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Sunday 6 January 2007

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Today’s show is pre-recorded - but Leo will be back live next Saturday.

Chris Marquardt -

Ron Rosberg - Gadgets of the week

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Great Case for iPod Touch by Belkin

Tech News

The RIAA this week won a jury verdict against a file sharer. There have been 26,000 lawsuits since 2001. They don’t really pay attention so much to people downloading songs, but more so those who are sharing songs. Most P2P clients these days automatically share it. The single mom now owns the recording industry $220,000. She was sharing 17,200 songs. She could have been on the hook for $3.6 million.

The number of people using P2P has gone up rapidly over the years. Given the current copyright laws, the only place to fight it is by trying to change the copyright laws. The RIAA really is the record labels front man, so that the record labels don’t have to take the heat.

Dr. Goodnight, the CEO of SAS said on the 50th anniversary since the launch of the Sputnik satellite said that schools aren’t helping the younger generation. There’s not enough science and math, and there’s not enough technology. He says that they’re still being taught like the last generation.

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Hour 1

QKenny from Los Angeles - Wants to serve iTunes Library to Mac and Windows

You just need to turn on Sharing in iTunes on the Mac, and then go to the Windows machines and you will see the shared iTunes name.

You can also get a Network Attached Storage device. Their just big hard drives, that you can store the files on. You should use Wired as it’s much faster than Wireless. This is a great way to share media files.

There are also many other providers of software that does the same job.

QJohn in Southern California - Wants to use plug-ins and multi track recording on the road

To be honest, a MacBook Pro would be just fine for what you want to do. A laptop would just be plenty for something like this, carrying an iMac around would be annoying and clunky.

Ashley Witt who is an audio composer, says a MacBook Pro will do all of that, or a Windows laptop. Don’t rely on just one recording. Keep an analog recording going as well.

QMike in New York - What is a rootkit?

The term rootkit comes from hackers. It was originally a little kit of software applications that could do whatever you wanted to on a computer. Since then, it has become any piece of software on your computer that tries to hide itself.

This is of great use to a hacker as not only can you not see it, but an antivirus can’t see it. We really became aware of rootkits when the Sony Corp put a rootkit on your computer from their audio Cds. At that time several companies make rootkit discovering software.

They wrote a new routine not written on the operating system, which would do a directory listing, and then would ask the operating system for the same list. It would then compare them.

Rootkit Revealer, AVG Anti-Rootkit, and Frisk

QDave - If I record in HD will it play on DVD?

Yes it will. The quality is will go down from the original AVCHD file. The original will be very large in file size. This is going to be the next standard and the quality is surprisingly good.

Leo uses an 8gb SD card which is about an hour of video. The time it takes to copy the files is very short. It will be 16:9 but you can record in 4:3. In your DVD making software, you just need to convert it to MPEG2.

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Hour 2

Q Martin - Spotlight can’t see my Apple Works Spreadsheets

You can disable certain kinds of documents, so check that it’s not disabled. Another thing you may want to do is move to the new iWork 08. There’re three programs in there. Pages, Numbers and Keynote. It’s much more flexible than Works Spreadsheet.

Q Tim - Wants to change MPEG4 to DivX

What your doing is called Trans-coding. The video may degrade a little. Both the formats that the iPod use can be trans-coded using Dr.DivX which is now free.

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Hour 3

Q Mark in Washington - Wants a web appointment service

You could do an interface with something like Google calendar. It’s something a computer is great at, but you’re not going to get something out of the box. You would need to hire a programmer in your area.

Q Gary in the South Land - Is there a cheap way I can use the internet cheaply?

You can get a Fon router and then you will get free WI-FI worldwide, or you can find a small Internet cafe and they give you very low cost Internet access.

Q Chuck in Los Angeles - Nod32 having problems with ZoneAlarm

Leo’s suggestion is to get rid of ZoneAlarm. The problem with all software firewalls is the fact that bad guys know they exist and can poke a hole in the software’s firewall. You have a router and so you don’t need to have a software firewall.

Leo recommends Comodo firewall if you DO want to use a software firewall.

Q Rebeca - What is good software for recording and editing audio?

You can use any program you want. Audacity is free, but you can use anything that can record audio on your computer. There are programs that can clean up pops and hiss for you. These programs can also split the songs for you automatically.

Leo recommends GarageBand if your on a Mac. You need something that will see the USB audio device. Ambrosia Wiretap Lite is free. If you’re going to burn to CD, then use the WAV format, you don’t want to lose quality.

Q Phil in Colorado Springs - Is there any sound system like Sonos but cheaper?

Yes, there are many companies that make great things. Roku make very similar sound bridges. SlimDevices.com make the same sort of thing called the squeeze-box.

What these devices do is send your audio from the computer to the speakers.

DLO also make a very good iPod docked hifi system.

Q Tommy in Canada - Scanning 6000 photo’s

You can get a scanner that will automatically go through a feed if you stack a pile of the pictures. It won’t speed up the process, but it will help get through that pile.

You can also batch scan, using software that will automatically divide them up for you. There’s a great third party TWAIN driver that many people use instead of the scanner driver that comes with their system. It’s the Hamrick VueScan. It should definitely speed up the process.

Q Randy in South Land - Bookmarks in Firefox won’t load

One thing you could try is exporting your bookmarks as a big HTML file and then reimport them.

If your just using Firefox in Vista for a secure browser, then IE7 in Protected Mode is just as good.

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