August 25, 2002

Keep applications from stealing focus Serdar Yegulalp - 24 Apr 2002 "Focus" is the term used to describe which application is currently enabled for typing or menu activity from the keyboard. When you switch to a given window, that window is said to be in focus. Some applications like to steal program focus. This can be annoying if you are trying to get work done, and have an app that you need running constantly stealing focus from the one you're using to get your job done. To address this problem, you can edit the registry to change how the system handles application focus. Run REGEDT32 and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop. Edit (or add, if it doesn't yet exist) the following REG_DWORD keys: ForegroundLockTimeout. This controls how long an app has to wait before it can seize focus. If this is set to 0 (which it is by default), then any program can grab focus. Set it to a decimal value of 200000, or 200 seconds, which will keep the program from assuming focus for that length of time. ForegroundFlashCount: Controls how many times the taskbar icon for an app flashes when an app tries to take focus. It's set to 3 by default, but set it to 0 (decimal or DWORD), so that the taskbar icon flashes continuously until it's clicked. These changes should take effect immediately. Serdar Yegulalp is the editor of theWindows 2000 Power Users Newsletter http://searchwin2000.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid1_gci818731,00.html   3:41:50 PM     Builder.com May 15, 2002 Master the art of contract negotiation, part 2 Application development managers almost always end up negotiating with suppliers for products or services. In order to sign a contract you can live with, prepare for the negotiations ahead of time and brush up on some common negotiation techniques. Do your homework Take these steps before the contract negotiations begin: Prepare a cost-benefit analysis for the product or service you desire. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of several competing suppliers' proposed offerings. After selecting one particular supplier to deal with, do an analysis of the chosen supplier, identifying items such as the supplier's current financial situation, strategic goals, and current client portfolio. (Be sure to take into account the supplier's financial calendar, as many organizations will be more willing to deal near the end of a financial period.) Collect information (either through peers or other professional contacts) about the sales people you'll work with; specifically, try to get a feel for the type of negotiating techniques they commonly employ. Determine what goals you want to achieve in the process before meeting with the supplier. However, also remember that negotiations require give-and-take. The golden rule of negotiation is that goals are fixed, and everything else is negotiable; that's where preparation comes into play. Remember not to make negotiations personal. Although it's common to become emotional during negotiations (especially angry or frustrated), don't express these feelings; savvy negotiators might seize the opportunity and use it to his or her advantage. Familiarize yourself with these negotiation tactics When you actually sit down to begin the contract negotiation process, here are a number of the tactics you may encounter (or even utilize yourself): Play dumb: It's human nature to help those who are less knowledgeable. Therefore, in negotiations, application development managers might offer assistance to suppliers or let their guard down when they feel less threatened. Hidden costs: In contract negotiations, it's often difficult to determine (and easy to hide) the real cost of items. Several common ways negotiators hide costs include expressing interest rates as percentages, conveying monthly costs rather than annual costs,and providing detailed costs, such as cost per individual item rather than total costs for materials. Sidestepping (or decoying): This technique shifts the focus off the real issue and transfers the focus to another item. Committing: By getting a vendor to make an offer prior to committing to a course of action, the offer will often be better than you expect. Bracketing: This technique is when your offer is equidistant to your goal as is the vendors' offer. For example, if you're willing to pay $100 for an item, and the vendor is asking for $120, offer $80 to begin the negotiation. Try not to let the vendor catch on to what you're doing when negotiating for lower prices; one way to throw them off is by offering amounts in different dollar increments. Flinching: Flinch at the first offer, regardless of how fair the price is. If you don't flinch, the vendor may assume that you'll accept that offer. Good guy/bad guy: This common gambit takes many forms. Basically, one person puts up a big fight about certain aspects of the negotiation, seemingly to stall the agreement. Then another person follows with a fairly significant change that saves the deal. Missing man: Both parties can't resolve a particular negotiating point because the person with the authority to make the decision isn't present or available. Red herring: The negotiator invents a phony demand, which will later be withdrawn, in order to gain concessions. Deliberate mistake: The vendor deliberately undervalues a particular item or leaves an item out in the preparation of a proposal. This item is then later stated as an oversight or an enhancement to the original proposal. Scott Withrow has more than 18 years of IT experience, including IT management, Web development management, and internal consulting application analysis. 3:40:16 PM     OL2002: Changing the Outlook 2002 "Cancel Request" Dialog Box Behavior (Q293650) IMPORTANT : This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, make sure that you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information about how to do this, see the "Restoring the Registry" Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a Registry Key" Help topic in Regedt32.exe. SUMMARY In Outlook 2002, a feature is added notifies users that the connection to the Microsoft Exchange computer is taking longer than expected because of network congestion or server availability. This connection can include connections to the user's mailbox, a free and busy server, or any other server that Outlook may need to communicate with to fulfill a request for information. When such a delay occurs, the following Cancel Request dialog box is displayed: Outlook is retrieving data from the Microsoft Exchange Server server_name . You can cancel the request or minimize this message to the Windows taskbar until Outlook closes the message automatically. MORE INFORMATION You may want to disable this feature or increase the time-out value if you experience frequent network congestion or other related issues. To suppress the Cancel Request dialog box or change the time-out value, either manually edit the registry or use a policy to configure the setting. Manually Editing the Registry Suppressing the "Cancel Request" Dialog Box WARNING : Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems that result from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk. For information about how to edit the registry, see the "Changing Keys and Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Microsoft recommends that you back up the registry before you edit it. If you are running Windows NT or Windows 2000, Microsoft also recommends that you update your Emergency Repair Disk (ERD). To edit the registry to manually suppress the Cancel Request dialog box: Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe). Locate and click on the appropriate registry key listed below based on the method that was used to install Microsoft Outlook. If the Installation Wizard was used to install Outlook: HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice10.0OutlookCancelRPC If the Custom Installation Wizard was used to install Outlook: HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftOffice10.0OutlookCancelRPC On the Edit menu, click Add Value , and then add the following registry value: Value name : Disable Data type : DWORD Value data : 1 Quit Registry Editor. Changing the "Cancel Request" Dialog Box Time-Out Value You can also manually specify the amount of time that Outlook waits for a connection to the server before the Cancel Request dialog box is displayed. This policy setting overrides the Exchange service Seconds until server connection timeout setting, although it does not disable this setting in the user interface (UI). To edit the registry to modify the policy setting: Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).    Locate and click on the appropriate registry key listed below based on the method that was used to install Microsoft Outlook. If the Installation Wizard was used to install Outlook: HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice10.0OutlookCancelRPC If the Custom Installation Wizard was used to install Outlook: HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftOffice10.0OutlookCancelRPC On the Edit menu, click Add Value , and then add the following registry value (in this example, the value is set to 50 seconds): Value name : TimeToShowCancelDialog Data type : DWORD Value data : 50000 (the amount of time in milliseconds) NOTE: Type the connection delay that you want to allow as a decimal number representing milliseconds. Quit Registry Editor. Using Policies to Set the Registry Values You can also set the values that are described in the "Manually Editing the Registry" section by using group policies; you can use either the System Policy Editor from the Microsoft Office Resource Kit (ORK) or the Group Policy Editor snap-in for Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft Windows XP. 3:36:20 PM     Copying Analog Video to the PC, the Hard Way By Paul Thurrott, News Editor, thurrott@connectedhomemag.com Last week, I presented the first part of my look at converting video from a DVD home movie to the PC. As I mentioned previously, I wanted to find a PC or Macintosh application to convert the DVD video directly into AVI or QuickTime format (or MPEG-2, if required). If that approach didn't work, I'd try to route the DVD through the digital camcorder, by using FireWire, or settle for an analog copy by using Dazzle's Digital Video Creator II device. After experimenting with several tools, I finally came back to the first utility I'd tried, DVD2AVI. As I noted last week, this application created a soundless AVI file, so I'd originally dismissed it. However, after failing miserably at converting the video by using other tools (or, in some cases, achieving some success with low-quality MPEG-2 rips), I returned to DVD2AVI (see the first URL below). I'm glad I did. DVD2AVI does convert the audio, as well as the video; it just creates a separate Wave (.wav) file for the audio. I usually wouldn't be too keen about this approach, but Windows XP's Windows Movie Maker (see the second URL below) makes short work out of reincorporating the separated audio and video into a high-quality AVI file. Here's how I did it. First, I copied the Video Object (VOB) files from the DVD movies into directories (i.e., DVD_1, DVD_2) on my hard disk and proceeded to process each file, one at a time. DVD2AVI features a deceptively simple UI that resembles a bare-bones media player at first. After launching the application, I selected File, Open, and chose a VOB file. Note that DVD2AVI will automatically select a series of related VOB files. (For example, if you have files called VTS_01_1.VOB and VTS_01_2.VOB and you select one file, DVD2AVI will automatically select both files.) I elected to override this behavior and process one VOB file at a time because the resulting files are so large. After I loaded the VOB file, the application window expands to the size of the video you're converting (702 x 480 in my case) but doesn't change otherwise. Next, you select the audio options (you select the video options during the next phase). I chose to accept the default audio options--a 256Kbps .wav file, single channel, in stereo (the source was monophonic). Next, I selected Save AVI from the File menu and chose a name and location for the resulting files. DVD2AVI creates two files: one for the video and one for the audio. If you start with a file called VTS_01_1.VOB, DVD2AVI will name the resulting files VTS_01_1.01.AVI and something like "VTS_01_1 AC3 T01 1_0ch 256Kbps 48KHz.WAV," depending on which audio format you choose. At this point, the Statistics window opens to display progress information while DVD2AVI converts the file. Also, a Video Compression window opens, which gives you a chance to choose among the following compressor types: Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V1, Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V2, DivX 5.0 2 Codec, No Recompression, and Full Frames (Uncompressed). For quality reasons and compatibility with Windows Movie Maker, I chose Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V2. If you click Configure, you can select among various video smoothness and crispness settings and the data rate. I left these settings at the defaults and was satisfied with the results, but experienced video users might want to experiment here. After you've selected the compressor type and set the configuration settings, you click OK and DVD2AVI goes to work. The conversion process, predictably, takes a while. A 7-minute clip, for example, took 20 minutes to convert on my Pentium 4 1.8GHz machine with 640MB of RAM. After the process finished, I loaded Windows Movie Maker 1.2, configured the application not to create video clips on import (which would be unnecessarily time-consuming), and imported the two resulting files. Say what you will about Windows Movie Maker, but it handles this part of the project with aplomb, and you can't beat the price--free! Simply drag both files into the Timeline area, line them up, and click Save Movie. I chose DV-AVI as the format, naturally, for the best results. Again, the 7-minute clip took about 20 minutes to convert into one AVI file; it occupies about 5GB of space. And you'd never know that the resulting video was once liberated from its audio track; the two blend seamlessly. I repeated the process for all of the VOB files. Interestingly, after you complete this blending process, you're left with a lot of raw video on your system, and this is where the fun starts. To save disk space, I elected to delete all the VOB and .wav files. However, between the two DVD movies and 2 days of converting, I'd racked up more than 35GB of space dedicated to the AVIs I'd created. But I still had to edit these files down into cleaner copies that I will convert, yet again, to finished DVDs. I've already discussed this process in earlier Connected Home EXPRESS columns. Video work, as always, is time-consuming and often frustrating. But amazing tools are now available to us, often for free. DVD2AVI is great at what it does, and I highly recommend it if you need this sort of functionality. DVD2AVI Microsoft Windows Movie Maker - Connected Home EXPRESS, July 31, 2002 3:29:52 PM     Builder.com | August 21, 2002 Configuring the corporate development environment As most companies consider their move to .NET, they may also take this opportunity to make a clean break with their legacy development environment. Those legacy environments - the developer workstations and the servers used for testing - were designed and configured three to six years ago to solve programming problems created by a connected, COM-based environment. Equipment, operating systems, and support software have made significant advances since companies originally configured their developers' machines. As Web applications evolved, many companies added shared Web servers or installed Web servers on development stations to allow for Web development, but didn't address the issue of properly configuring the whole development environment. Companies with a small number of developers working on simple applications consume more overhead than necessary on configuring development workstations and an integrated development environment. Unfortunately, most companies start “small and simple” and expect their development environment to somehow magically scale to support robust development efforts. Sadly, this is not the case. Careful planning is necessary to ensure a productive environment. System architects must take an active role in planning the configuration and management of the environment used to develop software. Their efforts have a direct bearing on the developer’s ability to produce quality software in a timely manner. More importantly, a development process with a focus on code management provides the benefits of reusability and an opportunity to protect the company’s core code assets. Let’s look at the three key elements of every .NET development environment—development workstations, development servers, and development procedures. Development workstations For .NET developers, all workstations should be running Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP. I recommend that my clients give their developers machines with at least 1.0-GHZ Pentium III processors and 256 MB of RAM. This is faster than the average developer’s machine, but not state of the art. Most developers would benefit more from having a laptop and/or an additional monitor than from additional processors or memory. Laptops allow developers to work together in groups during design meetings or take the machines home at night to work on a difficult problem. An additional monitor lets them write code on one monitor while viewing the help system on another, or step through code on one monitor while seeing the result of the executing code on another. The ideal development environment for .NET requires machines with slightly more RAM, processor cycles, and disk space than the average workstation. Developers working on Web applications or Web services must have a local Web server for use during development. In addition, the Microsoft Database Engine (MSDE) should be running to allow developers to build and test via local databases, stored procedures, triggers, and so on. MSDE includes all of the functionality of the more resource-intensive SQL Server 2000 Workstation, but it has no licensing cost and limits performance with more than five connections. In many corporate environments, all data access is managed by centrally developed and maintained stored procedures called from data objects coded by database-focused developers. In these environments, the data-component authors should be encouraged to develop deployment packages that allow developers to download the latest versions of the components and setup scripts and set them up on their own local workstations. Install Visual Studio on each of the workstations, but consider installing MSDN on a central server where it can be updated in one place as new files are added (unless the workstations are laptops, in which case they’ll need local copies to allow access to help when disconnected). If you need to support applications running on Visual Studio 6.0, ensure VS 6 is installed with the latest service pack (version 5) before installing Visual Studio .NET. Finally, install the latest service packs for all of the workstation tools, including .NET Framework service packs, SQL Server service packs, and IIS service packs. Development servers Even if your individual workstations are configured to allow developers to create and test their projects locally, you must have a central location for developers to test the interactions between system components. At a minimum you need a shared Web server, a shared database server, and a source code management/build server with Visual Source Safe (VSS) or another source code management system. Ideally, the workstations and the shared development servers will exist in test domains similar to the deployment environment. If the deployment environment is a single domain, place the development servers in a development domain that is separate from the company’s core operational domain. This allows for user- and group-accounts creation to test security scenarios without needing to clear it with the company’s system engineering group. If a datacenter has database servers and Web servers in different domains for security reasons, you can simulate this environment with local development servers. The earlier you test against a development environment that simulates the production environment, the earlier you can detect and repair security-related bugs. Development procedures Creating the right development environment is only half the battle, however. You must have agreed-upon development standards for all developers to follow. For example, developers should be trained to use the source code management system and be expected to follow the rules for checking software in and out and for managing software versions. Once past the prototyping phase, the code your developers check in at the end of a workday should compile properly and facilitate building a version of the software every night. Having a nightly build procedure encourages developers to focus on tying up all the loose ends in a section of code before moving on to work on something else. The shared VSS and build server can be configured to automatically perform the nightly build and distribute the latest version of the code to the quality assurance group so that they can start working with the latest build the next morning. As founder and president of eAdvantage, Tim Landgrave provides business strategy consulting services to VARs and xSPs. http://builder.com.com/article.jhtml?id=u00320020821lan01.htm&;fromtm=e605 Copyright ©1995- 2002 CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 10:08:33 AM     Importing Analog Audio to the PC the Easy Way By Paul Thurrott, News Editor, thurrott@connectedhomemag.com An all-digital music library would be ideal, but most people have vast libraries of albums, cassettes, and other analog audio sources--not to mention other potential audio sources, such as concert DVD movies--that require analog copying. Wouldn't it be nice to get that content onto your PC? The catch--and there's always a catch--is that recording analog audio requires that you hand-tune each recording. Cassette and album recordings, for example, generally contain a lot of background noise, such as hiss, so you probably want to fade in and out of each song. Then you need to consider hardware and software concerns: How do you physically connect the analog device to your PC, and which software should you use to edit the audio into acceptable clips? Most users have sound cards on their PCs, but because the quality of these cards varies from machine to machine, you need to test your card before you commit to using it for recording analog audio. My desktop machine has Voyetra Turtle Beach's Santa Cruz sound card, and I found that the quality of the Line In port was much better than I had expected. To test the sound-card Line In recording process, I searched for the most horrible-sounding analog recording I could find--a cassette tape of 1980s "power ballads" (and you thought I wouldn't take a bullet for the team), which I played back through a once-decent early-1990s Sony tape deck. To connect the stereo component to the PC, I purchased a $4 Recoton 6' Mini-to-RCA "Y" cable, which converts the RCA-based audio outs on the cassette player into one stereo minijack that fits the Line In port on my sound card. I also grabbed a 6' miniplug extension cable, just in case I couldn't get the cassette player close enough to the computer (also $4). After dusting off the cassette player and making the physical connection, I had to figure out how to record the sound into the PC. All Windows versions come with a handy little tool called Sound Recorder, which lets you record through your sound card's microphone or Line In ports. Sound Recorder works strictly with the WAV (.wav) format, which is uncompressed (and thus creates large files), and it offers no real editing functionality (that is, you can't fade in or fade out--two crucial capabilities I needed). Thus, Sound Recorder is unsuitable for our work, although it would do in a pinch. By searching the Internet, I found several tools that supply the features I wanted, and I ended up using E-Soft's $15 Audio Edit 3.3 shareware tool (see Resources below) that's easy to use and full-featured. But regardless of the tool you use, the process is the same. First, ensure that the Line In port is enabled in Windows (because it often isn't). To do so, double-click the speaker icon in your system tray (or, in Windows XP, select Start, Control Panel, Sounds, Speech and Audio Devices, Sound and Audio Devices, Advanced) and clear the Mute check box under Line In if it's selected. I left the volume level at its default, about 75 percent, but you might experiment with this setting based on the volume of the recordings you create. Next, cue up the audio, which is generally a manual process on albums and cassettes, by pressing Play on the component stereo device, then clicking record in Audio Edit or your tool of choice; the tool will then prompt you to begin the recording. A couple of recommendations: First, before you begin, make sure the audio editor is set up to record from Line In (select File, Setup, Record Input Source in Audio Edit). Also, you should record songs individually, if you can, and leave room at the beginning and end of each song so that you have space for editing. You want a few seconds of lead-in and lead-out time so that you can create the appropriate fades. After recording the song or selection, stop the analog playback. Then you can begin editing. For my tests, I chose a drecky Bad English power ballad called "When I See You Cry," which features a hissy, quiet piano introduction, making it the perfect candidate for a fade-in (not to mention the clearance bin at Sam Goody, but that's another story). Like most audio editors, Audio Edit presents a visual sound wave display that shows you the highs and lows of the recording you just made. A flat line represents silence. First, edit the beginning and end of each song so that, if possible, you have a second or two of silence. This process won't work with some recordings, such as live concert recordings, but it should be easy with most studio tracks. In Audio Edit, you can clip audio sections by selecting them in the sound-wave display area, just as you'd select text in a word processor. Then, select Edit and Cut. Do this both for the song's introduction and the ending, where appropriate. Creating fades works the same way. Select a portion of the introduction, then select Command and Fade In to create a fade-in effect. You might need to test this process a few times to get it just right (you can undo from the Edit menu), but you should be able to remove any start of recording hiss. Ditto for the fade out. Audio Edit also includes other editing features that might be of interest, such as level adjustments, normalization, and silence insertion, which is why I opted to pay the shareware fee. For just $15, Audio Edit is a handy tool. Like Sound Recorder, Audio Edit works only with uncompressed WAV format, so you'll probably want to convert the recording to MP3 or Windows Media Audio (WMA) format when you're finished editing. Select File, Save to save your recording in .wav format, then select your audio conversion tool of choice. As with the actual audio recording phase, several tools can do the job. If you're interested in using WMA format, I recommend the Plus! MP3 Audio Converter LE tool from the free Microsoft Windows Media Bonus Pack for Windows XP (it's also available in Microsoft Plus! for XP), which works with both MP3 and .wav input formats (see Resources below). To convert to MP3 format, I used Logipole's Konvertor shareware tool that works with numerous audio, video, and image formats. I converted the .wav file to 128Kbps MP3 format and tested it on several media players. You can also use Audio Edit to record directly to MP3 format and avoid the conversion step. The resulting file sounds fine but is a bit lower volume than the other MP3 files in my media collection, and, of course, the quality isn't as high as my rips of professional audio CDs. But I did a quick test with an analog copy of a DVD concert recording to see how the sound quality stacked up compared with a typical CD rip of the same song. Surprisingly, they were virtually identical when I used 160Kbps MP3 format, which bodes well for this technique. Next week, I'll look at ways to improve quality for substandard audio sources, non-sound-card-based audio recording, and some Macintosh tools as well. If you've copied analog audio to the PC, please let me know if you have any tips or recommendations and I'll pass them along. Resources E-Soft's Audio Edit 3.3 Microsoft Windows Media Bonus Pack for Windows XP Logipole's Konvertor Last week, we looked at using analog lines to record audio sources to your PC. In such cases, the source you use is usually analog (e.g., a turntable or cassette player) but it doesn't have to be. You can also record audio from other sources (e.g., DVD players) that support analog Audio Out. In fact, I discovered that sound-card Line In recording works amazingly well: I couldn't tell the difference between a professional MP3 rip of a particular song and the version I recorded from an analog-connected DVD. Of course, your results could be different because of several factors, including the quality of your sound card, cables, or source material. The tools I chose for Part One of this article series were free or low-cost because you don't always have to spend a lot of money to get the job done, especially if, in this case, you want to record only a few analog-based songs. However, if you have different needs, other options and far more professional tools are available. So this week, let's look at other options, some of which are based on reader feedback. Nik Simpson noted that he recently went through a similar experience recording analog audio so that he could import music from LPs. In this case, the turntable had options for Phono Out and the standard Line Out, so he used the Line Out connection to hook up the component to his PC's sound card. But Simpson says that many turntables support only a Phono Out port, which will require a connection to a receiver/amplifier that can handle phono connections (you can then connect the receiver/amplifier to the PC). Of course, these days, turntables are increasingly rare. Simpson added another important tip, one that I should have included in last week's article. When you record from the Line In port, be sure to disable anything on your PC that might make a noise, such as an email message or Microsoft Outlook Calendar notification. Otherwise, you might hear the notification sound in your recording. Stephen Stoops recommended making one large recording for each side of an LP or cassette, rather than several smaller recordings, as I recommended. Live albums, in which there often isn't any dead space between songs, is one situation in which this style of recording is preferable. I recommended individual recordings because of hard disk space limitations and performance: The resulting files can be huge, especially if you're using WAV format, and you'll need a fairly modern PC to make such a recording. But if you are, in fact, recording entire albums and have the capacity, you can save disk space by removing the original WAV files after you convert them to MP3 or Windows Media Audio (WMA) format. Stoops recommended two commercial software packages that several other readers also raved about: Roxio's Easy CD Creator and Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge 6.0. Easy CD Creator ships in two versions: Easy CD Creator, a basic version that often comes free with CD-RW drives and new PCs, and Easy CD Creator Platinum retails for about $100 (basic users can upgrade for $70). If you want to do analog recording with Easy CD Creator, you'll need the Easy CD Creator Platinum, which includes the SoundStream application that accomplishes this task. SoundStream is particularly good for cassette and LP recording because it includes automatic sound cleaning and pop-and-click removal, crucial features for these types of analog sources. I played around with SoundStream and its Spin Doctor utility, comparing the recordings with the ones I had made last week. Although the quality was similar, readers with extensive LP and cassette libraries will appreciate SoundStream's automated approach. Other nice features include a track splitter, which can auto-detect periods of silence, and auto-stop, which lets you set timed recording or stop recording after a defined amount of silence. I don't have as much experience with Sound Forge, which is a professional audio editor. However, if your needs go beyond any of the basic techniques we've examined here, and you don't balk at its $350 price, this product is worth looking at. My experiments with USB-based audio recording were surprisingly poor. I'm sure someone makes a good USB device, but my trusty Belkin Components' Belkin USB VideoBus II just wasn't up to the task. I tried to use this device in both Windows Movie Maker and Easy CD Creator's Spin Doctor utility, but in both cases the quality of the resulting files was unsatisfactory, with a lot of distortion. I'm not sure why the results were poor; movies I've recorded with the VideoBus device have acceptable sound. I'll keep looking into USB-based audio recording. I don't have much to say about Macintosh-based analog audio recording because my two Macs--an Apple Computer's 2001 iBook and a flat-panel iMac--lack Audio In capabilities. Interestingly, Apple has corrected this situation with the eMac and the new Power Mac models the company introduced just last week. These products are the first Apple systems in quite some time to include Audio In ports, so other Mac owners will have to purchase some type of third-party add-on. I selected Griffin Technology's iMic, which is supposed to be excellent, but I haven't had a chance to test it. I'll report about this product in the future. The iMic also works with PCs, and I'm interested in getting a handle on USB-based audio recording. Roxio's Easy CD Creator Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge 6.0 Griffin Technology's iMic - Connected Home EXPRESS, August 21, 2002 10:05:19 AM

© Copyright 2002 Eric Hartwell. Last update: 01/09/2002; 10:10:41 PM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.