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Sunday, September 4, 2005

I’ll be live from Alhambra on Saturday, 9/17 during the LA Department of Public Works E-Waste Roundup. Join me as I do the radio show from 11a-2p. Details at 888CleanLA.com

11a-Noon

Gerald from Lawndale on building a new system

We discussed the difference between “Hyperthreading” technology and true dual-core processing as it is used on Intel Pentium 4 chips. Also, building your own system may not be cheaper than buying from the big guys, but you get exactly what you want, and you learn while doing.

Jim in Fontana fouls file assocations

WMV video files from email attachments were not opening with Windows Media Player. Found a helpful article at Jake Ludington’s MediaLab on repairing file associations.

Jim et al. —

Leo’s tip re using a [right-click / open with] is a great way to open a file with a differently associated program, but could use a little clarification — for Windows 98SE, leastwise:

If there is no file association, a right-click will offer you the “Open with” option. But if there’s currently a file association, ya gotta left-single-click the file icon to highlight it, then hold down the <shift> key as you right-click the icon. That will give you the “Open with” option.

For one-time use, just select the desired program from the menu choices (or use [Other] to browse for the desired app) and click [OK]. To change the file association permanently, first check the box “Always use this program to open this type of file” then hit [OK].

(Re the JakeLudington.com piece, he asks you to “Right-click a JPEG file with a blank icon and choose properties…” Except, if you’ve got a JPEG file (one that ends in “.jpg” or “.jpeg”) it will already have an association and will NOT be “blank”… Will it?)

- Vet4Peace

Noon-1p

Letterman pre-empted by top-secret military transmissions, news at 11

Every night at 11:30pm, Terry would lose over-the-air TV reception for a few minutes. After suspecting the local ham radio operators, he contacted the FCC to investigate. Officially, nothing was found, but there is a military base near Terry’s house which also uses those frequencies, so perhaps Uncle Sam has tied their hands.

Steve in Phoenix writes:

It sounds like Terry is the neighborhood trouble maker, like the old lady who used to live next door who was always filing complaints with the FCC because she said I was interferring with her TV reception. Problem is I’m not a ham and don’t broadcast anything. I guess it’s easier for people to complain than to fix their antenna. If he really wants to solve it and thinks a ham might be somehow involved he should contact them directly and ask for help tracking down the problem. They are usually glad to help and it’s better than filing complaints. An even better solution is to get some HDTV tuners. All the stations are now broadcasting in digital form and there’s never any interference so all the channels come in perfectly. They can be picked up cheaply on ebay.

John in Diamond Bar writes:

CB radio operates at 27mhz! The first fundamental harmonic is 54mhz. right smack in the middle of Terry’s favorite channel. I would suspect local CB’ers before the local “Hams” BTW Terry’s TV is a FCC type 15 device there is a label on the back of it that says it can receive harmful interference !

bruceb sez:

Here’s a good resource for consumers who are experiencing interference to their TV set—or other device—that they think _might_ be coming from the radio station of a nearby amateur radio (“ham”) operator:

http://www.arrl.org/news/rfi/neighbors.html

The page above is on the website of the ARRL, an organization of ham operators. Although most of the ARRL’s website is intended primarily for hams, the specific page on their site linked above is intended for consumers. Among other things, the page above says, “Operators of licensed amateur or commercial transmitters usually have some technical ability. These operators are the nearest source of help. Remember, the station operator may also be a neighbor! Use a polite approach to ensure that the relationship stays ‘neighborly.’ Licensed Amateur Radio operators have access to volunteers (Technical Coordinators and local interference committees) who are skilled at finding solutions for most interference problems.”

Also, be sure to check out the additional resources listed at the bottom of the above-listed ARRL web page, including: links to other interference-related websites, publications (some free for the asking), and sources of devices for filtering out interference.

—bruceb (who happens to be a long-time ham himself)

one old ham sez:

Simplified, there are three causes of television interference:

1. An offending station is operating improperly and transmitting a signal on the frequency being received.

2. The transmitter is transmitting on the proper frequency and the receiver does not have the selectivity to reject the signal. This is often the case when the transmitter is nearby and the radio signals are strong.

3. The transmitter and receiver are operating properly, however two signals are mixing together near the receiver. The two signals, if their frequencies are right, can mix to create an interfering signal at the desired receive frequency.

By far the second cause is the most common.

The third cause can be quite technical and hard to track down. However both signals must be present for the interference to be present. (Mixing can occur from numerous sources - one common one is a rusty poor connection in your gutters, in a nearby wire fence, or something similar.)

Here’s how I’d proceed:

A. Check with your neighbors to see if they are experiencing the problem too. If not then the first cause may be ruled out.

B. Check your antenna and feedline. A weak signal from the antenna causes your TV to run at high gain and make it much more vulnerable to overloading from a nearby strong signal.

C. Add a high pass filter in your antenna line right at the TV. Often these filters are provided by the TV manufacturer for free. Most TV and amateur radio stores sell them.

D. Contact you local amateur radio club. If you’re in Orange County go to www.w6ze.org and email the Technical Chairman (On the left side of the page under Membership: click on Board of Directors.)

—one old ham

ReplayTV Caller (Jennifer I believe)

DacMan of Anaheim
Leo reported that ReplayTV is no longer available, but that’s not true. Rio purchased ReplayTV about a year or two ago and is still selling ReplayTV units. You can find ReplayTV boxes at Fry’s, CompuUSA and other stores.

Also, instead of having three ReplayTV units around the house, you can save money by doing what I did. I have a Windows XP machine running DVArchive (www.dvarchive.org) which converts the computer into a ReplayTV box. I have it setup so every night it grabs the shows recorded that day on my ReplayTV box and moves it to my 350gig HDD on my machine. So now I have a HUGE library of shows that I and my kids like to watch over and over again. The best part is the main ReplayTV box recognizes the computer on the network and allows me to watch any show that’s stored on the computer! It’s a lot cheeper than purchasing more ReplayTV boxes and service!!

1–2p

Resources for Blind Computer Users

Blind Vets can receive help from the VA or the local library. ZoomText 9.0 has only been out for a week, ZT8.1 works fine. VI software is available at http://www.jfwlite.com/, hope this helps.

MarkK in Carlsbad writes:

Blind listeners can dial 211 in OC to be connected to the local information and referral service , InfoLinkOC. This service connects people to local community resources and is free.

Bullware in Hilton Head notes:

You might want to visit this link:

http://beta.news.com.com/Devices+help+the+blind+cross+tech+divide/2100-1041_3-5888810.html?tag=st.num

It refrences a new keyboard for the Blind

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