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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Sunday 18 March 2007
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Leo’s son was driving him nuts with this flash game call Line Rider. It is incredibly addicting. The purpose of the game is to draw a “slope” and a little character sleds down the curve. Do a search for Linerider on Youtube and you’ll see videos of people’s lines. This proves that a good game doesn’t necessarily need stunningly realistic 3D graphics, but so long as it is fun and simplistic, it shall succeed.
In fact, some people have gotten so addicted to videogames that they sometimes forget to take care of themselves. In South Korea where high speed Internet is ubiquitous and the culture has spread so far through, there have been instances where people have died in video game sessions.
The creators of several sim games are developing a game called Spore which Leo thinks will take over the lives of thousands more people. You create creatures from the beginning and basically command the lives of them. You are basically God in the game, and details haven’t been completely released yet, but somehow these creatures are to interact with others online.
Viacom is suing YouTube/Google for $1 billion. They are saying that Google is posting tens of thousands of copyrighted clips that had been viewed 1.5 billion times that made Google lots of money and that users are still uploading clips. You can’t look at a clip and automatically decide if the copyright holder wants it shared or not. Google is claiming that they are following the DMCA which states that their only responsibility is to take the content off as soon as they have been asked to: which they have done. If YouTube prevails, copyright holders will start to have a harder time on the Internet. Some say that Viacom simply wants to strike a better deal with YouTube.
Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan now has an interactive digital mirror where people can try on clothes virtually on the mirror and then people can comment on the website.
Twitter is all about posting random tidbits from your life. You can update and receive updates from your cell phone, IM client, a variety of applications, or even the web. Twittervision makes TWitter even more addicting. It is a mashup between Twitter and Google Maps. Track Leo, Shooby, and even presidential candidate John Edwards.
Guests
Q Rick Alber: Amazon’s Mechanical Turk
- Amazon already has 2 other strong services
- Mechanical Turk gathers the power of humans to do tasks that computers cannot do
- Can submit HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks)
- You set price you’re willing to pay
- Anybody can then accept the job, and if done correctly, you pay
- Like outsourcing service
- For jobs too small to hire
- For example
- Someone paid 5 cents to tag pictures
- Then someone paid 3 cents to check work
- Then someone else paid for file work
- Even high end, but mundane, work sometimes offloaded to Mechanical Turk
Q Ron Rossberg: Monoprice cables/Jawbone headset
- Jawbone noise canceling Bluetooth headsets
Q Scott Wilkinson: LCD vs. Plasma
- It depends
- Each has pros/cons
- Plasma pros
- Better/deeper blacks
- Wider viewing angle
- Generally cheaper in larger sizes
- Plasma cons
- Can have burn in problems
- Usually lower resolution than LCD
- LCD pros
- No real burn in problems
- Better in brighter environments
- Have back light that shines through LCD crystals
- LCD cons
- Narrow viewing angle
- colors shift, black levels/contrast drops
- Washed out blacks
- Sometimes have motion lag
- Narrow viewing angle
- LCD better in ambient light situation
- Leo has Sharp Aquos LCD in living room & Pioneer plasma in bedroom
Hour 1
Q Steve from Long Beach - Connecting 2 monitors to one video card head
- Doesn’t have second head
- Could get new video card with 2 heads
- Matrox has device called DualHead2Go
- external dongle that connects to single video card head
- splits the video head
- based on idea that one video card can handle much higher resolution
- Look up how much RAM is on video card
Q Bill - “Mirar” where toolbar is
- Nephew got spyware installed
- Possible to remove toolbar
- Symantec also has set of instructions
- Removal instructions don’t always work
- Spyware constantly changing
Q Tim from San Diego - Setting up user-based access on free WiFi
- Has coffee house with free Wifi
- Wants to have splash page with login requiring password
- With password printed on receipt
- So only customers can use WiFi
- Wants to have splash page with login requiring password
- You need Linksys WRT54G router
- Insanely hackable
- HowtoForge has tutorial explaining entire process
- If need more help, go to IRC server
irc.freenode.netchannel#dd-wrt - Can use iBoss to filter Internet
Hour 2
Q Michelle - Staying connected while traveling
- There’s a Starbucks in every city pretty much
- Verizon has EVDO cards
- Alongside an EVDO card, can get a smartphone with WiFi and EVDO
- Samsung i730
- Verizon XV6700
- Verizon apparently has a 5gb cap on the EVDO service
Q Troy from Napoleonville, LA - Moving to Windows Vista
- Wants to have dual primary hard drives to boot off different hard drives
- XP and Vista don’t have to be on “C:\” drive
- XP needs boot loader on its own partition
- Reconnect both drives, reinstall Vista
- should put boot loader on XP drive
Q Harry from Lancaster - Keeps running low on virtual memory
- Want at least 150% of RAM amount for virtual memory
- Should have 1gb of virtual RAM
- Machine uses virtual memory when physical RAM gone
- But hard drive very slow
- Let Windows automatically manage virtual memory
Q Jodie from Lafayette - Games for blind people
- Uses Allinplay to play card games over the Internet
- But sighted people can still play
- Only $8 a month
Q Eric from Bakersfield - Security on websites
- Has put medical information in subdirectory on web server
- By not telling anybody about it, you have security by obscurity
- Still chance that someone looking for it may find it or search engine may spider it
- Want to have a blank index.html page in directory
- If want to keep accessible, keep password protected
- Check .htaccess and robots.txt
Hour 3
Q Tom from Seal Beach - iPhantom needs to be updated?
- Probably should be updated
- Behavior is the most important thing
- Don’t worry about turning off the Internet connection
- Need to protect against yourself
Q Mike from San Diego - Aftermarket bluetooth car speakerphone
- A few solutions
- Motorola IHF1000
- Parrot Rhythm N’ Blue
- Crutchfield Alpine Bluetooth set
- Likes Save Harold
- Similar to hangman
Q Gary - Organizing thousands of songs
- Media Monkey will allow you to organize music
- Will even be able to print playlists
Q Lani from California City - Firefox problem
- Image with two arrows and circle appearing when Firefox freezes
- Logo similar to Sleep Number logo
- McAfee Security Center = worthless
- You’re accidentally pushing the scroll wheel which shows that logo which allows you to scroll
