extend the life of your laptop battery

Don't ya just hate it when you are using your laptop and suddenly you get the message on your screen that your battery is 'critically low'? Well, here are a few simple steps to saving that battery life or at least stretching it out as long as possible.

First, adjust your power options on your operating system.

All laptops are slightly different so you will want to consult your users manual but most models will offer: balanced, power saver, and high performance options.
Choose the "power saver" option for the maximum battery saver or choose the "balanced" option for maximum performance. The "High performance" option should only be used when you have your laptop plugged into an outlet.

Most IBM/ Windows XP, and Vista users will be able to access their settings this way:

*Click "START" and then "Control Panel"

*Click "Performance maintained" (you may have to go to category/view first)

*Click "Power Options"

*Click the small arrow under the "Power Schemes" tab

*Click "Max Battery"

*Click "OK"

The Apple iBooks, Powerbooks, and MacBooks have their own settings to reduce battery usage whenever possible. From the 'main menu:
*Click: "System preferences"

*Click: "View menu" then: "Energy saver"

*Click "Show details"

*Select "battery" (or 'battery power')

*Select "longest"

For more information, on access to these settings, consult your users manual.

Establishing Automatic System Backups in Unix

Are you a system administrator that needs to do system backups? Database backups? Maybe this will help.


Being that I am a novice system administrator, I thought it would be a good idea to post about my task accomplishments in this blog. Here is the first of many. (This is a conceptual model only. This posts lacks specifics. This post is merely intended to reinforce the concepts I learned while performing this task. I hope it helps you too.)

For system administrators, it is important to back up the systems that is necessary for your company to operate. I will use system1 as the system that needs to be backed up, and system2 as the computer that system1 will be writing to. To back up data between to Unix FreeBSD systems do the following:

First you have to use: ssh-keygen -t dsa on system1 in order to generate the key pair used for authentication so that one system may write to a file on another system without human intervention. Once the key is made you have to save it in a file where it can be found when needed by the system. You can save them in /home/user/.ssh/id_dsa .

Next you have to make sure that same key is on system2 in the same /home/user/.ssh/id_dsa directory. You can do this by first changing your current directory to where you intend to save the key on system2: cd /home/user/.ssh/id_dsa .

Next you have to make sure that same key is on system2 in the same /home/user/.ssh/id_dsa directory. You can do this by first changing your current directory to where you intend to save the key on system2: cd /home/user/.ssh/id_dsa .

Then, you must put system2 into the known_hosts file on system1, and put system1 into the known_hosts file on system2

Now you need to check to make sure that everything you just did actually works. To do this you need to try to ssh from one system to another. You should not be asked for a password. If you are asked for a password, you did something wrong.

Now that you have set up access between system1 and system2, the next step is to set up the actual backup process. I will use file1 for the file on system1, and file2 for the location on system2 where file1 will be written to.

First you create a file that will contain the commands that system1 is to execute to perform the writing portion of the backup. I called this file backup.sh. You generally want backup.sh to be in /usr/local/bin because that directory is in everyone’s PATH, avoiding any permissions issues. I will use directory1 for the directory on system1 that file1 lies in. As you probably guessed, i will use directory2 for the name of the directory on system2 that file2 lies in. Here is what the contents of your backup.sh file should resemble:

#/bin/sh cd /usr/local/directory1 tar cvf /tmp/system1.file1 * scp file1 system2:/directory2/file2
exit

Finally you must place an entry into the crontab to schedule the frequency of the backup. Here is what your crontab should look like:

0 14 * * * /usr/local/bin/backup.sh >/directory2/file2 2>&1

And voila! your automatic backup between 2 FreeBSD systems should be complete!

Edit Music, Audio, and Sounds

This article deals with recorded audio, music, and sounds to be edited. This article assumes it is being done in a sound editing software program. This can be use to edit audio recordings such as poetry readings or your own audio book.


If it is not there already, burn or record your creation to the hard drive of the computer, preferably to "My Documents". Use either your editing software, sound recording software, or Windows Media Player to do this.

If the file is not opened already, use the music/sound editing software to open the file to be edited.

Edit the recording as necessary with the program. It is hard to get it the way desired at times, so plan on spending a lot of time on this step.
From here, mistakes can be edited out, background music or second instrument recordings can be added, sound effects can be added, the recording be changed sound wise such as warping the sound and such, the piece can be edited sound wise, sometimes extra notes can be added in music pieces, and so forth.
The editing program used will likely have instructions and ways within the program to do all this.

Burn the finished recording to a CD-R, CD-RW, or similar format for listening--or upload to online places for sale or fun. Make sure the sound format is compatible with the site uploaded to. Most sites take MP3s but a few may accept WMA. If the editing software doesn't convert to MP3--MP3 conversion programs may be obtained online for free at sites such as Downloads.com or Tucows. Also, there may be a website online that will do this without downloading.

Edit a Radio Interview That is on a CD (new)

This is an article on editing a radio interview that was conducted for the purpose of airing it. Whether editing it for a commercial for the interview or editing things like bloopers, swearing, background noise, etc. out, this article should be fine for it. I wrote a similar one a long time ago that kept showing up as an error on E-How, so I deleted it. It was an answer to a request then, but I figured maybe the requester or someone else can use it. This article is for the sole purpose of a person who has permission to do the editing. This article assumes the editing will be done directly on a computer.

Turn on the computer and load up the music editing program. Then insert the CD with the interview in the CD drive.

Copy the entire sound file with the help of the music editing program to the editing screen. If unable to do so within the program--Windows Media Player can be used to "rip" the file to the hard drive--just make sure the editing program can use WMA files, then use the editing program to open the file.

Follow the instructions for the particular music editing program being used to cut out bad parts, shorten segments, add background music, etc.
The methods used will be slightly different for different programs. Usually, it will be a familiar "cut and paste" process. This part can be difficult as the interview needs to be edited in the right places and for the right amount of time--try to save often and restore pieces at the time mistakes are made.

If a CD-RW type disk was used for the interview, the interview can be added or overwritten--just be sure to save a copy of the entire original interview somewhere. If the interview was made using a CD-R, then it must be "burnt" to a new CD.

Burn the edited interview to a CD-R or CD-RW type disc. This can be done with the music editing program or Windows Media Player. Making more than one copy is recommended for error control such as scratched CD's--also leaving a copy on the hard drive is recommended.

Use the edited interview on the air or the radio station's website or what ever way permission has been granted to do so.