Saturday, August 12, 2006
Keep those phones ringing! I’ll continue taking calls for a couple of hours after the show ends at 2p today. We’re pre-taping for episodes later this month. So keep calling 1–800–520–1534 through 4 this afternoon!
Tech News
Sprint Nextel has announced an ambitious $3 billion plan to implement a high-speed Wimax network in the US, bringing the most advanced 4th generation network to mobile phones over the next few years.
This is to compete with UMTS from Verizon and Cingular.
Apple announced the highly price-competitive. Mac Pro with dual Xeon (the Woodcrest core based off of the Core 2) processors this week at the World Wide Developer’s Conference.
11a-Noon
Q Jim from Palmdale - Upgrading RAM in old laptop
HP told him that the laptop cannot go above 384mb of RAM. This is because this laptop is so old. If your computer is running Windows 98, it is highly vulnerable on the Internet. My recommendation is to run Linux which will run well on slower computers. It is highly secure, my recommendation is Ubuntu.
Q Rob from Del Mar - Removing un-needed security software
The truth about the antispyware programs is that spyware is smart enough to avoid it now. The best method to prevent spyware is to change your behavior. If you have a router, you don’t even need a firewall. When you install NOD32, you can remove all Norton applications. For antispyware software, you want to download Windows Defender, and what you want to enable in it is “real-time protection”. What really slows you down is the software that runs in the background. Ad-Aware and Spybot do not run in the background. The other thing I strongly encourage is to use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.
Noon-1p
Q Joe from Illinois - Putting 5.1 surround sound on a Mac Pro
Of course! The Mac Pro supports 5.1 sound with optical out.
Q Dave from San Diego - Looking for picture/slide scanners
Unless you wanted to spend some good money on a slide scanner. I recommend the Epson Perfection Series. The Epsons have light sources in both the lid and underneath the glass. They have slide carriers inside. You’ll want to clean the slides. I have the 1670, which is a little on the low end.
Q Paul from West Los Angeles - Will imaging programs do file-system conversions?
No, it will copy and paste the exact same file system from the original hard drive. I’d keep the FAT32, no need to make a conversion.
Q Ben from Iowa - Home Surveillance Systems
He’s having trouble connecting all the netcams to the same Windows 2000 machine. I think it is a driver issue. I know of no multi-cam drivers that has support to all the cameras you’re using.
Q Marie from Glendale - A/V Receiver turning itself off after certain volume
The A/V receiver is turning itself off to protect the speakers. She is saying that it’s not even that loud. It may be the golden tips on the edge of the wires. The issue is something called impedance. Every speaker has an impedance which represents how much power it takes. What I suspect is that your A/V receiver is thinking that your old speakers with a lower impedance are still connected. If you look in the manual, there may be instructions to reset the impedance. Your son’s theory could also be correct.
Q Jennifer from Los Angeles - Looking for a gaming laptop
That is a little bit of a challenge because of the video card. You need a special mobile chipset on the laptop. A good place to look would be Alienware. These machines are very high end. Look at the video card that they use and then shop around. World of Warcraft isn’t even that intensive. The Alienwares come with the Geforce Go 7900GS. Dell XPS laptops are also very nice. Make sure the Geforce Go chipset is inside.
1–2p
Q Rick - Can dust buildup inside the tower slow down the computer?
More likely it would make the computer less reliable due to heat. It’s a good idea once a year to open and clean out the tower. When you clean up the computer once a year, it’s also a good idea to do a reinstall of your operating system.
Q Ryan from Newport Beach - Looking for a tough business laptop
Almost any notebook I can think of can run business applications. Notebooks take a lot of abuse. I have a friend who buys his notebooks in pairs because if one dies, he can immediately go back to work. Panasonic makes a notebook called the Toughbook which are even waterproof! They come with magnesium alloy cases and shock-mounted hard drives. I like Dell and the Lenovo Thinkpads as well.
Q Dean from Anaheim - Where to go to repair navigation unit on a phone
You’d have to find an independent repair shop that will do UT Starcom repair because the part is specifically from them. Most people don’t even do repairs on cell phones.
Q Jim from Mission Viejo - Looking for an all-in-one printer for home use
I like the Canon Pixma. One thing to watch out for is to make sure that it has built-in fax capability. The best thing to do is to go to PC Magazine and read their printer reviews. They like the Brother and the Canon.
Q Lyle from San Diego - Burning CDs from iPhoto
The multiple copies it burns onto the CD confuses the printing machine. iPhoto is designed for consumers who don’t care about file structure. So when you burn a disc from iPhoto so if you bring the disc to another machine with iPhoto, you can copy them over. If you go to your iPhoto library, you’ll se a couple folders with the pictures you want. Inside the folders with dates, you’ll see the thumbnails and the modified pictures. You have to dig through there and drag and drop the folders you want to the disc. Or in iPhoto, you can use the export command to a folder and then burn that folder.
Q Dave from Chatsworth - What DPI to use when archiving pictures
He doesn’t know what is overkill. 1200 DPI is major overkill. I think 300 DPI is fine. If you’re willing to and really want to get everything, you can go up to 400 or even 600 DPI. Scantips has an article about how much you should scan. Virtuescan will scan at a very high quality.
Q Tim - Security software on Windows
There’s not much to learn. We do talk about it in the tips section of this site. Antivirus runs in the background, scans email, and uses its signature library. If it finds a virus, it will quarantine that file. They also search for virus-like activity. The antispyware programs will scan the hard drive periodically for spyware.
Chat Logs and Show Audio
12 August 2006
12:06 by stu?.
Leo,
I used to be fan of Mandrake, but once I seen Mepis, I dropped Mandrake and have never looked back, and the newest version of Mepis is using UBUNTU as it’s base…I didn’t upgrade to the newest version, stayed back with the original Debian Base…download available at
http://www.mepis.org/node/1462
12:15 by stu?.
Leo
The Epson Perfection 3490 PHOTO does it all..
slides, photos, negatives..all in one!
A great file sharing programs that does not have spyware is Emule. Just make sure never to run an .exe (or any executable files) and you will have happy downing!
http://www.emule-project.net
When they can get video on phones decense. Then the pain of standing in line goes away. Or at least the borning part.
Leo
I have an Epson Perfection 4180. It works great. However, when I decided to scan many old pictures and slides (aprox 2500–3000) for my web site, I figured it would take 100 years(not quite) So I had them commercially done. Well worth it time and price wise. I used DigMyPics and they did a good job. Price varies depending on the number and types of items.Google can find many companies that will do it.
See: http://www.DigMyPics.com
12:30 by anonymous.
After converting from FAT32 to NTFS you should defrag the drive because the cluster size changed and some data may of been moved for the conversion.
12:50 by anonymous.
I go with Leo on the ubuntu thing. Have been running version 5 for a while and just upgraded to 6. Works great on intel 333mhz with 320meg of ram
Leo,
I have a Dell E1505 w/core duo 2ghz and ATI X1400…works fine with WOW. Just has to be plugged in and not on batts. The upgrade card is the X1600 but the Dell XPS has the best stuff, the alienware looked outdated when I looked last. BTW L60 Rogue Night Elf Rogue here.
Leo: re Sprint’s WiMAX choice: Qualcomm should not suffer because it has some significant patents on WiMAX’s underlying tech, OFDM; further, the GSM cellcos such as Cingular (and other globals) are switching to using Qualcomm’s tech, W-CDMA & the upgrade to cdma2K 1x EVDO speeds, HSDPA. Qualcomm should do quite well as the current ~2B 2G GSM subs are switched over to 3G WCDMA over the next few years. Some GSM cellcos are already forcing the switch by announcing cessation of selling GSM-only (2G) cellfones so all future subs will be able to buy modern data services. Finally, there is not yet an industry agreement on a definition for “4G,” despite Sprint’s use of that term for WiMAX. Furthermore, (sorry) the mobile version of WiMAX, “802.16–2005″ is as yet untested in commercial deployment. Most media coverage of “WiMAX” assumes that it inculdes mobile, but that could be hasty.
For Marie from Glendale with the A/V Receiver turning itself, I agree it’s probably the speakers but the problem is likely to be that her present speakers are too low in impedance causing it to draw too much current and overheat.
If she’s trying to use 3–4 ohm auto speakers but it was designed for 8 ohm or higher ones that would do it. She should check and if she’s using ones with too low impedance putting a 4 ohm or higher resistor in series to make up the difference might help. I don’t know if it would go load enough but at least it wouldn’t shut off.
For Ben from Iowa with the Home Surveillance System, if he can get his cameras to put out composite video he can get video capture cards cheap on ebay with 4, 8 or 16 inputs that will do what he wants. If he only has webcams he should get some better cameras anyway so get ones with composite video output.
A couple good things:
Mepis-W.Woodford should join Canonical.
Gateway laptops-not bad! cheap! 2 months-no probs..
Lenovo’s aren’t “ThinkPads” yet. I bought a ThinkPad x60 in February and it’s quite a bit better than the current choices of notebooks from Lenovo. Externally, the ThinkPads are the sole holdout on offering a eraser-head touchpoint thingy to control the mouse w/o having to move a hand from the “home” typing position. For touch-typists, the mouse and pad are the two worst inventions to reducing productivity… which is what I consider a computer to be for. Some ThinkPads have both a stick and a pad for mugwumps, but serious typists know which is best.
Radiomyk
Laptops - I manage 30 or so laptops for a couple of small firms. Until 3 years ago I had a fairly ‘laissez-faire’ attitude about laptops. After analyzing failures and evaluating tech support response times and effectiveness, we will only support and any Lenovo Thinkpad and Dell Latitude and Precision Workstation laptops.
That said, ALWAYS purchase Premium Business tech support. At least 2 years onsite - 3 years if you intend to keep the notebooks longer. Lenovo offers up to 5 years for those who really hate to change.
For the last few years, around Christmas there’s a flurry of articles and noise about how cheap laptops have become. Part of the decrease has come from greater efficiency but, now most price reductions are the result of dropped features - like 3 year warranties.
Nowadays that bargain laptop will usually come with a ….drum roll…. ‘90 day MAIL-IN warranty’. So much for $400.00 laptops.
Isn’t it more fun to to just buy a cheap on-special laptop, use it 1 year and sell it, then buy the next new technology/chip? that way you stay current. Who want a 4 year old laptop? Slowwww.
Most importantly, Lenovo’s aren’t IBM or American any more! Lenovo company is OWNED and Controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and Government! NOT a private entity as some other Chinese computer makers are.
WHEN you by ANY Lenovo ThinkPad or computer YOU ARE supporting the Militarization of CHINA, the SAME country that is SELLING Missiles to IRAN, Nuke Technology to Middle Eastern Countries that just might end up NUKING YOU in the US or Europe!
Boycott Lenovo, Boycott ANYTHING China!
Ps, Apple junk is made in China too.
Help! Please call Leo, it’s obvious with the every commercial break announcement to call, that he lonely and you aren’t calling to ask innane questions that Leo will ondoubtedly answer with “you should buy a Mac”! If you don’t call Leo … he just mat get a little tooo friendly with “Mandy”, already sounded like he was having a ‘gasm just announcing it.
When you call, you can even ask Leo about this little “touchy subject” at Apple. Ya know, Apple = Enron, Steve Jobs = Ken Lay.
Quote: “Apple Delays 3Q Filing Due to Options ABC News reports that Apple said Friday it will delay filing its latest quarterly report and expects to make “significant changes” to results for the period because of irregularities related to past stock-option grants. “In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, Apple said it expects to have to restate past results in order to take non-cash charges for compensation costs related to stock option granting practices.”
To Cupertino Oops — you are welcome to disagree with Leo on the Mac issue. . . and you are even welcome to dislike Apple and its personnel and products. But before you make another comment. . . please learn to type. Also a little syntax to your babbling would be welcomed!
All I’d like is to find the best AMD Notebook on the market! Mr. Laporte you have not been much of help! Why? What’s so hard? Could you help me to find the best AMD Notebook on the market. I’m not interested, in looking at you kissing PC mouses or having Notebook on your head. I’d like to find & the buy the best a AMD (Advance Micro Devices) Notebook! If you’re not going to help me, fine.
It’s your prerogative, but as ADOBE thoght they are ruling it all.So, you depend on stupid listeners. Life is not all. Things change & move else where.
Daniel Dench
interceptia@aol.com
P.S. Please, don’t forget that you’re human being first & radio host, secound.
Leo was kind enough to open the comments section & the trolls crawl out. Caution: the twisted syntax & faulty grammar is indicative of serious mental disorders in these folks.
Just installed Ubuntu on an older machine about a week ago. One word: Awesome.
if he have to use windows.
13 August 2006
Power and impedance are two different things. Power is the amount of signal the amp can provide to drive speakers. Speaker power is the maximum amount of signal that will destroy the speaker, and is measured in watts.
A 100 watt amp will drive 200 watt speakers, but not to their full extent. An 4 to 8 ohm speaker mismatch will not overload the amp; however, if the speaker load is too low (like 2 ohms), this could cause problems. Connecting two 4 ohm speakers in parallel will cause a problem, as the impedance will be 2 ohms to the amp.
Conversely, connecting two 8 ohm speakers in parallel will bring the impedance down to four ohms, which ain’t bad; however, it’s not good either, but shouldn’t cause a problem.
Now, what will cause a problem is if there is a short in the speaker wires. If the + (plus) wire is contacting the - (minus) wire. Check your wiring to make sure that this is not happening.
An impedance mismatch (driving 8 ohm speakers with a 4 ohm amp, and vice versa) won’t cause this. Where the amp is located could cause the problem. Relocate the amp to a cooler location, if possible. If not, direct a fan to circulate air on the amp.
Another possibility is the age of the amp. Transistors weaken with age, similar to vacuum tubes; however, transistor aging is a lot longer than tubes.
Many newer amps have a thermal overload in the power supply section. If a component of the amp should overheat, the overload will shut down the amp, similar to an automatic circuit breaker.
The best thing to do is to have the amp checked out by a reputible service center. They can tell you what’s going on inside the amp.
The apple site states that the Mac Pro supports digital and analog stereo. There is no mention on the Apple site of the Mac Pro supporting 5.1 sound
“ Rick - Can dust buildup inside the tower slow down the computer?”
To add to that, and maybe just a reminder to Leo to remind others, be careful with canned air. You mentioned that things can get cold. I know the can can get cold as you use it in a continuous spray, but the only way that the components will get cold is if you hold the can upside down. So be careful when you’re being energetic about blowing dust out and around and don’t bend over upside down to get to those hard to reach crevasses.
Also, be careful with fans. You can over-rev fans with compressed air and cause damage. My cousin did this and he ruined a power supply by over-revving a fan.
Also take the computer outside. The whole point in blowing out dust is that that same dust doesn’t make its way back into the computer. And move the computer around as you blow the dust out and blow so the dust gets carried with the wind. Nothing’s more frustrating than the elemental winds blowing that dust back into the chassis. Sometimes the dust just hangs there waiting to be blown back into the computer. LOL
Also, turn the computer off before you do all this. Which is common sense, I know, but you can never be too careful.
And wear your dust mask and goggles if you have allergies.
To that over-revving item: Hold the fan in place if you can while you blow the canned air. Be careful about power supplies and don’t stick items into the power supply past the power supply fan. You just want the fan to be stationary, you don’t want to get the shock of your life while doing it.
Another scanner software that works very well is Silverfast. Cross platform, fast and I have found that from the same scanner using two different pieces of software; Silverfast had better results.
<a href=http://www.silverfast.com>www.silverfast.com<a/>
15 August 2006
Hi Leo. Surprised you didn’t suggest MacBook Pro as the gaming laptop. They all sport ATI Rad. X1600 chipsets with a minimum of 128mb. Its a pretty good system for playing games. I’m running Call of Duty (Mac demo and PC full version) with all the knobs turned to 11 and its really fast!
Also.. with regards the MacBook Pro. Even the 15.4″ screen produces 1440×900. Which is about the same resolution that most manufacturers 17″ screen provide.
Acer Ferrari is a good gaming laptop. Though not as good as the Apple. Plus they have a TravelMate that is all the Ferrari is, less the case and £400 ($600) cheaper! I think its 8020 or something.
BE CAREFUL. Some of the Nvidia chipsets used shared memory which is rubbish. Only choose a laptop that has dedicated video RAM. On the whole, ever the ‘hypermemory’ systems are slower than their fixed equivalents.
About Marie’s problem:
Impedance is the AC quantity that corresponds to resistance.
The problem with just telling her to disable the auto-shutoff and “Turn it up, man!” is that the amp in her system is designed to work with speakers of a certain impedance. Yes, you can just crank it up, but you’re pushing the amplifier towards clipping. If the speakers hooked up now are of sufficiently high impedance, by the time she can hear the sound it will be highly distorted—and a clipped signal is good for blowing speakers too.
17 August 2006
Regarding old Win 98 laptop, I have Win 2000 running on a very old Toshiba laptop with 128 MB RAM and it is very stable.
