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Sunday, August 7, 2005

Show #168

 toc | toc 

Today’s news items

Windows Vista, one week old and already there are five viruses for it. Vista: Viral Infections, Spyware, Trojans, Adware.

Expect new XP patches from Microsoft on Tuesday, some of them critical.

Warner Music says online music sales saved its bottom line this quarter, outpacing the drop in CD sales. And Amazon says it will be getting into the act this fall.

Yahoo has launched an audio search service that can find music across 16 different music services. It does podcasts too (although the results are still far from complete). audio.search.yahoo.com

If you’re looking for stuff in podcasts you’d be better off using www.podscope.com - it plays the portion of the podcast with the term you’re searching for, very handy. But the search is limited to words in the dictionary, so searching for “hacker conference” works, but not “Defcon.”

Google is looking for a few good chefs to work in its corporate headquarters. You get stock options. And there’s a little notice at the bottom of the article “Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News.com reporters until July 2006 in response to privacy issues” raised by a story detaling personal details about Google CEO Eric Schmidt. How childish.

New York cops used a PC to successfully predict a break-in, and nab the perps to boot.

11a-Noon

Thomas in Riverside - anti-virus recommendation

NOD32 dude. Ok yes they’re a sponsor but they really are the best AV out there right now. Panda and Trend’s PC-Cillin are good, too (but neither is as fast as NOD32). Check your local user group. They can often get great prices on software. I spoke at the Golden Gate Computer Society in Marin County last month and they were offering NOD32 for $20.

From Chris in Long Beach:
They don’t have a MAC version, and I don’t trust McAffe or Norton as on a PC they have missed many viruses (That others found on disks that I had already scanned with up to date versions of both). So I am wondering what is a good Anti-Virus for the MAC?

Michael in Fayetteville, NC: Hey Chris, you could try the OSX port of ClamAV, a free, open-source antivirus solution availible for many different platforms. To find out more about Clam in general, check out their website.

Guy in Los Angeles - keyboard recommendation

He hates the current mushy keyboards (and so do I). But is there anything better out there? Your suggestions…

TGal from the chat room recommends this IBM keyboard: IBM Keyboard

RickMacMerc from the chat room recommends the Matias Tactile Pro Keyboard: Matias Tactile Pro Keyboard

Leo adds: Any keyboard that uses Alps switches like the Matias or the Northgate Omnikey will give you that satisfying thunk.

He has AOL and is ready for a better dial-up recommendation. I recommend he take advantage of the new low DSL offers, but if you insist on dialup I think Earthlink is pretty good. DSLExtreme also offers dial-up and if you think you might ever move to their DSL go with them now and you won’t have to change your email address again.

metal321 warns: I wouldn’t use Juno, Netzero, or AOL. These companies make your life miserable when you try to drop your service. I was able to drop my service with Juno online a couple of days ago, but I am worried because people online have horror stories of still being charged for service and Netzero is the same comapany as Juno. AOL is as bad as having a person call you up trying to sell you something. I had to tell them that the government was forcing me to drop my internet. It was the only way I could get them to just shut up and drop my service.

Finally, Guy’s mouse jumps around on his iMac. He’s tried other mice and still has the problem. Take everything off the USB bus except the mouse and keyboard. USB is fast, but if there are many other things using the bus it can make your mouse act crazy.

Richard writes: Here are two things which will cause it:

1. Using a mouse pad with a picture or text on it (reflects/absorbs laser improperly)
2. Using some shades of purple mouse pads. Same reason.

I’m a school tech and I stumbled on these two weirdo problems and after a lot of head scratching (and pad switching) figured it out.

Mr. K. recommends a Focus 2001 keyboard, it is cheap and it has a really good feel to it (with a keyclick). As for dialup, I would suggest http://www.dock.net as they are the lowest price ($10/month), but they do not charge for phone support as Netzero and Netscape do (check out their fees) and have 24 hour support with many dialup numbers across the country. They also have DSL with a static address and the ports are not blocked, so you can run services on your machine whereas others block this type of activity. Disclaimer: I am not associated with them. Also, for email, there are services, like from godaddy.com, which will forward email to your ISP address, which makes changing ISP quick and easy, plus you can get additional email addresses to use for web pages.

Real_Estate_Steve@yahoo.com recommends the dialup provider All2Easy.net If you are looking for the best PRICE and quality service, check it out!!!

Jeff in Santa Ana adds - Stowe Telecom (unlimited) has the best YEARLY price.
Click the number in the Comments column to get users’ opinions (nationwide).

NOTE: This is a Google cache. (The link for the current page is it the very top of this page.)
all2ez still has a lower MONTHLY price, but is no longer unlimited (now 200 hours/mo).

Regarding public libraries: 1 hour per day of access (Orange County).
In L.A. County it is possible to sign up for multiple non-contiguous sessions.

From Jerry: This is for “Guy in Los Angeles” who’s looking for a cheap dialup ISP. How about “unlimited” and “free” with no ads? Take a look at http://socalfree.net/ — Uses plain old DUN (you don’t have to install any software or dialers). High bandwidth transfers (i.e. “FTP”) are restricted (no access to port 21).

Shawn in Las Vegas - iTunes on a PC

Upgrade to 4.8 broke XP. When he’s ripping a CD it gets about eight songs in and then crashes hard. That’s definitely a driver issue. He also has CDex installed and that requires an ASPI driver to access the CD. My guess is that the ASPI driver is breaking iTunes. Uninstall it or find a different driver.

Jeff in Santa Ana adds - Ephpod is a freeware alternative to iTunes. (Works on Win98SE too.)

Ellie in Irvine - Bluetooth headset recommendations

I use the Jabra BT-250 and it’s the best Bluetooth headset I’ve tried, but no Bluetooth headset I’ve ever used works perfectly. They all seem to drop out at the most inopportune moments. I generally use a cheap wired handsfree because of that. Since she doesn’t like in ear, she might prefer the BT-800 seen at right - it doesn’t stick in your ear and is getting great reviews.

Matt Smith writes: I hate to disagree with Leo, but I’ve found the Jabra headsets (both the 200 series and the new BT800) to be crap. The loss of pairing, the sound crackling, etc. is a huge issue with Jabra. Try the Sony/Ericcson HBH-662. It has caller ID, excellent sound and voice quality, and holds the connection with the phone better than any other headset I’ve tried. Another good one, especially if you’re going to be in a noisy area, is the Logitech Mobile Pro.

Leo responds: Thanks for the input Matt! I’ve had problems with all the Bluetooth headsets I’ve tried, including Motorola and Sony, but maybe it was my phone - a Sony Ericsson P-900. My current phone doesn’t support Bluetooth anyway, so I haven’t needed Bluetooth

Rick Rubinoff writes: I have been using a Motorola HS850 and despite some drop offs, it works quite well and is light on the ear. The sound quality is excellent.

Noon-1p

Freeware recommendation: Konfabulator

Today’s freeware recommendation: Konfabulator free for Windows and Mac.

Check out the Looking Leo Widget.

David in Trabuco Canyon - imaging a Mac hard drive

Carbon Copy Cloner now works with Tiger. It’s free and highly recommended.

Randy in Washington, D.C. recommends:
Super Duper is a great alternative to Carbon Copy Cloner. The link is It works with Tiger as well. It’s a little easier to use. I first learned about it at Macworld’s Macgems blog.

Randy in Santa Cruz - monitor colors are off

There’s no red. At first I thought it was a cable issue, or a damaged red gun, but he says he can turn up the red and see it. If you can see any red at all that eliminates my hardware theory. (Or maybe not - Spokavriel says that on board monitor controls can turn up red even if the cable doesn’t carry any red signals.) Check your video card settings. In particular make sure your color profile is accurate. (Open the Display Properties control panel, click Settings…, Advanced, and click the color management tab.) Try getting an updated color profile from your monitor manufacturer.

JohnJaybird in El Segundo - I’d look for a bent pin or a broken wire in the cable as the color slider works internally from the monitor and is not dependent on the computer for changing color. I had this problem once and it was a bent pin.

David in Durham, NC - upgrading to a bigger hard drive

He recommends DFSee for disk partitioning, imaging, and recovery.

He uses this tool to recover lost partitions. He writes: “What you do is scan for partitions. Dfsee will create four files per physical hard drive. Zip them up and email them to the author, Jan van Wijk, along with a description of your partitions. If you have paid your 30 euro’s for it, he will send you back a script that will restore them. The author is from The Netherlands and will be in the states this october.”

Add your emergency number to your cell. www.icecontact.com

A listener writes: ICE has been in the news. Emergency responcs and ER’s are aware. One problem is if phone is damaged in accident. Emergency services recommend also keeping an emergency card in wallet.

My W2K boot CD which has SP4 rolled into it does not understand the 200G HD. It thinks it’s 128G and the working W2K partition is damaged or unformated. How to fix the Boot CD so that it can read the HD?

Eric in Riverside - Tivo movies on your PSP

He’s a Sony PSP owner, wants to put video from his Tivo on it. You could try video extraction but it takes considerable hacking - considering where you’re going to be playing it back you’d be best off using the analog output on the Tivo to a capture device on your PC and digitizing that way. He uses PSP Video 9 to convert the result to PSP compatible video.

I think Apple will release a video capable iPod in the next six months, but until then take a look at the Archos Gmini 402 - a video/music/photo player that is compact and works great. It’s what a video ipod should be.

To make your iTunes purchased songs compatible with the Gmini use JHymn.

One listener writes: For those looking for legal song downloads for 10 cents a song. I recommend MP3 Search. Albums for about a dollar and fifty cents. Quality mp3′s with a decent selection. And regarding selling songs the music labels want to raise the prices in 2006.

Leo responds:’ This is NOT a legal site. There are several Russian sites taking advantage of Russian copyright laws to do this. It’s legal in Russia, but not in the US. None of the money goes to the music labels. You might as well download free copies from Kazaa. You’re lining the pockets of Russian crooks.

Another listener writes: For those that want to either transfer TV shows for DVD burning or for PSP, and haven’t purchased a DVR yet, look to ReplayTV. They have been PC networkable for years and there is a freeware program to tansfer the files in DVD friendly MPEG2 format. It’s DVArchive. Won’t work with Tivo.

BrianH (another ReplayTV fan) adds Leo sure loves his Tivo, but ReplayTV has the desirable features of hacked Tivo’s BUILT-IN! Ethernet Port, un-protected MPEG video for easy transferring to PC as mentioned above. And with the MPEG2VCR [[http://womble.com/download/index.html | toc you can edit out commercials from your shows and save WITHOUT Re-encoding!. Then Burn to DVD. ReplayTV allows you to share videos over the internet with other ReplayTV owners. Check out Poopli web site [[http://www.poopli.com | toc to find others who have recorded shows that you want.

Loren in Northridge - using iTunes to subscribe to a podcast

Under the Advanced menu there’s a command to “Subscribe to a Podcast.” This needs a link to the podcast’s RSS feed. This is a specially formatted text file that contains the information iTunes needs about where to find the audio files. The file is often called rss.xml or something similar but it can be any URL beginning with http:// - my feed for instance is http://feeds.feedburner.com/kfi - that will end up delivering a file named rss.xml to iTunes.

iTunes is a good way to get podcasts, but there are two web based podcatchers I like a lot, too. Try www.odeo.com and www.podnova.com.

Marty in Reedsburg, WI writes: Getting RSS/XML Podcast/RSS Address Tip:
Right-click the XML/podcast button link and select “Copy Link Location” from the pop-up menu. Open the podcast/RSS program of your choice. Paste RSS address in RSS program or to subscribe to a podcast paste the podcast address link in your podcast program and choice subscribe.

1–2p

Freeware: Evernote

My freeware recommendation this hour is EverNote - the ultimate notetaking application for Windows. The $35 Plus version is worth it for TabletPC users.

Lee in San Diego - time to buy a new Mac?

Yes. And no. If you have a late model mac and can wait the 6–18 months it will take for the transition then I would. But if you have an old mac, or no mac, it’s ok to jump now. I would wait to upgrade software until Intel/G5 dual binary versions start shipping.

Daniel in Reno, NV - what’s my favorite new tech gadget?

I have been using that Archos Gmini 402 - and it’s pretty sweet. I also like my new Shuttle XPC - but as fast as it is, it’s not that much faster than my old PIV 2.4Ghz.

Ann in San Diego - used laptop won’t shut down

Check to see what programs aren’t quitting properly - Norton Anti-Virus is a common culprit.
Laptop cooling pads might help with the overheating.

Matthew in Long Beach - can’t install any new USB devices

He’s got a Video capture device, DSnap, and Midi controller none of which will install. I’d suggest trying a powered USB hub to make sure these devices are getting enough juice. You might also remove all the USB resources in your Hardware Device Manager and start over.

To check to see whether your system files are damaged or corrupt, re-boot into the command line save mode and run the system file checker: sfc /scannow

Eddie in Long Beach - Dell is not booting into Windows

Send it back to dell

Jay in Simi Valley - Pentium IV 2.66 vs Pentium M 2.13

Despite the difference in clock speeds, the Pentium M is faster, and much more preferable in a laptop due to lower heat and power consumption.

Read the reviews at:

www.anandtech.com
www.arstechnica.com
www.tomshardware.com

TGal from the chat room likes Computer Power User Magazine for processor reviews and other computing related information. CPU Mag

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