Dear friends,
This is an article I wrote some time ago specifically for a non technical
audience. I got good feedback. So I am sending it to you hoping that you
benefit.
Please please dont start a flame war on this. :-)
If u dont like it, just press the d key.
regards,
Girish
Hello,
Here I am sharing with you certain highly effective practical ways to save
money. I use only free software. So none of the tools I speak of cost any
money!
1) Tape recorders, music systems etc. are dead or are at the verge of
extinction. If you are buying something new and
you already have a cassette player at home or if you don't have any cassettes ,
then don't even touch a cassette with
a ten foot barge pole. There is also no meaning in shelling 10,000 rupees on
some fancy music system. Your computer can
do a much better job than any other device. Or get a cheap CD/MP3 player . Now
the real magic lies in the fidelity/frequency
response/power handling capabilites of the speakers.
Money should be spent only on speakers. The audio processing better be done by
a computer or a portable device with a
DSP chip like portable mp3 players.
It is not prudent to rely on computers completely for music since they may
crash and boot slowly and are an overkill if it is not on. So get a tiny
portable device and connect powerful speakers with amplifiers.
There are several creative things you can do with the computer that no off the
shelf component in the market can even imagine.
a) play songs in any order
b) play songs in random order
c) delete and introduce songs from anywhere
d) download songs from the Internet
e) schedule to play a song at a particular time or stop at a particular time
f) play the song at double or half the rate
Also you can buy any CD and rip it to convert the audio into mp3,Ogg Vorbis or
flv format. CD are notorious for getting spoilt.
Also CD is dead technology. Buy DVDs for anything; that is the future.
2) For new purchases , please dont't go in for CRT monitors, those bulky
thingies that look like old television sets. :-)
LCD monitors have become very affordable these days. LCD technology is digital,
consumes very little power, occupies a fraction
of the space, has excellent resolution and durability.
The comparison is something like the difference between transistor and valve
tube or between electric bulb and tubelight.
Only problem is viewing from a distance or from an angle, viewability is
affected. But things might change anytime.
I guess it is also easy on the eyes which is very very important.
3) Present day television technology is soon dying. Modern TVs will have two
important changes. First it will throw away CRT tech and go for LCD monitors.
And the television signal decoding is going to be done digitally with the end
result that new TVs will have very little
similarity with what you see today.
I view television on .. yes, u guessed it right, on my computer screen. You can
buy a very good PCI TV card for around 1200 bucks.
And immediately a whole new world opens before you.
You can
a) record TV shows
b) schedule TV recordings and time shift with which you can fast forward and
rewind television
c) You can sit at one foot distance and watch
d) Eyes won't get spoilt one bit bcoz PAL refresh rates are 50 Hz and most
modern day computer monitors easily do around 85 Hz. And the resolution of the
computer screen is an order of magnitude higher than that of TV. With the
result that you enjoy the experience with such surrealism and also you can do
other things with the computer while watching television.
e) Of course you can take snapshots when your favourite stars appear on screen
f) Many TV cards come with an in built FM tuner too! You can listen to FM
radio, record it, do whatever
g)There are countless other things you can do like streaming the TV signals to
another computer or monitor in some other room
External TV cards are available but I don't think they are worth the cost. If
you already have a TV at home, still buying a TV card
is worthwhile since you don't want to miss the next episode of Selvi if you
want to drop your son at the bus stand,Do you? :-)
But I think the real payoff is in terms of preserving our eyesight. LCD screen
computer monitors give u such clarity and they are so soothing to the eyes...
Along similar lines you can easily switch over to next gen television tech like
DVB, DTH, HDTV etc. Already cheap TV cards support these things. But alas, only
DTH has free to air channels in India today. And you need to also buy a small
dish antenna. And pay for
the set top box.
4) Want a home theatre ? No problem. My solution will cost only 1/10th or less.
:-)
First of all here, the main components are the six or so speakers placed
appropriately on the room. The acoustics of the room has to be taken into
consideration. Things like carpets and curtains to absorb sound, supress echo
and promote only the requisite reverbration is reqd.
The other two components are a projector and a ... yes again , a computer that
decodes DVD and TV signals. This can be a box too.
With these individual components one can easily come up with a much better home
theatre for around 35,000 instead of two lakhs or so.
5) Present day radio still has lot of fastination with the masses.That too with
the creative, informative programming being done in Chennai FM channels, radio
has become an unalienable part of everyday life.
FM and to a small extent AM radio technology though ancient , unfortunately or
should I say fortunately also are dying albeit slowly.
Already technology is available that uses the present day electromagnetic
spectrum allocation done in various countries to air "Digital AM" which uses
high fidelity audio in AAC format that give you not only audio, but also
display text about the song being played, allow some interactivity along the
lines of "dial a song" thro' the radio itself. Of course this is a distant
dream since this requires both transmitter and radio receiver technology to be
completely changed.
Today FM radios are available for 100 rupees or so. Very good value for money.
Once you connect it to speakers you have very high
fidelity stereo audio.
6) Want new jazzy ringtones for your Nokia mobile? Ask me! :-) You can make it
in no time with linux based tools. Get me the song
and I will make the ring tone in no time.
7) Wireless technology has also come a long way today but this mostly applies
to laptops and I don't know much about it. Wi Fi,WiMax and what not have a
great future.
8) Wanna call friends abroad? Use VoIP technology. Go to www.skype.com or
www.voipbuster.com. Download the free software,
buy regular phone numbers in most advanced nations for free! Only condition is
u shud use Win XP or for skype Linux or FreeBSD.
I have spoken to several countries for hours without spending a single rupee.
On one end is ur computer, on the other end is a telephone.
9) The best DVD player is your computer again. :-)
10) You can do several other things. The sky is the limit the moment computing
power is at your disposal. You can become completely self sufficient and self
reliant. If you want to publish a book ,all the tools are available for free.
If you want to do image processing, reduce the brightness, apply red eye
correction, make a photo album, change the background, create a group photo
etc. all these can be done with free software tools.
You can record your voice, songs or music if you are good at singing or playing
musical instruments and release a CD with cover design done all by yourself
with a computer.
--
Mulla Nasrudin was relaxing one night rocking in his easy chair when an
ostentatiously dressed woman came running and asked him,
"Doctor, doctor can you please tell me what is wrong with me?"
Nasrudin considered for a moment and said,
"You are wearing too much makeup. You should reduce it. And you will look
much better if you shed few kilos. By the way the doctor lives across the
street."
