Jaikoz: Audio Tagger review

Disclaimer: I paid GBP20 (~S$40) for this application, so this post is simply to share my (good) thoughts.

I used to strip all mp3 metadata aka ID3 for my mp3 collection. This worked out OK except during search. All of my fines have underscored names; e.g.

The_Humpty_Dumpty_Love_Song.mp3

I use Play Music, and it doesn’t understand a search spaced search; i.e. “Humpty Dumpty”, which is, IMO an excellent search intent. Anyway, that’s a rant for another day.

Today it is about Jaikoz. I changed upon it via Lifehacker.

I am using the latest 4.5.7, and everything just works as expected. There is MusicBrainz support if you’re lazy. I tried that out a bit, but the accuracy wasn’t that good, but that’s OK because everything can be edited by hand if like me, you’re a fanatic/zealot that prefers to search for artist/album/album art via Amazon.

I did encounter an error message like “msvcr100.dll missing”, but it worked fine after dismissing the dialog. I might have messed with my Win7 settings and installed a Java update, that’s why, but I downloaded this Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86) and then the error was gone. The fix is not mentioned on any Jaikoz-related forum, but there’s a Microsoft answer that was really helpful.

And oh, there’s an free trial that lets you fix metadata for up to 20 songs a time — Just restart to continue editing the metadata. I tried it out for a week before I go tired of restarting it — Java is slow — and took the plunge. It costs 20GBP for Standard, that it is working out really well as I start to (re)tag my music.

The mystery of the disappearing laptop screen brightness slider (Windows 7)

I noticed this problem in the last 2 weeks or so, but searching around the ‘net returned no results.

So I noticed that if the power plug turned off during bootup, I would be unable to adjust my screen brightness. To resolve the problem, a restart — with the power plugged in — was required.

Right-clicking the Power system icon — located on the bottom right of the task bar, clicking Power Options -> High Performance -> Change plan settings showed just two options: “Turn off the display”, “Put the computer to sleep”. “Adjust plan brightness” had disappeared!

The solution is:

Start -> Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Device Manager.

In the Device Manager window, look for “Monitors”, then right-click your monitor and select “Uninstall”. Be sure to also check the “Remove driver” option. Once removed, click the “Scan for hardware changes” icon.

Voila. “Adjust plan brightness” returns, mystery solved.

References

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprohardware/thread/08a3eb1d-b698-4639-af4b-5278b721fcdc/

Preventing VAIO Care recovery on boot

I bought a Sony VAIO Y Series laptop for my wife last Valentine’s Day — how practical, I KNOW — and it’s been working great thus far, except for one niggling thing.

It boots into a recovery mode called VAIO Care every time. This mars the user experience siince the intention is always Windows 7, not VAIO Care!

I’ve copy-pasted the text wholesale, in case the site goes down one day (and mine doesn’t):

1. Click the Start button and then click All Programs.
2. In the All Programs menu, click the Accessories folder and then click the System Tools folder.
3. In the System Tools folder, click Task Scheduler.
4. In the Task Scheduler window, in the left pane, click Task Scheduler Library.
5. In the middle pane, click VAIO Care.
6. In the right pane, under Actions , click Disable.
7. Close the Task Scheduler window.

References

http://digital-qa.blogspot.com/2009/11/vaio-care-click-here-to-disable.html

Missing foo (e.g. battery) icon in Vista taskbar

With reference to this post,

I encountered this problem last night, on a Vista installation. Right-clicking the taskbar, then selecting Properties -> Taskbar and Start Menu Properties -> Notification Area -> System Icons -> Battery does not work, because the check boxes are greyed out.

The easiest solution is to hit Ctrl+Alt+Del, bring up the Task Manager, and then restart explorer.exe. Here’s the solution that I’ve directly taken from Akshit’s reply to that thread:

1. Go to Task Manager.
2. Go to Process tab.
3. End the “explorer.exe” process
4. Go to Applications tab
5. Select “New Task…”
6. Type “explorer.exe”

Hope this helps somebody, as Akshit’s reply was about halfway down the thread.

Google Chrome (BETA) for Windows

I just read the lengthy comic, and then downloaded it. Check it out here.

As far as I am concerned, the UI is pretty, and it feels faster than even Firefox 3. Way to go! I hope a (Debian) Linux version comes out soon!

Auto-importing a registry key when starting up Windows

This functions (somewhat) like the rcx.d scripts that run upon startup on a Unix machine. Click “Start > Run…”. Type “regedit” in the text box to open the Registry Editor.

Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Run

You should see a list of applications that run on startup in the right panel. Right-click, and choose “New > String Value”. Name it anything you want, then double-click this new entry and enter in the “Value Data” field:

regedit /s D:\path\to\registry\file.reg

You will need to change the path, of course. The /s basically indicates a silent import of the specified registry file.

Outlook settings

The Outlook settings to connect to the server are as follows:

servername = livejournal.com
username = wayne

Replace the LHS with the RHS as specified below:

Incoming (POP): openmail.servername, port 110
Outgoing (SMTP): openmail.servername, port 25

E-mail address: username@servername
UserID: username.servername
Password: password

We also have a webmail feature that you will be access through any web browser:

http://openmail.servername/

UserID: username@servername
Password: password