Category: Technology

Sound Blaster Live 24-Bit and Linux

The $30 Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit sound card may look like a good deal for someone looking for a cheap audio device for their Linux workstation, but would-be buyers should know that not all Sound Blaster Live! cards are the same.

The audio chip on this particular 7.1 sound card identifies itself as a Sound Blaster Live Audigy LS chipset, which does not have the same support under Linux that other Sound Blasters do. In fact, you may be better off with an older Sound Blaster Live card as this particular chipset has limited hardware mixing features, leaving much of the audio processing work to be done by the CPU.

So my advice is to stay clear of this particular card and look for a 5.1 Sound Blaster, which you can often find for slightly cheaper.

Deep Impact Fireworks on the Fourth

NASA Deep Impact

If you’re looking for a little more power in your Independence Day holiday fireworks, consider taking a look at NASA’s Deep Impact website.

The Deep Impact mission involves a NASA space probe set on a collision course with Comet Tempel 1. The probe will fire an “impactor” at the comet in order to aid scientists in studying exactly what makes up the interior of a comet.

For those with broadband, you can also catch video and multimedia presentations on the mission at NASA TV. More information on the project can also be found at Wikipedia.

Exploding Laptop

Toasty Laptop
click image to enlarge

As seen on [H]ard|OCP:

“I work as a pc technician for America’s largest electronics retailer. Today a customer brought his laptop in for repair and stated that it “exploded”. After five years as a tech I thought I had seen it all and was wondering about his perception of “explosion”.

As I cracked open the box of a five month old Compaq Presario I was hit with a foul stench and immediately knew the chosen words of “explosion” were appropriate. Somehow, someway….this laptops battery totally exploded causing a large fireball and partial disintegration of the computer. The battery caught fire sending a fireball through the front of the laptop blowing a three inch hole through what used to be the floppy on the opposite side of the case.

I know that any battery has the potential for danger given the correct circumstances, however this battery met a truly violent end under normal operating conditions. The customer stated that his entire table was burnt to a crisp and would of been true of the whole house if a fire extinguisher was not as handy as it was.”

WordPress Updates

For users of the popular blogging back-end software , you should note that there is a v1.5.1.3 security update available for download here. The upgrade process is pretty painless, consisting of three steps outlined in the readme.html file included with the download.

Additionally, if you use Dr. Dave’s excellent Spam Karma plugin to control the number of comments submitted by automated spam bots, note that version 2 is available for download, as well as version 1.7 of Referrer Karma, which helps protect your server logs from being overrun by referrer spam.