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Sunday, March 21, 2004

Show 24

Another Sunday, another show.

Robin Liss from CamcorderInfo.com joins us in the 2pm hour to tell us about Sony’s new HD camcorder. Read the details on her web site.

Jeff in Tennessee has a computer that can handle DDR 333 RAM. He put in PC2700 memory and Linux and Windows 98 have no problem with it, but XP croaks with a page fault. Even though the mobo can handle faster RAM XP will only work with PC2100. It’s not unusual Jeff for one operating system to be more finicky than another. In this case I think your mobo can’t actually handle the faster RAM, even if only XP notices. It’s not an XP flaw - it’s just being pickier. Stick with the slower RAM.

Barbara in Los Angeles says her first edition iMac running System 8.6 crashes. A lot. I’m not surprised. She’s been running it for six years. It’ s not unusual for a system to become less reliable over time. Her first step should be to back up her data, format the drive, and reinstall the operating system. If the computer still crashes a lot it may be a hardware issue.

Barbara in Malibu wants to use iChat AV with a camera to video chat with a Windows user. She has a Pyro firewire camera. The new iChat AV 2.1 works with AIM on Windows systems - you can download it free right now during the public beta. I also recommend iVisit for cross-platform chatting.

She’s having problem getting audio. That may be because she’s running Norton Security firewall software. The software firewall is not necessary since she’s also using a wireless router. The router provides excellent protection - as good as any firewall. Turn off Norton, Barbara. In most cases iChat won’t be stymied by the hardware router. If it does have problems port forward UDP ports 5060 and 16384–16403. Apple has excellent documentation on using iChat with a router on its web site.

Kathy in Costa Mesa of Vital Link does a lot of presentations for her non-profit. She wants to buy a Powerpoint projector but is bewildered by the variety of choices. There are really only a few specs that matter when choosing a projector. The projector’s brightness is measured in lumens - anything over 1000 lumens should be enough if you aren’t too far from the screen and you can lower the lights. Contrast ratio is important too - a higher ration will give you more vivid colors. Check the product guide on PC Magazine’s web site for some good choices. You should be able to get a nice projector for under $1500. PC Mag liked the $1200 NEC VT460.

Greg in Phoenix AZ wants to create a web site but doesn’t want his address and other information published publicly in the WhoIs database. Most registrars now offer privacy protection. My favorite registrar, GoDaddy, charges an extra $9 a year for this service. Read about this issue at Network Solutions’ web site.

Rich in Lakewood is looking for a sub $500 digital camcorder that can convert analog video to digital and has decent low light performance. He’s looking at the Canon ZR line - that’s what I use and I do recommend them, but their low light performance isn’t great. That’s one of the big trade-off for inexpensive camcorders. Smaller, cheaper CCDs don’t gather enough light which means grainier pictures indoors.

Robin Liss of CamcorderInfo says most of this year’s camcorders, including the ZR line, have sixth-inch CCDs and that means abysmal low light performance. She recommends looking for last year’s older models with larger quarter-inch CCDs including the Sony DCR-TRV19 and TRV22 or the Panasonic PVDV53. Only the TRV22 has analog-to-digital passthrough, though.

Louis in Santa Maria says it takes too long to download the Windows XP service pack on his dial-up. He wonders if the CD version is ok. It sure is. Microsoft offers update CDs for just $10 online or from (800) 360–7561. Service Pack 2 will be coming out soon so you might want to wait. Once you do the big update by CD, though, you should still use Windows Update regularly to plug the latest holes. If you do it often the download sizes shouldn’t get out of hand. [Read the comments below for a way to get the update CD free!]

Randy in Riverside is planning to edit his home videos. He wants a software recommendation. The Pinnacle Systems Studio 8 that came with his video card is fine for most purposes (although version 9 just came out). I also like Sony’s new Screenblast Movie Studio.

Barbara in Rancho Cucamonga is planning a big trip and wants to get something to offload her digital photos onto. She was looking at the Archos jukebox. These are hard drive devices that can be used as MP3 players, video players, voice recorders, and storage for offloading digital pictures so you don’ t have to bring lots of memory along with you. She was looking at the AV300 series, which is costly because it comes with a big video screen. Archos also makes a smaller, cheaper device with a compact flash interface just for pictures. Take a look at the Gmini.

Of course if you already have a hard drive based MP3 player you may be able to use it, too. For example Belkin offers a $100 media reader that works with the newer iPods.

Anthony in LA has Trojan Horse viruses on his system. He runs the online Housecall antivirus for Windows, it claims to clean them up, but they keep coming back. You really need to zap them permanently to protect your system. I recommend an anti-virus running directly on your system. Try the free AVG from grisoft.com.

Jeff in Long Beach can’t use MSN or Google searches - they turn up 404s. I suspect his search capabilities have been hijacked by spyware. This is a common problem. There are two free programs he should try Spybot Seach and Destroy and AdAware. Either should be able to clean up the mess. Read more about CoolWebSearch at Merjin.org. SpywareInfo also has an excellent article about browser hijacking.

Sarah in San Diego is looking for slide show software. She creates musical montages for her son’s sports teams and now she’s in big demand. She’d been using a program from Magix called PhotoStory. She liked the features but it isn’t working reliably and Magix tech support is non-existant. Try Ulead’s PictureShow - I like it a lot and you can use it free for 30-days. Of course on the Mac the combination of iPhoto and iDVD is hard to beat. Anyone have any other recommendations?