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Vol. 1/No. 12
07/06/1998
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Archive of
volume 1, number 12 for July 6, 1998. Go back to
current issue.
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PnP/APM and ACPI
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Adding a new peripheral to the PC has come a long way since the 486 and
early Pentium days. Back then, to add, say, a soundcard meant you have to
manually configure its settings via the card's jumpers and DIP switches.
These legacy devices (as they are known now) made the PC very upgrade
unfriendly to end users.
To solve this problem, Intel and Microsoft developed the Plug and Play
(PnP) specification. The introduction of PnP and the PCI slot was
meant to solve these upgrade problems. Like any emerging PC technology,
PnP went through a painful period of maturity. PnP was jokingly called
"Plug and Pray" by many early users. This is because peripheral
manufacturers had to change their products to meet the PnP specs.
And BIOS manufacturers such as AMI, Award, and Phoenix had to do the same.
Lastly, the operating system itself had to be made PnP aware. If these
three components do not work together, then PnP as a whole will not
function correctly.
Microsoft's Windows 95 (released on August 25, 1995) was the first OS to
support PnP. It took awhile before the peripheral and BIOS makers
caught up, but they eventually did. But even today, in some rare
configuration, adding a PnP card to your PC requires some troubleshooting.
Especially if you have multiple PnP devices in your system already. But
overall, PnP today really works the way it's suppose to.
Besides PnP, a standard for power management was also introduced. It was
called APM (Advanced Power Management). This was really aimed at the
rapidly growing notebook segment. But APM eventually made its way to the
desktop PC as well. APM worked well to control simple things like spinning
down the HDD when it's not in use or decreasing the processor speed when it's
idle. But APM didn't have the ability to manage power on external devices,
such as modem, printer, scanner, etc. And with the introduction of
USB, many new devices will now be
external.
Because of the various limitations of PnP/APM, Microsoft, Intel, and
Toshiba developed the next generation specification for controlling and
managing devices. Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)
combines both PnP and APM into a single unified interface. ACPI provides
an abstract layer between software (typically the OS) and hardware (add-on
devices, internal or external). Microsoft's Windows 98 is the first OS on
the market to support ACPI.
As with the original PnP, ACPI is now going through some grow-up pains.
BIOS on most PCs today are not fully ACPI compliant yet. But when
ACPI reaches maturity, it will promise easy-to-configure devices for
end users, and greater control of power management for peripheral makers.
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Creating MP3 Songs
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MP3 is MPEG layer 3 compression for audio. Click here
for a more detailed explanation of MP3.
So is it very difficult to convert CD music tracks to MP3 files? Not at all.
But remember that MP3 encoding and decoding is very processor intensive.
Unless you have a great deal of patience, I'd recommend a system with
at least a Pentium II/266 CPU. And you'd need a large hard drive, which
really isn't a problem since today's average HDD is at least 2.5GB.
For reference, it takes roughly 30 minutes for a Pentium II/333 to convert
a 45MB WAV (which is a four minute and 30 second song) file to a 4.5MB MP3
file.
Once you have the proper hardware, you'll need to get some software
utilities to make the conversion from CD audio track to MP3. You cannot
convert an audio track directly to MP3. You must first convert the track
to a WAV file. This is also known as "ripping" a track. MP3 has a
complete list of CD rippers.
I personally use WinDAC32,
which is shareware, but it has a nice easy-to-use interface. Be aware that
some older IDE CD-ROM drives (especially those from Mitsumi) may not allow
you to rip music tracks.
Depending on the speed of your DVD/CD-ROM drive, ripping a single track shouldn't
take more than two to three minutes. The resulting WAV file will take up about
45-50MB for an average four minute song. Once you have ripped all the tracks
to WAV files, it's now time to convert them to MP3. Again, MP3.COM has a complete list of MP3 encoders you can download.
If you're creating a lot of MP3 files, be sure to get an encoder that supports
batch processing mode. In other words, you just feed the encoder a
list of WAV files and it'll automatically convert them all the MP3. This
way, you don't have to sit in front of your system all day long.
When encoding a WAV file to MP3, there's a couple of options you can
pick. The most important option is the final bitrate of the MP3 file. This
can vary from 32K bits/sec to 320K bits/sec. Which bitrate you should
choose depends on how large the resulting MP3 you want. Of course, selecting
a lower bitrate will affect the sound quality. I usually choose 128K bits/sec,
which will give me an MP3 file of about 4.5MB in size with close to CD sound
quality. After trying various GUI encoders, I now use Blade Encoder, which is a small, freeware (78K) command line DOS based
encoder. It's simple and fast and it works great in batch mode. Sometimes
simplicity is better...
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Intel 440GX AGPset & 450NX PCIset
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Intel will be officially launching its next generation Pentium II
processor this month. The Xeon processor
promise higher performance while maintaining Pentium II compatibility.
The Xeon CPU will require a new slot 2 architecture. This means Xeon
system board will using new chipsets.
440GX AGPset - The only difference between the 440GX and
the current 440BX is the 440GX will be able to address up to 2GB of memory
(440BX can only do 1GB). The 440GX will be able to support both
the slot 1 and slot 2 architecture. Since the 440GX will only support
up to two Xeon processor, this AGPset is intended for highend
workstations and mid-range servers. All the features of the 440BX
(100MHz FSB support, USB, UltraDMA/33, AGP 2x, etc) will be present on the
440GX. Click here to view the 440GX specs on Intel's website.
440NX PCIset - Notice the 450NX is classified as a PCIset
instead of an AGPset. This is because the 450NX does not support the AGP
slot. Intel intentionally left out AGP support because the 450NX is
meant for an enterprise server system board. Another interesting aspect
of the 450NX is that it only supports EDO memory. The 450NX can address
up to 8GB of main memory. Intel recently annouced an errata for the
450NX and their Xeon processor. Due to this errata, four way Xeon
CPU systems will be delayed a couple of weeks. Intel will be releasing
a software fix for this problem. Click here to view the 450NX specs on Intel's website.
Both the 440GX and 450NX represent Intel's first generation Xeon/slot 2
chipset. As expected, there's not too many new features in these two
chipsets. But the second and third generation slot 2 chipsets will
probably have AGP Pro (AGP 4x),
Firewire, and
RDRAM (RAMBUS) support. Lastly, the
front side bus (FSB) between the processor and memory may be increased
to 133MHz.
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Using Windows 98's System File Checker
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Another useful troubleshooting tool in Windows 98 is its System File Checker
(SFC). You access SFC by going to Start / Programs / Accessories /
System Tools / System Information. Then go to Tools and select SFC.
SFC allows the user to extract specific files directly from the Windows 98
CAB files, using a graphical interface. In Windows 95, to extract files
from the CABs meant you must do it from a DOS prompt. And the parameters
were long and cryptic, so it was easy to make a mistake.
Why would you want to extract files from the CABs to begin with? In case
an application or program overwrites a critical system file (EXE, VXD, or
DLL) without asking you first.
In addition, SFC allows you to do a scan of all your current system files.
So if a file is altered in the future, SFC will inform you the next
time you rescan it. And you can make a backup of all the changed files.
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Joke of the Week
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Things to Think About
contributed by Bill Feinbloom
You can please only one person per day.
Today is not your day; tomorrow isn't looking good either.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid doing altogether.
Everyone has a right to be stupid; some just abuse the privilege.
On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.
Please, Lord, let me prove that winning the lottery won't spoil me.
Does vacuuming count as aerobic exercise?
Young at heart, and slightly older in other places.
Time is Nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't go wrong at once.
The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
I loathe people who keep dogs; they are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves.
If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?
There's no speed limit on the information superhighway.
It is much easier to apologize than to ask permission.
There is one rule for ultimate success in life: never tell everything you know.
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In the tradition of the what's hot and what's not list, or Wired's
Tired/Wired list...
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Coming up in next week's issue...
A close look into Intel's Xeon processor
Y2K: Hype or Reality?
Do you have an idea or a topic you'd like to see in the upcoming issue
of virtual edge? Just drop an email to calvin@premiopc.com.
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Copyright © 1998 PREMIO Computer, Inc.
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