Leo Laporte
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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Sunday 16 March 2007
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Guests
Ron Rosberg - Gadgets of the Week
Make CD and DVD Labels in Minutes by Dymo DiscPainter
Retail $279.95
Great Deal on Internet at TigerDirect $199.95
Ooma Phone Service pay once and no monthly service ever (or until company goes out of business)
Take a look at the Amazon Reviews and more pictures
Original Retail $595.00
Internet Price as of now $399.95
Save $250.00 off original price of $599.00
A cute functional gadget called “Chumby”
Retail $179.95
Review and some good pictures available at Geek.com’s review of Chumpy
Chris Marquardt - Photography Tips
- As soon as RGB are all at the same level, we get a neutral color
- When you set the camera to manual and you set the grey card, you’ll set the custom white balance
- You just need to keep playing with it until you get it just right
Tech News
European antitrust regulators on Tuesday approved Google’s $3.1 billion merger with DoubleClick, paving the way for a blockbuster deal in Internet search and publisher-based advertising tools.
Approval by the European Commission, which came without conditions, had largely been expected to occur this week. The Commission’s announcement comes three weeks before its April 2 deadline, in which it had to determine whether to nix the deal.
With the Commission’s decision in place, Google announced on Tuesday that it has formally closed its merger with DoubleClick.
Some of us older folk still use User groups, but the kids don’t tend to use them as much these days.
Hour 1
Q Dale in California - Partitioning a drive?
Partitioning is just like taking a big office and putting some small cubicles inside. With a drive, you can create partitions on one drive and make it look like more drives.
The best reason is to separate the Operating System and Data. That way, if you reinstall the operating system, it won’t do anything to your music, pictures or documents or any other files on that other drive.
Q Mark in California - iPhoto doesn’t know where photo’s are
iPhoto when it first starts up will create a folder and that will contain the iPhoto library. You can copy that to an external drive, and then delete it from the pictures folder.
It’ll then ask if you want to create a new one or find your old one.
Second Question: Should I get a computer and buy a big monitor to replace my TV?
The CRT is actually the most accurate HDTV, however it’s an Analog display. The computer sends digital commands for each pixel to be a certain color, which is how text on a CRT can sometimes be fuzzy.
CRT monitors are heavy and long, but CRT’s are faster and brighter.
Often, TV’s don’t have as high a resolution as a computer screen. The new 1080p TV’s are about the same as a computer resolution. A TV however is taking the DVD and blowing it up.
It’s trying to up convert it and smoothing it. Your monitor is displaying that at 480p. It’s a smaller picture on your monitor which is why it’s more accurate.
Q Norm in California - Final Cut won’t burn Blu-ray
Economies of Scale is starting to kick in. Apple doesn’t offer their own Blu-ray recorders yet. You can buy a burner but you don’t have software support.
What is Apple’s commitment to Pro Video? Apple’s focus now is on consumer products, like the iPhone, and the iPod. The fact Apple pulled out of NAB goes to show this.
There are good SEO’s and bad SEO’s. If someone says “you give me $100, and I’ll move you up in Google”, then stay away. There are some things you can do.
Google pays attention to the page or site title. Google now ignores everything except stuff that appears to the user. Put your content high up in your html, as Google doesn’t dig very deep.
You should make a site map. You can find a guide of what Google does to index sites at Buzzle.com.
Google’s page rank works on how many good people link to you.
Hour 2
Q Samantha in California - Cannot install updates
If an Update fails at any point, then the computer gets stuck at that update and then further updates are backed up waiting for the first one to install. If that’s the problem, then just clear them all out.
Go to SARC and see if you can access it. A lot of viruses block you from that site, so if you can’t access it, you have a virus.
There’s a big update coming within the next few weeks, Windows Vista Service Pack 1. You can install that and it’ll bring you right up to date.
You should get an external hard drive, and copy all your files across. You want to save anything you don’t want to lose. The system recovery will erase everything on your drive.
You’ll want to reinstall and format your drive as soon as SP1 comes out.
Q Bob in Oregon - Upgrading System
If you get a new Motherboard, you may need to change the CPU. You’ll also want to get a better Graphics Card. You should look at getting an Intel Core 2 Duo chip.
As long as your CPU can keep up with your Video card, it should be fine. You’ll certainly want to reinstall Windows. You may need to call Microsoft and tell them that you’ve just upgraded your hardware.
You might need to upgrade the power supply so it has enough to power the new motherboard.
Q Spencer in California - Internet Browser Problems
First of all, stop using Internet Explorer for the Mac. Go to Firefox.com to get Firefox for the machine.
Hour 3
Q Robert in Georgia - Dual Boot OSX?
You can find a guide at Installing Cats. That guides you step by step.
The good thing about Leopard, is the fact that it has a great boot loader, which lets you chose which to boot into.
Second Question: iPhone isn’t very loud
There’s a strobe application for the iPhone, and if someone could link that to the ringer to make it strobe when it rings.
If you have a dock with an FM-Transmitter, and your listening to your iPhone Music, when it rings it’ll also ring through the speakers.
Leo likes the Blue Ant devices. It’s a great hands free. It also has noise cancellation.
Q Will in California - Creating a Video Blog?
Get a free blog setup at Wordpress.com. Then for the video side, use Viddler. It’s just like YouTube, but it also has a recorder.
You then copy the embed code and paste it in the blog. Users can then comment on the video, and they pop up in little text bubbles.
They also have a plugin for Wordpress that allows others to comment in Video.
Q Anne in West Virginia - Cannot connect to Dial Up
It’s not your fault. The phone is training, and if it stops, it means it has a connection. Your servers are not responding. Only Verizon can fix that.
Go to Broadband Reports and see what is available to you. You might need to switch Dial Up providers.
Q Eric in California - Which phone should I get?
The right cell phone depends a lot on what you’ll want to do with it. The Sony Ericsson line of phones are pretty good. The N95 battery dies pretty quickly. The W960 Sony Ericsson phone is pretty good battery wise.
When you begin using WiFi, you’ll begin to drain a bit of the wifi. If you like the Sony Ericsson interface, then you’ll feel more at home. You should go with the W960.
Q David in California - Updating TiVO Time
You’ll have to set the time yourself, or wait until the old daylight savings time.
