Leo Laporte
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Sunday, June 26, 2005

Show #156

I’ll be taking calls at 1–800–520–1534 from 2–4p today. Call in with your questions to help me tape the July 10 show ahead of time (so I can take a Geek Cruise June 29-July 10).

 toc | toc

Today’s news items

11a-Noon

Martin in NYC - iPod can’t synch

Windows XP, USB 2.0 PCI card on a Dell. He’s restored the iPod but it won’t show up. When it did it only copied some of the songs and some files were corrupt. To quote Marvin Gaye, “What’s goin’ on?”

Charlie writes: I know that there is a issue with Dell PC’s using under performing power supplies that cause issues for USB 2.0 ports the fix is to use USB hub with it’s own power supply. I have ran into this issue using usb KVM’s.

Martin’s updates: Thanks once again to Leo! I reset my daughter’s iPod, and plugged it into her notebook, rather than her desktop, and it synchronized perfectly & the iPod is working properly.

Bob in La Mesa - V-chip on computers?

Intel denies it but notice the hedge word “unannounced.” That’s because all Intel chips since the Pentium III have had unique processor IDs. Perfect for putting copy protection on computers.

Richard in Leesburg, FL - Can’t access Internet radio

I suspect your router or firewall. Check your radio streamer for the ports to unblock. Our stream uses a popup so disable your blocker for our site. Turn off Windows firewall or other security programs to see if they’re causing the problem. If it fixes the problem, turn the firewalls back on and unblock the needed ports. MMS and RTSP streams use UDP ports 554 and 1755.

Dennis in Lancaster - looking for FTP software

He need to upload to his web site. I’ve been using a very cool free little program called the Tango Dropbox that lets you drag and drop files to an inbox on your desktop. For more elaborate FTP I use the classic CuteFTP. Any other recommendations gang?

TGal in the chat room writes: FileZilla from http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

KGH writes: AceFTP 3 Freeware which is free and can be downloaded at http://software.visicommedia.com/en/products/aceftpfreeware/.

JIM2 writes be aware that AceFTP 3 Freeware is ad sponsored.

KD6CAE in the chat room writes: flashFXP which though it’s not free, you can try it for 30 days and it works quite well. Check it out at http://www.flashfxp.com

TTT_Travis writes: added that you can also do similar on Mac OS X using AppleScript and Folder actions. More info at http://www.waxpraxis.org/coding/17/

klokwkdog writes:

Windows - Smart FTP which is free d/l for personal use and cheap for commercial/supported use. http://www.smartftp.com/
Linux - KBear rocks and can deal with secure FTP better than Smart FTP. (if you need the GUI)
Masochists - one can always invoke most OSes’ text mode FTP client from the Run line (incl. Windows’) and type those loooong path names ;-).

Dave from Woodbury, MN writes:
I have been using Bulletproof FTP for years. It is a very good FTP program. I started using it back when I had a dial-up connection. I could download whole CD images in about a week and a half! The connection automatically re-establishes when the ISP kicks you off for ‘parking’! The program works great on broadband. I strongly recommend trying it. They have a month trial and the price is $29.95. For more information check their web site: http://www.bpftp.com/

Noon-1p

Cody in Davenport - distributed computing

With all the excess processing power out there these days why doesn’t someone try to “harvest” it for compute intensive problems (ala Seti@Home). United Devices has teamed with Intel to sell these kinds of services, but there’s one problem, with such plentiful computer power there’s not as much money to be made as people thought.

TTT_Travis says that if you want to join the Leoville Folding@Home team to put your CPU cycles to a good cause check out http://leovillefolding.com

Mark in San Diego - is Windows 98 going to expire?

Microsoft has said that it will end support for 98 in June 2006. To be exact:

Paid incident support is now available through 30-Jun-2006. Extended hotfix support for Windows 98 and Windows 98 Second Edition ended on 30-Jun-2003. Extended hotfix support for Windows Millennium ended on 31-Dec-2003. Online self-help support will continue to be available until at least 30-Jun-2007. For additional information on the type and length of support provided, review the Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Millennium Support Extended Announcement Web site. Critical security updates will be provided on the Windows Update site through June 30, 2006. Microsoft will not publicly release non-critical security hotfixes for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, or Windows Millennium Edition. However, customers may request a non-critical security hotfix through On-Demand Security Hotfix support, which is offered for these products through June 30, 2006. When a request is received, Microsoft will investigate the issue and try to provide an appropriate response to the customer.

David in Los Angeles - which firewall for a laptop?

BlackIce or Norton? Neither. I recommend the free Sygate Personal Edition however don’t have any illusions about your protection. Software firewalls are easily disabled by malware. That’s one cool thing about Anonymizer - it encrypts all your traffic so you’re protected on all wireless networks. I am also in the process of reviewing a small portable hardware firewall that protects you from viruses, spyware, and spam, too. It’s called iPhantom. I’ve talked to the founders and they’re long time security experts so I have high hopes for the device.

Gary in San Diego - how do I save streaming Real video?

Got software, gang?

TTT_Travis added: Leo mentioned Streambox Ripper, I think they’re out of business. You can still download the program if you look around. Get it here

Another listener writes: This tip will work if Windows Media Player doesn’t give you a Save As option. In Windows Media Player you can right click on a stream, click on properties and copy the URL for the stream. Close the player and then reopen the player from your Windows taskbar. Now you can go to the file menu and click on Open URL and paste in the URL.

Jeff in Santa Ana adds: StreamBox was for audio; StreamBox VCR was the video offering.
A list of streaming video capture software with platform, supported protocols, prices, etc.

1–2p

Bob in Northridge - recording radio

The new Radio Your Way LX is excellent.

He also needs to send out 2,000 messages a week to a non-profit mailing list. I recommend trying the new Google Groups. It’s free.

Roy in Columbia, SC - network connection is broken

His Netgear WGR614 v5 drops its wired connection periodically. This has been a problem with some Netgear routers in the past. Update the firmware. If that doesn’t work I would contact Netgear and ask for a warranty replacement.

BenListening says : My Linksys DI-604 hardwired router drops it’s network connection on occasion. I narrowed the problem down to the DHCP server on the router and IP lease expiration. It is supposed to re-up the lease automaticly but sometimes “forgets”. My work around, (and I don’t know why, exactly this works), is to go to “Services” in WindowsXP, select “DHCP Client” and right click/select “Properties” and bring DHCP to a stop with the Stop button…..and then restart DHCP with the Start button & OK out.

Todd says : My Netgear FVS318 will cause some of my connected XP computers to break wired connections if the lease time is set to 0. The affected XP machines will keep releasing and then renewing their DHCP leases, causing the connections to be dropped. I could not figure out why only some of the XP machines were affected (they all supposedly had the same software installed). I fixed it by setting the Lease time on the NetGear routers admin diagnostics page to a non-zero number (the default is 0), I used 99.

Scott in Culver City - Bluetooth snarfing

Treo 650 vs. Sony Ericsson S710

Joanie in Venice - Wiping hard drive

I normally recommend these free software solutions for wiping drives:

or just download the Ultimate Boot CD. It has all three. But in this case Joanie can’t mount the drive. She wants to return it but it has her tax return on it. How does she wipe the drive without voiding the warranty if she can’t mount it?

James in HB adds : Darik’s Boot and Nuke (aka DBAN) is the best wiping program I’ve used—and it’s free! It will wipe paritions or entire drives, and will not damage the drive or void warrenties. There are several different algorithms used for wiping, ranging from fast wipe to the full DoD wiping scheme. The recommended algorithm and number of rounds takes about 31 hours to wipe a 250GB drive.

KDM: If you can not access the disk at all, then most likely it is the controller.
This means that you can replace the controller with one from a identical
drive and access the data and wipe it out. There should not be any seals on
the controller board. Also, if the inaccessible drive is set to “master,” set it
to “slave” and see if it becomes accessible when running from another hard drive
set to “Master.”

Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder under Applications. If the drive connects but doesn’t mount, you should still see it there.