For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the TWiT Netcast Network

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Tech News

Yahoo’s new podcasting service and let me know what you think. podcasts.yahoo.com

11a-Noon

Reb - Should I buy a DirecTivo

DirecTV is phasing out its Tivos in favor of DirecTV Plus. If you have an existing DirecTivo it will work for through 2007. In any event, even if the DirecTV DVR isn’t as good as a Tivo it’s probably preferable because it’s integrated right into the satellite receiver, which simplifies the interface considerably.

• Hey Leo, just a quick note, ReplayTV supports what are calles Theme channels. They work similar to the Wish list. You create a “Channel” that records any program that meet your criteria, whether it be a certain director, actor, show title, or certain keywords in the description.

Steve in Murietta - Converting a Windowsprogram to Macintosh

He works for a company that does an internet telephony program written in Visual Basic. They have charged him with moving it to Mac. I’m presuming the lower level VoIP routines are written in C, C++, or assembler, and only the UI is written in VB. In that case the first job is to get the low level routines working on the Mac - that may be non-trivial depending on how it’s written. Replicating the UI is easier. You can do it in and create a version that works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Or use Apple’s free Xcode environment.

Davood in Chicago - W2K to XP

Unfortunately, XP can’t upgrade a Windows 2000 installation. You have to backup your data, format the drive, and install from scratch. I frankly prefer Windows 2000, but Microsoft is slowing down on supporting it (look at the Zotob worm which took advantage of a hole that was patched on XP but unpluggd on 2000). According to Microsoft’s Product Life Cycle page mainstream support for Windows 2000 ended in June. Extended support ends in 2010. If you are careful about security I’d wait for Vista.

The only way to upgrade w2k to XP is to go to the Pro edition. I think Microsoft feels that the Home edition would be a backwards step because of the network support that 2000 provides.

Tollie in Decatur - Vizaweb update

He’s getting good server performance, but it’s still hard to get through to support. I’m afraid that’s been the problem. I like the company, they took good care of me, but they haven’t been willing to hire the people needed to support all the new business that their ads on KFI have brought them. It’s a problem in general with low cost web hosting - it’s great if you don’t need support, but for $5.95/month you can’t expect to talk with them whenever you want.

I’m moving my servers to The Planet - it’s an easy transition because Vizaweb is a reseller for The Planet. On the other hand I have to do all the stuff Vizaweb used to do for me, and that’s been challenging.

Noon-1p

Randy in Scotts Valley - disk check won’t complete

Restart in Safe Mode. If the check still won’t complete you may need an external utility. Norton Utilities if you’ve got them, but the best program for this is Steve Gibson’s SpinRite.

If you have USB 2 or Firewire on your system, I recommend buying a large extrnal hard drive and backing up to it. You can use DriveSnapShot to make an image of your disk to the external drive.

Lee in San Diego - connecting my iMac to the plasma TV

If your plasma has a DVI connector (or HDMI with an adapter) you can connect your iMac, but don’t expect an excellent display. The plasma, as big as it is, is lower resolution than your monitor.

He wants to do training on the big screen. Another way to go is to record your training using Snapz Pro X and give them a video. I use it all the time and love it!

Scoot in San Jacinto - When will the transition to IPv6 occur

Hard to say. Much of the Internet, Macs and XP, all support IPv6, but so much relies on the net it’s going to be a while before we transition completely. Read more at www.ipv6.org.

Wendell in Rancho Santa Margarita - iTunes crashed Windows 2000

Apparently Apple knows about a problem with iTunes 6 and Dells running Windows 2000. Now he can’t boot - it crashes at MUP.SYS. Try this fix from Microsoft. A Google search found some information that may help solve the MUP.SYS problem [[http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/39644/39644.html?Ad=1 | toc don’t know if this will fix this callers problem, but it may be worth a shot. Elwyn in Sydney adds - mup.sys is the last driver that shows before starting the gui mode, so although it stops after mup.sys, it isn’t indicative that mup.sys is the issue. Didn’t last known good configuration work?

Gary in San Bernardino - Epson 2480 scanner won’t work on Tiger

Not sure why - uninstall the drivers completely and reinstall. Delete the “Epson Scan” plug-in from the ~/Library/Image Capture/Devices folder.

Hamricks Vue Scan is a shareware program that helps many scanners work better.

Dave from Chapel Hill suggests SANE, which is an open source scanner driver that allowed an old Umax scanner to work with MacOS X. [[http://www.sane-project.org/]Sane Project]

Adam on Long Island - my wifi keeps joining the neighbor’s network

Right click the Wireless icon in your system tray and select View Available Networks. Remove the neighbor’s wi-fi networks from the list of preferred networks in Windows wi-fi control panel. Or make sure your network is top of the list. I recommend using the Windows XP Wireless control panel over the one that came with your wireless card.

1–2p

Joyce in Riverside - making DVDs from digital pictures

She’s been making VCDs but they’re blurry on the TV. It’s true that your TV has much lower resolution than your computer monitor, so it will never look as good, but a DVD would look much better than a VCD. Buy an inexpensive DVD burner (I like
LiteOn). Then buy Ulead’s DVD Picture Show to turn your pictures into a video for DVD.

Also Photo Story 3 for Windows does the same (but needs Sonic DVD for Photo Story 3 for Windows $19.99 - to burn DVDs). Ahead, which produces NERO, has a product, Nero PhotoShow Express whic is free and should do the job.

Betty in Santa Monica - history dropdown shows C:

You’re using Internet Explorer, right? Nothing to worry about. It’s just keeping track of where it’s been to save you typing. Since IE is the same as the Explorer that you use to browse your drive it also knows about your hard drives, but that’s not a security issue. No one else can see your history. However, if you share your computer and you want to hide your tracks,
secure computing

Dave in Mission Viejo - Challenge and Response spam blocking

He uses Mailblocks and loves it. It’s true that people who use these challenge response systems ar very happy because it eliminates spam, but it does so at a cost. You miss a lot of legitimate mail - you’ll never get any mail from me, for example, I don’t click links in emails. And many automated mailers won’t work either - that means no newsletters, email from airlines, banks, etc. And you’re announcing to everyone who sends you mail, including spammers, that yours is a genuine email address. That means if you ever stop paying for Mailblocks you’ll be getting a LOT more spam than before. There are effective email solutions that don’t require your correspondents to jump through hoops to talk with you. I recommend them instead.

Arthur in Downey - DVD43 stopped working

You probably watched a movie on your computer that installed the Interactual player. This is a trojan horse that’s showing up on many commercial DVDs these days. It purports to “enchace your DVD experience” but what it really does is disable DVD cracking programs on your system.

Glenn in Holly, PA - iTunes isn’t intuitive

He’s had trouble using iTunes on Windows so now he’s concerned about switching to Mac. I don’t think Macs are any easier to use, particularly if you’re a long time Windows user. I recommend them because they’re more secure. Frankly, all computers require a lot of fiddling and some dedication to learning. I wish it weren’t true, but it is. And Macs are no better in that respect than Windows.
---

Chat Logs and Show Audio