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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Saturday 9 February 2008
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Guests
Dick Debartolo - Gadget of the week
The Energizer Duo is a USB device that will charge two AAA batteries in 2 hours. You can also download software that will show you how long until the batteries are fully charged.
If however you are near AC Power, it also comes with an adapter which allows you to plug it into the wall socket. And the device is only $13.99 and available from Amazon for $11.99.
Tech News
Polaroid, based in Waltham, Mass., is shutting down factories in the United States and abroad as the company abandons the technology that made the instant photo possible, the Boston Globe reported yesterday. The company will cease production of its film by next year.
Polaroid moved to cartridge film in 1963 with its 100-series camera, which became a staple of professional photographers. They used the rugged Polaroid to take test photos, instantly checking lighting and composition before committing an image to negative. But the company’s boom and the Polaroid’s place in the culture came with the SX-70, introduced in 1972.
Yahoo Inc.’s board plans to reject Microsoft Corp.’s unsolicited $44.6 billion offer to acquire the Web giant, a person familiar with the situation says.
After a series of meetings over the past week, Yahoo’s board determined that the $31 per share offer “massively undervalues” Yahoo, the person said. It also doesn’t account for the risks Yahoo would be taking by entering into an agreement …
Hour 1
Q Mark in California - Floor Planner
You should use Sketch Up from Google. They have a free version. Sketch Up is designed to take patterns and then replicate them.
You could use any vector based program, or even Photoshop. You could also try Floor Planner which has a free and paid version.
You might also want to try EasyCAD.
Q Josh in Nashville - Flash Based Video Camera
Leo used the Panasonic SD5 in Egypt. You can get good DV cameras pretty cheap from Sanyo.
Q Marvin in California - Two Internet Connections
Generally what you do is tell XP to join a certain connection. Really you would have to plug one in, and disconnect the other depending on which connection you want to use.
One way you might be able to do it, is by using a Virtual Machine. You can get that from Microsoft’s Virtual PC website which is free. You can also get Virtual Machines from VMware.
Q Dianna in California - Computer Screamed at me
If it came out of the computer itself, it could have been the power supply or hard drive itself. It’s possible that some hardware component died.
This is a warning that you should backup everything now. If it’s the power supply, it’ll do it again. If it’s the hard drive, you should back up and keep using it until it dies.
Hour 2
Q Don from Colorado - Best Bluetooth Headset
Pretty much everyone agrees that the Jawbone is the best on the market right now. It has excellent noise cancellation. Leo doesn’t like walking around like the Borg with a blue light flashing on your ear.
In the car, Leo uses the “Supertooth Light”. If your looking for something cheap, then the Plantronics Voyager is a good cheap headset for under $50.
Q Rod from San Diego - Laptop with Ergonomic Keyboard
None of the major manufacturers have ergonomic keyboards. You might have to just buy and use an external one. If they do make them, it’ll be a small manufacturer.
Acer is apparently making a Laptop with an ergonomic keyboard. However Leo thinks that it just looks like a standard Keyboard.
Q Tony from California - Recovery Disks not Working
The CDs could be bad. It seems like that’s almost certainly what’s wrong. If you’ve used a standard XP disk, it might be bad memory.
Call the manufacturer and try new disks. It might even be a video card error.
You might also want to try the Video Card Stability Test.
Q Denise from California - Repair Permissions
Verify is just like Check Disk on a PC. Repair Disk will repair any problems it finds. Disk Permissions have traditionally been a problem on the Mac.
Because OS X is a Unix operating system, it is very flaky about file permissions. In cases where programs say “I cannot write to this file” you will need to repair the disk.
There’s nothing really you need to run regularly. Onyx is a free program that optimizes the Mac. That’s really all you need.
Q Michael from California - Yahoo! Mail closes Browser
The new Yahoo! Mail is very AJAX Based, so that may be what is crashing the browser. Most commonly a browser crashes because it doesn’t understand something.
Check that you have Flash Installed. Leo is stumped. She may have Spyware on her system. If you have Spyware on the system and it has hijacked the browser, then it may be trying to log keystrokes.
You may have to reinstall the operating system. If all she does is browse the Internet and email, then just make her a standard user. She shouldn’t be an administrator.
Hour 3
Q Jerry from California - Memory Dump Issues
It is definitely going bad… It’s bad luck. It’s two hard drives that are flaky. You should call the manufacturer if it’s under a year old.
Google did a study and noticed that hard drives will either fail within the first few months, and if not, it’ll last about 2 years before the failure rate begins to go up.
There’s a $90 program that all geeks should have called “Spinrite”.
Q Ed in Portland Main - Getting Projector as bright as Monitor
Projectors by their nature just aren’t that bright. Leo really likes the Epson projectors. It’s certainly better if you darken the room.
An LCD is the brightest you’re going to get. You will want to look for a Digital Light Processing (DLP).
Q Nolan from New Jersey - FiOS Wireless
If that router is doing some sort of negotiation with their servers then you’ll need to get a special wireless router.
What you’ll want to do is look at the old D-Link router, and then look at the details they use. You can do that by opening your web browser and going to 192.168.1.1.
The key is, the settings on the new router have to be the same as the old ones. If you go to DSL Report’s FiOS Forums someone there will have put detailed notes up on how to do it.
Q Mike from California - Can’t copy files
It sounds like something to do with file permissions. It’s a sign that your hard drive is in pretty bad shape.
This is a case where SpinRite should be useful. Try also formatting the drive. Don’t do a quick one, do a full format. If you don’t, your going to lose data.
Q Jeff from Colorado - Gaming Laptop
Laptop video is not usually as good as desktop video. Before you even buy it, you’ll want to go on forums and ask people what laptops run CoD4 the best. Dell makes very good laptops.
Q Paul from California - Office 2007 and Resource Usage
You should get a program from Microsoft called Autoruns. You should also go to Black Viper and check for anything he recommends disabling.
