Monitor Colour gone funny

Just a quick post to hopefully save one or two of you some cash.

I woke up this morning, after a power cut, to find that my 21″ Sony G500 had a bright red / pink tint to the screen.
I tried, adjusting the colours, tried Degaussing, waited 30 mins for it to warm up then tried the ‘Image Restoration’.

Nothing worked…

So Credit Card out and a visit to eBay – new monitor bought and paid for.

As the screen was unusable I replaced it with a couple of spare 15″ I have laying about only to find that one was suffering from the same red haze. Thinking (well, swearing actually) that it might be a fried video card due to the powercut, I tried swapping the leads on the two outputs from the card and hey presto all fixed.
After a bit more fiddling and farting I decided to swap for another monitor cable and both monitors worked perfectly.
After a bit more swearing, I plugged the G500 back in to find it worked perfectly – my problem had been a dodgy cable (most likely due to the power cut I think as it was less than a year old).

So, the moral … try and change leads, before you change monitors but most importantly before you spend a heap of cash on a new monitor that you don’t really need.
(slaps forehead!)

I hope this saves someone out there a few bucks.

Webecho Media

Well, it took a while, but the new Webecho Media website is up and running.
Head over and take a look and if I can help you get started on the web, or improve your current websites performance – get in touch.

Free Breaks Mix

Listen to the Fat Breaks Mix

Download: 3458441-863989221

Download this 50 min Breaks Mix.

• Beat Assasins – Keeping It Jiggy (Groove Diggerz Remix)
• Beat Assasins – We Run Tings (Original Mix)
• Dopamine – System Error
• Curtis B – Next Level (ESP Mix)
• Dopamine vs Bubble and Squeek – In Shallow
• J Break vs Urban I – In Yo Face (Original Mix)
• J Break – Blind (Urban I Mix)
• Kid Blue – Nothing to Lose (James Talk remix)
• KMFX ft MC Collaborator – Collaboration (Original Mix)
• KMFX ft MC Collaborator – Collaboration (Paradox 3000 mix)
• Kid Blue – Nothing to Lose (Original Mix)
• Koma and Bones – Crackhouse

Music Instinct (FB Remix) MP3

Free to download and share is the Music Instinct remix by Blistik & Funkosis.
This remix was authorised by Indabamusic.com and PBS.org to support their new TV show ‘The Music Instinct – Science and Song’.

Music Instinct (FB Remix).mp3 (7.7MB 192kbps)

Toshiba Satellite A200 SATA Drivers

I’ve just tried to re-install Win XP on my Toshiba Satellite A200.
I kept getting the ” … no hard disk found…” message as WinXP doesn’t provide any SATA drivers (even SP3).

If you’re having the same problem then here are some basic instructions and the Toshiba Satellite A200 SATA Drivers. (If you link to this, please link to the page not the drivers – I’ll be moving the files shortly – thanks)

The only way to install XP with these extra drivers intact is to slipstream WinXP using n-lite. Follow the link and you’ll find the program and all the instructions to do it.

I’ll briefly run through the process I used to extract the SATA files in case anyone finds it useful in future.

I downloaded the SA200 ACHI F6-1017-XP file from Toshiba, it comes as a handy exe which installs it onto a Floppy Disk – of course, like most of you, I don’t use or even have a Floppy Disk drive anymore so it was useless .. until … I found a Floppy Drive emulation program – FileDisk-15, a bit fiddly to use but it does the trick. Of course, running the .exe file from Toshiba couldn’t find the Floppy Emulator so I had to download IZArc a handy little freeware ZIP utility, which managed to extract the .IMA files from the toshiba executable … you following?

Once the .IMA was extracted, it was a fairly simple(ish) task to mount it with FileDisk and copy the files off (to three seperate locations – 2 on my Hard Disks and one on the Interweb – mainly so I never have to mess about extracting them again).

Once they were Slipstreamed into XP using n-lite – I had a happy little A200 that is now freshly installed with XP.

Well, I hope that helped you out and saved you a bit of time.

Carmen & Camille “Shine4U” Remix Contest

Carmen and Camille are inviting you to come along for their rise to success. They’ve provided the stems from their previously unreleased track, “Shine 4U”, and want you to remix and re-imagine this song into something entirely new!

In a bold and unprecedented move, the girls have decided to keep the new mixes under a Creative Commons Attribution license, giving you the opportunity to work with the song to create your own success! This means that you can take your unique mix of this song and distribute and share it freely and sell it, as long as you give Carmen and Camille credit. So, come hop on board with this talented duo and bring your remix of their track to the top of the charts!

Check out some of the Carmen and Camille remix submissions or sign up with Indaba to enter the competition.

The Music Instinct – Science & Song Remix Competition

The Music Instinct Competition has started – we’ve uploaded our entry for the theme.
You can listen to our Music Instinct Competition entry here – Music Instinct (FB Remix).

The Music Instinct: Science and Song, premiering Wednesday, June 24 at 9:00pm (check local listings), is a ground-breaking program that offers viewers a new understanding of the power of music. Music is found all over the natural world and in everyday life experiences. The documentary follows visionary researchers and accomplished musicians, such as Bobby McFerrin, Yo-Yo Ma, Jarvis Cocker, Evelyn Glennie, and Daniel Barenboim, to the crossroads of science and culture in search of answers to music’s deep and abiding mysteries.

This was arranged, mixed and mastered in Ableton Live.