Lossless Audio Files To Play On iPhone

I know of two apps that are able to play lossless audio files on iPhone:

- FLAC Player
- GoldenEar

Each have its unique features:

FLAC Player only plays FLAC, but it includes an equalizer with lots of presets.

GoldenEar plays FLAC, APE and some other loss-less audio formats. It does not have an equalizer.

So far in my testing, GoldenEar seems to handle CUE sheet better. Given a FLAC file and a CUE sheet, it represents the FLAC file as an album (just as expected), and individual tracks are correctly recognized as songs. FLAC Player, on the other hand, does not seem to recognize CUE sheet in my testing. A FLAC file is played like a song without splitting out individual tracks.

Both apps plays FLAC well. While GoldenEar also plays APE, it did have some problem play one of the APE files in my testing. The beginning 1-2 seconds of the file sounded like skipped and broken. It seems the app is lagging on trying to process the file. The rest of the file plays fine.

Since FLAC Player seems to be more advanced in playback due to its cool equalizer, it would be a waste if the problem with CUE sheet and other loss-less formats (like APE) prevents us from using its full potential.

One way to go around CUE sheet is to extract individual track on a computer, and then copy the FLAC of individual track to FLAC Player. A free tool called CUETools can do this pretty well. Use the CUETools.exe to accomplish this.

APE files can be converted to individual FLAC tracks using foobar2000.

Super Flexible File Synchronizer - Most Versatile Backup Solution Final Pick

I was finally sick of DeltaCopy to sync files. Even with all the updates and hacks I was still not able to get it to run smoothly. So I started the journey again seeking the best software to backup my personal files. The solution that I'm looking for must satisfy the following:

• Local backup, not some free on-line backup service on the cloud that takes weeks to create the initial dump.
• Support Unicode file names.
• Backup to another networked computer, not just to a local drive or a USB drive.
• Transfer files through protocols other than the native file-sharing.
• Runs on Windows 7.
• Allow scheduling, and can run even without user logged in.
• Delete file from the backup when the source file is deleted.

These are just the most important features that are useful to me. It turned out that I was looking for a "file synchronization" software, and not a "backup" software. Almost all of the backup software combines all of the source files into very few "package" files. This resembles the old tape technology. Each "package" file is like a tape. You cannot view the files in each tape easily with something like the Windows Explorer. You must perform a lengthy "restore" operation which searches linearly for the file you need. If your file is at the end of the tape then you are out of luck. The files that are backed up by a "file synchronization" software, on the other hand, are the same as the files at the source. It creates a carbon-copy of your file for redundancy. It is KISS.

OK. So I finally gotten to the point. This is a good list of file synchronization programs. I downloaded and tried a free one (OneSync), and two commercial ones (Best Sync FTP and Super Flexible) which seem to have the most features. Then I conclude the free ones are just not stable (OneSync didn't even run on my Windows 7 VM) enough for serious jobs. Both of the commercial ones satisfy all of my requirements above. However, Best Sync FTP is more expensive (about $100 for the Ultimate version on 3 computers) and it requires on-line activation. On-line activation sucks, what if I retire my server and get a new one. Does that count as 2 licenses? Super Flexible costs only about $60, and you can install it to all your computers. You only need multiple licenses when you want to run it on multiple computer simultaneously! This is the most generous software offer that I've ever seen. It is truly an amazing product.

Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum

Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum is my favorite video editing program on Windows. It is good for the following tasks:

- It allows me to apply cuts to videos, combine multiple videos, apply transitions in between, and render the final product in MPEG-2 which is a lossless video format that let you preserve a uncompressed video for future editing. I also notice that the final video files are much smaller than the original, which is a plus for archiving them.

The best feature of it is that it does not crash so frequently like other Windows based video editing programs. I know iMovie is probably the best for simple tasks like the ones I need. Can someone donate me a Mac?

Flash Decompiler Trillix

My goal was simple. I just want to take art works from the vast Flash applications that are available on the internet, and put them into better use... re-use. Flash Decompiler Trillix did the job right. After playing with many Flash decompiler programs Trillix was the best one because it got the job done right without crashing itself in front of my face. Trust me, most of such programs crash moments after you hit the decompile button. The source code it generated sucks, but I don't care much about the source code. I don't believe any decompiler can produce code that are readable by non-hackers like me. The version I tried was version 4.1. I'm not sure about how much the latest one has improved.

Lossless Audio Files To Play On iPod

Single Ape or FLAC With Cue Sheet

I have tried the method described here on FLAC using Nero 9. Nero 9 includes the FLAC plug-in and everything works. It looks like I need to install an APE plug-in for Nero 9 and I'm still not sure how to do this.

To convert APE/FLAC with cur sheet to MP3, in general, you use Nero 9 to open the APE/FLAC cue sheet with the help of the plug-ins, and then burn it to a virtual CD which creates a .nrg image file. Next use Daemon tools to mount the .nrg file so it looks like a CD drive to the computer. In order to create MP3 files you need LAME and I found one here. This is a "back-end" file. EAC provides the front-end for extracting the tracks from the .nrg file into individual MP3 files using LAME.

FLAC to MP3

Individual FLAC files can be converted to MP3. This guide is great. The method uses foobar 2000 to convert FLAC to MP3. It needs LAME to create the MP3.

APE to MP3

not yet.