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Sunday, July 16, 2006
Tech News
TV ratings reached the lowest point in recorded history last week.
Maybe that’s why the Sci-Fi channel is offering the pilot of The Amazing Screw On Head online first.
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson explains concept of the “long tail” where the less popular products are actually worth more than the best-sellers. The Long Tail is, in many ways, powering the success of Internet retailing and content distribution, including podcasts.
Here’s the original Wired Magazine article that started it all.
And Chris’s Long Tail Blog is a great read.
11a-Noon
Q Shirley from Anaheim - Can’t access Internet after installing wireless router
She has an old Toshiba Tecra 8100 with Windows XP and a wireless card. The card worked with the old access point but stopped working when she installed a new one. You need to use the Wi-Fi card’s software (look in the system tray for two mating computers) to chose the new router.
Make sure to secure your router before you use it too long though. Since most routers work out of the box people are loathe to change things, but really you need to do five things to secure your network:
- Turn on WPA encryption
- Rename the router (don’t use anything too identifiable like your street address)
- Change the router login password - every hacker knows the defaults
- Turn off Universal Plug ‘n’ Play (UPnP) - it allows malware inside your network to open up your security
- Turn off WAN Administration (the name may differ but it’s the ability to administer your router from the Internet. A bad idea, obviously.)
Q Steve from Los Angeles - Shopping for hard drives
Hard drives are pretty much commodities these days - all brands are pretty much alike. If I had to pick a favorite manufacturer it would be Seagate. On the other hand, I really like the Western Digital Raptors which are 10,000 RPM. I own several. The point is that all drives fail eventually - when is unpredictable, so make sure to always backup no matter what brand you buy.
Q William from Love Park - Serial vs Parallel Hard Drive Interfaces
Serial anything can go faster than parallel anything. So SATA can go faster than IDE, but of course it all depends on the drives. Since SATA is newer, the better, faster drives all use SATA. Don’t be fooled by burst speed throughput measurements on drives, incidentally. What you really care about is sustained throughput, and in fact PCI, IDE, and SATA are all fast enough to handle even the fastest hard drives.
Q Gary from Tuston - Quickbooks on PC vs. Mac/Slow hard drives in the iMac
You can run Quickbooks for Windows on a Mac with Parallels. Make sure to install the max 2GB of RAM for decent performance.
Slow iMac drive? I had the same problem with the mini, but you can really speed things up by getting a fast external drive and making it your boot drive. Use the internal drive for backup or data storage.
Podcast expo is coming to Ontario, September 29 - I’ll be speaking on Friday, I think.
Noon-1p
Q CJ from Lakewood - Multiple users on XP
She and her husband have different accounts on XP. He logs into his work via VPN. She switches to her account using Fast User Switching and his VPN password is no longer visible. The problem is that Fast-user switching keeps everyone online at the same time - so his VPN is still running even if you can’t see it. I recommed logging out, and then logging in on another account. She’s also having problems playing Audible files on his account. That’s due to the copy protection on Audible files - you need to log into Audible in each account.
Q Rick from British Columbia - Wireless speakers
There are speakers that use RF from a stereo receiver base station. The more expensive solution is to attach the speakers to a small computer that is on the wireless network. Almost every company that makes speakers makes RF speakers. Look for 900MHz.
David Pogue’s review of wireless speakers.
Q Karen from Charlottesville, VA - How is it that Youtube hasn’t gone out of business?
Bandwidth has gotten cheaper and it is possible to make deals with companies to make bandwidth nearly free, and advertising on the Internet is more popular now. Nevertheless, I wonder the same thing.
1–2p
Q James from Los Angeles - running Windows apps on Linux
Many Windows apps will acutally run on Linux using a program called WINE from Codeweavers. Most Linux distros come with WINE. To check if your apps will run, go to the Codeweavers site.
He wants to run a magnifying program from Windows on Linux. WINE’s good, but not that good. It won’t run every Windows program and is highly unlikely to run the magnifying program. Fortunately there are similar Linux programs. Read the Linux Access How-to for some suggestions.
Both Mac and Windows have built-in magnifying software. It’s in the Windows Accessories→Accessibility folder. On the Mac, there is magnifying software built in. Go to the system preferences and go into “universal access”. Then to enable zoom, push command + shift + 8. Wherever the mouse is will be magnified.
Q Julie from Orange - Looking for a wireless router
Linksys is the number one seller and they’re pretty good. I prefer D-Link routers or the Belkin Pre-N router. The N routers go farther and are much faster. You’ll also may want to look for a router with a USB printer port or a wireless print server.
Pre-N technology may interfere with nearby routers with older technologies.
Q Matt from Riverside - moving PC caused problems
He took his PC to a LAN party and now it’s having problems booting, and the RAM is showing up incorrectly. He’s rebuilt the system to make sure the connections are all good. Sounds like the motherboard may be shorting - make sure the case isn’t coming into contact with the mobo.
Q Bob from Dana Point - Upgrading to a plasma TV
You want the DVI or HDMI inputs because it is digital. Most newer computers have DVI outputs. A couple years down the line, everything will connect via HDMI. For more informations, go to avsforums.com
Q Jeffrey from Moor Park - Windows Movie Maker won’t start
Try uninstalling and reinstalling. Unfortunately, the program doesn’t show up in the Add/Remove programs control panel. To make it visible follow the technique here then use Add/Remove programs.
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