Leo Laporte
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Saturday, 20 January, 2007
Keep those calls acomin’! Even though the show ends at 2p Pacific. I’ll be answering your questions through 4p today. We’re pre-taping for Sunday, February 4th.
1–800–520–1534
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Read up on the history of 802.11 wireless networking.
802.11n, though unratified as of now, has a 540 Mbit/s throughput, runs on 2.4GHz or 5GHz, and has a much larger range than 802.11g.
Draft 2.0 for 802.11n has moved forward. This is yet another step towards a final draft. However, if you haven’t bought an 802.11n router yet, wait for the Draft 2.0 routers.
Apple has included 802.11n chips in the new Core 2 Duo machines, but to receive the patch upgrade, they will have to charge you $1.99 for accounting purposes.
Five Things to Do to Protect Yourself
1. Don’t open email attachments; even if it’s from someone you know. If you do get something from someone you know, make sure that they really sent it to you.
2. Don’t click links in email. That link could lead you to a phishing site, or the link may lead you to install malicious software. Copy and paste links instead. You can avoid this if you disable HTML email. Use plain text email.
3. Don’t download files from places you aren’t absolutely sure are safe. Stick with the well known sites.
4. Update regularly! There are problems with software that occur. If there’s a patch out, you better apply it. Even MySpace can infect you. There was once a banner ad that had malicious code that took advantage of an Internet Explorer flaw that Microsoft had already patched. However, over a million people still got infected.
5. It is absolutely necessary to have a firewall. The best firewall is a hardware firewall: your router. It keeps your system clean of worms. There are worms that are network viruses. If you don’t have a firewall on the Net, the worms will get you right away. You can also turn on the Windows or OSX firewall.
11a-Noon
Q Nicole from Arizona - BlipTV vs. Revver
People are telling her to move her video podcast to Revver because they share their revenue. She is not getting true numbers, however, from Revver. Advertisers usually pay by the download. One reason why some of the numbers are inflated is because Microsoft has a download system called BITS that will open several streams for one download. Leo asks $70 per thousand downloads. Sometimes, you can get a direct response ad which uses a coupon code or 800 number to call.
Q Kelani from Canyon Lake - Fake website about her organization
The first thing you want to do is a whois on the site using something like AJAX Whois or Better Whois. It will give you an email address and phone number. Try to get ahold of the person and ask them to take down the site. If they don’t write a respond, you may need to send a legal threat. In the case that doesn’t work, you can go to the registrar or webhost and tell them of your situation.
We all know that the Internet is dangerous. The idea is to take whatever is accessing the Internet and putting it inside a software “shell”. He is looking at Sandboxie. Leo is starting to recommend behavorial changes rather than antiviruses and such.
Noon-1p
Q Ventura from Fresno - Software firewalls/Cleaning off old computer
Software firewalls are incredibly intrusive. All you really need is a hardware firewall that will protect you from inbound connections. However, you can keep the Windows firewall on.
Q Josh from Tennessee - Mac WEP support/PC WPA support
His Windows machines won’t support WPA for some reason. However, Macs do support WEP. You need a WEP key generator. Leo thinks you should update your Windows PCs to support WPA. In the mean time, keep using WEP. Steve Gibson has a “perfect” password.
Christian writes:
I’m just listening to your KFI Tech Guy 319 podcast and I have a comment regarding WEP on OS X.
If a mac refuses to connect to a WEP encrypted network, just put a dollar sign in front of the key when connecting. That worked for me when my mac refused to connect to a WEP network with the key “aaffcdebbc”. I can confirm that this works on a Core Duo MacBook and my Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro. I had a late 2005 Powerbook 12″ before that, and I think I solved it with a dollar sign on that machine too. I’m not sure, I did it long enough ago not to remember it when I got my MBP.
Now, I don’t remember which way this worked, if os x expects the WEP key in hex and the dollar sign tells it that it’s ascii you’re feeding or if it’s the other way around. Anyway, it works.
That’s one of the things I hope they fixed in Leopard. You should really be able to enter network passkeys in any format you like without problems.
Greetings from Finland (yes, you do have listeners here too) ;)
Q Bronsan from Texas - 40 to 42″ LCD TV
Leo loves Samsung. What you’re looking for is the processor that they use for upscaling. Leo is also a Sharp Aquos fan. For reviews, go to PC Magazine.
Q Kevin from Fresno - Tips to diagnose computer problems over the phone
He recently received a job as a tech support guy. The difference between Leo’s and your own job is that Leo simply has to give pointers whereas you have to stay with the person till the problem is solved. Don’t follow the cookie cutter decision trees that you are given; listen to the problem intently.
1–2p
He didn’t receive restore discs, but got a card with a serial number and directions to create restore discs. This is what some companies do: they create a hidden partition that has the recovery disc content. You should still be able to do it. Creating a disc will simply copy the files from the partition to the disc. Only when you use the disc is when you lose all your data.
Q Dale from Los Angeles - Frame vs. asynchronous broadband modems
Frame is the older technology. ATM is perhaps a little more efficient and faster. The provisioning for the phone line is Verizon, but your DSL company is DSL Extreme. Verizon should change your line to ATM and provision the line for DSL.
Q Mitchell from Sherman Oaks - Motorola Q vs. LG EnV
He wants to get the EnV, but it doesn’t support “push” email. Leo doesn’t know of any way to hack it so it supports push. Verizon has a sync service that is nearly push email. With the EnV, however, you are limited to Java for applications. The 700w and Blackberry 8700 are great choices as well. In Leo’s opinion, the Blackberry 8700 (T-Mobile or Verizon) is the best choice.
Adobe Reader cannot “connect” to finish downloading after installing NOD32. Try out Foxit. However, if the particular program of yours is demanding Adobe Reader then you’re stuck. We should all write letters to Adobe and ask them to stop it. Also, you can try disabling NOD32. The oldest version Adobe offers is 6.0.1, try getting that.
Q Steve - New receiver made speakers sound different
He’s wondering if replacing the speakers would make everything sound better. Technology has certainly changed things. The thing is that they’re using new materials. Speakers nowadays have a more open and accurate sound, but that’s personal.
