Don't use FLAK or some other monkey sound formats. Go with a real standard, like Windows Lossless, or
Apple Lossless, they just sound sooo much better. eh? You do understand what lossless means, right? What nonsense.
One other thing to bear in mind, is that CDs often contain more audio data than just what is marked as a track in the table of contents. Some of which can turn out to be hidden tracks:
You will miss these, if you just rip the individual tracks. For a complete archive of everything that a CD contains, you probably want to use something like abcde (command-line front-end CD archiving tool) to get cdparanoia to rip the entire audio stream off the CD, then store it as FLAC with an embedded cue sheet containing the original table of contents and CDDB disc-id... You can also embed cover graphics as well.
This process is the only sensible way to ensure you've archived absolutely everything off the CD. That said, support for playing direct from FLACs with embedded cue sheets isn't as widespread as general FLAC support, so it's best to transcode to a more portable format for actually playing...
As someone else already mentioned, the hydrogenaudio forums are the best place for this sort of discussion.
These wireless handsets, as has been previously pointed out, have been available for SIP networks for quite some time, along with decent wired handsets which also don't require a PC to be switched on. One good (albeit expensive) wireless SIP phone is the Hitachi WIP-5000 which has regular firmware updates including support for new features like WPA.
The main drawback with most of these phones, though, is not just the lack of support for new security standards like WPA (many, like the skype phone, support WEP only). The biggest problem, at least here in the UK (I dunno if it's different elsewhere), is that most of the wi-fi hotspot providers do not run encryption at all. Instead, they have an open network but require you to login through a webpage, in order to bill you. This technology is fine for laptops and PDAs with web browsers but makes such phones utterly useless* except when you're at home or you're lucky enough to have a workplace which supports standard wi-fi.
I'm sure someone will come up with a wifi sip phone with a browser eventually (Nokia's new E-series supports wi-fi, so that's promising) but, at the moment, the handsets are very expensive and not being able to use them at most UK wifi hotspots is a major drawback.
Sam.
* In theory, you could clone the MAC address to a laptop, sign in with that and then swop to the phone, but that's obviously far too much hassle for real usage.
Actually, from what I remember of my AI module during degree that's a commonly held misconception - if you read Turing's *original* proposal for a test, I think you'll find that the subject *was* supposed to be unaware that they could be talking to a machine.
I don't have any problem with Corel selling an office suite under linux... as long as there are open source alternatives, of course. But it's their emphasis on the distribution which is a little worrying. If its distribution stays as simply a vehicle to allow novice users access to linux, fine... but who's to say they won't go after the server market in a couple of years time?... the last thing we need is to topple one giant ogre and replace it with another...
I was quite interested about this - I read Cyberpunk which has a pretty long buildup about Kevin's life... but it never once mentioned his contributions to Linux. Is there anything on the net, where I can find a bit more about his contribution?... I just wondered if he was a major inputter or just coded a few smalltime modules... ?
Slashdot Mirror
Don't be shy ... this guy's stuff rocks!
http://denki.world3.net/
And the Retro Adapter works great under Linux too ... :)
Getting back on topic, has anyone started a petition to get the other Steve back as head honcho at Apple? Where do I sign?
Sam.
One other thing to bear in mind, is that CDs often contain more audio data than just what is marked as a track in the table of contents. Some of which can turn out to be hidden tracks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_track
You will miss these, if you just rip the individual tracks. For a complete archive of everything that a CD contains, you probably want to use something like abcde (command-line front-end CD archiving tool) to get cdparanoia to rip the entire audio stream off the CD, then store it as FLAC with an embedded cue sheet containing the original table of contents and CDDB disc-id
This process is the only sensible way to ensure you've archived absolutely everything off the CD. That said, support for playing direct from FLACs with embedded cue sheets isn't as widespread as general FLAC support, so it's best to transcode to a more portable format for actually playing
As someone else already mentioned, the hydrogenaudio forums are the best place for this sort of discussion.
Sam.
Haven't seen much mention of this so far.
These wireless handsets, as has been previously pointed out, have been available for SIP networks for quite some time, along with decent wired handsets which also don't require a PC to be switched on. One good (albeit expensive) wireless SIP phone is the Hitachi WIP-5000 which has regular firmware updates including support for new features like WPA.
The main drawback with most of these phones, though, is not just the lack of support for new security standards like WPA (many, like the skype phone, support WEP only). The biggest problem, at least here in the UK (I dunno if it's different elsewhere), is that most of the wi-fi hotspot providers do not run encryption at all. Instead, they have an open network but require you to login through a webpage, in order to bill you. This technology is fine for laptops and PDAs with web browsers but makes such phones utterly useless* except when you're at home or you're lucky enough to have a workplace which supports standard wi-fi.
I'm sure someone will come up with a wifi sip phone with a browser eventually (Nokia's new E-series supports wi-fi, so that's promising) but, at the moment, the handsets are very expensive and not being able to use them at most UK wifi hotspots is a major drawback.
Sam.
* In theory, you could clone the MAC address to a laptop, sign in with that and then swop to the phone, but that's obviously far too much hassle for real usage.
Actually, from what I remember of my AI module during degree that's a commonly held misconception - if you read Turing's *original* proposal for a test, I think you'll find that the subject *was* supposed to be unaware that they could be talking to a machine.
I don't have any problem with Corel selling an office suite under linux ... as long as there are open source alternatives, of course. But it's their emphasis on the distribution which is a little worrying. If its distribution stays as simply a vehicle to allow novice users access to linux, fine ... but who's to say they won't go after the server market in a couple of years time? ... the last thing we need is to topple one giant ogre and replace it with another ...
I was quite interested about this - I read Cyberpunk which has a pretty long buildup about Kevin's life ... but it never once mentioned his contributions to Linux. Is there anything on the net, where I can find a bit more about his contribution? ... I just wondered if he was a major inputter or just coded a few smalltime modules ... ?