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.
Showing posts with label Windows Application. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Windows Application. Show all posts
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
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:
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.
- 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.
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.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
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?
- 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.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Using DeltaCopy to backup files with Unicode file names and long file names
DeltaCopy is an open source (free) program for backup files in Windows. I have seen it working on XP, Vista, and Windows 7, and I also believe it will run on all Windows server versions. Its most important feature is that it performs incremental backup: only the changed part of a large file will be backed up. DeltaCopy uses a client-server model so you can backup files to another computer as well as backup files to another hard disk drive on the same computer (a single computer acting as both the client and the server).
While on-line backup is gaining popularity, the main reason that you should stay away from it is the slowness of the data transfer speed over the internet. If you only want to protect your data in the case of a disk failure, and you don't need to:
DeltaCopy's website gives you two install options: you can download a Windows installer setup file, or you can download a zip-compressed file of the whole program. Since all of the necessary files are located in the DeltaCopy's folder, and there is no registry update and other additional processing to the setup I like to get the zip.
There are two limitations of the out-of-the-box DeltaCopy program:
One limitation of the out-of-the-box DeltaCopy is that it does not properly backup file names with Unicode characters. This is important to you if you have file names in foreign language, for example. The solution to this problem is posted on UTF-8 Cygwin. Simply put: replace cygwin1.dll in your DeltaCopy folder with one that is Unicode-enabled. Follow the link on UTF-8 Cygwin to get the file.
If you have both the Unicode file names problem and the long file names problem
I got the solution from reading this post and I'm really glad that it worked. Many of the files that are included in the DeltaCopy download are out of date. You can get the more up-to-date files by installing cygwin. You will need to get the following files:
chmod.exe - get the latest version
rsync.exe - get version 3.0.6 (version 3.0.7 does not work)
ssh.exe - get from the latest version of openSSH
cygwin1.dll - part of cygwin
cyggcc_s-1.dll - get the latest version
Next, copy these files into the DeltaCopy folder to replace the old files. You need to do this for both the client and the server.
Finally, add the following to the deltacd.conf:
uid = 0
gid = 0
That's all.
While on-line backup is gaining popularity, the main reason that you should stay away from it is the slowness of the data transfer speed over the internet. If you only want to protect your data in the case of a disk failure, and you don't need to:
- backup the data to another part of the world, and
- share the backup data over the internet
DeltaCopy's website gives you two install options: you can download a Windows installer setup file, or you can download a zip-compressed file of the whole program. Since all of the necessary files are located in the DeltaCopy's folder, and there is no registry update and other additional processing to the setup I like to get the zip.
There are two limitations of the out-of-the-box DeltaCopy program:
- It cannot handle Unicode file names
- It cannot handle long file names (files which has more than 255 characters in its path from the root of the backup folder)
One limitation of the out-of-the-box DeltaCopy is that it does not properly backup file names with Unicode characters. This is important to you if you have file names in foreign language, for example. The solution to this problem is posted on UTF-8 Cygwin. Simply put: replace cygwin1.dll in your DeltaCopy folder with one that is Unicode-enabled. Follow the link on UTF-8 Cygwin to get the file.
If you have both the Unicode file names problem and the long file names problem
I got the solution from reading this post and I'm really glad that it worked. Many of the files that are included in the DeltaCopy download are out of date. You can get the more up-to-date files by installing cygwin. You will need to get the following files:
chmod.exe - get the latest version
rsync.exe - get version 3.0.6 (version 3.0.7 does not work)
ssh.exe - get from the latest version of openSSH
cygwin1.dll - part of cygwin
cyggcc_s-1.dll - get the latest version
Next, copy these files into the DeltaCopy folder to replace the old files. You need to do this for both the client and the server.
Finally, add the following to the deltacd.conf:
uid = 0
gid = 0
That's all.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Keep drive letters unchange for USB devices on Windows
Why not turn used computers into home network servers?
File Server - fs
A file server is a central place for home data. It has the following responsibilities:
1. Maintain data integrity (minimize data lose)
2. Backup
3. Allow data sharing and access control
External USB hard-disks are getting cheaper and are easier to maintain than internal ones. A handy tool for USB hard-disks is USBDLM - USB Drive Letter Manager for Windows. It allows a permanent drive letter to be assigned to a USB hard-disk by its permanent device-ID (and many other criteria). With this, it is now possible to use the same hard-disk for multiple computers (say if you have a desktop PC and a notebook) while be assured that the same drive letter can be used on every computer. In addition, now you can sign up for one online backup account (IDrive, MozyHome) and use it on multiple computers to backup the data from the same USB hard-disk.
Here is a sample minimum USBDLM configuration file to reserve drive letter F for my USB hard-disk:
[ExcludedLetters]
Letter1=F
[DriveLetters1]
DeviceID1=USBSTOR\DISK&VAN_WD&PRDXTERNAL&RE_V5.00\444333385654776334321212&0
Letter1=F
Media Center Server - mcs
File Server - fs
A file server is a central place for home data. It has the following responsibilities:
1. Maintain data integrity (minimize data lose)
2. Backup
3. Allow data sharing and access control
External USB hard-disks are getting cheaper and are easier to maintain than internal ones. A handy tool for USB hard-disks is USBDLM - USB Drive Letter Manager for Windows. It allows a permanent drive letter to be assigned to a USB hard-disk by its permanent device-ID (and many other criteria). With this, it is now possible to use the same hard-disk for multiple computers (say if you have a desktop PC and a notebook) while be assured that the same drive letter can be used on every computer. In addition, now you can sign up for one online backup account (IDrive, MozyHome) and use it on multiple computers to backup the data from the same USB hard-disk.
Here is a sample minimum USBDLM configuration file to reserve drive letter F for my USB hard-disk:
[ExcludedLetters]
Letter1=F
[DriveLetters1]
DeviceID1=USBSTOR\DISK&VAN_WD&PRDXTERNAL&RE_V5.00\444333385654776334321212&0
Letter1=F
Media Center Server - mcs
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Useful and free Windows applications
g4u - Harddisk Image Cloning for PCs
Notes: Open-source. Can copy partition/disk, make image of a partition/disk, gzip the image, and copy to FTP. However, it can only copy the image to FTP but cannot copy the compressed image to another local disk. To reduce the compressed image size you will need to "zero-out" the data on your partition. One way to do this is with sdelete.
ISO Recorder
Notes: This is a free software to burn burn CD & DVD images (*.iso only) to disk. Currently it only can burn DVD images in Vista. It has both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. It integrates into the Windows shell so in order to use it you simply right click on a *.iso file and the "burn to dvd" command will appear in the context-menu.
InfraRecorder
Notes: Open-source. ISO and BIN/CUE. After using this for awhile I cannot burn image any more. Strange... 8/13/09 I've had too much problem with this program so I have to say it is a piece of crap... well, before they can fix all the bugs.
ImgBurn
8/13/09: Finally discovered a free optical disc burner that works! This little app is very powerful. I've been using it to burn disc images and it works! It can burn images, audio, and video. I've not tried all features but it looks like a free alternative to the popular Nero software. Supported formats:
Disc image: BIN, CUE, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI (some I've never seen).
Audio: AAC, APE, FLAC, M4A, MP3, MP4, MPC, OGG, PCM, WAV, WMA and WV.
AnyToIso
8/13/09: Coverts many disc image formats to ISO. This is a very handy free tool if you have a program that only knows ISO format disc images (such as to create a virtual CD-ROM in VirtualBox). The ads says that it can "convert BIN, MDF, UIF, PDI, CDI, NRG, B5I, IMG, DEB, DMG CD/DVD-ROM images to ISO". It has version for Windows and Mac.
VisualSVN
Notes: A free Subversion server for windows. More Subversion servers for various platform can be found here: subversion.tigris.org
USBDLM - USB Drive Letter Manager for Windows
Notes: Free software. Haven't tried it but could be handy if want to make letters for USB drives fixed.
UltraVNC
Notes: Remotely access the desktop of your Windows PC. No linux support. More sophisticated than the free edition of RealVNC, which has versions for both Windows and linux. UltraVNC allows you to create a *.vnc file which stored all connection settings (optionally can include password) for a pc so you can open the remote screen with one mouse click.
CutePDF
Notes: Free alternative to Adobe's PDF Writer (formerly called Distiller). It also installs Ghostscript by automatically download. CutePDF creates a fake printer. Anything prints to it will be saved as PDF. A dialog box shows and user can decide where to save the file.
Audacity
Open source audio file editor. I was looking for WAV to MP3 converter when I bumped into this one. In order to encode MP3 this program asks you to download a free encoder: lame_enc.dll. It was easy to download. Conversion is the only feature that I have tried. If you have a bunch of files to convert then I suggest you to find a batch convert program. In Audacity you can only do one file at a time. See more free audio programs here.
winLAME
Open source software for converting a batch of files into MP3. This is a good front-end for LAME MP3 Encoder. Check out the LAME MP3 Encoder page for more free programs that uses it. winLAME works great! Open source is truly wonderful!
TeraCopy
If you want to copy or move a batch of files then this is right for you. TeraCopy replaces the Windows copy program (you can see the normal Windows file copy window is replaced by TeraCopy's more feature-rich window when you copy files in Windows Explorer). With TeraCopy you can start a batch copy job, go to sleep, and wake up to see a report with what was successfully copied and what was not. Failure of a single file will not stop the whole batch process. This works in XP/Vista/Win7.
CrossLoop
This little app saved my day so many times but I never can remember its name. This app allows you to give access of your desktop to a remove user, or to do the opposite, access your friend's desktop in order to solve PC problems. Great app to get a warm "thank you" from your friends.
InkscapeAn Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. This program was not hard to use, and it was very powerful. I used it to make special effects for website banners.
Other powerful free software that everyone should know:
Foxit PDF Reader
TortoiseSVN
Prism
Notepad++
Gimp
GrabIt
Daemon Tools Lite
Filezilla
Iso Magic
Dev-CPP
Skype
WinDirStat
Mp3tag
ExifCleaner
CrossLoop
Notes: Open-source. Can copy partition/disk, make image of a partition/disk, gzip the image, and copy to FTP. However, it can only copy the image to FTP but cannot copy the compressed image to another local disk. To reduce the compressed image size you will need to "zero-out" the data on your partition. One way to do this is with sdelete.
ISO Recorder
Notes: This is a free software to burn burn CD & DVD images (*.iso only) to disk. Currently it only can burn DVD images in Vista. It has both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. It integrates into the Windows shell so in order to use it you simply right click on a *.iso file and the "burn to dvd" command will appear in the context-menu.
InfraRecorder
Notes: Open-source. ISO and BIN/CUE. After using this for awhile I cannot burn image any more. Strange... 8/13/09 I've had too much problem with this program so I have to say it is a piece of crap... well, before they can fix all the bugs.
ImgBurn
8/13/09: Finally discovered a free optical disc burner that works! This little app is very powerful. I've been using it to burn disc images and it works! It can burn images, audio, and video. I've not tried all features but it looks like a free alternative to the popular Nero software. Supported formats:
Disc image: BIN, CUE, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI (some I've never seen).
Audio: AAC, APE, FLAC, M4A, MP3, MP4, MPC, OGG, PCM, WAV, WMA and WV.
AnyToIso
8/13/09: Coverts many disc image formats to ISO. This is a very handy free tool if you have a program that only knows ISO format disc images (such as to create a virtual CD-ROM in VirtualBox). The ads says that it can "convert BIN, MDF, UIF, PDI, CDI, NRG, B5I, IMG, DEB, DMG CD/DVD-ROM images to ISO". It has version for Windows and Mac.
VisualSVN
Notes: A free Subversion server for windows. More Subversion servers for various platform can be found here: subversion.tigris.org
USBDLM - USB Drive Letter Manager for Windows
Notes: Free software. Haven't tried it but could be handy if want to make letters for USB drives fixed.
UltraVNC
Notes: Remotely access the desktop of your Windows PC. No linux support. More sophisticated than the free edition of RealVNC, which has versions for both Windows and linux. UltraVNC allows you to create a *.vnc file which stored all connection settings (optionally can include password) for a pc so you can open the remote screen with one mouse click.
CutePDF
Notes: Free alternative to Adobe's PDF Writer (formerly called Distiller). It also installs Ghostscript by automatically download. CutePDF creates a fake printer. Anything prints to it will be saved as PDF. A dialog box shows and user can decide where to save the file.
Audacity
Open source audio file editor. I was looking for WAV to MP3 converter when I bumped into this one. In order to encode MP3 this program asks you to download a free encoder: lame_enc.dll. It was easy to download. Conversion is the only feature that I have tried. If you have a bunch of files to convert then I suggest you to find a batch convert program. In Audacity you can only do one file at a time. See more free audio programs here.
winLAME
Open source software for converting a batch of files into MP3. This is a good front-end for LAME MP3 Encoder. Check out the LAME MP3 Encoder page for more free programs that uses it. winLAME works great! Open source is truly wonderful!
TeraCopy
If you want to copy or move a batch of files then this is right for you. TeraCopy replaces the Windows copy program (you can see the normal Windows file copy window is replaced by TeraCopy's more feature-rich window when you copy files in Windows Explorer). With TeraCopy you can start a batch copy job, go to sleep, and wake up to see a report with what was successfully copied and what was not. Failure of a single file will not stop the whole batch process. This works in XP/Vista/Win7.
CrossLoop
This little app saved my day so many times but I never can remember its name. This app allows you to give access of your desktop to a remove user, or to do the opposite, access your friend's desktop in order to solve PC problems. Great app to get a warm "thank you" from your friends.
InkscapeAn Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. This program was not hard to use, and it was very powerful. I used it to make special effects for website banners.
Other powerful free software that everyone should know:
Foxit PDF Reader
TortoiseSVN
Prism
Notepad++
Gimp
GrabIt
Daemon Tools Lite
Filezilla
Iso Magic
Dev-CPP
Skype
WinDirStat
Mp3tag
ExifCleaner
CrossLoop
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