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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Saturday 24 March 2007
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
My thumbnail review of the new Apple TV: four out of five stars. It’s easy to use, works as advertised, is completely silent, but the “hi-def” video from Apple’s store doesn’t look great on my 50″ HDTV. $299 from Apple.
I also just bought the SMC Skype phone. The bundle includes a La Fonera router. So far, no love from the phone. It won’t join my WPA protected home Wi-Fi network. I’ll give you a more thorough review as soon as I can get it working properly. (UPDATE: A firmware update from SMC fixed the problem. The phone works very very well. And it automatically downloads my Skype contacts. Neat!)
Vonage may be in jeopardy. A judge has ruled it will have to stop using patented technology that supposedly belongs to Verizon.
Hour 1
Q Ed from Rhode Island - Getting Files from Mac Outlook
Unfortunately Outlook for Mac was for OS 9 only. Apple no longer supports OS 9 and Microsoft no longer supports Outlook for the Mac. But here’s a Microsoft import tool that will covert the Outlook files into Entourage. (Thanks to jayb from chat for this link!)
This is a perfect example of why I push for open file formats - when they’re proprietary you risk losing the ability to access it. The UNIX mbox format is safer - but Microsoft doesn’t support it. Nor does Apple Mail.
Mac Consultant Bruce Brown suggests ImportServer.
John from www.justfreesoftware.com suggests this article.
Brett opines (via Twitter that it’s a flip4mac setting. Not sure which one, though!
Q Brian in LA - backup before installing Vista
He’s using Sonic to make the backup but he can’t tell if he’s getting all his files. That’s my problem with backup programs. I prefer just copying data to an external hard drive or CD or DVD. You can see your files and folders, spot check them, and even restore them just by copying them back. I recommend copying the My Documents folder every Sunday. Then make a big backup of everything every month.
I do use a drive imaging program called Drive Snapshot to make an image of my complete installation from time to time. You can still look inside these images and retrieve individual files (one of the reasons I like Drive Snapshot) and in this case if Vista doesn’t work out you’ll be able to restore XP in just a few minutes.
Q Alex in the UK - using MythTV
That’s the excellent free Linux-based DVR software. Easiest way to install it is with the Knoppmyth distro. He was having trouble getting the IRBlaster working on his DISH receiver. I know the lead developer for Knoppmyth is a listener - so maybe he’ll email me with a suggestion!
Hour 2
Q Darryl in Mission Viejo - Missing 20GB
He has a 320GB hard drive but only sees around 300GB. That’s due to the decimal vs binary difference. Computers work in binary but hard drive manufacturers prefer to measure their hard drives in decimal because they sound bigger. So, for example a gigabyte in binary is 2^30 or 1,073,741,824 bytes. In decimal it’s only 1,000,000,000. 320GB in decimal is really only 298GB in binary. HP also reserves several gigs as a hidden partition.
PC Guide explains this more thoroughly.
Q Tom in Maui - why does my Internet radio keep buffering?
He’s listening to the show on the net. Works fine in one room, but the Macbook Pro he set up in the kitchen is constantly buffering. He’s using a 50-foot ethernet cable. That could be one problem (although CAT-5 should go much longer than that). Maybe it’s the way Apple is handling the streaming Windows data?
You might want to look at an Internet radio - C Crane sells a great one.
Q Scott in LA - is it time to buy N?
802.11n is still in draft, but ratification is not far off. I don’t think the final standard will be too different. So if you buy an 802.11n draft router today it’s likely it will work fine with the final version - perhaps with a firmware upgrade. My advice: if you’re buying a new Wi-Fi router today, buy 802.11n. I bought the Apple Airport Extreme and it works well, but Merlin Mann had to return his. Linksys and Belkin make the best draft-n routers.
Hour 3
Q Greg in El Segundo - Bluetooth won’t work on my Moto MPx220
His computer says “No Bluetooth Found” even the phone is set to be discoverable. Try removing the battery to reset the phone. If that doesn’t work the antenna or chip may be damaged.
Q Larry in Palmdale - reading old Jaz disks
He’s got an Iomega Jaz drive and wants to recover the data off the disks, but it’s got a SCSI connector. Adaptec makes a USB to SCSI adapter, but it’s Windows only. Someone must make one that appears as a USB Mass Storage device!
Q Rob in Yorba Linda - Quitting programs on a timer
He’s a network sysadmin who backsup the desktops to a Buffalo Terastation NAS, and via VPN to a duplicate NAS offsite (good man!) but he can’t backup the Lotus Vanguard files when the program is running. How can he automatically shut down the program before the automated backups. I’d look at the new Windows Powershell - you could write a handy backup script that could do everything on schedule.
Q Andrew in Troy - Mac or Vista
He’s graduating from high school and is trying to decide what kind of laptop to buy for a graduation present. It depends on your budget of course, but the question is no longer should I choose OS X or Vista, it’s who should I buy my hardware from. Dell’s great but you can only run Windows or Linux on it. If you buy an Apple laptop you can run those (using Apple’s Bootcamp or Parallels) and OS X. If you can afford it, a Macbook Pro is my favorite laptop on the market today.
