This story started about 2 or 3 years ago in my previous car. When I would burn MP3 CDs (just simple data diss), some songs would play, some would play for a bit and then go blank, some would skip, and some discs wouldn’t even play. I drove me crazy to have a head unit that could play MP3 discs but not actually play the MP3 discs. It started happening out of the blue so I assumed the unit had gone bad and I was out of luck.

Flash forward to last weekend and I stumbled into buying a new-to-me car. It has an MP3 capable head unit and I was excited to start using that feature again. Burned a Wu-Tang disc, brought it with me the next time I was going out, popped it into the player and… SAME PROBLEM. What the hell?

So I bought new/different CDs - same problem. Tried my other burner - same problem. Tried a different software - same problem. Tried a different disc style - same problem. Sometimes they would verify and sometimes they would error out but ALL the time they would not play properly. I was beginning to think that my music collection had gone bad except it played fine on the computer and on an iPod.

It was Google time, in a big way. Here are a few things I found out about burning a CD of any type. It turns out, the solution was easy. All I had to do was…

Turn down the burn speed

Just because your discs say they are capable of burning at a certain speed doesn’t mean they actually are. The Sony discs I bought were rated for up to 48x but, as soon as I turned the speed down to 24x, discs burned great and played just fine in the car. Try a speed much lower than the top speed, like 24x or 12x.

Thanks to Platinum GLS on VWVortex.com

Get rid of nested directories

You would think that a CD player would be able to figure out directories inside of directories but some just can’t. Some of that probably has to do with the fact that most CD players are linear, meaning that they only have forward and back controls, not up and down, so navigation might be a problem. If you are using folders, use them in the root directory only (meaning the “first level” of the file structure) and, just to be sure, if you are using directories, put all the songs in a directory (no songs in the root directory).

Yes

No

Rename long and/or oddly-named files

In addition to nested directories, some players also have problems with certain characters and file name lengths that border on infinite. Get rid of symbols and shorten the name a bit to make sure that your player can read and display the name. Some burning software will actually rename the file but that doesn’t always mean that your play can play them.

Yes

No

Update your driver firmware

Firmware is software that resides within hardware to instruct it how to function and how to run commands sent by your computer. If your burner is over a year old, there might be a firmware update to download and install. This sounds technical but it shouldn’t be that hard. Go to the website of the manufacturer of your burner and search for updates, find your model number, download and install.

Memory problems - not enough or going bad

It’s unlikely that the first problem you would encounter with bad memory on your computer would be burning a CD but stranger things have happened. Run a memory checker (like Memtest86+), just in case. It’s more likely that maybe you’re doing a little too much multi-tasking during your burn sessions. Surf the web, write a letter, or plan your next CD but leave your Photoshop, Crysis, and Maya3D applications closed. It is possible to overrun your burning buffer and affect the data that is written.

Finalize your CDs

MP3 players don’t like “multi-session” discs (when you can add data later) so make sure to finalize the CD. Every burn program should have this option available.

Defragment your hard drive

But you do that regularly anyways, right?

On an XP machine, go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. Make sure to run it when you won’t be working on your computer, like overnight. I’d recommend doing this once per quarter or more frequently if you move files around a lot.

As a side-note, the disk defragmenter icon is probably one of my most favorite icons of all time. Yes, I have favorite icons.

Yes

Still not working? Here’s more options for you

Here is a great list of things to try from Acoustica.
Here is a whole site dedicated to helping you solve this little problem.

Hoped that helped!

$249.99 plus tax for the Web Premium versionat the SDSU student store…

Now all I have to do is learn it! My arsenal:

• The Illustrator CS2 Bible from Wiley. I bought the CS2 version because I had a *gasp* pirated version and wanted to get good enough to justify buying the full version. I’m not sure that Illustrator will be my weapon of choice from the Adobe suite but I want to be able to at least edit any vector graphics that I get my hands on. It’s all about being versatile.
• Lynda.com training videos. Some of them came with the software and there are a few free ones on-line. Lynda is only $25/month which is a great deal is you sit down and learn one or two products in a month. Self-paced, professionally created, and they cover a broad range of products. Good deal! On-line learning is underrated right now.
• Adobe help files. I don’t know why I was surprised to find instructional PDFs bundled with this software. Part of me thought that once you bought these, you were on your own. These files are hundreds of pages long and, thankfully, link contextually to the software (meaning you can get help from within the software when you need help).
• Screwing about. I’ve heard/read that just playing with the program is a big part of learning it. I’d say that’s half-true. I’m still using Paint.net at work (and, sometimes, at home) and find it to be very simple, very usable, and functional to about 10% of Photoshop. I don’t WANT to use Paint.net but I know it fairly well and, to be honest, the quick stuff is much easier to do there than in Photoshop. All griping aside, I want to use Photoshop exclusively so I’m trying (desperately) not to even open Paint.net.

I’m finding it tough to just do what I want to do in PS. I’m sure that comfortability will come with time. At least it’s remotely intuitive (GIMP stopped me in my tracks the first 3 times I tried to use it).

It’s photo editing abilities are , to say the least, amazing, even if the drawing functionality is a bit.. convoluted.

This post goes out to the habitual offenders, the ones who know but don’t do it, the ones who know AND do it but waste time with Photoshop or something similar, and for those who do it and do it right but want others to do the same and don’t want to spend the time teaching or writing out the instructions. Print it out and hand it out.

These days, with ultra-compact digital cameras coming in around $200 and megapixel counts in the 7’s, 8’s, and 9’s, everyone is taking digital pictures and they’re all HUMONGOUS. Between on-line forums, emails from family members, and massive Powerpoint presentations, I’m drowning in over-sized photos and surrounded by people who, understandably, don’t want to waste their time resizing each and every picture they want to share. At some point, for some reason, these photos have to get smaller and, unfortunately, not everyone knows how to do that. And I’m Josh and I can help (at least the website says so) so I’m going to show you a free program that makes the whole resizing thing easier than you thought possible. If you’re using Photoshop and resizing each image, you’re wasting your time. And if you’re NOT resizing your pictures, you’re wasting everyone else’s.

Why should digital pictures be resized?

The problem with big pictures is their size. Har har har… no really, the size contributes two annoyances:

1. Big pictures are “physically” very large and can’t fit on the screen unless a particular program resizes them. The size can also stretch out web sites and make everything a complete mess
2. Big pictures are virtually large as well and, as such, are comprised of a lot of data. This can fill up email programs, slow down computers, and take forever to download.

With my Canon SD1000 (a small, great, inexpensive ultra-compact digi-cam) set to its highest resolution (meaning the size of the image), it’s taking pictures at 3072 x 2304 pixels. This is 7,077,888 pixels (or dots) of color that has to be stored and transferred. Unless you’re printing these photos on 8×10 paper, a picture of this size will do you no good. You’re also going to need several different emails if you want to send a whole group of them to someone, not to mention the hard drive space it takes to store them (on both machines).

Clearly, it has to be done but how to go about it?

How can digital pictures be resized?

In order to get your pictures in a more manageable size to use, share, and post online, you will need to reduce the amount of data that is contained in the picture file. This can be done by reducing the actual size of the photo while keeping the overall quality. This can be done with an image editing software like Photoshop but there’s no need to break out the big guns for such a minor task.

I just recently starting using the aptly-named software PIXresizer and I couldn’t be happier with how it works. I’ll walk you through some of the basic functions of this free software so you can pass them along to the technology-handicapped people in your life… or just send the link to a friend.

First, download it here (scroll down and look for the “DOWNLOAD [ 3.3 Mb .zip]” link). Open the .ZIP file and run the program Setup to install it on your machine. Make sure to add an icon to your desktop and run the program.

How do I use this PIXresizer program?

PIXresizer is very easy to use so I’ll keep these instructions nice and short. For those who are fluent in image language (sizes in pixels, images types, etc), this list of instructions will probably be useless to you. It’s very easy to poke around and figure out what to do. If you’re not so computer-savvy, I’ll show you how to get the most out of this great little freeware program.

This program runs in two modes: single picture and batch processing. We’ll take these one at a time…

Single photo resizing

When you first open the program, it will default to the “Work on one file” option. This is what you want to use when you just want to re-size one file (see, I told you this thing was easy). Step one is to pick a file to work on by clicking the Load Picture button.

As you might expect, this will open a file explorer window where you can pick the photo you want to alter. Conveniently enough, the window starts in your My Pictures folder. Choose an over-sized photo you want to change and click Open. Your photo will now be loaded in the little window on the right instead of that ridiculous image of the guy in the pink shirt taking your photo in front of the XP background (why).

Step 2 (marked as such in PIXresizer) is to choose a new size for your photo.

PIXresizer gives you a few quick options to make your life easier.

• 25% gets us to 648 x 486 pixels. This is not a “standard” size but it’s great for uploading to the web (Flickr, Facebook,etc). If you are sending over email, photos don’t need to be this small.
• If you’re sending over email, a perfect size is about 800 x 600 (the 33% option gets you close to this). Pictures of this size are not too big, easy to see on any monitor, and retain a good amount of the detail that was in the picture originally.
• If you want to just save some space on your computer and you’re not going to be printing these in a large format, you’re safe with storing them at around 1200×900. This size is small enough not to be unwieldy but still big enough to retain most of the detail of the original.
• The custom size can be used for any of the options I gave above or to make the photo a specific size (if requested by a person, program, or website).

To get an idea of what these sizes actually mean for you check out the examples below:

400 x 300

600 x 450

800 x 600

1200 x 900

Original size

This will give you a good idea of what it will look like on other screens. Keep in mind that some web browsers will resize your photo automatically. To see them in their native size, right-click on the displayed image and select either Save Image As… or Save Picture As… and pick a place on your computer. Now open the picture on your hard drive to get a better idea of what it will look like for others.

The other size option that is given is labeled Maintain Aspect Ratio. Every image has a particular ratio - the length divided by the width (or vice versa). As you make images smaller or larger, you usually want to keep this ratio the same so the image does not distort. Unchecking this box will allow you to put in two separate measurements for length and width, allowing the image to skew.

Resized to 200 pixels while maintaining aspect ratio:

Resized to 200 x 150 pixels without maintaining aspect ratio:

Step 3 in this process has you choose a file type. If you’re not sure what to pick, either keep the default file format by selecting Same as original or choose JPEG (you can’t go wrong with JPEG for basic web and sharing uses).

The last option, Step 4, allows you to save the image as black & white (Output greyscale) and keep the EXIF data (additional non-visual data). These should be unchecked if you’re just resizing the picture.

Click the Save Picture button and you’re complete!

Multiple photo resizing

One of the best things about PIXresizer is its ability to resize several different photos at once. This mitigates the chore of sharing, uploading, and storing photos.

First, switch the view by clicking on the Work with multiple files tab at the top of the window.

This view has a few different options but only two that we’ll cover. The first, aptly named Step 1, deals with where the files are and where they are going.

The organization here is a bit confusing at first but after this brilliant explanation, it will be clear.

The top button, Source, asks what folder on your computer holds the batch of pictures you wish to resize. Checking the Subfolders box above tells PIXresizer to include all the folders that are located within the folder you choose.

Click the Source button and find the appropriate folder. If that folder has all the pictures you want to resize and there are other folders present within that folder, keep the Subfolder box unchecked. If, however, you are resizing a whole directory structure of pictures, check this box and let PIXresizer loose.

Now that you’ve told the program where to find the pictures, now you need to tell it where the new pictures should go. Click the Destination button and a window appears asking you where you would like to save the resized images. Pick a folder or click the New Folder button to, well, add a new folder.

If you are including subfolders from your source location and want to keep the same folders in the new location, click the Copy Directory Structure checkbox.
Now, pick the new size for all the pictures. Don’t worry about the checkboxes here; they’re not of too much use (in fact, I haven’t been able to figure out what their purpose is).

Simply adjust the slider to the size you want the largest dimension (so that portrait and landscape oriented photos adjust the same) from 96 pixels to 1200 pixels. The batch mode is not able to handle anything larger than 1200 pixels but, for most people, this is completely fine.

Lastly, choose the save pictures options (Enlarge if needed will enlarge any images in the directory structure that are smaller than your chosen size) and click Save Pictures.

That’s all you need to make your digital life (and those of others) just a little bit better! Please share this link with anyone you think could use it and, for those “net-challenged” folks, download the PDF, print it, and hand it to them.

This post in PDF format

From the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus:

New Study Debunks Myth That Most Tech Entrepreneurs Are College Kids
The research, sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, studied U.S. engineering and technology companies founded between 1995 and 2005. It found that the median and average age at which U.S.-born entrepreneurs founded their technology and engineering companies was 39. There were twice as many entrepreneurs older than fifty than those who were younger than twenty-five, and 1 percent of U.S.-born founders of tech companies were teenagers.

I have a habit of thinking of myself as “behind” in many ways. Step one is mitigating this feeling a bit through actual information rather than perception.

Step two, and the most important, is being rid of the idea of “behind” or “ahead” out of my brain.

In a flurry of self-branding excitement and possible arrogance, I rushed headlong into the world of web and graphic design. Armed with a blog about sustainable transportation with a self-centered title (joshisjosh.com), a large group of supportive friends and family, and another group of confused classmates, professors, and colleagues, I charged forward and consumed all of the tutorials and free how-to web pages I could get my hands on. I already had one project lined up and I was confident that my charm and charisma would push me from project to project, swinging on each accomplishment like monkey bars towards fame and fortune.

I devoured blogs about search engine marketing/optimization (I barely knew how to code), Photoshop tutorials (I have access to a copy at school and even then I find it hard to do something as simple as crop an image), and design instructions. I poured over CSS galleries and design samples and coding forums. I signed up for hosting, bought a new computer, and set out to pursue this insistent, confusing, potentially disastrous dream of mine. It was my time, I would not be denied!

Very quickly, reality set in. I had quickly acquired a heavy pile of new books to certify myself in all things IT-related, another egotistical URL (joshcanhelp.com - heard of it?), and a sinking sensation that I might be going about this all the wrong way.

It took up until this morning to understand where I started to go wrong. Seth Godin describes it perfectly (the following is an excerpt):

Here’s an interesting dichotomy:

I published a book so I need you to read it
vs.
There’s something you need to read, so I wrote about it.

Or

I’m fifty and I just made an album because it was time for me to make one.
vs.
These songs won’t let go of me and I want to share them with you because they matter.

The first is me-centric and explains that we’re promoting something that got made because we need to sell it. What we do is make stuff and sell it, and what you do is buy it or watch it. “I needed to make something to sell, here’s the best I could do.”

The second is you-centric. It starts with the needs and desires of the consumer and ignores the committees, the compromises and the economic realities. It says, “I found something for you, here it is.”

I like you-centric, I talk about you-centric, I try to push for you-centric at work, I’m all about you-centric. I’m a consumer and I want things and entertainment and media that makes sense for me. I’m a producer and I want people to like what I do and let me work on their projects. I want companies to give a damn what I think and I want to be insanely useful to my friends, families, clients, and colleagues.

So the problem I’m seeing with my initial “business plan” (there are quotes because, for the time being, I do not have a business plan) is that I envisioned putting myself out there and the business coming to me because, well, I’m me. This is celebrity thinking, actor and model thinking, author, director, and musician thinking. I’m just entering the market with the ludicrous assumption that there are already people waiting outside my virtual door for the next insightful Josh blog or the next amazing Josh service or the next crazy Josh endeavor. Like a product devised in a boardroom and never once shown to consumers before rushing to market, I figured that the idea was sound simply because I had it.

Read my About Me page and this post and you’ll see that, through and through, my intentions have always been to be a resource before anything else and offer the kind of service and attention that is only possible by someone (like myself) who truly enjoys connecting with people, old and new. But the problem lies in the fact that I had no idea what the market was like out there and no clue what people needed.

Four customers deep and I’m already starting to get it:

• The blogs that I read, the designers that I follow, the tutorials that I read… none of these people are who I’m going to help. All things can always improve but these people do not need me.
• The coolest Flash gadget, the slickest widget on my blog, the best Twitter post will not get me closer to the people that are having trouble managing their technology. Referrals, USPS, and networking will.
• Unlike me, most people don’t really care what the code on their site looks like or how a wireless network works. Most people want to know how to use what they have and they want it to function properly ad infinitum
• Just because you’re a teacher, just because you know something, just because you have information to share does not mean there are always students waiting for you.
• Few people care about the design process, design elements, and the subtleties of good design. That’s why many people probably don’t immediately call a web designer an artist.

Thanks again, Seth.