When I want to go faster I just buy a faster CPU.

I’m thinking about running right over there to get a job. Who needs job security these days anyway.

Actually… This picture reminds me of a local furniture store that has had a “going out of business” banner up for the last 10 years, but has yet to close it’s doors. I think it would be rather amusing if right before these Circuit City locations are ready to close they suddenly find enough capital to keep them open, and we find out this was all a ploy to help them dump off a lot of old stock.

The sad thing about Circuit City is that they really did not need to close so many stores. A simple restructure of the stores would have done wonders for them. During my stint in retail management I spent 7 years running a department store’s electronics department, and got to see the effects of Best Buy on our sales when they opened. What Circuit City did to respond to Best Buy was the wrong move. They remodeled their stores, but tried to keep a showroom style which just does not work these days. Not to mention whoever was in charge of their layouts was probably on some drugs at the time… My local Circuit City decided to put computer displays at the front of the store while the PC accessories were in a back corner… Honestly until last year I didn’t even know that stuff was back there. They also stuck video games at the very back of the store… Bad idea there.

I know when my store came under threat of Best Buy we responded by forgoing the showroom style and going full big box. Pack the shelves with merchandise, and focus on self service. Honestly It worked. During the whole time I was there we had 20-30% sales increases every year, and never really even noticed Best Buy’s impact on our sales. People don’t want to ask for assistance these days… They just want to walk in, grab what they want, and get out. I suspect after I left my store it did even better as the guy who took over for me really believed in the “stack it out” philosophy, and regularly stacked piles of merchandise right in the aisles. In my opinion Circuit City would have done well to employ this strategy, and probably would not be in the jam they are in now if they had simply changed with the times. Get the merchandise out on the sales floor, and come up with a sensible floor plan… Those two things work wonders in any modern retail environment.

After reading a rather heated debate on PCs Vs Mac I feel I must write my own opinions. This is a view from my perspective since I have used both platforms regularly throughout my life. I built my first PC when I was 19 out of parts I ordered out of Computer Shopper magazine (are they still even around?), then used Macs during my college years, switching back to PCs when I worked in computer sales, back to a Mac when I got out of retail, and now on a PC again. One thing I can’t stand is people who will blindly make accusations about one platform or the other when they obviously haven’t used both, and thus usually have no clue of what they are talking about.

So let’s find out the truth after the jump…

So who’s right??? Which platform is better??? Let’s see.

Let’s first look at Apple. A lot of people criticize Macs over their price. The Apple supporters will cry out that you are paying for a premium product, so you should expect to pay more. Okay… What makes it premium? The PC supporters are quick to point out that Macs aren’t upgradeable. This is true, but now you get to discover why the Mac is a Premium product… It’s because unless you got a defective unit you can expect to get 4-6 years of use out of it before the need to upgrade really occurs. My eMac was still handling all the new software after 6 years of use when the hardware finally died. So knowing this do Macs really need all the upgrades??? No… They just need you to buy a new Mac in a few years.

Now let’s talk about OS X. Is it better than Windows??? Yes and no… The truth is that OS X is more stable, and this is simply due to the fact that it’s being operated on Mac hardware, so all the variables are for the most part removed whereas Windows needs to run on systems made by 100 different manufacturers who use parts From God knows how many parts manufacturers. It would be impossible to cover every single piece of equipment in every possible configuration to completely guarantee 100% compatibility. As far as functionality… They are both about the same… A graphic interface is a graphic interface. Once you get used to either it works about the same. Mac gets a slight advantage on the OS issue because of the compatibility issues I mentioned… The only real problems Macs tend to run into are software since Apple really has no more control over third party software than Windows, and 9 out of 10 times a Mac can recover from a software error without requiring a reboot. So is OS X better??? That’s hard to say… I think both platforms do their job to the best of their abilities, so neither has very much advantage over the other in the end.

I can say one thing about operating systems… Either one you use whether it’s Microsoft or Apple they both have you by the short curlies. Remember all those folks griping about having to upgrade to Windows Vista last year??? Or for that matter having to Upgrade Windows every couple of years… Makes Mac look like a better bet huh??? Hmmm… Not if you were a Mac user a couple years back. While it was much quieter than the Vista publicity Mac users who were using the OS X Jaguar discovered that they were no longer receiving updates to their software because in order to maintain full functionality you had to upgrade to OS X Tiger (I’m actually looking at my Tiger upgrade box from back then right now)… Truth simply is that no matter which platform you use you are going to have to upgrade every few years or run the risk of having compatibility issues with new software. So on that front neither side is any better.

Another note on expandability… Macs and PCs both have USB ports, and these days 99% of upgrades are USB peripherals, so really there is no upgrade-ability issue with either. Matter of fact when my eMac died about a year and a half ago I took all the USB upgrades I had on the Mac, and moved them over to the PC. So saying one is better than the other in that sense these days is a crock.

Now we will talk about PC hardware… The biggest advantage with a PC seems to be cost and that word I used above… Upgrade-ability… Which I’m about to completely blow out of the water. So a PC costs $500, and runs every bit as well as a Mac. You saved quite a bit of money there right??? Well This is where the Mac’s Premium label comes into play. Chances are you will have to perform regular upgrades on your PC in order to keep up with software. I’m willing to bet if you added up all the things you installed on your PC in the end you have paid as much as you would have for a Mac. One PC user blatantly announced that his next PC upgrade would probably cost $500, and would include a new video card and CPU. I hate to tell this fellow, but I’d like to see him update when he actually does this “upgrade” because the fact is that Intel and AMD typically change CPU packages every two years. This fellow doesn’t realize it yet, but if his PC is over a month old I’d give it a 99% chance that his CPU uses the LGA 778 pin socket, and Intel has just released the Core i7 which uses the LGA 1336 pin socket. This means that anyone with a 778 based processor in their current system is limited to the Core Duo Quad as your highest possible upgrade. To go to Core i7 you will need a new motherboard, CPU, and probably new memory. If you are thinking AMD… Well they typically follow Intel soon after with an almost identical pin package. So in essence in order to keep up on a PC you will most likely have to completely swap out the internals at some point to get the same 6 year lifespan as the typical Mac gets. So much for upgrade-ability huh?

So which one is better??? The honest truth??? Neither. Regardless of which platform you choose you are going to spend about the same amount of money. The PC while seeming cheaper will end up costing about the same as a Mac during the same lifespan, so it all boils down to personal preference. People just need to realize that a computer is not a simple appliance… It is an ongoing investment, and once you decide to enter this world you are giving your money to one company or the other on a regular basis or you get left behind. What you should really consider is that the guy on the different system is giving up his money in equal amounts as you to keep up, and in the end we are all in the same boat.

So who really is the winner??? And here’s the part that will really upset some people… The real winners are the guys running the computer industry… You know… The guys you used to give wedgies in high school. Back then you were stealing their lunch money, and are now paying for it 100 times over. Remember that bible verse about the meek inheriting the earth?

The real irony of this article is that I only stumbled across the debate because I checked my newsreader while taking a break from scouring Tiger Direct trying to figure out which motherboard, CPU, and memory I’m going to use when I upgrade my PC within the next few months.

I aslo would like to take this opportunity to dispell one myth about Macs that always comes up… Yes you can and always could right click on a Mac… It’s just called a CTRL-click as you hold down the CTRL button while clicking. I actually spent the first few weeks after switching back to PC screaming at the thing because I was always trying to CTRL-click… Even a year and a half later I still catch myself doing it. Even at that a Mac user could always go buy any standard $20 2 button mouse if the really wanted. Most don’t seem to mind though, and personally I used the single button mouse that came with my Mac until the end.

Microsoft has announced that the Zune will take a price cut. While not throwing in the towel in their bid to topple the iPod’s dominance of the portable music market the price drops show that Microsoft realizes it’s going to be a bit more of a challenge than they anticipated. The 8 GB Zune will get a $10 price drop while the 16 GB unit gets a $20 cut.

Not exactly Earth shattering, and I think not enough of a drop to make anyone decide to switch. I don’t think Microsoft understands just yet what they have to do if they really want to compete with the iPod… It’s gonna take more than a device. The draw of the iPod is the device plus the service. Companies like Creative Labs, San Disk, Samsung, and even Sony have realized that the only way they can compete is to keep their prices significantly lower than the iPod (in most cases half the price), but even that hasn’t been enough. The truth is the iTunes service has a very loyal customer base, and thanks to DRM (I can’t believe I’m using thanks and DRM in the same sentence) Apple has a bit of an edge. Let’s face it… In order to change devices you’ll also have to change services. This means creating a new account, getting used to a new interface, and the fun part… You aren’t about to give up all the music you bought on iTunes, but since it won’t work on another player the only choice is to break the DRM. This means burning all tracks to audio CD, ripping them back to the computer, and manually entering the tag information. Not to mention finding album art for each track since all these things are lost as soon as you transfer any track to audio CD.

Who wants to go through all of that??? What is the gain??? So far the only thing Zune seems to offer is wireless syncing. Is that really worth it though? You still have to be fairly close to you computer to sync, and unless you have activated some type of automatic ordering you will still need to be at the computer to purchase tracks, and it’s easy enough to plug in and sync while you are there. Honestly I don’t think $10-$20 price cuts are going to be enough to cause a massive exodus from iTunes either.

So what does Microsoft have to do??? In my opinion there are 4 options. 1) Give up… And honestly have you ever seen Bill Gates give up on anything??? So that one’s unlikely. 2) Drop the Zune’s price significantly, and join the ranks of other manufacturers as just another cheap MP3 player. 3) Come out with some completely revolutionary feature for the Zune. I have no clue what could possibly be that revolutionary though, and 4) This is the biggie and the only real way I see for Zune to compete. To do something revolutionary with their music service. This would have to be more than a bigger library or even a better interface to entice people away from iTunes… Maybe something like 50 cent tracks might work, but Microsoft would either have to eat the loss, or really muscle the music industry to pull something like that off. It could be worth it in the end though.

So at the moment the Zune doesn’t seem to be affecting Apple’s success or coming anywhere near knocking them from the top of the mountain, but if the world has learned anything about Bill Gates over the years is that he’s persistent, and even if he can’t take over the music market he will most certainly figure out a way to garner a significant share of it in the end.

So you just bought a new DVD writer and while loading the software you get yet another copy of Nero Essentials. If you are like me you usually delete the program as a worthless pile of junk. Typically it winds up requiring you to buy the full version to enable the encoder for whatever happens to be the current standard video codec (h.264/MPEG 4 at the moment), and even on the features that are included it usually did a so-so job. It also tends to be sluggish.

Well… This week I needed to burn some DVDs… From MPEG 4 files as it happens. I tried several free online programs and trials only to get lousy results (from choppy picture to missing sound), or a watermark. Now I could live with a watermark… If they didn’t take up 1/4th of the screen. Finally I decided to break down and buy a full DVD suite. The major players being Roxio, Cyberlink, and Nero… Ulead was not considered because I downloaded a trial version with hideous results and a lousy interface (and I’m usually a big fan of Corel products so was terribly disappointed). Roxio looks nice, but it’s quite expensive… Cyberlink I’ve used before and liked the program, but it comes in two versions… Standard for around $79, and the Ultra at around $130. Well… Some of the features I wanted were only available in the Ultra version, and I wasn’t quite ready to drop $130 on software I will rarely use. I was really starting to miss my Mac with iMovie and iDVD right about then. The only remaining product for consideration was Nero 9, and as I mentioned above I have never been impressed with their OEM bundle versions.

Read the rest after the jump.

At $59 with all features included it seemed like the best offer going at the time. Another point is that if you have an OEM bundle (or at least a valid serial number from one) you can get an upgrade for $49. Looking even better, so I took the risk and went for it.

To say the least I am very impressed. The full version seems about 1000 times better than the bundled versions. The interface is smooth and rather quick as well as being pretty straightforward to work with. It encodes at a respectable speed, and has a very easy to use and very flexible menu creator. I was able to create some rather impressive custom menus for my DVD s in a matter of minutes. I’m used to programs that give you a template and customizing is worse than programming a VCR. With Nero 9 it is rather simple to make truly custom menus. It even allows you to add custom graphic and animation elements or even animated backgrounds.

The the quality of the final product is rather impressive as well. Several of the clips I was burning to DVD were Youtube videos, and with complete control over the encoding quality I was rather shocked when viewing the DVD s, and seeing the Youtube clips came out much better than I expected or have seen from other products. It seems to have cleaned them up quite a bit in the encoding process, and while it’s not exactly HD it is still quite passable.

So what else??? Another nice bit about Nero 9 is that it’s an all in one program. Rather than using Movie Maker to edit, then going to Quicktime to encode to h.264, and finally transferring it all into a burner program Nero does it all. It includes a video editor (that looks at first glance to be every bit as good as Windows Movie Maker), A file encoder that allows you to export movies (and audio) without using a separate program, and of course the burning suite which handles just about every type of CD, DVD, and even Blu Ray media. It even has a built in application to create LightScribe labels in program. It also includes a Wave editor so I may finally have a program to create MP3s besides Audacity.

I honestly have to say I was extremely surprised and impressed with Nero 9. A very worthwhile purchase, and half the price of similarly outfitted suites from other companies. I am willing to bet they would do much better if they worked on their OEM bundles a bit more though… They are not exactly very good representations of the full version, and more likely to wind up in the trash bin than to entice people into buying their product. If not for taking a risk I probably would have shelled out the extra cash for Cyberlink rather than basing my purchase on the OEM bundle (the serial number does make for a nice $10 off coupon though so I guess it wasn’t a total waste). All in all if you have been hesitant about buying a DVD suite I don’t think you can go wrong with Nero 9, and for the price it’s quite a good deal even for someone like me who will barely get any use out of it. I find the money is well worth it for the few occasions when I will need it.