
BUFFERING POWER--the one thing that has kept me away from ultraportable laptops. I'm always in search of ways to improve local buffering when I've done all I can to the bitstream itself. Sometimes Chrome gives me better buffering than Firefox. Killing all updates and anything else that might leech bandwidth also helps. I've also embarked on a Christmas goal--a new laptop--involving twice as much RAM as I currently use. I'm also tweaking my hardware acceleration (i.e., turning off hardware acceleration). Every media application needs different aspects of computer hardware. By turning off hardware acceleration, I can get better audio streaming resutls. That's because applications themselves will be able to set the requirements themselves and not be forced to use one universal setting. Hardware acceleration has been to known to cause choppy PC playback, application crashes and slow streaming video problems. Here's how you control hardware acceleration on a Windows PC:
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IRELAND SECURED AN important portfolio in the European Commission when Maire Geoghegan-Quinn was allocated the research and innovation portfolio in Brussels. The EUR 53bn budget she will oversee is central to providing high quality jobs and prosperity to Europe. The EU wants to build smart economies. Ireland needs to pull out of the tailspin that resulted from a risky overdependence on property. I sit a few metres from several programme specialists involved in developing and delivering academic courses to students who are interested in learning about active homes and passive homes. These green tech specialisms are well suited to builders who want to diversify beyond the construction industry. I work directly with creative multimedia students who want to produce more content in shorter time frames than earlier graduates. That's happening in
Tipperary Institute, accelerated by a change to semesterised teaching schedules and our use of pocket media services such as
Qik. We also produce items such as the encoded graphic at left. You need a phone equipped with a Microsoft Tag Reader if you want to watch what happens to this quilt-like image.
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ALONG WITH 37 OTHER people, I attended
Ideagen in Clonmel, coming with a fluffy idea and looking for a bright spark that might suggest a way to distill a business process from the idea. My focus: pocket media production services. The gist:
to produce and deliver trustworthy information onto portable small screens or onto sitting room television sets. But as events unfolded, I discovered I was in the wrong Ideagen venue with my idea. That's ok--I know where to go (WIT Ideagen meeting) with the concept we're developing. Enterprise Ireland (EI) is leading a series of networking events designed to show the reach of industry-led research in Ireland. Specific strategies unfolded in the Clonmel Ideagen meeting, especially for those interested in green technology. At least four EI staffers worked the floor, explaining the way stimulus packages worked and helping people hook up with potential collaborators. I think events like Ideagen are helpful but I wouldn't normally be attracted to an evening as structured as the Ideagen format. That said, spending 160 minutes with a cordial group of like-minded people was an effective use of time and I'd certainly recommend anyone involved in a start-up to carefully read Ideagen literature to determine whether a nearby event suits. You can get more details from
ideagendotie on Twitter and
ideagen on Facebook. Below the break, I cite a cross-section of specialisms attending Ideagen in Tipperary.
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