Leo Laporte
The Tech Guy
2–5p ET Sat & Sun
- Home
- Saturday Show
- Sunday Show
- Past Shows
- Audio Archives
- Stations
- Chat
- Watch Live
- Forums
- Tips
- FAQ
- Glossary
- Contact Leo
Sponsors
Leo Links
 |
For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
|
|
Saturday 22 December 2007
Show Audio
|
Edited Audio | |
Guests
Scott Wilkinson - AV Equipment
The Viewsonic 19″ HD-TV is a big screen for a computer, but small for a TV. It acts as both a HD-TV and Computer Monitor. It’s 1480 by 900, which is common for a computer, and it will take 1080p content and scale it. It’s only $380 which is a great deal.
Leo’s hooked up the 360 to the Plasma TV, and his kids won’t get off it. Don’t hook up your gaming device to your good TV if you have kids.
The RCA Jetstream media player is a tiny little coin sized MP3 Player with FM Tuner, and has Wireless headphones. It’s a great little stocking filler for $120.
Batteries are always a good stocking filler. TiVO now have a $300 model. You won’t be able to store too much stuff on it, but it’s a nice little gift. This also has a Cable Card Slot if your cable company offers them.
You can also use it over the air. The Yamaha USB Speakers are great quality. It costs close to $300, but the quality is excellent compared to your standard computer speakers.
Tech News
This is an exciting time of year, especially for those of you shopping this weekend, last minute. What do you get the geek in your life? Leo wants the Sony XD CAMEX Pro HD 1080p Camera, that records on a SD Card.
Chicago is being sued for their ban on Cell Phone driving. The lawyer who is in charge of the suit says it’s because that Chicago hasn’t put any signs up saying it’s illegal. After all, it’s about making sure people know the laws of the land, not collecting the money.
The FTC has allowed Google to complete the acquisition of DoubleClick, but they also defined the privacy steps which must be taken by Google to protect users.
One of the Best Buy’s just down the road from Leo just got 60 Wii’s in Stock and Leo wanted to run out and go there. It must be a shame for Leo that they can’t make these Wii’s as fast as people want them. They could have made $1 Billion more, if they had enough Wii’s for everyone. That must kill you.
YouTube is in Mono! Ashley Witt shows you the way. You can also Digg his video which helps get it out to people.
Hour 1
Q Howard from California - Web cam that can Pan / Zoom and Focus
The best way to do this, would to be, get a nice camera, with a smooth head on it for a nice motion. The only reason you want a Tricasting camera, is if you want to do a multi-camera stream with wipes and effects.
You can use Stickam and it’ll do all of that for you, all the streaming. Leo hooks up regular DV Cams to his computer all the time via Firewire. Most cameras have Firewire Out.
If your using Stickam, it will take that stream and will give it out to people. uStream is another way to do it, same thing.
Q Carol in California - Good Wireless Noise Cancellation Headphones?
Really Bose owns this market, they provide the best. They take the noise that comes in and shift the polarity and it cancels out. The Bose are fairly expensive. The over the ear headphones do a better job because it seals out the noise better.
You should try then and see if you prefer them. Leo doesn’t wear Bose on a plane, as their not the best headphones you can get, but a lot of the price goes into the noise cancellation.
SHURE make very good headphones, and Leo uses ETYMOTIC’s which really go into your ear. These really go very far into your ear, and they seal out all the background noise. You should pull them out at the beginning and the end of the flight because you won’t hear a thing.
You should check out Headphone.com which review lots of headphones and sell a lot of them. You’ll be spending about $300 here.
The very high end SHURE headphones are the best, but they cost $500 and don’t seal out the sound very well.
Hour 2
Q Berny from Colorado - Is there a PDA that has a Video input?
Your best bet is to just get a small little screen. You can go to an Electronics part store that has composite in, and that would be much cheaper than a PDA. Guys who do their own projects, there’s tons of these for them.
You can get big ones, and small ones. There’s a number of companies that make these. You could try Marshall Electronics. Camera crews often bring these types of things with them.
You just want to shop around for an LCD Monitor with Composite in. Most of these things are Video out, not video in.
AT&T have exclusive rights for 5 years to the iPhone, which means you won’t see the iPhone on Verizon any time soon. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be iPhone like devices out. Nokia are releasing one soon.
Apple may have a commitment to AT&T for this model, however Verizon is opening up their network and the iPhone 2 may be compatible with the Verizon network. You want a CDMA phone.
If you want to have Leopard for 5 friends, paying them for a family pack should be fine. It’s probably per household. No one’s going to chase you up. Apple doesn’t do any protection at the moment.
Leopard only works on a computer you’ve bought from Apple, so they’ve got your money, either way.
Q Francis from California - First Computer
You should get an Apple iMac. Neither Windows nor Mac is easy… your going to expect to spend some time. If you enjoy it, and you have fun with it, then your going to get into it big time.
Don’t get scared off at the beginning, spend some time with it. There’s no Viruses, Spyware, and you don’t have to worry about security on a Mac. These start off at about $1200. You can play films on it, and the machine is very pretty, and it won’t be ugly in your house. It’s very modern.
Leo suggests that you learn using the browser on it. Learn how to use the browser and how to use email. You’ll see all these programs on there that will overwhelm you.
Once you learn how to use the skills on the browser and email, you’ll start to get into the other programs.
There’s University Extension Courses, and they have some excellent low cost, or even free, basic Mac courses. You should maybe attend those. Another thing to look for is a nice little Mac Users Group. They help you learn how to use it, and it’s mostly older people there.
You can find a list of User Groups in your area here on the site. Go to a meeting. You’ll meet people who are also new to Macs, and you can teach each other things. You’ll have new friends. This is going to be the beginning of something big for you.
Q Chris - Camera that doesn’t have audio
You could plug something into the Mic jack that isn’t a Mic and that would kill the audio. That’s the quick and dirty way to do it. Many cameras in the Menu system also have the ability to mute.
Hour 3
You router is effectively a modem. You should just daisy chain, and add an extra router, plug that into the first one, and you could then use the second router as your main one.
You won’t get Gigabit Wireless, but you can have Ethernet cables going there. This will improve the connectivity internally. You can also have the FiOS provide the router with an IP and then let the Router handle the sub-net IP’s.
The Tilt isn’t great for multimedia or office documents, but the Tilt does give you a nice big keyboard. AT&T doesn’t have the fastest wireless data.
A Blackberry sounds like the right choice for you. You should check if they have HSDPA in your area. That’s the downside on 3G, as they have just started rolling it out.
Leo uses the Blackberry because he’s email focused. The Tilt is more of a mini-computer that also has phone capability.
Q Dan in California - Media Center?
You can always exit the Windows Media Center environment and you can load up iTunes. It’s just a computer. HP and Sony make excellent Media Centers.
The Sony will look very nice. The more geeky way to go is using things like SageTV and MythTV. That takes quite a while. Media Center is a very good choice however.
Leo can’t remember the name of the Sony media center he likes, but it was silent, powerful and looked great. You want to look for one that supports Cable Card. That’ll get rid of the cable box and will do everything for you. You can change the channel on it, and record media.
Take a look at The Okoro Media Center
Q Ken in Florida - Protection from becoming a Zombie PC
Even when you run protective software, it’s not a bullet proof shield. You’ve got to protect yourself, and you want to follow the rules of common sense computer use. Don’t open email attachments, don’t download software from somewhere you don’t know is secure, don’t click links in emails…etc.
If you have been infected, Windows Live OneCare will warn you. You can also run security assessment programs. There’s free online security scanners. PSI Secunia Scanner is a good scanner.
Once they have found bad things on your system, you might not be able to remove them. You’ve got to be careful about getting this stuff in the first place.
Apply Windows patches as soon as they come out.
Q Rafaell in California - Storing files online
You could also run your own server in one of those offices that everyone would have access to which will be quicker and more convienient. You might want to try the Windows Home Server. The HP Media Smart is an excellent device.
You can even access it over the Internet, and it’s also secure as it has all the security built in. The HP Media Smart is under $500.
