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Saturday, August 6, 2005

Show #167

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Today’s news items

There’s a big controversy raging on the web about MacIntel boxes using TPM - the trusted computing platform created by Microsoft. I’ll talk about TPM (aka Palladium), what it is, how it works, and why folks are up in arms about it. There’s some controversy about whether Apple’s OS X Intel developer boxes have a TPM chip in them - CNET says they do, others say they don’t.

The Treo 670 will run Pocket PC not PalmOS.

Apple releases a new mouse and it has, gasp, three buttons! Sort of. Visit Ars Technica for a complete review and dissection of how it works.

Stan in Pasadena writes

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/08/06/fcc_dsl
Could this FCC ruling put DSL providers like DSLExtreme out of business?

11a-Noon

David in Hemet - Installing an internal modem

David is a self-admitted computer neophyte. He has a PC and a PCI card modem. He wants to install the modem. There are two parts to this: hardware and software. Hardware is fairly simple. Open the case (this may be tricky but keep working at it, you’ll figure it out eventually). Find a free white slot on the main circuit board and insert the card into that slot. You’ll have to remove a knockout on the back of the case for the modem connector to stick through. Close the case and the hardware install is done. With any luck Windows will recognize your modem without additional software, but if not you’ll need to find the driver for your modem.

Here are a couple of sites with illustrated instructions:

• Help With PCs
• PC Guide

Ty in Irvine - how do you know when your hard drive is dying

The best way is to listen to it. Get to know what your drive sounds like normally. Any noticable change in that sound could mean trouble is imminent; backup fast. In particular look for the rattling sound that signals dying bearings, or a laboring, repititve sound that means the drive is having trouble reading data.

SMART drives are a good idea - but I’ve never found it to actually work.

Check out Hitachi’s library of dying hard drive sounds.

Cisco in Rancho Cucamonga: PowerMax is cool little program than can be run from a floppy. It’ll tell you the status of your drive. You can download it here. My gut feeling though…if your drive is making noises, it’s time to replace.

adds: Check The Ultimate Boot CD It has a few of the manufacturers hard disk checking softwares that you can use to check your drive.

John in Tustin - Windows hangs at wallpaper

He was getting an error on startup with mpr.exe failing. In Windows 98 this can be caused by corrupted .PWL password file. He deleted those, and then deleted mpr.exe. Now Windows won’t start at all. With Windows 98 one rescue technique is to reinstall on top of the old version. That will often replace damaged or missing files. If that fails, I would backup your data and format and reinstall.

Noon-1p

Jeff in Toldeo, Ohio - backing up my web site

He’s using Community Server from Telligent Systems which uses Microsoft’s SQL Server database. He wants to back everything up to transfer it to a new host. Anyone know the commands to backup a SQL Server database?

TABwebmaster in Lima, OH writes:
To backup your database to a temp directory on your C: drive, type the following commands:
BACKUP DATABASE ‘DatabaseName’
TO DISK = ‘c:\temp\DatabaseName.bak’
WITH INIT

or, if you have a tape drive:
BACKUP DATABASE ‘DatabaseName’
TO TAPE = ‘\\.\TAPE0’

adds: Link to Microsoft’s website describing how to backup a SQL DB. You could also export the DB to a text file. It’s ultra portable and it can be imported to almost any other DB out there.

Jim in Oceanside - missing spellcheck in Outlook

His Outlook email spell checker no longer works. That’s because you don’t have Word installed. Outlook uses Word’s spell check. Install Word and it will return.

Susan in San Diego - where is my Outlook data?

It’s in the outlook.pst file - open Outlook, right-click your name in the folder list on the left and select Properties. Click the Advanced button to see the location of the outlook.pst file.

She says Microsoft tech support put her system into Selective Startup Mode. To turn that off click Start→Run… and enter MSCONFIG. Under the General tab select Normal Startup.

Cassie in Los Angeles - needs cheap computer for college

She’s 15 years old and preparing for college. She needs a computer for writing and research but can only spend $500–600. I recommend checking Dell’s outlet store - the refurbished computers there are excellent deals and very reliable. But make sure to get one with Word installed (Microsoft Works works).

Josh in Nashville, TN writes: For Cassie to get a cheap computer for school, I recommend searching around for refurbished stuff like Leo says, but contrary to popular belief you don’t have to spend tons of money on software. You can get OpenOffice, an entire suite of productivity applications, for FREE from http://www.openoffice.org , and most other really important programs such as Firefox and various anti-spyware and anti-virus programs can be attained for free as well. Anyone else want to recommend free or cheap important Windows software for Cassie?

Nick in Rhode Island - CD/DVD drive on the Inspiron won’t read blank media

He can see media that already has something on it. He uses Roxio’s DirectCD to write to discs. DirectCD requires that a blank be formatted before he can write to it. Those discs with stuff on them have already been formatted. I would check for an update from Roxio and if that’s not doing it, uninstall and reinstall DirectCD.

Chris in South Central - deleting duplicate files in iTunes

iTunes has a “Show Duplicate Songs” command under the Edit menu. Show duplicates, the command-click to select songs you don’t want then delete them.

Windows users can use iTunes, too, of course, but I also like the free and very powerful MP3 managment program The Godfather.

1–2p

Diane in Riverside - Bose 3–2−1 system displays video but no audio

I’d check the setup menu - it’s really easy on these systems to disable audio. If you’re sure it’s configured correctly and all the wires are in place, bring it back. The audio amp probably died.

Christian in Washington DC - Etymotic’s don’t sound good

He bought the ER-6 Etymotics ear buds at the Apple store - I’ve used and recommend the higher end ER-4p - and he says the bass response is not as good as the stock iPod headphones. It should be much better. It certainly is on the 4p - they sound really great and because they’re in-ear they are also noise reducing. I wear them on the plane and far prefer them over noise-cancelling headphones like the Bose. Earbuds often take some break in time (as long as a month) to reach their full quality, particularly with bass, but they should sound really good out of the box, too. Read up on earbuds at www.headphone.com.

Mark Swain adds: I’ve used ER-4p for years, great sound. Then I lost them, darn it. I replaced them with the new Shure E4C, and they sound great. The Shure headphones are also a little cheaper, $299 retail, and I think they are $199 at www.headphone.com. I have tried the ER-6, and they did lack in the low-end. Spend $50 bucks more and get the Shure E4c. SWAIN::

Cole in Ohio - rotating video 90 degrees

His friend took video on her still camera with it rotated 90 degrees - now the video is sideways when he plays it. I use Quicktime Pro ($29.99 from Apple for Mac and Windows) to rotate the video (and to save it in a format small enough for the web). Finding the command is a little obscure, so here are the steps:

1. Under the Window menu click Get Movie Properties (Command-J)
2. Click Video Track
3. Click Visual Settings
4. Use the buttons next to Flip/Rotate to position your movie as you’d like it

Here’s Henry’s yo-yo trick as rotated by Quicktime (requires Quicktime for playback).

Jeff in San Juan Capistrano - putting streaming video on the web

I like Divx, but if you want it to start playing when people visit your site you’ll want to use something capable of streaming (and something that your visitors can see). The video above will stream IF you have Quicktime installed. Frankly my current favorite way of doing it is embedding a video into Flash.

TABwebmaster in Lima, OH writes:
Jeff, here’s an excellent page that shows you how to stream mp3, wma, wmv, rm, ogg, and ogm:
http://www.spartanicus.utvinternet.ie/streaming.htm

Gary in Laguna Beach - use in-camera auto rotate

Gary the wilidlife photog points out that some cameras, like his Canon Powershot 880 will auto-rotate video as well as stills! He mentioned the upcoming Canon 20 DA for astronomy buffs.

BrianH in NJ writes

Rotating Video… - There is a free alternative too. It’s called Virtual Dub [[http://www.virtualdub.org/ | toc . It has lots of options including rotate via filters. You may need to download the free “Qucktime alternative” software so you get the appropriate codec installed [[http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm | toc This gives you other benefits too - check it out.

Stan in Pasadena writes

Oceanside Photo & Telescope (OPT) says they will have them in stock the week of August 8 (in case you have an extra $2199 + tax lying around). See http://www.optcorp.com/product.aspx?pid=6513 , where they have links to a review for daytime and another for nighttime use.

OPT has a talk by Time Cann on “Digital SLR Imaging… from the Beginning to the Canon 20da” scheduled for Saturday, August 13th at 5 p.m., during their first annual Southern California Astronomy Expo. For the details, see http://www.optcorp.com/scae.aspx .

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