#i had to run my videos through a program to lower the file size and they look fine to me? but idk how they look to others

[hispipsqueak]

A Workplace Affair

Kei Tsukishima x F!Reader - NSFW

Summary: As the new tour guide at the Sendai Museum and presenter of their space exhibit, you have to work closely with the head of the dinosaur exhibit. Can you and Tsukishima learn to put aside your differences or are you going to have to work things out a different way?

Word Count: 3781

A/N: AHHHH. I put my soul into this piece I swear. As you know, Tsukishima is the absolute love of my life and I actually based this piece on this lovely commission from @/novaasoph on Instagram! I spent so long looking up dinosaur facts and the dress in the picture and story is actually a dress I own. Yes this is EXTREMELY self-indulgent, but I tried to make it as inclusive as possible because WE ALL NEED TO BE RAILED BY TSUKISHIMA IN A CLOSET OKAY?? As always likes and reblogs are hella appreciated 💕

TW: unprotected sex, enemies to lovers, slight public sex, oral sex (m receiving), workplace sex, my simping for Kei is v apparent

Here you were, a fresh-faced college graduate. After years of grueling nights spent studying and pulling all nighters to reach your goals, you had finally landed the job of your dreams working for the Sendai museum. The museum had hired you for their new Space exhibit and you would be one of their lead tour guides. The man who hired you, your new boss technically, had been desperate. The museum was preparing for an onslaught of tours now that the space exhibit was open. As Mr. Hashimoto excitedly explained, “Kids love space and dinosaurs and we finally got them both! Now we just need a good tour guide!” Mr. Hashimoto was an older grandfatherly type man, with large glasses, and a bushy grey mustache. Immediately you felt comfortable and warm from his friendliness.

He led you through a short tour of the museum, finally stopping at the last and largest exhibit, a cheery green sign declaring it the “Dinosaur Zone!”. You were in awe over the large T.Rex skeleton in the center of the room. 

“It’s beautiful!” You excitedly turned to Mr. Hashimoto.

He smiled at you, his eyes crinkling. 

“It really is, isn’t it? One of our prized displays. And of course, here comes the man of the hour.” He gestured toward a tall man walking towards the two of you.

The man was tall, at least 6 feet. His hair was blonde with a slight curl near his ears. He wore black half-rim glasses and his eyes were a bright golden hue. You could tell through his suit he was toned and muscular. His white button up was fitted very well against his broad chest and you felt your body heat up. Whoever this man of the hour was, he was HOT.

And the hot guy was staring at you, clearly annoyed.

“Miss Y/N, this is Mr. Kei Tsukishima, the “Dino Man”, if you will. He used to run the tours on this end, and now works more on the exhibit handling. If you need to know anything about this area, he will be your go-to!” Mr. Hashimoto chuckled. 

You extended your hand happily and after a beat, Tsukishima shook your hand. His hand engulfed yours in size and you felt a shiver run down your spine.

“Since you are new here, Tsukishima will be assisting you on running the tours, at least in this area. You two will be spending a lot of time together, so I suggest getting to know each other well!” He clapped you both on the shoulder and walked away. You saw Tsukishima stiffen and you were slightly disappointed when he began heading back toward his office, leaving you alone.

“Um, Tsukishima!” You called out, your voice echoing in the empty room. The blonde turned back, an eyebrow raised. You waited for him to respond but when he was silent, you spoke again.

“Uh...I look forward to working with you!” You smiled. He stared at you blankly and gave the briefest nod, before turning back around and walking away.

Well...that was...terrible.

Feeling dejected, you headed back to grab your bag and head home. You heard a door close in the distance. What you didn’t see was Kei with his back pressed against it, face red with a blush.

---

“As you can see here, these guys were pretty ferocious. I mean look at how big they were!” You stretched your arms out exaggeratedly, earning a loud laugh from the children you were currently leading on a tour. A few of the kids also started stretching their arms, growling at each other and laughing. You smiled, before hearing Tsukishima clear his throat.

“Well...ferocious if you were a tree. That’s an Aralosaurus. They were herbivores. Meaning they only ate plants.” Tsukishima gave you a pointed look, the ghost of a smirk dancing on his lips. You could feel your face heat up and turned around to face the children.

“Either way, it’s a pretty scary guy, I think!” You said smiling at the kids. You were determined to not lose your cool in front of the group you were leading. 

“Actually, they were pretty docile creatures. They used this bulge to blow air out and scare predators away, but they weren’t a ‘scary guy’ as you so eloquently put it”. Tsukishima interjected.

You could feel your eyes about to roll back into your skull and you forced your smile to remain cheerful. 

“Thank you so much for the information, Mr. Tsukishima. Or as we call him around here, Dino Boy!” You gave a fake laugh, feeling satisfied at the little crease appearing between his eyebrows as he gritted his teeth. You directed the children to the interactive sandbox where they could dig for plastic fossils. As the kids excitedly grabbed their buckets and shovels, you took a much needed mental break. Your exhibit was last, as the kids needed to burn out their excitement before the planetarium show and the dino exhibit usually tuckered them out well enough.

Lost in thought, you didn’t hear Tsukishima walk toward you. He stopped right next to you, his shoulder practically touching yours.

“Dino boy, really? That’s what we are going with today?” he muttered as the two of you watched the kids dig in the sandbox. You smirked and turned to face him.

“At least I don’t spend all day correcting people.” 

“Well if you actually researched anything for your job instead of acting like a child, I wouldn’t have to correct you.” He looked at you with a withering stare. You felt yourself crumble inside. Tsukishima’s gaze could kill a man, but fuck if you weren’t going down without a fight.

The two of you held similar arguments every day. Whether it was an incorrect fact, going down the wrong “order” of displays, heck even the way you wore your badge, Tsukishima was there with a snide comment and you were sick of it.

“So I don’t know every little thing to know about dinosaurs. There are better ways to correct people you know!” You let out a short huff, before turning your head to walk back to the group. You could feel his gaze on you and you held your head high as you led the children to the space exhibit. As you began to talk about the galaxies, out of the corner of your eye you saw Tsukishima walk into the room and find a seat near the back.

Curious, as he usually didn’t interact with you outside of annoying corrections in the dinosaur exhibit. You chose to ignore him and kept talking, getting more excited as you explained the Milky Way galaxy and described the show you would put on for the tour group. You started the exhibit and sat down in your usual seat, which happened to be next to Tsukishima. 

As the lights dimmed and the stars began to display on the arched ceiling, you could feel how close you actually were to Tsukishima. Your arms were nearly touching and you became very aware of how your heartbeat began to race. You attempted to focus on the program, as the built in narrator discussed the difference between the planets. You turned to sneak a look at the man next to you and found him already looking back at you. Your breath caught in your throat. His expression was unreadable but he didn’t look angry. His honey colored eyes were fixated on you and you felt your body tremble.

Before you could process what any of this meant, the narration stopped and you jumped up. 

“As the video discussed, the planets fall into multiple categories! The cool thing about that is that even though we perceive them as something solid and perfectly round similar to basketballs, some of them are gas giants...”

You continued on, feeling only slightly disappointed as you watched Tsukishima sneak back out the door.

-----

“Are you kidding me, Tsukishima?” you shouted. You were standing in the break room, hands on your hips. He was standing in front of you a white mug in his hand, with his eyebrow raised.

“What are you even talking about?” He looked almost bored with the whole interaction as he poured coffee into his cup.

“Somehow all of my mugs are on the tallest shelf. The shelf only YOU can reach.” You glared at him.

He placed his mug down on the countertop and turned to you, lazily.

“Why on earth would I do that?” His eyes narrowed and a smirk crossed his face. 

You crossed your arms. 

“I don’t know, because you are just a giant bully?” Your eyes lowered and before he could react you grabbed his cup of coffee and stalked off. 

-----

“What is the matter with you?!” Tsukishima yelled from his office, his voice echoing in the empty exhibit hall. The next tour wasn’t for a couple of hours.

You gently placed the box of files you were carrying on the cart in front of you. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow?” You looked up at him with false innocence in your eyes. 

“Why are all my pens now pink sparkle gel pens???!” He shouted at you, a fluffy topped pink pen in his hand.

Your eyes widened in mock surprise. 

“Now Tsukki, why on Earth would I do that?” You turned to push the cart and ran right into Mr. Hashimoto, who cleared his throat, smiling at the two of you.

“Now I am always one for inter-office tomfoolery, but the two of you are going a little overboard. So unless morale improves around here, I may have to take drastic action.” He kept the smile on his face but there was a warning look in his eyes. You both gulped. 

“Sorry, Mr. Hashimoto. This will never happen again.” Tsukishima was the first to speak. You bowed your head in agreement and Hashimoto, satisfied with your responses, walked away. You turned to walk away back to your cart before Tsukishima grabbed you by the wrist, and dragged you into a tiny storage room.

“Look, I know you despise me but I am not going to lose my job to some little girl in a stupid dress.” He hissed at you.

You looked down at your dress. It was dark blue with galaxies and planets patterned all over, quite fitting for your job actually. 

“Shut up, dino boy. My dress isn’t stupid! And I am not going to lose my job to some mean schoolyard bully.” You raised your hand to flick his forehead, and he grabbed your wrist, pushing you against the wall.

“You need to learn some manners, little girl.” His voice dropped to a dangerously low whisper, and the two of you glared at each other. He was so close to you, his chest nearly touching yours and you felt your blush creep up as his brilliant eyes pierced into you.

You felt the heat pool between your legs and you squeezed your thighs together. The shadow of a smile passed over his face.

“Don’t tell me you’re turned on right now.” He said, letting out a soft mocking laugh. You gritted your teeth.

“Of course not, asshole. You’re the one who dragged me into a closet and are now pressing yourself against me, perv.” You spat back.

The sound of voices interrupted your argument and Tsukishima quickly clapped a hand over your mouth. The two of you being caught in this position regardless of the reason would be a terrible look for both of you. Your eyes widened and you held your breath until the voices outside the door faded away.

He slowly pulled his hand away and the two of you looked at each other. Before either of you could think, his lips were against yours, pressing you into the wall of the storage room.

His hand cupped your face as he deepened the kiss and you fell back, letting him take charge. He tasted like peppermint tea and citrus and you felt dizzy from the overwhelming sensations. You wrapped your arms around him, running your fingers through the curly hair behind his ears, gently tugging to pull him closer towards you. 

He let out a low groan into your mouth, and you nibbled on his lower lip. He had one hand tangled in your hair and the other was making its way down your body, pulling down the strap of your dress. His kisses moved lower, soft lips pressing down your neck. He sucked a mark into your skin, grazing his teeth over the spot before soothing it with his tongue. You closed your eyes, arching your back away from the wall.

“Fuck...you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” He whispered into your skin, before kissing your collarbone. Your skin intoxicated him and he needed more of you in every way.

You breathed out a sigh, “Could have fooled me.”

He pressed his forehead to yours, gazing into your eyes.

“You’re annoying, childish, ridiculous, absolutely over-the-top stubborn. And fucking gorgeous. You don’t know shit about dinosaurs, and yet you can make dead stars seem like the most interesting thing in the universe. You captivate the room when you walk through the door and I’ve been in love with you since the day we met.”

This time it was you who kissed him, your tongues exploring each other's mouths. His hand slipped under your lab coat and tugged slightly on the zipper of your dress, waiting for confirmation. You moaned into his mouth and he dragged the zipper down slowly, his fingertips brushing your spine. You slid your hand to his chest, unbuttoning his shirt. You could feel the muscles and ran your fingers over his abs, chiseled from years of athleticism.

He shrugged off his jacket and loosened his tie, as you let your dress pool to the floor. His eyes roamed your body, wanting to claim every inch of it as his. You were ethereal and Tsukishima had the urge to worship all of you. 

You looked up at him, eyes shining brightly even in the dimly lit room.  He placed a finger under your chin, tilting your face up to his.

“Stunning.”

You giggled, and pressed a kiss to his neck, leaving a mark from your lipstick. He leaned back against the wall as you kissed down his chest, leaving a trail of cherry red over his porcelain skin. Soon you were on your knees, running your fingers over his soft happy trail before undoing his belt. Slowly, you slid down his slacks, noticing the dark stain of precum on his navy boxers. You pressed a kiss on each side of his abs, in the indentations of his V line. You ran your nails over the head of his erection, teasing him. He let out a soft hiss and you grinned. Perhaps another time, you would have spent all day teasing him, his whimpers like music to your ears.

But today, you were in a time crunch.

Using two fingers, you tugged down the elastic waistband of his boxers, freeing his cock.

It was beautiful, just like the man it belonged to. Long and slender, with the prettiest pink tip, dotted with a slick bead of precome. 

You gave kitten licks to the tip, savoring his taste. Tsukishima threw his head back biting his lip. He needed more of your mouth and you were oh so happy to please.

Taking his length in your mouth, you deepthroated him, pressing your nose to the base, and felt the soft curly blond hairs tickle your skin.

Tsukishima's eyes rolled back as you began to suck him down, your throat clenching around his cock. His hands gripped your hair almost painfully, though it only added to your excitement.

You bobbed on his cock, pulling it nearly all the way out of your warm mouth before forcing it back down your throat. Swirling your tongue around the head with each thrust. You looked up at him, your eyes brimming with tears.

"Fuck you look so beautiful wrapped around my cock like that. I just wanna ruin you, pretty girl."

He started face-fucking you, slowly at first but when he felt no resistance from you, he began to speed up. His fingers grasped your hair, forcing his cock deeper down your throat with each thrust. Your tears fell freely now and you could see red smears of your lipstick decorating his shaft.

You moaned around him, your face wet with spit and tears and you could only imagine how wrecked you looked. Tsukishima let out a string of curses under his breath, jerking his hips upward to meet your mouth.

"Shit, fuck, just like that, baby. Fuck yes just like that…fuck gonna cum, gonna cum…" His eyes were screwed shut and you could see the blush enveloping his face, small drops of sweat running down. You forced yourself to take him as deep as possible, gagging on his cock.

With a loud moan, Tsukishima exploded inside your mouth. You could feel the hot ropes of cum sliding down your throat and you whimpered as you swallowed all of him down. 

You finally released him from your lips, strings of saliva connecting you to his cock. He pulled you up, pressing a kiss to you. 

"Fuck that was incredible." He whispered, wiping the smeared mess off your face. You felt something poking your thigh and realized he was still hard.

He looked at you and chuckled.

"Yeah turns out being an athlete gives you stamina." he said teasingly before pushing you up against the wall. “Don’t tell me you think I’m done with you yet.”

His fingers slid down your body, roughly tugging down your bra. He buried his face in your chest, biting and sucking on your tits, grazing over the hardened buds with his teeth. While he busied his mouth, his hands continued down, circling the wetness on your panties.

“You want this, pretty girl? You this wet for me?”  he whispered, before easing a finger into your soaking hole. You threw your head back. His fingers were long and slender and hit the deepest parts of you. He began to roll his thumb over your clit softly, listening to your quiet moans. He pressed another finger inside you, fucking you on them in preparation for his cock. Your arousal dripped down his wrist and his mouth watered thinking of your taste. Soon, he wanted to bury himself between your thighs, making you cream on his tongue over and over. But that would have to wait.

“Fuck...Tsukishima...I need, I need your cock. Please, please, please.” you panted, almost like a prayer.

“Say my name, pretty girl. Tell me who’s cock you need. Do that for me baby.” He grinned, working a third finger into you.

“Fuck...Kei...please, please Kei. Fuck me. Need your cock, Kei.” You pleaded, your body ablaze with your imminent high.

“Such a good girl.” He smirked, before pulling his fingers out abruptly. You whined as you clenched around nothing, but not for long as he pressed his cock to your entrance.

“Look at me.” He demanded. You looked up at him. Your hair and makeup were ruined, your eyes lidded with desire. Your lips were puffy and parted, whimpers of his name falling from your lips like a mantra as you begged for him. You were so goddamn beautiful.

He gripped your thighs, spreading you open, and slammed himself inside you. You swore you could feel the walls behind you shake. He pistoned his cock in and out of you, each thrust hitting deeper spots. You felt like you were breaking in half and coming together at the same time. 

“Fuck Kei!!! Feels so fucking good.” You cried into his neck. You could taste the sweat on his skin as he gave all of himself to you.

“So tight, pretty girl. So fucking tight. God you’re so fucking perfect.” He panted into your hair, as he dug his fingertips into your plush thighs. 

Your eyes rolled back, stars dancing in your vision. Your cunt clamped down around him, squeezing around his cock tightly. His balls slapped against your ass as he buried himself deeper and deeper into you. You were rapidly approaching your climax, each thrust taking you higher and higher.

Kei bit down on your shoulder, his movements sloppier as he neared his own release. You could feel his body tense, his shoulder muscles flexing under your fingers. 

“Cum with me, please y/n. Please pretty girl, cum with me.” He groaned into your ear, and his voice sent you over the edge.

“Oh god, fuck….Kei!” You screamed, and he quickly swallowed your shouts with a kiss. You could feel his cock twitch inside you, unloading streams of cum as your pussy milked every last drop from him. Your combined juices coated the tops of your thighs and you held each other for dear life, both of you gasping for air.

Your legs threatened to give out underneath you and he held you closer, pressing soft kisses to your hair, whispering inaudible words of praise. Your body melted in his touch and the two of you stood there for what felt like hours, but must have only been minutes.

Your phone chimed from the pocket of your labcoat, drawing the both of you from your post-coital haze.

“Shit, tour in twenty minutes.” The two of you scrambled to get dressed and you checked your face in your phone camera.

“Fuck I can’t give a tour looking like this!” You panicked, wiping furiously at your face. Tsukishima laughed, before producing a box of tissues from a shelf behind you. 

“I’ll grab some water, though I must say it’s a damn shame since you look so beautifully fucked out.” He teased, before adjusting his tie and walking out. He returned quickly with a water bottle  and you attempted to make yourself somewhat presentable, to his sarcastic yet sweet commentary.

As the two of you prepared to leave the room, he glanced down at you. 

“So, dinner tonight?”

You grinned. 

“Sure Dino Boy.”

-------

Bonus:

The two of you left the room as nonchalantly as possible, though still a little disheveled from dressing in a dark closet. A booming voice rang out.

“There you two are! Your tour is just about to start, Y/N!” Mr. Hashimoto motioned for you to head to greet the group. As you walked away (and Kei attempted to not stare at your ass), Mr. Hashimoto turned to Kei.

“You know, Mr. Tsukishima. Red is quite a good look for you.” 

[kylos]

Finding high quality film/tv rips, saving the large files, and screencapping them are half the battle for gifmakers when setting out to make a gifset. Here’s a little guide on this process, including my advice on

Where to download stuff

Where to store your movies/shows

Screencapping programs

Making gifs as HQ as possible, including tips for picking out what to download when you have multiple options (not all 1080p rips of the same movie or tv episode are the same quality and I explain why)

Why screencaps of 4k movies can look weird and washed out and how to fix that

and more

✨ You can find my gifmaking 101 tutorial here and the rest of my tutorials here.

Where can I download movies and shows?

First off, I prefer direct downloading rather than torrenting stuff because it’s faster and with torrenting, there’s more of a risk. Other people downloading the same torrent can see your IP address. This means movie studios can find out you’re downloading their content and can send you a warning letter. The download speed also varies depending on how many other people are seeding it. I would only do it if it’s your only option and you have a VPN or something.

This is THE best guide for pirating I’ve ever seen. I use it for finding sites for books, music, you name it. The part of the guide you’d want to look at is where it says Direct Downloads Link (DDL) sites. My favorite place is Snahp. These ddl sites will have links to their movie/tv rips that are typically hosted on one of these two sites: google drive or mega.nz. You can download stuff from both of those sites for free, but with mega, they have a 5GB file download limit unless you have a premium account. I personally pay the $5 a month membership for mega because it’s worth it imo. You can buy a subscription through the mega app found on the iphone app store (so you’re billed through apple and it’s less scary than giving a random site your credit card info lmao) and as for androids I think mega has an app on there too.

So basically, if you go to http://snahp.it, they’ll have rips for different movies and shows.

You click on the movie title and it’ll take you to a page where they have links for the video which they have uploaded on a variety of sites (including mega).

How do I make my gifs as HQ as possible?

It’s best to gif things that are 1080p. And usually the higher the file size, the better. A really important thing to note is that not all 1080p bluray rips are the same. The piracy groups that rip these files take uncompressed .mkv rips from discs that are anywhere from 10gb to like 50gb, and then run that through video converters to compress the file down so that they’re 2-8gb. Sometimes when that happens, the video quality goes down a LOT. The same goes for TV episodes. One rip could be 800mb, the other could be 3gb and both could claim to be “1080p” but the quality would be NOTICEABLY different. Your best bet is to always pick the rip with the highest file size.

I’ll show you an example with this scene from You’ve Got Mail.

I downloaded 2 different 1080p rip versions of the film. Both claim to be 1080p, but one is 2.41 GB and the other is 9.75 GB. After taking screencaps, it’s obvious that there’s a BIG difference in quality.

(these pictures are best viewed on desktop tumblr)

When it comes to Blu-ray rips, download remux versions of films and shows if possible. Remux means .mkv files that are uncompressed and straight from a Blu-Ray disc. Giffing remux rips cuts down on the possibility of seeing pixel-y effects a LOT in my experience. It’ll take a bit longer to download than typical 1080p rips but it’s worth it imo.

For TV episodes, if you can’t find a Blu-Ray rip, uploads with the word AMZN in it are usually the highest quality and your best bet (unless you see another upload that’s higher in file size - again: always try to pick the highest file size). 'AMZN’ means they’re from a person that ripped the episode from Amazon Prime Video.

Also, even better than 1080p is 4k (2160p). I only really recommend this though if you know you’re going to gif something up close and crop it a lot - like if it’s a big 540x540px close-up gif of a person. You’ll REALLY see the difference if it’s a 1080p vs 4k rip in that situation. I usually don’t bother with giffing 4k files unless it’s the case above because my laptop lags when taking 4k screencaps and it takes longer to load them into photoshop (4k screencaps are usually about 60mb each!)

⭐️ Another thing that’s important is making sure that when you actually make your gifs, you set them to the correct speed (.05 for movies and most shows, and .04 sometimes for reality tv and live broadcasts). Here’s my gif speed guide. Having the right gif speed is really important for making a gifset HQ. You don’t want it to look too slow or too fast.

What’s your favorite video player to take screenshots with?

MPV player, hands down. And I’ve tried a TON of programs over the years. I’ve tried KMPlayer and found that it added duplicate frames (and even missing frames) which is horrible, and I’ve tried GomPlayer which is.....I’m just gonna say it, I’m not the biggest fan of it. It’s a little overly complicated in my opinion and it has ads. If you like these programs, more power to you! Use whatever you’re comfortable using. I just like MPV the most because it doesn’t have ads, it’s simple, you can take sequential screencaps with a keyboard shortcut, and it can play 4k movies.

Screencaps I take of 4k 2160p movies look so dull and washed out, like the colors aren’t right. Why is that?

That’s because your computer can’t handle HDR 4k video files. It probably can handle SDR 4k video files, but unfortunately, 99% of 4k rips out there are HDR.

[picture source]

Now, HDR displays just fine on computers that have 4k-HDR capabilities, but most older computers don’t have this ability. Having said that, MPV - the video player I mentioned above can take a 4K-HDR video and fix the colors/lighting in real time so it displays correctly AND take screenshots of it with the fixed colors. If you have an older version of MPV, make sure you download the newest update for this. In my general gifmaking tutorial, there’s a portion on how to install this program on macs. I also just made a video tutorial on how to install it on pcs here!

High quality TV and Movie rips can take up a LOT of space on my computer. Where do you store your files?

I store them on external hard drives. External hard drives are like flash drives but they have a MUCH higher storage capacity. You just plug them into your computer via a usb cord when you need access to the files and it’s that easy. I have two of these Seagate 4TB hard drives in different colors so I can easily pick out whichever one I need. I have silver for my movies (because it makes me think of “silver screen” lmao and it’s easier for me to remember) and then I just have a blue for shows. Now, external hard drives of this size can be $$$$ but it’s worth it imo. Look out for when they’re on sale.

What’s the size limit for gifs now?

It’s 10mb! It used to be 3mb and then last year Tumblr upped it to 5mb. Some gifs initially had distortion because of Tumblr’s switch from the .gif to .gifv format, but they’ve fixed the problem AND increased the upload limit to 10mb.  Just make sure not to add any lossy to a gif.

Lossy is basically a grain you can add to a gif to lower the file size down. Gifmakers (including myself) used to use this as a trick to get the file size down under 3mb. However, since the .gifv update on Tumblr, any gifs with Lossy added will look distorted like it’s a gif made on a phone app or something.

_________________________________

That’s it for this guide! Again, feel free to check out my other tutorials on photoshop, how to center subtitles, download hq movie trailers, and more ✌️

UPDATE 6/23/20 ⚠️

I’ve gotten an ask about this problem 3 times since I’ve uploaded this tutorial, so I thought I’d add this in. If you are experiencing duplicate and/or missing frames in mpv, it is a glitch with the latest version of mpv. download an older version like 0.29.0. this happened to me on my mac and downloading an older version fixed the problem.

[shepherd-of-the-stars]

Artificial

My submission for @hetabang​ ! Hope you like it! 

Word count: 3,590

Summary: Novovol, Russia, the 36th century. The people of this new age have formed two distinct societies: those of the upper world, high in the sky in pearly cities, and those of the lower world, living on junkyard scraps and breathing polluted air. These societies, both run on fear and power, were meant to forever stay separate. But one night, an android fell from the sky and broke through the barrier that divided them. An android who has no memory, not even his own name, programmed to be a companion, but also a guard. His weapons system had been upgraded illegally, and without proper maintenance, could prove to be dangerous and unstable. Ivan, one of the best mechanics of the lower world, fixes him up and gives him a name; Alfred. Together, they go on an adventure, discovering things about their world, themselves, and their feelings.

Chapter summary: Ivan ventures into the junkyard to dig through the heaps for useful treasures, his almost nightly activity. One wild decision changes the course of his life. 

Warnings: brief mentions of death and bodies, hints at abuse(through scars)

Rating: T (to be changed)

Chapter 1: Hell’s Wasteland

The cold night air did wonders in smothering the noxious scents that blanketed the junkyard like a fog. While the sun’s heat cooked them and made them more powerful, nighttime forced them into hiding. The stench of death and rusted metal was enough to make a normal person retch, but Ivan frequented the location often enough that it was nothing but a minor nuisance. 

With his scarf pulled up to cover his nose and goggles to protect his eyes from the chemicals and dust, he weaved through the heaps of filth, looking for treasures hidden amongst the trash. His mechanical pack mule followed behind him dutifully with its heavy, steel feet making square indents in the hard dirt. The droid was bulky and large, similar to the size of its namesake, but its well oiled parts allowed it to move silently. The only noise that came from it was when the luggage it carried clashed into each other inside the bins on its back. 

This machine, that Ivan had built from scraps and named Buster, carried his maker's oddments so that Ivan could dig through the heaps freely. Every couple feet, the man stopped to poke through the collection of garbage and junk to pick out pieces that he could use for his work. There was a time when he'd jump at every eerie thing he found, but after years of coming here, those things only made his heart skip just a little. 

Spotting a human-like leg sticking out from a pile, Ivan scanned it with his device and waited. "Artificial, 20% damage," it said, allowing Ivan to release his breath and drag the limb out so he could toss it into his bins. He had learned the hard way that it was better to be safe than to drag out a corpse. 

It was one of the reasons the place was nicknamed "Hell's Wasteland." Broken androids tossed out here made it look like the place was littered with human bodies. The gangs saw that as an opportunity and began to dispose of their enemies here, hence the smell of decay. No one but vultures like Ivan went through here. No one would ever see. And even if someone did, the law would never listen to someone who only had 2 sets of clothes and ate crumbs for meals. 

What was once a scrap yard had now turned into a dumping ground. After the owners had disappeared, no one was left to take over. Local rumors said that the owners were still on the land, buried under rotten food and broken refrigerators. “If you listen closely, you can hear them crying,” they would say, “they’re waiting for someone to rescue them. But once you get close enough, they’ll snatch your body and use it as their own.”

But Ivan knew better than to listen to wild stories of ghosts and possession. He knew after many visits that it was the cries of cats. When they yowled in the night, it sounded like a child who had lost their guardian, or perhaps someone who was in pain. And since they ran away at the slightest sound, it was no surprise many people have never seen the source of the sound. 

Just then, that exact sound that people dreaded hearing pierced through the air and struck Ivan’s heart with chilling fear. He knew it was only a cat, but even the bravest of men would flinch at a shrill noise breaking silence. Head tilted towards the night sky, he listened, waiting for the sound to meet him again. 

When it came, he followed it with the stealth of an assassin. Even the slightest disturbance could send them running, and Ivan didn’t want to miss his chance of seeing a cute cat. 

With every step, he drew closer, which meant the cat had not discovered him yet. Maybe this time he would be able to catch it and bring it home. Then again, his budget could barely support his sisters and himself. To add another mouth to feed, that would leave them eating out of the dumpster. But one could dream. A small part of him hoped that the soft clanging of metal in Buster’s bins scared the cat away so he wouldn’t have false hope. 

But things never seemed to turn out his way. As he peeked out from behind an overturned car, he spotted the cat that had been yowling for attention and finally understood why it had not run. 

What he saw was an unfortunate black cat stuck in a discarded raccoon trap, its paw reaching out past the bars in an attempt to open the spring doors. Ivan approached it slowly, his large body hunched over in an attempt to make himself smaller for the cat. The mental image of himself looking like a crooked, old witch approaching their animal apprentice crossed his mind and made him smile. 

“Don’t scratch me, please,” he whispered after tugging down his scarf, “I’m just trying to help you.”

Back arched and hairs standing straight, the cat was not happy at all that such a big creature was so close while it was defenseless. It hissed and swatted at Ivan’s hands when he got too close, but eventually, the human proved to be trustworthy. 

He didn’t make any sudden movements, and for that, the small creature was thankful. Slowly, it relaxed, pressing itself against the corner of the cage instead of trying to shred Ivan’s helping hand. 

“You’re very beautiful. I will call you Novi. Do you like that?” He smiled down at the black cat that stared at him with wide, wary eyes. The cage jolted and clicked when it was finally opened and the cat took off with such speed, he could see bits of the ground scatter as her claws tore it up. 

Ivan let out a soft grunt of disappointment watching her disappear behind a pile of garbage bags. “What? No ‘thank you’? That’s a little bit rude.” He chuckled at his own silliness before walking back over to his droid. “Did you get that, Buster?” 

Those keywords made the droid open his sealed mouth with a click. Ivan reached between the spiked teeth to grab a cord to connect to his phone while Buster’s eyes flashed red to verify his identity. They turned blue when the iris scan passed the test, his tail wagging as his defense mode was disengaged. Only Ivan, his sisters, and people he approved had access to Buster’s security files. If anyone else had tried it, the jaws would clamp shut with enough force to take their hand clean off their body.  

With a few taps, he was able to see what his droid’s eyes had recorded. Crystal clear footage of Ivan interacting with the cat popped up on his screen. The quality was good enough that Ivan could pause and zoom in on it just to get a closer look. He took a screenshot and smiled.

“Send this image to Kat. Caption it, ‘rescued a cat from a raccoon cage. Named it Novi. Can I keep it?’ Message complete.” He continued to scrub through the video as he waited for the droid to do as he said. 

The droid went completely still for a few seconds then moved his head in a nodding motion once it was done. He spoke in a human-like voice with a slight mechanical buzz. “Message sent to Kat: Rescued a cat from a raccoon cage. Named it Novi. Can I keep it? Image attached.” 

“Good boy.” Ivan pat him on the head twice before disconnecting the cord and tapping his chin, making his steel jaws slam shut. Turning to the left, he began to return to his previous task but Buster stood firm. 

“Novi spotted.” 

Ivan stopped, turning back to the droid. “What?” 

“Novi spotted,” he repeated, looking straight ahead. 

He followed the eyes of his droid until he saw what his target was. There, standing on top of an old monitor, was Novi. Her tail swayed in the air playfully, as if waiting for Ivan to notice. “Are you back to thank me?” He asked the question as if he expected an answer.

Novi stared at him, completely still except her tail, then she blinked and hopped off the pile of scraps. Ivan had expected her to run a second time, but she turned back to look at him and waited. 

“Buster,” he said, his eyes not leaving the cat.

The droid chimed once. 

“Choice: Follow, or don’t follow.” 

The droid chimed twice. “Choice: Follow, or don’t follow. I choose follow.” 

Ivan hesitated. “Buster, what’s my luck today?” 

Two chimes again. “Your luck today is amazing! Who knows what will happen when you take a chance!” 

“Take a chance,” he repeated under his breath. Every fiber of his being was screaming to him that this was just like the start of a horror movie, but he took a deep breath and began walking towards the cat. “Maybe she will show me her kittens. Yes. This will be good. I have good luck today.” 

Even as he told himself this, his hands were cold and clammy from nervousness. A black cat on a full moon wanted to lead him somewhere. It didn’t seem like a good sign. Any rational person would ignore this stray animal. It could be a trap. Maybe demons. Or maybe Ivan was just being too superstitious. 

Several times, he had attempted to turn the other direction, thinking that following a cat was just too silly, but every time Ivan tried, Novi would walk back over to Ivan and stare. Waiting. Whatever it was Novi was trying to show him, it must be important. 

“Alright alright, I’m following,” he muttered after a fourth attempt to escape. 

They were nearing the center of the junkyard now. The piles here were stacked so high, even Ivan had to crane his neck to catch only a small glimpse of what was at the top. 

He tended to avoid this area. Located directly below the highway, it was a popular spot to toss things over the side. If one wasn’t careful, they could be crushed flat by someone tossing out their garbage. It was also very unstable. One misstep could cause the garbage to topple like an avalanche, and if one was alone, once they were buried, that would be the end. 

“I don’t think I can follow you further, Novi.” Ivan watched as the cat hopped gracefully on the pile, her light body barely making the objects move. But for Ivan, every step he took made garbage tumble down the sides. 

The foolish human had already come this far on his quest, and he didn't want to waste it by turning back. But one wrong step made his foot slip into the pile, a broken beer bottle cutting into his leg. It wasn't deep, but it was enough to make him hiss and stain his torn pants with blood. 

Maybe it was a sign that he should stop trying to climb this mountain of garbage. The wound on his leg was small, but if it wasn't treated, it could cause an infection. “I’m sorry but this is the end of our little adventure. My sister will be very angry if I die trying to follow a cat.” 

Of course, Novi gave no response. She only stared at him a while longer, looked at the highway above, then took off. At first, Ivan thought that perhaps she had run off because she knew Ivan would no longer follow, but the sound of a car door slamming shut told him otherwise. 

“Oh no.” He looked up at the highway, spotting two men approaching the side, working together to carry something heavy. Ivan shouted for them to stop as he scrambled to get to the bottom, but they couldn’t hear him. From the highway to the ground was a drop almost a hundred feet. His pleads would never reach them. And even if they did, they wouldn’t care. 

Ivan had only caught a glimpse of what looked like an old sofa being chucked over the edge  before the impact of it crashing down into the pile caused everything to topple over. Like a mudslide, everything on the top layer tumbled to the ground, Ivan included. 

He did what he could to protect himself as he fell; his limbs cut and bruised as he tried to shield his head. There was nothing he could hold on to. Nothing was stable. It only stopped when everything pooled on the ground, adding to the mountain’s size. 

Buster, who had stayed on the ground while Ivan chose to climb, ran over to the spot his maker was buried. He dug him out as fast as he could, then dragged Ivan to the side where he’d be able to avoid the damage of falling garbage. 

“Are you okay?” What Buster got wasn’t an answer to his question, but a smack on his metal head. “Ow.” 

“You liar. You said I have good luck!” He hissed as he stood up. His clothing was torn in several places and his body was covered in filth. 

Buster tilted his head to the side in confusion. “Luck readings are chosen randomly from choices you programmed into my system. If you are not satisfied with your reading, please ask ag-... Ow.” The droid was cut short when his maker smacked him again. 

“Maybe if I rebooted you, you won’t be so sassy.” 

“My personality is also programmed by you.” 

“Stop talking.” 

“Silent mode: On.” 

Ivan sighed when the droid went silent. He knew it was his own fault for following a cat into such dangerous territory. Now he had to go home and tell his sister that he needed to borrow money to buy a new set of clothes. At least his scarf was okay.

He wrapped the piece of cloth back to how it was when he started his hunt and tended to all the cuts with the first aid kit kept inside his droid. Then, pretending like nothing had happened, he went back to digging through the rubble. If he was going to ask Kat for money, the least he could do was sell a couple more of his projects to earn it back. And to do that, he needed the parts. 

The more he looked and the more he collected, he was beginning to believe that perhaps Buster’s reading was correct. While this area was dangerous and risky, it also held the freshest picks. He had collected so much scrap metal and spare parts that the bins grew full. 

Dozens of different projects zipped through his mind. He could make a small pet droid. Maybe a drone. Or maybe he could invent something brand new! He could be rich! 

A noise from the highway above only added to his excitement. He took a couple steps back from the pile, just to be safe, then watched to see what the people would toss over. “Come on. Give me something good.” 

All he could see were dark figures, but the mystery of it made his heart race. It all stopped when he saw the discarded object reveal itself in the moonlight as it fell. “No way…” 

Like before, the impact of the tossed object caused the pile to crumble. Anything on the surface was buried once again, but Ivan’s eyes were locked on the new addition. 

He waited until the trash had settled and the men above had left before dashing over to where the object was resting. It was buried under bags of garbage and electronic trash, but Ivan had found it. It was broken and damaged, but it was unmistakably an android. 

“What a beauty,” he said to himself as he admired the human-like machine. If it wasn’t for the broken skin revealing metal underneath, Ivan would have thought it was a human. 

The body was built to be male, a strong one too, and it had a head of long, blond hair with a firm but pretty face. The model wasn’t one Ivan has seen in the catalogs either, so it must be custom built. Which also meant it was an expensive model. The more expensive the model, the more he could sell it for. 

“Let’s see… Are you still active?” He waved a hand in front of the android’s lifeless face but gained no reaction. Snapping his fingers to try and wake it by sound did not work either. But when his hand made contact with its silicon skin, its eyes snapped open and locked on Ivan. 

Ivan jumped back quickly when blue eyes flashed red. “W-wait!” He snatched up whatever he could to protect himself. Unfortunately, his weapon of choice turned out to be a bent pole. “I’m friendly. I promise.” 

The android stared at him for a long time. Ivan could hear the whir of his engine as his system tried to determine whether or not Ivan was a threat. Several times, his eyes had gone dark only to flash back on again seconds later. 

“Battery failure,” he whispered as a mental note, “but reaction is good.” That brought a smile to his face. With a couple quick fixes, he could have this android good as new and sell him for thousands. So no matter how long it would take, he waited. 

He waited, with an eager smile, until the android relaxed his body, his eyes dimming down to a natural blue. “Identify yourself,” he spoke. His voice box was damaged, making his speech sound like he was speaking through a static tube. 

"My name is Ivan. I won't hurt you," he keeps his voice calm and quiet like he had with Novi. Now that the android had calmed, he lowered his weapon and came closer until he was within his arm’s reach. 

Ivan had opened his mouth to speak again, but the android’s arm shot forward and grabbed his scarf. He pulled the human down until Ivan was staring into flickering blue eyes. “Who… am I?” 

"I don't know. We've only just met. But I can find out." Dig through his memory files, erase them, reboot him, sell. 

"Are you ICON?" The android spoke the word as if he didn’t know the meaning. 

“ICON?” Ivan paused, his train of thought halting. "I'm Ivan, not ICON. What is ICON?"

He was silent and still for a while, making Ivan believe that it was another system malfunction. But since he had continued to blink, Ivan knew it was just his mind trying desperately to process an answer. "I... don't know. My limbs are damaged. I don't believe I can walk."

"I can take you to my home.” He took a step to the side, gesturing to Buster. “I can fix you. Would you like that?"

"I lack the currency required. At least... I believe I do..." His eyes moved sluggishly from Ivan to the droid, then back again. 

"I don’t require currency. Only your permission. Will you allow me to fix you?"

The android grew silent again, then slowly, he nodded. “Okay.” 

"I'm going to pick you up now. Is that alright?" 

"... I give you permission," he nodded again, "but become a threat and you're dead."

Ivan gave the android a nod in return before he slowly moved the junk off of him. It wasn’t until all of it was cleared that he realized the reason the android couldn’t move. 

His left arm and both of the android’s legs were marked with plasma burns. The damage of it melted through the synthetic skin, past the metal plating, and scorched the circuits underneath. The pattern of the injury looked like it was done with a rope, or perhaps a whip, wrapped several times around each damaged limb. Thoughts of fixing and reselling the android quickly began to fade. Not even a machine deserved to be treated like this. The rich were truly inhumane. 

“Does it hurt?” 

"Of course it hurts," he gave him a puzzled look, "but that doesn't matter."

"It does matter. You shouldn't suffer. Do you want me to power you down? I promise I'll turn you on again when you're safe. It’s so you won't suffer any pain when I move you."

The android frowned, his face scrunched up in distrust. "How can I trust you?"

"I guess you'll just have to. But I won't force you to agree." 

The android had no reason to trust Ivan. They had only just met. If Ivan was a dishonest person, he could shut Alfred down, take him apart, and resell every piece for a good price. Both parties knew that. But Buster had predicted that today was Ivan's lucky day, and that prediction showed to be true. The android, who couldn’t even process his own memories, had decided to trust him. 

“Fine,” he said, his voice soft. “Turn… turn me off. But I’m trusting you.” 

"You're making the right decision. I'll speak to you again soon. I’m turning you off now." He reached forward slowly, praying that the android wouldn’t activate his defenses once again. His fingers felt around the back of his neck until he grazed across a circular dent. 

For a second, his fingers rested there as he stared into the android’s eyes. He recognized the fear, the panic and uncertainty, but if Ivan was going to move him without hurting him, he would need to be shut down. 

“You can trust me,” Ivan reassured him. 

Then slowly, the android’s eyes slipped shut. 

[vinylackles]

lyndsey’s first ever gif tutorial!!!

hello world, it’s me, lynds! by request, I’m gonna walk you through how I make my gifs! I’m going to just show a basic gif tutorial (like the one below). This tutorial will walk through the steps of getting the footage, creating the gif, editing it with some minimal coloring, and then exporting! :) let me know if you have any questions, I hope you enjoy!

I use the following programs:

Photoshop CS6 (mac download tutorial) 

QuickTime Player

let’s get started!!!

step one: find what you want to gif

For me, my first stop is almost always netflix. I make supernatural gifs, and I am lucky enough to have 13 seasons right at my fingertips. But Lyndsey, how do you get netflix video onto your laptop?! Well, that’s where QuickTime Player comes into play. For purposes of this tutorial, I’m going to gif a nice little family hug from episode 12x22. So first step, find the part you want to gif and pause the video about 10 seconds before you would want your gif to start, and make it full screen . Like so:

It’s important to start the recording before the actual first gif frame because you want all the extra things to go away (the play button, the rating that pops up in the right corner, etc) before you get to the actual moment you want to gif.

step two: begin recording

Open up QuickTime Player. On mac, it should pop up in your toolbar. A quick trick I use is to do a spotlight search (Command + Spacebar) and search for Quicktime Player. This will begin to run the program. Two finger click on the icon, and a small menu will pop up. It should look like this

Select New Screen Recording. A box should pop up on your screen that looks like this:

Click the red record button. Another box will appear that looks like this:

Click anywhere on your screen and boom! Your laptop is recording your entire screen! Now you can swipe over to your browser tab and it will continue recording your show as you watch! Make sure you move your mouse so all those annoying menus and things go away and it’s just the show on your screen.

Once you have finished recording the whole part you want to gif (make sure it’s short!!), swipe back over and open the menu again. It will have changed slightly to look like this:

Click on Stop Screen Recording. A box will appear where you can play the video you just recorded. Now, click the red x to exit the window that just appeared (trust me on this one) and it will bring up a new box like so:

Title your clip whatever you like and save it wherever! Now you have your clip! Hoorah for you, you’re doing great!!!

step three: getting it into photoshop

Now we’re ready to make our actual gif! Yay! Open up photoshop and then click on File -> Import -> Video Frames to Layers like so:

A new window will pop up where you can browse through your files. Go find the video clip you just recorded and select it. Now, your screen should look like this:

I always select the “Limit to Every 2 Frames” option to fit more content into my gif. I also toggle until I find only the part I want to gif (since we had to record a little extra to get to rid of the menu bars and such. Do this by dragging the small, dark pieces below the gray line until the image you’re looking for pops up on the little mini screen. Make sure to do both sides! Then, press okay!

step four: finding duplicate frames

No technology is perfect, but photoshop is far from it. Often, there are duplicate frames in gifs, which makes them look choppy and sad :( So, after completing step three your screen should look like this:

All the little boxes at the bottom are frames, while the list on the side are the layers. We’ll worry about the layers later. For now, click through each individual frame one by one, and if you find a duplicate, delete it (click the little trashcan below all the frames)! 

tip: I’m not sure if this is universal, but in my program, every fifth frame is a duplicate. idk why. but, I can go through and delete frames until one of the duplicates are on a multiple of 5 (i.e, frame 15 and 16 are the same) and then I select all the ‘5′ frames (Hit command and click frame 15, then frame 20, then frame 25 and so on and so forth). It minimizes the constant clicking. But, this might be confusing to some, so if it doesn’t make sense, just click through and delete the duplicates!

step five: cropping

Now that all those pesky frames are gone, it’s time to crop! Select the crop tool from the side toolbar (it’s selected in the next frame) and drag until you’re satisfied with what you have! 

tip: for individual gifs, it doesn’t matter too much, but if you’re doing gifsets, they need to all be the same size. I recommend using one of the preset ratios, which you can find if you click on “unconstrained” in the top left hand corner 

Now, it looks like this! Double click and it will crop the image to the selected size!

step six: coloring

Now comes the fun part! Coloring/Adjustments! For me, I usually up the brightness, lower the contrast and lower the saturation. I will post the settings I used below:

Make sure these layers are above all your other ones (you can drag them up to change the order). This is totally up to you! Click the buttons and mess around, see what they all do! You can always delete the layer you created and your gif will go back to normal :) 

step seven: frames per second

The final step before export for me is to change the frames per second. By default, mine go to .02 seconds, which is much too fast. The frame rate is shown at the bottom of the frames. I usually set my gifs to .07 seconds. The easiest way to that is to select all frames, by clicking on the small menu on your timeline (the little three lines with the arrow in the top right corner)

And then select “select all frames” from the menu. This will highlight all your frames! Next, click on one of the arrows (next to the timestamp) on any of your frames. A window will appear like so:

Click on “other...” and type in “.07″

Now we’re ready for export! Woo hoo!!

step eight: export

This is the most tedious, and my least favorite part of gifing. Sigh. Anyways, first you will go back to file and open the menu, then select “Save for Web”

The next page it will bring you to is very important:

The most important part of this window is the GIF size, shown here:

Tumblr has a gif size of 3M, so obviously this gif is way too big. Never fear! It’s time to change the image size. If you just change the width, it will keep your gif in proportion and minimize the size. I changed my width to 475px, and now we are at 2.763M, which means we’re good to go for tumblr!

Now, it’s time to save! it will automatically save as a .gif file, and you’re golden! time to upload your beautiful creation to tumblr!

I hope you found this helpful, please like it or reblog it if it helped, mainly so I don’t feel like I did all this for nothing haha. Happy gifing everyone!!! -lynds

[moddersinc]

Patriot Viper VPN100 PCIe M.2 SSD Review

Before keyboards, mice and other accessories, Patriot was a flash memory based company. It originally started with RAM and then started to release USB flash drives and eventually started producing SSDs and gaming peripherals. Patriot's Viper product line is considered their top of the line products and meant for those discerning consumers that demand the best.  The Viper VPN100 PCIe M.2 SSD is Patriots next entry into the M.2 PCIe drive market. The VPN100 comes in capacities from 256GB all the way to 2 TB and is covered by a 3-year warranty.  This drive features a massive heatsink and the drive boasts a 3450 MB/s read speed and 3000 MB/s write speed. The VPN100 uses the latest Phison E12 controller that is PCIe Gen 3 x 4 capable and supports the latest NVMe 1.3 specification.   FEATURES: • Phison E12 Controller • 2280 M.2 PCIe Gen3 x 4, NVMe 1.3 • DRAM Cache: 512MB • External Thermal sensor • Heatshield design • Extreme high performance • Operating Temperature - 0° ~ 70°C • TBW: 800TB • 4K Aligned Random Read: up to 700K IOPs • 4K Aligned Random Write: up to 480K IOPs • Sequential Read (ATTO): up to 3,300MB/s • Sequential Write (ATTO): up to 2,200MB/S • Sequential Read (CDM): up to 3,300MB/s • Sequential Write (CDM): up to 2,200MB/s • O/S Supported: Windows® 7*/8.0*/8.1/10 *May require driver Packaging Patriot's packaging for the Viper VPN100 is eye-catching. On the front of the box, there is a large graphic of the drive. The actual drive capacity is noted by a sticker also located on the front. The back fo the box contains the specifications of the drive in multiple languages. There's also a front flap that can be opened. Inside the flap, Patriot gives you some information on why the company thinks this drive is the one for you as well as goes into a little more detail on the cooling features of the drive. On the opposite side, you can get a peek at the actual drive housed in a plastic shell.

Upon opening the box, you'll be presented with a plastic shell with the Viper VPN100 drive encased within.

A Closer Look at the Patriot Viper VPN100 The most prominent feature on the drive is the large heatsink applied on top of the controller and memory ICs. The heatsink is made of aluminum and features 10 vertical slots for airflow and the Viper logo in the center.

  From the side profile, you can see the heatsink is fairly tall on the Viper VPN100, measuring in at 10mm. That's great for everyone except for those that would like to put this in their laptop. In most cases, this drive won't fit.

On the back of the drive, Patriot put a sticker indicating the drive's capacity and other pertinent information. You can see here that our test sample is the 512 GB version.

After initial testing, I decided to pull the heatsink off the VPN100 to get a look at the controller and memory ICs below. The picks that come in the iFixIt kit were essential to removing the heatsink. I slid the pick between the heatsink and and the modules below it. Good lord, whatever thermal pad they used took forever to clean off from the ICs. Using some isopropyl alcohol and some elbow grease, I still wasn't able to get all of the adhesive off of the ICs. It was stuck on pretty well.

The Viper VPN100 has ICs on only one side. The controller, DRAM, and flash are all located under the heat sink.

The controller for the Viper VPN100 is the newest Phison PS5012-E12 controller. The controller is PCIe 3.0X4 with NVMe 1.3 protocol support.  The E12 (non-c variant) can support up to a max capacity of 8 TB. Sequential speeds of 3200 MB/s read and 3000 MB/s write can be obtained using this controller.

Two 256GB 64-layer BICS 3D triple-level cell chips labeled TCBBG55A1 which, are manufactured by Toshiba. The write endurance is rated at 800 TB which is pretty massive for a 512 GB SSD.

Finally, the DRAM is a Nanya 512MB memory chip that is used for caching.

Test Setup & Results Component Product Name Provided By Processor Intel Core i7-8700K (Retail) Intel Motherboard Aorus Z390 Pro Gigabyte Memory G.Skill SniperX 2x8GB @ 3400MHz 16-16-16-36 (XMP) G.Skill Drive  Patriot Viper VPN100 512 GB NVMe SSD, Samsung 240 EVO 256GB SSD Patriot/Samsung Video Card Zotac Geforce GTX 1080 mini Zotac Monitor BenQ EL2870U 28 inch 4K HDR Gaming Monitor 3840×2160 @ 60 Hz Case DimasTech EasyXL DimasTech Power Supply Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W Cooler Master Operating System Windows 10 x64 Pro with latest patches and updates All of these tests were performed before I removed the heatsink. Additional testing was done after the heatsink was removed. The first round of benchmarks was run with an empty drive. The second round of benchmarks was run with the drive over 75% full. Each benchmark was run three times and we recorded the best overall scores for this review. There were no less than 20 minutes between each benchmark to give the drive time to cool down and rest. A quick side note. The threaded Q-depth tests on the Anvils Storage Utilities named the drive as a Toshiba drive, However, it had the correct letter and capacity. ATTO Disk Benchmark The ATTO Disk Benchmark utility was designed to measure regular disk drive performance.  However, its more than capable of measuring both USB flash drive and SSD speeds as well. The utility measures disk performance rates for various sizes of files and displays the results in a bar chart showing read and write speeds at each file size. The results are displayed in megabytes per second Both the fresh out of box and the 75% capacity tests are almost identical with the 75% test just barely ahead. The ATTO tests were able to get extremely close to the manufactures advertised speeds.   AS SSD Benchmark AS SSD Benchmark is a simple and portable utility which helps you measure the effectiveness and performance of any solid state (SSD) drives connected to your system. It will test “Seq”, “4K”, “4K-64Thrd” and Access Time. In the end, it will give your SSD a score. 4K tests the read/write abilities by access random 4K blocks while the Sequential test measures how fast the drive can read a 1GB file. For AS SSD, we run the SSD benchmark and the Copy Benchmark. Empty Drive: 75% Capacity The AS SSD tests came back with 2247.75 MB/s read and 1984.01 MB/s write on the empty drive for the sequential tests. 4K results were 45.63 MB/s read and 117.71 on the write and earned an overall score of 5302. The tests with the drive at 75% resulted in 2250.58 MB/s read and 1982.07 MB/s write in the sequential tests. 4K resulted in 55.40 MB/s read and 146.20 MB/s write speeds with an overall score of 5302. Each of the tests fell a bit short of the manufactures stated sequential read and write speeds.   Anvil’s Storage Utilities Anvil’s Storage Utilities is a powerful performance measurement tool for both traditional hard drives and SSDs. The tool can monitor, and test read and write speeds on hard drives while also providing information from the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) that provides basic information about the disk and its parameters, including partitions and volumes. The ANVIL SSD benchmark resulted in sequential read speed of 3281.40 MB/s read speed and 1984.50MB/s write speeds on the fresh drive with an overall score of 15698.26. The VPN100 at 75% capacity yielded a result of 2301.12 MB/s read and 1984.50 MB/s write speeds and for the first time in our testing scored lower at 14835.12 overall.   CrystalDiskMark 5.2.1 CrystalDiskMark is designed to quickly test the performance of your hard drives. Currently, the program allows to measure sequential and random read/write speeds. Crystal Disk Mark is where we see the closest sequential read and write speeds to what the manufacture published. The empty drive resulted in 3469.9 MB/s read and 2101.1 MB/s write speeds. When the drive was filled up to 75% of its total capacity, the read speed came back at 3472.0 MB/s and 2105.3 MB/s on the write speed. 4K speeds were good as well at 966.7 MB/s read and 1952.7 MB/s write on the empty drive compared to 1065.3 MB/s read and 1939.8 MB/write speed when the drive is filled to 75%.   Conclusion and Final Thoughts First, let's get some additional testing out of the way. For this drive specifically, I really wondered if the heatsink was necessary. The drive is fast and from the results so far, meets the specifications listed. I reinstalled the drive in an open slot below the GPU with no heatsink installed, including the SSD covers that come with the Aorus Z390 Pro motherboard and I ran through some tests once more. The results were similar to the results that were obtained with the heatsink installed. During this test, I also pulled up AIDA 64 to monitor temperatures as the controller has a max operating temperature of 70°C. During the non-heatsink tests, I saw a max temperature of 50°C and 53°C during an extended write test using HDDTune. With the heatsink installed, I observed temperatures of 45°C during our standard test suite and an absolute max of 47°C in the extended write testing. Take into consideration these tests were performed on an open test bench and not in a standard PC case or a laptop. Even then, I would think it would be safe to say the SSD would keep temperatures down below the throttling threshold.  

  The Patriot Viper VPN100 is armed with the latest controller from Phison and the latest 3D NAND from Toshiba. The pairing results in great speeds for the drive. In my testing, I was able to easily eclipse 2 GB/s write speeds and 3 GB/s read speeds. ��  I do feel the packaging on the Viper VPN100 is slightly misleading. The box does say up to 3000 MB/s write however, that's only on the 1 and 2 TB models and yet those specifications persist on the smaller capacity drives as well. You'll have to dig into the product documentation for the actual specifications. Shame on me, as I did make the fatal mistake of believing the box vs reading the product documentation when I first started testing the drive. The Viper VPN is a fast and stable drive. I continue to try to heat it up and get it to throttle but as of yet, I have been unable to do so with the heatsink off. So, if you feel like pulling that massive hunk of aluminum off, you can slide this drive into your laptop. As of this writing, the Viper VPN512 GB model can be had for  $83 on Amazon with the 1TB slightly more at $145. Combine the pricing with the speeds and you've got a drive that is hard to beat.         Read the full article

[sabrina75602-blog]

FLAC Converter Convert FLAC To MP3

Convert FLAC to MP3. We counted how many steps every program took to complete a variety of duties and located that Xilisoft makes changing audio recordsdata easy and straightforward. It extracts audio from a wide range of video recordsdata, including MPEG WMV and MP4. The conversion and extraction process take a bit longer than one of the best packages we tested, which is not nice for converting multiple giant information. This program has a batch processing characteristic that means that you can convert a number of recordsdata with one click of the mouse. You may add results like echo and chorus and normalize volume, which is useful for coverting recordsdata taken from vinyl recordings or cassette.

DON'T DOWNLOAD THIS REPLACE. THIS IS NOW MALWARE!!!. DON'T OBTAIN. Just like the earlier reviewer, I used to be tricked into an update by software I had beforehand trusted. It seemed immediately sketchy, making an attempt to alter my browser to Yahoo! and all that b, however I continued. After I put in the software, it quit out Chrome, and after I rebooted, there was a brand new Extension put in WITHOUT MY PERMISSION - some b referred to as PremierOpinion. Further, All2Mp3 had buried PremierOpinion as password-protected software program in my Applications folder, and had set it up to run in the background all the time. If you want to burn your FLAC onto a CD and play in your CD participant you must convert them into WAV format first. 2) Is there a greater approach to do this? I am planning on uploading theflac files to the server through http and triggering the script one way or the other. Click the drop-down menu to see the obtainable quality decisions. You can choose a 320kbps choice, a 256kbps one, or lower. FLAC files usually come with top quality. Thus a 320kbps possibility will be the best one. It is the finest MP3 converter on the net. When the process has finished, the status of progress bars will display as "Accomplished", your FLAC audio information have been efficiently converted to MP3 format on Mac. Convert Files helps you exchange FLAC to MP3 file format easily. You just need to upload a FLAC file, then choose MP3 because the output file format and click on on convert. After the conversion is complete, download the converted file in MP3 format and also you also have an option to send it to your e mail for storage via a singular obtain link that no one else can entry. Step four. After these settings have been adjusted, go to File > Convert > Create the Apple Lossless Model. Select the FLAC file that you want to convert. Choose output destination to save the transformed MP3 recordsdata. After which convert FLAC to MP3 on Mac by clicking the button in lower proper corner. Second, these days, MP3 format is supported nearly by media participant. So many people are using the transportable units that may play MP3 recordsdata including CD-walkmans, dwelling stereos, DVD players, iPods, computers. In fact. Audio in MP3 format is highly appropriate, moreover, MP3 format itself is effectively-established available on the market. When you've got FLAC music information, you can complete the conversion of FLAC to MP3, and you'll take pleasure in your music in your MP3 participant. FlacSquisher is a library converter in other words, it's designed to transform complete libraries, or at the least lengthy lists of audio files, at one time. It is a quite simple setup, but additionally has some useful tool for individuals who want to run more complicated conversion filters for their music. Choose the FLAC convert possibility, and then list any file varieties in the File extension to ignore" box that you want the conversion to skip over, whereas itemizing any file sorts that you need to make copies of in the File extensions to copy" field. This allows you to flip only sure kinds of audio files to FLAC, which can be just what you are looking for. Go to the webpage of this online utility and click Browse" to decide on the FLAC file that you want to convert. Then a java applet will pop up, simply click Run" button to provide permission to run this software. Outline Title, Artist, Album, Style, Monitor or flac2mp3 Year for output MP3 files. Click on the Convert button to transform the uploaded file. FlacSquisher can convert FLAC to mp3 without losing a lot time. What this desktop app affords is the conversion of the whole library from FLAC to mp3 with out altering it is structure, which means you won't have to do the procedure for each observe or album individually. A: There is an choice to compress the file to save house if you use video converter software, but you'll get the same high quality in case of leaving it in unique size. Click on Add Information in the high-left or instantly drag and drop FLAC information to the dashboard. When deciding which audio file format is right for you, needless to say (most of the time), shopping for music in increased high quality than MP3 will cost you additional. Typically this may be upwards of seventy five cents further per track. Convert movies to audio codecs like AAC, AC3, ALAC, and extra. No matter format you like to hearken to, her response from FLAC to MP3 to WAV, bear in mind - THERE IS A DIFFERENCE. It is just inconceivable to inform this distinction if you have a combination of FLAC with a pair of hideous headphones, or even worse - a constructed-in stereo speaker. Converters that you need to pay for flac2mp3 are well fitted to lengthy-time period conversions, fiddling with sound enhancing, and dealing with strange formats. In the event you work in sound enhancing or you're critical about music, it could be worthwhile to pay for something like Xilisoft Audio Converter. Working as FLAC Encoder for Mac, it could convert and encode audio and video including AIFF, WAV, ALAC, MP3, OGG, APE, PCM, MP4, MOV, WMV, AVI, H.264, and so on to FLAC. Browse the FLAC file you want to course of by means of your techniques folder. And click Open". Make sure to mark the folder the place you set the FLAC recordsdata to simply find it. VLC's progress indicator will transfer and that implies that the audio format is being transformed. With Home windows methods, these formats require Apple Quicktime to work with Stay, which is simply accessible as a 32-bit software. On Mac programs, these codecs work with Dwell as in the event that they have been natively supported.

[otiliaarmijo94-blog]

(2.

Upload Your Music & Audio And Share It With The World. MP3 joiner to combine audio recordsdata. The complete course of from my handbook entry to its execution to exporting the list (an elective step) took lower than one minute! I barely had a chance to start my stop watch! When I played the resulting file (which was solely slightly larger than the mixed 15 information in my folder), I used to be surprised at how seamless it was, with no discernible breaks (to be truthful, I randomly chosen spots in my computer's MP3 participant program, so, although it's attainable that something, someplace inside the merged file is amiss, I seriously doubt it). Free MP3 Cutter is the most fundamental MP3 splitter program of all and hence, it offers no additional options except reducing your file. So, when you really feel that a tune is simply too lengthy and you simply can't take that size, use this instrument to trim off any irrelevant parts of the MP3 file. Also, you could discover the interface design extremely fundamental, however that on the brighter side signifies that it is uncluttered and simple enough for you to find what you are searching for. Magic Audio Merger can merge audio information in several codecs collectively. This requires a format conversion. Magic Audio Merger performs quick, excessive-high quality, on-the-fly conversion between different audio formats and compression codecs. No need to convert the clips you merge into a single format; Magic Audio Merger will do this utterly robotically. X2X Free Video Audio Merger is a superb instrument within the occasion that several totally different information have to be seamlessly joined together. Most of the processes contained inside this bundle are automated; saving the consumer a substantial amount of time. Once the files are imported and the time stamps are chosen, the system does the remaining. It's also in a position to help batch conversions within the event that multiple recordsdata need to be created. As it is suitable with most media formats, there needs to be few issues with reference to codecs. Take away silent sections, take samples or make your own ringtones with Free MP3 Cutter Joiner. You can load information out of your computer library (MP3, WAV, WMA or OGG), or instantly from a CD after which convert to the globally accepted MP3 format. You may even be part of files of different formats or information that have different bit rates. When you finished file dimension isn't an issue, but audio high quality is, you need to use lossless processing to eradicate any probability of corruption or drop in high quality. Join all varieties of audio information into an even bigger one for gapless and non-stop playback or sharing in your Mac OS X. Completely different audio codecs with completely different bitrates may be joined simply at the identical time. It joins various kinds of audio clips into one giant file without recompressing and high quality loss. Now you'll be able to freely create your occasion mix and audiobook for steady uninterrupted playback than fragments with many pauses. Obtain a Home windows Media video clip joiner program to the computer's onerous drive, like the free Windows Media Joiner program (see the link in Sources). Double-click on on the icon of the Home windows Media video clip joiner program once it has fully downloaded. Follow the menu prompts to put in this system onto the pc's hard drive. Restart the COMPUTER. Mp3 Merger is a music fusion device which is used to combine completely different songs right into a one single music file. Just select the songs in a sequential fashion or within the order that you just want to merge and press the save button. The Mp3 Merger is one of the quickest merging tool that's accessible in the market. The Mp3 Merger provides the capacity to merge multiple mp3 information into a one single file. Supporting all Windows variations as much as 7, this versatile piece of software program comes with a full trial version. This allows you to test out all the capabilities earlier than having to purchase. This system is assured as secure and receives routine updates via the website. It additionally comes with free help for whatever questions you'll have. With customers from over one hundred completely different international locations, the Cutter Joiner is a useful and valued software that makes organizing and enhancing music straightforward.

Higher if I provide my usage eventualities maybe. I edit some outdated AM radio recordings of the CBS Radio Thriller Theater. There may be static from a passing thunderstorm or different electrical spikes and the bass is actual muddy and tends to overmodulate and commercials would generally sound twice as loud as the main program (and I kind of like hearing a number of the outdated commercials also) and from section to section the recording might get weaker or stronger. So, I choose the midway level at about 90dB for the edited wav output but there could also be spikes as much as one hundred ten or more and dropoffs to 70 or much less. So earlier than I scrunch the file up into MP3 format I run it through Levelator and every part gets closer to 90dB for a greater spoken phrase earbud listening experience.

[michietuts]

How to Use Avisynth For Gif Making

This detailed tutorial will show you how to use avisynth to convert, resize and crop videos in high quality for gif making. This is not a tutorial on how to make gifs in photoshop. I have also made a video tutorial in case you are a more visual/auditory learner.

Things you will need:

Windows OS

Avisynth installed with the video and plugin folder from this post.

*Optional* review original setup post (This may be hard to understand)

Photoshop or program that can export gif from video

Video

Patience

*WARNING PICTURE/GIF HEAVY*

This may seem like a lot, but when you practice, the process goes by much faster than what it may seem now.

Step One: Open your video with the .Bat file-

After every file is placed correctly and Avisynth is installed, you want to drag your video file into one of the .bat files in the video folder.

You will probably not use the .bat files that are highlighted in red, but if you want me to explain their uses, message me.

.Bat Files Highlighted in Green: 

Normal.bat

Drag .ts/.tp video files into it

Creates 17 second video with original dimensions 

You will have to Crop and resize in photoshop

Normalwebm.bat

Drag .ts/.tp video files into it

Creates 17 second video

You can crop video and resize using Html Resizer

Normalwebmrange.bat

Drag .ts/.tp video files into it

Creates a custom trimmed video

You can crop video and resize using Html Resizer

Reencode.bat

If you make a mistake when saving your avs.avs script, edit and save it, and then double click on this bat to convert it to an .avi file

x264Lossless.bat

Drag any video file into it (.mp4, .mkv, .avi, etc)

Creates 17 second video with original dimensions 

You have to crop and resize in photoshop

Use this if you got an error using the other .bats

x264Losslesswebm.bat

Drag any video file into it (.mp4, .mkv, .avi, etc) 

Creates 17 second video

You can crop video and resize using Html Resizer

Use this if you got an error using the other .bats

*NOTE: You will usually get an error with the normal .bats if your .ts/.tp file is not mpeg-2 format so use x264Lossless .bats for those videos.*

I use Normalwebmrange.bat most of the time.

Drag your video into the .bat you want to use. After opening your video with whichever .bat you want, a command prompt window will pop up. Here you enter the start timestamp. This is where you want your video to start. For normalwebmrange.bat, it lets you choose what time you want the video to end too. The rest of the .bats make a 17 second clip from your start time. 

*NOTE: Make sure you type the timestamp in HH:MM:SS format*

After the the command prompt is done (it takes about 40-60 seconds ), Google Chrome will open the resizer.html and here you will resize and crop your video

Step 2: Resizing and Cropping-

In the Resizer you want to choose your gif size. By default it is set to 268px width by 350px height. You can set the width to any of the the Tumblr sizes and have the height be whatever you want. Then drag the lower right corner to scale the video and drag the video to fix the position. The opacity slider helps you to better visualize what your video will look like cropped.

After cropping and resizing the way you want, you need to choose a Preprocessor:

None

Use this if you are using files that are not .ts/.tp files

QTGMC 30

Keeps original frame rate

QTGMC 60

Doubles frame rate which produces a smoother gif

*NOTE: I would use this option for 178px and 268px width gifs because more frames = higher file size. You might go over the Tumblr 3MB limit with bigger gifs*

Fast vs. Slow

Fast of course takes less time but is lower quality

Slow takes a lot longer but it is higher quality

Sometimes there is not a lot of difference in quality between the two. Test and see which one you like better. I use qtgmc 30 slow most of the time because i love placebos ): 

Then choose one of the three resizers: resamplehq, debilinear, and dithertools. I normally choose “debilinear” because it makes the video sharper than the other options.

Choose your desired options, add extra sharpening if you wish, and copy the text in the white box. If you want to crop in Photoshop instead, Do not copy the last line of text

Close the Html Resizer and the program Avspmod should open if it has not already done so

Step 3: Avspmod Trim Video and Save Script-

Paste the text that you copied from the resizer in google chrome (on line 17)

*SUPER IMPORTANT NOTE: PLACE A “#” BEFORE QTGMC ON LINE 17. IF YOU DO NOT, WHEN YOU TRIM, AVSPMOD WILL FREEZE AND STOP RESPONDING*

And then if you selected QTGMC 60 in the resizer, remove the “#” from line 7. This will make sure that your video moves smoothly.

Now trim your video. Click on the up arrow in the bottom left corner to show your video, and then scrub through the video to find where you want your gif to start and end. Press the home key on your keyboard (or go to Video > Trim Selection Editor > Set Selection Startpoint) to set the start, and then find where you want to end and press the end key on your keyboard (or go to Video > Trim Selection Editor > Set Selection Endpoint).

In the trim editor make sure you have my settings shown in the above, then click on line 8, and lastly press “Apply”

remove the “#” from qtgmc and save the script by pressing CTRL + S and close out of Avspmod

*NOTE: ONCE YOU REMOVE THE “#” DO NOT CLICK ON YOUR VIDEO AGAIN OTHERWISE AVSPMOD WILL FREEZE*

Step 4: Wait for VirtualDub to Process and Open the Output in Photoshop-

After you close Avspmod, Virtual dub will start to process your video. If you want to see the progress, click on the virtualdub icon in the taskbar go to View > Show Status Window and you should see the current frame being processed, the time that has elapsed, and the estimated time it will take to finish.

*NOTE: IT USUALLY WILL TAKE 1-3 MINUTES TO CONVERT. Mine took longer because I had multiple programs running and I was screen recording*

After VirtualDub is done processing, you can find the output video in the folder titled “temp”

Here is your video.avi file. Now you can open it in Photoshop, color it, use topaz, etc, and then you can export your gif. 

*NOTE: If you want to run this process again, rename the video.avi file to something else so that it doesn’t get deleted*

Final Gifs:

These two gifs will be in my Edit Gallery. You may use/edit them as you please. I have put psds of the un-altered gif frames in my Tutorial Resource Folder

Thank you for reading this crap. I hope that you guys could understand. Ask me any questions and Have Fun Gif Making!

[compfox214]

Games For Sony Clie

Free Games For Sony Clie

Games For Sony Clie

Free Games For Sony Clie Pda

Free Games For Sony Clie

Pocket Mahjongg for Sony CLIE 1.03 is a game inspired by the classic game of Mahjongg solitaire that has now come to your high-resolution color Sony CLIE. Apr 21, 2004 At 4.9 by 3.0 by 0.6 inches, the elegant, dark-gray Sony CLIE PEG-TH55 has the solid feel of a serious handheld. The 3.8-inch, 320x480-pixel transflective TFT screen dominates the face of the device. Palm Desktop for Clie This is Sony's version of Palm Desktop. It has been reported that this version of Palm Desktop which came on the TH55 driver disc works with ALL Clies. Image Converter 1.1 Excellent program for converting videos and images to Clie-compatible formats. Image Converter 1.5. Sony and the Environment How we’re reducing our eco-footprint through energy efficiency and recycling initiatives. Sony Pictures The hub for your favourite movies and TV shows. Sony Music Classic artists to today’s stars, local and global.

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About

GlassWave

As Sony is a media giant, it is no surprise that their latest handheld, the PEG-N710C, has support for playing digital audio. What is a surprise is that it has built-in support for the controversial MP3 format, which is the preferred format for music piracy. Sony would rather people use its ATRAC3 format which has copyright protection. The N710C comes with applications that can play both.

Sony handled this in an unusual way. The N710C comes with a version of its Palm Audio Player and desktop app combo that plays MP3s and a completely different set that plays ATRAC3 files. Neither can play the other format.

To store and play MP3s, all that is necessary besides the player is a regular Memory Stick like the one that comes with the N710C.

To store in ATRAC3, a MagicGate Memory Stick is required. Sony's MagicGate technology is intended to protect digital content. These are white, as opposed to regular Memory Sticks that are blue. Windows 2000 users beware, the ATRAC3 version of the desktop software requires FAT32 and won't work with NTFS.

How much music can be stored on a Memory Stick depends on both the size of the MemStick and the quality the file is saved in. At 132 kbps, a 128 MB MemStick can store 120 minutes of music. At 66 kbps, that jumps up to 240 minutes.

However, the 128 MB MemStick is only available in the MagicGate version and it costs a hefty $300. The largest regular one Sony offers is 64 MB for $140.

Of course, it doesn't matter how much music is stored if the battery is dead. Sony says that during audio playback with the screen off the battery should last about 11 hours but only 3 hours with the display on. They have added a convenient button to turn off the screen while playing music.

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MP3 Overhyped and Over Priced!

The most overhyped feature of the Clie is its mp3 player functionality. Compared to standalone mp3 players, the clie costs significantly more due to the excessive price of its memory sticks. Sony must make most of its profits off of selling these sticks and sell its pda at a loss, similar to the razor/razor blade analogy. The maximum capacity of these sticks is only 128 mb at $299 with unwanted copyright protection built in whether you like it or not! I read an article about new Creative Labs mp3 players coming out this September which will offer 6-10GB of storage for, you guessed it, $299 and compact at 3' x 6'. Doing simple math, you get 46 times the amount of memory for the same price! Check the link below to read the full article.

http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2706731,00.html

RE: MP3 Overhyped and Over Priced!

Agreed. Not that I have anything against the N710C; I think it's a great step forward in PDA technology. The Memory Stick media is way too overpriced. I can't see myself dropping $500 on a PDA where I have to invest another $200 on data expansion just to listen to 4 hours of music. And if I want to use the PDA while listening, the battery won't last that long anyway.

I use a Sony Minidisc player when I travel myself. Although the transfer of .mp3s is a little more time consuming and the discs take up slightly more space, I'd much rather pay $12 for four hours of music media than $200.

RE: MP3 Overhyped and Over Priced!

Yup. I wouldn't assume that Sony is making a huge profit on these things though - often cost of chip production is a question of scale, and since the demand for Sony's memory stick is much smaller than the other formats, their production costs are probably much higher. This is just one more argument for standard memory expansion.

As you said, I'm not really excited about the new Clie because of the music capability (I use a Sharp MD myself) but I am excited about the audio capability in general. In the japanese version the Clie is rumored to come with software that lets you download video from your PC (i.e. TV programs) that you can view on the Clie. This would be impressive, though it sounds like it would drain the battery pretty fast. I like the idea of having that capability - it would be sort of fun. Though at $300 for 128 megs, it would be very expensive.

BTW the new Minidisc players/recorders can get 320 minutes of music on a standard disc using the new MDLP format - pretty damn cool! I just saw an MDLP recorder that only costs $250 from Minidisco.com, and I might have to buy it.. _________ Syncplicity. Redefining Simple. www.cognitiveroot.com

RE: MP3 Overhyped and Over Priced!

I heard a rumor that the audio capabilities of the new CLIE will NOT be accessible in programs other than the built in Audio Player application. If this is true that means that no games or other multimedia apps could take advantage of its improved sound. If this is true, it would really be poor and carelass implementation on Sony's part. Imagine playing a nice new game on a 320X320 color screen with the same bleeps and bloops for sound effects you could get on a Palm III..

Can anyone confirm or deny thir rumor?

RE: MP3 Overhyped and Over Priced!

That is true. Playing audio is trhrough headphones only. The speaker is more or less the standard PalmOS one (though louder).

RE: MP3 Overhyped and Over Priced!

>I heard a rumor that the audio capabilities of the new CLIE will NOT be accessible in programs >other than the built in Audio Player application.

STOP SPREADING FALSE RUMORS!!! Go read the review by the well-established PalmOS game developers Red Mercury, and you will see that there is an API to access the audio capabilities, and that they think this plus the high-res APIs will take gaming on the PalmOS to new levels.

Atrac vs Mp3

Sony has been pushing the ATRAC format since the introduction of the MiniDisc, (which is the format which they use). Without getting into details of which is better, I would almost think that now would be the time Sony would push this format bigtime with all the controlversal stuff going on with Mp3s and with Microsoft announcing that they want to try and rid the world of Mp3s with in the next several years. I would think that Sony could had a big push with these if they lowered the price on their memory stick which is used to store the ATRAC compressed files. To fork out another $300 bucks is alot of money after tossing in the $500 bucks for the PDA already. I'm sure they'll probably have smaller memory stick for less price, but I'm guess if 128 megs cost $299.00 than the 64 meg one probably will about half of that, which still is alot of money and anything smaller than 64 megs to store music just really isn't cutting it in less you are willing to take a loss of the quality of the file you are listening too.

RE: Atrac vs Mp3

CLIE Users Group Moderator @ 5/2/2001 12:59:22 PM #

While ATRAC is a well-developed algorithm for sound compression (Sony has spent a lot of time researching the psycho-acoustic properties of various compression schemes), MP3 is widespread and has now become the defacto standard for compression. Thanks primarily to the popularity of Napster and other avenues for music 'trading', the MP3 format is here to stay. It's too late to get MP3 back into Pandora's box, and even Sony now realizes this. To not offer MP3-playing while competitors have it would result in a marketing catastrophe for Sony, no matter ho good their PDA design is.

They will also soon realize that selling overpriced Memory Stick media will hurt them in the long run, now that much cheaper alternatives are available. Remove cold turkey.

It's always difficult for companies to accept that their formats are not accepted as 'standards', but Sony will have to adapt to the current market realities whether they like it or not. CLIE Users Group website:

Memory Stick is overprice when comparing with CF, MMC

Not only the memory stick is overprice when comparing with MP3 player on the market using MMC, harddisk or so.

CF card and MMC card costs less than half the price for the same capacity, up to 128MB.

Sony is making huge profit margin.

Looks like the MP3 feature of N710C is not attractive any more due to this.

Free Games For Sony Clie

RE: Memory Stick is overprice when comparing with CF, MMC

My source says SONY knows their prices are high compared to the market and are planning on reducing the price in the near future. Maybe the Clie sales will bring down the price given that MP3 is a selling feature.

There will be 128MB MS

Sony's own site for the new CLIE actuallys shows a 128MB purple Memory Stick. 'Available soon.' techtv states such a beast will cost a whopping $230. Ouch.

RE: There will be 128MB MS

ecost.com sells it for $151. Go check it out if you don't believe me.

Memory stick use..

Am i right in saying that one can defintely run programs off the memory stick. You don't need to first copy the program to the ram as in the case of the m505..

And you can store mp3's and whatever else you want on the stick?

Also, does anybody know whether it will be able to read data from other memory sticks such as a sony digital camera???

RE: Memory stick use..

CLIE Users Group Moderator @ 5/2/2001 1:15:32 PM #

In order to run programs directly from the Memory Stick, you would need PalmOS 4 and a program that was designed to take advantage of its new API.

To automatically 'read' programs without having to copy the entire program into RAM, you would need to install a program called MSMount, currently being beta tested by thousands of CLIE users around the world. This program works very well and will likely be formally released soon. Sony should purchase MSMount and include it as part of the standard software.

You can download the latest version of MSMount here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CLIE_Users_Group/files/MSMount%200.6.5.zip CLIE Users Group website:

RE: Memory stick use..

MSMount works with Sony's VFS which is compatible with the OS 4 VFS. Theoretically, if this is the way it accesses MS, then MSMount should also work on any device with VFS. As a matter of fact, TRGPro users who have the latest OS 3.5.2 with VFS, and who have tried out MSMount find that it works although with some problems as would be expected of a beta software. Therefore, the author of MSMount should probably rename his/her software to CardMount as it should also work for M50x which has VFS. The only problem with M50x is the speed of accessing the slower SD/MMC compared with CF or MS.

MSMount loads in parts of the program/database into RAM. It loads only the records that are required and hence needs less RAM than the actual file size. What this means in practical sense is the ability to store a dictionary/encyclopaedia that is greater than 8MB and stil be able to access it on the Clie/Handera etc.

BTW does anyone know how MS compares with CF in terms of speed of transfer of information?

https://compfox214.tumblr.com/post/653861859791880192/wrench-force-shock-pump-manual. Next, we counted the strokes needed to reach a specific pressure on the ShockWiz and noted the deviation on the pump gauge once we reached that pressure. This allowed us to compare the recorded pressure with the display on the pump itself, as well as measure the pressure equalisation when attaching the pump. We’re aware that a ShockWiz can’t replace high-precision laboratory equipment, but standard pump gauges can’t either.

Clie's audio player

anybody know where the Clie's audio player can be downloaded for trial?

RE: Clie's audio player

The audio player cannot be downloaded. It ships with the device itself.

RE: Clie's audio player

damn. if that's the case, maybe i can try beaming the program from the clie to my prism..now, i have to find a demo unit that's working..

RE: Clie's audio player

Hmmm .. I thought the audio player needs the headphone jack that the Clie has? Prism has no such sound hardware I believe.

RE: Clie's audio player

that's true, but it would be interesting to just see how the program works in another Palm Powered unit, yes? =)

RE: Clie's audio player

I have another Sony Clie with the audio device but no application. If you guys can send me the audio player, I really appreciate it. Please send me to: rajsneh@yahoo.com

Thanks, Raj

Memory stick

The Audio playback is not a big thing for me. Since I own Sony DSC-P1. It's a big thing for me to be able to use the picture taken from my digicam and display it on clie. And it's better to buy 2 64's than 1 128 Memory stick.

RE: Memory stick

Same thing here.. I have a dsc-s50 and use a 64mb memory stick along with a 32mb. The biggest thing that could have stopped me from getting one was the MG memory stick and no mp3. I can do both along with let the models see the pics on one memory stick while I shoot more pics with the other memory stick with a different model..

RE: Memory stick

Attention, I live in Vancouver and couple days ago I Found that 64MB MS cost $200 and 128MB MS cost 380, So it's cheaper to buy 128MB.

New Clie

This unit has awful battery life. I'm not sure that it would last me a full day of use and music playback. Peace Out Alan

RE: New Clie

Try putting the CLIE in the 'Hold' mode when you are listening to the music! THat way, it will increase your battery life; take it out of the 'hold' mode when you have to lookup something.

MP3 Playback & Screen

I had several thoughts about the new color Clie: First of all, according to Sony's web site, a 64MB memory stick costs $140. For about $10 more (last time I checked on palmgear) you can get a 64MB MP3 springboadr module! The Sounds Good - I paid more for mine but I like it because it uses very little power from my Prism battery - I can listen for about 2 hours without draining the batteries more than 5% or so (as long as I leave the prism off..) plus - MULTITASKING

Games For Sony Clie

I can listen to music and read avantgo, play games .. on the sony you have to stay in the stupid MP3 app all the time you're listening :p Also, who cares about a 320*320 screen with only 8 bit color?? For text it would be very nice - but it could just as well be b&w The real advantage of a color screen is graphics - and don't let anyone tell you that 8 bit looks almost as good as 16 or 32. no way. Sony would need to either focus on a cool graphics/multimedia machine - maybe built in sound & MP3 hardware, and a 16 bit color screen - or make a good basic unit..

RE: MP3 Playback & Screen

What I am more interested is whether you can play a song (i.e. mp3) as an alarm ?

RE: MP3 Playback & Screen

Could not agree more! Have the soundsgood in my Visor Deluxe (Which is awsome, btw) and the total package costs 350, for 64mb of pure MP3 sound. Granted, not color, but I can multitask, and can spend my money on other stuff. Sony is playing a 'gotcha' game with this new device - Advertising it's MP3 capabilities, but charnging a massive price for memory - which the less-research concience people out there would not realize until too late! I wonder how much you could store on the included 8mb stick..if 64MB = 1 hour, then 1/8th of that would be..12 minutes..maybe 2.5 songs..bummer..

-M.Ross

RE: MP3 Playback & Screen

Regarding the multitasking comment, that is incorrect. I currently am using a 'localized' N700C. I am able to listen to music and perform other tasks - Avantgo (which I love), check schedule and addresses, etc.

As far as the 320X320 screen, fonts (particularly the medium size font) are finer, and in my opinion, easier on the eyes. I had a chance to live with both the Prism and N700C for a week before deciding to hand off the Prism to my father. Gfx file download.

I agree that the colors on the Prism are much more vibrant than on the N700C - I do miss that. However, I prefer the appearance of photos on the N700C over the Prism despite the color difference because of the finer pixels - my opinion. I can't knock the Prism screen - I still think it's the best Palm OS screen when viewed indoors. But, I'll take that compromise for the ability to view the N700C screen outdoors - came in handy today on the golf course to jot down a note.

At this point, not having seen an m505 in person, I think the Prism and N700C are the best color Palm OS devices today. Of course, the old IIIc is not so bad considering the now low-$200 price point.

https://compfox214.tumblr.com/post/654052434861228032/counter-strike-old. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was the fourth release in the main, Valve-developed Counter-Strike series in 2012. Much like Counter-Strike: Source the game runs on the Source engine. It is available on Microsoft Windows, OSX, and Linux, as well as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles, and is backwards compatible on the Xbox One console. Post news RSS Counter-Strike: Old Offensive v4.9 Released A little summary over what we did change on the mod, or what we removed you know. Posted by SplitXPlayZ on Aug 24th, 2020. While the developer is fixing the problem, try using an older version. If you need the previous version of Counter-Strike, check out the app's version history which includes all versions available to download. Download prior versions of Counter-Strike for Windows. All previous versions of Counter-Strike are virus-free and free to download at. Download full and free classic Counter-strike 1.6 original version. The current widespread Counter-Strike 1.6 original version was released in 2003. The original classic version is the most popular. In Cs 1.6 original version is put only standard players, weapons, ammunition models and standard sounds. The game is completely configured.

RE: MP3 Playback & Screen

I forgot to mention battery life - under most office lighting conditions I am able to easily view the N700C screen with the backlight off. I've been able to go 5 days of heavy use (music, note taking, games, reading) by selectively switching off the backlight - can't do that with the Prism!

Free Games For Sony Clie Pda

RE: MP3 Playback & Screen

Regarding 8bit color on the Clie.. From what I've been reading the device uses an 'adaptive palate' for displaying images. Even though the device is limited to 256 colors, it can display any 256 colors at a time. This means that the display will optimize itself for images/applications and, in most cases, will appear to have a higher color depth than 256.

Free Games For Sony Clie

2c

RE: MP3 Playback & Screen

Sounds like I was wrong about multitasking: does anyone have experience with this? Is MP3 playback run by dedicated hardware vs the main processor?

RE: MP3 Playback & Screen

CLIE N700/N710 has a DSP for music playback, therefore multitasking is possible. Infact, I don't think one could play MP3s with old DragonBall VZ, even overclock it to 42MHz.

RE: MP3 Playback & Screen

What's the point of the Sony Clie being able to play MP3 as alarms? You can hardly hear anything from that tiny speaker. Maybe they should have thought of a real speaker that you can hear like on the TRGPro and HandEra 330.

Voice Recorder (MP3/Atrac) would help nullify naysayers

If Sony had included a built-in microphone and software that encoded to MP3 or Atrac, then there would be significantly fewer complaints.

It would be cool to be able to record a meeting in MP3 format. I'm sure other PDAs can do voice recording, but this functionality would legitimize the audio capabilities of the CLIE.

RE: Voice Recorder (MP3/Atrac) would help nullify naysayers

YEAH RIGHT. a 33 mhz processor can encode mp3's. how long would that take? 5 hours?

RE: Voice Recorder (MP3/Atrac) would help nullify naysayers

The CLIE already has an additional chip to allow it to DEcode MP3/ATRAC3 audio. Couldn't this handle the ENcoding?

RE: Voice Recorder (MP3/Atrac) would help nullify naysayers

The encoding process takes longer and is more complex than the decoding process -- so it is not as simple as use the same chip.

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Gta 5 Mac Requirements

Gta 5 Mac Requirements Computer

Gta 5 Mac Requirements Laptop

4GB RAM is the minimum amount of memory required to run GTA 5. But your RAM size isn’t the only requirement for deciding whether you can run GTA 5. You must have at least a 1GB NVIDIA 9800 GT graphics card or the NVIDIA GTX 660. Your hard disk should have at least 80GB of free space. To download Grand Theft Auto 5 to your computer, log into the Steam app and click on Store. Gta 5 for mac free full version. When you’re in the Steam Store browser, type “Grand Theft Auto V” into the search bar. Click the correct result, add it to your cart, and complete the purchase so it will download to your computer. GTA 5 ON MAC!!!At Last There Is A WayAny Questions Comment BelowI Know Its A Stupid Way To Do ItThanks For Watching.

Grand Theft Auto V game details

Updated May 14, 2020:For the first time since its release, Grand Theft Auto V is temporarily FREE to download and keep forever on the Epic Games Store! The most highly tested game on our website is completely free! Take the System Requirements Test now to find out if your PC can run Grand Theft Auto VCan I Run GTA 5, or GTA V? Rockstar’s latest and most elaborate sandbox game, is at its best on PC. Whether you’re driving to the beach, planning elaborate heists, holding up a store or parachuting with friends online, an Intel Core i5/AMD X8 FX-8350 and a GeForce GTX 660/Radeon HD 7870 will keep you committing crimes to your heart’s content.

Grand Theft Auto 5 is the ultimate do everything sandbox, here is how to increase performance on a low end computer. Here is what is on the script shown at t. GTA 5 system requirements: The cheapest graphics card you can play GTA 5 on PC with is an NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT. But, according to the developers the recommended graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660. An AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core CPU is required at a minimum to run Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5). Whereas, an Intel Core i5-3470 is recommended.

Here are the Grand Theft Auto V System Requirements (Minimum)

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs) / AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs) @ 2.5GHz

CPU SPEED: Info

RAM: 4 GB

OS: Windows 10 64 Bit, Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1, Windows Vista 64 Bit Service Pack 2*

VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA 9800 GT 1GB / AMD HD 4870 1GB (DX 10, 10.1, 11)

PIXEL SHADER: 4.0

VERTEX SHADER: 4.0

SOUND CARD: 100% DirectX 10 compatible

FREE DISK SPACE: 72 GB

DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 1 GB

Grand Theft Auto V Recommended Requirements

CPU: Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2GHz (4 CPUs) / AMD X8 FX-8350 @ 4GHz (8 CPUs)

CPU SPEED: Info

RAM: 8 GB

OS: Windows 10 64 Bit, Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1

VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB / AMD HD 7870 2GB

PIXEL SHADER: 5.0

VERTEX SHADER: 5.0

SOUND CARD: 100% DirectX 10 compatible

FREE DISK SPACE: 72 GB

DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 2 GB

Click here for the latest video card drivers

System Requirements Lab may earn affiliate commissions from qualifying purchases via Amazon Associates and other programs

How well will your PC run GTA V?

The newest addition to the infamous videogame series designed by Rockstar Games, GTA V is a hard-hitting, thrill seeking criminal playground. Released for PC on the 14th of April 2015, Grand Theft Auto 5 has firmly cemented itself as one of the highest grossing and biggest games to date. However, cruising around Los Santos shooting up gang members and stealing tanks in the desert does come at a price. A very good PC.

Gta 5 Mac Requirements Computer

GTA V’s huge immersive world comes equipped with a full functional stock market, dynamic weather system and thousands of things to do around the 81km2 map, it would make sense that you’re going to need a beastly PC to play this smoothly. The PC edition also boasts mod compatibility which has exploded in popularity, allowing the dedicated community design and share brilliant ideas. The base game on its own is very technically demanding for the average PC gamer, but five years’ worth of free expansion packs and the choice to add mods into the mix, is it going to be too much?

So what’s the damage then? What kind of alien technology will I need to run this? Firstly, you’ll need Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1 or better to run the game on. This will need to be accompanied by either an Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 or an AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core Processor. In addition to this, the game’s file size is 72 GB with 4 GB of System RAM required too. Finally, the graphics card will have to be at least either a 1 GB NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT or an AMD Radeon HD 4870 to tackle this game.

NVIDIA’s 9800 GT equipped with NVIDIA PhysX-Ready2 technology means that it can handle many complex physics situations in GTA V, important situations like driving a tank off of a skyscraper. An Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 processing at 2.4GHz should accompanied with the graphics card should be enough for the game to run on minimal graphical settings.

To play GTA V in all its glory, at recommended level you will need a more powerful processor in the form of either an Intel Core i5 3470 or an AMD X8 FX-8350 to truly keep up with the game. In addition to this, a more advanced graphics card will be required to truly show off the beauty of GTA V. You will need either a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB or an AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or higher for this to be possible. An AMD X8 FX-8350 with 8 CPUs running at 4GHz will be ample processing power to wreak havoc across Los Santos. This backed up with an AMD HD 7870 or higher will do the design team justice and make world come alive on your monitor. You’ll be able to enjoy beautiful textures and lighting mechanics with these specs.

GTA 5 for Android – Can you believe it?! While it had been made available on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 so far, it was never available on mobile phones! Now, you can play this game whenever you want, wherever you want, since it has been released on Android. Even on Android, it comes with great graphics and the game play is also excellent.

For those uninitiated, GTA 5 Android is an open world game wherein you can do whatever you like around the city whenever you want to, even in the midst of a mission. GTA 5 is set in Los Santos and offers you a choice of 3 different characters to play with. Its game play has significantly improved when compared to the previous GTA games, due to better mechanics of shooting, driving, etc. And some additional features have also been included such as yoga and scuba diving.

GTA 5 for Android – Features, Requirements and Installation

Below you can find some important information that will help you access GTA 5 for Android more easily.

Features

While this is clearly not the first time the GTA world has allowed for flight, this game comes with a vast selection of airplanes and helicopters to choose from which can be accessed in a multi-player setting.

There is far more liberty and freedom with how certain missions pan out. Of course there are certain limitations, but with this game you get to decide how you want to go about a mission, whether you wanna go with stealth and smarts, or with a lot of bang and firepower.

There is much wider selection of games and other leisure activities to choose from. If you get bored from the senseless carnage and plot, then you can simply go off to the nearest golf course or yoga studio and relax.

This version of the game considerably ups the ante on how incredibly interactive the GTA environment is. You can actually blast through walls and boulders, offering a far more fun and realistic feel to the game.

Of course, one of the best new features has got to be the multiplayer feature which allows you to better interact with the world around you and the characters, and makes the game far more interactive.

One of the best features other than the multiplayer option has to be the introduction of 3 characters between whom you can switch at any time. As such, you can constantly explore what it feels to explore this world through 3 different eyes, and it even makes the plots so much more fun as you can switch between the characters in the midst of missions thus offering a more vast set of possibilities.

GTA 5 goes underwater! It wasn’t enough that they had to create a large interactive world above ground, they’ve created one underwater as well, one you can explore in a wetsuit!

This time you also have the option to go out to the woods on the outskirts of Los Santos and indulge in some hunting of deers and whatnot.

Walther ppk/s serial number dates. Well, these are only just some of the crazy cool new features that have been introduced to GTA 5 that make it an absolute must play, especially on the android which helps you carry this world in your pocket to wherever you are! Below you can find some important information that will help you more easily access the game.

Minimum Requirements

You need to have at least an Android Version 3.5, preferably higher. You can even install it on a lower version but that will cause some serious lags.

You need at least 3GB of free space on your Android.

How to Install?

You can download the .apk file from the link http://gta5forandroid.org/

Transfer the file to your memory card.

Install an app installer from the App Store.

The .apk file will be visible from the App Installer.

Install GTA 5 onto your android.

Other FAQs

Where can I download it from? You can download it from the link provided in the section above.

Why does my game freeze in the midst of the play? This might be because you are running it on a non-compatible version. Refer to the “Minimum Requirements” above.

You can follow the above instructions to install GTA 5 for Android and have a great time playing this amazing and creative game. Have fun, guys!

Looking for audio drivers for Dolby Home Theater® v4, Dolby Advanced Audio™ v2, Windows® 8, or Windows 10? You can find them by visiting the support section of your PC or tablet manufacturer's website. Every manufacturer's computer or tablet model is custom-tuned to deliver an optimized audio experience for the device. Download dolby for windows 10 for free. Multimedia tools downloads - Dolby Home Theater by Dolby Laboratories, Inc. And many more programs are available for instant and free download. Download dolby for windows 10. This package provides Dolby Audio UI Driver and is supported on 330S-15IKB GTX1050 and running the following Operating Systems: Windows 10 (64-bit). This package provides Realtek Dolby Audio Driver（windows 10 version 1709/1803） and is supported on ideacentre AIO 330-20IGM and running the following Operating Systems: Windows 10 (64-bit).

GTA 5 for Android – Features, Requirements And Installation3.39 (67.86%) 56 votes

Gta 5 Mac Requirements Laptop

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Hi, Zappy here. Android lover and movie freak. Nothing Special. And I run this blog about apps for pc, whatsapp status, blogging, wordpress, hosting, themes, plugins and all other tech tutorials. Thanks for visiting my website.

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Amazon.com : BlackBerry PlayBook 32GB 7″ Multi-Touch Tablet PC with 1 GHz Dual-Core Processor, 5MP Camera and Secondary 3MP Camera, Video, GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth – Black : Tablet Computers : Computers & Accessories

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Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2017

Size: 32 GBVerified Purchase

A BlackBerry tablet seems like an odd purchase in 2017, but I did my homework and knew I wasn’t getting an iPad Air. I was getting this tablet for work – Spreadsheets, Word Docs and hopefully use the Bible app. The price was manageable and I figured that even if it turns out to be obsolete, I can still use it as a music player in our kitchen or something. Well, I was pleasantly surprised by this little tablet. The OS is brilliant. It’s such a joy and ease for multi-tasking. I was able to get my spreadsheets on it immediately and use it to check my messages and keep my calendar. The Bible app works flawlessly. Yes, the tablet is a little slow, but it’s a 2011 tablet, it’s to be expected. Yes, it doesn’t have a huge cache of apps to choose from, but the apps available are quality. I even found some fun games with great graphics. My music is fully loaded and the speakers are fantastic. I even tried taking a few pics and the quality is impressive! It’s not great for social media. Facebook is functional but not great. Instagram and Netflix simply won’t work on this tablet. You can go the Instagram website and at least view pictures, but that’s all. I did manage to get YouTube working with an browser I downloaded from BlackBerry World called “Frost”. Just go to the YouTube web page and it works great. It let me sign in, but I had to re-sign in every time I opened it. But when the videos play on YouTube, you can leave the app and the video keeps playing – very cool! I also have a BlackBerry Passport phone and it lets me sync with it and my Playbook to text and send BBMs. If you’re willing to put in a little work and do some research, you can get some current Android apps working on this thing. I have Evernote, Kindle, and even a version of Google Maps working. Again, do not expect this tablet to be everything the current tablets are, but if you want to spend very little and get a functional tablet that can serve a few purposes well, give this a look. The best things about this Tablet is the multi-tasking feature, the Messaging inbox, the speakers, the quality of the screen and the price. The negatives are a lack of apps and the general slowness. Hope this helps someone!

Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2015

Verified Purchase

The Blackberry Playbook Tablet isn’t for those hardcore iPad and Android people. In fact, I would not recommend you buy this tablet if that is the kind of person you are. This tablet is almost like a beginning step into the world of tablets. You get plenty of memory on the tablet for a price lower than any other competitor offer, but there is good reason for that. For one, this tablet is older than these fancy tablets that we see nowadays, so the specs aren’t as hot. There is Bluetooth, but if you have an iPhone or Android or just anything that isn’t a Blackberry, your phone is not going to interact with this tablet other than giving it data. It CAN’T support file sharing like pictures or music through Bluetooth, but you can plug it into your computer to upload files onto it. Apps are not exact the strong suite of the Playbook either. It has a more limited version of the Blackberry World for the Blackberry phones, so don’t expect all the top of the line games and apps to be on here, through there are a few here and there. I would suggest this tablet to people who want to do some basic browsing on the web, check facebook, and just relax while on the go. I wouldn’t say it is a bad tablet for getting your work done, but I don’t think this is the tablet you should be relying on.

Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2012

Size: 16 GBVerified Purchase

I love this thing!

—– (update) —— Tip to improve WiFi reception

The 2.4 Ghz WiFi antenna is in the upper left hand corner in landscape orientation. Wrapping your hand around this corner to hold Playbook, as I like to do, reduces WiFi signal strength a lot (a bar or two, factor of x100 or 20 dbm), which can be the difference between getting online or not when traveling. A simple trick to get good WiFi reception while still holding Playbook with the left hand is just flip the Playbook over so the ‘Blackberry’ logo is on top. This puts the most commonly used 2.4 Ghz WiFi antenna on the right.

Check out the ‘SANOXY Bluethooth Keyboard for iPad’. It’s a very inexpensive bluetooth keyboard that works fine with Playbook. ————— 7″ screen size is fine, sharp as a tack (viewed with reading lens of bifocals), bright and colorful, sound good, screen responsive to touch. Swipes easy to learn.

On browser homepage On my desktop browsers I have all my frequently visited links in a single custom .html file that I set as my homepage. To me a custom .html homepage is essential, it makes bouncing around the web fast and easy. I first tried copying my custom .html file into the ‘Document’ folder, but found it was not visible under ‘Document’ icon, but later going backdoor I got it installed as the browser homepage. Here’s the procedure:

Type into browser: file:///accounts/1000/shared (note 3 ///)

This brings up a simple file manager that allows you to see what files are in memory and even to launch them. In the Document folder was my custom html homepage file, which I had earlier copied over via USB. Tapping the filename loaded it into the browser, and holding my finger on it allowed me to copy the filename (via the copy box). Finally going into the browser settings I was able to paste the filename into the homepage window. Now every time I start the browser up comes my custom homepage.

Another neat trick is to have alternate start links for the browser on your home screen. This is done by clicking the star+ button and selecting add to home screen. For example I have a icon that will start the browser at the New York Times and another for local radar.

On media files MP3 files can simply be copied over and will play. Video files are more difficult. I have a library of captured .flv files and captured TV shows in .ts format, some of which I would like to put on the Playbook to view when out of WiFi range. However, neither of these file formats is supported directly on the Playbook. In principle there are two options: copy over the file and use an app that does on the fly conversion, or two, preconvert the file to a supported format (like .avi or .mp4). I experimented with both.

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There are several apps that claim to allow you to play .flv files on Playbook. I bought one for $0.99 and while it played .flv files, it was not clean (position slider did not work). I tried a couple of converter programs, which you run on your desktop before downloading. The best (by far) was Freemake Video Converter, not only is it free, but it’s simple to use and will convert a batch of files in one shot. I found it shrank the file size of .ts files, which are initially quite large, by roughly x3 and expanded the size of .flv files, which are initially small, by roughly x2. ————- update My tests show HD (1080p) videos taken by Playbook are quite large, about 6 Gbyte/hour. I found running them through Freemake Video Converter with NO change in resolution, file type, or video quality reduced file size to 2 Gbyte/hour, a factor of 3. Very handy if you want to keep lot of Playbook video stored on the Playbook. ————- Before converting a lot of files I did several tests comparing file formats and resolution. Freemake Video Converter makes it easy to reduce file size by lowering resolution. Tests with a sharp HD video showed no difference that I could see between 1080p and 720p on this small screen, so I decided to go with 720p. This resolution reduces .ts file size by a factor of 4. Reducing quality to TV level, still very watchable, reduces .ts file size by a factor of six.

Quick tests of various formats (avi, mp4, wmv) showed no significant difference in quality or file size and all seemed to play fine on Playbook, so I choose avi and began converting. This turned out to be a mistake. Not one of the first three converted TV shows (1 hr) would play correctly on Playbook. One refused to open and other two gave an error when the slider was moved, though all played correctly on my desktop. The only reason I can come up with is that Playbook has a problem with long files in avi format. My quick tests had been with short files. I then noticed that it says in the Blackberry document, ‘Supported Media Types on Blackberry Tablets’, avi. wmv, and mp4 are “supported”, but the “recommended video format for local playback” is mp4. So I reconverted the same three TV shows to mp4, also lowering the resolution one step to 720p, and now all played fine on Playbook. So my recommendation is stick with mp4, which is the format Playbook uses for its own videos, and reduce resolution to 720p (1280 x 720).

WiFi file transfer A neat trick to easily transfer files to Playbook from your computer over WiFi (no cable!) is to put a shortcut to Playbook on your Windows desktop. Set the ‘target’ of the shortcut to either the IP of your Playbook (found under About, Network) or the ‘Tablet Network Name’, which you can change (found under Storage and Sharing, Network properties) preceded by \ (two backslashes). When you click on the shortcut, Explorer opens and Playbook will appear as a Network device. Click the Media folder and you now have access to all Playbook media folders. For this to work the Playbook ‘WiFi Sharing’ setting (in Storage and Sharing) needs to be ON. Transfer rate is a little slower than with a USB cable (about half), but perfectly usable. (update) For some non-transfer operations, like file rename, I find USB more reliable than WiFi.

Html files, pdf files and File manager The Blackberry (so called) “File Manager” doesn’t show file details, and critically (for some weird reason) it hides local html files, though it does show local pdf files and allows you to open them. Real file managers are available in App World. A pretty good basic file manager (free) is ‘AIR Browser’ and better is ‘File Browser’ (a buck).

‘Air Browser’ and ‘File Browser’ provide a way to work with local html files, they show them and will open them in the browser. Once open in the browser local html files work well, all the internal and external links work. I find it frustrating that Blackberry doesn’t provide direct support for local html files, because I have a whole library of such files that I want to use on the Playbook.

Privacy A useful app for file privacy is ‘File Shield’ (buck). It provides a simple way (without passwords!) to hide videos, photos, and documents. In the app directories and individual files can be toggled between private and public. When set to private, files and directories effectively disappear, visible neither to Blackberry applications nor file managers.

Bugs and weirdnesses I bought just after OS 2 release and my OS upgraded to 2.0 when my new tablet initialized. Here are the bugs and weirdnesses I have found in a week or so of use.

— I initally wrote that my volume up/dn buttons had never worked and assumed it was a software bug because I read someone else reported volume buttons stopped working after an upgrade to OS 2.0. See comments where Ronald kindly set me straight. — Video application has a couple of drawbacks, one is no folders. In the pictures application if you organize picture files in subfolders, the opening screen shows only the subfolders. Not so with the video application. You can put videos in subfolders, but the video application still displays all your videos files on the opening screen. Primitive and inconsistent. Even more surprising the video application displays videos (with the formats it supports) regardless of the folder. Put a video in say, Voice folder, and it still shows up under Videos. — The video application provides two display views: Downloaded Videos and Recorded Videos. Videos uploading to the Camera directory are displayed in the Recorded Video view ordered by the file time stamp, so some separation of videos is possible. Videos in the Downloaded Videos view are ordered alphabetically, No other sort appears to be possible. — Document mode of the browser does not work right in portrait orientation (tested with New York Times articles) — a Hotmail text message in browser would not finger expand — Adobe’s pdf reader come installed on the Playbook, but it is not well integrated with the browser. When a pdf link in the browser is clicked, instead of just opening the file your only option is to download the file. — ‘Power Off’ is a built-in Blackberry app with just three power buttons that are the same as under the battery icon. ‘StandBy’ in the app does not put the tablet to sleep (as it should), it does a ReStart (locking up your machine for two minutes)! You have to wonder just how much testing Blackberry does when a trivial app like this does not work right after a major OS upgrade. — As I discussed above, it appears the video player has a problem with long .avi files, though this format claims to be “supported”. — With Blackberry emphasis on security it is surprising its OS does not directly provide support the hiding of files. — After a week of use the browser crashed (gray screen) requiring Playbook restart to fix it. — On my 2nd day with Playbook it crashed (it first refused to open files, then it hung with Shutting down splash screen displayed). There is a way to hardware reset the Playbook, equivalent to holding down the power button on Windows desktops, but I had to search the web to find it. It’s hold down three of top four buttons (vol up, vol dn and power) for 10-15 sec (or until you see red led). This restored my Playbook to good health with no loss of data. I took off one star (5 => 4) for the volume buttons not working (whoops, see comments) and for a system crash in two days of use.

Top reviews from other countries

LauraUK

4.0 out of 5 stars A good tablet for non-Apps addicts 🙂

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 16, 2014

Verified Purchase

I know it might sound crazy to some, but yesterday I bought my second Playbook at an excellent price. Last year we bought a Playbook hoping that Blackberry would release their BBM 10 software. Well, they didn’t but we are still using our Blackberry on a daily basis to surf the web and watch cartoons on Youtube. This is our main use for the Playbook, and although there are games and apps, we haven’t got enough time to spend playing whatever game is in fashion. My daughter, however, has got some nice apps to play and draw that can keep her busy. We also use the Playbook as a PDF reader and now with the second one we will use it to video chat when away from the family for work. At least this is our hope, since sadly we didn’t manage to do this with the Blackberry Z10, which I had to return. All in all, for the price we paid, we are satisfied. It charges quickly with the fast charging docking station and I am sure that we don’t use it to its full potential. We have a terrible computer at home and we haven’t downloaded music or videos onto the Playbook yet. I am sure that if we really needed Apps such as Skype or Whatsapp (or anything else that is in fashion these days) this would not be the tablet to buy, but these Apps can be installed on a smartphone very easily. All in all, a good tablet for web browsing and media playing if the budget is tight.

JontyB

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Performer

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 22, 2011

Size: 32 GBVerified Purchase

I love the Playbook. It is a handy size with an excellent fast browser supporting Flash video. It is sturdy and very well put together. Unfortunately apps are limited and you need a Blackberry smartphone at hand to enable the bluetooth ‘Bridge’ that links your emails, address book & calendar. We have been promised future compatability with Android apps that should greatly increase the appeal.

The Playbbok is also tethered by bluetooth to access your phone’s 3G network, useful if you are unable to obtain a wifi signal. There is therefore no need for a 3G variant making the Playbook a good value alternative to the i-Pad. The Playbook has HDMEI, USB and Fast Charge connectors but no memory expansion capability or SD card. I would thererfore recommend at least the 32MB version.

I did have a little difficulty getting the software to start-up but the free 90 days UK support line soon sorted the problem and it has been trouble free since. It is comforting to know that that there is help from Blackberry if you need it.

M. Hallett

5.0 out of 5 stars it’s brilliant. There is the problem that it was a …

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 13, 2015

Verified Purchase

I’ve had the Playbook for around eighteen months now. It’s an absolute bargain compared to other tablets on the market. If you want to use your email, surf the web, take pictures or video, store documents, listen to music, or use a few simple commonplace apps, it’s brilliant. There is the problem that it was a commercial disaster for Blackberry and so they’ve given up on it really, which is a shame. I would suggest you download the origami browser – it is streets ahead of the native Blackberry browser. I don’t give a damn about having 101 applications or playing games. If you don’t care about that sort of thing either then this is a smashing buy.

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MW_GB

3.0 out of 5 stars Its no iPad and its not about the Apps

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 28, 2012

Size: 32 GBVerified Purchase

Lots of good reviews, but I suggest you ask yourself why you’re thinking of buying this. Better be becasue its cheap, because its not best.

Ok; its far from junk. Its nicely built, has a bright screen (great for showing off pictures & video) & a competent web-browser. I like the size and weight. BlackBerry Bridge is a useful feature if (like me) you’re one of a seemingly dwindling band of BB users.

But there are some signficant problems. Its slow to boot up (90 seonds maybe, unless you leave in stand-by and that drains the battery quickly), its slow to charge (I leave it overnight), bettery life is poor if you are using Bluetooth (maybe only a couple of hours), I find the touchscreen is often unresponsive, and the browser sometines spontanioulsy shuts down (in fairness the OS2 upgrade seems to have improved that). And its just awkward to get things done (try mailing a photo or file to a contact – virtually impossible with OS1, clunky and slow with OS2, unless you connect to a PC, which at least you can do, but is hardly the point surely). BB Bridge freezes & I’ve had to reinstall 3 times (tough to do by the way – if you’re interested, try to delete BB Bridge AND Bluetooth items on BOTH devises & start install from stratch). I watch streamed videos on my iPhone, but they won’t play on the Playbook on the same WiFi.

You get the picture… but the point is that iPad users I know report none of the above proplems…. To be clear, I’m Apple agnostic, but I’m just left wondering if RMI have put anywhere near enough development into the Playbook, or have just lost interest.

So I bought it becaue I’m a BB user and wanted a reasonably cheap tablet to find out if I would get use out if it. I do. And it somewhat pains me to say it, but my next one will be an iPad.

John Dare

4.0 out of 5 stars Lovely piece of kit, but far too many issues with apps.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 25, 2013

Verified Purchase

Pros – well built and sturdy, decent built in browser. good audio for a small tablet, plenty of built in storage, very acceptable screen resolution, wifi connects easily, OK cameras, fair price.

Cons – very few decent apps and most of those are way too expensive, android apps have to be sideloaded – fiddly and time consuming, RIM constantly promising upgrade to BB10 at some point in the future but it never seems to happen and now never will(see next paragraph).

This could and should have been almost a significant a tablet as the ipad but has been constantly let down by appalling planning and support from RIM. It’s such a pity because there is a lot to like about the Playbook and even 2 years after it’s launch it still performs almost as well as many newer and more expensive tablets. If only the OS could be properly upgraded. Sadly RIM have now decided NOT to upgrade the OS to BB10 and have therefore totally let down very many Playbook owners.

Paraphrasing the the words of my old headmaster – “with a little more effort RIM could do so much better”!

I have just added a fourth star, as I get used to it sideloading becomes easier. NO chance of a 5th star since RIM have reneged on their promises to upgrade to BB10.

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[za3k]

Postmortem: bs-store

Between 2020-03-14 and 2020-12-03 I ran an experimental computer storage setup. I movied or copied 90% of my files into a content-addressable storage system. I’m doing a writeup of why I did it, how I did it, and why I stopped. My hope is that it will be useful to anyone considering using a similar system.

The assumption behind this setup, is that 99% of my files never change, so it’s fine to store only one, static copy of them. (Think movies, photos… they’re most of your computer space, and you’re never going to modify them). There are files you change, I just didn’t put them into this system. If you run a database, this ain’t for you.

Because I have quite a lot of files and 42 drives (7 in my computer, ~35 in a huge media server chassis), there is a problem of how to organize files across drives. To explain why it’s a problem, let’s look at the two default approaches:

One Block Device / RAID 0. Use some form of system that unifies block devices, such as RAID0 or a ZFS’s striped vdevs. Writing files is very easy, you see a single 3000GB drive.

Many forms of RAID0 use striping. Striping splits each file across all available drives. 42 drives could spin up to read one file (wasteful).

You need all the drives mounted to read anything–I have ~40 drives, and I’d like a solution that works if I move and can’t keep my giant media server running. Also, it’s just more reassuring that nothing can fail if you can read each drive individually.

JBOD / Just a Bunch of Disks. Label each drive with a category (ex. ‘movies’), and mount them individually.

It’s hard to aim for 100% (or even >80%) drive use. Say you have 4x 1000GB drives, and you have 800GB movies, 800GB home video footage, 100GB photographs, and 300GB datasets. How do you arrange that? One drive per dataset is pretty wasteful, as everything fits on 3. But, with three drives, you’ll need to split at least one dataset across drives. Say you put together 800GB home video and 100GB photographs. If you get 200GB more photographs, do you split a 300 GB collection across drives, or move the entire thing to another drive? It’s a lot of manual management and shifting things around for little reason.

Neither approach adds any redundancy, and 42 drives is a bit too many to deal with for most things. Step 1 is to split the 42 drives into 7 ZFS vdevs, each with 2-drive redundancy. That way, if a drive fails or there is a small data corruption (likely), everything will keep working. So now we only have to think about accessing 7 drives (but keep in mind, many physical drives will spin up for each disk access).

The ideal solution:

Will not involve a lot of manual management

Will fill up each drive in turn to 100%, rather than all drives at an equal %.

Will deduplicate identical content (this is a “nice to have”)

Will only involve accessing one drive to access one file

Will allow me to get and remove drives, ideally across heterogenous systems.

I decided a content-addressable system was ideal for me. That is, you’d look up each file by its hash. I don’t like having an extra step to access files, so files would be accessed by symlink–no frontend program. Also, it was important to me that I be able to transparently swap out the set of drives backing this. I wanted to make the content-addressable system basically a set of 7 content-addressable systems, and somehow wrap those all into one big content-addressable system with the same interface. Here’s what I settled on:

(My drives are mounted as /zpool/bs0, /zpool/bs1, … /zpool/bs6)

Files will be stored in each pool in turn by hash. So my movie ‘cat.mpg’ with sha hash ‘8323f58d8b92e6fdf190c56594ed767df90f1b6d’ gets stored in /zpool/bs0/83/23/f58d8b9 [shortened for readability]

Initially, we just copy files into the content-addressable system, we don’t delete the original. I’m cautious, and I wanted to make everything worked before getting rid of the originals.

To access a file, I used read-only unionfs-fuse for this. This checks each of /zpool/bs{0..6}/<hash> in turn. So in the final version, /data/movies/cat.mpg would be a symlink to ‘/bs-union/83/23/f58d8b9’

We store some extra metadata on the original file (if not replaced by a symlink) and the storied copy–what collection it’s part of, when it was added, how big it is, what it’s hash is, etc. I chose to use xattrs.

The plan here is that it would be really easy to swap out one backing blockstore of 30GB, for two of 20GB–just copy the files to the new drives and add it to the unionfs.

Here’s what went well:

No problems during development–only copying files meant it was easy and safe to debug prototypes.

Everything was trivial to access (except see note about mounting disks below)

It was easy to add things to the system

Holding off on deleting the original content until I was 100% out of room on my room disks, meant it was easy to migrate off of, rather risk-free

Running the entire thing on top of zfs ZRAID2 was the right decision, I had no worries about failing drives or data corruption, despite a lot of hardware issues developing at one point.

My assumption that files would never change was correct. I made the unionfs filesystem read-only as a guard against error, but it was never a problem.

Migrating off the system went smoothly

Here are the implementation problems I found

I wrote the entire thing as bash scripts operating directly on files, which was OK for access and putting stuff in the store, but just awful for trying to get an overview of data or migrating things. I definitely should have used a database. I maybe should have used a programming language.

Because there was no database, there wasn’t really any kind of regular check for orphans (content in the blobstore with no symlinks to it), and other similar checks.

unionfs-fuse suuucks. Every union filesystem I’ve tried sucks. Its read bandwidth is much lower than the component devices (unclear, probably), it doesn’t cache where to look things up, and it has zero xattrs support (can’t read xattrs from the underlying filesystem).

gotcha: zfs xattrs waste a lot of space by default, you need to reconfigure the default.

But the biggest problem was disk access patterns:

I thought I could cool 42 drives spinning, or at least a good portion of them. This was WRONG by far, and I am not sure how possible it is in a home setup. To give you an idea how bad this was, I had to write a monitor to shut off my computer if the drives went above 60C, and I was developing fevers in my bedroom (where the server is) from overheating. Not healthy.

unionfs has to check each backing drive. So we see 42 drives spin up. I have ideas on fixing this, but it doesn’t deal with the other problems

To fix this, you could use double-indirection.

Rather than pointing a symlink at a unionfs: /data/cat.mpg -> /bs-union/83/23/f58d8b9 (which accesses /zpool/bs0/83/23/f58d8b9)

Point a symlink at another symlink that points directly to the data: /data/cat.mpg -> /bs-indirect/83/23/f58d8b9 -> /zpool/bs0/83/23/f58d8b9

The idea is that backing stores are kinda “whatever, just shove it somewhere”. But, actually it would be good to have a collection in one place–not only to make it easy to copy, but to spin up only one drive when you go through everything in a collection. It might even be a good idea to have a separate drive for more frequently-accessed content. This wasn’t a huge deal for me since migrating existing content meant it coincidentally ended up pretty localized.

Because I couldn’t spin up all 42 drives, I had to keep a lot of the array unmounted, and mount the drives I needed into the unionfs manually.

So although I could have tried to fix things with double-indirection, I decided there were some other disadvantages to symlinks: estimating sizes, making offsite backups foolproof. I decided to migrate off the system entirely. The migration went well, although it required running all the drives at once, so some hardware errors popped up. I’m currently on a semi-JBOD system (still on top of the same 7 ZRAID2 devices).

Hopefully this is useful to someone planning a similar system someday. If you learned something useful, or there are existing systems I should have used, feel free to leave a comment.

Postmortem: bs-store was originally published on Optimal Prime

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Amazon.com : BlackBerry PlayBook 32GB 7″ Multi-Touch Tablet PC with 1 GHz Dual-Core Processor, 5MP Camera and Secondary 3MP Camera, Video, GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth – Black : Tablet Computers : Computers & Accessories

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Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2017

Size: 32 GBVerified Purchase

A BlackBerry tablet seems like an odd purchase in 2017, but I did my homework and knew I wasn’t getting an iPad Air. I was getting this tablet for work – Spreadsheets, Word Docs and hopefully use the Bible app. The price was manageable and I figured that even if it turns out to be obsolete, I can still use it as a music player in our kitchen or something. Well, I was pleasantly surprised by this little tablet. The OS is brilliant. It’s such a joy and ease for multi-tasking. I was able to get my spreadsheets on it immediately and use it to check my messages and keep my calendar. The Bible app works flawlessly. Yes, the tablet is a little slow, but it’s a 2011 tablet, it’s to be expected. Yes, it doesn’t have a huge cache of apps to choose from, but the apps available are quality. I even found some fun games with great graphics. My music is fully loaded and the speakers are fantastic. I even tried taking a few pics and the quality is impressive! It’s not great for social media. Facebook is functional but not great. Instagram and Netflix simply won’t work on this tablet. You can go the Instagram website and at least view pictures, but that’s all. I did manage to get YouTube working with an browser I downloaded from BlackBerry World called “Frost”. Just go to the YouTube web page and it works great. It let me sign in, but I had to re-sign in every time I opened it. But when the videos play on YouTube, you can leave the app and the video keeps playing – very cool! I also have a BlackBerry Passport phone and it lets me sync with it and my Playbook to text and send BBMs. If you’re willing to put in a little work and do some research, you can get some current Android apps working on this thing. I have Evernote, Kindle, and even a version of Google Maps working. Again, do not expect this tablet to be everything the current tablets are, but if you want to spend very little and get a functional tablet that can serve a few purposes well, give this a look. The best things about this Tablet is the multi-tasking feature, the Messaging inbox, the speakers, the quality of the screen and the price. The negatives are a lack of apps and the general slowness. Hope this helps someone!

Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2015

Verified Purchase

The Blackberry Playbook Tablet isn’t for those hardcore iPad and Android people. In fact, I would not recommend you buy this tablet if that is the kind of person you are. This tablet is almost like a beginning step into the world of tablets. You get plenty of memory on the tablet for a price lower than any other competitor offer, but there is good reason for that. For one, this tablet is older than these fancy tablets that we see nowadays, so the specs aren’t as hot. There is Bluetooth, but if you have an iPhone or Android or just anything that isn’t a Blackberry, your phone is not going to interact with this tablet other than giving it data. It CAN’T support file sharing like pictures or music through Bluetooth, but you can plug it into your computer to upload files onto it. Apps are not exact the strong suite of the Playbook either. It has a more limited version of the Blackberry World for the Blackberry phones, so don’t expect all the top of the line games and apps to be on here, through there are a few here and there. I would suggest this tablet to people who want to do some basic browsing on the web, check facebook, and just relax while on the go. I wouldn’t say it is a bad tablet for getting your work done, but I don’t think this is the tablet you should be relying on.

Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2012

Size: 16 GBVerified Purchase

I love this thing!

—– (update) —— Tip to improve WiFi reception

The 2.4 Ghz WiFi antenna is in the upper left hand corner in landscape orientation. Wrapping your hand around this corner to hold Playbook, as I like to do, reduces WiFi signal strength a lot (a bar or two, factor of x100 or 20 dbm), which can be the difference between getting online or not when traveling. A simple trick to get good WiFi reception while still holding Playbook with the left hand is just flip the Playbook over so the ‘Blackberry’ logo is on top. This puts the most commonly used 2.4 Ghz WiFi antenna on the right.

Check out the ‘SANOXY Bluethooth Keyboard for iPad’. It’s a very inexpensive bluetooth keyboard that works fine with Playbook. ————— 7″ screen size is fine, sharp as a tack (viewed with reading lens of bifocals), bright and colorful, sound good, screen responsive to touch. Swipes easy to learn.

On browser homepage On my desktop browsers I have all my frequently visited links in a single custom .html file that I set as my homepage. To me a custom .html homepage is essential, it makes bouncing around the web fast and easy. I first tried copying my custom .html file into the ‘Document’ folder, but found it was not visible under ‘Document’ icon, but later going backdoor I got it installed as the browser homepage. Here’s the procedure:

Type into browser: file:///accounts/1000/shared (note 3 ///)

This brings up a simple file manager that allows you to see what files are in memory and even to launch them. In the Document folder was my custom html homepage file, which I had earlier copied over via USB. Tapping the filename loaded it into the browser, and holding my finger on it allowed me to copy the filename (via the copy box). Finally going into the browser settings I was able to paste the filename into the homepage window. Now every time I start the browser up comes my custom homepage.

Another neat trick is to have alternate start links for the browser on your home screen. This is done by clicking the star+ button and selecting add to home screen. For example I have a icon that will start the browser at the New York Times and another for local radar.

On media files MP3 files can simply be copied over and will play. Video files are more difficult. I have a library of captured .flv files and captured TV shows in .ts format, some of which I would like to put on the Playbook to view when out of WiFi range. However, neither of these file formats is supported directly on the Playbook. In principle there are two options: copy over the file and use an app that does on the fly conversion, or two, preconvert the file to a supported format (like .avi or .mp4). I experimented with both.

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There are several apps that claim to allow you to play .flv files on Playbook. I bought one for $0.99 and while it played .flv files, it was not clean (position slider did not work). I tried a couple of converter programs, which you run on your desktop before downloading. The best (by far) was Freemake Video Converter, not only is it free, but it’s simple to use and will convert a batch of files in one shot. I found it shrank the file size of .ts files, which are initially quite large, by roughly x3 and expanded the size of .flv files, which are initially small, by roughly x2. ————- update My tests show HD (1080p) videos taken by Playbook are quite large, about 6 Gbyte/hour. I found running them through Freemake Video Converter with NO change in resolution, file type, or video quality reduced file size to 2 Gbyte/hour, a factor of 3. Very handy if you want to keep lot of Playbook video stored on the Playbook. ————- Before converting a lot of files I did several tests comparing file formats and resolution. Freemake Video Converter makes it easy to reduce file size by lowering resolution. Tests with a sharp HD video showed no difference that I could see between 1080p and 720p on this small screen, so I decided to go with 720p. This resolution reduces .ts file size by a factor of 4. Reducing quality to TV level, still very watchable, reduces .ts file size by a factor of six.

Quick tests of various formats (avi, mp4, wmv) showed no significant difference in quality or file size and all seemed to play fine on Playbook, so I choose avi and began converting. This turned out to be a mistake. Not one of the first three converted TV shows (1 hr) would play correctly on Playbook. One refused to open and other two gave an error when the slider was moved, though all played correctly on my desktop. The only reason I can come up with is that Playbook has a problem with long files in avi format. My quick tests had been with short files. I then noticed that it says in the Blackberry document, ‘Supported Media Types on Blackberry Tablets’, avi. wmv, and mp4 are “supported”, but the “recommended video format for local playback” is mp4. So I reconverted the same three TV shows to mp4, also lowering the resolution one step to 720p, and now all played fine on Playbook. So my recommendation is stick with mp4, which is the format Playbook uses for its own videos, and reduce resolution to 720p (1280 x 720).

WiFi file transfer A neat trick to easily transfer files to Playbook from your computer over WiFi (no cable!) is to put a shortcut to Playbook on your Windows desktop. Set the ‘target’ of the shortcut to either the IP of your Playbook (found under About, Network) or the ‘Tablet Network Name’, which you can change (found under Storage and Sharing, Network properties) preceded by \ (two backslashes). When you click on the shortcut, Explorer opens and Playbook will appear as a Network device. Click the Media folder and you now have access to all Playbook media folders. For this to work the Playbook ‘WiFi Sharing’ setting (in Storage and Sharing) needs to be ON. Transfer rate is a little slower than with a USB cable (about half), but perfectly usable. (update) For some non-transfer operations, like file rename, I find USB more reliable than WiFi.

Html files, pdf files and File manager The Blackberry (so called) “File Manager” doesn’t show file details, and critically (for some weird reason) it hides local html files, though it does show local pdf files and allows you to open them. Real file managers are available in App World. A pretty good basic file manager (free) is ‘AIR Browser’ and better is ‘File Browser’ (a buck).

‘Air Browser’ and ‘File Browser’ provide a way to work with local html files, they show them and will open them in the browser. Once open in the browser local html files work well, all the internal and external links work. I find it frustrating that Blackberry doesn’t provide direct support for local html files, because I have a whole library of such files that I want to use on the Playbook.

Privacy A useful app for file privacy is ‘File Shield’ (buck). It provides a simple way (without passwords!) to hide videos, photos, and documents. In the app directories and individual files can be toggled between private and public. When set to private, files and directories effectively disappear, visible neither to Blackberry applications nor file managers.

Bugs and weirdnesses I bought just after OS 2 release and my OS upgraded to 2.0 when my new tablet initialized. Here are the bugs and weirdnesses I have found in a week or so of use.

— I initally wrote that my volume up/dn buttons had never worked and assumed it was a software bug because I read someone else reported volume buttons stopped working after an upgrade to OS 2.0. See comments where Ronald kindly set me straight. — Video application has a couple of drawbacks, one is no folders. In the pictures application if you organize picture files in subfolders, the opening screen shows only the subfolders. Not so with the video application. You can put videos in subfolders, but the video application still displays all your videos files on the opening screen. Primitive and inconsistent. Even more surprising the video application displays videos (with the formats it supports) regardless of the folder. Put a video in say, Voice folder, and it still shows up under Videos. — The video application provides two display views: Downloaded Videos and Recorded Videos. Videos uploading to the Camera directory are displayed in the Recorded Video view ordered by the file time stamp, so some separation of videos is possible. Videos in the Downloaded Videos view are ordered alphabetically, No other sort appears to be possible. — Document mode of the browser does not work right in portrait orientation (tested with New York Times articles) — a Hotmail text message in browser would not finger expand — Adobe’s pdf reader come installed on the Playbook, but it is not well integrated with the browser. When a pdf link in the browser is clicked, instead of just opening the file your only option is to download the file. — ‘Power Off’ is a built-in Blackberry app with just three power buttons that are the same as under the battery icon. ‘StandBy’ in the app does not put the tablet to sleep (as it should), it does a ReStart (locking up your machine for two minutes)! You have to wonder just how much testing Blackberry does when a trivial app like this does not work right after a major OS upgrade. — As I discussed above, it appears the video player has a problem with long .avi files, though this format claims to be “supported”. — With Blackberry emphasis on security it is surprising its OS does not directly provide support the hiding of files. — After a week of use the browser crashed (gray screen) requiring Playbook restart to fix it. — On my 2nd day with Playbook it crashed (it first refused to open files, then it hung with Shutting down splash screen displayed). There is a way to hardware reset the Playbook, equivalent to holding down the power button on Windows desktops, but I had to search the web to find it. It’s hold down three of top four buttons (vol up, vol dn and power) for 10-15 sec (or until you see red led). This restored my Playbook to good health with no loss of data. I took off one star (5 => 4) for the volume buttons not working (whoops, see comments) and for a system crash in two days of use.

Top reviews from other countries

LauraUK

4.0 out of 5 stars A good tablet for non-Apps addicts 🙂

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 16, 2014

Verified Purchase

I know it might sound crazy to some, but yesterday I bought my second Playbook at an excellent price. Last year we bought a Playbook hoping that Blackberry would release their BBM 10 software. Well, they didn’t but we are still using our Blackberry on a daily basis to surf the web and watch cartoons on Youtube. This is our main use for the Playbook, and although there are games and apps, we haven’t got enough time to spend playing whatever game is in fashion. My daughter, however, has got some nice apps to play and draw that can keep her busy. We also use the Playbook as a PDF reader and now with the second one we will use it to video chat when away from the family for work. At least this is our hope, since sadly we didn’t manage to do this with the Blackberry Z10, which I had to return. All in all, for the price we paid, we are satisfied. It charges quickly with the fast charging docking station and I am sure that we don’t use it to its full potential. We have a terrible computer at home and we haven’t downloaded music or videos onto the Playbook yet. I am sure that if we really needed Apps such as Skype or Whatsapp (or anything else that is in fashion these days) this would not be the tablet to buy, but these Apps can be installed on a smartphone very easily. All in all, a good tablet for web browsing and media playing if the budget is tight.

M. Hallett

5.0 out of 5 stars it’s brilliant. There is the problem that it was a …

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 13, 2015

Verified Purchase

I’ve had the Playbook for around eighteen months now. It’s an absolute bargain compared to other tablets on the market. If you want to use your email, surf the web, take pictures or video, store documents, listen to music, or use a few simple commonplace apps, it’s brilliant. There is the problem that it was a commercial disaster for Blackberry and so they’ve given up on it really, which is a shame. I would suggest you download the origami browser – it is streets ahead of the native Blackberry browser. I don’t give a damn about having 101 applications or playing games. If you don’t care about that sort of thing either then this is a smashing buy.

John Dare

4.0 out of 5 stars Lovely piece of kit, but far too many issues with apps.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 25, 2013

Verified Purchase

Pros – well built and sturdy, decent built in browser. good audio for a small tablet, plenty of built in storage, very acceptable screen resolution, wifi connects easily, OK cameras, fair price.

Cons – very few decent apps and most of those are way too expensive, android apps have to be sideloaded – fiddly and time consuming, RIM constantly promising upgrade to BB10 at some point in the future but it never seems to happen and now never will(see next paragraph).

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This could and should have been almost a significant a tablet as the ipad but has been constantly let down by appalling planning and support from RIM. It’s such a pity because there is a lot to like about the Playbook and even 2 years after it’s launch it still performs almost as well as many newer and more expensive tablets. If only the OS could be properly upgraded. Sadly RIM have now decided NOT to upgrade the OS to BB10 and have therefore totally let down very many Playbook owners.

Paraphrasing the the words of my old headmaster – “with a little more effort RIM could do so much better”!

I have just added a fourth star, as I get used to it sideloading becomes easier. NO chance of a 5th star since RIM have reneged on their promises to upgrade to BB10.

Mark Collins

4.0 out of 5 stars I’d love to give this 5 stars but…

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 1, 2013

Verified Purchase

Great tablet, let down by a lack of apps, and lack of ongoing support from RIM/Blackberry. It’s a shame, because this could have been so good. As it was cheap I will hang onto mine for a bit. And it makes a nice gadget to use for some stuff. To be honest though, I don’t need it, and very rarely use it just due to there not being relevant apps available. Also, now I have a BB10 phone, the bridge has very limited functionality, I have lost most of the features I used to use with my older BB7 phone. Battery great, high quality, and out of the box it works extremely well for the basics. Try to get it to do more than this and you will be disappointed (even with sideloading Android apps – which are very flaky when you try to run them… Kindle being an example – it’s made me buy a Kindle because it was so rubbish!)

kevin

5.0 out of 5 stars So glad I bought this tablet

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 14, 2012

Verified Purchase

BlackBerry PlayBook – Tablet – 64 GB – 7″ TFT ( 1024 x 600 ) – rear camera + front camera – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth u

I wanted a tablet for a while but was put off by the price. When I saw this BlackBerry playbook for this price I read through loads of customer reviews, and found them all mostly very positive, so I took a chance and bought one. I already have a Blackberry bold phone, and use documents to go all the time.

I must say that to set up the Bridge software and download it to my phone was quick and simple. Once done the tablet and phone are linked by bluetooth and you can keep your phone in your pocket and access your messages, we’ll everything, I love it!

When you are away from your wifi or free hotspot, you can still get on the Internet because the Internet is accessed via bluetooth (Bridge) through your phone in your pocket.

Also if you download “print to go” to your pc or laptop you can select print to go and your document will appear on your tablet in pdf format, so instead of carrying around wads of paper printouts, you can have them on your tablet

I highly recommend this tablet, it also looks good, we’ll made and easy to use,I like it more than the ipad.

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