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- How To Get VLC To (Sometimes) Stop Building A Font Cache
- 3.5mm Or USB Headset With Microphone?
- Today Is…
| How To Get VLC To (Sometimes) Stop Building A Font Cache Posted: 02 Feb 2011 03:30 AM PST VLC is the preferred media played of many. It’s free, it’s fast and it plays just about anything (even old-as-dirt RealAudio/RealVideo .RA, .RAM and .RM files!) One common annoyance with the software is when the software stops to build its font cache. You go to load a video and VLC indexes all your fonts and you’re forced to wait until it’s finished before the video starts playing. The solution to this issue can stem from running a version that’s old (VLC is at version 1.1.7), or from installing/uninstalling fonts, or in some instances from an overzealous cleaning utility which I’ll talk about in a moment. Where is the cache file?In Windows, VLC stores its cache file in the Application Data folder under subdirectory vlc. If you click Start/Run, type: %APPDATA%\vlc …and click OK, Explorer will launch and in there you’ll see a file with a randomly generated filename ending with cache-3. That’s VLC’s cache file. If you delete that file, launch VLC and go to play a video, you’ll notice the file is regenerated again. This is not a virus or anything of the sort; it’s just how VLC knows what fonts are in your system. What deletes the cache file?Other than deleting it yourself, some cleaning utilities do in fact whack VLC’s cache file. One example is the popular utility CCleaner. You’ll notice from Cleaner and the tab Applications, VLC Media Player is listed under Multimedia: Unchecking the ‘VLC Media Player’ checkbox will make CCleaner ignore VLC entirely when performing its cleanup processes. To note, ordinarily it is not checked by default. If you use another type of ‘cleaner’ app like CCleaner, you may want to check to see if there’s an app-specific area like CCleaner has where you can instruct the program not to clean VLC’s settings. That should stop VLC from rebuilding the cache, that is unless you install or uninstall a font in which it will. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.       |
| 3.5mm Or USB Headset With Microphone? Posted: 02 Feb 2011 03:00 AM PST Microphone inputs on PCs are more or less treated as an afterthought more than a a serious piece of audio hardware. In fact, the hardware that goes into making a MIC input even on the most expensive sound cards is quite chintzy. Be that as it may, if you do use a headset with a microphone (usually for gaming), it’s not a bad idea to have two headsets; one with a USB input and one with traditional old-school 3.5mm input. Why have two? Because there is software to this day that doesn’t ‘handle’ USB headsets well. Sometimes you run into instances where the software won’t mix together two audio devices properly (one will be too loud or too soft no matter how much adjustment is made). Other times the software won’t be able to mix the two devices at all and you’re forced to pick sound card or USB headset where the headset speakers work but the microphone doesn’t. And in even crazier instances a USB headset won’t work properly with certain software that requires the microphone because its control software is "too dumb" to know how to do it correctly. A plain headset with microphone connected via 3.5mm stereo (green) output and 3.5mm (pink) input to your sound card will work with anything because the device (the sound card) is easier for software to ‘understand’. Rather go with just one headset?If you want a headset w/mic that works with everything, the 3.5mm version, as old-school as it is, still works best in that respect because it’s compatible with everything; it can serve as your only headset. You could also go with a headset that does both 3.5mm and USB and use which you want at whim – but they’re not cheap. Here are a few well-reviewed models I found that have both 3.5mm and USB connector options: "Wow. Looks like it would be cheaper to buy two headsets, one with 3.5mm and another with USB instead of just one that does both." You’d be right. If you’re on a tight budget, two headsets is actually the cheaper way to go. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.     |
| Posted: 02 Feb 2011 02:30 AM PST National Bill Murray day. Yes, really. Okay, not really. If you’re snowed in, this is the movie to watch today: To those of who how have absolutely no clue what any of the above means: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.     |
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