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Sunday 2 December 2007

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Guests

Chris Marquardt - Tips From The Top Floor

Chris is coming back to the US for more workshops in August, 2008. Get on the waiting list: DiscoverTheTopFloor.com

Today, we review some of the submissions from our photo assignment: Fake!

Hydrogen Fuel
Amarillo Palms
Yellow Car
How Much Is That Doggy

Our new assignment: Down

We’d love you to participate in our new assignment. Take a picture illustrating the concept down then upload it to the Tech Guy group on Flickr (free Flickr account required).

Ron Rosberg - Gadgets of the Week

Sandisk 16GB Sansa View - Price at Amazon $176.00

Want protection on your devices try Otter Box Cases
iPhone Case & Blackberry 8830 Case

Tech News

When taking part in discussions online and someone begins a “flame war,” the person starting such hateful comments may be a teenager. A recent study shows that the teenage brain lacks empathy. The area of the brain assiciated with higher-level thinking and guilt is underused by teenagers, according to the study. We often make a number of assumptions about people we converse with on the Internet. What’s great about the Internet, though, is that it provides an equal ground for everybody.

UK officials admitted that they’d lost computer disks containing personal information on almost half of the country’s population, including data regarding nearly every household with children. It’s being called the worst data leak of the information age.

Tay Zonday, of Chocolate Rain fame, has produced a full blown music video entitled “Cherry Chocolate Rain” to promote Dr. Pepper Cherry Chocolate flavor. It’s amazing to see where these small-time web stars go.

There’s an allegation that Jeff Gerstmann, a 10-year veteran reviewer for Gamespot, was fired over a negative review of Kane & Lynch. Gamespot then rewrote the review, and it still turned out to be negative, but not as harsh as Gerstmann’s.

An Austrian study is teaching dogs how to use computers. Four dogs were shown pictures of landscapes and dogs, and if they touched the dog pictures with their nose, they would get a treat. Then they would change the dog pictures, and they were still selected. After that, pictures of landscapes with dogs as well as landscapes alone were shown, and the dogs were still able to discern the pictures with dogs.

In benchmarks, Windows XP has proven itself twice as fast as Windows Vista, and the upcoming Service Pack 3 for Windows XP makes it even faster. Maybe SP1 for Vista will tune things up.

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Hour 1

Q Victor from Pico Rivera, CA - Doesn’t want children to handle videogame DVDs

• When you install some videogames on a hard drive, they still require the disc as a form of copy protection
  • Need to figure if the game is copy protected
• You can make an ISO image of the disc, and then mount it
  • Use the free ISO Recorder to make a disc image
  • Then Daemon Tools will mount the discs on a virtual hard drive
  • These programs will not work with copy protected discs
    • But those are mainly newer games
• Alcohol 120% can break the copy protection
  • Costs 29 euros
  • Keep in mind that it may be illegal

Q Mac from Mount Vernon, IL - Needs software to read out educational material

• Wants the software to read out the text
• Microsoft has a reader program with the text-to-speech package
  • Problem is that the text has to be in a text file that the reader can accept
  • It takes a while to get used to the computerized-sounding voice
• Apple uses a Cepstral voice for text-to-speech
  • The “Alex” voice used in OSX Leopard is highly intelligible
• Getting a Mac for this purpose would also get you a UNIX machine
  • Which would be very handy for business purposes
  • OSX is built upon BSD Linux
• AT&T Natural Voices is also a great text-to-speech engine
  • Find out more at NextUp.com

Q Justin from Lake Forest, CA - Needs a scanner to scan numerous pictures for HD video

• Most scanners can scan at resolutions much higher than the max 1080p (1920×180) resolution
• Photos are very easy to scan in a flatbed scanner
• Almost any scanner would do a good job
• You should look for a scanner that can be powered from a USB port
  • So you don’t have to worry about a separate power supply
• Leo’s favorite scanners are the Epson Perfection line
  • Even the cheapest ones are 4800 dpi
    • Much higher than HD video
• Check out the Epson Perfection 4490 Photo Scanner
  • Even has a special cover to insert books and also a film loader to scan negatives

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Hour 2

Q Noleen - Malware removal tool download notification

• You are getting a popup meant to dupe Windows users
  • But you’re on a Mac
  • There is almost no spyware written for Macs
• In the Safari menu, select “block pop up windows”
• You should have two accounts on your mac
  • One administrator, one standard account
• Make sure you do your day-to-day business from the standard account
  • You’re running at a lower privilege level so malware can’t do anything

Q Gary from San Jose, CA - Erasing your hard drive and activated software

• You only get to authorize 5 computers for iTunes
• Make sure to deauthorize iTunes, Photoshop, etc
• Not sure if NOD32 requires deauthorization
  • Just need to enter in your email address for authorization
• A recovery disc will usually reformat the drive, and then install Windows

Q Tyler from Seattle, WA - Too many games for his Nintendo DS

• So he has installed some software on his DS
  • Allows him to play ROMs for the DS stored on a microSD card
  • Also allows for movies, music, etc
• Find out more about it: the R4

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Hour 3

Q Hal from Beaumont, CA - Can’t import Address Book backup

• Need to find a way to import native Address Book files
• There is a discussion thread on the Apple Support forums regarding this exact issue
  • 1 - Quit all applications
  • 2 - Open a Finder window and go to (home folder)/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/
  • 3 - Drag AddressBook-v22.abcddb (the Leopard database) to the trash
  • 4 - Make sure the AddressBook folder contains AddressBook.data file (the Tiger database)
  • 5 - Rename the Metadata folder (you could call it Metadata.leopard for example)
  • 6 - Launch Address Book.app (this will import the Tiger data, create a new Metadata folder, and fill it with the Tiger contact info)
  • 7 - Wait several minutes for the Metadata to be written out, then quit Address Book
  • 8 - Drag AddressBook-v22.abcddb to the trash again
  • 9 - Go into the Metadata.leopard folder that you renamed in step 5
  • 10 - Copy all of the files in that folder, and drag or paste them into the new Metadata folder that was created in the AddressBook folder
  • 11 - Launch Address Book.app again

Q Bob from Arcadia, CA - Nextel i930

• Wants to add a Bluetooth adapter to enable Bluetooth on the phone
• You won’t get a straight answer out of the actual Nextel store, but try going to a 3rd party dealer
• Leo hasn’t heard of an SD card with built-in Bluetooth
  • But there are cards with WiFi, so it is definitely possible

Q Dana - Not able to delete highlighted text in Microsoft Word/Backing up your system

• The delete key deletes forward and the backspace key deletes backwards
• If you go into the options for Word, there is a reset to defaults option
  • Microsoft has a tutorial that involves deleting registry keys and more for a more complete reset
• The best way to do a backup is to get an extra external drive
• Then plug it in and drag/drop files
  • The copies on the drive are backups
• It is better to just back up your individual folders rather than back up the entire operating system

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