Music downloads
For some time I have been creating and playing MP3 music tracks on my computer. Now we have Apple, Napster, Coca Cola et al making tracks available for downloading legitimately, and we have the iPod and others to play tracks portably. But I hear that different machines will play different formats. Sounds like chaos. I suspect I am just confused, and that we will surely be able to play any track on any machine. Brian Jones
Jack Schofield replies: If you stick to MP3 then you probably will be able to play any track on any machine. However, once you start using DRM (digital rights management) copy protection, you won't. If you download tracks, your devices have to support both a specific file format and a specific DRM system.
The most common DRM is the one used in Microsoft's proprietary WMA (Windows Media Audio) audio file format. This is supported by most download services, except Apple's iTunes, and by more than 200 hardware devices, but not Apple's iPod. In the short term, audio users will probably have four incompatible DRM systems to worry about, from Microsoft, Real Networks, Apple and Sony. (Sony tends to favour its ATRAC compression system, though it does have devices that support WMA.) IBM also has a DRM called EMMS (Electronic Media Management System), and Macrovision, which supplies copy protection to the video market, would also like to play in this market. I expect there will be a bloodbath before we arrive at one or two common systems. Either stick to MP3 until this happens, or make sure the player you buy works with the music services you want to use. Caveat emptor.
iPod blues
I have ordered a 20GB iPod but, having heard the stories of battery failure after a short period of time, wonder if I should reconsider. Is it a serious and widespread problem? Joseph Harris
JS: Like many portable devices, the iPod uses an advanced lithium-ion polymer battery. These are expensive but are an improvement on earlier technologies and, like all rechargeables, have a finite life. I've not seen any evidence that the batteries used in iPods are unusually prone to failure, but the iPod probably has a different usage pattern. In other words, if a battery is used for many hours each day, it is going to die a lot sooner than one used for a few minutes a day - in a mobile phone, for example. In general, I favour products that use cheap, standard rechargeable AA or (in this case) AAA cells. However, these don't have the performance features of lithium-ion polymer designs, and they limit the designer's choice of form factor. Perhaps you should consider the cost of Apple's Battery Service - £79.00 including VAT, plus shipping - part of the running costs and put 10p in a jar each time you recharge it.
More Ram?
I have been advised to increase my Ram from 256 to 512MB, but from what I can understand about the concept of virtual memory, I could avoid such an investment by simply increasing my virtual memory allocation. The machine in question is a 2.0GHz notebook with Windows XP. Talia
JS: Windows loves memory. When it runs out, which is always, it saves things to a swapfile on the hard drive: this is called "virtual memory". The problem is that hard disks are much slower than memory chips - and may be particularly slow on a notebook PC, if the hard drive turns off to save power. This slugs your PC's performance, so it helps if you can add more Ram. Changing the Virtual Memory setting is unlikely to help, as the default setting lets XP use as much hard drive space as it wants. However, 256MB should be enough for Windows XP - it will run in half that - so run SpyBot Search & Destroy and an online virus check http://security.norton.com to make sure your machine's resources are not being consumed by a virus or parasite. You could also try eliminating unwanted start-up programs at www.pacs-portal.co.uk.
Another way to improve XP's performance is to go to Start| Settings|Control Panel and run the System applet. Click the Advanced tab and the button for performance settings. Select the option that says: Adjust for best performance. This eliminates the fancy graphics effects such as sliding menus.
Backchat
· Mike Currie was getting out-of-date web pages in Internet Explorer. Brian Marsden suggests going to Tools|Internet Options and clicking on Settings (which is in the middle, under Temporary Internet Files). "He will probably find that 'Check for newer versions of stored pages' is set to Automatically. This is the default. He should try changing it to 'Every visit to the page' to see if this helps."
· I mentioned EventSounds.com as a source of snappy sound files, and it promptly disappeared. The webmaster, Tom Harland, explains: "Unfortunately my site was down for a few days, just after you wrote about it, as I was changing hosts. It is now back up and running."
