How to FIX Windows update error 8050800C about Windows Defender Definition Update

Did you receive the 8050800C error from Windows update while trying to get the Windows Defender updates? I did with my Windows 7 Pro 64.  Lots of sites tell a lot of stupid things to try, things that are only there to make the site catch more Google hits to serve more ads. Nobody seems to test their stuff anymore. I did. And I have a working, tested solution.

Executive summary of fix:

  1. Download the the Windows Defender update file manually (mpas-fe.exe, available from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/definitions )
  2. Start Windows in safe mode
  3. Run the downloaded exe in safe mode and reboot (or optionally run the exe with Windows Update Service disabled)
  4. It’s fixed!

For more details and illustrated guide, read more below.

Continue reading “How to FIX Windows update error 8050800C about Windows Defender Definition Update”

A short study on audio compression

Back in the days I made a small study on audio compression. It’s far from scientific quality, but I nonetheless want to post it, so here we go. (I have edited out some of the blatant errors I have found.)

Spectral representation of compressed sound.

Introduction

Motivation

Sound is usually compressed in order to save space. Audio space conservation is an important issue in transmission and storage. We may for example want to store audio in such vast amounts that without compression it would take way too much storage space. We might also want to transmit audio data over transmission path having only limited capacity, for example receive a MP3 file through slow modem connection. There are also other constraints regarding compression, much of which is discussed later.

Continue reading “A short study on audio compression”