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Saturday 22 September 2007

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Scott Wilkinson - CEDIA Part 1

CEDIA is the second biggest show of the year for people in Scott’s business. The booths are generally the same people you see at bigger shows. There are also furniture businesses there.

Scott does have a home theatre where you press a button and a curtain opens. Scott saw alot of things at CEDIA that he just had to have.

At CEDIA there are alot of projectors usually, but at this CEDIA, Scott saw a 1920 x 1080 projector that was faily down in price compared to earlier projectors. Most 1080p Projectors are in the $3000 to $4000 range. You do however also need to buy a screen, and those are usually between $500 to $2000. Most lamps will last 2000 up to 5000 hours. Lamps are usually about $300 to replace. Scott was very impressed with the Epson and Optimum LCD Projectors. The only problem with the Optimums was, they didn’t have a lense shift, so it’s very important where you place them.

Scott Wilkinson - CEDIA Part 2

There was a 3D TV from Texas Instruments. It was also on some TV’s in the Samsung booth. Some movies are being made in 3D, but you do have to wear some glasses. Their not the standard Red and Blue 3D glasses, but these are LCD screens. One eye is opaque and the other is not. These are wireless.

There’s a little thing sitting on the TV that omits an IR signal. It then open and closes the glasses depending on certain parts of the movie. The depth is really cool. Virtually all video games have 3D information stored. Scott thinks that this is where it will first be made big. However there are more and more movies being made in 3D effects. You can still watch them in 2D if you don’t wear the glasses. These are alot better than the R&B glasses that give you a headache.

THX also has a new technology known as Blackbird. The idea is the fact that all the different sources of audio require different settings in AV Recievers and TV’s, and users aren’t going to see the best that all these sources can provide. What THX’s Blackbird has created is a little tag of information saying which source it’s coming from. It then automates all the controls, and the user can sit back and relax.

Some of Samsung’s LCD new panels now use LED’s which power on faster and can be sectioned on in certain parts of the screen, which means that it will brighten only where it’s nesissary. They should be shipping in the near future. There will also be laser illumination from Mitsibishi.

Dick Debartolo - Unusual toothbrush

Dick has found an OralB toothbrush that has an LCD toothbruth. It works as a digital clock, but as soon as you turn on your toothbrush, it starts a timer and a little circle comes up that shows you how long to spend on each quadrant of your mouth. When you have finished each quadrant, a smiley face pops up. If you are brushing too hard, a red triangle comes up warning you. It also tells you when it’s time to change the brush.

Dentists say you should change your brush every three months. The whole system is a little expensive becuase it’s $149 because it’s new. Becuase it’s such a premium product, they only give you one brush, but they give you a charger that gives you 4 stands.

Tech News

It’s the 25th anniversiary of the :-) Smiley. It predates the world wide web. In 1982 only 1000 people had access to the internet. In 1982 they were already wondering about expressing yourself and making it clear your only joking. The creator believes no one invented that before his origional post, but it’s always possible that someone came up with it before him. Leo prefers the ;) winkey. Some people who wear glasses prefer 8-). There are lots of ways to express sadness such as :( the sad face. Alot of grown ups who are new to the internet feel this is childish. Leo uses ‘smileys’ alot. You wouldn’t use it in a business. If you use it too much, no one believes that you are a serious person.

You can read more at the Wikipedia article on Emoticons.

Leo believes that it’s games that is keeping hardware evolving. In three days Halo 3 is going to be the hottest game of the year, and people are going to need to have the latest hardware. It always makes Leo nervous when he see’s ingame ads that say things such as “Works better with Nvidea” in Bioshock, whereas that is not the case. Maybe Nvidea are paying them to make sure it’s not working with older video cards?

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Hour 1

Q Robert - Unable to sign into Fantasy Football

Make sure you have exactly the right password. Sometimes people use an L instead of an I or a 1, and a 0 instead of an O.

Another thing to make sure is you have cleared cookies. Usually in Firefox and most browsers you can browse the cookies.

It is very strange and rare, but possible that the router is blocking secure login (SSL) ports on 443. If you are using a firewall such as Norton, then try turning that off and unblocking the port.

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Hour 2

Q Mark from Santa Anna - System is slow… What are the system files?

Leo thinks you need to check what these large system files. Leo thinks what you need to do is a search for files larger than 10gb. You could also check for Spyware, Malware and especially Rootkits. Leo likes Space Monger becuase it tells you where you have wasted space. On the Mac there is also Disk Inventory X. The idea is you can look at files, and it shows how big they are using colored blocks.

Mark is wondering how he can know if slipstream files is for SP2 from the I386 directory is. The best idea is to make sure that it’s got all the SP2 files in it from nLite. Seeing as your going to use it anyway, make sure it’s updates and has all the hotfixes in there. You can then compare the Hotfixes to the ones from Microsoft.

If a bad guy takes over your system, there’s alot of things they can do with it. There’s an estimated 1 million computers that have been taken over by bad guys and the users don’t know it. In the old days, a virus or trojan would make fun of you by doing funny things and playing with you. These days, they don’t want you to know. Most commonly is forwarding emails, or downloading and uploading files. Most spam comes from Russia and Eastern Europe, but most the computers that are forwarding them are US computers. Another thing they do is what’s known as a DDOS (Denial of Service) attack. A rootkit program allows a bad guy to hide a load of files on your system from the operating system. But if there’s alot of space missing, then it could well be a rootkit.

There’s an article on Lifehacker.com that has instructions on seeing if your computer is secretly connecting to the internet.

Q Ray in California - New Battery on Laptop is having issues

There could be a problem with the charger. There could also be a bad battery, you could try getting one from a different store. Leo personally believes it is the battery. Another possibility is the fact that the interface between the computer and the battery is broken.

Q Mary in Whittier from California - What is a good first time computer?

The classes you are taking are generally for learning how the computer is used in business, and learning things like the Microsoft Office suite.

A Mac is a great computer for the home. Leo recommends Macs for alot of reasons. No viruses or spyware, so that’s a whole area you don’t have to think about. All the zombie computers out there are mostly Windows.

Leo would also recommend iWork becuase it’s easier to use than Microsoft Office. In your area, look for a usergroup, they would be able to help you alot. What you’ll find in a usergroup is people who love technology. You will find someone who’s a little older, and will take your time to teach you how to use it.

To buy a computer, go to a usergroup and ask them what you should get. Get your support together before buying your computer. You should call 310–289–7177 which is a call group in Whittier. They are a Mac usergroup.

There is also an Apple page for usergroups at Apple.com’s Usergroups finder

Q Adam from Nashville - Help with DRM on a HDCP monitor

You found a flaw in the scheme that the MPAA has come up with. The whole system needs to be compatible with High Definition Digital Rights Management. The MPAA presumes that your stealing from them. It’s up to us to proove that we’re not.

The impact of this is completely negative, and all it does it teach people how to bypass DRM.

Leo thinks that it’s the design of the TV that’s the problem. Leo doesn’t know what the problem is. Try using Analogue from the box instead of HDMI. The quality won’t drop. That’s a crappy solution, but it seems it may be the only way to do it.

If Comcast has done it right, unless you have used HDCP, then it’s supposed to downgrade it automatically.

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Hour 3

Q Vallerie in California - Having installed Windows have I opened up to Viruses and Spyware?

The good news is no. That Windows machine can get infected, but it won’t cross infect your Mac. The nature of a virtual machine is the fact is will hold any viruses.

Make a snapshot of the Windows installation in Parallels, that way if you do get infected, you can just jump back to when everything was right.

Leo’s been trying [http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/ | VMWare Fusion]] and is very happy with it. Their both around $80. Leo wants to emphasis that he is not an Apple advocate. Prepare to hear Leo dismiss Apple on alot of things in the future.

Q Harry from Lancaster - Is there that much of a virus threat that AVG needs to update every day?

30,000 new viruses every year. If your antivirus isn’t updating then it’s not doing the right job.

As per your Netstat reporting from ZoneAlarm yet you’ve never used ZoneAlarm on the system means that you should be warned what’s going on. Take a look at Autoruns from Microsoft

Microsoft has also released a rootkit finder tool called Rootkit Revealer. What this does is read the drive directly and ask the operating system what is there, it then compares it, and if something is different, then something strange is going on. Another one is F-Secure’s Blacklight and also AVG’s Anti-Rootkit. All of which are free.

Q Matt from Tenessee - Older podcasts don’t show up as podcasts.

Change the genre of the podcasts to Podcast. You can also try going into the iTunes directory and moving the podcasts into the iTunes Podcast directory.

Apple uses the extended MP3 tags available in ID3, that has the words ITUNESPODCAST in it, and then iTunes see’s that an automatically puts it in the iTunes podcast directory. Leo recommends MP3Tag

Q Serenity - Will syncing two iPods with one system cause problems?

No, it shouldn’t. :)

Q Rebecca in California - Is there a device for adding all video devices storage to DVD?

Yes. It’s called a computer. A computer is the only thing you can use to do it. The tapes will start to wear out and so will the camcorders. Just plug your cables from your camcorder to your computer and then copy the the video to your hard drive, and then you can burn them to DVD.

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