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Sunday, 14 January, 2007

Tech News

Show Audio

11a-Noon

Q Rob from Pasadena - Setting up a podcast for a church

He wants to find something that will automatically generate an RSS feed for the mp3 files. On windows, Leo recommends Feed For All. If you already have a blog and link to your mp3 files, the RSS feed is already done for you. Use a service called FeedBurner to make it into an RSS feed.

Q Antonio from Maryland - Getting a new Mac and running Vista

The graphics chipset in a Macbook is an integrated Intel GMA950 chip. The chip was specifically designed to run Vista at the minimum specs. The Macbook will only run the Aero interface by using Boot Camp. When you use Boot Camp, you’re pretty much running a PC. Leo’s friend David Pogue has written a book called Mac OSX Tiger: Missing Manual.

Q Diane from Los Angeles - HP tech support call gone wrong

During a call with Indian HP tech support, they made her use system recovery. However, they didn’t remind her to back up all her data. The tech support people took the short cut, and should be sued for not telling you to back up the data. Our sponsor, Make it Work will help you out.

Noon-1p

Q Kurt - Error when using Spybot: Search and Destroy

The Spybot immunization feature does lock down a few key system files that are commonly modified. MMC may be trying to edit one of those files. Try turning off one of the immunization feature. Defragmentation isn’t particularly necessary for the computer anyways. It’s such a generic error. Spybot sometimes turns off the “decom” service and that needs to be turned on.

Q Georgie - Control Panel wasn’t showing up

He had a tech support problem. The second time he got ahold of tech support, they gave him a program that fixed it. That program was a simple registry command.

Q Sherri from Pittsburgh - 5 1/4″ drive to Parallel port

She’s trying to read a 5.25″ disk. Read up at oldcomputers.net to find out how to make a 5.25″ cable to connect to the parallel port.

Q Mike from Glendale - New printers

You can buy a $12 USB to parallel printer converter. If you really need networking, look for a networked printer.

Q Mike from San Diego - Completely uninstalling Symantec

There is a tutorial here. They may have made it hard to remove because viruses will try to uninstall it. Changing your behavior is probably the most important method to prevent viruses. Leo uses Firefox with the NoScript addon.

1–2p

Q Pat - Tech support

He’s been working in the tech support area for years. He states that many people in the industry aren’t tech pundits. He recommends paying the extra money for a better warranty in order to get better tech support. The problem is that people want cheap prices, and don’t know that they are sacrificing certain elements. He also does his own music podcast.

Q Joe from Pomona - Getting errors everywhere Windows 2000

It sounds pretty badly damaged. If you had data on the hard drive, Spinrite may be able to recover it. However, it sounds like the hard drive hasn’t failed yet. Copy the data to another drive.

Q Network connection and sound dying in Windows XP

It could be an interrupt conflict. A situation like this usually calls for a driver update.

Q Chaz from San Diego - GeeXboX machine

His power supply isn’t working correctly with his motherboard. The connectors should be normal on the ATX motherboard. Ignore the auxilary ports you don’t know the function of. Leo’s not sure what it is. It may be fried.

Q Dave - Video streaming slow/Firefox not working well

As the Internet got faster, a lot of playback software began playing files as it downloaded. It is completely normal. The speed is not fast enough.