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Saturday, October 14, 2006

The server is back up! And we’ll get some show notes in here ASAP. Thanks for your patience!

Tech News

Rockstar Games has released Bully, a game about a kid who gets revenge on people who have bullied him. Arstechnica has a “hands-on” review.

In Florida, Jack Thompson began a lawsuit to prevent the sale of Bully, but the judge ruled against it.

11a-Noon

Q Mark - Where would a Linksys wireless security camera store pictures?/Indexing pictures on the computer

These wireless cameras are in actuality sent via email to you and stored on the camera. They are miniature web servers.

Q Richard from Fullerton - Getting a random error notice at startup/Music alternatives that will work on any MP3 player

These do not have much value. The computer usually gives you the error much later after the error actually happens. The most you can do is find out which program is barfing. You can hit F8 at boot and turn on the boot log. You can use this to try and decipher which program is barfing. If it is a critical driver, look for an update. If it’s a program, try uninstalling it. It may even be spyware starting up. You can also try going into the run command and typing in “msconfig”. There, you can see all programs that start at boot and try unchecking them one by one.

Q James from San Diego - How to get advertisers on a website

Some sites have their own sales force. What you can do is sign up for Google Adsense. It will give you a piece of code you can stick on the website and it will scan the website’s content and will show relevant ads. You get a certain amount of money for each click.

Noon-1p

Q Jay from Loma Linda - Hard drive fail after defrag

He was playing around with his bootdisk. I don’t know what to do about restoring it. Try out SpinRite. It may be able to diagnose the drive. You’d have to know what belongs where in the exact sectors. It just sounds like a mess.

Q Jake from Fullerton - Trying to figure between the Mac Mini or MacBook

He’s a Windows guy who’s never used a recent Macintosh. A Mini is portable, but you need a keyboard, mouse, and monitor separately. What you give up on both the Mini and MacBook is a true video card. If you want a laptop, the MacBook is a very nice laptop. However, there have been many problems with them. You’ll save money with the Mac Mini, but it will be a desktop.

Q Sean from Arcadia - Router to replace Norton Antivirus?

There are 3 main components to keeping yourself secure: a firewall (you can use a router for this), antivirus, and antispyware. If Norton expires, I wouldn’t recommend renewing it; it is incredibly bloated. I’d recommend NOD32 for an antivirus. It is extremely lightweight. Overall, a router is a great solution for a hardware firewall as well.

Q Looking for a handheld GPS system

He’s looking for the basics. I like the Garmin Etrex.

Q Cathy - How to get rid of a virus

She wants to know if you can install an antivirus and remove a virus after it has been infected. I think your computer needs a completely fresh install of Windows. It seems like your restore discs are infected. What you need to do is find a friendly nerd who will reinstall Windows for you. What you can also do is run Linux on the computer. There are virtually no viruses either for it. Try out Ubuntu Linux. Right on the front page is a link for them to send you a free disc with Ubuntu and all the software.

1–2p

Q Rick from San Pedro - Line conditioners for plasma TVs

It’s not a bad idea to get a line conditioner. They are essentially surge suppressors. You’re spending enough money on this thing, it’s probably a good idea.

Q Don from Rancho Palos Verdes - How to integrate cell phone into the car

He wants to be able to integrate a cell phone into the car so it will call him

Q Joyce - Looking for a simple laptop with a limited budget

First of all you need Internet access. If there’s a phone jack, you can log in using dial-up. Also, if the place has WiFi, that would be great. Look at the Dell Inspiron B130.

Q David - Building a server vs. buying one from Dell or other manufacturers

I think you could get a very good system built. However, when you get a server from a manufacturer, you’ll get customer support.

Q Abby from Santa Clarita - Easy way to make animations for websites

You can actually put multiple images in one gif file and make an animated gif. There’s lots of free ways to do that. To easily make flash animations, try out Swish.

Q Derek from Los Angeles - Multi-sesson CD Recording

He recorded one session on a PC, and one session on a Mac. Now he can only see the first session. You have to finalize the disc. The disc software will select which session you want to read.

Q Ted from Monrovia - Trying out Linux distributions

I like LiveCD distributions. Ubuntu and Mandriva are good. Linux-iso.org is a great all-in-one directory with links to different distributions.

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