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Sunday, May 29, 2005

Show #148

On this Memorial Day weekend we give our deepest thanks to the men and women who have given their lives in the service of our nation.

Live from New Orleans thanks to Sports Radio 1280 WODT The Sports Monster!

11a-Noon

Maureen in Oxnard - MP3 player for East Timor

Her daughter is in the Peace Corps and headed to East Timor. she’ll only have power once a month so she needs an MP3 player that can use regular batteries. You’ll want a solid state player - the hard drive players always use rechargeables.
iPod shuffle would be a good choice if you add the optional battery pack. It gives you 20 hours of listening with two AAA batteries.
I’d also recommend checking out books on tape. Try www.audible.com - you can get five or six books on a 1GB ipod.
Creative’s Muvo would be another good choice.

BenListening finds the battery pack here Apple iPod Shuffle Battery Pack

Steve in Chino adds I’d look at the unique little Sandisk Sansa e100 MP3 player. Not only is it availble with 1GB of internal memory but it has an expantion slot for SD cards up to 2GB. That means that not only could she take 3GB (thats a lot) of WMA (1/2 the size of MP3 for the same quality) but she could take extra SD cards and you could send her more as time goes by. I also agree that taking 3GB of music and 10–20 audio books is a great start. A quick trip to your local library will yeild all the audio books you could want. This player features 17 hours on a single AAA battery. BTW: I’ve seen this player as low as $135… Try doing a search on www.pricegrabber.com. I’d also look at a solar charger to and a stack of rechargable AAA batteries [[http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=795 | toc plus some Alkalines for the days there is no sun [[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00063RT7I/qid=1117407066/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-6544449-5959819?v=glance&s=electronics&n=507846 | toc I’d also get her better headphones [[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000CE1UO/qid=1117407199/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1_etk-electronics/103-6544449-5959819?v=glance&s=electronics&n=172282 | toc

Bob in Temecula adds Although not as convenient as an ipod, she could also look at a cd/mp3 player. Inexpensive, most all use AA batteries and mom can easily copy and mail to her any music (in mp3s) or podcast on cheap CDs.

Kian in Seal Beach - light comes on but not fans

Even the power supply doesn’t turn on. He’s replaced the power supply. Disconnect everything but the motherboard and CPU and try it. If it still won’t start I think you’ll need to replace the CPU.

He also wants to use PC2700 RAM in a PC3500 slot. In effect you’ll be overclocking the RAM. It may work - or you may have reliability issues. I don’t recommend it, however.

A lister writes: Caller with a power light but nothing working in the computer case may have forgotten the standoffs. Grounding out the motherboards.

MechMan adds: The wall socket being used may not be working properly. Try another plug. And change out the cables you use to plug into the wall. The cable may look good but may be damaged inside. Most computer places sell power cables cheap.

Jack in Canyon Country: Leo may correct me on this, but I believe modern PC power supplies (unlike my dinosaur but similar to most electronics these days) really has 2 power supplies, one is a small standby supply that does things like light a standby lamp or allow a remote control power button to work. It also turns on the ‘main’ supply which powers the PC. Now I have to disagree with the statement that a power supply will work even if it’s not connected to the cpu, my experience is without a minimum load the supply will not turn on, fan in power supply also will not run. I you are or you know a hardware geek like me, you might try what I used to do, unplug from motherboard and plug a 1 ohm 25 watt resistor across the 5v and fan in ps should work, caution though resistor should eventually get hot!

Mrhelper adds:This may be an issue of using a 400/533 processor on an 800 board or visa versa.. Needs to carefully read the manual or CALL the selling vendor and ask which processor will work with the board he is using.. Same with the ram… Good Luck..

Ashley adds:In my early days of building PC’s I actually did this on two different occasions. The indicator light would come on but the power supply/pc would NOT power up. The problem was I had not installed the little copper risers under the motherboard so the entire thing was grounding itself out. It’s funny but some of the motherboards I have purchased do not come with the little copper things! Go to your local computer shop and buy a bag Kian. Welcome to the wonderful world of building pc’s!

Kian adds:After removing the motherboard and placing out of the case the computer still would not turn on. Then I went out bought a new case and now it WORKS! I’m not sure what was wrong but my only guess was a shortage in the switch.

Henry in Riverside - VHS to CD

He wants to get video into his Macintosh. I recommend the products from Formac.

Aunti Mac, from Mission Viejo suggests -
I wouldn’t touch Formac with a ten foot poll, and extensions. Formac has a horrible history of supporting software problems and not offering updates after Apple releases one of their famous OS X updates that kill a few dozen hardware and software apps.

A far better recommendation was the ADS Technologies “USB Instant DVD for Mac”, unfortunately they stopped making the Mac model, but they are still around in the retail store channels. I’ve tested and owned both and have had nothing but problems with the Formac.

Jack in Canyon Country: I never hear this mentioned but I have used a freind’s digital camera, a Canon SR70 I think it was. Analog video and audio goes to camera, fire wire to PC in my case. I realize not all have this feature but worth checking manual because it’s wasn’t intuituve how to get it to do this.

Jeremy in Wildemar - Xbox 360 vs PS/3

In microcosm this is the battle that’s shaping up in the computing world in general. We’ve maxed out what today’s CPUs can do. Clock speeds won’t get any higher (Intel says it won’t make a 4Ghz chip). So the two companies are trying two different approaches to increasing speed. On the one hand you have the Microsoft’s Xbox putting multiple chips on a single system. This multicore strategy is exactly what Intel is doing with its Pentium D and Apple’s doing with its high end G5 desktops. On the other side is the new approach represented by the Playstation 3 and its Cell processor. This chip has eight DSP processors and a PowerPC like controller chip on the CPU. It’s, in effect, distributed processing on a single chip. DSPs specialize in the kind of media manipulation we do a lot on computers these days: analog to digital conversion, video and audio encoding, and 3D rendering. It will be interesting to see which approach works best - in many ways we’re watching the development of the next step in computing.

My money’s on the Cell processor and Sony, by the way.

Dboat comments on pipe lining on program code
Hello Leo…

Heard your talk about how the pipe lining in some new chips is not very good. This brought back to mind the first time I ever heard about pipe lining. Way back in the early 80’s while I was a Sr. Mainframe system operator at a community college district. They were the first in the nation to have large scale IBM mainframes. The district changed from the IBM mainframes to a Hitachi AS/6 system. It looked like 9 full sized refrigerators lined up like a T shape. And it had 8 MEG OF RAM TOTAL! We ran the IBM VM/370 Operating system so we could run many other operating systems all at the same time by letting the VM system use virtual memory up to about 100 MEG. This was done by swapping memory pages of 4K into and out of the 8MEG or ram.

During the switch over I was able to talk to the techs that were flown in from Japan to do the install. The one who spoke the best English told me about the best feature this top of the line system had…. 8 level instruction pre-fetch! Aka pipe lining.

I will try to sum this up fast…

The hardware for the pipe lining was designed and optimized for the IBM 360 Assembly Language. AKA machine code. The design also took in account that most all heavily used operating system and applications were written by high quality programmers who wrote their code to be small is size and VERY FAST! Main memory was very limited.

I was also a programmer in the IBM 360 assembly language and know full well that there is a fine line between GOOD code and BAD code, when it come to efficiency!

As systems got faster, main memory got larger and new languages came alone, programmers started ignoring things like keeping the code SMALL and FAST! The new compiled languages also did NOT produce assembly code that was as good as a human code write. Today the assembly code that is produced has to jump/branch much farther then in the old days! By needing to jump farther the chance that the destination address has been brought into the pre fetch engine is very low. The New programming languges like C etc have large nested chucks of code that can cover pages just for one IF … THEN…ELSE structure. The branch points can be many K apart if not 10’s of K apart! It use to be that a programmer had to keep ALL of a routine within a 4K page at most! This allowed the pipe lining to make the programs screem!

So the main problem are people to do not know how to write GOOD, SMALL and FAST code!
so the pipe lining can do it job! That’s my 2 cents worth.

Noon-1p

Martin in San Bernardino - desktop shuts down randomly

make sure you haven’t turned on timed shutdown in the BIOS settings or the Power Options Control Panel. If not, it’s likely a hardware issue. Check your power supply, look for shorts on the mother board, cooling issues, etc.

MrHelper adds: Probably a HEAT related issue. Take the side of the case OFF and see if it corrects the problem.. Also an issure of “CHIP CREAP” can casue this. Try reseating the RAM and Video Card.. Good Luck…

Jerry in Whittier - Anti-virus reports busy files

Restart in safe mode then run the AV program. That’s usually a good idea when running AV, anti-spyware, disk defrag, and other system utilities. The pagefile will always be busy, but there should be other busy files. Some spyware puts files in the tmp folder. I suggest clearing out the temp files using the Disk Cleanup tool. (Start → Programs → Accessories → System Tools → Disk Cleanup)

Peter in San Marcos - case of the missing cursor

HP Pavilion notebook, screen goes opaque but a reboot fixes it. Sounds like something is turning off the LCD backlight. We covered a similar issue on Show 144. Upgrade your video driver. Check your Power Options settings.

Ken from Western Maryland writes: Regarding the LCD Screen Problem; I have the IBM ThinkPad R31 that had a ballast go bad where it would light for a short time but then go blank (you could still see the image in the LCD but you had to look close with a flash light). Just behind the LCD cover, on the bottom was a little chip card about 1/2″ by 4″ that powers the LCD back light. Anyhow, I noticed by measuring the output coil that it was open. Ordered the part from IBM for about $40 and my computer was fine after that. Evidently it was a temp problem that after it ran for a bit, it shut down the back light and finally after a few weeks died. Here is a picture that I’ll post for a short time at LCD backlight power chip . Good luck.

Art in Westminster - computer gets less reliable over time

He’s running Windows Me and by the end of the day he can’t open My Computer or shut down normally. A reboot fixes it. This was always a problem with Windows 95/98/Me. As you use the computer over time the system resources pool gets depleted. Only a reboot can fix this. Upgrading to XP will eliminate the problem - it handles system resources much more efficiently. This is why we always used to recommend restarting Windows Me every few hours.

Mark in Rancho Cucamonga - wireless issues

Let’s get this straight he’s a NASCAR fan - none of that Indy car stuff. All of a sudden he can’t see his wireless router. He got an error message saying that his PCI Device needed a driver. For some reason Windows has forgotten about his Wi-Fi network card. I’d recommend reinstalling by deleting its entry in the Device Manager. And don’t say anything about #24.

1–2p

Alan in Simi Valley - Bought pirated Photoshop from Ebay

Should he worry about spyware or keystroke loggers? Possibly, but it’s much more likely it’s a direct copy of the original Photoshop install CD.

A listener writes with a better alternative to buying software on Ebay: Yahoo auctions offers a guarantee. I emailed them about it and they said they would honor it for software bought if it was an illegal copy. OOPS! After thinking about it, I think it was Amazon Auctions. I’ll check my emails to be sure and will come back and correct if it wasn’t Amazon.

Bill in Redlands - Tivo hacking

How do I add another hard drive to my Humax Series 2 Tivo? There is USB on the back but I don’t believe you can use it for an external hard drive. You likely have room to add an internal drive, however. Either buy one from www.weaknees.com or follow the instructions on the Dealdatabase Forums.

Bill in Irvine adds I know Leo has a relationship with Weakknees (and if fact I’ve bought from them, too), but there is also 9th Tee Enterprises at http://www.9thtee.com/Default.htm. I bought my TiVo Series 1 upgrade kit from them about two years ago. Made one minor error in connections (forgot that photos showed the machine right side up and I had flipped it over). Sent email asking for help and they called me back in fifteen minutes! In that time, I figured what I had done wrong, but I was sure impressed with the level of customer service.

Mary in Newport Beach - can’t open attachments

Outlook Express blocks email attachments because that’s how viruses are spread. Even Word documents, spreadsheets, and JPEGs can contain viruses. But if you expect an attached picture it’s safe to open it. Microsoft explains why they turned off attachements in Outlook Express 6, and how to re-enable them here. I recommend turning the protection back on after you open the attachment, though.

Jeff in Santa Ana adds some lists of unsafe file types to demonstrate how much you need to know before you can safely click on attachments.

Ken in Alta Loma - E: drive icon is corrupted

Delete the c:\windows\shelliconcache file.

Rallenr writes Does this apply to Win2K also? Can’t find that file, and all my icons have turned to MS Access!

Walter in Marina Del Rey - Mac laptop for under $500?

Try ebay - there are lots of good choices (exercise the normal caution whenever buying online, of course). I recommend a G3 ibook. You should be able to get a late model unit for that price.

Gill Amellio, formerly from Cupertino, writes -
Walter, now that Steve Jobs has fomerly committed product suicide by announcing that Apple would be switching in a year to two years to Intel Processors (which Stevie has BASHED for years as being inferior”), you should wait just a couple months because a brand new G4 PowerBook will be down to only a few hundred bucks as Apple inventory swells to door busting preportions becuase no one will want to by DEAD END G4 or G5 Technology now. Keep an eye on Home Shopping Network, OverStock.com and the Bluelight Specials at K-Mart.

Good work Steve Jobs! Now all the Mac Heads might want me to come back for my old job!

A listener writes Too bad Leo is a lapdog to the antithesis of competition: Steve Jobs. During this memorial weekend, there were 3 retailers that offered new entry-level notebooks that are fine for everyday use for $500 after rebate. Instead, he suggest buying somebody’s old/used clunker sight unseen from an unknown 3rd party in which you have no recourse in any dispute.

Doug in Laguna Nigel - Office monitoring

His employees are screwing around on the office computers. He’s looking for a good, reliable,lightweight program he can use to monitor their systems and restrict certain sites and programs. Any suggestions for him?

Dave in Santa Monica writes Try http://www.stbernard.com/products/iprism/products_iprism.asp, which is an internet filtering appliance. It will either report on each employee’s internet activity or restrict an employee to only approved business sites that they need to do their job.

Steve in Chino adds The 800lbs gorilla of this industry is Websense. It isn’t cheap but it is THE industry standard. In it’s basic form it will block access to web sites by catagory and also block ports commonly used for instant messages. There are also add-ins that block known spyware and nearly all instant messages, music sites, P2P, etc… Not cheap but it once installed Websense keeps it up to date. www.websense.com

A listener adds Take a look at FUNK Software @ www.funk.com, their proxy software for callcenters will allow remote access to office computers as well as screen monitor/record users sessions.

A listener adds If you use Microsoft servers you can use software from GFI.COM to monitor, report and restrict
use of sites.

Terry in Anaheim - Sims 2 won’t play

Check the system requirements on the box then check your computer to make sure it’s capable. Use the free Belarc Adviser to check what you have if you’re not sure. If your system does, in fact, have enough oomph, I recommend making sure you’ve updated it to the latest video drivers and run Microsoft Windows update to install the most recent version of DirectX.

Ron in Moorpark writes: →Sim2 is the most memory intensive program I have ever seen. It will not run on a slow system and takes a few minutes to load, once installed, even on a new 3.3 GHz machine (Dell Dimension 8400). I bought the new PC when I could hardly install the program on either of two slower machines (each meeting or exceeding the minimum system requirements—literally took at least an hour!) Once installed it ran like molasses (and I don’t mean just slow…I mean virtually inoperable!) There is NO chance it will run on a P3.

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