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Show Notes > Show 215

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Saturday, January 21, 2006

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I’m going to keep answering calls for an extra hour today - so keep those calls coming through 3p Pacific: 800–520–1534.

On today’s show…

Tech News

The DOJ asks search engines for data, MSN, Yahoo!, and AOL cave - Google fights and it costs them in the stock market.

Jeff in Santa Ana adds -
“You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” — Scott McNealy (CEO, Sun Microsystems)
- Press conference launching Sun’s Jini network technology - January 18, 1999

It’s official. 802.11n - 600mbit/sec wireless networking - is one step closer to ratification.

11a-Noon

Q Jim - XP keeps running chkdsk

Check to see if the dirty bit is being cleared by chkdsk. Open a command line window (click Start→Run, enter cmd and hit enter) then type:

fsutil dirty query c:

Read this article for more information.

Clarkconnect

Q Harry - increasing range of Wi-Fi

Use WDS

… he also wants to create his own electronic overhead projector

Use your All-In-Wonder, or other capture card, with a camcorder and projection unit.

Q Phil -

Noon-1p

Q Tom in Simi Valley - recovering data from a Pioneer HD-510 hard drive

You’ll need to figure out what file system the Pioneer uses. Then find disk recovery software for that filesystem. Anyone know?

AinVA:
I had a full 30GB data drive fail and researched MANY recovery companies. I went with www.ecodatarecovery.com. Up front quotes, no broad price ranges. I knew what I was goin to pay whether my data was recoverable or not.

Donald Burr of Borg adds: Leo, I’m surprised that you didn’t mention SpinRite! The new SpinRite 6 is OS and filesystem independent — I’ve recovered Mac OS and FreeBSD disks using it. Tom will have to crack open his Pioneer HD-510 (thus voiding the warranty), but once he does that, just remove the hard drive, insert it into a PC, boot up SpinRite, and let it do its thing. Assuming that there isn’t real, unrecoverable physical damage to the drive, SpinRite should be able to read the data off the affected drive sectors, perform data recovery on it, and write it to a good sector.

Q Joseph in Gardena - can’t run XP

But he can run 98. Try the BOOTLOG boot option.

Q Laura in La Crescenta - Powerbook won’t play DVD, iTunes won’t work

Try another DVD - if it still doesn’t work it sounds like your DVD player is damaged.

To fix iTunes try the canonical OS X fixit routines:

  1. Log into a different user account to see if it’s system wide or specific to your account
  2. Repair permissions (Open Utilities/Disk Utility, select your drive, and press Repair Permissions)
  3. Delete relevant preference files
  4. Hold down the Shift key while booting
  5. Reinstall OS X using the Archive and Install option

Q Deborah in Rancho Bernardo - minimums in a desktop

512 MB of RAM

Notes:
From http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314865
The minimum hardware requirements for Windows XP Home and Professional Edition are:

  • Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)
  • At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended)

Unfortunately, to have Windows XP running smoothly the desktop computer needs a minimum of 256 MB of RAM. As soon as other softwares and services installed, Windows requires more RAM. Consider the resources that Anti-Virus, Anti-Spywares, device drivers and other services require to run within Windows. Thus the practical RAM requirement is 512 MB.

Also consider having a dedicated video adapter with its own RAM. Majority Mid and Low end computers usually share the System RAM with the Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) up to 128 MB of RAM. This means that having more System RAM will help a lot.

1–2p

Q Randy in Huntington Beach - Airport printer sharing

If you have an Airport access point with USB port and printer sharing it’s very easy. Usually you just plug it in and it works. If you’re having problems read this MacWorld article. It might be more tricky with a multi-function printer, depending on the drivers the manufacturer provides.

Q Mary Ellen - needs new camcorder and digital camera

I say combine both functions into one. A good, inexpensive choice is the Fujifilm Finepix F10 - around $300, but make sure to also buy an additional XD memory card.

Q Pat in Simi Valley - plasma over fireplace

He’s looking for a way to combine all the functionality of his cable box, DVD player, and computer. An AV receiver like the Denon AVR-2807 might help. Or consider an Xbox 360 - it’s HD ready and has numerous multimedia PC features.

Q Robert in Trabuco Canyon - strangled by spyware

Welcome to Windows. Read my article on Removing Spyware and good luck!

Chat Logs and Show Audio

Chat logs will be available shortly after the end of the show

Show Archives

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Hour 1 Audio

Hour 2 Chat

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Listener Comments

21 January 2006

10:36 by John Horvatic?.

I know I’m early but I wanted you to know I wasn’t afraid and I ordered the new Dual core Intel 20″ iMac with the 256mb video card and 1gig of ram. It shipped today and I should have it as early as Wednesday. From all the early reviews I’d say I have nothing to worry about. If you’re a Pro user and need Finalcut just wait until they release the Intel versions.

10:58 by Ryan Lynch?.

I also Ordered one the day of the keynote, shipped out 3 days later, but arrived with the Screen Cracked. So that one went back, and they are sending me a replacement, it shipped out today as well, and should have it Monday. I’ll let you know how my experiences are with this new one!

11:06 by Enquirer?.

  Trolling redacted

Did you hear that one of the Computer magazines parted out the NEW iMac Core Duo and the ACTUAL cost of manufacture was only $890!! Greedy Greedy Apple … What’s the Retail??? $1,500 PLUS!!

You are indeed a troll. You are trying to misinform people. Computer Magazine said that the estimated hardware cost for an iMac Core Duo is $890. That’s before all the software installed and packaging, and shipping. 17″ iMac Core Duo is $1299 retail.

11:11 by Ed London England?.

That sounds like good value, the normal cost to retail price is normally closer to 3x!

11:24 by Arizona Steve?.

Leo, the streaming audio from KFI is cutting out AGAIN! They can’t keep that working to save their lives!

When are you going on XM, like Bill Handel?

11:30 by RadioHawkman?.

XM has dropped/will be dropping Bill Handel unfortunately. He was off the 165 schedule starting January 6 but the show still aired the week after that. Didn’t hear if he was on last week.

12:35 by Tech Guy ?.

You Netgear MIMO is the SAME chipset that Belkin and Linsys has used in their current MIMO devices. D-Link’s is a FAKE MIMO (Atheros chipset) only using a ONE Transmitter split to TWO Antenna. The PCMCIA CardBus adapter doesn’t even have dual, let alone Multiple Antenna. (I’ve tested tham all)

REAL MIMO uses individual Transmitter circuits and the Inventor of MIMO has criticized D-Link and other MIMO “Fakers” for using the MIMO term for hardware that is clearly NOT.

WARNING!! All the MIMO technologies, especially AIRGO’s chipset have big problems being compatible with older 802.11g chipset and ESPECIALLY 802.11b like the old Agere ORiNOCO chipset (Airport Card) found in older PowerBooks, iBook and Power Macs!

Intel and their comrad are playing the bullies with this counter submission, which is totally untested and very incompatible again with older chipset, some of which may be BUIT-INTO your PC notebooks and Mac portables … without upgrade capabilities!

12:59 by John Horvatic?.

Arizona Steve try this URL for the stream as it seems they changed it again.

http://a814.l1977144512.c1977.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/814/19771/v0001/reflector:44512

13:18 by Jerry Torrance Ca?.

Oh dear. /radio/$Group/Profiles?action=edit does not exist on www.leoville.tv. Thanks for asking. Sorry it didn’t work out.

13:41 by Rich PEI?.

Oh dear. /chatlogs/20060121–1.zip does not exist on leoville.tv. Thanks for asking. Sorry it didn’t work out.

 Someone is unclear on the concept.
 Read the line just above the blue “Show Archives” box.
14:00 by Jeff Michael Pekin IL?.

I think your camera recommendation was right on. I’ve been using Fuji Digital cameras for several years and think they offer great value. The 640 x 480 videos at 30 fps are great and so much easier to get on the computer. I just got an S9000 with 9MP and a 28 - 300mm equiv manual zoom that lets you zoom while taking videos for $520. I love it.

22 January 2006

21:01 by D Richards?.

What is the name of the store in the LA area recomeneded for purchase of a good student laptop? It was a recomendation during a earlier show.

 http://www.google.com/search?q=notebook-shop+leoville+Cerritos

16 February 2006

11:41 by Brokentry?.

Why should Harry take his camera to the computer and then to the LCD projector? Why not just plug the camera right into the LCD projector? It will be simpler, less expensive and the same result. This is way late, but just caught it on the Podcast and had to vent a little

21 February 2006

01:15 by Schotty?.

Jim’s USB 2.0 question on linux,

It should work out of the box on any distro made within the last 3 years. I have used the Maxtor cards on several distros (Linspire, Red Hat, Fedora, SuSE, Ubuntu) with ZERO issues.

25 February 2006

17:36 by Balin?.

Hey Leo - I agree 100% with your recommendation to use a digital still camera for video. I just spent 2 months at sea, and put together an entire 30 min tour film of my ship with ~30 sec video clips and Windows XP’s Movie Maker. Everything I ever wanted. Great show…

08 March 2006

05:51 by RonnieV?.

For Jim whose XP box runs chkdsk on every start-up… I was experiencing a similar problem that I traced to Microsoft’s AntiSpyware app. My problem vanished the day I uninstalled the program.


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