equalizer

A recent frenzy of storage acquisitions--with 3PAR going to HP, Isilon to EMC, and now Compellent to Dell--brings storage full-circle. Your next enterprise storage purchase? Almost guaranteed to be from a leviathan.

One of the once-amazing changes in the computer business was the birth of independent storage vendors. For decades there've been a few odd after-market and third-party storage vendors. But they were mere pilot fish congregating around the truly big, important swimmers: systems vendors. When you bought storage, it generally came from the same company that made your computer. That was the natural order.

But in the 1990s, … Read more

It has been a long time coming, but virtualized storage is now a "must have" technology.

Dell has announced its intent to acquire next-gen storage vendor 3Par for $1.15 billion, excluding 3Par's cash and other considerations. With this acquisition, Dell continues to morph its business model to be more inclusive of computing systems and services aimed at the enterprise data center customer. With the addition of 3Par's InServ "utility" storage line, Dell ads a midrange to high-end array to its own and growing storage portfolio. 3Par's InServ FC SAN storage, popular lately … Read more

AVLAN Design describes its AVD Graphic Studio as a "mini Photoshop," acknowledging that Adobe's software is the big dog in the CG yard and that the main goal of competitors is to offer Photoshop-like capabilities in less expensive packages that are easier for ordinary folks to use. At this, AVD Graphic Studio succeeds quite well. It's easy to use, it has most of the basic functionality of the pro-level applications, and it's much less expensive than the big packages like Photoshop.

This program will be familiar if you've used Photoshop or similar applications. Its … Read more

Update: Dillyeo is already sold out of the shirt, but eagle-eyed reader pigmond found an even better deal: $11.67 shipped from DealExtreme!

Geek meets chic? Um, no. But if you're in the market for a simple Halloween costume or you're hip enough to pull off wearing this to a club or party, Dillyeo has a sound-activated equalizer T-shirt for $11.97, plus $5 for shipping.

Maybe you've seen this before: it's the same shirt ThinkGeek has been selling for $39.99. Check out the video to see it in action. (Note: The accompanying Kanye West … Read more

Browser and jukebox freeware mashup Songbird brings onstage four new features to help manage songs, communicate better with iTunes, customize volume, and expose more information from Last.fm.

Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Songbird 1.2's biggest new feature is the ability to automatically organize files across multiple folders according to each track's metadata. This can be especially useful both if your music is scattered across disparate folders, as well as forcing naming conventions on inconsistent files.

There's also the ability to introduce iTunes library tracks and playlists into Songbird, and export tracks from Songbird to … Read more

That's right, I said it. You want to know why Steve Jobs doesn't include advanced EQ settings on the iPod? It's because he thinks you're a drooling baby who can't be trusted not to mangle your own music. Considering how few of you care enough to slap a decent pair of earbuds on your MP3 player, he may have the right idea.

Truth is, in this iPod-dominated world, most listeners aren't aware of all the cool sound-enhancement technology being developed for non-iPod MP3 players. For those who yearn to take your music to new … Read more

If the equalizer T-shirt proved a bit impractical and the pillow doesn't match your sofa, there's a more flexible alternative.

The "SpeaQualizer" is a frame that provides a similar experience on any shelf or tabletop, running on AAA batteries. Designed by FlashWear, the same outfit that created the "T-Qualizer" shirt, it's available in two versions with bars that light up in either rainbow colors or "cool jewel tones," according to Technabob.

More discreet than the other options, it can just be turned off (or around) when you're in non-boogie mode. … Read more

Equals' Party Line is a new, free voice conference app that lets you instantly connect with up to five of your friends in a voice conference. Unlike the business-focused Vello, which we also like, Party Line is limited and designed primarily to connect you with Facebook buddies. However, you can cram non-Facebook users into it and it could easily be used in work settings.

Once you set up your "party lines" and invite friends into them, kicking off the voice chat is a snap. You can either initiate the conference from the Facebook app, or just call the … Read more

The graphic on this page, taken from a Wikipedia entry, shows the current ISO standard for something called equal loudness contours.

If you've studied audio production or audio equipment, you might have seen this or similar charts. (The earliest version, created in 1933, was known as the Fletcher-Munson curve, and recent studies have proven it was quite accurate.) But what does it mean?

The horizontal x-axis represents pitch, measured in Hertz (Hz), or vibrations per second. The lowest threshold of human hearing is around 20 Hz--that would be a very low bass note on a church organ. Human voices … Read more