There are many different ways to compress audio, popular formats such as MP3 are lossy - which means they remove some of the audio to reduce the size of the final file. As memory prices drop and capacities increase I believe the future lies with lossless audio formats - lossless formats reduce the size of the file by a much smaller amount, but without remove any of the audio - i.e. no drop in quality.

The Apple Lossless format has been around for while and it makes a lot of sense to go this route if you really want the best quality possible and you own an iPod or use iTunes.

The Apple AirPort AirTunes also uses this format - the iTunes music Player can send the audio digitally across your network to the AirPort (in fact upto 3 simulteanously) and you can even feed this digitally into your amp. In my experience this gives the best sound I have heard from a digital library. I know you can do the same thing with an optical out on a PC sound card - but I don't want to have my PC by my Hi-Fi. Plus the AirPort is also a Wireless Access Point, Repeater and Print Server - I think that represents good value for about £80.

PC Pro ran an article today highlighting the need to warn parents and teachers of the dangers of social networks read it here.

I have young children myself approaching the age where these kinds of sites will appeal - initially they start by meeting their school friends online - but of course, this will naturally start to include other online contacts - I am really worried who they might be.

We keep the family computer in a communial area, monitor usage and run software to protect personal information/details and block out unsavoury sites.

Well, here's the very first blog entry on our new Drupal driven blog server.

If you haven't heard about drupal, take a look at www.drupal.org. It's a very web powerful content management system. I learned about from Tom Arah's column in issue 140 of PC Pro. He raved about it's power and flexibility and I must say it was very easy to set up.

I'm keeping this first entry short and sweet as it's really just a test for the new system.