Sunday, 25 February 2007

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Tech News

Microsoft will have to pay $1.5 billion to a company Alcatel-Lucent over an mp3 patent dispute. Leo thinks this is a bogus lawsuit just because Microsoft has deep pockets; Alcatel-Lucent had also sued Dell and Gateway. They also are suing Microsoft over voice and video decoding technology in the Xbox 360. On the other hand, Microsoft is appealing the ruling.

The folks from the torrent tracker The Pirate Bay have set up a site, Oscartorrents, illegally download all the movies that have been nominated for the Oscars. There, people can also vote on their favorite movies. The Pirate Bay loves to jeer at companies who own the original copyrights.

Amber Macarthur stopped by to talk about Gmail going public. That means you no longer need invitations to join in. There was a point in time a few years ago when Gmail invites were selling on eBay for very high prices. It is possible to chat within Gmail using Gtalk. You also have access to Google Docs and Spreadsheets within Gmail. Google has an application to get Gmail from your phone.

Leo has been testing the Archos 404.

There are some very interesting results in Google’s hard drive survey. They are seeing failures of 8%! Steve Gibson says that it is not cost effective to make an ultra reliable hard drive. People are also now beginning to store much of their lives on their hard drives. Always back up your data!

Gadgets

Contact Ronald at: ronald@usa.net

The Kinoma Player will let you stream almost anything to your Palm device.

Cingular’s BlackJack is something between T-Mobile’s Dash and Verizon’s Motorola Q. It has the capability to access Cingular

Hour 1

Q Mark from Tuston - Cheaper alternative to Dreamweaver

• Some free solutions
  • May be as good
• Nvu is freeware
  • Just updated version of Netscape composer
• Adobe Contribute much cheaper than Dreamweaver
  • Nvu/Contribute/Dreamweaver are WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get)
• May want to check out TypePad or Wordpress
  • Form based content management systems
  • Can easily edit pages
    • Don’t have to worry about HTML

Q Ben from New York - Sorting folders on top of files in OSX

• wants to emulate Windows organization on MacBook Pro
  • List folders first, then files
• Can change to detailed view
  • Option to change sorting
• Pathfinder is alternate to Finder
• Default Folder X customizes many attributes of the Finder.

Q John from Los Angeles - Partitioning hard drive to dual boot Windows XP/Vista

• Some of his apps won’t work with Vista
• Easiest way to do this
  • Clean drive, install XP, then install Vista
    • Vista installation allows you to partition
    • XP installation makes XP default OS
• Gparted Linux LiveCD will partition without booting into Windows
• Can buy VMWare or Parallels

Hour 2

Q Marty - Webcam recommendation for Skype

• Son going on world tour
• All new Macs have built-in iSight
• If he has DV camcorder, can plug it in using Firewire to use
• Logitech QuickCam Ultra Vision for PC
  • Has built-in microphone
• Drivers available for OSX to use USB webcams

Q Don - XP Home can’t access XP Pro computer (network)

• Any security software will block incoming connections
• Disable security software
  • If it works, see what port to unblock.
    • Usually port 139

Q Kevin from Malibu - Listening to KFI on iTunes

• Wants to use Airport Express to play stream around house
• KFI does Windows Media stream
  • Not compatible with iTunes
• Download Flip4Mac to play Windows Media components
• Perian introduces several other codecs to Quicktime.
• Mac OSX Hints has tutorial to play Windows Media streams
  • Won’t work with Airtunes
  • Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil will transmit any audio from computer to AirTunes

Q Riley from Oregon - Pentium Dual Core?

• HP Pavilion computer has Pentium “DUal Core”
• Unannounced chip by Intel
  • Budget
• Only 1MB L2 cache
• Essentially Core Duo with half cache
• Leo recommends it over AMD Turion

Q Bob from Lafayette- Laptop DVD audio stuttering

• Probably to do with sound generation
• If computer can’t keep up with encoded data, audio will stutter
• Autoruns will show all processes running
• Try reinstalling Windows.
• After reinstall
  • Get rid of junk
  • Turn on Windows Firewall
  • Download Service Pack 2 prior to reinstallation & burn to disc

Hour 3

Q Sean - Switching to FeedBurner without losing subscribers

• Wants to get statistics
• Feedburner pulls off original RSS
• Promote new feed
  • Original feed still works
• iTunes has their own RSS namespace.

Q Ted - Installing Linux on a laptop for simple tasks

• Wants to surf the web ‘safely’
• Linux gone a long way since 1994
• Open source
• Various companies create distributions
• Ubuntu is Leo’s choice.
  • Will even send you a free disc
  • Install starts on a LiveCD
    • Allows you to check compatibility before install
• Moving to Ubuntu book helps with switch.

Q John - Reducing podcast file sizes to save bandwidth

• Church wants to do podcasting
• Make podcasts mono
  • Only need mono for voice
  • Cuts size in half
• Try 32–64 kbps
  • May even try 16 kbps
• Record in WAV, then compress

Q Ted from Studio City - Windows 98 install not working

• Trying to downgrade from Windows ME
  • ME not allowing it
• Try to boot off floppy
• Can create DOS boot floppy
  • type in format C:
    • Will format hard drive
• Should be able to boot into command prompt during hard disk boot process by pushing Shift+F8