Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Burn audio CD from MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, APE, VQF, MP4 files with GoGo MP3 To CD Burner

You might have a compilation of your most favourite MP3 files ripped from various pieces of audio CD. It would be nice to burn your favourite compilation of MP3 music back into audio CD so that you could play them with CD player and/or car audio player that unfortunately doesn't support reading of MP3 CD.

I've found a freeware called GoGo MP3 To CD Burner which can perform this task. All you need to do is select and add the supported audio files into its list for up to a total of 80 minutes play time, then click the Burn CD button to create your own audio CD.

The only set back of this handy utility is that it doesn't support non-alphanumeric filenames, which include the CJK (Chinese-Japan-Korean) characters. If you intend to add those files into your list, you have to rename their filename to English first.

Click here to download GoGo MP3 To CD Burner. Its file size is just about 1MB, and it is free to use. Supported platforms are Windows 98 and above.

Fix Windows slow shutdown problem with UPHClean

Recently, I found my Windows PC became extremely slow for the shutdown process. It used to shutdown without 30 seconds, but then it took as much as 5 minutes.

A check in the Application Event Log found 2 warnings whenever I shutdown the PC. They are:

  • Windows cannot unload your classes registry file - it is still in use by other applications or services. The file will be unloaded when it is no longer in use.
  • Windows saved user PCname\username registry while an application or service was still using the registry during log off. The memory used by the user's registry has not been freed. The registry will be unloaded when it is no longer in use.
I'm not sure why this happened, but I've found out a solution from Microsoft to fix it. Microsoft released the User Profile Hive Cleanup Service (UPHClean) to resolve this problem, and it did solve my problem.

Click here to read about the root cause and solution of slow shutdown problem from Microsoft's knowledgebase.

Click here to download and install the UPHClean program from Microsoft Download Center.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Handphone fair @ Giant Bandar Puteri Puchong

Currently there is a handphone fair at the outdoor carpark area of Giant hypermarket of Bandar Puteri, Puchong. Apart from handphones, accesories such as bluetooth headsets, bluetooth speakers, batteries, chargers, etc. are also available. Mobile operators such as U-Mobile, Celcom, Digi and Maxis are having their booths there too.

Although majority are China brands which are selling in really cheap price and rich in features (those selling for a few hundreds ringgit only can even watch TV), there are also booths selling original Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and other renowned brands.

I have just purchased an original Sony Ericsson HBH-PV710 bluetooth headset (warranty by Midland) for only RM128. This is a decent mid-range bluetooth headset that offers a talk time of 12 hours and standby time of 300 hours.

Hint: Click on the "Older Posts" link to continue reading, or click here for a listing of all my past 3 months articles.