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Saturday, December 24, 2005

Tech News

Are we addicted to gadgets? According to a survey of 1006 adult Americans, yes! And high-speed Internet is a necessity, not a luxury.

I’m getting my 11-year-old a MIGO for Christmas. Should a kid have a cell phone? More importantly, should I tell him about the built-in GPS?

Watch for Santa’s approach on Norad!

11a-Noon

QGary in Colton - iTunes in Linux

Apple doesn’t offer iTunes for Linux. Period. If you’ve used a version of iTunes prior to 6.0 you can remove the copy protection from the iTunes Music Store purchases with JHymn. Otherwise, burn the music to an audio CD then rip it to MP3 for use in Linux.
OR
There is a program very similar to iTunes called Rhythmbox. This program has a similar interface as iTunes and works well with iPods. It comes standard as the default player in Ubuntu linux, and runs with the GTK Graphical Interface. Try it: its a good alternative!

…disc fragmentation in Linux

I have never defragmented a Linux disc, and with a modern file system like ext3 or reiser you probably don’t have to. Most of the fragmentation will occur in your /home directory anyway. There are Linux defrag programs, but it’s probably easier to backup and restore your /home directory.

…installing RPMs

this is still the one area where Linux lags behind consumer OSs like Windows and OS X. It can be tricky to install applications after you’ve installed the main Linux. If your distribution has an automated application installer like yast (for Suse), or Gentoo’s package manager, use it. But, in general, using Linux requires understanding issues like dependencies and building from source code.

Added by Gentgeen in Pittsburgh:

If you find a program you want to install, check your disto’s repository. For RPM, the best place to check (IMO) is http://www.rpmfind.net. For Debian use http://packages.debian.org. For the kmymoney application Gary was looking for I found SUSE packages here

QChristine in San Dimas - can’t open Word

Run the Word installer and choose the repair option.

In this case it wouldn’t work, but there is also a “Detect and Repair…” option for any Word “weirdness”. You can find it under the Help menu.

QJonathan in Thousand Oaks - tips from a home theater installer

• Consider what signal you’re going to be using. Adding HD tuners, etc. will cost you
• Get good cables. He recommends AudioQuest (I agree - although I believe digital cables are all the same)

Listeners respond:

Leo you are right and wrong. The quality of the cable always will
make a difference. I work with high end HD gear and our cables have to
pass at least 1.4 gigabit for uncompressed HD signals. If you Bend or
put a kink in the cable it will affect the signal path in long lengths.
So to blank say that cable quality will not affect the signals is not
true. The factors are the equipment at both ends and how they deal with
any error corrections, also the length of the cable is really the where
it could affect the signal. Just because the signal is digital does not mean that there is no impact. Now in the case of display and HDMI cables, they really do not have the requirments as in the uncompressed example I stated. I do agree with you Leo that many people are getting ripped-off with expensive cables. At home I usually use the lowest cost cables that many can find at Radio Shack, Fry’s, or the computer swaps. Most high end theater installs that have great distances to cover will usually not even use consumer cables but rather custom make them with high-end coaxial wire and split them in components. I hope this helps.

Jeff in Santa Ana adds -
If you Bend or put a kink in the cable it will affect the signal path
Complete nonsense. The “waveguide” phenomena doesn’t come into the picture until you get into the GHz range (Radar).
OTOH, all digital constructs are fundamentally analog. Risetime, attenuation, characteristic impedance, etc. all apply.

Brian opines
Quality cables could be buying you longevity. They are digital cables, and I agree that they work or they don’t (you won’t get a degraded signal), but you may find that quality cables work longer, and deliver those packets of data more frequently uncorrupted. Much like a blank CD (as was mentioned), the CDs usually work or they don’t…but some cheap CDs work on some players and not on others. Also, a lot of cheap CDs have a hugh rate of coaster-ization. There is probably no good reason to buy $150 cables, but get something in the $20-$30 range. Something a step or two above the baseline budget cables.

• Longevity? are you trying to tell us that cables age? Get real, metals are metals (Coppers last for thousands of years with NO degradation) and have been refined in any form to use in a cable to last for DECADES! IS that Coast to Coast AM Physics and Chemistry that you’re using?

Chris replies - If you want to see metal age take some polished copper, bronze, or silver and watch it change color as it is exposed to air. Now take Cat 5, Cat5e and Category 6 ethernet network cables, they all look the same to the untrained, but have specifications which when met will allow faster transmissions without errors. Haven’t you ever seen cables that have been exposed to elements that have made them brittle and no longer bend but break? Don’t tell me they are as good and performed as they were in the begining.

Ray from Milne Pt. says
I agree with you, Leo. Here is an analogy to the cables: I work on a drilling rig running formation evaluation tools downhole.
The tool transmits “digital” data to the surface via pressure pulses through the drilling fluid and we receive these pulses with
transducers that convert them to electrical signals and are “read” by a computer program very similar to an oscilloscope. This signal
is filtered, reducing the background noise and maximizing the pulse.
If the program detects all pulses regardless of any background noise due to drilling or whatever, we get the data perfectly. If we miss
any pulse, we lose the data.

Some interesting reading on AudioQuest cables.

My husband is a professional audio engineer and recommends ordering Dayton cables from Parts Express.

- funcrunch

Q *And your husband either owns this company or the web site store, we’ll assume???

Klokwkdog in RI adds
Leo, agree on digital cables. There could be timing problems that only show up with age or temperature, but unlikely. Digital is annoyingly correct and cheap. Durability is important as is connector quality (not gold plating, but construction itself). It’s the same general realm as Gigabit LAN. Do you try to get by with Cat 5e cable or spring for Cat 6 (and a pipe bender to get it ‘round corners)? Cat 6 is not that much more expensive, but there are physical/install issues with it (you can’t buy it at Home Depot on Sunday). I look at it this way — people pay $500/meter for bizarre speaker cables and maybe they don’t buy the Hummer: better for the environment. It’s about faith, belief, salesmanship, not science. “Proving” a cheap digital cable is superior by A-B testing, reason, or measurement will have NO effect whatsoever on believers. Just like with audio cables.

TB on Long Island says
If you need long runs for component cables (like a front projector) just buy 75 ohn coax from Home Depot or Lowes with the connectors already on it and buy adapters from Radio Shack to convert them to RCA jacks. Cheap and works great. I made up 50 foot cables and have used them for 3 years with no problems. They are shielded and 75 ohms is the correct impendence. Use cable wraps to connent the three pieces of coax together.

The only reasonably decent arguments made for expensive cables are signal processing and longevity. Well, for the first, make sure there are no “kinks” in the cable. For the other, there is no reason to pay a premium for a longer lasting cable. Worst come to worst, buy another cheap one. This is the biggest rip off in electronics.

NN in PA says: I read this in a magazine once but im not sure if its correct but what I think that happens is that an HDMI port outputs volts that a receiver decodes as a 0 or 1. if the volt is higher than a certain point it is a 1 if it is lower than that point it is a 0. If the voltage drops during transmission it is decoded incorectly resulting in low quality video.

Jeff in Santa Ana says -
NN, your understanding of things digital is severely lacking. These things are not done on a bit-wise basis. If a CHUNK of data (a byte or a word) doesn’t agree with the checksum, the system asks for the data to be retransmitted. If the data doesn’t pass verification within an alloted window, the system fails (zero output, blank screen, whatever).

Chris in Huntington Beach notes -
What no one has addressed is what happens if a bit or even a “chunk” isn’t received or frequently needs to be retransmitted. Does it mean that the whole image is lost because of one packet. Or does the processor continues by replacing the lost packet by one of it’s own design. If an image is lost, how many would notice if one of the thirty frames per second is not being shown. If the image had to be retransmitted, at which point would this be noticible?

Noon-1p

QTheresa in Newport Beach - FM transmitter is very low

She’s connecting her computer to her stereo with an FM transmitter (a
Belkin TuneCast) but the level is very low. I recommend the Griffin RocketFM for desktop FM transmitters, but your Belkin should work better. I’d take it back.

Chuck in Thousand Oaks replies…
Like many I’ve purchased a few of the FM transmitters and have been disappointed. But my daughter really wanted one for Christmas so I once again jumped into the mix purchasing the Belkin “Tunebase for iPod mini.” (This is NOT the Tunecast, but the Tunebase.) It holds the iPod up on a goose neck type arm. Surprisingly it works terrific! In fact, we often use her car to drive from Ventura county to Temecula in Riverside county going through the heart of Los Anageles and Orange county and it works flawlessly. We’ve found that we can tune to 101.5 and never have to change it during the entire 140 mile drive. The sound is so good that I forget it’s coming through the FM receiver. This one is a winner!

Doug in Alaska replies
In discussions reguardng FM transmitters I hve been envolved in, tranmitters from CCRane are suposed to be good on batteries(24 hours on 1 or 2 AA batteries, IIRC, or you can use a DC adapter) and are strong enough to cut through most radio broadcasts while staying under FCC wattage limits.

NJ Tom replies
I had to go through several types until I found the iRiver, You have to use it in the car, it uses a cigarette adapter but the Signal is great. I can get CD loudness with the ipod turned up to about 35 - 40%.

Bob in Ohio replies
Some of these FM transmitters require that the volume on the device (i.e. CD Player / MP3 Player) be turned up quite hi for an appropriate receive audio level at the receiving unit.

Leo in Tennessee replies
I know this seems obvious but I never heard the caller mention batteries or trying new batteries. Do you think the batteries may have been low, dead, or missing?

José in Atlanta replies
In my metro area, no battery powered FM transmitter I’ve tried gives me a clear signal (I’ve had two Griffin iTrips, an iRock, and a Belkin Tunecast.) I’m convinced it has to do with the paltry 1.5v batteries. When I recently purchased the Belkin Tunecast II, it came with the 12v car adaptor, and that thing rocks! I can now hear my music clearly over all but the strongest 4 or 5 stations on the dial. However, when I unplug the car adaptor and run on batteries, I’m back to a weak signal.

QPeter in Valley Village - protecting Windows Media Center Edition

It’s XP, so the same rules apply:

1. turn on your Windows firewall before you connect to the net
2. run Windows Update before you do anything else, and apply all critical updates
3. use Firefox, not Internet Explorer, for day-to-day surfing
4. Install Microsoft Defender and turn on Real Time Protection to block spyware
5. Install an anti-virus and don’t open attachments
6. Backup regularly

A listener writes:I also recommend Zone Alarm Security Suite. It costs 60 bucks but it is well worth it! I should warn you that it is a little difficult to configure but once it is it rocks.

Leo replies Argh. Do not buy that bloatware!
Someone else chimes in — Besides, they don’t advertise on Leo’s Show!!!
dsteven says neither does Firefox, or Microsoft or Spybot, but Leo recomends it all the time
Chris from Huntington Beach notes- Buy a router and install it. Then you don’t have to stress about the seconds you are on the net trying to update your Windows or are without an anti-virus. Your router is protecting you from direct internet attacks.

TastesLikeLead: In general, Mac Anti-Virus softwares DO SCAN for Windows viruses. Unfortunately, the virus definitions are not updated as often as their Windows counterpart; thus most times they do not scan as many viruses as the Windows Anti-Virus. McAffee and Symantec in particular do sell Anti-Virus program that also scan for Windows viruses.

QArt in Fountain Valley - USB drives die

Windows ME, USB Zip and flash card reader. After a while they stop working - but a reboot fixes it. Sounds like it’s a problem with the USB driver (although with all this talk of cables I’m beginning to think it might be worth testing them). XP would certainly improve reliability.

QLeonard in Costa Mesa - why buy digital cables?

better throughput and longer life. OK I’ll buy that, but what’s a good brand name for digital video cables (DVI, HDMI) that won’t rip you off?

Cavan in NJ adds:
I’d recommend monoprice.com for digital and analog cables. They are known more for computer cables, but a good HDMI cable runs less than $20 there.

“”** Michael in Sacramento adds**”“
Just watch the Systm episode on making your own high quality AV cables from top of the line raw materials. It does not take that much work, especially with the great guide. www.systm.org…

p.s. they gloss over the HDMI/DVI cables stating that making those would be for “advanced users”, but it is possible.

QMike in New Jersey - Google Earth is another way to watch for Santa and top stories in 2005

Google Earth watches Santa with this plug-in (sorry Mac owners, Windows only). That’s cause Windows rules the World and Macs are insignificant.

He also asked me about my picks for top stories in 2005. I’m going to talk more about these next Saturday, but I think the biggest story of the year was the advent of podcasting and Sony’s Rootkit fiasco.

Mike says his top story is the LCD screen glut, which has caused a price drop stimulating HDTV growth.

1–2p

QMike in Folsom - using a 20GB disc on a 10GB ipod

Can he? Check out the forums at http://ilounge.com/? - they’ll know.

To get tickets to our special TWiT broadcast from MacWorld Expo, January 10 at 6p, visit our special ticket site. The tickets are free, but very limited, so please make sure you will definitely be there before reserving them. Be one of only twenty people there at MWSF. The Mac is dead.

QJosh in Los Angeles - unlocking an HP 6315 phone

He has Cingular, thought he was buying unlocked phone, but it’s tied to T-Mobile. How does he unlock it? There are online services that do this, but I think your best bet is to go to a local independent cell phone dealer and offer them $20 to do it.

QChris in Culver City - choosing Internet source

He has two forms of connection available to his Mac laptop - he wants it to choose powerline networking but it keeps choosing Wi-Fi. You need to change the order of preferred networks. Open the Network system preference pane, click on Network Status (next to Show:) and select Network Port Connections. Drag the Powerline to the top of the list.

QJoe in Mission Viejo - recording his screen in GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting can record your meetings as AVI files - audio, too. Or you can use an external package like TechSmith’s SnagIt or Camtasia. Also Wink will record a screen capture into Macromedia Flash format.

QDustin in Westminister - reinstalling Windows 98

His recovery disc won’t work - but he should be able to get Windows 98 pretty cheaply on EBay.

Jeff in Santa Ana adds - Here is a recommendation for a source of Restore CDs.

NJ Tom Has a hint - When installing Windows 98, If you don’t want to get the annoying “please insert your Windows 98 disk”, everytime you install new equipment. Format the Drive, and make a new directory on the drive called Win98. Copy all the files from the CD’s win98 directory into the C drive’s Win98 Directory. Reboot from the C drive change to the Win98 directory. Type Startup. Now every time the installing new hardware looks for drivers it will look on the C drive instead of the CD Drive.

Chat Logs and Show Audio

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24 December 2005

 From Steve in Phoenix

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