End-user perspective on small office tools & technology

Auphonic: A Free Online Tool For Automatic Audio Post-Production

auphonic-logoOpen source guru Randal Schwartz of FLOSS Weekly recently interviewed Georg Holzmann of Auphonic.com about their new online service for post-processing audio files for podcasts. Auphonic.com sounds very interesting indeed.

In the past the routine production of the VUC podcasts involved the use of The Levalator from The Conversations Network. That program, while a potent tool, is run locally and limited to processing uncompressed WAV files. This places a certain burden on the user to know how to create the appropriate source files, and later on to encode the processed files for publication online.

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Arm Yourself & Reclaim Your Desktop!

Mitsu-CRT-Monitor-InsetMeasuring in at 57 x 30 inches my desk is not small, but it’s not massive either. It hails from a shop called Storehouse Furniture that has sadly gone out-of-business. Nonetheless, this desk has served me well, and will continue to do so for along while to come.

This desk has seen its fair share of computer monitors over the years. There was a time when a 21” Mitsubishi CRT dominated the desktop. What a beast that was. It was heavy as well as physically large.

More recently I’ve been using one or two ASUS VE248H 24-Inch Monitors. These are very nice LED backlit monitors. Resolving 1920 x 1080 pixels, they’re native HD displays with DVI & HDMI connectivity. Better yet, they were pretty affordable.

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New Gear: Mocet Communicator For iPad

Mocet-Communicator-White-facing-left-300pxIt has become something of a habit to announce when new gear arrives in my office, especially if that gear is destined for review. A couple of weeks ago I received a review sample of the Mocet Communicator. Communicator is essentially an audio dock for an iPad that turns it into an executive desk phone.

As you may know, I don’t generally use Apple products. However, occasionally there comes a product that is sufficiently interesting to get me to move in that direction. In the past case of the Invoxia NVX-610 I purchased an iPod Touch in order to provide a suitable host for the device under review.

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T-Mobile Launches HDVoice Nationwide; Kinda, Sorta, Maybe, A Little Bit

T-Mobile-on-HDVoice.pngLast month at CES the nations #3 mobile carrier launched HDVoice nationally on its HSPA+ network. Here’s the entire press release. Actually, here’s the snippet that you need to track:

T-Mobile today announced that HD Voice is now available on its network nationwide, dramatically improving in-call voice quality for customers with capable smartphones. Customers will hear a more true-to-life voice quality that’s fuller and more natural-sounding with significantly reduced background noise from street traffic, wind and crowd noise. To experience HD Voice, both parties on the call must use capable T-Mobile 4G smartphones such as the HTC One™ S, Nokia Astound and Samsung Galaxy S® III on T-Mobile’s HD Voice-enabled nationwide network. T-Mobile is the first U.S. wireless provider to launch HD Voice nationwide.

It’s very exciting, yes? Well, it is for me as I am both a big fan of HDVoice and a long-time T-Mobile customer.

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A Practical Application For Virtualization In The Home Office

Polycom-VVX-600-300pxA short while ago I spend a little time dealing with some Polycom phones in my home office. This time around I needed to perform some firmware updates, but it was little more complicated than normal. The tale highlights how we can make use of a VM in an incidental but convenient role.

The phones I had to update were a mix of Polycom VVX-1500, VVX-600 and VVX-500  models. Some were devices that I had purchased that run release software. Others were devices from  beta programs. Those can only run beta firmware releases. I had several different releases to accommodate.

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