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Saturday 19 January 2008
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Guests
Scott Wilkinson - Format War
Universal did announce that they are in the process of dropping their exclusivity to HD-DVD. Scott and Leo have both always preferred HD-DVD.
When new features come out on BluRay, some players won’t be able to handle that, whereas with HD-DVD, everything was supported by everything.
BluRay Live (BluRay 2.0) is also coming out that will allow interactivity over the Internet, including playing games. If you have something like a PS3, that has an Ethernet Port, it makes it very easy to update the firmware.
If your a gamer, it’s a no brainer. It also has WiFi Built in, and a 40gb version is only $400.
At NAMM they had a beautiful synthesizer, and the aim is to make it sound as realistic as possible.
Dick Debartolo - Gadget of the week
magicJack allows you to plug it into a regular phone jack. It even gives you a selection of 4. The number is then your number.
It even has Answering Machine capabilities. It’s $39.99 for the setup and then you get the hardware, and setup your number. There’s no monthly calling.
It’s then $19.99 each following year. It’s under $20 and you get free calls for a year to US or Canada numbers.
This years CES seemed to be the biggest and most powerful. There wasn’t much break through.
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Tech News
We have a winner between HD-DVD and BluRay. There’s only 2 studio’s supporting HD-DVD and over 70% of High Definition Films being on BluRay.
Macworld Expo was this week. Next year it will be before CES, and last year it was during CES, and Apple stole some of the light.
Apple disappointed people by not announcing a new iPhone or iPod. Leo was hoping they would be announcing a 3G HSDPA iPhone.
Apple has announced a new notebook computer. The MacBook Air is a tiny bit thicker than the iPhone, but is the thinnest notebook in the world. Leo wants to buy it, but can’t justify the price compared to the power.
For a tiny little extra, you can get a Macbook Pro. The Air costs more than a standard MacBook and isn’t as powerful.
It’s all about style, not about substance. For $1799, it’s not reasonably priced.
They also announced the Time Capsule which works with Time Machine. It’s both an Airport Extreme and comes with a big “server grade” hard drive inside. 500gb is $299 and 1tb is $499.
They also announced updates to the Apple TV. You can rent movies and TV Shows, and you can subscribe to High Definition Podcasts, which is great for people like Tiki Bar TV, and Ask A Ninja.
There’s an interesting story from the CIA. He said that several cities outside the US have been attacked by Hackers. They did it for distortion, and it resulted in multiple power outs in many cities.
Many Cyber War scenarios result in attacks that effect the computers that run our utilities, such as Gas, Electricity and Water. The US has a Cyber Security task force to prevent such a thing.
Most hacking now is about Spam, and Money.
Paralells for the Mac is apparently faster than VMWare Fusion, according to MacTech.com.
Hour 1
Q Juan from California - Audio Quality
WAV files are very close to CD Quality. If you rip the CD to MP3, the quality becomes lossy.
It won’t be total victory for BluRay until Paramount and Universal switch over to BluRay Completely. It has however tilted to BluRay from HD-DVD greatly.
If it weren’t for the fact that HD-DVD and BluRay couldn’t agree, we wouldn’t have had this war. That’s the reason that neither of these formats have had great sales.
Casino Royale only sold 100,000 BluRay copies, which is nothing compared to the number of DVD’s sold. BluRay players CAN play DVD’s. If your going to buy a BluRay Player, get a PS3.
Q Randy from Santa Clarita, CA - Good wireless security system?
You can spend a lot of money, or you can spend little money. The more cameras you have, the more expensive it is, and you need to ask yourself if you want it recorded, and streamed over the internet.
Take a look at some of the Security Camera websites, and go to a store and check in on the stuff they have.
Q John from California - Best resolution for wireless streaming?
It’s more the speed of your network that it relies on. The best way is to wire it, or you could upgrade to Wireless N.
It’s tough to stream good quality over a wireless network. It also has to do with how much traffic there is on the network, and how far away from the base station.
You could also change the buffering setting. All streaming media buffers. You could change it to a bigger buffer size.
Q Rob from California - Securing a home network
Because you’ve got port forwarding setup, the only thing that needs to be secure is the NAS. You need to make sure that there’s no holes or bugs in the NAS. If that’s the case, then yes, a username and password is fine.
You want to make sure that the FTP server is fully updated, and you want to use good strong passwords. Make sure you don’t use Dictionary Passwords.
Hour 2
Q Judy from California - iPod Battery Issue
After a while, it stops holding the charge. If you feel ambitious, you have to pry it apart, and then replace the battery.
If you do it carefully enough with a putty knife, and pop it off, you can then replace the battery. It’s not that hard to do, but it will save you $40 maybe $50 bucks.
It may just be easier for you to send it away, or buy a new one. They really make them disposable, which is one of the problems with the Macbook Air. You have to pay $129 for the battery to be replaced by Apple.
Apple really treats them as a consumer device that’s disposable.
Q Sharlene - Windows Update won’t Install
What happens with Windows Update is any updates that fail to install, it will block future updates.
You need to unblock those updates. You can find a guide on how to do that Here.
Q Earnest in South Carolina - Allowing users to access Church Network
The easiest way is to get a VPN Router or Software from somewhere like Hamachi.
You don’t want to get a consumer grade VPN router… get a good one. You could also use remote software like LogMeIn or GoToMyPC.
A VPN Router won’t really cost more than $100.
Q Joey in Texas - Copying DVD’s to the Computer and iPod
Handbreak is free and actually has presets for things like the iPod. It’ll change it to MPEG4, and will set the frame rate, screen size…etc. You just run Handbreak, put the DVD in, and it’ll see what’s on the DVD.
Usually if it’s a movie, you just say give me the long 2 hour chunk. They also have a Windows Version too. There’s also other programs like iSquint, however that’s more for Video you’ve downloaded than ripping DVD’s.
Between the two, there’s nothing you can’t do.
Q Mark in Canyon Country - Recording AM Radio
There’s one that lets you do this, called Radio Your Way. It’s exactly the size of the iPod, it has built in memory, and supports SD Cards.
You can also tell it to record at a certain time every week or day. They seem to be the only one who makes this. It will even let you connect via USB and copy the MP3.
Hour 3
Q Shila from California - Laptop can’t update Windows
If it came with a System Recovery disk, it will automatically bring it to the state you got it from the factory.
Gateway’s aren’t awful laptops. Leo recommends Windows PC’s and Laptops from Dell. You may want to go to the Dell website. The Dell 1530 is very thin and powerful. You will want to get 2 or 3GB of RAM.
You could have all the greatest security software in the world, but you need to modify your behaviour. Don’t download files from sites you don’t trust, and don’t open email attachments. Make sure you can run Windows Update.
AVG Antivirus is good for a free antivirus. ESET NOD32 is the best commercial antivirus.
Q Austin - Recording a flight?
A Great camera system was reviewed on Leo’s TV Show, The Lab with Leo.
The system can be found at Swann Security.
There are a lot of home products designed to make you feel more secure, but a lot of them are designed to protect one room (a hidden camera) or one product (anti-theft software or hardware for your computer or laptop). Well, if you want a gadget that makes you feel lik you’re living in a secured compound, Swann’s DVR4 Pro-Net Combo Kit may be just the thing, with four cameras that see in light or in the dark, a digital video recorder that can record all four cameras for days at a stretch before it runs out of space, and a tiny little monitor to view it all on. It’s not a bad bundle for $999 but there are some limitations: notably, all of the cameras are hardwired and powered, so you’ll need to run cable (60 feet per camera is included in the box) and find enough power outlets to accommodate all of the cameras. You CAN plug the power adapters all in at a central location and run power through the cable, or you can plug them in at the remote location. If you’re willing to string cables and drill holes, though, you can keep an eye on what’s going on around the house—either inside or out. One nice benefit: the connectors are pretty much all standard, so you can plug in your own cameras or use your own monitor, if you prefer.
The Good:
- monitors four cameras
- records all four cameras
- pretty good picture quality
- works in the dark
The Bad:
- high initial investment
- setup takes time
- menu system complicated
- not wireless
StuntCam may be better for what you want to do. It’s used by law enforcement. They however cost $600 per camera.
Smit Fraud Fix is a great tool for removing Malware. However once a system is compromised, the only guarantee is to format and reinstall.
Continue to scan regularly. Any exploits that are found, they expoit them in kits that they sell to people to install Malware. People can make a lot of money from things like this.
Q Joe in Tennessee - Canon Printer Mac issues
You may want to try VueScan which is a TWAIN replacement. It works great with most Scanners.
VueScan is a scanning program that works with most flatbed and film scanners in place of software supplied by the equipment manufacturers. It is claimed to produce scans of excellent color fidelity and color balance and save them in any of several file formats, including optical character recognition (OCR) of text. It provides a number of features not available with many manufacturer-supplied packages, and provides a single consistent user interface for all scanners (and digital cameras) under Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
Q Jack in Santa Clarita - Good laptop for music
Any Core 2 Duo processor laptop will be great for PC DJ, and Dell should be fine for what you want. Leo always has good results from Dell.
Their support is outsourced, but it’s still good. Dell also has premium tech support. You should take a look at the requirements of PC DJ.
More speed just means more heat and less battery life. The Dell M1330 and the Dell M1530 are both very good Laptops.
Q Mary in Lake Forrest, CA - Transferring VHS to DVD
Any computer you can hook up the VHS to a Video Capture card will do this. HP makes a very good DVD Writer. You just plug the Video Cassette recorder into it, and it will just burn the DVD for you.
It couldn’t be simpler.
