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Saturday , March 19, 2005

Show #127

NOTE: I’m doing it again. I’ll continue to answer calls after 2p tomorrow. I’m taping ahead for my vacation in April.

 toc | toc 

Today’s news items

More than one million computers on the Net have been hijacked to attack Web sites and send out spam and viruses. This is according to a report by security researchers who have spent months tracking over 100 networks of remotely-controlled machines.

Britain’s National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) has foiled a gang of hackers aiming to steal £220m from a Japanese bank in London. After gaining access to the IT systems of Sumitomo Corporation’s London offices in October the gang installed key-logging software to record log-in codes and company documents. They had been planning to transfer the money to 10 bank accounts around the world.

Visit Google today if you want a Gmail account. About 1 in 20 Google users are randomly being offered Gmail accounts.

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11a-Noon

Mark in Maryland - converting cassettes to MP3

He’s on a Mac, but the process is the same on Windows or Mac. You need to hook up your cassette recorder to you computer then record the audio. I recommend Audacity - a free sound recorder and editor for PC, Mac, and Linux. It can save to MP3.

Jeff from San Francisco has been converting a lot of cassettes on the Mac this winter. Uses Chris Breen’s favorite low-cost sound program, Amadeus II. Here’s the workflow: (1) Cassette (with Dolby ON enabled) to amp. (2) “Line Out or Rec Out” on amp into the Mac. (3) Select “Line in” on the Mac in the Sound System Preferences. (4) Launch Amadeus II. (5) Record a long, say 45 minute, cassette file. (6) If necessary, clean up the sound with the equalizers and or filters in the program. (7) Use the “Generate Markers” command to have the program find all the track breaks. (8) Use the “Split According to Markers” command to chop a copy of the long file into discrete separate files; save as AIFF (best quality). (9) This will create a folder with all the songs onto you desktop and quit Amadeus II. (10) Drag all of the sound files onto your iTunes window and then convert them to AAC.

Steven Gifford Webmaster @ steveng.co.nr
You can also use garage band to import and edit all of those tapes. I found that Garage Band was the easiest way to do this. Musicmach and programs that do separate the files do not work that well. Please go to my site and post on the message board. “www.steveng.co.nr”. Thanks for the great show Leo.

JohnDgeek says: I will have to agree with Leo on this one. As Jeff describes above you will need to connect a tape player to your microphone in port. Then record the music to MP3.

Robin in Stanton - Spyware has clobbered her connectivity

Removing spyware can damage system files and often makes it impossible to get online. Download Winsock XP Fix to restore connectivity or read the Microsoft Tech Note.

If you had the Windows install disc you could also try booting into the command line safe mode (F8 on boot) and using the command sfc /scannnow

If you’re concerned that the copy of Windows you’ve been given is not legitimate, you can check it at www.microsoft.com/piracy

If you are running Windows XP SP2, in a cmd window type:

netsh winsock reset catalog

Neil in Orange - He formatted a large hard drive but now can’t see it

There are myriad problems with 250GB hard drives and older hardware. You’ll find an excellent artice documenting the issues at the Dew Associates web site.

In his case he is using Windows XP SP1 and an extra PCI-based IDE card. He was able to partition a 250 GB drive using the Windows drive manager (right click My Computer, select Manage, click Disk Management) but now he can’t see it.

JohnDgeek says: If the hard drives are having trouble being recognized I would clear out all the secondary disk drives and reboot(right click My Computer, select Manage, click Device Manager). Windows might be confused on which one you are using. Don’t remove the drive Windows is installed on, that’s a no no.

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Noon-1p

Dan reviews the Sony Playstation Portable

The Sony PSP is nearly here. Loves the 16:9 480×272, 4.5″ screen. Uses FFMpegX on the Mac to rip movies for it. He got Wipeout from EB Games and really likes it - as good as a Playstation 2, he says.

James adds On the PC you can use a program called 3GP_Converter. Engadget.com has a great guide for putting video on the PSP, just search for “PSP video”.

A listener writes: Hey Leo, the two “computer guys” on a competitors radio show in LA got a FREE Sony PSP EACH today , just for having the product manager on todays show. You need to ask Sony why they didn’t send you one.

Reality PC, Mission Viejo says You’re the best, I know you buy what you use.

Leo responds: I don’t like to put vendors on any of my shows - it’s just too much of an ad. In any event, ClearChannel strictly forbids booking guests in return for payment of any kind.

JohnDgeek says: I wish Sony still made the clie peg-nz90 and similar models. The PSP looks like it is a great device but I’m not ready to buy hardware that might not be supported down the line because it didn’t pick up enough market share.

Dan says: the chances of the PSP not picking up a huge share of the handheld market is impossible.

David in Marina Del Rey - what’s the best audio format

• Lossless
  • FLAC - the best because it runs on all platforms
  • Ape - easy to use but Windows only
  • Apple Lossless Codec - built into iTunes, iPod only
• Lossy
  • MP3 the original and still the most compatible with all systems and players, might not be the best quality www.mp3-tech.org/
  • AAC MP3’s successor, higher quality at lower bitrates, but not all portable players support it
  • WMA - Windows only, but very high quality at low bit rates
  • Vorbis an open source compressor some say sounds better than the rest
• Shoot outs

please add more!

Steven Gifford Webmaster @ steveng.co.nr writes I like AAC best. I am an apple guy but I am an audiophile and it sounds much better than MP3. WMA is not compatible with MAC and doesn’t sound as good. OGG Vorbis is on every platform but it will not play on most portable players. AAC is on Mac and PC and it sounds great!!

JazzDJ Keith writes - Steven, you may be a “MacGuy”, but…
I’m a DJ on a major Jazz station heard in the LA area and world-wide on the Internet (also a former radio station engineer) and at ANY FM music station the engineers will tell you that music is ONLY ripped to the hard drives in WAV preferably, or MP3 at 192kbps or above formats. No one that I know of uses AAC, and granted WMA, in “High Fidelity” Radio, INCLUDING Satellite! Of course the “gadget world” of iPods is another story; but what stations use is some telling evidence of what formats are the best for fidelity and purity!

Personally, I’ve tested AAC against WMA and MP3 on a scope and technically WMA has a slight edge in highs over AAC. With my 48 year old ears, I don’t hear any difference through a pair of $1000 studio JBL monitor speakers.

Leo adds: Karlheinz Brandenberg, creator of the MP3 format, told me that AAC, as the successor to MP3, is superior. Of course, he records all his music as 128kbps MP3s.

My opinion (it’s all subjective by the way no matter how adamant people are about their preferences) is that you should use FLAC if hard drive space is not an issue. If you need to use a lossy codec to save space or put on an MP3 player, MP3 recorded at 192kbps VBR is the most compatible with all systems and players and produces excellent quality audio.

Incidentally, after listening to my podcasts on a variety of devices I’ve decided to increase the bit-rate. The standard for other podcasts seems to be very high fidelity, even for spoken word. Future radio and TLR files will be encoded at 64kbps mono MP3-Pro.

JohnDgeek says: I use MP3 because it is so widely supported. If OGG Vorbis were as widely supported I would use it too. I use to listen on my systems at home. It supports both my choices plus more.

Dan adds: the LAME MP3 encoder using the —alt preset standard switch is the best sounding way of encoding MP3 at the lowest bitrates in VBR. You wont hear more perfect audio encoding.

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1–2p

Chris in Escondido - protecting her new Windows install

It’s time for my weekly Windows security sermon. I’ll save my breath and refer you to the article on Removing Spyware and Installing Windows Safely.

I’ve been trying a new free anti-virus called AntiVir - it seems very good.

Henry from Ft Leaonard Wood, MO Adds…

I personaly am behind the LinkSYS Router and the Norton Internet Security Firewall. Yes the Linksys is a hardware firewall but I find it essentail to run the software firewall also for more protection. I also run Adaware, Spybot and SpySweeper. I highly recommend Spysweeper! Spysweeper removes and prevents some spyware/adware that the others including Microsoft will not prevent. Also, Spysweeper used to be an awful program but now with their continued success they have realy improved their product. You might also keep in mine that the Microsoft Spyware program is still in Beta and only runs on XP os machines.

Andrea Asks…

You also mentioned changing the password on the router. I already have a wireless router set up, but after hearing the show today, want to change the password, since just yesterday I discovered my pc to have 3 viruses, one of which disabled Norton Antivirus. (At least I was able to clean those up using the trendmicro free virus scanner.) How do you change the router password? I can’t even find access to the router, techno-lamo that I am. Thanks!

In answer to Andrea about changing the router password:

You do not say what router you have but here is the general procedure:

1. Your router is controled by software built in to the router itself;
2. To access the router use your browser to open the router as a web page;
3 You need the internet address of your router to do this (your owners manual should tell you what address to use (for my Dlink router it is 192.168.0.1 so I enter http://192.168.0.1 into my web browser’s address bar).
4. Once you open the router you will have to explore the menus that are displayed to find the password settings. The owners manual probably has this information as well. Again using my Dlink router as an example it is on the tools menu/admin and provides two passwords that can be set up, one for admin (with permission to change settings) and one for users who can view but not change the settings.

Hope this helps.

Will in Norwalk - Consider PalmOS for MP3 players

He uses a Tungsten C and can play back movies as well as music. He recommends ZLib for ZIP support on the Palm, and CDex for CD ripping on Windows.

Jackie in LA - Dead laptop

She’s not really sure what’s wrong but her two year old laptop won’t startup at all. First thing I’d try is popping the battery. Let it sit for a minute or two. Then plug it in and try restarting. Sometimes a really dead battery can keep a laptop from starting.

James in San Diego - Averatec laptops ok?

Yep. He’s thinking it’s better to buy an inexpensive laptop with a DVD drive than to buy a standalone 7″ inch DVD player. I agree and Averatec is actually a good choice for that.

Brett in Iowa - burning a DVD from an AVI

You need a DVD authoring program. Most will import AVIs and convert them to the appropriate MPEG-2 format. He has Sonic MyDVD - which is fine and comes with a lot of DVD burners. I like Ulead’s DVD Movie Factory but for a full featured authoring program with excellent video editing as well I really like the $79 Adobe Premiere Elements.

JohnDgeek says: I recommend reading more about this at . It is a great place to get some answers about creating VCD and DVD movies.

Sky in Malibu - Can’t see images on Yahoo

She installed Webroot’s SpySweeper 30-day trial, cleaned out spyware, turned on the protection features, then uninstalled it. Now Yahoo is behaving strangly. It’s slow and images are missing. That’s probably a side effect of the SpySweeper protection. It modifies the Windows Hosts file to disable Internet ads. I’d reinstall, turn off all the automatic protections, then uninstall. SpySweeper is a very good program, but if you want an equally good program that’s free I recommend Microsoft’s AntiSpyware.

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