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Saturday, January 22, 2005

Show #111

Want to get my TV show back in the US? Visit www.callforhelptv.com and fill out the form! (But be patient because the server is very busy right now thanks to all the interest.)

All hail Eddie Deezen, the voice of the nerd in dozens of movies and cartoons. Who could forget this classic from War Games? Or this?

 toc | toc 

Today’s news items

Legal music downloads in the U.S. and Europe leaped tenfold in 2004 after demand surged for iPod digital players and thousands of pirate websites were shut down, an industry group said. Music fans paid for more than 200 million downloads last year, compared with 20 million in 2003, according to the London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Anti-piracy campaigns led to the closure of 60,900 illegal music-sharing sites, the group said.

Researchers have identified a new computer virus that masquerades as news headlines from CNN’s Web site. The virus — identified as Crowt-A — pulls headlines, subject lines and other content from CNN.com. Once opened, the virus can then scan the user’s address book and try to email itself to those users.

“Evil twin” wireless hotspots are the latest security threat to web users. A hacker jams the connection to a legitimate base station by sending a stronger signal within close proximity to a wireless access point - thereby turning itself into an “evil twin”. Once the user is connected the cyber criminal can intercept data being transmitted, such as bank details or personal information.

Mike_B’s Trivia Question of the day

To celebrate the release of the Mac Mini, here’s a Mac question (easy one at that).

What year was the first Mac released? ¹

a) 1995
b) 1972
c) 1984
d) 1776

11a-Noon

Mike in Lake Arrowhead - Buying a DVD/VCR Combo

Specifically, should he look for DVR+R, -R, or RAM? Stay away from RAM, but + or - is ok. Some units do all three but DVD-RAM is least compatible with DVD players. He also wanted to know if you could press pause on the DVD recorder to edit as he’s dubbing from VHS to DVD. I’m told you can on some recorders - they’ll create a new chapter.

Kirby Kirby Kirby writes:
We have a Pioneer DVD/HD combo recorder. The interface is great, so we hook up our VCR, record the whole tape, then we cut out parts we don’t want, and then we burn it from the hard drive. It is expensive, but it is worth it.

Paul in Orange - repping new artist using net and traditional methods

How do you break a new artist? Sure you have to get radio airplay, but you can also use the Internet. Paul is tryig to break actor and singer, Scott Grimes, Dr. Morris on ER, by offering his song free on the net. Can he do it? Well it doesn’t hurt to get a big fat plug on KFI! But I do think that this is the best way to break a new artist. In the long run there may be fewer mega-stars, but more musicians will get a chance to make a living via direct distribution to their fans.

Stephanie in Lancaster - out of room on hard drive

Did Windows Update fill up her system? Probably not - the updates usually don’t take much more space. I would run Disk Cleanup (open My Computer, right click your drive, select properties from the popup menu, then press the Disk Cleanup button). Use it to empty the recycle bin, delete temp files, and compress unused files.

Then uninstall any programs you don’t use. You might want to look for large files you don’t need - you can press F3 from the desktop and search for files that are bigger than 100MB (but don’t delete Windows system files).

Nahid writes:
Also, system restore points take up a lot of space. Delete all but your most recent system restore point by going to the More Options tab in disk cleanup.

Another listener suggests:
Try the freeware utility TreeSize to help determine what is taking up space. Would be nice if the functionality of TreeSize was built into Windows Explorer.

Noon-1p

Jessia in West Hollywood - recontaminating new system
She bought a new system and wants to restore her data backup from CD. Can she recontaminate her new system with the Word, Publisher, JPEG, and TIFF files in the backup? Possibly - make sure to scan the backup CD with an up-to-date anti-virus before restoring.

Alex in Santa Margarita - SP2 killed CD access

This is one of many possible side effects from an XP Service Pack 2 installation gone wrong. I suggest first uninstalling Service Pack 2 b running the Add/Remove Programs control panel, then running System Restore and go back to a point just before you installed it. Before you attempt to reinstall SP2, get the full version from Microsoft, then clean up your system following the instructions in my article in the Tips section.

Skip in Rancho Cucamonga - new laptop recommendations

He’s only using it to connect to the corporate server, and light email and web surfing. I recommend a Centrino based laptop, using the Pentium M chipset. 1.2GHz would be more than enough if you get 512MB of RAM. Acer and Sony make nice light notebooks.

Dellauctions.com is selling laptops for $300. -Lee O.

Walt in Murietta - Notebook recommendation and Bluetooth woes

Walt bought Asus S5N notebook - and is getting great comments on it. I like it too, add it to my list for Skip above.

Meanwhile, he can’t get a cheapie Bluetooth dongle he bought to work. Get a new dongle. I use dongles from D-Link and Belkin with good results.

He’s also looking for a way to get his Motorola Razr to copy contact info from the desktop PC? Curtis says you need Motorola’s Mobile hone Tools.

Tracy in Temecula - IE favorites icons won’t stick

I’ve noticed this problem myself. Sites (like this one) often have custom icons that will show up when you bookmark the site. But Explorer frequently screws these up and replaces them with the generic icon. I recommended TweakUI to clear the icon cache, but it turns out that IE stores these in the Temporary Internet Files. Clearing Temporary Internet Files in the Options… dialog will start fresh and IE should reload them custom icon next time you visit the site. But we don’t know of any way to permanently fix this problem. In my experience Firefox does a better job - and it’s free and safer than Internet Explorer. Download it from The Mozilla folks.

Leo uses a free tool by “HTML-Kit” found on the Internet at…
www.chami.com
This is a really cool tool that creates a favicon from pretty much any image file. Check it out!!

MHolzinger says:
For IE try FavOrg and for a FireFox Extension that supports favicons try Faviconpicker

Steve writes:
AM-DeadLink is a freeware bookmark manager for Windows 9x/Me/NT4/2000/XP, detects dead links and duplicates in Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla and Netscape browser Bookmarks. Additionally you can download/update the FavIcons of all your Favorites.

DJV writes:
Open Internet Explorer, click Tools, Internet Options, Settings, View Files. Locate the icon under the Name column (icon will most likely be called “favicon.ico”.) Drag icon to your desktop (will probably be named “favicon[1].ico” now rename the icon appropriately (e.g., Leoville.ico.) Repeat above step until all of your favicon icons are renamed and located on your desktop. Now create a folder to save your favicons and move the new folder to the location of your choice. Open IE, click Favorites. Right click on the first shortcut you want to change, click Properties then on the Web Document Tab, now click Change Icon. Click on the Browse button and locate the file folder where you saved your favicons, select the icon you want, click the Apply button and you are done.

1–2p

Mark in Tustin - all in one laser printer/copier/fax recommendations

PC Magazine has a good set of reviews by my buddy M. David Stone. He likes the Brother, HP, and Lexmark all-in-ones. Looks like the Brother MFC-8440DN might best fit the bill, Mark.

Dennis in Riverside - good Photoshop Elements book?

I recommend Photoshop Elements 3 Solutions by my buddy Mikkel Aaland.

Scott Kelby’s book also looks very good.

He’s buying a new high end scanner to do both books and negatives. I have been very happy with the Epson Perfection scanners.

Matt in Woodland Hills - subscription free DVRs?

Both Tivo and Replay charge monthly fees in addition to the cost of the DVR. Cable companies do, too, even if they don’t itemize the charge. Does anyone know of a DVR you can buy that doesn’t charge a monthly fee?

One listener writes: Toshiba DVD Recorder with TiVo Basic, RS-TX60 and RS-TX20 are DVD Recorders that offer free Tivo Basic service. Tivo Basic lets you scedule programming for up to 3 days.

There are PC-based solutions, of course, including Windows XP Media Center Edition. Snapstream and Sage TV, but PCs aren’t ideal for these things.

The LG LST-3410A ($799) is a DVR that has a subscription free guide, and can record in high definition. It can record about 14 hours of HD. I bought one at Ken Crane’s in October ‘04
and love it.

Curtis in Victorville - training for the Mac

To get phone numbers from your PC to the Motorola Razr you need Motorola’s Mobile hone Tools. He’s also looking for Macintosh classes for his switcher folks.

Apple Stores have great classes. So does www.mac.com

Elizabeth in Vista (www.omug.net) says: Don’t forget the great tutorials that you have access to when you sign up for a dotMAC account with Apple. When you purchase a new MAC you get a discount on the first year’s subscription.
Also, try MacAcademy for great CD Tutorials for all applications - http://www.macacademy.com
AND of course there are great MUGs (Mac User Groups) all over to assist Mac Users. Find the directory for these at http://www.apple.com/usergroups/

Trent says: http://www.vtc.com/products/osxpanther.htm has training materials, that are quicktime movie files so they work on most OS’s.

Another listener writes: The person needing help with Mac operating system might look at www.Lynda.com for CD-ROM’s and/or online instuction.

Martin in Burbank - Free DVR

Myst TV, a Linux open source project is supposedly going to be available as a consumer standalone device. We’ll let you know when!

rallenr in OC adds: I mentioned this last week in the Show Notes - the Panasonic “Showstopper” is the original Replay DVR (even has the Replay logo). They support FREE schedule downloads, presumably to attract buyers in the early days of these devices. I have three of them and they dial up and download eight days worth of scheduling every night. They’re still available on eBay in a $200–300 range.

‘Louis in Oceanside, NY adds: I have a DVD-Recorder with a built in hard disk drive (HDD) which can be used for a DVR. Personally, I don’t use the HDD in this fashion since I already have a DirecTiVO unit. But the DVR in this Pioneer DVD-Recorder (DVR-510H) does not require any subscriptions fees. You program recordings to it like a VCR using either built-in timer recordings or VCR-Plus codes. It can also use an external receiver such as a satellite receiver to automatically record programs because it will automatically detect signals coming in through it’s L1 (line 1) input. So you can set your timer on your satellite receiver and this unit will automatically come on and record when it detects the incoming signal. Being a TiVo fan myself, I can say that this is obviously not as feature rich as TiVo, but it is a DVR. As I said, I don’t use it as a TiVo myself since I already have a real TiVo unit (the DirecTV-TiVo combo unit), but it is a DVR option for those who do not wish to subscribe to services such as TiVo or Reply.

Lynn in Encinitas - viruses, spyware are killing her

You’re not alone. Follow my disinfection recommendations in the Tips section - and make sure if you erase the hard drive to erase ALL partitions so as not to reinfect yourself!

Chat Logs and Show Audio

¹ c) 1984 (↑)