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Show Notes > Show 430

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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
TWiT Netcast Network

Sunday 10 February 2008

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Guests

Mikkel Aaland - PMA 2008

  • Journalists and Photographers gather in the press room to see what’s new
  • Sony have announced a Digital SLR with 28.4 Mega pixels
  • You’ll have a true wide angle lens with these new ones
  • Sony are very aggressive marketing wise
  • Nikon Announced a D300 as a follow up to the D200 which has been a popular Digital SLR
  • In point and shoots now, we’re beginning to see other features like Video features with good quality
  • It’s a really exciting time for digital photography
  • For what we’re getting at a price point these days, you really can’t go wrong
  • Buy something that feels right, and you feel comfortable taking with you everywhere

Chris Marquardt - Tips From The Top Floor

Using “lines” in composition.

Ron Rosberg - New from PMA 2008

Casio EXILIM Pro EX-F1: 60fps
See the video at Tom’s Hardware
Price $1,000 - Available March 2008

Olympus 20X Megazoom
Retail $500.00 - Available March 2008

Canon Digital Rebel XSi
Street Price $799 - Available April 2008

Want a “Hot Spot” in your pocket? Cradlepoint Introduces Battery-powered “Personal WiFi Hotspot
Sprint Version PHS 300S $140.00 - Available March 1, 2008
All other carriers PHS300C $179.95 - Available Now

Tech News

Digital Boxes are going on sale this week. In a few years, all the analogue channels are going digital. Unless you have a digital box, you won’t get anything.

The good news is, the boxes are going on sale this week. The government is offering a $40 rebate at their website - DTV.gov. There is a government voucher program at their website and it’ll give you a $40 voucher. These things are going to cost more than $40, but not much more.

The Grammy Awards are tonight and YouTube is going to play a big role. YouTube has arranged to allow the site viewers to vote on their favourite string rendition of The Pretender and the top 15 are going to be on stage at the grammy’s.

You can see that at YouTube’s “My Grammy Moment” Channel. MySpace was originally the site that independent musicians would go to.

One of the largest groups on MySpace got hacked. The “Atheist and Agnostics” group was hacked and the name was changed to “Jesus is Love”. They petitioned MySpace for a month and MySpace eventually changed it back.


Hour 1

Q John in California - Importing Music with iTunes

Turn Error Correction in iTunes when reading Audio CD’s. When importing, it spins really fast, because it does it much faster than Real Time.

Error Correction may slow it down a little. They may have jammed a little more on that CD, and as you get to the last tracks, it spins faster. There are lots of ways to import on the PC.

If you could keep it spinning a little slower, then it might import a little better.

You might want to take a look at this website. You can use Max for OS X to rip audio files.

Q Dan in California - Vista 32 or 64 for Gaming Machine

There’s very little advantage on Vista x64. All that really means is the fact it can operate with bigger chunks of data, and it can handle more RAM. The disadvantage is the hardware compatibility. You need Signed x64 Drivers.

It’s for heavy duty users who need more RAM, usually servers. For Gaming, you probably wouldn’t get much more improvement. Leo doesn’t know any games that say better with 64 Bit yet.


Hour 2

Q Jeff in Florida - Sharing Video in iTunes

It’s because your using 802.11b. The file size of the TV Shows is much bigger than those podcasts you were watching. The problem is, their so big you can’t stream them over B.

B only gives you 4mbps to 6mbps. You’ll really need to switch to G or N. N should be just fine. G might work, but even that could be a little choppy.

It may be a DRM issue from within iTunes. If you have purchased TV shows from the iTunes Music Store, then you’ll only be able to play it from machines you have authorised. Leo thinks it’s really a speed issue more than anything else.

Q Carl - Kindle Hacks

It’s igorsk.blogspot.com. He reverse engineered the Kindle and discovered some interesting hidden applications like Minesweeper, a clock, and the ability to locate yourself on Google maps. Very cool!

Q Anne in California - Website and Addons

There can be danger, but it really depends who it’s from. When it’s from a site you trust, like Microsoft, Yahoo!, or Adobe then it’s OK. If a little pop up comes on while your browsing the Internet that says “You have a Trojan horse, download this to remove it”, you’re actually downloading a Trojan horse!

If you close your browser, and it’s still there, then it should generally be OK. When the gold bar comes down on Internet Explorer, that’s good. It asks you if you want to do something.

If you want it to install, you can click the yellow bar. Only do that if your on a mainstream website like YouTube, Google, Microsoft, Amazon…etc.

Microsoft Windows Defender and Nod32 Antivirus will certainly help.

Q Tony in Gallop Louise - Laptop Not Charging

Sometimes, if a battery is dead, you can’t even use the computer at all. Try pulling the battery out. You should also clean the dust out of the fan, but you shouldn’t open the laptop.

You can keep it cool by getting an inexpensive USB laptop “desk” and that keeps it tool, and they also have ones that have fans underneath. They just have two fans. That keeps it much much cooler.

Q Mike in New York - BIOS ROM Test Failed

It sounds like the battery inside the computer has gone. It may be replaceable, on most laptops there are. That’s usually what causes those error messages.

You might be able to find an updated bios on a manufacturers website. You should really reinstall the operating system, and then install all the updates. Microsoft is coming out with Service Pack 3 in a few months, which is every update you’ve missed since that laptop was bought.

Service Pack 3 is free from Microsoft via Windows Update when it comes out.


Hour 3

Q Stony in Kentucky - Can’t play media

Data Execution Prevention is turned on. Data Execution Prevention is a really good idea, but it does cause some programs to crash. Windows Media Player is one of them.

Now if you say to a computer, you can only run programs so long as their in a program area. That stops all these buffer overflow problems.

If you go to the performance settings in the System Properties (right click My Computer, Click Properties, and then Advanced). The reason it doesn’t crash the DivX Player, is because the DivX Player is written properly.

A common buffer overflow is in the browser. Although it’s a really good setting, it does cause enough problems with Windows, that it’s not a good idea to have it turned on.

If you had a problem with a certain program, you can just add that to the exclude list.

Q Denise in California - Screen rotated

Pressing Ctrl + Alt + Up Arrow Key will fix it.

Q Matthew in New York - Starting a Podcast

All you really need is a computer and a few microphones. There’s a podcasters kit ZZounds.com sell a great podcasting kit for under $150. That includes a little mixer, microphones and some software.

You could also take a look at Systm Episode 04 from Revision3 on Podcasting. That will give you tips on everything you need to know to start a podcast.

Q Jared in Kansas City - Switching to Mac

Is there any difference between last years White Mac’s and the new ones? The White One’s were the early generation Intel. The new ones are generally faster.

If your price sensitive, then there’s really not much difference. Find out if it’s refurbished or if it’s new.

Q John in Michigan - Dynamic IP’s

Usually all it takes is unplugging the router and plugging it back in. You essensially have a Static IP. There are other ways to anonymize yourself.

Leo’s not quite sure how they’re doing it and so he couldn’t really say what would work for you as it’s a fairly new technology. You could probably get a new router and that would almost certainly change the IP address.

It might be the fact that your IP isn’t be snagged up by another user quick enough. You might have to use a VPN.


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