Tom Mainelli

Aliph Jawbone 2 Bluetooth Headset

Monster Cable Beats by Dr. Dre Headphones

I spend an inordinate amount of time working in huge Excel spreadsheets that represent data about the worldwide PC monitor market. Excel's pivot tables and charts are useful, but sometimes I still struggle to find the trends buried in all those numbers.

So I did what any geek would do: I looked for an app that could help me. I found Tableau Software, which recently launched version 4.0 of its Desktop and Server analytical software clients. Put simply, you point Tableau at your data file, and it creates an interface that lets you drag and drop elements of the data to create visual representations that can be easier to understand than Excel's own pivot tables and charts.

I discussed in an earlier column using Microsoft's $180 Windows Home Server to turn an old PC into a media-streaming, backup-friendly server. "Great idea," wrote many a reader, "but too pricey." For those penny-pinchers, I suggest FreeNAS.

The browser-based interface of FreeNAS lets you control your server from any PC connected to the network.Based on the FreeBSD operating system (a Unix derivative), FreeNAS is a server operating system that offers lots of features, a very small footprint, and a can't-beat-it price (it's free). Developed by an open-source community, it is constantly evolving (with even nightly builds).

High-quality PC audio is important to me, as I spend a lot of time listening to music on my desktop. In previous columns I've discussed the aural advantages of lossless audio codecs (like FLAC), discrete sound cards, and specialty music player software. Alas, even with all of those tools installed and properly configured, it is possible to suffer less-than-optimal sound on a Windows XP-based PC, as the operating system has a tendency to muck with music without your consent. Happily, a free, easy-to-use program, called ASIO4ALL, addresses this annoying Windows habit. (I'm told that the app can improve sound on Vista PCs, too, but I have not tested that claim.)

So how does XP interfere with your music? Simply put, the OS hands off audio chores to a piece of software called the Kernel Audio Mixer, or Kmixer, which automatically resamples audio files--oftentimes rather poorly--creating output that differs from the original recording. The effect is typically pretty subtle, and if you are listening to low-bit-rate MP3s you probably won't notice it.