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Saturday, August 13, 2005

Show #169

 toc | toc 

Today’s news items

Are you being a jerk on the phone? Answering mail or watching TV while your spouse drones on? An MIT researcher has created a device he calls the Jerk-o-Meter that monitors your attention and warns you when you’re drifting off.

Intel has announced it will show its next generation of processors (the first in five years) August 23 and will begin shipping the chips in the second half of 2006. The company is expected to focus on a low heat, high efficiency design like the Pentium M.

Hackers who have been generating counterfeit platinum have caused 20% inflation in…. the online virtual world of Everquest II. Officials intervened and the world has been righted.

--- Vipossk adds ---
If you would like to see a great article on the the economics of online gaming, check this out. The article is pretty long, but it is very interesting. If you are at all interested in online gaming, this will blow your mind.

11a-Noon

Tony - OS X on a PC?

Tony added:

I am using Verizon FIOS, a fiber optic driven line that delivers up to 30mbit download speeds. I chose the 15mbit business (no ports blocked, 5 ip addresses) package for $99. Non business packages with some ports blocked are slightly less.

I believe that OSX will be available for PC’s at some point. Don’t get me wrong, I own a Mac, and I love it, but the more folks using OSX the better. It will get to the point that so many pirated versions will be installed, Apple will be forced to publish the OS for installation on PC’s. Do you think Steve Jobs knows this, and is planning it to happen exactly like this? ( I think he is planning it exactly like that ) It is the most public way to accomplish this, and make it such a frenzy that Apple will jump many many percentage points in market share on the wave of ipod owners, and frustrated Windows users…….mark my words. 2007 = the year OSX hits 25 to 30 percent in market share. I can’t wait to be able to buy OSX for my white box PC!!

Updated…

I tried to install the DVD that someone gave me, and it is a hoax. It is a full DVD that looks like OSX, but boots linux, and runs porn before install. I hit the reset the button, and stopped before my machine was trashed. So much for trying my hand at illegal Software. Guess that is why it is illegal. My advice…..wait until you can actually buy it from Apple.

Lesson learned for me, back to my genuine OS….whew!!

Have fun, and stay safe.
Tony

Frank in Anaheim adds..

JD in LA adds..

http://www.concretesurf.co.nz/osx86/viewtopic.php?t=548

EasyE in Real World adds..
25–30%??? You need to lay off the bad stuff.

Josh in Chicago adds..

Jackie in Malibu - System Restore won’t

Turn off System Restore - when it asks you if you want to clear restore points say yes. Then turn it back on, set a restore point, and see if you can restore to it.

Roger
Also try doing a windows repair with the windows xp disk it worked for me.

Word no longer works - try running the installer and selecting the Repair option.

Joshua in South Dakota - Analog vs USB vs iLink

Sony Handicam has all three connection types. Which is best for video? iLink (aka IEEE1394 or Firewire) is always best.

Aaron in Sacramento - iTunes and iPod’s podcast handling

iTunes 4.9 and the new iPod firmware supports podcasting, but sometimes podcasts appear in the podcast folder, sometimes they don’t. Click the podcast folder in iTunes then press the Settings…. button at the bottom of the screen. You can change how your iPod handles podcasts here.

I recommend creating a Smart Folder in iTunes and setting two filters: set the genre to podcast and the play count to zero. The folder will fill with podcasts you haven’t listened to yet. (Of course this requires that all the podcasts have the podcast genre - that’s pretty common but not universal. All my podcasts use the “podcast” genre.

CYBES51 ADDS,

Dear Arron, I have encountered a very similar problem with the iPod software v1.2, if you use your iPod for disk use save all data onto your computer, then run a complete install. I know that you will regret the long process of file transfer if you have a large library like me, but hopefully you have atleast USB 2.0.

I hope this helps in your iPod troubles,

Reguards, Cybes51. I can be contacted @ Cybes51@hotmail.com, if you need help with any advice i offer just simply give me an e-mail and i will be glad to help, also if it is of no inconvenience please add something like KFI Support in the subject header.

Tom in Chicago adds,

If you are using iTunes to subscribe to podcasts, you don’t need to create a smart folder for them. Any podcast you subscribe to will appear in the Podcasts playlist, and if you click the settings button, and then the iPod preferences button in that menu, in the dialog box that says “Update:” you can choose “Only unplayed episodes,” so any podcast that you’ve listened to will be removed from the iPod next time you sync it with iTunes.

Noon-1p

Janet in Riverside - dude, where’s my comma

The numbers in Excel and file sizes look like this: 10=‘000 instead of 10,000. I suspect her two year old. Open the Regional and Language Options control panel. Make sure you’re using English (United States) then press the customize button. Check the “Digit Grouping Symbol.” Bet Junior changed it from , to =‘

Steve from Los Alamitos - Remote access desktop

He wants to access his office computer from home, and vice versa. Quickbooks offers a solution (they use WebEx). GotomyPC works similarly. Neither has problems with routers because they go through an intermediate server. Don’t worry about security though, since your data is encrypted during the transaction. You can also use Windows Remote Desktop - it’s free if you already own XP Pro on the host side. Microsoft explains how to get around the router issues.

Tony adds

The above link “getting around the router” is an informative article, but if any of you are trying to connect to a business environment, then you will still have port forwarding issues trying to get “in” to your business. I suggest Log Me In for free in addition to the great suggestions already mentioned.

Clay adds

Another nice new option to something like GoToMyPc is Fog Creek Copilot which just recently came out of beta. It doesn’t require any centralized server and works through firewalls. It seems to be best suited for random situations that you might need to remotely control another desktop. It does work very well and you can try it for free for 2 minutes.

Tyler in Santa Barbara - will my router work in Ireland

It sure will - Internet protocols are international and work everywhere. The only issue is the power supply. Make sure you have the proper adapters for Irish plug sockets and check the existing powersupply to see if your router can handle higher voltages than 110. If it can’t make sure to get a transformer, too.

He also wants to upgrade his wife’s notebook RAM. That’s usually pretty easy. Look for an opening on the underside of the notebook. Most notebooks use SO DIMM memory, but check your manual.

Anita in Camarillo - I see pop ups

Switch to Firefox. And read my article on Removing Spyware.

These days it’s often necessary to backup your data, format your drive, and reinstall Windows. If you do, make sure to follow my instructions on Installing Windows and read the NSA’s instructions for installing XP safely.

CYBES51 ADDS,

Dear Anita,

Leo i also believe that Opera 8 should be given better recognition, i personally have tried Fire Fox and what not impressed. The whole design just did not appeal to me. So to Anita i reccommend that you give yourself a weekend where you can just examine both Opera 8 www.opera.com and Mozilla’s Firefox. Also i would reccommend that you try some skins and different toolbar settings which can be found at the Opera 8 website. I think that you will be quite supprised. As being a dedicated M$ user i find it hard to reccommend non-M$ software, but i am so confident in a non-IE browser it is just not funny.

I hope this helps you and anyone that suffers from any pop-up problems.

Reguards, Cybes51. I can be contacted @ Cybes51@hotmail.com, if you need help with any advice i offer just simply give me an e-mail and i will be glad to help, also if it is of no inconvenience please add something like KFI Support in the subject header.

1–2p

Karen in Redlands - Acer notebooks

I like ‘em. Haven’t tried the desktops yet, though.

Kieran in Studio City - moving music from Mac to Windows

Use your iPod as an external hard drive. You have to turn on this feature in the iPod preferences in iTunes. Then the drive mounts as a standard hard drive you can use to shuttle your music over.

Mike in La Crescenta - MSN Search Toolbar is causing problems

He can’t uninstall it and can’t reinstall it to uninstall it.

Dennis in West Hollywood - conversion of 5.25″ disks

IBM wants his CompuDoc dBase software written in 1984 for their museum. It’s stored on two 5.25″ floppies. He wants to get it onto CD. Where’s the best place to do it?

Hi Dennis. I recently rescued some files from a 5 ¼ disk that were made in the early 1990’s. I’ve saved an old DOS computer that has a 5 ¼ disk and a 3 1/2” disk. (Perhaps Leo can chime in here about whether this will work for your 1980’s disks.) Then I have a Windows 98 computer with a 3 ½” disk that is networked to my Windows XP machine where I can burn you a CD-ROM disk. Whew! Perhaps some nice Leo listener will have something with fewer machinations. If not, contact me at info@discoverdv.com. Good luck and best wishes, David in Eagle Rock, CA

Bari in Long Beach - I’m getting bouncbacks from messages I never sent

Spammers never use their own email address as the return address - they use random addresses, or the addresses of other people on their lists. Like you. When they send mail to inaccurate addresses, you get the returned mail. It will go away. They rarely use the same address for very long.

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