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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Sunday 12 August 2007
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Contributors
Chris Marquardt - Tips from the Top Floor
- If you don’t hold the camera completely straight when taking a photo of architechture means that the perspective get’s scewed and it looks like the image is falling backwards or forth. This is known as falling lines. It’s easy to correct by using “lense correct” in your favourite Image editing software.
- Also make sure you keep horizontal lines straight. If a water surface is even half a degree tilted it will feel wrong. Keep water surfaces and horizons horizontal.
- As with any rule, if your going to break it, make sure you know your going to break it and you break it right.
Ron Rosberg - The Gadget Guru
RiData Yego EZdrive USB 2.0 Flash Drive/Hub
1 gig $17
2 gig $30
4 gig $50
Provides security for your hard drive. Available at Amazon.com CompUSA.com and Walmart.com
Handmark’s Pocket Express (Now with “New Express Travel”) - My most used program on my handhelds!!!
Tech News
Apple released the new iMacs on Tuesday at a press conference, despite people’s worries over Apple dropping the name “computers” from Apple Computers Inc.
The new iMac has a new redesign, which looks more modern. Apple have great designers. It makes the previous models look “old”. It’s also faster than previous models, which however still doesn’t have the fastest graphics card in there.
Apple also launched the new iLife ‘08 package, which now includes an updated iMovie along with the iWork ‘08 package which now includes a spreadsheet.
iWork is now Apple’s real thrust at Microsoft… and for just $79. It’s a great alternative to Microsoft Office for Mac users. An iWork trial is available from the Apple website.
The audience Apple is looking at, which is the home family is still fine for most users. Leo will have a review of the new iMac as well as iLife ‘08 and iWork ‘08 on next Saturday’s show (379).
Hour 1
- There are many Digg like content management systems out there now, like Pligg if you want to run a community. Other content management systems such as Drupal can be expanded to add that functionality.
Q Karin in Los Angeles, California
- Skype phone’s are really only made for Home and Office… it’s not made to be used at public wifi spots that you pay on the go for. If you go to lots of places with Open access points, it would be fine.
- Get a USB wifi card for your Linux Laptop… once your laptop is online using the wifi, setup a peer-to-peet AdHoc network. This allows you to use the phone via the laptop.
- As long as you don’t need to use a browser to logon to the wireless network, then it will work fine. However the battery isn’t very good, so you need to recharge it every few hours via USB.
Leo is impressed that Karin is using PC Linux OS, and she prefers the command line. Leo believes that she is definately a geek and she should stop in Las Vegas next year for the hacker convention.
- There is a boot log in Windows which you can find in the boot menu (press F8 when you boot). Select the “Boot with boot log” option. You can then find the log in the root (usually C:) directory.
- Once you look at the log… where it says “starting driver” on the last line of that log, is the one that’s causing a problem.
- Bootlog.txt is a hidden file, so make sure you turn hidden files on.
- Also make sure the fan on the card is turning, and that the card isn’t overheating. You really just want a fan at the front of the machine pulling air in, and one at the back pushing air out. Make sure no cables are in the way.
- Make sure that the video card is getting a good power supply. Also make sure you have a good power supply box in the box.
Hour 2
- Firewire can short out quite often… It sounds like a hardware problem and it may be fried. You need to be careful on what way you put the Firewire port in.
- You may also have too much stuff running off that Mac. It could be a problem with the Logic board.
Question 2:
- Make sure all updates are installed to solve the G5 freeze up issue. Apple constantly updates the software to tweak the fan speed. Make sure you get the latest critical backups.
- Menu Meter will keep check on everything and allow you to monitor them on the menu bar. It’s a free program from RagingMenance. Also take a look at iStat which is a dashboard widget.
- Leo likes the Panasonic cameras. The LZ7 is a good camera, and Leo suggests taking a look at the reviews at DigitalCamera Info as they go into detail and give great reviews.
- The point and shoot is not greatly accurate… if you get used to shooting by looking at the LCD then you will have better photo’s.
- Some of these cameras don’t do so great in daylight. Ask a camera store if you can take it outside and see how it is in daylight.
- You can buy a phone number from Skype which allows people to ring you from a normal phone. This is called . If you want to call normal landlines, you need to get .
- Skype is best for computer to computer, but it can be used as a VoIP service.
- Also take a look at AIM Phoneline which gives you a free number anywhere in the US and for $14.99 a month you can make unlimited outgoing calls to any cell or landline in the US.
Q Frank from Woodland Hills, California
- When skipping occurs on iTunes, it usually means that the computer is too overloaded.
- It may be a driver issue… take a look for any updated Audio Card Drivers and check the Dell site for any newer drivers, and even if you have the latest, try installing new ones incase.
- The machine may cause bad background audio, so try using USB. The Plantronics DSP400 is an excelent USB mic… and the reason it works better is because the transfer from Analogue to Digital is done in the device itself not in the computer.
- A humm may be coming from a ground-loop.
Hour 3
- Take a look at Adobe Lightroom which is made for the professional photographer. It edits the whole regigion but is much better to use for photographers than Adobe Photoshop.
- Take a look at the Photoshop Lightroom Adventure book, which is a great book that Leo recommends.
- Lightroom would be great for sharpening, cropping and changing the lighting balances for Nature pictures. It’s Windows or Mac. You should possibly consider taking a look at a Mac.
- Color management is built into OSX, whereas in Windows it’s an after thought. However if your looking for a reliable machine, look at a Dell machine. Photoshop is a real memory hog so look for at 4gb of RAM. Stick to Windows XP. Look at the XPS systems from Dell. Get a Core 2 Duo, possibly get a 2 processor system. Get a good graphics card and stick with your EIZO monitor.
- Simply open the document and select all of the content (simply press Command A on a Mac).
- You can look at the templates in the new Microsoft Office to see if there are any templates similar to the one you used, and also check on the origional cd and see if there is a .dot file.
- You can safely install the previous version of Word and it will run just fine in a different folder.
- Look in the templates folder in the old version of Word and it should be there.
- In digital cameras, the film is replaced by a chip and storage card. Traditionally CCD and CMOS chips are used in these cameras and they catch the color intensity.
- The Foveon X3 Chip has issues with color reproduction and has been a disappointment. Only a couple of manufacturers are using these as not many companies are accepting them.
A demo picture gallery shows that the pictures are very grainy.
- Make sure you didn’t download the Japanese versions of Skype and iTunes… but this is very strange.
- The computer must be signalling to the installers to use a Japanese Language pack… you can find instructions on how to change the OS Language to English here.
- They probably want you to use special recording hardware.
- Call whoever you bought it from and ask them if it requires 64bit recording devices.
