For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the TWiT Netcast Network

Saturday, April 17, 2004

Show 31

Show time! I’ll be taking your calls from noon-3p Pacific today at 800–520–1KFI.

Laura in Palo Alto is going to Japan next month and wants to know if her Macintosh Powerbook will work there. Notebook computers automatically adapt to worldwide power systems, but you will need an adapter so the plug works. Or if you’re staying for a while, get a Japanese Powerbook power supply.

Micky in Thousand Oaks has Winpup - a trojan horse that pops up ads and is the devil to remove. I recommend a visit to the Symantec Anti-Virus Research Center for manual removal instructions. Trend Micro also has information (they call it Troj_Revop.A).

Mike in NJ accidentally deleted a song he purchased at the iTunes song. Fortunately it’s still on his iPod. You cannot copy songs from the iPod without some help. For Macs I recommend the free Podmaster 1000. On Windows and Linux I recommend EphPod.

Paul in Encino is having trouble booting his first generation Bondi blue iMac from a 120GB drive that he installed. I suspect that System 9.2 doesn’t support such a large drive. LowEndMac is a great site for keeping older Macs running. Read their article for upgrading that old iMac.It does mention that the RevA-D iMacs won’t boot from anything larger than 8GB.

Michael in Venturais a lawyer designing his first web site. He wants to create a form that will email him when it’s filled out. I recommended Macromedia’s Contribute as an easy to use but full featured web editor. You can try it free for 30 days. It’s $99 but there’s a free 30-day trial.

Chris in Tarzana want to upgrade his motherboard, should he wait for PCI express? If you can wait until September, probably. PCs are going to change considerably this Fall. Intel’s new Grantdale chipset will include support for the new BTX motherboards, PCI Express, DDR2, and built-in Wi-Fi. In other words, it’s a major upgrade to PC architecture. Expect VIA and other chipset manufacturers to follow suit.

Tom in Simi Valley is a visual learner. He wants to find books that work for his learning style. I highly recommend the Absolute Beginners Guide series from Que (my publisher, too, by the way). They feature large type, lots of illustrations, and very clear directions. Peachpit’s Visual Quickstart Guides are also excellent for their step-by-step instructions.

Tom also needs an easy search engine to use with his children. Of course Google works, especially if you enter the Preferences and turn on Safe Search to keep the adult sites out. For younger children Yahooligans is the best.

Chuck from Florida has a Mac that is is re-booting when he tries to change the wallpaper. Whenever you’re having a problem with your Macintosh follow these three troubleshooting steps. (If they don’t work, a system re-install may be indicated here).

• Repair permissions: Open Applications→Utilities→Disk Utility, click on your startup drive, then click on Verify Disk Permissions.
• Delete the preferences for the malfunctioning program. Check both the Home→Library→Preferences and the Library→Preferences folders.
• Finally, test whether the problem is local to the current user or system wide by creating a new user (this is a good idea to do anyway). If things work as the new user then you know the problem is not specific to the program but a problem with your particular setup.

Gary from San Diego has a problem saving jpeg pictures in Windows
MS has a fix for this (there are multiple causes) in its Knowledge Base.

Selma in Buena Park needs a digital camera that performs well in low-light and will provide high quality output for capturing documents in genealogy libaries. Long exposure times with a tripod will help accomplish this task. I recommend cameras from Olympus, Cannon, and Nikon. The Olympus 5060 may be just what you need.

Pamela in Los Angeles wants to delete cookies and temporary Internet files to protect her privacy at work. You can do this manually, of course, but it’s much easier to use a program that will do this automatically every time you log off. Read our article on the Call for Help web site for more information. Remember though that if your work chooses to monitor your computer usage, they can do so at the server. Many businesses spy on their employees. It’s perfectly legal to do so, and in some cases they may even have an obligation to make sure you’re on the up and up at work.