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Sunday, February 20, 2005

Show #120

Live from Orlando, Florida, coverage from the 2005 PMA Digital Photography Show. Check out my video reports on digitalcamerainfo.com.

- Tuesday: Polariod at PMA with Leo
- Monday: New Hot Cameras at PMA
- Sunday: Digital Focus at PMA

 toc | toc 

Today’s news items

According to the LA Times, Apple and Napster are taking potshots at their respective digital rights management technologies. Steve Jobs sent recording company executives an email Tuesday morning pointing out that Napster’s new all-you-can-eat music service, Napster-To-Go had been cracked. Napster CEO Chris Gorog replied with an email Tuesday afternoon that linked to a site offering a crack for the iTunes Music Store’s DRM. Gorog wins this round. All protected music is susceptible to the Napster-To-Go crack - it’s essentially recording the analog output as you listen to the song. iTunes FairPlay has been cracked fair and square by DVD Jon and software to strip out the copy protection is widely available.

Listener comments:
Why get NAPSTER TO GO when ITunes lets you burn Audio CDs and keep the Muisc for life?

Why get iTunes when they only support the iPod? Why get an iPod when there are other music players that are equal in every respect, but cheaper?

ITunes all the way

NASA has set a date for resuming shuttle launches. Discover will go up May 15, the first lanuch since the Columbia disaster over two years ago.

11a-Noon

Mary in West Hollywood — Taskbar Moved

The taskbar has moved to the side of her screen
First, make sure it is unlocked by right clicking on the taskbar. Now that it is unlocked, click on an open spot on the taskbar and drag it back to the bottom of your screen, or wherever you desire. To prevent it from moving again, right click on the taskbar and select Lock the Taskbar.

Marsha in Owhanga — See Thumb drive

After re-installing Windows she can’t see her Sony Micro Vault thumb drive when it’s plugged in
You don’t need a driver for this thumb drive, so that isn’t the problem. Open the Device Manager and delete the entry for the thumb drive. Then plug in the Micro Vault and the operating system will recognize the device.

[Slick, Tucson/AZ - I have had similar problems with “plug and play” USB devices. I have noticed that some OEM (original equipment manufacturers) versions of Windows are unable to load the expectted drivers because they are not located on the hard drive where Windows is looking…and/or the driver does not exist in the OEM version of Windows.]

I have seen where some drives work but they are not PnP. You need to go into Device
Manager and Scan for New Hardware and the device will show up. Mark -

Gary in Corona — Wants audio in garage

Gary wants to listen to his music and radio from his computer in the garage
The best bet is to go wireless and you can purchase any wireless router to turn your computer into a mini-radio station. Then you can purchase a sound bridge like those found at Rokulabs.com to listen to and control the music in your garage.
Gary also wants to record Internet radio and the Streaming Download Project,SDP, has a free application for PCs.

Jon Adds Another suggestion for a streaming audio device is Slimp3

Auido CDs, wired networking, portable muisc players, and speakers wired into the home audio system is the best option.

mab631: I have not used it but it would be all in one with speakers might want to check it out because it sounds like he only wanted to listen to Leo’s radio show and the speakers that come with it I would think are ok for it.

popin: I’ve been using an FM Transmitter from C. Crane. Works great. Just plug it into headphone jack of your computer and it will transmit audio to any FM radio. It claims a 70 foot range but I’m getting almost double that. http://www.ccrane.com/fm-transmitter.aspx

A new device that came out is called RadioShark by Griffin Technolgoy. This new AM/FM USB Radio works on both the MAC and PC (XP Only) and looks very promissing. I plan on purchasing this unit for my in-car PC (I don’t have a radio anymore). Here is the link: [[http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/radioshark/ | toc

Dean ‘DacMan’ Penderghast, Consultant
Sales Automation Services, Inc.
Certified Peachtree Consultant

Noon-1p

Julie in Pasadena — TiVo advice

Julie needs advice on TiVo type devices
TiVo is the most popular choice among these devices and the user interface is the best. To use any of these devices you must subscribe to a service. A TiVo will alter your television viewing habits, so beware.

Juile try Cable PVR or an PC PVR it’s an better option, they already let you make DVDs, and they cost less.

FRANK adds: Julie consider getting either a Panasonic DMR-E80H 80 gig PVR or the newer DMR-E120H 120 gig PVR.
Both will record to the HD your choice of XP,SP,LP & EP for a total recording time of 106/213 hrs in EP mode which I find very satisfactory. You also have a choice to record to DVD-R which will play on other equipment or DVD-RAM for archival to play back on the same equipment. The E120 is the newer model which also includes an on screen TV Guide with a week of programs updated daily. There are no subscription fees but the units are priced at $450/550. You may find more competative pricing on line through ebay. You can also time slip current recordings. Watch something previously recorded while recording, and edit out commercials from your favorite movie that you want to dub to a DVD-R, or convert your VHS’s to DVD.

DacMan: I did alot of research on these units and picked the ReplayTV unit over Tivo. One of the main reasons for picking Replay is the fact that it’s very easy to open the unit and add a second hard drive or replace the hard drive with a much larger drive. Another reason for choosing ReplayTV is a very cool program called DVArchive which allows you to setup a machine on the network that would transfer the shows off the replay onto another computer, then turn that computer into emulating another ReplayTV unit. This way, we have all of our movies on a server and we can use the ReplayTV device to watch any movie we want off of our XP machine in the house. It’s a VERY cool machine.

Mike in Tustin – hates touch screens

Do you like touch screens? Mike is visually impaired and touch screens don’t work for him.
No, and the future might be worse as many mass merchants are beginning to require you to check your own products too. In this case, it seems that the ADA should provide some relief.
Web designers can visit Bobby to check web their web site for accessibility.

Andy in Burbank — Window Media Center

Andy has a OEM copy of Windows Media Center, does he need a special video capture card?
This is an illegal copy that a dealer installed on another computer and you might not get support for this operating system. It probably does require a special video capture card. Other alternatives for software that record video are SAGE.TV and Snapstream.

Andy: there is no real need for Windows Meida Center Edtion; It just XP Pro with added software you can use many 3rd party lower cost software it get it’s onptions. SnapStream is $69 that’s an alot less then Windows Meida Center Edtion and I gives you that on Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Nahid Adds: It’s not an illegal copy. You can buy Media Center Edition from places such as newegg now on its own. Newegg requires it to be bought with hardware though. See NewEgg..

Nick in Rhode Island TiVo’s making weird noises

Nick’s TiVo was making strange audio sounds and it seemed like the box wasn’t on the correct frequency during live shows, is the hard drive getting tired?
Probably not because the problem is occurring during the live shows; resetting will often cure many of the ailments that strike TiVos. Another, possibility is that the TiVo is overheating, check that the fan is operating.

someone added: like a PC and any electric device the TiVo has air flow issuses; the 1st thing I would see is if there is anything blocking the air flow, the better the air flow the less of a heating issue.
Overheating is the number one cause of weird sounds, you can also run software to see if the hard drive has errors sometimes that can make weird sounds; If the hard drive, fans, etc has to be replaced you often hear weird sounds.

I hope the old BetaMAX law that made the VCR Legal doesn’t get putted, because it will do more harm then good to the Movie, Music, Game, Radio, and Computer flinds.

1–2p

Stephanie in Orange has annoying error message

Stephanie is getting an Internet Explorer script error, can she shut it off?
Open Internet Explorer and select Tools/ Internet Options/ Advanced; then look for the option for Script Debugging, and deselect the notification of error box. Check the boxes for Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer) and Disable Script Debugging (other).

Carolyn in Toluca Lake — sleepy PC

Occasionally after she puts her PC into the sleep mode the monitor won’t start and she has to shut down and restart
Make sure you don’t have hibernation enabled by checking the status the hibernate mode in Power Options (Start/ Control Panel/ Power Options). Also, make sure you don’t have prompt for password upon waking. Your monitor may be the cause of the problem too, and if you could swap the monitor it could solve your problem.

Mark in Anza has skipping keys

His PowerBook’s keyboard was skipping keys, will resetting the PRAM help?
Yes, it will often solve Mac problems (press command, option, P, R). You can also toss the keyboard preferences from your Library.

Sal in San Diego – Any future for PDA?

Sal wants to know the future of PDAs
Not very promising; a smart phone is probably the best match for your needs.

However, there are those of us out there that don’t want everything on one device simply because if that one device goes out, they are out. If my Smart Phone ran out of bateries, got lost, broke or simply got stollen, everything is gone. But if my phone is dead, I still have my PocketPC available for my schedule. If my PocketPC is stolen, I still have my phone to take and receive phone calls.

I should know, this happened to me. I had a PocketPC, cell phone and pager. I purchased a Smart Phone last month and moved everything to the smart phone. Last week, my Smart Phone got stolen and I lost everything! I’m now back with my PocketPC and cell phone.

Finally, when I used my Smart Phone, I had alot of problems. The phone would lock up while working, calls would be missed because I was in the middle of entering a appointment and even appointments disappearing when calls come in!

Therefore I would recommend keeping your primary key components separate. Just my FYI.

Dean “DacMan” Penderghast, Consultant
Sales Automation Services, Inc.
Certified Peachtree Consultant.

Judy from Seal Beach – Books for Windows Media Center

Judy has a legal copy of Windows Media Center and the lack of documentation is frustrating her
David Pogue created a line of books for this reason, The Missing Manual series, but he doesn’t have a book covering this subject. “The Absolute Beginners Guide to Windows Media PC” by Steve Kovsky will answer your questions. You may just need to run the program though, once you start Windows Media Center it prompts you through most operations and it’s as easy to use as a TiVo.

Mark in Massachusetts wants to listen to podcasts

Mark needs advice on how to automatically download a podcast
To subscribe to a podcast you need software and iPodder is the original tool although somewhat buggy, iPodderX works for Macs , and Doppler is a good choice for the PC. You need to paste the URL of your favorite podcast into your subscriptions list in your podcast software.

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