ctrl.altered.mind

This is my personal weblog and therefore the content within it is strictly personal. The views and opinions with this blog represent my own and not those of people, institutions or organizations I am affiliated with unless stated explicitly. My blog is not affiliated with, neither does it represent the views, position or attitudes of my current or past employer(s), their clients, or any of their affiliated companies.

These postings are provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights. This site contains my personal opinions and does not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of my employer, Seagate Technology US LLC. The thoughts and opinions expressed herein are solely my own.

If you have been a long time Windows user like me, you mostly probably would have atleast a few music files on your machine in the Windows Media Audio (WMA) format. I’d guess it would be more so if you used the Windows Media Player to keep your music collection organized. While it is a format that offers an advantage by using up lesser disk space over the MP3 format by using a proprietary algorithm, its disadvantage is exactly that - the proprietary algorithm makes it unusable on other operating systems due to licensing issues.

iTunes for Windows, which I have been using all along, automatically converts WMA songs to Apple Lossless (AAC) or mp3 formats when added to the library - although, this does not work with iTunes on the Mac. Its the licensing issue again. Unfortunately, there is no indication that this action is not allowed on the Mac. iTunes just stays put and does nothing when you try dragging a WMA file onto the library. The (easy) answer is to use third-party software that does this conversion for you. A better answer would be to altogether switch to an open source format (OGG Vorbis), however this is not an option for me since I use far too many devices that do not support this.

FreeMacWare introduced me to Switch - a sound file conversion application for the Mac that converts most known audio file formats to mp3 (or wav). While Switch is free and provides basic conversion options that would satisfy most users, NCH Swift Sound does offer the advanced Switch Plus application (for $19.40 - a 50% discount until Sep 15) with many more features.

A feature that stands out amidst the standard list of supported encoding rates and optimized CPU usage, is the ability of the application to process up to 32,000 files in a single batch process.

Switch is also available for Windows and Linux operating systems.

More Screenshots

I had taken a break from analyzing my website visitor statistics some time back, so it was naturally surprising to discover last week, that the number of visitors to my website had increased (and remained at) a couple orders of magnitude higher than before! To date, none of my posts have been so insightful enough for a digg or del.icio.us entry (hopefully, that will change with time!). Therefore, intrigued by this sudden traffic, I looked at the top referring websites that have been pointing people in my direction - and I discovered that my projects page has been receiving a lot of attention.

Turns out, that a search for the phrase “cardiac waveform” on Google returns my projects page in the very first page of results, thanks to my FPGA-based automatic external defibrillator project  description. While an FPGA system might not be exactly what people searching for “cardiac waveforms” are looking for, the reason my page is in the top search results is because people are clicking to read more.

This is sufficient motivation for me to go ahead and complete descriptions for my other projects! In the meanwhile, you can try searching for ‘cardiac waveform’ on Google.

Here’s a link to my Projects page.

It was interesting to chance upon my enterprising pal Kaushal’s new blog about Outdoor destinations in India, which talks about the lesser known but breathtakingly beautiful locales in the country. Kaushal is part of a larger group of travel enthusiasts, and his blog mostly talks about personal experiences - which are as diverse as mountain biking in the Garhwal and Kumaon hills, to trekking in the Sahyadris. His posts are peppered with pictures, links, valuable tips, hints, and suggestions that would prove most useful to the foreign traveler journeying across the country, as much as it would to any desi bitten by the travel bug.

From Kaushal’s blog:

Western ghats is a paradise if you are a hardcore rock climber. Rock nurseries at Mumbra, Manori rocks and Kaneri caves near Mumbai and Dudha near Pune have provided good place for learning rock climbs. Sahyadri mountains provide various grades of difficulties for natural rock climber. A number of pinacles and cracks provide ample opportunities. Rock climbs with climbs more than 1000 feet are ample in this region.