Matt’s Desk: Editor’s Blog

My love for Dropbox is no secret – nor is my feeling that the service is too expensive if you need more than the 2GB provided free of charge (the cheapest paid option is $10/month for 50GB, more than twice the cost of Carbonite’s unlimited storage). 

But many users need more than 2GB of storage, though not necessarily the 50GB $10 a month gets ya.  So where’s the happy medium?

Until Dropbox wises up and offers a 25GB option for $2 a month, the only way to increase your storage without paying is by taking advantage of the service’s referral system.  For every new user you introduce to Dropbox, you’ll get 250MB of additional storage. 

So how do you refer people to Dropbox and get the additional 250MB a head?  Simple. Just visit this page on the Dropbox web site, sign in and get your referral link.  Send it to your friends, post it on Twitter, etc., and enjoy the additional storage.  Oh, and anyone who signs up using your referral link will also get the extra space.

If you’re not yet a Dropbox user (um, why?!), please use this link to sign up; we’ll each get more storage!

NOTE: You can only accumulate a total of 3GB of additional storage through the referral system.  Disappointing, but understandable.  Also, after signing up, the referee will need to download and install the Dropbox application before you’ll receive the extra MBs.

I usually give advice or suggestions here, but today I come to you with a question myself: what’s the best nettop or small form-factor computer for watching web video on an HD TV? 

Until now, I’ve used my Macbook along with a Mini DisplayPort to HDMI converter to watch Hulu, YouTube and other online video in my living room, but now I’m looking for a small computer to connect to my home theater setup full time.

Three viable options present themselves. 

First, an Intel Atom and nVIDIA ION powered nettop like the ASUS Eee Box (for example, model EB1012).  Second, a small form-factor PC like the AMD-powered Dell Zino HD.  Third, an Apple Mac mini.  Although this third option is appealing to me for a few reasons, it is my least favored because of the Mac mini’s lack of a built-in HDMI port and its higher price.

I want something that will handle HD web video handily, and don’t want to put up with any lag or poor video quality. 

So, what say you?  What solutions are you using for web video in your home theater?  What’s worked best for you, and what’s failed to meet your expectations?  Please add your comments below. 

I hope we can all learn from each other and find the solution for our needs.

-M

I’m a huge fan of audiobooks and have been for well over a decade.  Long before Audible.com was available (and even on occasion thereafter), I purchased audiobooks on CD, and accumulated a fairly large collection. Late last year, after stumbling across a forgotten box of these books, I began the process of transferring the CDs to audio files for use a range of portable devices.

But early in the process I ran into an annoying problem: each CD contained multiple tracks which, when ripped, resulted in up to 30 audio files per disc.  I did not want hundreds of MP3 or AAC files for each audiobook – what I wanted was one, simple file for each CD. So I began searching for a solution to quickly and easily join together the tracks from each CD into a single audio file.

After some experimentation, the solution I settled on was the Join CD Tracks option in iTunes.  This function provided the exact functionality I wanted and proved very useful.  In the article below, I’ll detail the process of creating a single MP3 or AAC audio file for an audiobook CD so your collection is more manageable.

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Yesterday I was helping a friend with his computer after a clean install of Windows 7.  After each reboot, the Network and Sharing Center showed two active networks: the Work network – a wired LAN connection which was supposed to be listed – and an Unidentified Public network, which was not.  The result of having these two networks was limited access, i.e. no Internet connection.

To temporarily resolve the problem, I could disable and re-enable the LAN card after each reboot in the Device Manager, which would cause the unidentified network disappear and the Internet connection to be restored.  But the problem reappeared after each reboot.

The problem (I discovered after half an hour of Google-aided research) seems to be a secondary Default Gateway value of 0.0.0.0, which was showing up in the IPCONFIG readout before each re-enabling of the LAN card. I do not know the cause of this error, but it appears many users are reporting experiencing this problem in Windows 7 with several types of LAN cards and routers.

I was able to correct the problem on his Windows 7 PC with the following solution:

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