Tech on Tour » Hardware

The Best EQ Setting on the iPod for Country Music

Bill Hutchison — Sat, 30 May 2009 02:46:22 +0000

Using the default headphones that came with my iPod Touch 2G I did not really notice mich of a difference between the Music EQ settings. My left headphone stopped working recently though so I picked up a much better pair of headphones, and now I notice a difference.

Most of my music on my iPod is Country Music. Unfortunately there is no default setting on the iPod Touch for country music, so I spent quite a bit of time experimenting with the EQ to find the best setting.

Country Music comes in many different flavours from traditional country, to rocking country to country pop. Depending on what style of country music you subscribe to will affect your choice of EQ setting. Most of music leans toward traditional country music and I found that the best EQ setting for me was accoustic.

Usually I find the best setting for country music to be rock, it was the case on my last MP3 player, an iRiver, but that setting on my iPod Touch was too muffled for my liking.

Your own preference may vary, but try the accoustic setting and see how you go, then let us know your own results below in the comments. I’m curious to know if my results are typical or not.

Thinkpad T60 wireless not working after windows update

Alex Costa — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:28:20 +0000

The wireless card Intel Pro 3945ABG on a Thinkpad T60 stopped working after the latest Windows XP Update. It showed as “working properly” in my hardware profile but neither the Windows Network Tool or the IBM / Intel Network Manager could pick it up and the Fn+F5 combination couldn’d switch the wireless back on. If you are a techy you know what to do next…. reinstall the device. Here are the steps if you need it.

1 – Go to START>ControlPanel>System
2 – Click on the “Hardware” tab then “Device Manager”
3 – Click on “Network Adapters” (to expand it) and then select the Wireless card (in my case the Intel Pro 3945ABG)
4 – Right Click on the wireless card and select uninstall from the pop-up menu.
5 – After uninstalling click on Action>Scan for Harware Changes and your device will be found and reinstalled
6 – Restart your computer and it should all work.

Intel Pro 3945ABG, Thinkpad, Windows update, T60, Wireless

Installing OS X without a functioning optical drive

dansnell — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:05:02 +0000

I recently gave my old powerbook to my sister in law. I had a lot of information on it and so I planned to transfer all my files and do a clean install. One problem the dvd drive on my old powerbook is broken. It would continually spit the installation disk out. Fortunately I have another mac which was able to help with this.

So how do I install OS X when the dvd drive is broken?

1. Connect the two Macs by firewire cable. One will be the host for the DVD drive and one will be the target which you will install OS X onto.

2. Start up the target computer you plan to install OS X on in target mode by holding down T when you restart the computer. This will mount the target computer as a hard drive on the host computer.

3. Put the OS X installation disk into the Mac that is your host computer.

4. You can now either open the installer on the DVD which will prompt you to restart the host computer. Or you can simply restart and hold down C which will force the Mac to startup from the DVD.

5. Once you have started up from the installer DVD follow through the normal steps. You will then arrive at the option to choose the destination. Select the hard drive of the target computer. You will probably have to change the options if you are not doing an upgrade.

6. Once you have finished the installation shut down the host computer and disconnect the firewire cable. You can now restart the target computer which will startup with a newly installed OS X.

*Note: If you are installing OS X 10.3 (panther) or earlier you can not use an intel based mac to use as the host computer. Both the target and host computers will need to be powerpc based and vice versa if you are installing on an intel based mac.

iMac start up issue

dansnell — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:52:44 +0000

This morning we had a problem starting our Intel iMac. It was turning on but all that was happening was the white power light on the front was lit up. I tried the usual things like
unplugging all the peripherals – nope
unplugging everything and waiting 15 minutes and plugging the power, keyboard and mouse back in and trying – again nothing.

After a bit of searching around I found a possible solution which I found worked. Basically it was to unplug everything, remove the ram wait a few seconds. Put back together and hey presto it was up and running again.

Splashtop – Instant-on Linux on Asus Motherboard

Alex Costa — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:52:32 +0000

Asus is to go mainstream with Splashtop on its Motherboards.

Spashtop is an instant-on Linux OS that manufacturers can implement into their motherboards giving the user an option to instantly use internet and skype without having to boot up a full OS.

Up to now only top-end Asus motherboards had this feature but after good feedback from costumers it’s reported that Asus will go mainstream with Splashtop, this new fature is called by Asus the Express Gate. You can read more about it on Asus Global Sfficial Statement (Exclusive feature 4) or on Splashtop’s official blog.