http://live.pirillo.com/ – Highspeedhomer asks “is there a good free audio mixing program?” There is, but it’s not free (it’s open source).

Audacity, the free, open source, Audio Mixer.

Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:

• Record live audio.
• Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
• Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files.
• Cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together.
• Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
• And more! See the complete list of features.

SoundForge Audio Studio offers similar functionality to Audacity, but it’s not free.

Sound Forge Audio Studio software is everything you need to produce professional-quality audio on your home computer. No more renting expensive studio time to get the results you want! Record just about anything, edit and restore audio, burn your own CDs, create streaming media, and convert files with lightning speed all using drag-and-drop actions and simple commands such as cut, copy, and paste.

http://live.pirillo.com/ – What’s better: PNG and JPG? The truth is that these formats actually serve two difference purposes. JPG caters to the photographic market, whereas PNG is generally considered to be a replacement for the patent-encumbered GIF format.

According to Webopedia, JPEG is:

Short for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the original name of the committee that wrote the standard. JPG is one of the image file formats supported on the Web. JPG is a lossy compression technique that is designed to compress color and grayscale continuous-tone images. The information that is discarded in the compression is information that the human eye cannot detect. JPG images support 16 million colors and are best suited for photographs and complex graphics.

And PNG:

Short for Portable Network Graphics, the third graphics standard supported by the Web. PNG was developed as a patent-free answer to the GIF format but is also an improvement on the GIF technique. An image in a lossless PNG file can be more compressed than a GIF file of the same image. PNG builds on the idea of transparency in GIF images and allows the control of the degree of transparency, known as opacity. Saving, restoring and re-saving a PNG image will not degrade its quality. PNG does not support animation like GIF does.

http://live.pirillo.com/ – What is IRC? Internet Relay Chat (IRC) has been around for about as long as the Internet itself, and there are a plethora of clients you can use.

mIRC, a Windows IRC client, describes IRC as:

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is one of the most popular and most interactive services on the Internet. Sure, the Web is nice for finding info and E-mail beats snailmail hands down, but when you’ve been wondering ‘where the others are?’, then IRC is what you’re looking for.

IRC is the net’s equivalent of CB radio. But unlike CB, Internet Relay Chat lets people all over the world participate in real-time conversations. IRC is where the Net comes alive!

Snak is a popular Mac client:

There are thousands of meeting rooms, each focused on a location or subject, so it’s easy to find a place where something interesting is being discussed. You can find rooms for computer related topics, your favorite sci-fi tv show, sports like soccer or ice hockey, current politics, local events in boston or kenya and everything in between.

In addition to chats in the meeting rooms, you can also have private, real-time talks with friends, family or business associates.

XChat is the ever-popular Linux chat client of choice:

XChat is an IRC chat program for both Linux and Windows. It allows you to join multiple IRC channels (chat rooms) at the same time, talk publicly, private one-on-one conversations etc. Even file transfers are possible.

http://live.pirillo.com/ – Chris is addicted to Peets coffee, but why? What does Peets offer that Starbucks does not?

Peet’s explains their coffee better than I can:

At Peet’s we take freshness seriously. It is only by roasting and shipping the same day that we can be sure that you enjoy the distinctive deep-roasted flavor of Peet’s. We call it “Roaster-to-Cup” freshness, and you can taste the difference. When you choose Home Delivery, we ship right to your home – it is the freshest of the fresh. It’s the apple right off the tree, the bread right out of the oven…you get the picture.

http://live.pirillo.com/ – How do you get a career in the field of technology? Chris answers this question, and it turns out there may not be any really easy answer.

One service you may consider is GetTech.org:

GetTech, through its gettech.org web site and collateral materials, will help you prepare students (in fun ways) for tomorrow’s great jobs. Every element of the GetTech campaign, from the upbeat television and radio spots, to the posters, flyers and specialty items we urge you to distribute to the kids, is designed to introduce them to the many “cool” career opportunities they otherwise might overlook.

http://live.pirillo.com/ – Chris is asked what IM application he uses and what he would recommend for different operating systems. So, what instant messaging applications does he use?

Miranda is a popular choice for Windows systems:

Miranda IM is a multi protocol instant messenger client for Windows. Miranda IM uses very little memory and is extremely fast. It requires no installation and can be fitted on a single floppy disc. Its powerful plugin system makes Miranda IM very flexible. Only the most basic features are built in, but there are currently more than 350 free plugins available for download that allows users to extend the functionality of Miranda IM.

Adium is the IM application of choice under Mac OD X:

Adium is a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X, released under the GNU GPL and developed by the Adium team. With Adium, you can connect to any number of messaging accounts on any combination of supported messaging services and then chat with other people using those services.

Meebo is quickly gaining support as the IM client for mobile devices:

meebo.com is a website for instant messaging from absolutely anywhere. Whether you’re at home, on campus, at work, or traveling foreign lands, hop over to meebo.com on any computer to access all of your buddies (on AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ and Jabber) and chat with them, no downloads or installs required, for free!

http://live.pirillo.com/ – Chris answers the question "what do you use to decompress files, WinZip or WinRar?"

The answers Chris provides may surprise you.

Winzip is a popular decompression utility:

WinZip, the original and most popular compression utility for Windows, is a powerful and easy-to-use tool that quickly zips and unzips your files to conserve disk space and greatly reduce e-mail transmission time. WinZip 11.1 is available as Standard or Pro. WinZip 11.1 is an updated version of our most recent major release—WinZip 11.0—that supports Windows Vista™.

WinRar is also very popular, offering support for many more formats than WinZip:

WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. You may try WinRAR before buy, its trial version is available in downloads.

So, what does Chris use for file decompression and why? Well, you’re going to have to watch to find out!