There are two main types of mp3 player that you can buy in the shops today. Flash or hard disk drive based. Flash based mp3 players are smaller in dimension compared to hard disk mp3 players. They use a flash memory chip so there is no moving parts, hence your music will never skip or jump.

Hard disk mp3 players are larger in size but can hold far more data than flash mp3 players. This usually makes them slightly more popular as having a larger selection of music appeals more to the younger generation. A popular choice of a flash mp3 player is the Apple iPod Nano. With its fashionable design and ease of use, it is the leading flash based mp3 player. A popular hard disk based mp3 player would be the Apple iPod Video 60GB. Videos, pictures, mp3s and videos are all features of this mp3 player. It can hold up to 60GB of media which is equivalent to 15,000 songs, full-colour album art and up to 25,000 photos, the new iPod makes the most of your music and more.

Another device that is emerging which is an alternative mp3 player is the hand held mobile phone. Sony Ericsson released the K800i which comes with built in 125MB flash memory chip and an optional 512MB chip space. So you could kill two birds with one stone and buy a mobile phone with mp3 player capabilities. This is also more convenient and money saving. Instead of carrying around two devices, you could simply use one single device. Although mobile phones are good mp3 players, the new Sony Ericsson K800i has a built in radio which would allow you to listen to music free and not need to download media from the iTunes website. So before buying a new mobile phone or mp3 player, remember you could save yourself a packet and get a multimedia cell phone at half the prize of both items put together.

by Michael - website owner of Alternative MP3 Players - the internets best source for Alternative mp3 players

Share This

Data recovery could possibly be the best words you will ever hear. If your computer never crashes and you never delete anything on accident, then those words will never apply. However, every computer user at one point or another will face the dreaded feeling of losing one file, or hundreds of files. Information can be lost through human accidents, natural disasters or viruses. Today’s computer viruses can be deadly for your computer. The chances of getting back what the virus has ruined is about the same as any other deletion cause. That likelihood can be high, depending on how much time and money you are willing to spend.

Once a file or files have been deleted; assess how valuable those files are to you. How much time did it take to create? How much money did you use creating it, or how much money was it making you? Do the resources still exist to recreate the file? Once you have answered these questions set a limit to how much time and money you will spend trying to recover the file information. Often times once you get started searching for a file it can be difficult to stop. Keep in mind that even if the file is found, it may be corrupt and therefore unusable.

The first step to finding deleted files is to check the Recycle Bin, or Trash for Macintosh users. If your file is listed in the Recycle Bin restoration is simple. If you are not so lucky, try a data recovery software program or a human specialist. When working with a specialist, tell them everything you know about the files lost. Were they text or photo files? What kind of file was it (TIFF, PDF, etc)? What did the file contain? The more information you can provide, the easier it will be for the specialist to locate the file. Keep in mind text files and small files are much easier to recover successfully than photo files or large files.

If your entire hard drive is lost you have fewer and more expensive options. If parts of your hard drive have broken, such as the aperture arm or platters, try running a data recovery software program. If that is not successful you will need to bring the hard drive to a specialist. Using highly trained skills and the known filing structure and formats, a specialist can generally recover your data. If not, he can at least rebuild your hard drive so you are not without a computer. Any recovery specialist will be costly and require payment even if the drive was not recovered.

To avoid these types of situations, back up important files (or your entire hard drive) using disks, USBs, CDs or a server. Even having two of the same file in the same place will help you if you accidentally delete a file. Backing up files will take you much less time and cost much less money than a data recovery solution, so plan ahead and back it up!

Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach, Florida. Find more about this as well as data recovery at http://www.wegetyoustarted.com

Share This

One fine day you start your PC and get messages that say,”Book Disk failure”. The problem is that the hard disk is detected but the OS does not load. The system may get stuck in the second screen during the booting process or the OS might display an error message and refuse to load. Such situations can be trouble some as they leave you with very few troubleshooting options

One of the common problems in dual boot systems is of the boot loader getting corrupted. For example, you have a system running Windows XP and Linux using Lila as boot loader. If Lila gets corrupted, you can not boot into either OS.When this happens, you have to boot into the system using some other media, such as a boot floppy or the Windows Dafter booting go to the command prompt, type ‘fdisk/mbr’ and press [Enter]. Note that if you use Windows 2000 or XP, boot into the recovery console and give the command ‘fixmbr’ to clear the MBR. Unfortunately, after you restart, it will boot to Windows directly, without any option of booting into Linux. You will have to restore LiLo again from your Linux CD, or reinstall boot loaders such as XOSL from Windows.

If your problem persists, or if you never used a boot loader, than boot into the system from a boot floppy or the Windows CD.Windows 2000 and XP users should boot into the recovery console. Go to the command prompt and give the command fdisfk/mbr’and then give the command ’sys C’. This clears the MBR, and makes the bootable partition C, Windows 2000 and XP users should give the command ‘fixmbr’ and’ fixboot’ C: to do the same. Then restart the system to boot into the OS.

If you still have trouble, you might have a virus on your PC’s boot sector .It is difficult to confirm an infection without a virus scan. Thesymptoms of an infections-applications slowing down or many unrecognized files appearing in the system-should give you a clue. For example Windows 98 and Me users might see a message during boot up that says,” No valid FAT on boot drive” this is caused due to a boot sector virus called stoned Monk. Even reinstalling Windows might give you an error message that says, “Your computer already has an operating system installed”. Then best solution is to connect the hard disk to another system, and scan with an anti virus tool. You can also create a rescue disk for the anti virus tool and scan the system using it.

If nothing mentioned above seems to work. Then you have a serious problem at hand. Connect it to some other system and try to access the data if you can, then your boot record is damaged. Otherwise the service center beckons.

Ravi chamria is a webmaster, for more computer related articles please visit
at Computers-and-Technology.

Share This