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Saturday, March 5, 2005

Show #123

 toc | toc 

Today’s news items

A Superior Court judge has ruled that bloggers don’t enjoy the same protections as the mainstream media. The judge issued a tentative ruling requiring three Apple rumor sites, Apple Insider, PowerPage, and Think Secret to reveal their sources to Apple. The sites published information about an Apple product code-named Asteroid. I’d tell you what it is, but then I’d have to sue you.

Bill Gates has been knighted. He’s a US citizen so you can’t call him Sir Bill, but he can place KBE after his name now. Gates was given the knighthood primarily in recognition of his efforts to improve health and reduce poverty in the developing world. To date, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Global Health program has earmarked nearly $5 billion for the effort.

A half-billion dollar judgment against Microsoft has been reversed. In the case, Eolas and the University of California accused Microsoft of improperly including technology in the Internet Explorer Web browser that allows interactive content (Flash, Java, etc.) to be embedded in a Web site. An appeals court judge has thrown out the award and ordered a new trial. Both sides are declaring victory.

Yahoo turned 10 years old Wednesday. Did you get your free ice cream cone at Baskin-Robbins? Founded originally as “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” the service began running on servers at Stanford in 1995 (anyone remember typing http://akebono.stanford.edu?). The original founders Jerry Yang and David Filo are still there, despite becoming billionaires years ago.

11a-Noon

Arthur in Michigan - connecting his stereo and XP Media Center

He wants to hook up his PC to his stereo. The best way to do this is using the optical TOSLink connection if your sound card and receiver have the capability.

SBLive and Turtle Beach sound cards do have optical out on many models.

He says he bought XP Media Center from NewEgg. They do sell it but read the fine print. It’s supposedly only for system resellers.

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/windowsxp_mediacenter.asp

Michael from Eau Claire, WI writes: I found an article for building Windows Media Center PC.

Another great site is http://www.thegreenbutton.com They have a great community of folks dedicated to Windows Media Center edition. The forums there are very active any they cover just about any WMCE question you’re ever likely to encounter.

Another listener writes: I use the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 250/350 series and they work flawlessly on Windows Media Center Edition 2005. For video cards, most of the Nvidia series cards work well provided they support have a TV-OUT SVideo port. When you buy the OEM version of WMCE, one thing you won’t get won’t get will be the remote control which is useful if you don’t want to use the mouse or keyboard to control the on-screen menu, and its often necessary if you have a Cable/Satelite box; the remote comes with a small IR box that is used to change channels on the cable/sat box. Without it, you won’t be able to change the channels. Fortunately, www.newegg.com also sells the remotes. Another (albeit expensive) way to acquire WMCE legally is via a Microsoft Developer Network MSDN subscription.

Microsoft offers an Excel spreadsheet with its Approved List of Hardware

Another listener writes: Media Center will only work with cards that have an MPEG2 encoder. TV Tuner cards will usually say that they are Media Center certified such as the new ATI Theatre 550 cards. The ATI All in Wonder series is not Media Center compatible because it does not have MPEG2 hardware.

Sean Santa Clarita - Found new hardware wizard pops up every boot

It’s his Lexmark printer. Unplug the printer. If the problem goes away the drivers were improperly installed. Uninstall the Lexmark software, go the the web site and get the latest version (the discs that come in the printer box are rarely fresh) and reinstall. Reboot, and once the system is up with no warnings plug in the printer and let the install finish.

Greg in Texas - which AMD processor is best

Well the best is the Athlon FX 64, but it’s very expensive at over $800. Next best is any Athlon 64. He also wondered whether to get the 754 or 939 pin models. For that I’ll have to point you to www.anandtech.com and their processor and motherboard reviews.

Dean in Brea - Hotmail can’t delete messages

He’s using IE 6 and even though he checks the message and presses the delete button it doesn’t delete anything. It works on his wife’s PC. I’d check the security settings on your system. Set them to Default Level and see if that fixes the problem.

Noon-1p

Barbara in Lake Forest - her Windows XP machine is sloooooow

She’s got up-to-date anti-virus and antispyware. I’d download all three recommended antispyware programs and make sure it’s not spyware. But often a reinstall is the best solution.

Leif in Burbank - scanning photos and negatives

He’s a video editor who needs to get photos and negatives into his videos. I recommend the Epson Perfection series (I use a 1670 but you might want to spend a little more on a higher end model) because it does a good job with both. He has edited Scare Tactics for the SciFi channel and Protect and Serve for Discovery.

Mike in Georgia - Laptop screen broken

It shows pinstripe lines across the type. There are three different ways an LCD can break. In order of complexity and repair cost: The ribbon cable connecting it to the computer can break. The screen itself can be smashed. The glass over the screen can break. It sounds like he’s got a frayed cable which should be inexpensive to fix.

For Powerbook and iBook owners with broken screens PowerPage is offering very inexpensive repair. Anyone tried it?

Mike in Florida - multiple PCs, multiple iPods

He wants to copy files from his iPod to his Mac. Apple makes this a little difficult since they don’t want you to use the iPod for mass piracy, but it’s not that hard. The songs are stored in a directory a little below the surface (iPod_Control). It’s different for the Shuffle. I use Podmaster 1000 (out of print) and Podworks to take files off my hard drive iPod, not sure how it would work with the shuffle.

Ricky writes: Just a bit of information- there is a piece of software which will allow you to download music from shared iTunes libraries. It’s currently in beta, and works well, with the exception of passworded libraries. If you have a password on your library, it will not work yet. Aside from that, it’s a platform-independent .JAR file. More information here: http://ot.f00f.com/

There is another option. If the computers are on a local network, you can share the directory that contains the itunes library. Just go to the folder that contains all the mp3, m4p, m4a, m4b files and share it. Then on the other computers open the shared folder. On macs you need to make sure that windows file sharing is turned on. Once you open that folder you can go to itunes and add that shared folder to your itunes library. Now you can copy any of these files to the ipod connected to that computer.

Fred in Corona - Win 98, Pentium 4 Shutdown Problems

CRoberts in Mexico City writes: His Windows 98 does not want to shutdown. Because this was such a big problem with Windows 98, Microsoft had a Windows Shutdown Trouble Shutting Wizard in their Website but apparently isn’t there anymore. The most common reason for this to happen has to do with programs that don’t listen when Windows warns to close before shutting down. Most of the time we are talking about Antivirus programs. Visit their websites for possible solutions. Try to find the right solution for your specific issue in the How to troubleshoot Windows 98 shutdown problems page.

For XP users go to the Resources to help troubleshoot shutdown problems in Windows XP page. You can also try the How To Increase Shutdown Time So That Processes Can Quit Properly in Windows XP procedure with extra care because this has to do with editing the Registry.

Steve in Sherman Oaks - Lost in LA

He’s looking for GPS software to use with his iPaq. GPSInformation.com has a good list of choices.

1–2p

Karen in Mission Viejo - Panasonic DVD Video Camera

She can’t play the DVDs back in her DVD player or computer. Try different DVD players and different media. Don’t use the DVD RAM discs, just DVD-R. And make sure to finalize the disc before you try to look at it on the DVD player.

Jonathan says maybe the burner is defective.

Jim in Indiana - Switching Wireless Routers

He has a Microsoft MN-500 router and is looking at the Linksys router to see if he can get better reception. He wants to know how hard it will be to swap. Since he has a cable modem it shouldn’t be hard at all - he probably won’t have to change any settings. (On DSL he would have to enter his login and password into the router configuration.)

Glich Adds: Linksys speedbooster uses on the fly compression and does NOT hamper other routers in the area. Leo was thinking of D-Link’s speedbooster that uses several channels at once and can cause problems with other routers in the area.

Jim in Indiana writes: The issue here seems to be extending the range of the wireless network to encompass all computers. We live in a CA ranch-style home (one level) of about 2200 sq ft. My AirPort Extreme is attached to my G5 Tower in my office on the west side of the house. Got no problem with my G4 Powerbook, or my wife’s iMac G5 on the southeast side, or her Dell Laptop, located in the Living Room. The problem was with the Dell Desktop in the northeastern front bedroom, which would not pick up a signal. We attached an AirPort Express behind the stereo in the living room (thus allowing me to play my iTunes songs through that stereo) and extended our signal to the Dell in that front bedroom. $149 added that last computer and allowed me to inflict my musical tastes on everyone! Priceless!

Leo adds: That’s how I do it, too, Jim. But for this to work you’ll have to have an all Airport network. It uses a technique called WDS - wireless distribution system. Many other routers support WDS, but because the WDS spec is somewhat loose you generally have to use routers with identical chipsets. Read this article from O’Reilly for more detailed information.

Jonathan in Simi Valley - Running out of system resources when scanning

1200 DPI scans are OK, but he can’t scan at 2400 or 9600 DPI. Well no wonder, that’s awfully big. He has 1GB of RAM but even that could be insufficient for a really big image. 1200DPI is more than enough for almost every purpose. (Blueboi points out that a 9600 DPI scan on the Lexmark X73 is 8GB!)

Here’s a good explanation of the DPI vs resolution issue. (Much better than my feeble attempt to explain.)

Experts (like my buddies Mikkel Aaland and Alex Lindsay) say scan your image at 1200 dpi and save it in an uncompressed file format like TIF, PSD, or BMP (not JPEG).

Bill wrote me this excellent email after the show:

Today, and in the past, I have heard your statement that film has an equivalent resolution of only about 1200 dpi, which always impresses me as way too low.

Photos exposed and processed with high quality have an equivalent resolution of 10,000 dpi or more (based on my recollection of a discussion from probably 10 years ago). They can be very good, so high resolution scanning can be justified (I wish I had a good web reference for you, but one that intimates an ultimate practical resolution for film under lab conditions of about 51,000 grayscale dots per inch is: http://www.canyonmaterials.com/grayscale_res.html — calculated from the grain size in microns - 0.5 micron, for photomasks). The article discusses grain size as small as 0.1 micron, which would be even better, but it must be considered in context. Again, these grain sizes probably represent the ultimate resolution — not what your disposable camera with drugstore processing produces.

Calculating the RAM required to hold the scanned image is simple (for example): 8″x10″=80 in2 (80 square inches)

• @ 1200 dpi: 80×1200×1200×3(R,G,B) = 345,600,000 Bytes (0.345 GB)
• @ 2400 dpi: 80×2400×2400×3 = 1,382,400,000 Bytes (1.3824 GB) Note that this is larger than your caller’s installed RAM.
• @ 4800 dpi: 80×4800×4800×3 = 5,529,600,000 Bytes (5.5296 GB)
• @ 9600 dpi: 80×9600×9600×3 = 22,118,400,000 Bytes (22.1184 GB)

Grant in Hollywood found Bill’s numbers were not correct

  Bill did not count the bit depth of each color.

This is the corrected math:

    ( 8″x1200dpi) =  9600 pixels
    (10″x1200dpi) = 12000 pixels

• 9600×12000×8(bit depth)x3(rgb)= 2764800000bits
• 2764800000/8=345600000 (bits to Bytes)
• 345600000/1048576=329.58984375MB (Bytes to MB)

I scan negatives to their original size at 3200 dpi using an Epson 4870 and get 36 to 38 meg files from 35 mm negs and 142 to 145 meg files from 2–1/4 negs. These files are then used to produce photographs (up to 20×30 “real” chemical photographs, not computer printer prints) by a lab I use in Atlanta. Anything higher than 3200 doesn’t yield results in the end product that the eye can see. For comparison, my Nikon D1x produces a file that is about eight megs.

Mark in Carson, CA - By the numbers

The issue here is HOW MUCH MEMORY IS NEEDED TO SCAN AT A GIVEN RESOLUTION (not what resolution is best for a given situation [though, that can (and should) be considered in deciding what resolution to use]).

There are THREE factors in determining the amount of MEMORY required to scan an image: Resolution, Image Size, and Color Depth.

• Resolution is the number of PIXELS per inch to capture for the image (scanning at 2400 x 2400 DPI (dots per inch [or, more correctly PIXELS per inch]) requires 5,760,000 pixels per square inch of the image).
• Color Depth defines the number of bits PER PIXEL to represent the amount of COLOR (RGB [Red, Green, Blue]) for each pixel. The smallest value is ONE pixel (Monochrome [or “Black and White”] images only need ONE pixel to represent Black or White. For Grey Scale, it is usually a single byte (8 bits) to represent 256 levels of grey. For COLOR, this can be (usually) 24-bits, or 32-bits. The COLOR DEPTH is multiplied by the RESOLUTION to determine the number of bits required for each square inch of the source image.
• Image Size is the amount of the source image to be scanned. For a typical photograph, this may be 4 inches by 6 inches. For an piece of “Letter” paper (often the standard scan size), this would (of course) be 8.5 inches by 11 inches.

One must MULITPLY all of these values together to obtain the amount of memory required to hold the entire scanned image in memory (something that MOST scanning software packages do BEFORE the image is compressed [if so specified] for output to the disk [GIF, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, etc.]).

So, for a 4 x 6 inch photograph (Image Size), at 2400 x 2400 DPI (Resolution), at 24-bit (Color Depth), that would be:

• 2400 x 2400 DPI = 5,760,000 pixel per square inch
• 5,760,000 * 24 bits (Color Depth) = 138,240,000 bits per square inch (or 17,280,000 Bytes per square inch - or [approximately] 16.5 MB per square inch).
• 4 x 6 (photo) = 24 Square Inches.
• 16.5MB * 24 Square Inches = 396 MegaBytes (of REAL MEMORY) per 4 x 6 photograph.

If you change ONLY the COLOR DEPTH to 32-bit, then the memory requirement goes UP to (5,760,000 * 32 * 24 = 4,423,680,000 bits [at 8 bits per byte = 552,960,000 Bytes], or) 527.34375 MB.

If the image is an 8 x 10 picture, then at 24-bit Color Depth, this would be 5,760,000 * 24 * 8 * 10 = 11,059,200,000 bits (or 1,382,400,000 Bytes; or 1,318.36 MegaBytes; or 1.287 GigaBytes).

Given that A) Jonathan said that his system has “only” 1 GigaByte of memory, and B) most Scanning applications do PHYSICAL memory allocations [not Virtual Memory Allocations], that MIGHT explain why he is unable to scan his image (though you did not ask him what Image Size he was scanning, nor did he volunteer that information, I’m just guessing).

Of course, going up to 9600 x 9600 would make matters even worse:

• 9600 * 9600 = 92,160,000 pixels per square inch
• 92,160,000 * 24 bit (Color Depth) = 2,211,840,000 Bits Per Square Inch (or 276,480,000 Bytes per square inch - or [approximately] 263.672 MB per square inch)
• 4 x 6 (photo) = 24 Square Inches
• 263.672 MB * 24 Square Inches = 6,328.125 MB (or 6.18 GigaBytes [of REAL MEMORY]) per 4 x 6 photograph.

As you can see, without INTELLEGENT scanning software (that either compresses to disk “on the fly”, or write directly to disk AS IT SCANS [rather than holding the entire image in memory]), you’re not going to get very large images at these higher resolutions and/or color depths.

Rich in North Hollywood - Word files are huge

First turn off Fast Saves - they’re unreliable and can cause massive word files. Select Tools→Options, click the Save tab, and uncheck Allow Fast Saves.Then you might want to save the troublesome files in the RTF format. RTF preserves most formatting, but eliminates macros (which can contain viruses) and can fix some problems. Reopen the file then try saving as a .DOC. This will squish the file size back to normal.

Shiva in Los Angeles - system slows down

Check www.BlackViper.com for a list of Windows XP services you can disable to make your system run faster.

Jeff in Santa Ana adds:
Thomas C. Greene also has an article and a follow-up on this
www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/17/xphome_sp2 and www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/14/reg_readers_windows.

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